At Carnegie Mellon University, there is a young club called the Game Creation Society ( http://www.gamecreation.org/ ). We have made a number of smallish games over the last couple of years and haven't really given much thought to Copyright or IP issues. Just this year, the original members of the club are going to graduate, and a number of them have job offers in the industry. So it might be time to start thinking about these things. Currently, we have the agreement that each individual artist, musician, programmer, etc, owns the copyright for each individual work that they created for the project. They grant the club permission to use these works for that project. However, we have no policy to deal with the possibility that an alumni may want us to remove their work from a previously release game. We could have all club members agree to sign the rights of their individual works to the club itself, or release into the public domain, or enforce that all games must follow a FOSS license of some kind. Or maybe the current scheme is just fine... Any suggestions? Also, how does one deal with the issue of Intellectual Property created by several club members across a slew of brainstorming sessions? All of our games use IP that was created specifically for the Game Creation Society. While its unlikely that anyone will "steal" our ideas, as an officer, I'm concerned with what the club can and should do to protect its IP rights in the future. Who owns these ideas, and could this come back to hurt us five years down the road? Say, for a far-fetched example, that a member of the club leads the team that creates a quirky and original game. Then, after he graduates, he forms his own indie studio, remakes the game, and self-publishes it. Does he have the right to do this? If he does, then do we have the right to continue to use that IP without his permission? Short of hiring an attorney, does the GameDev community have any advice I might pass to my fellow officers in the club? -Andrew Fox

Quote: Say, for a far-fetched example, that a member of the club leads the team that creates a quirky and original game. Then, after he graduates, he forms his own indie studio, remakes the game, and self-publishes it. Does he have the right to do this?

Yes.

Quote: If he does, then do we have the right to continue to use that IP without his permission?

As he holds the copyright, you'd need his permission, preferably in writing.

The only way you can proceed in the manner that you appear to want to, is to ask the members to pass the copyright to your club, or give your club a free license to use their copyright. In both of those cases, be *very* careful in the wording of such agreements.

If you are an official student group at the University, you should have access to the University lawyers and get them to write up a simple assignment statement.

School lawyers will want all the students to assign (either exclusively or non-exclusively) all the rights to the school. This is the safest thing for them and may already be a requirement if you are an official club or organization.

The students should also assign perpetual non-exclusive rights to all other members of the group. Without that kind of transfer a disgrundled person could easily hijack a successful project.

School lawyers can help you set that sort of thing up.

And if you aren't an official club or student organization, I'd look in to getting that bit of paperwork done with the school. There are many benefits, including getting a budget.

Quote: As he holds the copyright

He holds a copyright to what though? A couple of artists own the copyrights to his dozen 3D models, The programmer owns the copyright to the source code, The writer holds the copyright to the script... :-P

I can see a possible claim to the IP used in the game, maybe the characters and premise for the game world. In most projects, the lead does have a large role in designing these things. But this is usually a collaborative effort between all members of the project. Its difficult to say that any one person came up for the idea for a new IP. So, I can't see it being clear cut that he owns the IP.

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The only way you can proceed in the manner that you appear to want to, is to ask the members to pass the copyright to your club, or give your club a free license to use their copyright.

So I see two possibilities:
1) When you join a sanctioned project, you sign an agreement that everything you produce for the game will go into the public domain.

2) When you join a sanctioned project, you sign an agreement that the club gets a free license to use that work and allow future projects to make derivative works from it. Of course, we'll word it to ensure that everyone will be credited properly. And as we are officially a Non-Profit organization, there is no chance that anyone else could ever make a profit from your work through this agreement.

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In both of those cases, be *very* careful in the wording of such agreements.

Definitely.



EDIT: Someone else posted while I was drafting the first part of this.

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... School lawyers ...

I'll look into this before our next meeting. I'm curious whether we are obligated to give rights to the school. If we are, we certainly weren't expecting it... but like I said, we haven't given much thought at all to copyright and IP issues.

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And if you aren't an official club or student organization, I'd look in to getting that bit of paperwork done with the school. There are many benefits, including getting a budget.

We were able to get this last year. With a budget, its a lot easier to raise money for guest speakers and server fees and stuff :)