say I develope a game with a name a put Copyright 2005 on it even though it is not a real copyright and say a company uses my title in 2006 will I be sued for using their copyright title. And say I do put a fake copyright down is it still any official legal information.

There's no such thing as a "real" or "fake" copyright. Whenever you write something it's automatically copyrighted. Patents and trademarks are what you have to be registered for.

Your post is otherwise very difficult to parse because you hate the period. But if I read it correctly, if you create a game called APPLES ARE COOOL and then later EA makes a game called APPLES ARE COOOL then no they cannot sue you because yours existed first.

-me

Yeah sorry im a long winded talker. (period) But thank you for your help. (period)

I second that. Technically, all you have to do is put a copyright notice on anything original that you create, and it is automatically and legally copyrighted. that means that if you made a game called APPLES ARE COOL and then EA tried to make a game called APPLES ARE COOL, then you could conceivably sue them (although such a lawsuit would almost certainly fail, especially unless your game was widely known)

Actually, you don't even need to put a copyright notice on it. Any (applicable) creative work is automatically copyrighted.
Its just good measure to put the copyright date (and "all rights reserved") on it so people are aware.

Hold on! I'm confused now. As far as I know, you can put the "copyright" notice to avoid someone saying that it was his invention instead of yours. But if you don't have the registered trademark, EA can still use the name in it's game, as long as it isn't a copy of your game itself.
Can someone explain me please?
If what you're saying is right, what are patents & trademarks for??

Thanks
Dark Sylinc

Game ideas cant be copyrighted, or patented. Thats why anyone can recreate tetris, because no one can copyright the idea of falling blocks.

Patents are for inventions, such as a perpetual motion machine, or speakers.

Trademarks are "A word, phrase, symbol, or design, or combination thereof, that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods or services of one party from those of others." Such as the McDonalds Arcs.

Any 'document' or piece of art you write / create is automatically copyrighted to you. Since you write source code, that applies as well.

Quote: Original post by Palidine
There's no such thing as a "real" or "fake" copyright. Whenever you write something it's automatically copyrighted. Patents and trademarks are what you have to be registered for.

Correct (in the U.S.A, at least).

Quote: Original post by Palidine
But if I read it correctly, if you create a game called APPLES ARE COOOL and then later EA makes a game called APPLES ARE COOOL then no they cannot sue you because yours existed first.

Incorrect. Now we are talking about trademarks. If EA registers the trademark, "APPLES ARE COOOL" even though you are already using it, they may be able to force you to stop using it. It depends on several factors.

Quote: Original post by medevilenemy
Technically, all you have to do is put a copyright notice on anything original that you create, and it is automatically and legally copyrighted.

Incorrect. The notice used to be required -- but no longer. Here's a bit of trivia: The guy that made the movie Night of the Living Dead forgot to put a copyright notice on the movie. As a result, anyone can make and sell copies of that movie.

Quote: Original post by medevilenemy
... that means that if you made a game called APPLES ARE COOL and then EA tried to make a game called APPLES ARE COOL, then you could conceivably sue them (although such a lawsuit would almost certainly fail, especially unless your game was widely known)

Again, copyright and trademark are two different things.

Chiming in a bit here.

Registering the actual copyright with the Library of Congress is not the actual copyrighting of the work. You own your work the minute you make it, as long as it isn't someone else's. The $35 (is it 40 now?) that you pay the Library of Congress is to have it put in a safe, archived place with the US government as proof, should some dispute come up. It's not a guarantee of protection or winning a dispute.

While you might make a game called "Apples Are Cooool" and then EA makes "Apples Are Kewl", if you don't have your proof, you're going to have a harder time defending that it's your IP. This is assuming it's the same game. If you made an Apple Puzzle game that educates the gamer on the variety of apples, and EA makes an action-packed adventure of fruit mutilation, then they aren't the same thing.

Now, if a bizarre fluke happens and your game uses a similar logo that EA trademarks, even though theirs came after yours, since they paid the USPTO thousands of dollars, they can go after you for trademark infringement, which is a different barrel of monkeys from Copyright.

Quote: Original post by Hushed
Game ideas cant be copyrighted, or patented. Thats why anyone can recreate tetris, because no one can copyright the idea of falling blocks.

Patents are for inventions, such as a perpetual motion machine, or speakers.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. According to gamasutra, Sega owns the patents on games where:
* You drive around in a city, rather than a race track.
* There's an arrow that hovers around, pointing you to where you should go.
* Cars have an invisible aura around them of "danger zone" and a bigger aura around that one called "caution zone." Virtual people in the danger zone jump out of the way. Virtual people in the caution zone stop walking, rather than walk into danger.
* The size and shape of the auras described above can change based on the speed of your vehicle.