Quote: Original post by xantis
Let me annoying you a little bit more... What do you think of this: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html

Quote: Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form.

The site is correct, but I believe you are misreading it.


Copyright protects the creator's rights to publicly distribute, reproduce, derive from, display, or perform a work. That's it.

It obviously cannot apply to a work's name or title (How do you publicly perform a title?) or the other items on that list. That is not the purpose of copyright.

Copyright protection is just one of the many protections out there. It is by no means the ONLY protection out there.

That site fails to mention that there are many other IP rights out there that do apply to almost every one of those items.

I was reading on Wikipedia the definition of "video game clone" and I've found a link to the concept of "game engine recreation".

Well, maybe I misunderstood the terms. What I'm doing is better described by the term "game engine recreation".

So here some others beautiful questions (in Java):

if ( Do you think it's the same to make a clone and to make a "game engine recreation"? == true )
{
return;
} else {

Is there legal issues relating making "game engine recreation"?
Do I need to ask Microsoft even to make an open source "game engine recreation" of "Age of Empire"?
}

Thank you anyway..

P.s.: I just want to understand, not to break the law. Be patient..

Quote: Original post by xantis
I was reading on Wikipedia the definition of "video game clone" and I've found a link to the concept of "game engine recreation".

Well, maybe I misunderstood the terms. What I'm doing is better described by the term "game engine recreation".

So here some others beautiful questions (in Java):

if ( Do you think it's the same to make a clone and to make a "game engine recreation"? == true )
{
return;
} else {

Is there legal issues relating making "game engine recreation"?
Do I need to ask Microsoft even to make an open source "game engine recreation" of "Age of Empire"?
}

Thank you anyway..

P.s.: I just want to understand, not to break the law. Be patient..

This is actually kind of tricky. Short answer is "it depends". While pure reverse engineering is frequently cited as fair use and thus isn't technically infringing, the Anti-circumvention section of the copyright act puts some severe limitations on it. So some things to keep in mind:

1. Reverse engineering under the Anti-circumvention clause of the Copyright Act is only permissible only if 1) the copy you're reverse engineering from is a non-infringing (lawfully purchased) copy; and 2) you're acting for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program necessary to achieve interoperability. This means that it's typically only ok if your sole purpose is to make a port for the game. At least one court took a very, very limited approach to this and found for Blizzard, not the reverse engineers-- the blizzard v. bnetd.org litigation is a good example.

2. the EULA of the original game and its engine may prohibit reverse engineering. If that's the case you may be on the hook for copyright infringement since you're acting outside the license as well as breach of contract.

3. You'll notice if you look at some of the sites on that list of projects (e.g., the Crystal Scrolls and OpenMW) that a legal copy of the original game is necessary to run the engine. This approach is pretty vital to ensuring that they comply with the anti-circumvention provision of the copyright act-- creating an engine that supports pirated copies not only serves a purpose beyond pure interoperability, but it also opens you up to contributory infringement.

4. Unless you're working with open source code, using any part of the original source or binary code (which are copyright protected) in your own port may lead to your engine qualifying as an infringing derivative work.

Proceed with care.

Thank you.