I''m sure this question has been asked hundreds of times before, but I''ll give it a go anyway. I am interested in developing a game, but it is based on a popular book. As a startup company, is it silly to attempt this? What would be the proceedure in obtaining the rights? What kind of costs can I expect? Would it be wiser to change enough of the book so that I can bypass this, or would that lead to more troubles than not? Should a working demo be made prior to approaching the holders of the rights (author, publisher, etc.) or should permission be asked first? I''m not really ready to start my own company yet, but I''m very interested in how this side of the business works, as I have not experienced it myself. Any help or references would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Your right, it is a FAQ there a nice link to some information in the "Forum FAQ". You can find a link to the forum FAQ right above your first post.

Actually...this isn''t exactly covered in the FAQ (yet). The FAQ does have some copyright-specific information, but nothing about licensing.

Obtaining the rights to popular books or music or anything else "popular" is going to be prohibitively expensive, especially for an un-funded startup. Acquiring licenses to properties like that can really soak up your available resources, making your budget even tighter than it was.

The simplest approach is to just send an inquiry to the property holder, asking for licensing information.

As for changing the work significantly enough to avoid copyright infringement...that *can* work, so long as it''s changed enough to not be considered a "derivative work". The dividing line is rather vague.

Hope that helps.


DavidRM
Samu Games

david is spot on here. The cost of a license increases the more "popular" something is. Films and popular books such as Harry Potter would command multi-million dollar fees. There is not much point in licensing something that is cheap because by default it isn''t popular.

as to your second suggestion of changing the book. I would strongly suggest that you steer well clear of this idea. If you only change it slightly then the owners of the popular book will come after you for breach of copyright or passing off (creating something so similar that it may confuse customers and detract from the sales/goodwill/percieved quality of the original). The more popular the book is the more likely the owners are to defend their copyright. If you change it too much then it isn''t the popular book anymore so....... you may as well just think up something of your own in the first place.

I worked for a large publisher for several years and got to see several such law suits. They were sued by Fox for having a bad guy in a game that looked too much like an Alien(c)&(tm) in a game. It doesn''t matter if they are right or not. They have lots of lawyers that they have to pay anway so they may as well sue. Small companies simply can''t afford to argue.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions

Thanks for the response! Your opinions have shed a bit of light on what to expect. I''ll also check out the faq to see what I can find. It sounds like creating a game based on a book is very similar to adapting a work of literature for a motion picture. Gotta love lawyers. *smile* I''ll keep working on it. Who knows? If it''s good enough, it might be worth it one day. Anyway, thanks for all the help. Great forum!

Quite a while ago there was a series of books my authors Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman called ''Star of the Guardian''. This series had VERY similar themes to the Star Wars movies. I mean, it was set amoungst the vast reaches of the galaxy, there was a Darth Vader-type, a princess-type, a royal family (almost a copy of the Jedi) etc, etc... even thier swords were vitual carbon copies of lightsabers.

I don''t remember there being any action or trouble (I could be wrong, though), and that seems very unusual for LucasArts.

Would it then make sense, that if someone wrote a book along the same themes as the popular book/movie, they would then have the rights to create a game along those lines? I know that writing a book would be a long way around... but what do you think?

Maccarro - Interesting question. I think what it comes down to is the form of media, though. A book describes what is happening with words, and the reader is allowed to let his imagination roam free with the material, visualizing anything he feels. A movie, on the other hand, sets a definite picture that the audience is forced to focus on. While a book might get away with ripping off a subject matter due to "vagueness," a film would be forced to display those infringements on rights. I don''t think you could get away with it...and even if you did, the audience would smell it a mile off.

Maccaroo,
You are over complicating it somewhat.

You like Film A and you want to make a game that is similar. Your game will either be the same as the film or different. If it is the same then you run the risk of being sued. If it is different then you don''t.

Writing a book similar to the film in order to make a game of the book doesn''t alter any of that. All that happens is that you could be sued over the book AND the game, instead of just the game.

The overall story can be the same. Just change the names, setting, all the words that are spoken and try to add some new stuff and remove some so it is exactly the same. A good example of what you can get away with would be the Magnificent Seven / The Seven Samurai. They are the same story - seven guys defend a small village against bandits but the actual details have been changed.

Of course everybody knows that Mag Seven is based on SS but because it is a good film in its own right it gets away with it. Do a bad copy and that wont be the case

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions

Quick note, LucasFilm own the copyright on Star Wars, LucasArts is a separate company which lisence the rights to make games based on the Star Wars universe.

Just being pedantic

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