On 5/17/05, Andrew Suffield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, May 17, 2005 at 03:33:59PM +0200, Per Eric Ros?n wrote: > > Let's say, if I liked the concept of TTD (which I did), and started to > > write a "FreeTycoon" like freeciv, without using any material from TTD at > > all, and also without requiring original TTD data for execution, how close > > could I make it to the original *rules* and behaviour? > > Game rules are not copyrightable. Period. The text of the rule book is.
If the technique of broad unsupported assertion were patentable, Andrew and Raul would be fighting it out in court. As usual, it's fairly simple, but not _that_ simple. You have to look, not just to the outcome of the classic "board game" cases, but to the scope of their precedent. The wording of the rules of a typical board game is routine given the ideas they embody, and hence large swathes of a given rulebook tend to suffer from the "doctrine of merger" of idea and expression. See discussion and citations in http://www.cni.org/Hforums/cni-copyright/1998-02/0815.html , particularly Allen v. Academic Games ( http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/9456593.html ). However, when you are talking about a computer simulation game with lots of individual expressive choices (such as the naming of units and tiles, the relative costs and unit strengths, all of the little tweaks that make for balanced gameplay), the "doctrine of merger" gets to be a pretty shaky defense. Micro Star v. FormGen is interesting on this score as well. If Duke Nukem MAP files, containing a bunch of numbers specifying where walls and monsters and weapons and things are located, "describe audiovisual displays down to the last detail", then I think it could be said that the level of detail involved in defining the properties of game tiles, units, etc. contributes significantly to the description of a simulation game's "audiovisual displays". By the way, here's the appellate decision with respect to "The Wind Done Gone": http://laws.findlaw.com/11th/0112200opn.html . The parodist won. The opinion is remarkable for its discourse on the First Amendment to the US Constitution as a source of authority for both modern notions of the idea/expression dichotomy and the "fair use" defense against accusations of copyright infringement. Perhaps that's part of why "fair use" -- codified in the 1976 Copyright Act, but judicially created in the US long before -- covers commercial speech to a greater extent in the US than in other countries. For instance, here's Sony v. Bleem: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/9917137v2.html . Fair use, in the Ninth Circuit's jurisdiction, seems even to apply to comparative advertising. Cheers, - Michael
