On 5/30/05, Raul Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The one case to make a significant point involving mise-en-scene > had a massive amount of new game data which was meant to > be integrated with the existing game data, thus creating a "sequel". > > There was more going on than that, of course, but it was literally > a new game put together using art and resources provided by > Formgen, but being marketed and sold by Microstar. (Without > a license from Formgen.) Mise-en-scene was used to explain > why the work was a protected work even though all Microstar > was selling was the changes.
I'm sorry, but Raul is misreading this. Micro Star was marketing a CD full of user-created levels, no more and no less. They didn't copy or distribute a single byte created by FormGen, and their product was not usable without a copy of Duke Nukem. They also got nailed for putting screenshots on the box, but the judge very explicitly said that the contents were infringing either way. The "Game Genie" case (Galoob) was a generic "cheat code" widget that substituted the odd byte in order to add lives and power-ups and all that, and was in no sense a substitutable good for the console, the game cartridge, or a sequel to any particular game. The "game system emulator" makers who won -- Sony v. Connectix, Sony v. Bleem -- won because they copied the minimum needed for interoperability with a content-neutral machine. You cheat -- as in Atari v. Nintendo -- you lose. The bottom line is, whichever piece you're distributing -- a cloned game engine, a replacement set of data, a set of new levels for the existing game engine, a complete clone with no literally copied code or images -- if you're piggy-backing on a specific extant game, you're infringing its copyright. (Not if it's so simple as to be uncopyrightable; but that doesn't fit the likes of TTD or Civ III.) The OpenTTD engine is so far from being content-neutral it's not even funny. The only thing that it can be used for is playing a tweaked version of TTD. Tweaked or not, it infringes the TTD copyright. It doesn't belong in Debian -- and neither does freeciv or any other game clone. And yes, Debian and its assets can be gotten at by the law, corporation or no corporation. Every bank account mentioned in the DPL's report, every owner of a machine in the debian.org DNS, every individual in the chain of custody of those packages (which means maintainers, ftpmasters, mirror operators) is a potential Roe or Doe. Let Debian mutate into a grab bag of abandonware (and clones of abandonware), and sooner or later somebody's going to track down and buy up a few of those copyrights and file suit. They will (IANAL) get money from Debian, maybe a lot of money. And Debian will get some very bad press. Is this an operating system or a game graveyard? With respect to the mirror network, they will probably only get injunctive relief; depending on how lax Debian's policies can be demonstrated to be, that could be as severe as blocking whole sections of the archive until they are audited for other people's code. That depends on what cards the plaintiff is holding. If all they have is some game copyrights, they can probably only block games, but if they are holding, say, copyright on WASTE plus a couple of exclusive patent licenses, and if they can make a case that some people within Debian are running a conspiracy to subvert software IP generally, it could get nasty. Don't get me wrong. I am not interested in making that case myself with regard to Debian. On the contrary; I don't want to see Debian get Napstered. Putting obviously infringing stuff onto the mirror network is just begging for trouble. It's not like it's that hard for people to set up their own repositories; let them gamble with their own assets. Cheers, - Michael
