Hi Michael, There is one thing to keep in mind here. Back in early 2008 I myself didn't know too much about U.S. copyright law so was sort of cowed into giving up the game without researching it legally first. Since then I've read up on copyright law and while I'm not an expert on it I know enough to stay out of trouble now.
What it boils down to is a company can copyright trademarks, characters, music, sounds, storyline, etc but they can not copyright an entire idea. So what that means is that Edos Interactive can copyright a trademark like Tomb Raider because it belongs to a specific product complete with its own unique storyline, characters, music, etc. They can copyright the characters for their Tomb Raider games like Lara Croft because she is a unique and specific character within that game world. Of course, the artest who compose the music for the games can copyright that because it was specifically written and performed for that product. All of these things make up the Tomb Raider product, and can b be copyrighted based on specifics that make them unique from other games or products of that type. What Edos Interactive can not do is hold an exclusive copyright on a concept like a female archeologist because it is too generic. Author's like Alex Archer has written a 26 book series called Rogue Angel about a female archeologist who hhappens to rediscovers Joan Of Ark's magic sword and uses it to right wrongs and so on. Alex Archers female archeologist, Onia Creed, and Edos Interactive's female archeologist, Lara Croft, are completely different and each hold separate copyrights under U.S. copyright law because they are very different characters. So to come after my lead character, Angela Carter, Edos Interactive or Alex Archer would have to prove in what way I infrindged upon Lara Croft or Onia Creed. Which I have not infringed on either character. However, I think what happened is by changing the name to Montezuma's Return I unintentionally atracted the attention of Utopia who had produced a game titled Montezuma's Return in 1998. The original game, Montezuma's Revenge, had been published by Parker Brothers in 1984, and was of course available for download from a number of Atari rom sites for free. Its quite possible in hind sight had I not changed the name of the game from Montezuma's Revenge to Montezuma's Return I wouldn't have landed in hot water. As I don't blame Parker Brothers for any part of what went down in 2008. That said, your argument is based on a false asumption. Montezuma's Revenge was abandonware therefore it is legal to clone it. that's not true. The way copyright law works regardless of weather or not a software company supports a game, declares it freeware, abandonware, whatever does not mean the company does not have any copyright control over it. Companies can hold a copyright for a product long after the life time of the original programmers have passed away and most people have forgotten the product existed. It really is up to the company if they want to legally protect those copyrights after a certain amount of time has passed. For instance, you mentioned a number of classics like Packman, Asteroids, etc. You are right those are copyrights held by Activision, but I don't believe Activision really cares about shutting down every clone or possible copyright infringement case because they've made their millions off those games already. If Hasbro wants to create an electronic handheld Packman game they legally have to licence the game from Activision, but if a free open source programmer develops a Packman game for Linux Activision is going to blow it off because there is no money in suing the developer. The intent to release the game as freeware and not for commercial gain makes a huge difference in court cases of copyright infringement. Cheers! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
