Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
Hello, This whole discussing thought me to shut up about things I don't know anything about. Hope I didn't offend anyone to bad ;-p Greetings, Joost ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
'Patriek Lesparre' wrote about 'Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line' - Sun, Jun 13, 2004 at 02:00:28PM CEST Joost Yervante Damad wrote: Again, ideas are not copyrightable. They are patentable in some countries, which is bad enough. You're referring to so-called 'software patents'. I don't think they have anything to do with this, and I'm against them fully. Good to hear. http://kwiki.ffii.org/ElectAct0405En Games are very much copyrightable, because they are a creative creation, just like a book or an article or a song or a drawing, etc. In fact, a computer game is little more than a combination of all those things. Well this is indeed a good point. The code for the game is, the graphics are, and the music is copyrightable. But the game in total is more of an 'abstract' thing. This is hard to grasp. This is my point exactly. Making a clone of a game might not be best ethics, but it's as legal as the thousands of SF books that are just Lord Of The Rings clones :) All for I know, they only were about the name 'Tetris'. If you make a Tetris-clone called 'spinning dropping blocks' there is as far as I know no way to sue you, except as 'bullying'. I doubt one can take copyright on such generic shapes as those from tetris. http://atarihq.com/tsr/special/tetrishist.html Interestingly, most tetris rip-offs use different blocks than the original. Guess why... Amazing :) This article also proves that this is Not an easy issue! Anyway, I have the feeling you believe copyrights to be a bad thing! :\ No, not at all, they are working quite well to protect both individuals and companies, within reasonable bounds. Joost (P.S.: sorry for the late reaction, my e-mail provider's smtp died yesterday and was only available again this morning) ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
Joost Yervante Damad wrote: Again, ideas are not copyrightable. They are patentable in some countries, which is bad enough. You're referring to so-called 'software patents'. I don't think they have anything to do with this, and I'm against them fully. Games are very much copyrightable, because they are a creative creation, just like a book or an article or a song or a drawing, etc. In fact, a computer game is little more than a combination of all those things. All for I know, they only were about the name 'Tetris'. If you make a Tetris-clone called 'spinning dropping blocks' there is as far as I know no way to sue you, except as 'bullying'. I doubt one can take copyright on such generic shapes as those from tetris. http://atarihq.com/tsr/special/tetrishist.html Interestingly, most tetris rip-offs use different blocks than the original. Guess why... Anyway, I have the feeling you believe copyrights to be a bad thing! :\ Greetz, Patriek ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
On Sun, Jun 13, 2004 at 07:19:35AM +0200, Joost Yervante Damad wrote: 'Patriek Lesparre' wrote about 'Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line' - Sat, Jun 12, 2004 at 07:17:03PM CEST Joost Yervante Damad wrote: Since when is a game concept copyrightable? Dunno, maybe you should ask Jaleco who got their ass kicked in court by Konami, just because they made a game involving musical instruments too. ^^; You must keep in mind that Japan USA have much more rediculous interpretation of copyright then Europe. According to dutch law (which is what you should live by when in Holland), non-dutch laws are only applicable to you when you provide products to other countries. So if it's only the US and Japan (and Robsy doesn't live in one of those countries), then just not publishing it to them would probably be enough. A warning on the download page that you are not allowed to download if you are in the US or Japan, and are not allowed to export it to there, could be legally enough to make sure you cannot be sued by their laws. However, I'm not sure if I would risk it. That's the main problem about court cases IMO: Big companies with lots of money can just have you do anything they want by threatening with a case. I just found it curious that people ask no questions about such issues. This is a discussion mailinglist after all :) No questions? There's been quite a thread about it already. What kind of questions did you expect? Bye, shevek -- I encourage sending me encrypted e-mail. Please send the central message of e-mails as plain text in the message body, not as HTML and definitely not as MS Word. Please do not use the MS Word format for attachments either. for more information, see http://129.125.47.90/e-mail.html pgp6EqgGYCh5n.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
shevek wrote: A warning on the download page that you are not allowed to download if you are in the US or Japan, and are not allowed to export it to there, could be legally enough to make sure you cannot be sued by their laws. Actually, the recent Microsoft vs. Lindows case disproves this. A Dutch court decided Lindows, Inc. was still infringing on the Windows name, because even though Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) visitors were directed to www.lin---s.com and download Lin---s OS, they could still access www.lindows.com and get Lindows OS if they wanted to. This forced Lindows to change the name of their product to Linspire world-wide, even though they just lost the case for the Benelux! So setting up a warning is not enough! Even if you block IP's from certain countries, they could still access through a proxy, and you'll still be liable. Besides, I'm not convinced that european copyright laws are more lenient on the matter of game cloning compared to USA or Japanese laws. Greetz, Patriek ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
'Eduardo Robsy Petrus' wrote about '[MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line' - Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 03:31:25PM CEST Hello everybody: After receiving some communications from the legally entitled owners from Japan I have decided to put off-line the GURU LOGIC game that I coded for MSXdev'03. Please, if you have the file do not redistribute it and delete it from your media. Sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your help. More details can be obtained here: http://www.robsy.net/guru.htm Hi, just one of the many cases of a corporation bullying an individual with no legal ground... If they are copyright owners, just a rename of your game should be enough. It makes me sad. Please go and read 1984 again all. Greetings, Joost ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
Hey MSX fella's, just one of the many cases of a corporation bullying an individual with no legal ground... It's not just a corporation bullying an invidual, it's also an individual bullying a corporation. Whether or not on purpose, Robsy's actions always gave me the impression he was trying to get a reaction from Aiky. Which happened. I hope we can consider all of this a 'case closed' soon, but in a nutshell: - Aiky is planning to release Guru Logic on MSX (there can always come things between that, so I'm not making any promises here :P) - Robsy knew that in an early stage of development of his port - Robsy decided to continue development, aware of the fact that Aiky could contact him about it one day - I can only appreciate the way Robsy has responded to the call he received from Javi. Lets look on the bright side, Aiky (Compile!!!) is preparing to release a game, commercially, for MSX again. Anno 2004. Who would have thought? Greetz, Snout ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
Joost Yervante Damad wrote: just one of the many cases of a corporation bullying an individual with no legal ground... Hello?! Copyrights are no legal ground? funny... If they are copyright owners, just a rename of your game should be enough. No, the game uses trademarked characters too. And still, since all levels have been stolen, it's another copyright violation. It makes me sad. Please go and read 1984 again all. Are you on drugs?! Greetz, Patriek ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
'Patriek Lesparre' wrote about 'Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line' - Sat, Jun 12, 2004 at 02:18:03PM CEST Joost Yervante Damad wrote: just one of the many cases of a corporation bullying an individual with no legal ground... Hello?! Copyrights are no legal ground? funny... Since when is a game concept copyrightable? If they are copyright owners, just a rename of your game should be enough. No, the game uses trademarked characters too. And still, since all levels have been stolen, it's another copyright violation. If they're modeled after the original, why is it then illegal? It makes me sad. Please go and read 1984 again all. Are you on drugs?! No, but perhaps a bit paranoid. Peace, Joost ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
'Sander Zuidema' wrote about 'Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line' - Sat, Jun 12, 2004 at 12:34:53PM CEST Hey MSX fella's, just one of the many cases of a corporation bullying an individual with no legal ground... It's not just a corporation bullying an invidual, it's also an individual bullying a corporation. Whether or not on purpose, Robsy's actions always gave me the impression he was trying to get a reaction from Aiky. Which happened. Perhaps, I don't know the context, therefore I will shut up :) Joost ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
Joost Yervante Damad wrote: Since when is a game concept copyrightable? Dunno, maybe you should ask Jaleco who got their ass kicked in court by Konami, just because they made a game involving musical instruments too. ^^; And, television show formats (=concept) are copyrightable too. And still, since all levels have been stolen, it's another copyright violation. If they're modeled after the original, why is it then illegal? They were copied from the original, so violating copyrights. In contrast, the TeddyWareZ version contained a lot of original levels created by TwZ or other contributors themselves. It makes me sad. Please go and read 1984 again all. Are you on drugs?! No, but perhaps a bit paranoid. :P BTW, I meant to place a ;) after that remark, I hope you understood that :) In any case, regardless of opinions/feelings, it shows Aiky cares enough about MSX to do something about it! Whether that 'caring for' is positive or negative, I'll leave to your own interpretation. (right, TFH? :P) Greetz, Patriek ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
On 12 Jun 2004 at 19:17, Patriek Lesparre wrote: Joost Yervante Damad wrote: Since when is a game concept copyrightable? Dunno, maybe you should ask Jaleco who got their ass kicked in court by Konami, just because they made a game involving musical instruments too. ^^; So, you mean that somehow Epic Games payed ID Software for making a Quake clone in Unreal? Or Duke Nukem payed for being another copy of Doom? I don't think so, and I wish this never happens... Regards, David. ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dunno, maybe you should ask Jaleco who got their ass kicked in court by Konami, just because they made a game involving musical instruments too. ^^; So, you mean that somehow Epic Games payed ID Software for making a Quake clone in Unreal? Or Duke Nukem payed for being another copy of Doom? I don't think so, and I wish this never happens... Those games are just in the same genre... I mean, a puzzle game in general wouldn't have anything to do with GLC. Nor does a game involving shooting blocks into figures (Quarth, anyone? :)). But when the game involves figures looking somewhat like chickens, shooting blocks in rotating figures, well, like in GLC... Then you're just copying someone else's idea, and afaik copyrights rest on that. Duke Nukem and Doom are both 3D first person shooters, but they have different looks, different gameplay (even slightly) different goals and objectives, etc. I admit it is a gray area, where is a game concept similar to an existing one and where does it become a ripoff. How much has to be different for it to become a different game. You'll have to use common sense. But if something is clearly a copy of your idea, well... I mean, otherwise how could there have been legal cases by amongst others Konami and the Tetris Corporation, which they apparantly won... ~Grauw -- Ushiko-san! Kimi wa doushite, Ushiko-san!! ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
'Patriek Lesparre' wrote about 'Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line' - Sat, Jun 12, 2004 at 07:17:03PM CEST Joost Yervante Damad wrote: Since when is a game concept copyrightable? Dunno, maybe you should ask Jaleco who got their ass kicked in court by Konami, just because they made a game involving musical instruments too. ^^; You must keep in mind that Japan USA have much more rediculous interpretation of copyright then Europe. And, television show formats (=concept) are copyrightable too. I think this is based on goodwill and buying the format to quickly produce a show, and on using the trademarked name. Again, at least in Europe, as far as I know, concepts are not copyrightable. Plans are to make them patentable, lets hope that doesn't come true :( And still, since all levels have been stolen, it's another copyright violation. If they were literarely extracted, I agree it's a copyright violation. If they're modeled after the original, why is it then illegal? They were copied from the original, so violating copyrights. In contrast, the TeddyWareZ version contained a lot of original levels created by TwZ or other contributors themselves. It makes me sad. Please go and read 1984 again all. Are you on drugs?! No, but perhaps a bit paranoid. :P BTW, I meant to place a ;) after that remark, I hope you understood that :) Of course :) In any case, regardless of opinions/feelings, it shows Aiky cares enough about MSX to do something about it! Whether that 'caring for' is positive or negative, I'll leave to your own interpretation. (right, TFH? :P) Right, I guess my interpretation is a negative. Even if the copyrights were violated, just dropping the original levels and name would be enough, but then again, might as well drop the entire game. And anyway it's the author's call. I'd probably open-sourced everything except the levels :-p I just found it curious that people ask no questions about such issues. This is a discussion mailinglist after all :) Greetings, Joost ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
'Laurens Holst' wrote about 'Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line' - Sat, Jun 12, 2004 at 10:56:54PM CEST [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dunno, maybe you should ask Jaleco who got their ass kicked in court by Konami, just because they made a game involving musical instruments too. ^^; So, you mean that somehow Epic Games payed ID Software for making a Quake clone in Unreal? Or Duke Nukem payed for being another copy of Doom? I don't think so, and I wish this never happens... Those games are just in the same genre... I mean, a puzzle game in general wouldn't have anything to do with GLC. Nor does a game involving shooting blocks into figures (Quarth, anyone? :)). But when the game involves figures looking somewhat like chickens, shooting blocks in rotating figures, well, like in GLC... Then you're just copying someone else's idea, and afaik copyrights rest on that. Duke Nukem and Doom are both 3D first person shooters, but they have different looks, different gameplay (even slightly) different goals and objectives, etc. I admit it is a gray area, where is a game concept similar to an existing one and where does it become a ripoff. How much has to be different for it to become a different game. You'll have to use common sense. But if something is clearly a copy of your idea, well... Again, ideas are not copyrightable. They are patentable in some countries, which is bad enough. I mean, otherwise how could there have been legal cases by amongst others Konami and the Tetris Corporation, which they apparantly won... All for I know, they only were about the name 'Tetris'. If you make a Tetris-clone called 'spinning dropping blocks' there is as far as I know no way to sue you, except as 'bullying'. I doubt one can take copyright on such generic shapes as those from tetris. Joost ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
How convinient for Grauw Co. :-P After receiving some communications from the legally entitled owners from Japan I have decided to put off-line the GURU LOGIC game that I coded for MSXdev'03. Please, if you have the file do not redistribute it and delete it from your media. ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 10:51:53PM +0400, Adrian Oboroc wrote: How convinient for Grauw Co. :-P Well, they (Grauw Co.) have permission of the legally entitled owners. Although Robsys version is great, and I have greatly enjoyed it, that doesn't change the fact that even a fan versions have to obey the legal restriction inpossed upon them by law in those countries which respect the international copyright agreements. And Robsy always said that he would respect the whishes of the 'Guru Logic'-owners, so he did the logical thing. Allas, we lose a great MSX1 game because of it :_( rgds, David Heremans After receiving some communications from the legally entitled owners from Japan I have decided to put off-line the GURU LOGIC game that I coded for MSXdev'03. Please, if you have the file do not redistribute it and delete it from your media. ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx -- openMSX - the open source MSX emulator that aims for perfection http://openmsx.sf.net/ ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx
Re: [MSX] GURU LOGIC off-line
David Heremans wrote: How convinient for Grauw Co. :-P Well, they (Grauw Co.) have permission of the legally entitled owners. *Ahem*, I have to step in a little here... It is not just that we asked permission and Robsy did not so we end up on the lucky side, or something. At least that is how it sounds to me. Aiky asked us whether we would want to develop this game for them (that is the short version of it, anyway), and that is what we're doing. And er, please stop referring to us as Grauw Co... I'm not even the lead programmer -_-;;. ~Grauw -- Ushiko-san! Kimi wa doushite, Ushiko-san!! ___ MSX mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Info page: http://lists.stack.nl/mailman/listinfo/msx