[freeroleplay] Re: Game mechanics copyright status on debian-legal
- From: Ricardo Gladwell <president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 15:06:41 +0100
Samuel Penn wrote:
I have a sneaky suspicion that the law is pretty much irrelevant in
this regard. If a big gaming company wants to sue you for breach of
copyright, then they will. If you can't afford to go to court, then
you loose and the law doesn't even come into it.
Or am I being too cynical?
No, actually I think you're not being cynical enough :)
I had hoped at some point (long in the future) to create a legal defence
fund for free content roleplaying games that are sued as above.
Alternatively, we may be able to convince other existing FOSS legal
defence funds to cover us.
For the time being we are all quite vulnerable to frivolous law suits.
The only advantage is that some of us are non-US residents and thus are
somewhat immune to the whims of the US legal system.
Do we still have legal aid in the UK or does it not even apply for cases
like this?
I also think it would be useful if we could attract some mailing list
readers who are also legal heads. I just don't know enough about the law
to argue or talk convincingly on this topic.
FWIW though, I do believe that actual mechanics cannot be copyrighted.
Having thought about it, I would agree: a game mechanic, as I understand
it, is not substantially different to a mathematical algorithm (to find
the closest analogy). Obviously, Wizard's of the Coast would disagree,
but fortunately the great minds on Debian Legal *would* seem to agree
with us.
I'm really interested in hearing people's reasoning as to why they feel
game mechanics cannot be copyrighted.
Kind regards...
--
Ricardo Gladwell
President, Free RPG Community
http://www.freeroleplay.org/
president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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