[freeroleplay] Re: Game mechanics copyright status on debian-legal
- From: Samuel Penn <sam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 15:33:54 +0100
On Tuesday 30 August 2005 15:06, Ricardo Gladwell wrote:
> 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.
The latter is probably the best, though I don't see much of a need at
the moment. The sort of games that are part of the FRPGC seem to be
significantly different from d20 and the like to be relatively safe.
> 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.
That's what the UK people running a BitTorrent thought, until they got
served with notices by the MPAA. Technically out of their jurisdiction,
but when you've got a big company like that breathing down your neck,
you still need to start consulting lawyers.
> Do we still have legal aid in the UK or does it not even apply for cases
> like this?
We do, though it probably only applies if you're earning less than a
certain amount, and I'm pretty certain I (and probably a lot of people
who work in IT) probably don't count. However, once I've paid off your
mortgage and everything else, that doesn't leave a lot you want to
spend on legal costs.
Then there's having to take time off work etc.
Even if legal aid does apply, my only encounter with such was when I was
doing Jury duty earlier this year. The (legal aid) defence lawyers did
more to harm the defendant's case than the prosecution did...
> > 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 vaguely remember the legal case against Gygax by TSR, which sued him for
copyright infringement (or something) for games he wrote after leaving
TSR. Some of the points they listed were things such as 'using dice as
randomisers'.
> I'm really interested in hearing people's reasoning as to why they feel
> game mechanics cannot be copyrighted.
I think it's just one of those memes which has been passed around
newsgroups, magazines and gaming groups for the last umpteen years.
One way of thinking about it, is that only an implementation of
software can be copyrighted - someone can write a similar program
that does the same thing as long as they don't use any of your code.
By that argument, you could write a game that does the same thing
as long as you don't use any of the original text. There's definitely
a lot of precedent for this - how many game systems are there which
use six attributes, hitpoints, classes and levels?
--
Be seeing you, Email: sam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sam. Jabber IM: samuel.penn@xxxxxxxxxx
http://www.glendale.org.uk/ Google IM: samuel.penn@xxxxxxxxx
Other related posts:
