[gameprogrammer] Re: GUI
- From: Bob Pendleton <bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Gameprogrammer Mailing List <gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:23:54 -0600
On Thu, 2005-01-20 at 09:49 +0000, Chris Schnurr wrote:
> Bob Writes:
>
> >On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 13:59 +0000, Chris Schnurr wrote:
> >> At 15:09 30/12/2004, Sharu wrote:
> >> >Hi there.
> >> >I am trying to build a GUI for my "battleship" game.
> >> >Can anyone give me links to good tutorials.
> >> >Also some links for 3D Models that can be downloaded
> >> >for free.
> >> >
> >>
> >> Alternatively, just browse here :-
> >>
> >> http://ftp.uni-paderborn.de/aminet/dirs/gfx_3dobj.html
> >
> >This is a remarkable collection of material. Looking over the site I
> >could not find anything about the copyright status of this material. Do
> >you know what license(s) cover this material? Also, several of the
> >objects or of trademarked items (such as the star trek models) do you
> >know what kind of restrictions there are on these items?
> >
>
> Hi Bob,
>
> Aminet was meant to be a freely distributable archive where users could
> upload items of interest to the Amiga Community that
> _they_had_authored_themselves_. It's been around longer than www. (used to
> have to telnet/finger to it)
Yeah, not that you mention it I remember it from back in the day when I
owned an Amiga 1000.
>
> If I draw a picture of something that's Trademarked, Am I in violation? Even
> if its a terrible representation?
Depends on the law of the country you are in, but in general, yes you
are in violation. Which means you can be sued, and lose. As opposed to
being sued and having a chance of winning.
In the US the minimum cost of defending yourself in a lawsuit is
(according to several lawyers I have talked to) $100,000 (USD). But, you
should expect to spend $500,000 (USD). That gives people in the US a
very strong reason to avoid taking action that is likely to get us sued.
Even if you win, you can be bankrupted by the cost of defending
yourself. In fact, most people simply can not afford to defend
themselves and must negotiate a settlement even if they did nothing
wrong.
That is what passes for Freedom here.
>
> Likewise, If you base a 3D model on a Trademarked image, are you in
> violation?
Images aren't generally trademarked though a trademark can be an image.
Images are all copyright not matter the trademark status.
But, in general, and depending on the local laws, Yep you can be sued
and lose.
> What if you use it as a starting point, then hack bits off it /
> Add new bits to it until its unrecognisable?
I have no clue... I believe that technically they are derivative works
and you can't do that. But, if they can't prove it then well, so what?
I am not a lawyer, I have just come very close to being sued over
trademark problems a number of times. There is this damned woolen goods
company based in Pendleton, Oregon that hates the fact that I own the
domain name Pendleton.com. The fact that it is may family name bothers
them not one little bit. They have tried every legal trick they can to
take my family name away from from me.
So, I am very touchy about this sort of thing.
BTW, it is a very bad idea to mention the possibility that you may have
deliberately created a derivative work that is designed not to be
recognizable. That can be used in court against you.
>
> IMHO, anyone who has spent hours (?years) constructing 3D models on their
> Amiga deserves the copyright on that particular model more than the company
> that might own the rights to a TV Show... 8^)
Morally yes. But, that is not the way it works in the real world. If you
haven't noticed morals don't mean anything to big corporations.
>
> However, I think you are right to be sceptical of copyrights issues.
>
> http://ftp.uni-paderborn.de/aminet/upload.txt
>
> http://ftp.uni-paderborn.de/aminet/readme.txt
>
> Both of these stress that :
>
> 1) the moderators of the site cannot guarantee that its content is freely
> distributable and
> 2) It is the responsibility of the uploader to ensure that the items being
> uploaded are freely distributable.
In other words, no one should even think about using that material in
anything they want to distribute and the operators of that website are a
law suit waiting to happen.
>
> >sigh< the good old eighties...
The laws are getting worse all the time. The value of digital material
is going up and the cost of copying it is going down.
Something has to give.
Bob Pendleton
>
> C
>
> --+ Several years ago (Word 2.0?), the word "usability" was not recognized
> by Word's spell checker. It suggested "suability" instead. Ominously, the
> report I was working on compared the usability of a Microsoft product to one
> of its competitors.
> C. Snyder (2004) +---
>
>
>
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