Copyrights

[applekid]

I was wondering how the whole applying the copyright process works here in the U.S. The only things I know are it lasts for 75 years, costs a little cash, and requires a form depending on what kind of work you're submitting.

I would like to understand the process for graphics done on the computer, code, game design document, and ideas (can that be copyrighted?).

[skyhawk]

it cost $15

[Rincewind]

I was thinking the exact same thing with a game idea getting pretty close to what another company owns copyrights. It is obvious that I can't use their artwork and names, but what about gameplay ideas? If I modify them just a little, then will they be my own?

A quick Google and I found this site. (http://www.wipo.int/)

[aegidian]

But I know a little about intellectual property and gameplay having been steeped in it as a roleplayer.

Until recently no-one has tried to assert any rights regarding intellectual property with respect to game play. Meaning that (provided you avoided using the well defended trademark 'Monopoly' and art and text that is subject to copyright) you could write and sell a property trading game where you roll a die to move around a board in an identical fashion to the well known game and sell it yourself.

Or (more relevantly) you could write a game that had the same game play as Tetris and provided you didn't call it Tetris (a defended trademark) or use Tetris's art, music, game writing, or source code (all protected by copyright), and publish it, sell it, do what you like!

However, in the last decade, a chap called Richard Garfield invented a card game called 'Magic: The Gathering' which was marketed by a company called Wizards Of The Coast. WOTC and Garfield decided to patent elements of 'Magic''s gameplay, which (AFAIK) was the first time someone had attempted to protect gameplay ideas or game mechanics as intellectual property.

WOTC now own the hugely popular Dungeons and Dragons game, and when they produced the most recent version they published it the rules for the game as something called the d20 system, and published it under a license they call the Open Gaming License to protect their products identity when other companies or individuals produce content for it.

None of this has made the position regarding the rights of originators with regard to game play much clearer. And (again AFAIK) no computer game company has tried to patent any gameplay elements.

So...

Yes, you can use other people's gameplay ideas provided you don't do it by copying their code or their text or their art or by using any of their trademarked names or logos. They may get narked about it of course, and sometime soon someone IS going to patent a gameplay idea and then try to collect on it (do see the EFF's reports about spurious patenting, it's a hoot).

In the meantime you can feel reasonably safe that if you borrow another person's gameplay ideas, there is little they can currently do about it.

Someone might call it 'Bad Karma' though.

-- Giles

(Who thoroughly borrowed gameplay ideas to write JewelToy (http://www.aegidian.org/jeweltoy), as well as currently writing an Elite-alike game).

[gatti]

For the best understanding of U.S copyright info, visit http://www.copyright.gov/

Each submitted element costs $30. As mentioned on the site, different elements of a large project need to be copyrighted separately. When filing for a video game, you will need to be filing these separate forms:

Literary works = code, story
Visual arts = art/visual imagery
Sound recordings = sound effects, music
Performing arts = script, cinematic movies (possibly a game design doc)

Ideas can't be copyrighted. The idea must be "realized" or implemented in a fixed medium.

$120 to fully copyright a game which encompasses all these elements.

However, a thing to keep in mind is that a person can bulk copyright all visual art for many projects as a volume of work. This option saves money, as art for multiple projects can be consildated into one volume of work per year. This goes the same for the separate copyrightable materials such as literary works such a code, music, scripts, etc.

[applekid]

^^^ Beat me to my post! Everything below might sound redudant. ^^^

Hmmm, the Copyright Office's site has become easier to navigate than the last time I checked. So let me break-down the questions and answer them for myself (and maybe others that were looking to find out about this stuff):

For computer code and design documents and other text: http://copyright.gov/register/literary.html

For art and graphics: http://copyright.gov/register/visual.html

For sound and music: http://copyright.gov/register/sound.html

All three of them require a $30 fee and a small form filled-out. You send your work, the form, and money to the Copyright Office, and you've got your copyright. (The certificate comes in a few months).

For more information about copyrights, check these circulars: http://copyright.gov/circs/

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gatti's post explained everything very well. Thank you, gatti.

[Justin Brimm]

Although not technically legally binding, your work still has some protection, copyrighted or not, as long as you put a note of copyright somewhere in your work (like the copyright at the bottom of a webpage). Like I said, although it's technically not legally binding, it's considered somewhat of a taboo to try and fight for ownership of works that have that note of copyright (officially copyrighted or not), and most courts would even throw it out with proof that it is indeed your work, although a persistent enough legal team would probably win in favor of the guy who stole your work.

[PowerMacX]

According to what I read in Macworld a *long* time ago, if you put "Copyright 2004 Someone. All rights reserved." you were safe, as long as you had proof about when was your product released.

[Chris Burkhardt]

These threads always seem to have wrong information posted with the best of intentions.

In the United States of America, and most of the world, you do not need to register your work, and you do not need to put a notice of copyright on it, the rights to everything you create automatically belong exclusively to you (unless you are creating that work for hire, in which case your employer owns the rights).

However, registering your work with the U.S. Copyright Office (http://copyright.gov/) will help to protect your rights if they are challenged. I believe that costs a small fee.

Copyright law only protects the implementation of an idea, if you want to protect an idea itself look into a patent (ick).

* Wikipedia: Copyright (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright)
* Title 17 of the U.S. Code (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/) - The "copyright law"
* 10 Big Myths of copyright explained (http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html)

[Justin Brimm]

Expanding on Chris's ick about patents... patenting software, or any part of software (even novel ideas), seems sick and disgusting to me. Almost as awful as the companies that patent pieces of the human genome.

[applekid]

These threads always seem to have wrong information posted with the best of intentions.

In the United States of America, and most of the world, you do not need to register your work, and you do not need to put a notice of copyright on it, the rights to everything you create automatically belong exclusively to you (unless you are creating that work for hire, in which case your employer owns the rights).

However, registering your work with the U.S. Copyright Office (http://copyright.gov/) will help to protect your rights if they are challenged. I believe that costs a small fee.

Copyright law only protects the implementation of an idea, if you want to protect an idea itself look into a patent (ick).

* Wikipedia: Copyright (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright)
* Title 17 of the U.S. Code (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/) - The "copyright law"
* 10 Big Myths of copyright explained (http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html)

Very interesting reads, minus the Title 17 of the U.S. Code. (I'll read it when I decide to become a lawyer).

I still do have one question then. If I were to make a game, based on another game in some indirect ways, would I be infringing on someone's copyright? Like, say making a clone of a game or taking some gameplay elements?

I was wondering after I read this:

"If I make up my own stories, but base them on another work, my new work belongs to me."

False. U.S. Copyright law is quite explicit that the making of what are called "derivative works" -- works based or derived from another copyrighted work -- is the exclusive province of the owner of the original work. This is true even though the making of these new works is a highly creative process. If you write a story using settings or characters from somebody else's work, you need that author's permission.

[Mazilurik]

I'm hardly an expert at copyright law, but that quote seems to refer to taking specific, concrete elements ("settings or characters") from another copyrighted work and placing them in an otherwise original work. Copying gameplay would seem more like copying the plot, but with new characters, settings, etc.; it's taking an abstract idea from someone else but not any copyrighted intellectual property, and thus is not a violation of copyright law. For example: If I were to play Halo and then make a sidescroller where Master Chief goes back in time to fight ninjas, that would be a violation of Bungie's intellectual property, but if I were to make a sidescroller completely unrelated to Halo except that it uses a recharge shield/health system similar to Halo's, that would be legal because the mechanic of the health system is an idea rather than a concrete game element and therefore isn't copyrightable intellectual property. Of course, when you get into patenting game concepts things start to get messy, but that's very uncommon (and hopefully will remain so in the future).

[aegidian]

If I were to make a game, based on another game in some indirect ways, would I be infringing on someone's copyright? Like, say making a clone of a game or taking some gameplay elements?

No.

You'll only infringe copyright if you copy or use any art or text or code from the other game.

As I pointed out above, games and gameplay elements have not yet been successfully protected as intellectual property.

[Justin Brimm]

...and hopefully gameplay elements will never be protected as intellectual property. In the same way that one action flick isn't infringing on another action flick, for having action in it, never should one first person shooter infringe on another, just for being a first person shooter.

However, I hope games are eventually recognized as art (not sure if that's the correct term to use here), just as movies and other works are considered art. Currently, the courts have ruled that they are not, and therefore not protected by freedom of speech (that ruling burns my biscuits).

[Chris Burkhardt]

I still do have one question then. If I were to make a game, based on another game in some indirect ways, would I be infringing on someone's copyright? Like, say making a clone of a game or taking some gameplay elements?

No, you would not be infringing if you indirectly used elements of someone else's creation (such as similar style of graphics/music/story). There is a slightly blurry line between derivative and influence. The original author has all rights to derivatives of the works, which means you can't use his actual assets, or modified versions of his assets, but you can draw pictures which look like his (remember you have the right to parody anything you want, and everyone likes a good parody :) )

As far as gameplay elements, those cannot be copyrighted and you are free to borrow them (unless they have been patented, which isn't likely).

I was wondering after I read this:
"[...] If you write a story using settings or characters from somebody else's work, you need that author's permission."
That is the controversy of fan fiction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_fiction
http://www.google.com/search?q=fan%20fiction%20legal

[applekid]

Everything is cleared up for me now. Thank you to everyone that participated in this thread.