Legality of remakes
Community Forums/General Help/Legality of remakes
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| I am in the process of making some remakes of some of my favourite old ZX spectrum games. Many of the original publishers are however no longer extant and there appears to be no avenue for contacting those responsible, so I am unsure as to how to seek permissions and ascertain the legality of publishing/distributing or otherwise releasing such a product. I tried contacting certain popular 'remake' websites but receive no correspondence whatsoever in return. These are remakes, but all code and images are created, no previous assets save for the names, ideas, level design and 'mechanics of gameplay' are reused Naturally these remakes are a non-profit venture and primarily intended as possible portfolio padding - however to that end it is necessary that they be made available and this is where the legal uncertainty comes in. Of course full credit and notice pertaining to the original product and the copyright ownership will be provided, I am making no claim as to originality and acknowledge fully the original content and its authors where possible. I understand there have been many other Blitz users that have created similar remakes in the past and was wondering what avice you might offer. |
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| We have already discussed this several times in the past, and what seems to be protectable are the exact shapes, colors, animations, sounds, names, dialogues, stories. However a gameplay mechanic or a theme or a similar (but not exact) shape/color/animation/sound are not forbidden to create/use, else there would not be clones (same gameplay but with a different theme and different shapes/colors/animations/sounds) and no similar games. If i were you i would make a clone with a different theme (and different shapes/colors/animations/sounds) or a similar but modified game but not an exact copy. |
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| "We have already discussed this several times in the past" I#ve never mentioned it, and certainly not to you before. |
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| "we" as in "with others members on this forum" i will try to find the other thread |
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| here: http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=100817 |
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| If you're not charging for these games then the likely worst case scenario is that you get a cease and desist letter from the current IP owner and have to abandon the project. If these are quick and simple games to develop then that shouldn't be too much of a problem (you'll have at least learned something from the dev process), and if they've largely been abandoned (and may have no current IP owner) then no real harm is done. The only situation where this is really a problem is when the ownership of the IP for the games can be linked back to a company that is still in business and a low quality remake ends up causing them support issues and detracting from their brand. Sounds like these games are too old for that to be an issue though. |
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| If they are not acquired by Nintendo then you got a pretty good chance. I don't know if you are aware of No Mario's Sky which is a free game as well. https://asmb.itch.io/no-marios-sky got Nintendo's attention easily so they changed it to.. https://asmb.itch.io/dmcas-sky ..did not play it but coz I was entertained enough with the new title and the drama there. I know your pushing for zx or older games but you never know who's lurking for that cr strike, best to get some permission first before doing anything else check which company acquired them. On the other hand, if it gives you some hope, not only with Blitz products but with any other language/engine of choice, that I'm sure it is ok as long as you release the full source/assets and in that turn it will further validate your personal interest on it. Check out Weibo's Boulder Dash on GitHub. https://github.com/wiebow/boulderdash.game2d or just search github c64 or any other older platforms, you'd be surprised that there's a ton of repos out there with every other version of a remake ;-) good luck! |
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| keep in mind that there may be some copyright trolls, like patents trolls, who have acquired the intellectual property of an old game and who are just waiting in the shadows for somebody to create a remake in order to sue them and get money. That's why, personally, unless you have the written clearly expressed permission of the creator of the game, i would not make an exact copy... but if it is only for fun, and to demonstrate that you can do it, and you don't plan to earn money by selling the game, the worst that you may encounter is most likely a dmca from the creator/ipowner... interesting article about this : techraptor.net/content/fan-game-avoid-dmca |
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| I have discovered a solicitors office that represented an individual fairly recently whom I believe may hold IP rights to the original content. Hopefully I might be able to arrange correspondence though them. |
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| Per US law, all ip is copyright until 75 years after the death of its creator, unless deliberately put into the public domain by the copyright holder. Many people think that just because a company goes out of business or abandons a program that it is ok to copy, but legally, that is not true. Best thing is to contact the copyright holder. Failing that, you just have to weigh the chances that legal action might be pursued. If in doubt, ask a lawyer that specializes in copyright law. |
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| "Abandonware" is a term invented by pirates to help encourage or facilitate piracy. Even if Copyright expires, IP may still b legally protected. DMCA applies to US property/rights To this date no other body has acquired the rights for the product. |
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| Pretty much all your problems go away here if you make something original, rather than copying someone else's work. It can be based on and similar to the original, as long as it isn't too close a match. I doubt these would be useful as portfolio padding either, unless the focus is on the programming and not the art and level design. Even then most people who look at your portfolio would be wary if it contained a lot of clones of existing games rather than original stuff. |
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| I have been provided with contact details for the rights holder and have requested permission for the remake. |
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| Good for you... Make sure to store the emails somewhere in case something goes wrong in the future, you will have some proofs to show that there was a written agreement... |
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| I'm not sure whether a saved email is proof in court. The Berne IP convention is one thing, but the aggressivity of the IP holder finally has a bigger impact on your damage. The Tetris guy for instance aggressively sued every clone, but I've never heard of any legal problems due to a snake clone. I'd suggest, after a green light in email, send the guy a nice gift together with a to be signed and sent back permission on paper. |
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| I'm curious as to why you specifically mention 'snake clone'? How is this relevant? |
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