Intellectual property laws/rules/guidelines

(Nathan Havok) #1

I’m rather unfamilair with the codes of conduct in regards to intellectual property.

Is it safe to assume that if you’re basing an ET mod on somebody else’s game/show/comic book/etc… that it’s sytems go with

  1. ET being freely downloadable, so nobody’s making any money off of it

  2. The mod/tc being freey available, essentially making the net effect of said work act as publicity for the IP

  3. Credit given to the proprietary owners where applicable

?

Or is the fact that nobody’s making anything off of the work baseless because it is based off of someone else’s IP?

(SCDS_reyalP) #2

First of all, I am not a lawyer. If you want legal advice, find yourself one. What follows is my semi-educated opinion.

‘IP’ isn’t a single legal thing. What people refer to as IP is copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets. These are all quite different things, with very different laws. Many of these laws also vary by region. Copyrights and trademarks are most relevent to your questions.

Copyright prohibits you from using images, sounds etc. from a copyrighted work in your mod. For example, if you were making a simpons mod, you couldn’t use anything captured from the simpsons show in it. If you hand created something that was clearly a direct copy of one of these things, you could also get in trouble. You could however, make a mod which was recognizably set in the simpsons universe without infringing on their copyright. There is also an aspect of copyright called ‘fair use’, which gives you the right to create parodies and some other things. However, the interpretation of fair use is quite varied.

Trademarks would prevent you from using trademarked names or images in your mod. For example, you couldn’t call your mod The Simpsons mod, since “The Simpsons” is a trademark. You could also get in trouble for using likenesses of individual characters etc. For example, having a character called ‘Bart’ who resembled Bart Simpson might be enough to get you in trouble. Trademark owners must defend their trademarks, or they risk losing them.

Unless you have a lot of money to defend yourself, it is much better stay well clear of other peoples IP. Corporations have been known to sue their fans for producing “infringing” fan art, on the weakest of legal grounds. They have also been known to sue completely unrelated projects which used a similar name. Even if you are within your rights, chances are you do not have the resources to prove it in court, and even if you do, by the time the case is settled, your mod will be years out of date.

ET being and your mod being free is not really a factor, IMO. It might reduce damages if you did get in trouble, but it doesn’t give you any additional rights to other peoples IP.

All that said, there have been many mods/character models/maps which were based on the sort of thing you mention. Many have not had any trouble, while others have. In general, it is quite likely you will get a cease and desist letter before your actually get sued. If you promptly comply, chances are good your only loss will be however much work you invested in the project.

You can also try to get permission from the owners of the IP in question. Sensible companies support their fans. Sadly, they are few and far between.

(Dave) #3

What if you live in a country other than that in which the corporaton which may or may not have an interest in sueing you is based? Would they still have the ability to sue you?

(bacon) #4

You can’t be sued unless you’re in a country they’re in. BUT they can come to your country and sue you.
Besides, before they sue they’ll probably order you to stop what you’re doing.

(Balr14) #5

There aren’t very many companies who will take action against you, even if they are legally entitled to do so, simply because mods and TCs to FPS games rarely garner enough attention to notice. I did a shopping mall map a few years ago (for HL) and I used logos from every company you could think of and nobody ever said a word, not even McDonalds.

(Salteh) #6

Some companies will… stop you.
Like how the “bid for power” quake 3 mod was forced to take out all dragonball characters… if I recall correctly :]

(Pamper) #7

But that’s a trademark infringement, not copyright. And people usually get by when using trademarks in a factual way. Your mod didn’t imply that it came from McDonald’s or any other company featured… instead, they were just there as background realism features. (A little like how tons of mods use trademarks from Colt, Luger, and Fabrique Nationale… guns are trademarked too!). Plus, McDonalds isn’t in the game business. You’re not a competitor to them, so they don’t care as much.

Many modders will want to use things like Star Wars or Starcraft characters. In that case, the owning company is in competition, because they’re probably gonna sell an official FPS game eventually. Plus that material falls under copyright instead of trademark, which is much broader control and somewhat stronger.

(pgh) #8

Yep, BFP and its team were asked, twice, to remove everything regarding DB and DBZ.

As for the shopping mall map? Things like this can go unoticed for the fact that there not looking at it from a ‘im going to sue you pov’ but instead of a ‘hrms, maybe < 100 people being advertised too for free’… isnt so bad after all.