oshit TPK posted a lot of text. he cares, must b sperg. attack!
we gon b real forza sec cuz u needa no how bigga fuqqin spergin derpy loozer u r bro.All you're doing is show that you have no idea what was in those articles, nor do you understand the reality of what takes place in these sorts of cases.
Sure man, it's easy to take someone to court these days over just about anything. It's also easy to lose and get countersued.
In the articles you linked:
"Rutgers' Greg Lastowka tells Gamasutra that it's clear that Zynga's The Ville has copied from The Sims Social, from its use of very similar "personality type" choices to elements of character behavior and appearance."
A "personality type" and "similar appearance" are NOT movement mechanics.
You cannot take anyone to court for using "jumping," "sliding down hills," or anything like that. If you try, you will lose.
And guess what, EA lost (huge shock). Then Zynga countersued and received a worthy settlement from EA. EA got crushed.
"Zynga countersued a month later, calling the lawsuit "baseless." "
"No further information is available, though a source told the site that Zynga is "pleased" with the settlement terms. "
That is exactly what will happen if HiReZ takes Project Z to court, and the makers of project Z know this and are probably even hoping it happens.
So long as they don't name the game "tribes," refrain from using exact names or symbols like "Blood Eagle", or "disc launcher," they will be completely untouchable.
How do you think all of these freaking World of Warcraft clones exist?
You know next to nothing on this issue, and you clearly didn't even read your own articles.
Otherwise you wouldn't have posted them, as they do not in any way support your case, and in fact do the exact opposite!
Zynga made bank off of getting sued by EA.
"Wow, look out Project Z! Watch what happens! Read my articles as proof that you need to be careful! You might get sued and then be able to countersue and make shit tons of money! Making shit tons of money is horrible! You might get totally rich! Look out!" - Dare
So lonely @ top
my whole argument has been hirez is a scummy company and the likelihood of a lawsuit over ip infringement seems great no matter which way it ends up.
the reality is that in your attempt to sell your unlicensed ripoff game, which is unlike the other community driven and publicly released games have done as they offered them for free, hirez will probably just legally nuke you. defense vs a high priced experienced $800/h corporate lawyer or a team of them in front of a copyright judge that has never played a video game in their life where the similarities of simply having jet packs, skiing, flags, and inventory stations will be enough to put you all on the hook for a lot of money or tie you up in court till you're all bankrupt due to legal fees is quite the risk. you are gambling with explosives.
to put this another way
i dont even like groove but id rather talk about this with him or anyone else because at least he understands how scummy lawsuits can happen over basically anything and in the case of copyright law the rules can be changed with new decisions and precedents
maybe thats a canadian thing because we're taught about common law in high school idk
That's a false choice, because copyright is hardly the only form of "intellectual property."
You can't copyright mechanics any more than you can copyright any other idea or mechanism. You can copyright particular pieces of text or images. You can patent mechanisms, and this is sometimes done with games. And you can certainly trademark products, which prevents people from using similar names for similar purposes (definitely an issue with "Scrabulous"). All of these are "intellectual property," not just copyright.
Nor is that list exhaustive. There are other intellectual property rights that could arise, such as design patents (the distinctive aesthetic design of a useful object), the right to publicity (you can't market your game as "designed by Reiner Knizia" without his permission even if you infringe on none of his other rights), and trade secrets.
@groove this stuff i dont want to talk about
Patenting Play
Video game patents extend to game methodology, too. In 2004, Sega sued game publisher Fox Interactive and Electronic Arts for allegedly using technology from a Sega-owned patent in the game The Simpsons: Road Rage. That patent claimed a "game display method" by which the player uses a map to drive around a virtual city while a large arrow hovers above the driver showing how to reach a destination. Sega used similar technology in its Crazy Taxi game and sued for patent infringement. The parties settled before claim construction for an undisclosed sum.
More recently, Japanese game maker Konami sued Harmonix, MTV, and Viacom alleging the popular game Rock Band infringed three of Konami's patents. Among the patents at issue was one that addressed dividing game play into different sections for different instruments and displaying instructional play patterns for each - essentially, a method of divided game play. After two years of litigation, the parties settled in 2010 for undisclosed terms.