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Hasbro And Game-Design Lawsuits
Athyra writes: "This is chilling news -- Inside Mac Games is reporting that Hasbro has been successful in their attempts to get a number of manufacturers of classic-style games ("taxman," "Missile Defender," etc), claiming that Hasbro owns the gameplay concepts used in these games. Considering how most games are built on just a few stepping stones, this could have a chilling effect -- will the designers of Gran Turismo be sued for ripping off Pole Position? Will Broderbund have to pay Myst's profits to the folks at Infocom and SAGA? And what happens if someone can prove ownership of 3D action games? No more Quake sequels?" Update: 04/20 12:23 by E : It should be pointed out that the companies settled out of court for money, and a promise to not sell the offending titles anymore - no legal precedent was set.
Did any of you people read the suit? They weren't suing over creative ideas. They were suing because the guilty games were almost exact duplicates. It is not "Street Fighter" sues "Mortal Kombat" because they are both fighting games, it would be more like "Mortal Kombat" sues "Deadly Combat" because the defendent had characters named Red Sonya Sword, Cold Man, Emperor Scorpion Ninja, Thunder God, Kung-Fu Masta, and Cyborg Man with the same selection of special moves, and amazingly identical levels.
On the anniversary of both the Columbine killings and the birthday of Hitler (a twin pairing which eclipses even the similar circumstances of the murdering of Waco "cultists" and the Oklahoma City bombing), I think it is important to remember that we live in a very violent, secular society. Schoolyards have become graveyards; peaceful neighborhoods have become war zones, and yet we Americans sit by and say to ourselves "Well, it's not my problem". On Slashdot, we are quick to condem the foolish notion that the choice of entertainment can influence an individual's personality to such a degree that a peaceful child becomes a killer. But ask yourself if a child with a latent predisposal for antisocial acts (by which I mean mainly violence rather than self-isolation) could be further influenced by games in which homocide is not only an option but the only option?
I ask you, too, to consider if it cannot be considered a sign of a sick culture that oftentimes the only contact friends make with each other is to kill one another in a virtual world? Violence had moved from a contemptible act of destruction towards the community to a way to spend time with "the boys", replacing nonviolent activites such as poker, conversation, etc. Is this a good sign? Can we say that we, as a culture are moving forward? Is the road of progress to be laid atop the trail of bloodied corpses?
No!, we cry. A new foundation for society must be built. The disease of violence must we wiped from our cities and cleansed from our children. Peace, love, and pacifity must be established, by force if need be. The source of violence has been discovered, and it is resentment, which is in turn founded in thought. The root of this ill may be plucked from the soil as a weed in a garden. A new way of life, firmly based on the Objectivist principles of Ayn Rand will be established whereby the great men and women, the industrialists, will be those who rule for us. As there is a government, it shall be the privilege of those in power to be allowed "thought"; citizens will be given instruction in valuing devotion to country over all else. Under this new system based firmly on the foundations of Reason and Capitalism, America shall flourish and conquer Her enemies, the looters of the world.
And just last month they announced open sourcing of Dungeons and Dragons (or something). One hand giveth while the other taketh away? Or could they both be playing to the same game plan?
I suppose I could accept this proprietariness if it was the original creators who were benefitting, but these are just cases of lawyers and business critters sucking marrow. I wonder if they've even played the games they're seeking to exert their control over.
It just isn't right. Makes me feel strongly that we need to put our full support behind Free games.
There ARE good (recent!) arcade games out there, it's just hard to find them. Here's a few in the arcade that I go to here in LA (the Pak Mann arcade): - Crazy Taxi - Battle Balls - that sniper game and its sequel (forget what they are called) - Strider 2 - Tokyo Wars - Power Stone - Virtual ON - Puzzle Fighter II - Time Crisis II - Savage Quest (well, I'm a little partial to this one, since I worked on it) and hey, don't forget about pinball: - Monster Mash - any pinball 2000 game (Revenge from Mars, Star Wars: Episode I) Unfortunately some of the best games never actually come out in consumer arcades - you can only play them at the shows. Two years ago at ASI I played: - Samurai Showdown 3D/64/5 (they hadn't figured out what to call it yet) - Magic: The Gathering (yes, an arcade game version) - The Annoying Maze Game The last two were some of the most unique arcade games I've ever played - which is probably why they never made it anywhere.
Calm down. It was a script kiddie exploiting a minor problem in the comments code causing the page not to render, which CowboyNeal fixed within seconds of finding out about it. If anything, blame your web browsing software.
Now nobody evil can patent it. Give it a year, and you can't patent it.
You're good.
id != "makers of Wolfenstein 3D"
The folks at id licensed the engine.
Apogee is the company that made Wolf3D...you know, the folks who also made Duke Nukem 3D?
Groovy.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
You mean to tell me you can use the U.S. judicial system to stifle competition? Wow, if only Henry Ford and Alexander Graham Bell had known that. :^P
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
no, 2600 Hz (kHz maybe? i dunno) was the frequency of one of the tones used in phreaking equipment.
What I don't understand is why Hasbro decided to follow suit on these things. It's not as if Hasbro was attempting to sell these things currently. Like many have said this was ages ago.
Yeah they are. Note the recent PSX and PC remakes of Centipede, Asteroids, Pong, etc.
And not only are they still selling, I'm still buying.
Back in the early 80's, there were tons of ripped off ideas. Taxman was made by HAL Labs in either 1980 or 1981, which was, for all practical purposes, a direct ripoff of PacMan. The boards were slightly different, and the ghosts had names such as Gollum and Smugpuff, but aside from that, it was identical. Same thing as Gobbler. Even classic Apple][ games like Galaxian existed, and didn't even bother to change the name!
I'm not sure if the Taxman in question is the one I mentioned, but it's the only one I'm aware of. If it is the one, what's the point of going after them 20 years later? Or are they just pissed off that their Mr Potato Head "Welcome to Rhode Island" mascots are being vandalized and are seeking cheap revenge?
I have an idea towards that. FREE SOFTWARE - THE ULTIMATE IN GEEK BUSINESS. Free Software. Don't just take corporate America by storm, take them by wallets.
the real at&t mix
What's your point?
People have produced great works of art and literature with no protection whatsoever. Modern-day copyright law is effectively unconstitutional by retroactively granting longer and longer durations of copyright, before any expire.
It strikes me that this has the effect of diminishing the number of works that are created (see many Mickey Mouse cartoons lately?) while not benefiting the public at all. (just imagine if fanfic were 100% unmistakably legal - there might be lots of Middle Earth books instead of the relatively few we've got.)
Anyway, I too would like to see 10 year copyrights. Gives the author a good reason to keep on typin'.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Like I said: the copyright lasts 10 years. So if the artist dies, the copyright passes to his heirs for the remainder of the duration. If it already expired before the artist died, it's their problem. The artists' family didn't create anything anyway - if they had, they'd jointly own the copyright.
So you've pointed out nicely how holding on to a copyright for a long period of time provides no incentive for the creation of creative work. Why should the poor family actually do something, when they can coast on something created years ago?
As for trademarks (in another reply to your post), I disagree. Trademarks on characters in copyrighted works should cease to exist once those works are in the public domain. How else are you supposed to use the p.d. work either by itself or by building on it? Again, this only promotes creativity - the company that owned the character will have to make _more_ characters if it wants control, or become one of many sources of material for a p.d. character. Either way, I don't see a downside.
I _want_ to see some more Mickey Mouse cartoons. There are a lot that would be really good, and not particularly difficult to do. (animation gets cheaper all the time - esp. with cgi) But this requires that both the original works, and the characters become public.
Of course, it's not like Disney (Snow White, Cinderella, Alladin, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, etc.) has ever used someone else's characters and stories....
(let's not even get into the Lion King/Jungle King fiasco)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
If I like it now, I'll watch it now. If I'm out to screw the maker of a work based on something fresh out of the public domain, then I'd wait 20 years and screw them too.
10 years is a lot for the distribution of the original work (admittedly it doesn't always end up okay, but lots of artists never get famous till they're dead - fat lot of good royalties do them then) but not so much for creating derivative works.
i'm more fond of seeing more works being created than having a few works make money forever at the expense of anyone who doesn't want to shell out, and who wants to create a derivative work.
tolkien created a lot of stuff from scratch, i'll grant. and good for him. but there's a lot of excellent stuff that wouldn't exist at all if people held onto their copyright forever. And yet, forever is exactly what the trend we're following leads to.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Too bad the Sugar Hill Gang ripped off lyrics from another group, and just rapped over another record (forget the names of both right now)
"God Awful?" Well, K.C. Munchkin certainly was better than the 2600 version of Pac-Man...
IANAL, but as far as I know this is just an out-of-court settlement, and it does not set a legal precident. Therefore anyone wishing to sue other game manufactures over other games still have to prove the point and make a judge agree. This has not been done yet.
Actually analog computers could do bouncing balls before that.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Poe has about 50 years worth of prior art claim on that one.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
They posted the explanation in the same place as the explanations for stories that get "disappeared". :-)
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Does that mean you'll go there to annoy people instead of here? Then let me be among the first to wish you every success with it.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Yes, but before would have been even better.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
If a lot of what used to be your favorite songs are winding up behind commercials now, imagine if advertisers could wait 10 years and use whatever they wanted to for free.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
It's not unheard of for dead artists to have left behind families in financial need.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Sure, look how much Tolkien raked in during the first 10 years after he wrote "Lord of the Rings".
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Drop into a Radio Shack or generic equivalent sometime and look at the 2 piece plastic boxes they sell for building electronic projects in. The ones that they've carried for the last 30 years are a medium dark blue.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
3d Monster Maze on the ZX81 way back in 1981 predates the lot of 'em.
Heck, Xybots predates Wolfenstein, just don't tell Hasbro, who probably have the rights to that as well.
I think Hasbro owns Parker Brothers, like they own the Atari games (and, by the looks of it, their legal department (famed for being consistently the most profitable bit of Atari).
Think of them as the Microsoft of games. They don't actually innovate much, just buy up other peoples ideas.
Actully, Commander Keen was marked as by iD, although both Keen and Wolfenstein were distrubted by apogee (now 3d realms). The first game which id distributed was, iirc, doom. I'm pretty sure that commander keen was their first game as id, too.
Commodore 64, Loading up the dance floor!
apogee had nothing to do with the actual creation of wolf3d. they only published it.
I am not a laywer (But I play one on TV.)
IANALBIPOOTV ?
8-)
Bye bye little karma, any decent Karma Whore would have logged out for this post.
"You never know when some crazed rodent with cold feet might be running loose in your pants."
-Calvin
Where does Wolfenstein 3D fit into 3D gaming history? I'm fairly certain that it was the first pc 3D game(feel free to correct me). What were the comparable arcade games before Wolf3D?
Could it be said that John Carmack owns the 3D fps game? And is the game concept now shared due to quake being under GPL.
JungleBoy
"You never know when some crazed rodent with cold feet might be running loose in your pants."
-Calvin
Well.. if not.. this whole thing is illegal and I'm gonna sue 'em. If you'd like to sue, please deposit $1,000,000 in my bank account. Thanks.
They thought that people could change the first P to an F. :)
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
LOL. Amen brother. :)
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
If this was a settlement, doesn't that mean it doesn't actually set any legal precedents? (IANAL)
You can also generate the 2600 Hz tone if you have an old school whistle from a box of Cap 'N Crunch. Hence the famed phreaker (was it john draper?) named after the famed captain.
An electric device to generate such a tone is known as a blue box, presumably after the color of the whistle. This in turn gave birth to more phreaking tools such as the red box, etc.
Yes, I read too many text files on BBSs when I was in Jr. High.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
Lets try this
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Atari successfully sued Magnavox for producing a Pac Man clone many years ago. Since Hasbro owns all of Atari's intellectual property, I don't know why they would start allowing Pac Man clones (except out of neglect).
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Actually, IIRC, 2600 is named after the Atari 2600. I think it's because it was many hackers/crackers' first computer.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
Patent something:
You're evil.
Don't patent:
You can't sue them, you didn't protect your idea in the first place. You're evil.
Not true; when you play tones at a dial tone you are talking to the switch. This is how touch-tone works. You can make recordings of a phone dialing and use it to place calls.
magic
IMHO, any copyrights longer than 25 years are unconscionable.
I think this should probably depend on the medium - for software, 25 years is probably too long; for movies, it's probably not long enough (Lucas would lose the copyright to Star Wars *next year* under that scheme).
Certainly the current ever-extending provisions are absurd, but for anything creative, awarding copyright *for the life of the author* is reasonable --- because it would *suck* to expend a lot of time and energy creating something, and 25 years later someone else comes along, steals 75% of it, and makes it into something which is completely contrary to what you believed in or were attempting to create.
(Not that this doesn't happen --- witness the Blade Runner books that KW Jeter insists on inflicting on the science fiction reading community. But at least Philip K Dick is dead.)
Note that the obnoxious actions TSR took with respect to D&D muds, etc, were undertaken *several years* before Wizards of the Coast bought them; as far as I can tell, WotC has been *significantly* more friendly than TSR was.
Nobody won any suit. To quote the article, "GT Interactive and Varcon Systems, publishers of many of the games named in this lawsuit, have reached an out-of-court settlement rather than battle Hasbro over the matter."
They settled rather then letting the whole thing drag out. Don't have such a knee-jerk reaction.
I'm waiting for my letter from Hasbro myself -- I have a shareware A*teroids-like game that I've been selling for eight years. Registrations are now down to a trickle, but what can I do if threatened? I'm not going to risk all of my personal belongings in a crusade for the good of gaming.
Unfortunately, Hasbro has a good chance of winning if it ever goes to court. The outcomes of "look-and-feel" cases are unpredictable -- it centers around what is "idea" and what is "expression". Ideas can only be protected under patent or trade secret, and "expression" is what is implicitly covered by copyright. (A comprehensive overview of these issues can be found here.)
Legalities aside, my gut tells me this is a very bad omen. The arts (of which I propose game development is a part) thrive through imitation. Would we be better off if no more gangster movies had been made after "The Godfather"? Or if Homer's estate was still around to sue George Lucas for plagarism?
I say munching dots and shooting rocks are ideas, and we should hack on these ideas until there is nothing left, and the best possible dot-munching and rock-shooting games have been made.
Well, given that many of Shakespeare's works were based on earlier works, applying this to literature in the 16th century would have impoverished it significantly. Was it Shakespeare who claimed there are only 7 stories?
Id owns the wolf 3d code, and data, not Apogee. I know there was some kind of relationship between the two, but I belive it was just distrobution. Otherwise, why would the software be up for download on idsoftware.com, and not apogee's site?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Playing tones into telephones does absolutely nothing whatsoever, other then relaying the sound to the other end. The telephone networks eventually switched from 'inband' signaling, that let you send your own control codes into the flow to something else, that put the control signals on a separate line.
:P
what the 2600hz tone did was cause the system to think that you had hung up the phone, you could call an 1800 number 'hang up', and then connect to another number. The phone system of the day would still think you were hooked up to the '800 number and not charge you.
a few months ago, someone called me using Dialpad.com. If anyone's uses the service, you'll notice that it cuts off the connection when there's no signal above some white noise. Well, a lot of what I was saying wasn't getting through, so I decided that playing a sinewave in the background would keep me from being cut off. I tried a 400hz tone, but I had to have it pretty loud in order for it to work. Another tone I tried worked really well though. What was it? 2600hz
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Tetris was first owned by ERLOG(sp?) a division of the communist government of the USSR. The ownership now resides with the Tetris Company.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
So blinded by hate, and over what? And operating system? Actually, it's kind of funny, when you think about it (you, not windows).
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
You'd only be violating the patent if you used a random number set stored in ROM...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
When you settle a lawsuit, you don't make establish anything at all. It just means that it would be cheaper for GT to pay Hasbro then it would be to fight them in court. Nothing whatsoever has been established.
(Think about it, if you could really establish president this way, you could just 'sue' your friend and have him settle. Not a very good idea)
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Apparently the Gnome clone of scrabble got a nasty letter saying "stop it."
Anyway, you basically just proved my point. Everyone is copying someone else somehow if you take a step back and look at it. That's why it's so rediculous to attempt to copyright something like that - no one can truly claim ownership.
- tred
The first fully 3d Game for the PC was Descent, then Quake 1, then a lot of stuff. Wolf 3d, Doom, Duke3d, they were all "2.5D". Someone mentioned a C64 game that was fully 3d but I've never heard of that. Regardless, pionering a genre is rediculous - that's like saying you can't write any more science fiction or you can't listen to any more rap because Sugar Hill Gang made it first. You would be laughed at if you attempted to copyright science fiction, the court system needs to realize this is the same thing...
- tred
You might actually try reading the patent before commenting. The referenced patent covers the "Active Time Battle" system used starting in, I believe, FF3 (US FF3, which was like FFV or something in Japan. Something like that, anyway) in which instead of having strict turns, you input commands asynchronously when each character is "ready". Definately different than Dragon Warrior.
Castle Wolfenstein came out a LONG time before doom. Oh, you meant Wolf3D, didn't you.
Well, to be fair, the patent is not for Final Fantasy or role playing games, but the Active Time Battle System, which Square 'invented' in Final Fantasy IV (II in the US), and their method of storing hitpoints and calculating action responses.
Dragon Warrior!
If this is the game that I think it is, then I'd like to tell you a little story about Dragon Warrior. When I was about 16 I worked for Nintendo here in Seattle (Bellevue actually). I had a job as a "game counselor". This means that people would call me up and ask me how to get from point A to point B in game X. Dragon Warrior was one of the games we had to play in training. During training you would work 9 hours a day. You would come in and play the training games (one of which was Dragon Warrior) for 4 hours, take lunch, then go back and play the games till the rest of the day.
There was a guy named Chris who was the brother of the roommate of one of the guitar players in my band, and there was a guy named Saul who thought my name was Chris. Saul would always call me Chris. The first time he said it I didn't correct him, and from then on he would always call me Chris and I always felt like if I corrected him, then he would wonder why the hell I never corrected him before, so I never corrected him. One day both he and another person were trying to get my attention. He said "hey Chris", and the other person said "Hey Paul", and they both looked at each other and then looked at me and said "I thought your name was Chris/Paul". So, anyway, that was wierd.
Then, there was this girl whose name name I don't remember who also worked there. I used to give her a ride home at night (with my '73 green Charger, Yeah!). One day at the end of the night she took one last call. It was some guy who had like 90000 questions about some game that nobody every player, and she had to sit there on the phone with this guy and attempt to help him with all of this crap. I remeber that several of the leads started listening in on her call to see what the hell was taking so long, and they were all laughing and having a great time. By the time she got off the call, and I was supposed to drive her home, she was crying and all upset, and I felt very bad for her.
Anyway, there was no point to all of this except Dragon Warrior brought up all these old associations.
I wonder where those people are now.
time-scales, new conecept for lawyers.
If we keep census data locked up 100 years.
Dog to human years is ruffly 7:1 ratio. So dog census data should be kept for what, 15 years?
Ooooohh the logic.......
So can someone tell me if this is how IT patents work? I am guessing no becasue it would make too much sense.
If it was based on a patent, they'd lost because they didn't make any move to protect those patents earlier, if you don't want them enough to try to protect them, the courts ain't going to give them back to you years later when you finally wake up.
Actually, you're thinking of Trademarks, which lose their legal protection if not defended. Patents can be undefended for years, but still be protected, if the owner so desires. Look at Unisys and LZW encoding for an example of this.
Owning a game concept has got to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of. Along with Intellectual Property in general, I'm beginning to think. When was the last time you heard of IP law benefiting an individual?
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
Will we soon hear of Custer's Revenge vs. Leisure Suit Larry?
There is some common sense at work here. The games in question are clearly knock-offs/copies of games owned by Hasbro. They should be going to court. Icing on the cake is it seems things are being settled out of court for reasonable amounts. So far it seems like things are preceding very well.
It would be a wrong if Hasbro decided to go after huge, broad genres of gaming. It would be wrong if a company was awarded owndership of the FPS concept, or the flight simulator concept. The problem is the courts back extremely broad patents that hamstring industries for years or decades.
Hasbro is acting appropiately.
How about Wizardry, on the Apple? It wasn't realtime, but it was first person 2.5d And it was a lot of fun.
No, no, no.
http://www.ufpel.tche.br/~snoop y/jogos/wolfenst.htm
http://jollyrogers.com/cwhome.html
I'm waiting to see a case against M$ for copying the ideas for Nibbles. =) And Space Cadet Pinball contained some simulated elastics, a ball, springs...oh a tilt feature...oh and wonder who came up with the idea for simulated gravity...hmm.
"The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The terror of their tyranny, however, is allev
This ruling simply doesn't make sense. This is essentially the same as suing the publisher of a book because they printed a mystery novel. Assuming, of course, that someone could prove that they created the idea of the mystery novel. Is the U.S. judicial system incompetent or are they just out of touch with technology?
---- Yay! I have a sig!
It featured a 3D maze you walked (or ran) through in first person perspective, a secondary automapping screen, and large, multiple monsters with differing attributes (slight differences mind you) that even made different levels of sound depending on their distance from the player.
It featured key-and-lock puzzles, location warp portals, and more. It was really well ahead of its time and pushed that system to its limits. You didnt fight the monsters though, yuo simply had to avoid being chased down dead ends by them.
Copyright was something like 1981 IIRC.
And, my spider sense tells me there was something similar for the old Vectrex machine that went back even earlier.
You give away a program that looks like it decrypts CSS, works like a CSS decrypter and call it DeCSS. The original DVD decoder is not only licensed, but MPAA is still making money off it.
If not for legal reasons, then for common sense reasons, they deserved to be taken to court.
Hehehe...I'm sorry but I couldn't resist.
-Vel
so, do all of todays (and yesterdays) first person shooter games owe everything to Castle Wolfenstein?
Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
*sigh*
The "choice" they've been trying to cut down is "Which basically identical clone game -- featuring near-exact copies of gameplay, art, name, and ALL OTHER aspects" can we buy?
It's not a question of, say, D&D vs Ultima (which are NOT that similar, really...). It's closer to directly ripping off somebody's book but changing the names and perhaps reordering a few clauses occasionally -- which is not permitted except by the author's explicit consent.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Hasbro didn't make these games. Atari didn't make these games. People made them.
Most of the games that Hasbro were suing over were very early on in the computer game industry. Were they as aware of intelectual property issues way back then as they are now?
It may be that Hasbro only realy has the trademarks. Did Atari have there employees under a contract where they got exclusive rights to the fundimental concepts involved in the games?
Does anyone know the answer to this. Does any one know of any devlopers for Atari at the time?
I'd be interested to hear.
-- That which does not kill us has made its last mistake.
Because missile defender had nice little explosions, all other games with any sort of explosion whether is be electrical, particle, or even pyrotechnical, is property of Hasbro?
wtf was that judge on
--
The shareholder is always right.
This wasn't very clear from the article, but I'm guessing Hasbro went after the other game companies on copyright. Copyright law (at least in the US) doesn't require registration, although Hasbro probably did register them.
A quote taken from the article: "When you look at our games and their games side by side, there's no doubt that the defendants have copied the creative expression of the Atari games, not just abstract ideas."
The question is, how similar were the new games? Did the new games actually mimic the "creative expression" of the original Hasbro games?
--
The shareholder is always right.
--
The shareholder is always right.
--
The shareholder is always right.
--
The shareholder is always right.
Transylvanian Tower by Richard Shepherd software. I think. It has been a while. :-) Frame rate was about 1fpm as far as I remember.
Don't know if Acornsoft Maze (for the BBC) was before or after this.
--
This comment was brought to you by And Clover.
Isn't there any kind of statute of limitations here? This happened years ago - how can they be suing over it? It seems like they're just rushing to take part in the late '90s "Lawsuit Mania."
;-)
Personally, I am boycotting Hasbro. It's part of my new zero-tolerance policy for frivolous lawsuits that do more harm than good. I suggest that you all join me.
It certainly would be scary if this happened to the good first person shooters. Of course, after CO, most people now better than to piss FPS-players off.
No comment at this time
Unfortunately, it's too late for that - they have prior art. The best weapon now is the power of the boycott. Of course, I've never liked Hasbro anyway...
No comment at this time
Then geek businessmen can fight back. It's that simple. Society doesn't care about people it can't recognize. Ayn Rand would have a fit about now. Don't thinks so? Read For The New Intellectual. Talks a lot about companies cold calling demanding you buy their products.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
It's going to be hard for me to boycott I won't be buying games this year. Not until something pops up based on WorldForge.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Hasbro sues people because they make clones that are 99% the same game as old Atari titles they own. Stealing something and pasting a new name on it is still stealing. People just assume that since they have been doing freeware ripoffs for decades that they have the right to make a commercial version as well.
A similar situation happened with Tetris. Alexy Pajihitnov (I think that's how the name is spelled) created Tetris while living in communist Russia. While he owned the rights to the whole thing, he never saw any of the money, as it was sucked off by the Soviet government. The international rights were bought and sold many times, almost totally out of his control. Now, years later Russia has opened up, he has moved to the US and is finally getting the rights back together. His company began sending out legal letters asking people to stop selling many of the hundreds of shareware Tetris knockoffs that are always being produced.
The shareware writers then started a campaign, and even a lawsuit, arguing that since they have been infringing on his copyright for years, they shouldn't ever have to stop.
I guess this sort of stuff is inevitable on the net, where people always want to get something for nothing, or as close to nothing as they can get. In a way this reminds me of the Napster case, people trying to support a service that was completly designed from the ground up with the intent of copyright infringment, and then going nuts because a corporation actually wants to make money, thus protecting the investments of its stockholders, which I'm sure more than a few of the complainers are via assorted funds in their 401k's...
Haven't we seen these same type of lawsuits when someone copies a good idea from a website? If I'm not mistaken, Amazon was sued for using their "1-click" ordering.
ÕÕ
Go read the story yourself before jumping to conclusions. The defendants settled out of court.
Oh beautiful -- thanks a ton for the links! It's all coming back to me now. Sorry for my ignorance there, it's been a while! =)
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** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
I'm just curious... to those that saw this article when it was first posted: Did the orginal article contain the redundancy of this post??
/. editor changed the postand they added the last bit on, or else the moderators that posted it up to 3 should be taken out and shot. Or something!
Because either the
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** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
I vaguely recall Castle Wolfenstein for the Apple II, and it was nothing like Wolfenstein 3d. Castle Wolfenstein was, to my recollection, entirely text based, though with the same theme -- SS officers and stuff. Other than that it was as different as night and day.
I never really put the two together until your post (even though I played both of them in their day), but I suppose it does make sense that they were of the same idea. But the game implemenation was totally different.
-rt-
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** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
Reading the press release, it's not clear to me as to why Hasbro was suing GT and others. With GT selling games like "Mac-man", Hasbro is within its rights in order to protect their copyright, since such a product would cause confusion in the public mind, yada yada yada. I don't believe Hasbro was suing over the actual gameplay or look and feel. After all, if I make a solitare game and name it Total Annihilation, how long before I end up in court, even though the game itself is completly different?
Konami has cornered the market for music games though. Anyone played BeatMania (AKA Hiphop Mania), Dance Dance Revolution, or Guitar Freaks? Those are some badass games.
Call on God, but row AWAY from the rocks!
all of these clones were essentially reverse engineered from the original, meaning only that the idea was used. If it's illegal to copy someone else's idea, then every PC not made by IBM is illegal and all manufacturers owe them billions in back royalties. How about automobile bodies - who owns the SUV style? The implications are frightening.
Even more to the point, Novell would have a monopoly on the networking business and Microsoft as an OS would never exist as DOS was essentially a clone of CP/M.
How quickly everyone forgets wolfenstein. I believe it came out a good bit before doom, but I could be wrong.
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
Just a thought, but why would id sue the creators of HalfLife when they licensed the Quake engine to make HalfLife?
Marissa
I'm not really an elf, I just play one in AD&D.
According to the article, Hasbro didn't win the lawsuit, they reached an out-of-court settlement. That means that no precedent has been set. It's still very unfortunate for the particular people Hasbro settled with, but at least it doesn't mean that Hasbro's claims had any real legal basis.
A few years ago Metacreations threatened to sue me and a friend for making a free clone of their game "Metasquares". With the help of a FSF lawyer they finally gave up (their threats were essentially scare tactics), realizing they had no case:
;))
- though "look and feel" suits have sometimes worked, this clone didn't have the "look and feel" of the metacreations version.
- It's not possible to copyright the rules of a game (except a particular instantiation of them in written form). They could potentially have patented it, but they didn't.
- There were no trademark violations to sue on because we didn't mention their trademarks in any way
... therefore it surprises me very much to see this lawsuit come through.
The phrase which caught my eye in particular was "...the defendants have copied the creative expression of the Atari games, not just abstract ideas."
So the real important aspect here is that they are suing based on copyright infringement -- copying the creative content. I don't expect that this would work for a clone based just on the gameplay ideas.
... (PS IANAL
I could write an original storyline for an Asteroids clone if you want.
Disclaimer: although I'm pretty certain of this, IANAL.
I think that Dragon Warrior was the first of the genre.. although several argue that adventure preceded it, i dont think it qualifies..
oddly enough they are up to dragon warrior 6/7 now, we didnt get any of them after 4.. i dont understand enix.
no
The whole concept of...well, new concepts is a little overrated at times though. While a drastic ripoff, or even a "clone" is kinda cheesy, there's nothing wrong with improving something someone else did.
My main experience in the "re-use" of ideas is in the field of architecture. In studying to be an architect, I spend large amounts of time looking at other people's work. The point is, when you really get down to it, at least little pieces of anything you do have been done before.
It's sad to see a company clamping down on such broad ideas. It's more of the big companies wanting control just for the sake of control. Don't they know that all they're doing is upsetting people? Hrmm...that's a lot of mumbling...the architecture I mentioned earlier is having more of a negative effect on my brain that I thought.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Considering that id Software are creaters of Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Quake and Wolfenstein 3D (basically all the good FPS games, except Halflife which runs on the Quake Engine and Unreal which does not) I doubt that we will be seeing a lawsuit based on clones of First Person Shooter's anytime soon (Carmack won't do it).
I spent my whole life playing the arcades of Brighton !
The death of the arcade is an absolute shame. I would love to get my hands on a copy of "Defender" or "Sinistar"
Does anyone know if these are available under the emulator ? If so, do they have the original sound ?
Life is just a bowl of All Bran - Small Faces
Back in the early 80's when Sierra got sued for making a clone of pacman? I thought that game concepts were OK, hence the 5-million+ tetris clones.
From what I know about Hasbro, they are BIG business, and the toy industry is a very fickle industry. It has even a faster burn cycle and market unreliability than IT, which is fairly similar. These guys have a reputation for being heartless opportunists who will take any opportunity to make a profit.
I do what the voices on my console tell me to do.
I think Hasbro, Microsoft, Unisys, User Friendly (yes User Friendly for that godawful UFMedia jazz "Hay look at us, we're selling out, AND HERE'S OUR PRICE LIST!"), and Amazon.com should have a contest... who can take the longest possible walk off the shortest peer.
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Don't underestimate the power of peanut brittle
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
Frankly, 10 years period should be more than adequate.
The above comment is CopyWrong (K) Erisian Entertainment. All Rights Reversed. Ewige Blumenkraft!
When was Bardstale released?
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
Stories like this just reminds me that there's way too many lawyers in this country and way too many lawsuits. It's no wonder they are called sharks. They are all teeth! I mean, seriously, we are constantly dealing with legal issues here at Slashdot, what with MPAA, RIAA, DeCSS, Amazon, PTO, etc., all of these issues having to deal with "intellectual property" and "copyrights". The laws that were originally intended to protect and reward the inventive and creative have all now become instruments of corporatism in the hands of lawyers. I wish we didn't have to deal with all of these things and really only read stuff that is more interesting. My vent.
But if the original creators do an extraordinary job on their game, and follow it up with epic sequels and spin-offs to their own concepts, it shouldn't hurt them that much, like in id Software's example. After their Wolf3D fame, DOOM was one of the most awaited games of its time (at least to me and the group of people I hung out with). Once it came out, DOOM ][ was the next most-awaited game.
I remember when the "cheap clones" such as Operation: Body Count and Rise of the Triad were released. They had some interesting, slightly different values to them, but they ended up falling flat on their face and not doing much to id Software's revenues. There's just something to say for playing the games of the people who revolutionized the 3D FPS genre, and continuing with their legacy (Quake, Quake II, Quake 3 Arena). And not only do they just simply release sequels with new levels, but they also make new revolutionary advancements in their newer games. Quake II's engine was so much more advanced than Quake, and tons of game developers licensed it for their own use. Now there's Q3A, with extradinary leaps in graphics over Q2.
id Software isn't just resting on their laurels and allowing their games to collect dust. They're continually taking an active role in the computer gaming industry. They have a lot of good competition out there. A lot of other FPS games aren't just cheap clones. But id Software, after all these years, have a good following of fans. That's more than we can say for Hasbro. <sarcasm>Oooh, 3D Pac-Man</sarcasm>.
Cheers!
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Transylvanian Tower! That's the one! :^)
Who Wants To Date A Norwegian?
Long before Wolfenstein 3D, I just loved to hook up a network of Atari ST's and play MIDI Maze. Can someone say "prior art"? Oh... before MIDI Maze on the ST, there was also this game I played on my Spectrum (Timex/Sinclair 2000 for Americans - yeah, the one with the rubber keyboard) ... can't remember the title, but it took place in a castle, and I had to fight bats and stuff in order to eventually find and kill Dracula. I think. Was a very long time ago.
Who Wants To Date A Norwegian?
Well, I think the oldest 3d game is actually 3D Monster Maze for the ZX81. OK, so there was no details, and everything looked like it was made of bricks, but it was still 3D. I'm sure there are some which even pre-date this, but this is the earliest 3D game I can think of (circa 1982).
Find funky gifts
Here's my take on it... I only knew of one company Hasbro was suing, i don't remember the name of the company but the company pretty much developed an almost exact duplicate of frogger and asteroids and packaged it in a bog VERY similiar to Hasbro's packaging. The only difference was that they sold their version for 10 bucks cheaper. I can see why Hasbro sued them. But it is completely WRONG of hasbro to sue for "gameplay concepts" Capcom tried this about 5-7 years ago against Data East for their game, Fighter's Destiny. almost the characters were copies of Street Fighter 2, but the kicker is that the actual gameplay was almost identical! the Ryu equivalent had all the same movies and etc... and guess what... Capcom LOST! I'm guessing the main reason HAsbro won was because the companies made it look to much like the original and that might have skewed the judge's perspective, in my opinion, the judge presiding over the case should retire.
"Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"
The issue is a bit different from what it seems.
These are specific games and specific concepts. These are not Pole Position versus San Francisco Rush, or Street Fighter versus Mortal Kombat.
So-called "classic" games are fun and the reason they are fun is that they are generally ripping off specific older games. e.g., so-called Missile Defender. Under the compelling logic that weighed on this case, however, iD software couldn't just sue someone else who made a 3D run-around-and-kill game. If the game were called earthQuake; featured extremely similar characters, maps, and strategies; if it were marketed on nostalgia and its very similarity to the original Quake, then, yes that could be grounds for a suit.
I don't agree with the ruling either, but for a different reason. Music, books, and some other works after a period of time (maybe like 50 years? hoo nose) eventually get passed into the public domain. Because of the pace of evolution of software, and the nature of it as a work of art, i believe it should become a part of the public domain much more quickly.
Sorry if this was a rant...just don't wanna see the whole thing skewed. If you disagree, sorry....flame away. I had to do it.
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"I think there is a world market for, maybe, five computers." __ IBM Chairman, 1943 __
Does Netscape and Microsoft have to pay some guy who designed the concept of the browswer?
This can't be happening. The judje obviously doesn't truly understand the nature of his ruling
I'm waiting to see a case against M$ for copying the ideas for Nibbles
Nibbles copied TRON, didn't it?
Will I retire or break 10K?
And then there's the Dr. Mario patent, which I'm proud to break. I did, however, build a failsafe in that game: change two lines of C code and you get a different, non-infringing game that's just as fun.
Will I retire or break 10K?
1) A bunch of first person gun game clones like House of the Dead.
I'm still waiting for an arcade game where you hold a joystick in your left hand. It'd be like id's Quake: point the gun at the side of the screen to turn; move the joystick to move your body.
In the meantime:Will I retire or break 10K?
Though I must say I hate all that shitty windows shareware. Like who wants to pay $15 for a piece of shit.
There's lots of freebeerware and free software. Point your browser to the Depot to see a sample of free games that run on Windows (mostly in DOS not-emulation; many are portable free software and can be recompiled for Windows), or you can come.to my page and...Will I retire or break 10K?
i hope you're just playing dumb
Final Fantasy is an original concept? You are kidding, right?
This suit stops near identical clone games. If I write a game with a little yellow pie chart guy that eats dots and gets chased by ghosts and call it "Puc Man" it's a clear rip-off of Pac Man.
If I use side scrolling in a game, I'm not necessarily copying Pitfall.
It's protecting Hasbro's IP.
I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but so be it.
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If god dropped acid, would he see people? -- George Carlin
I believe Looking Glass was the originator of the first-person 3d genre with Ultima Underworld. Granted, the guns were all id, but the game was LG (then Blue Sky, before they got totally mixed-up with Origin)
these corporate mergers/buyouts suck more and more
Hasbro couldn't create anything new and original, they have to go out and buy companines that did. After the talented people all leave, hasbro has the rights, but thats it - they then hire talentless people to continue product lines.
Does anyone think D&D is going to go anywhere now that hasbro owns it? I thought WoC would, but the greedy corp pigs saw poke$ and swallowed up one of the few good gaming companies in existance.
We need choice, and hasbro is trying to destroy that. (Granted, in this case they had some very valid points, innumerated elsewhere, but the concept "copyright" is insane). since hasbro has D&D, lord british ought to be scared now - ultima is too much like D&D....
its lawyers like hasbro's that prove my sig...
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
Companies should just stop innovating and wait to sue. It is getting to the point where waiting for lawsuits is a companies best bet. It is all so sad.
I am not a lawyer, but I am an author and publisher and handle copyright filings as a regular part of my business. In 1970 something or other, I can't remember the exact year, the copyright structure was given a grand overhaul and the length of copyright was extended to "the life of the author plus 50 years." A few years ago the Bono Copyright Act extended this to "the life of the author plus 75 years." In other words, this stuff won't go public domain in your lifetime Sparky, or your kids either, or maybe THEIR kids. Now, here's where things get really interesting, what if the "author" is a .....corporation? Think about that one for a while and see if the ramifications hit you. Hey Jon, here's a ripe corporatism theme for you to work on.
You have the interpretation backwards. The 25% rule is meant to be that no than 25% can be the same, and thus, 75% must be original. With the case of music you have to realize that most of it stands in the public domain and has for as much as thousands of years. A chord progression that has been in use since, say, the Revolutionary War, is already the property of the public and thus copyright issues don't have to be considered. On the flip side please note that George Harrison lost on the basis of just *3 notes*.
Logically.... I guess all the bands churning out a million verse chorus verse songs should be quaking too... This is insane.... The wheel would have been invented a million times if no-one had got round to it... The same with most games formats insane.......
((I am responding to my previous near unintelligable post! (written in haste under stress!))
The wheel.....some things will be invented in due course. If not today, then tomorrow, or later.
The same goes with game formats...I am sure most of the games Hasbro lay claim to would have been 'invented' at some point or other. I don't see how anyone can claim intellectual rights to something so trivial. They are not paradigm shifts or works of genius that came from the heavens..........
Pop/rock bands use the same song format and melodies over and over again (ad finitum ad nauseum)......if someone could prove they 'invented'this song structure would we expect them to sue the hell out of every band in the business?
And the movie industry?
...the art world in general.....where do we stop?
If the world were to pool its resources together and use them to the best advantage of society the world would be cured of all its present inflictions..war, poverty disease etc.
This kind of news gives me little hope for change....insanity prevails
Mean-spiriteness and mediocrity reign supreme
sigh........................
I guess it's boycott-time, fuck Hasbro and their stupid lawyers.
---
guillaume
give me all your garmonbozia
... to see some of the clones stomped out. They wouldn't be all that bad, except they don't just try to emulate the gameplay, they shamelessly rip the creators off, right down to the characters. The average customer who walks into a software isle and sees the round, yellow, dot-gobbling face of Pac-the-Man (real clone) staring back at them from the box art probably wouldn't know the difference. Which is exactly what the thieving company wants. Wouldn't most of us get upset if some company copied every last detail of our most beloved games and released them under their own title? "OrcCraft?" "Not Real"? "Quack?" We'd get upset if there *weren't* lawyers fighting like jackals over the matter! It's not about making money. It's about preventing thievery. Hasbro is doing the right thing, trying to protect their intellectual property, and I respect them for this.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
I was wondering why when I installed Caldera Linux, the little game of Tetris that it lets you play while it is installing is called a "Tetris like game"...when it is obviously totally Tetris.
Wonder if the VC can be sued retroactivly for the "tet" offensive...and what about that tetrishedroncannabinol?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Hey, I forgot to ask you...what part of the country are you from? In my home city (Portland, OR), we have a chain of 'retrocades' open, where they have all the classic atari era arcade games and nothing else.
But I can't say I disagree with you...Street Fighter II was the coolest game, when I was twelve years old.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Garethwi is right
3D Monster Maze was the precursor of Dungeon Master and if not the first 3D action game, was the first mass market 3D action game.
Of course it basically was 'Hunt the Wampus' transposed to 3D.
Hey wait a minute could that mean 'Hunt the Wumpus' (Circa 1970's sometime) is the precursor of Quake ?
I think we should start a protest to slashdot. Agree or disagree? Slashdot is getting funky these past few days, they need to change their staff, the staff is turning into dinosaurs. They are evil!! Stop the slashdot staff, Protest!
Slappy
Comments on the gaming newsgroups (e.g. rec.games.frp.industry) in the past few weeks have claimed that Hasbro, for decades, has had a habit of legal challenges to anyone making anything similar to one of their own properties (which only recently started including computer games and role-playing games). They are very big and have a lot of money with which to pursue such lawsuits. Any prolonged lawsuit can bankrupt a small competitor regardless of its true legal position. It does not matter whether the litigant's claims are legally suspect (e.g. ridiculously overbroad copyright claims) when the little guy has to settle or die financially. A barratry (misue of the courts) countersuit seems to me to be likely to fail, especially in the USA.
"Yo' ideas need to be thinked befo' they are say'd" - Ian Lamb, age 3.5
Meet CopyCop, the latest in original games from Dallasoft! Assume the role of Mr. I. M. Rich, a copyright lawyer in modern America! Dazzle at 12 intense 3D courtrooms, battle greedy little upstart companies who are trying to infringe upon your client's copyrights, and earn a new Lexus for each new precedent your antics can set in court! Not only is CopyCop fun, it's educational! Learn about mushy copyright laws and effective tactics used in REAL courtrooms! But wait, there's MORE! Order NOW and you'll also recieve Divorce Court Mayham absolutly free! That's two games for the price of ONE! What are you waiting for? Pick up that phone and dial now! This phony ad is (C)2000 Dallasoft Inc. and may not be reproduced in any way without the express telepathic consent of Dallasoft.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ting-a-ling
These games are obvious clones made simply for profitting off Atari and Hasbro's work. "Mac-Man"? "Partiot Command"? "Missle Defender"?
This is nothing new and anyone who's aware of anything that's going on with anything in the world knows this.
- Jeremy Fuller
On a more realistic note, for every Basic Instinct there's a Final Analysis. For every Bugs Life there's an Antz. For every Dazed and Confused, there's a Stoned Age. For every crappy-but-successful mainstream venture, there's a marginally shittier and less successful counterpart, sometimes predating the one everyone is familiar with. The difference is, the film industry is established and mature enough to know that suing over it is laughable.
How many boards would the mongols hoard if the mongol hordes got bored?
There you go giving someone a bad idea.
I believe Hasbro is legally justified in bringing the suit. First of all, it pertains to copyright, not trademarks or designs or patents (which are different). Hasbro alleges the clones have substantially copied its products. The whole idea of what is a 'concept' is not very clear, but if these clones simply add or subtract a few ideas, they ARE copying Hasbro's games. One thing the courts will judge on is the similirity of the end product. Anyone can see that most Tetris clones are just that; clones. Thats why the defendants settled out of court rather than fight it out. Whatever we think of large corporations, they did spend money and effort designing the game, and their rights should stand. The reason why (and this is my guess) that they are suing now is because they are setting up a website, and all these games are on the site. Obviously it'll want people to play games on their site. Can they legally bring a suit after so many years? Yup. Copyrights remain in a work for quite a long time.
No, you can't sue on the concept alone. It depends on the extent to which the products are similar. Similarity of concept is one criteria, and even then depends on how general or creative the concept is.
Um, that page is http://www.idsoftware.com/corporate /idhist.html.
Actually, Commander Keen was not strictly an id game. It was developed by JC and co. before id was id. Wolf3D was the first official id game. To learn more, check out this page at idsoftware.com.
Looks like they did an out-of-court settlement, and as such this does not serve as a legal judgement by a federal court, no? So nothing is decided yet...
The Demon ISP case in the UK was settled also, no precident was set, but see what it's doing to the ISP industry in Britain anyway.
Just because no legal precident is set doesn't mean it won't have a chilling effect, very few computer game companies have pockets deep enough to fight the Hasbros of the world in court.
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Open mind, insert foot.
Ok, maybe this comment was meaning someone else proving ownership, but if not, then the only worry is Quake clones.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
*g* check the quality of your crack, man, I think someone is cutting it with rat poison, Drano, and ergot fungus ;)
Wouldn't they have to be almost exactly identical for it to be a copyright violation? If the code is significantly different, could it still be a copyright violation even if the games look similar? I'm not sure I even understand what the hell copyright is anymore. It's getting all bent out of shape.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
"many" of Willy's are based on prior work? Isn't it all of them except, awe, nuts, I can't remember the name. The last one, on the island, in which he knocks the other playrights of the time? Oh, yeah: Tempest.
Nothing original about the stories he wrote; it's the *telling* that he did soe well . . .
Agreed.
Hasbro claims "Hasbro has a long history of building great game brands. This suit is aimed at ensuring we can continue to deliver the high-quality, high-value games that consumers have come to expect from Hasbro Interactive. If we succeed, our development and licensing partners succeed and, ultimately, the game consumer wins."
Yet is it in the consumers' best interest to have fewer choices? What if the officially available version of a given Hasbro game is riddled with bugs or missing features? Wouldn't it be more in the consumer's best interests to have alternate versions competing with Hasbro - if not to provide those missing features then to at least force Hasbro to give attention to what consumers wish for, for competitive reasoning. Classic games, by definition, are not areas of innovation! Thus they are very succeptible to the problems inherent in monopolization.
Well I will tell you what I think: We need to have more Free games, with the source code available for customization and enhancement. And I'm not just spouting opinion here, I've running a net project to develop and promote Free games, both big and small. There is lots to do, and we could use help.
Hasbro's up and coming games.com site!
3 guesses why they're now starting to crack down on clones, and just one guess what they'll do to all the out there. Hint: Hasbro::WotC::TSR has done it before.
Better snag shareware games while you can, and Napsterize them down to the underground. ;-)
How literate IS /. nowadays? First of all, they settled out of court (for you dummies means a judge didn't make anyone do anything) and all they asked for was these companies not produce obvious rip-offs of games Hasbro now owns. If someone came out with AlwaysQuest which was so much like EverQuest consumers couldn't tell the difference, any smart judge would throw the book at AlwaysQuest, if it even got to that. Get a clue people, even the GPL doesn't allow crap like this.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Didn't we already hash this issue out when Apple sued Microsoft for copying their gui design? Microsoft won that case, and now Hasbro won this one... That strikes me as a bit of a contradiction, but not entirely surprising. It's tradition in America that the richest always win. Microsoft only lost its recent court battles because of the shear force of money against them. Need I even mention O.J. or the MPAA.
Politicians yammer and clammer (both are real words) about campaign finance reform, but what about legal system finance reform? How is anyone who isn't a multibillionare supposed to survive in such a system without caving in to the whim of every large corporation?
Read the article, not the headline. Two of the defendents settled, there was no finding of copyright violation or judgement handed down.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
That would fall under 'trademark'. The name is too similar to the trademarked 'pacman' name.
Copyright only gives you the rights to an original work.. not other things that 'look ' the same.
Correct me if my impression is wrong but the megacorps seem to entering a cultural shark-feeding frenzie in trying to stake out a market stomping ground. It seems that the "best" tactic for "owning" a loyal cult following (whether game or movie show) is take a scorched earth approach to similiar genres. It's equivalent to Doyle claiming all rights to detective stories just because his Sherlock Holmes pioneered the style. Or Disney claiming all cat and mouse stories just because it would clash with their beloved Mickey. Now claiming a cultural franchise with guarenteed audience to sell do-dackies and merchandising to may be profitable in the short-term but how clued is the fan-base to stand for it? One wonders whether creative gaming souls will then become another version of street musicians being squeezed by the music distributors? Afterall, you learn by imitating your peers and predecessors and it would be nice to eat while doing so. Curtailing this outlet for younger souls to practice and demonstrate their talents seems a short sighted goal, if not outright illegal under anti-competitive practices. A company is entitled to protect their stuff developed over the years but attempting to fence in a culture commons will only hurt the public in the long term by depriving them of alternatives.
IMHO, mental monopolies are just as damaging as physical monopolies. Someone needs to get out a cluebat for the MBAs running the show.
LL
Sorry, my brain is fried today, I meant to say that about pac-man, as tetris was obviously invented by the russians. Anyways neither game, was an original idea of atari.
Well accually I believe Atari was only licensed to make the console version of tetris, by Namaco, So Hasbro in no way owns the concept to tetris, but I guess they didn't realize that. But I could be SERIOUSLY wrong.. who knows :)
Copyrights are granted by the government because it was decided that some protection of written works benefited the public by encouraging authors.
This protection is enforced by the justice system, paid for by the public, if they don't get eventual access to the copyrighted material, why should they bother paying to protect it?
IMHO, any copyrights longer than 25 years are unconscionable. You're asking people to pay for copyright protection that will extend for upwards of four generations, and by that time, will almost assuredly have been extended. They're paying for something that not even their great grandchildren will reap the benefits of.
I'd say that 25 years from the date of creation is pretty good.
If that's not good enough, perhaps trademarks and copyrights could be merged a bit, to prevent the use of trademarked characters even once the copyrighted material goes public. That way, Aladin, and Beauty and the Beast would both be public, as would all the content in a Mickey Mouse cartoon, except the image of the mouse. But you could replace the mouse with another character and display the work.
I really don't see why we should bother protecting copyrights when they last so long.
And if someone's family needs to eat, they've had 25 years to do something about it.
As we grant wider and wider protections, so that any talking mouse with big ears is a violation, and so that any game with the same basic gameplay is a violation, we limit the scope of what people can do without stepping on the toes of the corporation that snapped up some old IP, not for its direct value, but for its value in blocking any material the competition could make.
Anyways, I think it's fairly obvious that the only entities really server by 100+ year copyrights are corporations. I personally value the rights of people over those of corporations. Perhaps my off-the-cuff ideas aren't the best, but something needs to be done to change the IP laws to help the people, not the corporations. To some degree helping the corporations helps the people, past that degree, the people begin to lose these benefits and eventually suffer. Some reworking needs to be done.
Hasbro IS still selling these games.
They're mostly bargin bin/3in1 compilations under the title "Atari Clasics".
a 2600hz tone used to be able to be used to let you do all kinds of things to the phone system when you pumped it into a phone line, and let you 'hack' the telephone network (called phreaking). You can't do this anymore, AFAIK, but there used to be a lot of connection between the hacking and phreaking movements in the 1980s.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Interesting that you mention Final Fantasy, since Squaresoft has attempted to PATENT it.
0 5649862__
http://www.patents.ibm.com/cgi-bin/viewpat.cmd/US
I don't remember the year, but Philips used to have a game for their P2000 computers called 'Happelaar', which was also a pacman clone. They did loose however, even though the graphics were different. Not that you could ever get quality graphics on a P2000... Happelaar probably never made it to the international market, just the Netherlands.. must have been the name too, which is not exactly international.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
On the first screens, you have a copyright notice with the year usually. I'm pretty sure Galaga and all those old games have them.
And copyrights last a long deal longer than patents also (I think it's something like 25 years about the death of the author for books).
If it was based on a patent, they'd lost because they didn't make any move to protect those patents earlier, if you don't want them enough to try to protect them, the courts ain't going to give them back to you years later when you finally wake up.
But here the companies didn't loose, they just decided to settle to get Hasbro off their back. If the lawsuit would cost you more than those game would give you in 10 years, I understand why they would want to settle as well. This doesn't mean that every Tetris clone is illegal, though it could encourage Hasbro to go against them in court of law as well now that they settle with those two.
Just look at the 'Mac Man' screen:
a c_man.gif
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jimg/pourri/m
Hasbro has a case here, a rip off this close deserves to be punished. Though, the ghost design is pretty neat.
A couple years ago, Hasbro bought up several classic titles to have software companies rewrite them in all the modern 3-D splendor that wasn't available to the orignal designers.
A few years ago, I was a programming intern for a game programming company in Gaithersburg, MD. We worked on Centipede there and Hasbro was the publisher, they had brought the project to us. For those who never played (quite a few), the main game wasn't like the old one, it was given a plot and a hero (Wally), and 3D Scenery, etc.. An action game with an objective to stop the evil Centipede Queen. Well Hasbro had plans to work on several more classic games ("retrogames" as they called them..). They asked us (and probably any other developer working on one of their "retrogames") to make sure we included a classic version of those old games which was supposed to be the exact same game as the old one only with 3D graphics.
Now Hasbro is tired of paying royalties after purchasing the titles so I guess now they have successfully argued they don't have to. This won't stifle modern game design, it doesn't have to. Modern game design, according to most publishers, not just Hasbro, is retrogames. Not just retrogames, but sequels, and just more of the same. Publishers want to be sure that they will get a return so according to some boardroom line graph, new game ideas never sell. I mean cmon, what works for EA Sports has to work for everyone. Look how Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy haven't changed since the last time you played em. There are some publishers out there appreciate orginality, probably the most daring one being Gathering Of Developers, but their problem is that they don't have the financial backing companies like Hasbro have, so they only put money behind very few titles, and their requirements are strict. Our company couldn't put a game out with them because one of their requirements is to have _aready_ put out a succesful game. Others, like id Software (even though Quake 3 is another fps, it was an untested idea that #1, you need a 3D Accelerator to play it, and #2, the big one, that there is really no single player), and Bungie with Halo, and Sierra when they put out HalfLife (valve was the developer, and I still give them credit for putting out the greatest game of all time) and a couple others who put out quality software. They have the money to do this tough..The solution? Support small-time games, support shareware games, and find out before hand that sequels and retrogames suck. Play something fresh.
karma whore.
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WWGD? (What Would Goku Do?)
I don't see how this could happen. There's no way to "own" an idea unless you copyright or patent it and I don't recall a galaga type patent anywhere. I see this as a foreshadowing of more crappy hasbro improvements to games that were great alreay, and invariably get worse.
Colm Atkins
Creating a new adaptation from an existing concept is always a risky proposition. The original creators lose their hold on a possible money-maker (Virtual Defender, or Space Invaders 2000, for hypothetical examples), if the image of the original concept has been hurt by cheap clones.
(On the shoulders of Giants =anagram>
... onto this dangerous shelf,
The foulness tarnish Good)
[
A lot of the gameplay ideas (and certainly the story lines) are Unique. At least, in my experience. Not that I do a whole lot of gaming, console or otherwise...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
How come none of the games you link to are the versions under dispute? The games you link to are made by companies which did not settle any lawsuit with Hasbro. I believe that is called misinformation.
Exactly what does this mean? The games are the same, GT Interactive and Varcon are being sued for packaging them together and selling them. Secondly if you had read the article or my post you would see that GT Interactive and Varcon delisted the games as part of the settlement so the exact copies cannot be linked to because they no longer or on GT Interactive's page and I could only find this link for Varcon System's game pack.
The lawsuit is undoubtedly based on copyright law, similar to the look & feel lawsuit of apple v microsoft. And the "look & feel" of the game clones is so close to that of the origional games in these cases, it is very hard to tell the difference. Even the NAMES are almost identical, such as "Mac-Man" or "Patriot Command".
Also, this is simply an out of court settlement. GT interactive and one other just agreed to stop and pay an "undisclosed sum", probably a token amount. The companies acted in their best self interest, since it is not like these atari clones are making any significant money, and fighting it out in court would cost more than capitulation.
It is unclear whether this lawsuit could really win, it would undoubtedly come down to a case by case, game by game basis in court.
Even if Hasbro won some of the counts against some of the companies, it would not have the chilling effect that the prophets of doom may cite. You can't copyright concepts, and there are no patents on gameplay (yet). Under copyright or look & feel suits, Unreal Tournament and Wolfenstein 3D are so vastly different, you won't mistake one for another.
Yet how do you tell the difference between MacMan and PacMan?
Test your net with Netalyzr
#include <dos.h>
int main() { sound(2600); return 0; }
I'd post a binary at my web page, but I'm booted into GNU/Linux at the moment. But don't try phreaking with it: the phone company now has a "blue box" alarm.
Will I retire or break 10K?
A man who goes by the handle 'Elendale' has been undergoing a lengthy lawsuit by Hasbro due to the proliferation of a computer game he recently re-wrote called 'Pong'. This game is owned by Hasbro who acquired the rights to it just recently. Hasbro's lawyers commented "This kid broke the law by distributing Pong through the net without paying Hasbro its IP fees, we must destroy this evil threat to humanity with extreme prejiduce. Oh, and we need a raise from $1000 to $1150 an hour."
Elendale was quoted as saying "This is just a warning from Hasbro. Soon they will charge royalties for everything, from D&D to the most basic game of 'tag'." He is also attempting to negotiate out of court unsuccessfully. Hasbro will settle for nothing less than $150,000 and his soul. Next on the news, Microsoft head Bill Gates seen grovelling at Steve Case's door. The Department of Justice thinks this is a ploy to give Bill sympathy, but is currently performing an in-depth investigation.
-Elendale (Now that i think about it that might just work... hmm...)
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
If you read the article, the lawsuit was fairly limited in scope. They were only suing over titles that were obvious rip-offs. These games not only took advantage of the method of gameplay, but they also tried to invoke the legacies of those games which Hasbro has rights to. That's stepping over the line. It's one thing to make a 3D shooter, and quite another to make one called "Escape from Nazi War prison, with simplistic rectangular VGA graphics that will run on an 8088." Whether or not it's friendly, it's certainly fair, and as a business, they have to enforce their intellectual property rights. Either that or they could let it go until everything becomes a standard, and then demand royalties. *cough* Unisys *cough* That certainly didn't go over well. Come on, they're playing by the rules. They haven't even asked for retroactive royalties, merely a cessation of distribution of these ripoff products. I'm quite certain that anyone who wanted to make their own asteroids game could probably get licensing fairly cheap. Or, heaven forbid, think up something new.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
By this I mean could Steve Jackson games sue Activision for Interstate 76, after all it borrows heavily from Car Wars.
Wasn't there a law suit some years ago where Capcom sued data east for some sort of copyright infringement? I belive it was over the look and feel of street fighter and Data East's first fighter. (i belive the boss was karnov of nintendo fame) AFAIK the suit was dissmissed on the grounds that Capcom didn't own the rights to martial artitsts fighting styles'. Wouldn't this also apply in this situation? A concept as loose as fighting styles could also apply to 'similar to' as reported. Of course I could be a serious fighting game fan and be wrong.
The Atari game market (I'm talking strictly about the titles marketed at the atari.com web site) now seems to be nostalgia games, so it seems logical that Hasbro would want to shut down other nostalgia titles which "rip off" their trademarked/copyrighted titles.
They also market a brand of play-by-email games. Hasbro claims to have rights to some of the originals (X-Com and Scrabble are the two I confirmed, possibly also Clue), which means they might pursue lawsuits against knockoff-makers of those titles. X-Com you'd expect, that's a newer title than the Atari titles, but what surprised me was that they also aggressively protect Scrabble.
The board game has been around for ages, and after some brief poking around, it appears Hasbro is indeed requesting that people who author free knockoffs, well, knock it off. I've seen three or four web sites in the last hour or so with Java scrabble (and such) that have been shut down, usually with a note to the effect that Hasbro made them do it. This link to a FAQ for a scrabble-playing MUD seems to describe the line between knock-off and acceptable use reasonably well.
So after a little digging around, it seems to me that this instance (Hasbro bringing a case against other game manufacturers) is a little bit noiser than other similar legal actions by Hasbro, but that Hasbro is following a standard operating procedure of protecting its intellectual property.
Whether that's a bad thing or not... I don't know.
Does this mean we won't see a digital ripoff of Hungry Hungry Hippos?
Maybe we could port it to Linux, GPL it, and update it for today's tastes -- "Pimpin Pimpin Penguins".
Well, it looks like The Onion got the scoop on the government's response before any of the others.... kinda scary, actually...
(For those of you too lazy to go look for yourselves, the headline reads "Federal Judge Rules Parker Brothers Holds Monopoly Monopoly"--Parker Brothers did the computer game in conjunction with Hasbro.)
James-rt
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Now, I think it would be GOOD to buy FIVE or SIX STUDEBAKERS
and CRUISE for ARTIFICIAL FLAVORING!!
Let's look that this calmly, without going all nuts about big corporations and patents and the GPL and so on.
If someone writes a game that really is a clone of Asteroids or Pac-Man or Centipede, as is way too common among shareware authors, is there really an issue about whether or not they swiped an existing design? The arguments I've seen against this are from people who seem to think that they can write an Asteroids clone and claim it as an original they can make money from. Now we're not talking about games that are simply in the same genre, as Pole Position and Daytona are, but games that feature a ship that moves via thrust and rotate that shoots floating rocks that get smaller each time, the only things that shoot at the player are little spaceship things that come out occasionally, and the game ends when all the rocks are gone. Is that Asteroids? You betcha.
Legal and moral issues aside, I see this as more of a complete lack of creativity on the part of many amateur game programmers. There are endless concepts for games, just as there are endless concepts for stories (Orson Scott Card has given seminars on this topic). Starting with the basic Asteroids concept, you can go crazy in all directions. How about eggs instead of rocks and groups of creatures come out when you shoot an egg, instead of simply breaking into smaller eggs? How about making the rocks explode into showers of sizzling, trail-leaving pieces when they collide, making for great chain reactions? How about replacing the rocks with spinning flowers that throw seeds that can grow into new flowers? Those seeds can be collected by the player by running over them before they get fully grown.
All of these ideas are off the top of my head, and yet all of them are way more creative than any existing "Asteroids enhanced" that we've seen over the years. Perhaps the best example is Atari's own Millipede, a 1982 sequel to Centipede. This game included all sorts of great additions to the original game: DDT bombs the explode when shot, swarm attacks, an inchworm that kicks the game into slow motion mode, mushroom growth, a moving mushroom field, a ladybug that turns mushrooms into unshootable flowers. But look at what enhancements have been done to Centipede by oh-so-creative game designers over the years. Powerups, mostly. Higher resolution graphics. Digitized sound. That's not creativity, that's just out and out knocking off.
It seems likely that they're merely exploiting their position as a deeper pocket than most any video game company to win out-of-court through fear-induced settlement. Hopefully one of these conglomerates (with acquired copyrights to old games) will eventually come up against someone (a) large enough to defend the matter in court and (b) with a sufficient financial and moral motivation to actually do it.
In this particular case, they probably only own the rights to some games in some contexts (Pac-man is the Midway licence of a Namco game, for instance; AFAIK Atari only had the rights to home computer renditions, via the 2600 licence and later Atarisoft). Tetris was probably just the arcade version licence.
In any event, this sort of chill on new versions of old games might actually be invigorating; I've enjoyed playing retro versions of cool 80's ideas, but I'd always prefer to see a new idea, and those have been few and far between for the last fifteen years or so. Since the game market isn't going away and this sort of precedent also makes any *new* ideas that much more valuable (since you can shake down later derivative versions for, um, protection money), new innovative development becomes that much more appealing and valuable.
Gawd I can't believe I used the word "innovative".
-- Life is short. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. ~ Robert Doisneau
To make a case that a copyright (not a patent) was violated, the people you're suing have to have duplicated almost exactly the program that it's claimed is being infringed. I don't believe you can claim you own an entire genre of games simply because you got there first (For instance, HalfLife and Quake are different enough that Id would have a hard time suing the creators of HalfLife.)
Your mileage may vary.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Most hits rip other games' concepts. No, Nintendo didn't create the side scroller; Activision did in Pitfall for Atari 2600 (no connection with 2600). Alexey Pajitnov of Tetris® fame didn't create polyminoes; that was from the Romans. I think you might want to play some "infringing" games.
Will I retire or break 10K?
This is all rather ironic to me, as just before reading this article, I was driving home and talking with my dad (who is a trademark lawyer) about how themes of stories (shakespeare was the example) are not copyrightable, they are so basic and so representing of humankind that for every story there are tons others with the same theme. (I'm talking about theme such as 'guy meets girl..' or 'family feud, but one member of a family has fallen in love with a member of the enemies family aka Romeo and Juliet or West side story') This seems to me to be about the same thing, themes in games, themes in stories... why are they any different? Often a game is a story (zelda,etc..). Even Doom has a theme... something about aliens..;)
Those who do not know the past are doomed to reimplement it, poorly.
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/design/features/m akegames/page2.asp says otherwise.
From their page:
Something I need to mention is that when you make your Tetris game, you can't call it "Tetris". Tetris is a trademark of the Tetris Company who is owned by Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of Tetris. It is his exclusive right to use the name Tetris, and I believe they may have won a lawsuit saying that you cannot make a falling blocks game with the syllable "tris", as it is obviously playing off the popularity of the of the name Tetris.
However, this means nothing to you if you call your game "The Sky is Falling", or anything without a "tris" in it, as they do NOT own the gameplay, interface, or idea of falling blocks. If you hear anything differently from anyone, tell them you can't own ideas, and if you require further proof you can look up information on this subject at the USPTO (http://www.uspto.gov/ ).
What I don't understand is why Hasbro decided to follow suit on these things. It's not as if Hasbro was attempting to sell these things currently. Like many have said this was ages ago.
If I develope a game and a month or two later somebody comes out with a near clone of my game then yeah I'll get pissed and probably take them to court. But come on, Pac Man is a legacy from nearly twenty years ago. Hasbro isn't loosing out on cash from the sales of these game packs.
What next, does some relative of some dead English Lord sue over PONG because it looks awfuly similar to Badmition or Tennis?
----
"War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left"
"War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left"
Steven Wright
Come on. You market a game that looks just like Pac-Man, plays just like Pac-Man, and call it "Mac-Man". The original game is not only copyrighted, but Hasbro is still making money off it.
If not for legal reasons, then for common sense reasons, they deserved to be taken to court.
This isn't a matter of a game being inspired by a classic. Mac-Man and the like are games with no creative process to them.
Besides, there is no legal precedent when the case is settled. The outcome might encourage companys to sue though. If a software company wants to sue when they are being so blatantly hosed, more power to 'em.
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Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
In 1982 (I think) Atari sued Sierra for the game jawbreaker, a Pacman clone. They lost when it was proved that the game was different and had different graphics. Also the suit isn't over yet, If what I read was correct they settled with two of the defendants. Story at: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2552 599,00.html?chkpt=zdhpnews01 Also see the Extreme Games LLC(one of the defendants) website at: http://www.xgames3d.com/ And one article by a game designer: http://www.gamedev.net/reference/business/features /hasbro1/ If this suit is upheld it could kill the game industry. John Carmack will go from just rich to filthy stinkin rich(if he lowers himself to that level). John if you read this please don't.
About a year ago, I took a creativity class at school (yes, I know, someone will argue you can't teach creativity. Not the point of this post). One of our assignments was to develop a game -- any sort of game, board, puzzle, card, what have you. Our instructor claimed to have come up with several games himself, and sold them to companies such Mattel, Hasbro, Parker Brothers, etc.
Now, obviously, how much our games could be like other games was a big issue. It's hard to come up with something new, as most of the posts in this thread recognize. Apparently, the rule that has been agreed on in the industry at large (not necessarily computer games) is that your game must be "25%" different. How you figure what % of a game is alike and different is something beyond me, but our instructor informed us that court cases have been decided over this rule. It also explains the state of things to some extent; there are a lot of games that are somewhat alike, but maybe changed 1/4 (there are also complete knock-offs, but I don't think you find them so much in the market at large).
If this is all true (and I don't have any documentation or references, sorry), then I wonder how much of this might go over into the computer game industry...
Tweet, tweet.
Acknowledging Microsofts rights to crashes such as HEAD ON, SIDE SWIPE, MEMORY LEAK and BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH. "It's just a bunch of useless junk" said Joe of Joe's Salvage.
Joe's Salvage has agreed to cease and desist the use of crashed items based on these and other properties Microsoft owns or licenses.
___
1) A bunch of first person gun game clones like House of the Dead.
2) A bunch of street fighter clones.
3) A bunch of racing clones all of which date back to the original Pole Position.
4) An occasional pre-1987 game. It's usually Ms. Pacman.
Console gaming is in slightly better shape. At least you can find some original concepts in the epic role playing games like Final Fantasy or Star Ocean.
It's a shame that distributing those ROMs is illegal, though. We're in serious danger of losing a lot of those old classics from back when game developers were still creative. I'd love to be able to show my kids space invaders running under MAME but that's probably going to be impossible by the time I have kids. Thanks, Hasbro and way-outdated Copyright laws.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I cannot say exactly what the legal ramifications of a cash settlement plus an offer to stop selling the disputed software will do to the industry as a whole but we must remember this: The disputed games were complete rip offs of the Hasbro games with graphics changed. Look at MunchMan, Mac Man, and Missile Defender which are three of the disputed games. I am not so sure that this settlement will translate directly into lawsuits based on game genre.