Copyright Violations on Free Software?

Marek Futrega asks: "What can independent developers do to protect their copyrights to free (not GPL) software. I've found my game with a changed name, logo, and copyright notice on two web sites (http://www.kita-kits.com/iskrabol and http://www.surfshop.net.ph/games/skrabble/) I don't think I can sue the company or something -- they are half a world away from me and I have no funds. Is bad press the only thing I can do for them?"

Comments

What do you mean by free?

[cr0sh]

Free binaries? Or is source code included? If source is included, is it just there for educational purposes (like many game coding books do), but you retain copyright?

To be honest, I don't think there is a lot you can do, outside of bad press. Maybe the best thing to do is learn from it, and move on. If you have invested a ton of time into the coding, ask yourself what the time was worth - maybe it would be better to go the legal route...

Your situation sounds like something that happened to me, though my situation wasn't as clear cut. I created a game, and sent it to a game dev company here in Phoenix (under an NDA aggreement), trying to get my foot in the door for a job (no luck). They played it and liked it, but they were looking for 3D developers (it was a 2D game), so no dice (NBD, I thought).

A few months later, I am looking around, and found a web site with a Windows version (mine was DOS only) of nearly my exact game (even the name was similar)! Since I don't know who released the game (it definitely wasn't the game dev company I contacted - I thought it might either be a coincidence, or one of the coders at the company ripped the idea), I decided "What the heck, I have nothing to lose" - and released the full code to the game (can't remember if I did it under GPL, or PD - doesn't matter) on my web site (prior to that, it was the binary only).

I didn't feel like a drawn out battle over such a fuzzy issue - it wasn't blatent enough to warrant anything like that...

I support the EFF - do you?