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Avoiding DMCA Woes As an Indy Game Developer?
androidstevep writes "I was just on the receiving end of DMCA takedown notice for my game in Android Market, 'Super Pac.' Namco Bandai have filed the notice with Google, claiming breach of copyright of their game 'Pac-Man.' Although my version is obviously inspired by the original arcade game, no original artwork or sound has been copied. The problem from my point of view is that the DMCA notice is not clear where or why the breach is alleged. My guess is that maybe the name is too similar, although I did a trademark search for 'Super Pac' before release and came up with nothing. Furthermore, Google have disabled my access to this app, presumably as required by the DMCA, so I am unable to even make whatever modifications would be required. As a part-time developer with limited means (i.e. can't afford expensive lawyers), but willing to make best efforts to avoid legal issues, how does one negotiate what seems to be a difficult minefield of trademarks, copyrights and DMCA? Does anyone have tips in this area?"
"Instructions: Based on the classic arcade game Pac-Man, the aim is to eat all the pills in the maze, while avoiding the four ghosts. There are also power-pills available in each corner which temporarily turn the ghosts blue, and more importantly, edible! Bonuses are awarded for eating ghosts. Fruit bonuses also appear and can be eaten for additional points."
Of course you got an infringement notice.
It's just a trademark violation.
Nothing personal, but seriously dude your game looks EXACTLY like Pacman. Not a little like, but exactly like. If you had made the game with marshmello's and a doughnut then I'd be saying "ya, those bastards!" but you just copied the game and gave it a new name. IANAL but if you copied my game, and put a new name on it I'd be a little upset too.
once more into the breach
wait wait /.
wait
You remade pac-man, down to the name, all mechanics, images (but I didn't copy them!) -- they match likeness; and you're wondering why you got a copyright infringement notice? What? How does this even get posted on
Hate to say it, but the best advice is to lawyer up. IANAL, but I am working in the IP field, not in the US though. This, of course is no legal advice, but I can't see how you breach their copyright. On the trademark front, though, you might be close to violating theirs - your name is close to the original and strongly alludes to it. With strong trademarks like "Pac-Man", this might be enough to infringe. To get that sorted, however, you will really need a lawyer - the playing field is just to uneven between you and Namco otherwise. Again, IANAL, especially not yours, and this is no legal advice :P
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Terrorism/form-letter.html
http://www.chillingeffects.org/question.cgi?QuestionID=132
http://www.crucialp.com/resources/tutorials/web-hosting/how-to-file-dmca-counter-claim.php
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2010/06/03/7-common-questions-about-dmca-counter-notices/
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You could try developing something original. Why do you think you can just make money rewriting someone else's idea on a new platform. I looked at the site for your game and I don't know how you cant see that you just ripped off Pac-Man. If I were to release a game based on Super Mario called Super Super Mario and it looked and played exactly the same as the original wouldn't I be guilty of copyright infringement.
Posted as AC cuz slashdot has an anti copyright bias. Im not trolling.
The best advice is probably "Get a real lawyer", which is generally economically unfeasible.
Speaking strictly as a 'neither a lawyer nor your lawyer' though, Bandai's DMCA notice sounds like bullshit. Your game may well amount to trademark infringement or even step on some kind of insane patent(apparatus and methods for inducing gamer to care about motile pie-chart); but DMCA notices deal only with copyright violations. Not trademarks, not patents, not defamation, not libel, etc.
Unless your game contains sprites/sounds etc. either ripped directly or falling into the category of "derivative work", a DMCA notice is just the cheapest way to get you offline, not a legally correct approach. In fact, not that this ever happens, Bandai may actually have exposed themselves to some sort of liability by bad-faith filing of one, not that that helps you much. Of course, Bandai could likely crush you like a bug with actual lawyers, this is just a low-cost first shot.
"Pac-Man" is trademarked, not copyrighted. They would hit you with a cease-and-desist for trademark infringement if that were the case.
I'm not sure how DMCA notices work in detail, so I don't know if a lack of specifics makes it unenforceable or not.
The only thing I can think of that might trip you up is if the map layout is identical. I'm not entirely sure how that would work for Copyright.
It would be a risk on your part to tell Google not to take it down, so you should probably talk to a copyright lawyer first.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
I am quite certain the problem here is the "Pac" in the name, if the game itself is a Pac-Man lookalike then similar sounding name is an obvious trademark collision. In other words, you can make a Tetris kind of game and put it on the Android market, you just can't name it "Super Tetris".
Your game is a complete knock off of the original. From your website, it looks like you copied:
(1) the pac man character
(2) the ghosts
(3) the dots and power dots
(3) the style of the maze
This is clear case of copyright infringement.
You say that "no original artwork or sound has been copied", but this is clearly not true. If you draw it yourself to look like the original, it is still a copy. Instead of copying the original do something new. Change the characters. Put the bad guy box in a corner. Have the maze look different.
You clearly have trademark issues as well. "Pac" is distinctive so any name using "pac" will likely be a trademark infringement.
Obviously the more laws there are the more laws can be broken, and therefore the more criminals will be.
Simple logic will tell you that.
Without laws there would be no criminals.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Hire a lawyer. He'll file a counter notice, and defend you in the lawsuit. Or preemptively sue.
Or hire a wizard and have him wave his fingers to make your game clone go away.
Seriously, just drop it.
Don't torture yourself by trying to fight a fight that you will never win.
Start over (from scratch) with something else.
Make up something *original* next time.
Good luck.
First, what is a DMCA notice for: There are three parties involved; you, Bandai, and Google. The DMCA notice says: Google can either throw you out or be part of the copyright infringement. Google wants nothing to do with any copyright infringement, so they throw you out. You, on the other hand, can send a latter to Google claiming that you didn't commit any copyright infringement. Google will then reinstate you - they played by the rules of the DMCA act, and they will not be liable for any copyright infringement. And Bandai _will_ take you to court. Guaranteed. If you do nothing, then Bandai may be happy that they achieved their goal, or take you to court.
Now examine your situation. First, did you commit their copyright or not? Copying the game play is most likely copyright infringement. If you did commit copyright infringement, then the best you can do is hope you don't get sued. If you didn't commit copyright infringement, the situation is roughly the same unless you have lots of money to defend yourself. One iron rule: Don't talk to them without a lawyer. Anything you say will be used against you. If you can't afford a lawyer, don't talk to them unless you have to. And if you have to, get a lawyer whether you can afford it or not.
I agree with others. You could probably file a counter-DMCA notice, and be fine.
Then, NamBandiCo will take more notice, look at your game, and sue your pants and several layers of skin from you for blatant infringement. And they will (rightfully) win. And it will be good. For them.
So basically, count yourself lucky you only have a DMCA notice and call it a day.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Have a look at this game, the guy has ripped off Pacman... there is no doubt. I'm sorry, but he's pleading innocent when he's trying to profit off an established product. Not only that, he's tried to ride their coat-tails by including "pac" in the title. I'm all for fighting bad DMCA notices but this one has been targeted appropriately and andriodstevep should be ashamed of himself for trying to so blatantly rip off an existing product.
(Note: I am an IP attorney, but I am not your IP attorney. This is not legal advice.)
You should consult a competent IP attorney in your jurisdiction. Many attorneys offer free consultations, sliding fee scales, fixed-fee arrangements, and many also do outright pro bono work. Many attorneys, especially IP attorneys, are often nerds themselves and are likely to be sympathetic and willing to work with you to develop a custom fee arrangement. In this economy a lot of attorneys have free time and are going to be more willing to work for cheap or free in the hopes of developing better paying business in the future. Don't be afraid to ask directly about costs.
All that said, you definitely don't want to ignore this. The Pac-Man copyrights are well-established and well-defended in court. You really should consult an attorney.
You should speak with EFF about this. They might be able to offer you (real) legal advice, and if there is a defense to be mounted, might represent you. http://eff.org/
Hah. Yeah right. Recreating images in the likeness of is just as much a copyright violation as hitting copy/paste is.
Clone games go down like this all the time.
Do you know what the C in DCMA stands for? Hint: it isn't "trademark".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
A criminal is by definition someone who violates the law. And police have abused their powers since the beginning of there being police, that's relatively independent of the density of laws, it's more a measure of the corruptibility of human nature. Of course, it worsens the more power police have.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Nonsense, just because the graphics aren't direct rips doesn't mean it's not a derivative work and those are covered by copyright law too.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Looking at your artwork, it seems obvious that you copied theirs. Probably not with a photcopier, or a binary file copy, but with a paint program of some sort I'd guess. It's still copying. Whatever you believe about the rightness/wrongness of copyright itself, I think you'd be hard pressed to find even a tiny fraction of the population that wouldn't say this fits the definition of copying.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
SuperPacman is a trademark, you cannot copyright a name. I think a court would rule that "super pac" is too close to the original trademark. However, copying the "look and feel" of a game using different code and different art, is not copyright infringement. There are multiple precedents for this. If he had borrowed either code or art it would be considered a derivative work under copyright. Its software patents that are used when software preforms the same function as software you wrote first, but I doubt pacman was patented.
This wasn't legal advice, I'm just regurgitating the sage advice of past /.ers who said TWAL.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
The use of the DMCA in this case appears incorrect since he's not using any copyrighted materials.
What is happening is blatant trademark infringement; he should have been sued instead.
So he sort of has a valid complaint but as you say he doesn't really have moral cause to be complaining.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I must be in that episode of "Sliders" where they were in a world where a red traffic light was go and green meant stop.
Because on the slashdot in *my* universe, information wants to be free and anyone complaining about copyright/patent/trademark infringement is a exploiting an illegal artificial monopoly.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You can't copyright gameplay. You can patent it, though.
Dilbert RSS feed
Could you elaborate?
Emotions! In your brain!
If you are seriously complaining that you totally ripped off an extremely famous game for profit and got called out. Consider yourself lucky thats all they did!
I'd say that this is in fact what's wrong with *copyright* (if this is a case of copyright infringement, which I doubt).
Nintendo had the original idea for Pac Man in the friggin' 1980s! Don't you think it's been enough time for them to have made some money off it so we can now do our own versions?
The fact that cigar-smoking nobodies can build swimming pools and retire on huge pension for decades and decades on the back of some tiny act of creative genius is ridiculous.
I hope this guy wins, and better still, goes on to make a good deal of money from his own interpretation of Pac Man.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
This isn't worth it, the game is too much of a direct rip-off. Considering the high probability that his game is beyond help (look at the screenshot, show that to anybody and they'll say "that's pac-man!") and how little effort it likely took it's more economical to just walk away, call it a write-off and make something original next time.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I guess it was a bad choice of name. I would happy to rename the app, but because my access to the app is now disabled, I can't do this. :-P
Of course I could get access by filing a counter notice, but was too scared to do this
To answer of the "rip off" accusations: My understanding of copyright is that it's perfectly acceptable to create something that is inspired by something else as long as the original source material is not used. I would add that there are plenty other pacman clones out there with a variety of names, so I don't believe the mere act of making a similar game is a breach. It is different from the original in that
- graphics are different (but in some cases similar)
- sound is different
- ghost movement is different
- number of dots in maze is different
I am not a lawyer and as such, do not have the training and experience required to be able to help you. However, I am an American citizen and that makes me responsible for making sure I myself do not break U.S. laws. In our legal system, ignorance of the law is no excuse. While being ignorant of the law can, in some cases, change the punishment you receive, it will not excuse you from breaking the law entirely.
This is why it is so important for us to read at least the aspects of the law that are relevant to what we do. Given the nature of the Internet and computers in general, copyright law is very important to all of us. Despite this, somehow almost no one reads it yet everyone tries to wax intelligent about it.
Many laws are very very cryptic. Luckily, copyright law is not one of them. Go here to obtain a copy of the current U.S. Copyright Law:
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/
Be sure to check back regularly for updates. When reading this document, it is important that you read and understand Chapter 1, Section 101, "Definitions" before reading anything else. If you do not read this and understand it, you *WILL* misunderstand the rest of the document. Once you understand this section, the rest of the document becomes far easier to understand.
Doing this will not prepare you to battle IP lawyers in court, but it will give you a better understanding of copyright in the U.S. and help you avoid copyright issues in the first place. As always, even if you read this law, go hire a real lawyer if you know you are on shaky ground. Attempting to clone someone else' product should immediately make you realize you are on shaky ground, even if you have not read Title 17 of the U.S. Code.
Hint: You don't have to read the entire document. There are sections that do not directly pertain to most modern computing situations. However, it should become very clear very quickly which sections are important to you.
Doing this now will help you to see the infringements you have made in your game. Just one look at the screenshot of your game reveals too many copyright violations to ignore, let alone the text on your web page.
I can't believe I'm reading this on the front page of /.!
A simple consult from an IP lawyer will cost you about $400ish per hour....but it's not going to take them that long to tell you what's obvious. As others have noted this is in violation of copyright law for being a derivative work. Functionality can not be copyrighted...but we're not talking about that we're talking about a game that acts and looks EXACTLY like another game that was written a long time ago. Images and look and feel can be copyrighted. If I have a website and put copyright on the bottom and then you put up another website with the exact same images you just created yourself...it is in violation of copyright law. The same is for games.
If you want to go into business for yourself and strike it rich on some code you wrote you need to take at least an intro course to IP law. This can be found at just about any 2 year college and up for paralegals. It honestly should be included in most CS courses along with ethics relating to software development.
Let's reverse the roles here. Say you made your pacman and then some larger company came along redid all your work in a fraction of the time it took you...made their app look and feel exactly like yours and then out marketed you. What is your fall back? How would you defend yourself? Using your logic it's all fair game so to speak.
I would do what someone else above suggested. Get rid of all the images you're currently using. Redo the mazes. Call it zombie eating lawyers as some one suggested...and even then you might be at risk if you still got dots all over the maze. If you coded it right though this should be doable. Maybe make the score based on how long you can stay alive or how much of the maze you can cover instead of how many pez bits you eat.
Seriously this seems obvious...and it's a shame that a developer wasted his time recreating something and thinking he could sell it. Take an IP class...redo all the graphics to something unique...change up the rules a bit and the mazes and cross your fingers no one notices you're a pacman derivative work under the hood.
You, honestly, are a huge hypocrite.
From your own comments, in your own game, in the link you provided:
Game running slowly on your phone: .
- Try shutting down any other CPU-intensive apps.
- Try switching off optional graphics e.g. arrows.
Pacman too slow:
Pacman now moves faster (from V1.05). In later levels, some of the ghosts may move faster then Pacman
I dont wish a lawsuit on you, but should you get yourself in one, it will be well deserved. Your best bet is to just back off and hope they don't take any further legal action against you. The court costs alone will kill you, your own comments already labeled you guilty.
Want to avoid DMCA woes? Don't make a pixel-for-pixel copy of someone else's game.
You learned a valuable lesson: companies defend trademarks. Granted, DMCA takedown notice probably isn't the correct avenue, but they would have hit you with something regardless. As would you, if the roles were reversed.
I'd say looking at the images that he pretty clearly DID take the graphics from Namco Bandai. I bet he drew up the copies in something like mspaint.
The method of copying does not have to be exact or binary to be a copyright violation.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Trademark and copyright disputes between two rights holders should be resolved in a court room, not in a letter from one rights holder to a third party.
I say "rights holder" because the owner of Pac Man holds the rights to that game, and the owner of Super Pac holds the right to that game. The issue here is that the Pac Man rights holder claims that the Super Pac rights holder cannot lawfully distribute his product, and Google (private company, not a judge) has no business deciding on the validity of that claim.
I understand that Google has acted to protect itself from being sued for hosting material that violates someone's rights. But to pull Super Pac without discussion or reasonable recourse is simply too close to Apple behaviour for me to be comfortable with.
What you've run into is that Slashdot is even more vigorously anti-stupidity than they are anti-copyright.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
On further reflection, I retract my statement, theres trademark violations for sure but it's close enough it has copyright problems too.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's not the point. He should talk to an attorney because, among other things, there is nothing to stop Bambi or whoever from prosecuting this further. He can still be in further trouble, even if the game has been pulled.
Really guys, lawyers don't bite (most of them anyway(. As Grond points out, a brief conversation with one won't set you back much, if at all. He needs very basic advice, not a trip to the Supreme Court.
You then have the advantage of knowing what you should and should not do instead of having to wander through some hundred odd mutually incompatible posts. Put your big boy underwear on and go out into the real world. It's good practice.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I haven't read the full complaint against you. Are all required six elements clearly defined in the DMCA takedown notice against you (for example, they MUST make specific mention of what is being infringed, how it is being infringed, and the location of the infringement must be stated?) If not, then the DMCA notice is improper and Google followed through without proper cause as required by the DMCA.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Sounds like you're just upset you were not the owner of the company that first created it. You paint a picture of two or three men living it up at the cost of some slave driven coder. The reality is the income made from the game supports a company. And in japan at least the income differences between a ceo and the company's lower workers is not as extreme as it is in the US. So who are these fat smoking idiots again? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man
The game was developed primarily by a young Namco employee named Tru Iwatani over the course of a year, beginning in April 1979, employing a nine-man team. It was based on the concept of eating, and the original Japanese title was Pakkuman (?), inspired by the Japanese folk hero "Paku" who was known for his appetite[disputed – discuss] as well as by the Japanese onomatopoeic slang phrase paku-paku taberu (?),[31][32] where paku-paku describes (the sound of) the mouth movement when widely opened and then closed in succession.[33] Although Iwatani has repeatedly stated that the character's shape was inspired by a pizza missing a slice,[10] he admitted in a 1986 interview that this was a half-truth and the character design also came from simplifying and rounding out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi ().[34] Iwatani attempted to appeal to a wider audience—beyond the typical demographics of young boys and teenagers. This led him to add elements of a maze, as well as cute ghost enemy characters. The result was a game he named Puck Man.[35] Later that year, the game was picked up for manufacture in the United States by Bally division Midway.[34] For the North American market, the name was changed from Puck Man to Pac-Man, as it was thought that vandals would be likely to change the P in "puck" to an F, forming a common expletive. The cabinet artwork was also changed.[36]
Just because you didn't reverse engineer the code or rewrite it based off screenshots, doesn't mean that it's not a copy. If you make it look/do the same, even without original code, it's still a copy
But, I've been a juror. And, I don't care what the lawyers and judge will say. You are guilty on 21 of 23 counts. No need to list which ones.
Put this image in front of an average citizen.
http://spwebgames.com/pacman/screenshot2.png
Ask him what it is.
He'll say "Pac Man"
That's the guy that's in the jury of the trial figuring out if it's copyright infringement or not.
I do like it! I really do! When I get reactions like this, it's all worthwhile.
Now you can link to this post as proof as you continue to stalk me. I look forward to spoonfeeding you even more in the future.
If you look at the screenshot, it's pretty obvious that he didn't take the graphics from Namco Bandai.
Actually, that's not at all obvious. It's obvious he didn't copy and paste the original verbatim images, but that's not all that copyright covers. It's a violation of a copyrighted image to hand-redraw that image, unless the image is sufficiently transformed to constitute an original and independent work of art. It's generally a violation of copyright to create new images in a way that's intended to so resemble the original that people have trouble telling the difference. There are some exceptions around parodies and social commentary, but this is definitely neither of those.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Namco had the original idea for Pac Man in the friggin' 1970s!
There, fixed that for you. (source)
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
This isn't "small independent development". This is leveraging somebody else's hard work for your own profit. Hopefully you are in bigger trouble than a DMCA notice.
Be prepared to give back all of the money you earned and to throw in some additional funds as well. And go find a new line of work. You're giving the rest of us a bad name.
Yeah, that. ESPECIALLY #2. If you go into court against Namco now, everything you've said on /. and everything we've said back can be entered into evidence against you, and the other side will know your legal strategy too. This may not sound like a big deal now, but you never know what could happen. The large numbers of posts saying "dude, all you did was rip off pac-man!" could be entered into evidence to show that even a sympathetic community can't tell the difference between yours and the original, for example. That's just one possibility out of many.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
I did a trademark search for PAC-MAN at http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe and I'm unable to find a non-word mark match. Does that mean I'm incompetent in searching or does the "namco bandai"-company really only have word marks?
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq.cgi
Question: What are the counter-notice and put-back procedures?
Answer: In order to ensure that copyright owners do not wrongly insist on the removal of materials that actually do not infringe their copyrights, the safe harbor provisions require service providers to notify the subscribers if their materials have been removed and to provide them with an opportunity to send a written notice to the service provider stating that the material has been wrongly removed. [512(g)] If a subscriber provides a proper "counter-notice" claiming that the material does not infringe copyrights, the service provider must then promptly notify the claiming party of the individual's objection. [512(g)(2)] If the copyright owner does not bring a lawsuit in district court within 14 days, the service provider is then required to restore the material to its location on its network. [512(g)(2)(C)]
A proper counter-notice must contain the following information:
* The subscriber's name, address, phone number and physical or electronic signature [512(g)(3)(A)]
* Identification of the material and its location before removal [512(g)(3)(B)]
* A statement under penalty of perjury that the material was removed by mistake or misidentification [512(g)(3)(C)]
* Subscriber consent to local federal court jurisdiction, or if overseas, to an appropriate judicial body. [512(g)(3)(D)]
If it is determined that the copyright holder misrepresented its claim regarding the infringing material, the copyright holder then becomes liable to the OSP for any damages that resulted from the improper removal of the material. [512(f)]
...You really should consult an attorney.
As a law student I understand the need to disclaim everything, but it seems really funny to say that "you should consult an attorney" (which was the gist of the entire post) is not legal advice. Also, your link uses the phrase "audiovisual game". That's good for a chuckle.
Definitely true though that many IP attorneys are nerds who are likely to be sympathetic. Someday soon I'll be yet another.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Because Shakespeare and the Greeks already wrote all the common dramatic stories. Pretty much anything Hollywood makes that is any good is just a variation on thousand year old themes.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Law != Fight Club
This article should be called "Avoiding blatant plagiarism as an Indy Game Developer"
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Holy mother of screaming baby jeezus. I've been on /. for years and never have I seen such a frustrating thread as this.
Nintendo (or Namco or whoever they are) created Pac Man about 30 bloody years ago. Isn't that ENOUGH TIME for them to have made some money out of it?? Let it go to the public domain where people like this guy can re-interpret it (however incrementally) and maybe make it BETTER! If it's a boring clone, then it deserves to be - and will be - forgotten. If it's not, then cool!
To all those bleating "it's copyright infringement!" here: Would you have it that if I install the plumbing in your house, I should have the right to ask you for a payment every time you have a bath - for the rest of my life plus 70 years? And what do you think went on before about 1750? Was there no culture or innovation in the arts? There was no copyright then after all.
Can't you see that this post is a fantastic example of how we have been completely eaten up by crazy long copyright terms. WHAT DOES IT MATTER THAT THIS GAME IS A RIP-OFF OF A 30 YEAR OLD IDEA? I have no sympathy with cigar-smoking fatsos wanting to squeeze yet more money out of one person's ancient idea so they can build another swimming pool in their garden.
Absolutely none. I hope this little guy wins, and wins big.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Pac-Man is abstract. Fill in the blank: ____ runs through a maze [of ____] being chased by ______. Along the way he picks up _____. For example, in my game Mun Kee Run A monkey runs through a maze of an abandoned city being chased by zombies. Along the way he picks up bananas and shiny objects. Same concept, fresh artwork, no DMCA notice.
"That machine has got to be destroyed...."
From the looks of it, that's exactly what he did. Imitated but not copied. All of the work is his, even though it is similar.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
infringement or not?
Big corporate vs small time developer.
Right vs wrong has nothing to do with it.
It boils down to high-powered legal team vs "can't afford a lawyer". Case closed. On to the next story...
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
And, since that is in fact what he did, it would be a very good legal step. I can't see how anyone can defend the guy. It may well be a misuse of the DMCA but I guarantee there is some infringment of trademark or something in that area. He is clearly and admittedly trying to profit from someone else's work and legacy. I fail to see why that is laudable.
It's not complicated. If you want to be treated fairly, then you have to play fair. Ripping off a game lock stock and barrel, you already failed the test regardless of the merits of the DMCA notice.
This highlights why today's copyright law is flawed. Pacman was created 30 years ago, and that someone could be sued for it today is just ridiculous. Plus, add to that the over-stretched "derivative works" laws, where things that look similar but are not copies can be legally considered copies (i.e., copyright no longer applies to the expression of an idea, but to the underlying concept as well -- definitely what the founding fathers intended!).
I'm sorry, but it really pisses me off to see someone's hard work being taken off the market because something similar was released in 1980. Take away the copyright protection, and let Namco compete with the OP to make the best clone of the 1980 game!
You get permission. In writing. IN ADVANCE. Unless your idea is so unusual or unique that it can't reasonably be considered to be a direct derivative of some other copyrighted creative work, your best bet is to feel out those who might complain about it before its an issue. If they say no, you simply move on to the next idea, without losing any time, money or resources. While the world has spent the last couple of decades jumping on the multi-ghz 3D-everything bandwagon with regards to games, a lot of the simpler classic games have fallen off the radar, and yet the copyright and trademark owners have maintained and enforced them, because there's a good chance those old concepts will gain some new life in the handheld/portable/phone market, where they would never again see light on the desktop.
Besides, Pac-Man has had a long and colorful history of infringement lawsuits related to it. It's a field of landmines best left avoided.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Which part of this game did you develop exactly? The characters? The game play? The maze layout?
I haven't heard the sound effects, just seen your screen shots, but I'd be willing to bet they sound exactly like "pacman" as well.
You've developed nothing. All you did was steal someone elses ideas and try and claim them as your own. This is exactly what copyright is for. Try developing your OWN game, then claim to be an Indy Game Developer.
The DMCA does not apply to trademark infringement. It is for copyright only. Send Google a "counter-takedown notice". They will put your stuff back up and the complainant will then have to deal directly with you. Somewhere on Google's site are instructions on how to do this.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Although my version is obviously inspired by the original arcade game, no original artwork or sound has been copied.
The idea of a "copy" means a facsimile... whether produced mechanically by an image, or produced by replicating the look and feel of, say, a Van Gogh painting, or by using your own code to generate a series of pixels that create a reasonably similar set of characters to the Pac Man game, that is essentially the definition of what it means to copy, transcending and irrespective of the particular technology used to facilitate the copy—whether by hand, photocopier or computer code. What also matters here is that your objective was commercial in nature, not related to education, criticism or comment as would have exempted you under 17 USC 1, Section 107. Bear in mind I'm not a lawyer, but I do know that you need to go talk to one now.
How does one "navigate the minefield" of copyright law? Well, for starters, don't attempt to make a spinoff of the most popular arcade game of all time without permission in writing from the creators.
There are already about a hundred posts here elaborating correctly in the exact same way. Just open your eyes and read any comment talking about how it's clearly a copyright violation, and you're likely reading something correct enough for /.'s purposes.
The problem is, you aren't original. In fact, you add very little to a classic game.
Even if this isn't a copyright violation or TM infridgement, you lack common sense.
Is there a shortage of Pacman games? No.
How about next time, you make something original? You can go with your pac man idea, but change the graphics, make new boards, etc.
Or how about you just make a different type of game?
Something, well, original. Not going to give you ideas, because you seem to follow them too closely.
Be seeing you...
Did you look at the game's page? It's all copied, not just "imitated". Identical maze, identical characters, I didnt bother counting the dots but would not be shocked if they are the same count. To tip things off, he himself calls it Pac Man in his patch notes and updates.
He did not even bother to change the colors of the player character or the ghosts, they are exactly the same colors as the 4 ghosts in every single incarnation of the game.
Did you look at the game's page?
Yes.
It's all copied, not just "imitated".
Well, when I made that comment I was thinking of copy as in actually directly copying another games' resources.
I can definitely see where the problems arise, though (even though I disagree with them). It's heavily uninspired and pretty pointless.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
He is asking for advice on how to handle the legal matters of this situation. Since Japan and the US have both agreed to the Berne convention, then legally copyright exists for at least 50 years past the death of the author. It doesn't matter what you think copyright duration should be, he has broken the law, and could be liable for damages. The courts aren't going to overthrow a law that has already been ruled constitutional, so it is futile to fight this in court. The best legal advice in this situation is to let it go.
"As a part-time developer with limited means (i.e. can't afford expensive lawyers), but willing to make best efforts to avoid legal issues, how does one negotiate what seems to be a difficult minefield of trademarks, copyrights and DMCA?"
You make an original game that isn't a cheap knockoff of something that has already been cloned several fucking times. Good luck.
you have the skills to make a video game, but all you do with them is clone an old (and fairly boring) game?
Why not make a new one?
expandfairuse.org
Is Copyright out of control in this country, and frequently abused? Yes. Does it need to be toned way the hell down and reformed? Yes. Does that excuse this game? No.
Wanting to duplicate the style and basic gameplay of a game is fine. Game genres exist for a reason, and many a solid game has been made on the concept of "hey, we liked this game, but we have our own story and characters, and we're going to change gameplay elements x and y to keep it fresh". Starcraft didn't do anything especially amazing in the RTS genre, but it paired solid, well-balanced gameplay with a couple of new elements with a good story-based campaign.
Really, even a clone that doesn't really change gameplay is generally fine as long as you at least have your own story, characters, and level design. These tend to be mediocre games that few care about, but occasionally one will succeed on its story as a "meh, this is worth playing through once" kinda thing. Even if you've got nothing going for you though, your game will simply suck. It won't violate copyright.
This, however, is very much not that kind of thing. You copied the characters. You copied the exact level design. Your scoring system is identical. Your powerup works the same way, and is in the same place. You copied the gameplay down to the point that no one would know it wasn't Pacman if they didn't see the title. Well, actually, you even used "Pac" in the title, so even THAT'S not guarenteed.
That's not merely creating in a genre, nor is it even a clone. It's a flat out copy of the game. This IS exactly what copyright is meant to prevent - you profiting from someone else's exact work. Indy means nothing here. I don't care if you're 1 guy coding in his dorm room or a megacorp, you're flat out ripping off someone else's game for your own profit, and no one is going to support that.
You clearly know how to program... apply that skill to your own idea and you'll do just fine as an indy developer. You can probably even reuse a lot of that code you just wrote on a game of your own design. Alternatively, if you have no creativity, team up with someone who's great at game design and story, but fails at code, and make it a 2 man project.
That's what you get for caving in to some "official store associated with device" extortion.
bullshit of the first order.
either someone already registered something that your 'original' idea has similar parts to, or, registering it as of this moment, or will do it in a few days.
even if you run to register it yourself, its almost certain that someone registered something that can be used for dmca against you.
there is no end to this. you cant avoid dmca. eventually, if your thing becomes popular, someone will file one to you and you will either have to pay up (if you can come to a consensus) or fight it out in courts.
you said minefield. yea, it is. it is an evergrowing minefield in which anyone can mine anyone else, and the only ones who can traverse that minefield are those who have sufficient wealth. (armies of lawyers).
this is inevitable result of patent/copyright/trademark systems. you start giving ownership of ideas and creatives of mind to people, and eventually there comes a point in which the bulk of what mankind has created and what can be used for creating further stuff, becomes registered/owned. and then the turf wars begin.
it took approx 100 years for saturation to be reached. we are at the initial stage of the turf wars. from that point on, it may go in 2 ways :
a) consolidation begins, and a new era of intellectual feudalism begins, in which ideas and concepts are owned by a power hierarchy from top to bottom. (just like in the current economic system of products and services). you get to having to either pay up, or get permission for whatever you are doing.
b) rebellion begins, and countries and people start to abandon the idea of intellectual property.
c) an odd, unproductive state ensues in which the feudalism is still there, but it is largely ignored, unless what someone has created becomes popular/profitable. then vultures start hammering home.
Read radical news here
Seriously?
This guy stole someones idea, and made an exact replica of it. What he did is downright un-American. This country was founded on the principle that nobody should be allowed to reap the benefits of my hard work without my permission. If I work hard enough and create something new and original, I should be able to benefit from it for as long as people are willing to pay for my idea, and the time frame should not be cut short because someone decided to give away my art for free.
I've heard too many times, "information wants to be free", and "copyrights/patents stifle creativity". No, copyrights and patents encourage creativity. Freedom of information encourages poverty for anyone with creative aspirations. It doesn't cost an artist anything to have his music distributed over bit torrent, but guess what? It does cost him money and time to make that music. The fact is, most of your favorite songs, games, books, movies, and even software would not have been created if not for IP laws. If it wasn't for the rights Namco is choosing to exercise in this situation, games like pac man wouldn't even exist. The people who spend thousands of hours creating them would be working at a McDonald's trying desperately to support their families. They would not have the time to create the art that you enjoy so thoroughly.
If the creators of Pacman want to relinquish their rights to allow people greater access to their creation, I would greatly admire them for it. On the other hand, if they decide that they want to exercise their rights to the greatest extent of the law, I don't believe that I or anyone else has the right to question their decision. For all I know their retirement fund tanked, and they're living off of pacman royalties. Do I feel sorry for the guy that wasted his time replicating their work? Not really, he should have asked for their permission first. Do I wish that I could pacman on my android phone? Yes, but that is not my decision to make.
Now, aside from the moral issues, this guy just wasn't very smart. There are plenty of scavenger companies out there that make a lot of money my cloning other people's ideas, and my opinion of them aside, at least they're smart enough to make it appear that they had a unique idea. I mean:
1. Super *Pac*
2. Character named Pacman
3. Identical monsters
4. Identical layout.
5. Identical main character
6. Identical gameplay
7. DIRECT reference to the original work
This guy was asking for a lawsuit, and if he is reading this, my (non-lawyer) advice is: play dead and cross your fingers that they lose their appetite. If I were you, I would consult a lawyer ASAP to figure out how to protect myself from further legal action.
You haven't seen an article about some company not providing the source of a GPLed code they modified and put in their router/media player/etc?
No his logic is that 30 years is long enough for society to grant them protection for their game. They've had a long enough run with it and it's well past time for pacman to enter into the public domain.
Of course copyright hasn't been that short since 1830...
Well done, Restil. Good advice, too.
In the unlikely event that what you have done doesn't actually violate any copyright or other intellectual property it's only in the most pedantic and legally technical way. If you are going to play the pedantic game you need to be able to back up your assertion that you are "technically" correct, which means you need to go to court with a lawyer and convince a judge. Since you don't have a lawyer(which is obvious because you did this in the first place) and can't afford one then your best bet is to keep your head down and hope bandai don't take this further. Not even the EFF or FSF will take this case pro bono and if they sue you, you're screwed.
Considering the maze, gameplay, characters and name are all direct copies of the original game by Namco/Midway. Aside from the clear trade of Namco's Super Pac-Man, Pac-Man was the case that set precedent for "look and feel" with its quashing of KC Munchkin, a distinctive yet pac-man influenced title.
Namco have also recently released a new Pac-Man game of which yours is a direct competitor. Don't waste your time on this, do something else.
POKE 36879,8
The best thing to do is to find a free legal clinic in your area. I volunteered at a clinic in Toronto called Artists Legal Advice Services, which offered 1/2 hour of free legal advice to artists/creators/etc. There may be a similar clinic in your area. If not (or in addition) I recommend you read a primer on Intellectual Property Law. I like the "Irwin Law" introduction to Intellectual Property. Finally, questions about whether your game infringes someone's copyright or trademark often do not have right or wrong answers. That is precisely why we have a court system, and why we pay lawyers so much. These questions are argued and resolved at the time of trial. The best you can do is to be aware of the legal landscape and hope you can afford a good lawyer if it comes down to that.
Because on the slashdot in *my* universe,
Some people, possibly you, are fanatics who can't cope with the fact that slashdot hosts people with many and diverse points of view.
The fact that most of those points of view disagree with the copyright fundamentalists is the fanatic's problem, not the slashdot readership's. The "hive mind" or similar accusation is usually done by trolls, the simple minded or shills. They should all get a life.
---
Like software, intellectual property law is a product of the mind, and can be anything we want it to be. Let's get it right.
Just because you like to pretend that you can "steal" an idea, and one that is a few decades old at that, does not make it so.
The DMCA is about copyright. The name "Super Pac" does not violate any copyright. If OP did not copy artwork or code, he should be clean.
You've got your work set out for you AC. You will also need to stop the following:
The Indy is also The Independent is a British newspaper published by Tony O'Reilly's Independent News & Media.
Indy is a music discovery tool for computers with an Internet connection.
INDY, short for I'm not dead yet, is a gene of the model organism, the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster.
In professional wrestling, the independent circuit or indy circuit refers to the many independent promotions which are much smaller than major televised promotions, particularly the current World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) promotions.
Indy is a self-released album by the nu metal music group Motograter in February 2000. The album has a total of 10 tracks. Only 1500 of the Indy albums were produced.
West Indies: the string of islands between North America and South America; a popular resort area
The Indies is a term that has been used to describe the lands of South and Southeast Asia,Oxford Dictionary of English 2e, Oxford University Press, 2003, East Indies/East India occupying all of the present India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and also Thailand.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
If the EFF want to get into bed with people attempting to profit off of copyright infringement (even if it is 'inadvertent' which is what the poster of TFA is seemingly attempting to claim) then any last vestige of their credibility is going to vanish.
But that said, creating a game that is a blatant clone of Pac-Man, and using "Pac" in the name, and selling the game through a high-profile online store add up to the equivalent of hanging a huge "kick me" sign on your back. I would have been very surprised if they had not come after you. Even if none of the code or artwork has been literally copied, they may have a pretty strong case against you for trademark infringement based on the name alone.
Your advice is dangerous because you're telling him to fight against legal notice which he almost certainly has no chance of succeeding with and if he does take it all the way to court, it would probably destroy him as he really does not have a leg to stand on.
I think he does have a leg to stand on. Remember when Apple sued Microsoft for copying the "look and feel" of Mac OS into MS Windows?? The judge said "look and feel" was not copyrightable and threw the whole thing out. If the original poster is being honest about not directly copying any art, graphics, sounds or text (including source or object code), then he'll be in a similar situation. If anything, it would be a mistake to go to court because even if he wins he'll still be out all his court costs, not because he'll most likely lose.
So to the person asking the original question in the summary- if you want to know what you did wrong theres your answer. The worst thing you can do is fight this, because legally, you seem to be completely in the wrong, and will hence almost certainly lose.
The best thing you can do is start to fight it, then negotiate for Namco to give you permission in exchange for a cut. If you play your cards right it will work, I've seen it happen before with lawsuits which were even clearer slam-dunks for the copyright holder than this would be (i.e. the little guy had literally cut and pasted text from the original product, but the big guy didn't want to look like a bully so they negotiated a strategic partnership in the middle of the lawsuit and settled).
Having looked at the link I would like to basically retract what I've said above, particularly the bold portions, which were predicated on the assumption that "no original artwork or sound has been copied" was actually a true statement. Given that all the artwork, perhaps among other things, was copied, you're basically screwed.
It's also been pointed out to me that what I put forth as an attempt at counterpoint could be read as legal advice. Therefore, disclaimer: IANAL, and if I were I wouldn't be representing you over the internet, so go to a real attorney, and don't rely on what I've said or anything else you read on Slashdot except the advice to go to a real attorney.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Not using pacman in the URL of his game...
Am I the only one to think Duh! ???
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Yeah. Don't give Namco free mindshare and they won't punish you.
Jim Naughtie's on Slashdot now?
The other thing you did wrong (aside from copying too much of the original game) was leaving your only copy on someone else's site, without having a copy on your own system, nor on a thumb drive on your bookshelf or something.
As a result, you no longer have access to your own code.
If you had kept your own copy of the source code, you'd now be in a position to change your game so it no longer infringes.
Too late now, I suspect.
Ok, so abuse of DMCA aside (though should not be overlooked, its just a different issue), the author got what he had coming.
Exhibit #1: It looks like fucking Pacman! -- Reimplementing the original artwork does not amount to your own original artwork. This is the same thing those fools did last year who claimed that they could legally sell Beatle's MP3s because they had filtered them through "a unique algorithm" and recorded the results. That work, and this, were not original -- they are derivative (and closely at that) which is protected. If you want to avoid that issue, create environments, and more importantly characters that are at least reasonably original.
Exhibit #2: SuperPac -- Pacman may be the explicit trademark, but trademark itself is essentially designed to be a bit fuzzy. Its purpose is to prevent fraud by confusing customers. In many cases (counterfeit goods) it is both the customer and the holder of the trademark who are harmed. "Pac-Something" used in the context of a video game is likely close enough that a court would uphold the violation, much less a video game about eating things in a maze while avoiding enemies, and much, much less about a yellow, puck-shaped thing eating dots and pills while being chased by ghosts.
The author is a tool and a moron for believing he has the right to profit from such wanton disregard for copyright and trademark and for his merry riding of coat-tails. Nothing is wrong with making a tribute to, or refining gameplay, but this is outright plagiarism.
Advice to the author -- Settle up and at least come up with some original artwork and environments. The look and feel of Pacman is *not* yours to profit from (whether in real money, reputation or pride). Better yet, have an original thought. A good one. Then make it happen. Clearly you are not incompetent, at least on the programming front, so no excuses.
Sincerly,
--A Real Indie Game Developer
Are you getting a charge that I respond? I mean you seem almost too thrilled to think since you keep repeating yourself. I'm not sure who you're convincing, it's pretty damned likely no one is paying attention to this. Certainly no one cares about your accusations.