Ford has patents on most of their parts as well as their cars, you can't imitate the parts exactly, even if you made them with a different machine or process. If another company makes a car identical to a ford, it infringes on the patent. The only way to use ford parts is to pay ford for them.
Experience varies from person to person, It's not only about the experience. You can't sell VHS dubs of movies you don't own the copyright for even if they have the sound removed. It's true that a movie with no sound is not the same experience, but it's still the same movie, you could redraw a movie pixel by pixel, frame by frame, till it looked exactly like the original, and no matter how much of the original product you didn't use, it's still a violation of the copyright to sell it.
There is no magic, they can make a game like warcraft, they just can't make warcraft, which is what they did. It didn't stop blizzard because there wasn't already an identical game.
"What, precisely, have you been smoking?"
I'll assume you mean that question as an attack on my character. Next time you wish to be hostile, you should sign on with a real username.
This is not another game with the same story, events, and characters, this is the same game. They may have written their own code, but the code produces the same end result as blizzard's code.
"identically. Similarly. There's a big difference when it comes to the law."
The law is made up of people, any court shown the two games would decide that they were the same. There are too few differences between them to call freecraft an original work. Hell there were too few differences to even give the thing a whole new name.
And you don't think freecraft resembles a blizzard product in any way? never mind the fact that it's identical to warcraft II, the images are a bit different... sometimes.
If coke-a-cola can trademark the shape of the bottle. I think that blizzard could easily show that another RTS game with not only identical gameplay, but also an identical list of units and structures, was infringing on their copyrights.
My going to an art school does not qualify or disqualify anything. I merely mentioned it because someone assumed I was from blizzard, so I told them who I was. I've never worked for a computer game company.
I never said the artwork has no value, I think the sounds and the imagery are a big part of warcraf II. I just think that warcraft II remains warcraft II even with sounds and images replaced.
Playing freecraft is nearly the same experience, just not as good. Same game though.
I really don't care about any "foe list". I think that If you can't remember my name I'm not really your foe. I also think that "foe" is a stupid word, but nevermind.
They don't own the code to freecraft. But the code to freecraft mimicks a product that they do own, namely warcraft II. It mimicks it with ultimate precision, and I would consider it a violation of copyright.
And if you don't have a copy of the game. You are still playing warcraft II. Anyone who thinks freecraft is not warcraft II is probably in denial because they want to play the game for free. That's fine. I wouldn't mind playing freecraft myself. I just acknowledge that it's illegal.
"If you were to make an analogy to cars, this would be more accurately like making your own custom car that has a similar engine and frame to an existing Ford car then buying a Ford car and taking off all the panels and the bumpers and the lights and, yes, I guess the seats and the steering wheel too and putting them on the custom car. In the real world, with your own real property, you can do this and it is not illegal (depending on how well you do it, it might not be legal to drive it on public roads of course, but this has nothing to do with Fords rights)."
I don't own warcraft II, If I wanted to play it right now, I could either buy the game, or I can download freecraft instead. Because of freecraft, blizzard didn't get whatever profits they would have from selling their game to me.
I don't mean to confuse anyone, nor do I believe that I misunderstand. My argument assumes that the game is still warcraft II, even if the graphics are modified.
like magic cards. You cant rewrite every magic card on paper without the illustrations and then sell it. Maybe you could, but wizards of the coast could still send you a Cease and Desist, and it would be more than fair for them to do so.
They did copy the code. It's not the same code on the bit by bit level. It uses different means to perform the same task. The code in freecraft, from the user's point of view, is the same. Yes, I can see how you can say the output doesn't make the code, and that because the code is different, it is a different program. But since it is no secret that they were imitating the warcraft II code, it should be quite clear that this is in essence, no different than a hacked version of warcraft II. If someone hacked every piece of code in warcraft II till it was completly different, yet it performed the same function, it would still be illegal.
No, they didn't use blizzard's code. But they imitated the function of blizzard's code. And they imitated it in a way where the output is identical. It's plagiarism with a different pen.
Shut up? Surely someone involved in legal politics should understand that debate is a healthy way to determine legality, rather than placing blind trust in someone who studied the law. Blizzard told freecraft to shut up.
My area? I'm a human, same as everyone else. And I'm intelligent enough to know more than one subject. Art is just more fun.
I don't think I'm wrong, you think I'm wrong. Next time you think I'm wrong, try to make a point instead of complaining about me and how wrong I am... Stupid law students.
As I've said before, freecraft is more than look and feel. It's the exact same game. Same units, Same health, Same research tree, same spells, same build order. It's the same game. And I would say it's more than fair that someone who goes to an art school be allowed to argue that.
a xerox machine makes every page it prints. The ink is in different places, the brightness is original to that copy, everything is created on that moment. But it's guide for creaton was the original document.
The game was not made from scratch, they didn't do any preplanning or pre-development, they just took someone elses game and made it again.
So, is it legal to create an identical replica of a macintosh computer? complete with identical osX functionality? So long as it looks different, right?
The truth is, it's not a single thing called game dynamics:
When people try to prove in court that someone stole an idea for a movie, they must prove in court a certain number of identical points. If we were comparing FreeCraft to warcraft II, every unit name, every game mechanism, the research tree items and heirarchy, we would have an astounding number of similarites. Coupled with the fact that we have very few differences(come on, someone name one!). I would say that it could be quite easily proven that the games are pretty much the same.
I still think the word processor analogy is stupid. Word processors are a lot more simple than games are.
Blizzard is not complaining about marketshare infringment. Warcraft II is not a pencil. I understand capitalist economics. A pencil has no patents on it, warcraft II is considered intellectual property, in due time it will become as generic as a pencil, but for a while blizzard will own the rights to it, and any other game that just so happens to be identical to it.
"The FreeCraft project used no WarCraft code and they did not copy any of its graphics"
Yeah, graphics are the only things they didn't copy. The code is meant to reflect the functionality of the warcraft II code.
"FreeCraft was NOT a "linux version of WarCraft". It was a entirely different beast, re-created from the ground up."
Re-created... Identically....
I am aware of openoffice. I use it (crashes less than ms office). yes, it is very similar to MS office. And microsoft could have legal grounds to sue them. I don't think openoffice uses things that are exclusive to microsoft, office tools are common sense, some things are features that are the most efficient way to do something. It's hard to argue that the most efficient way to make an RTS is "orcs vs humans".
If you write and publish a book. Am I allowed to rephrase it sentence by sentence, so that the sentences have the same meanings, and give away for free?
Ford could stop people from making cars if they are inch by inch identical replicas to the ford cars. minus the paint. This is not "warcraft-style", this is nothing to do with the style. This is an identical game. Same units, same responses, same gameplay.
"OKay, let me try again. So it should be illegal for someone to write software that can read, modify, and write Microsoft Word formatted documents then?"
No, and that's totally different. Lots of companies make chairs, anyone can make a chair, no one owns the right to the idea of a chair. But only one company has the right to make star wars trading cards. No other company can legally make star wars trading cards, even if they take the pictures off.
Word processors are generic, games are not. While they have similarites, those similarites are referred to as a genre. FreeCraft's similarities extend beyond genre in that aside from graphics, in that it is nearly indescernable from the the original.
"It seems to me that all FreeCraft does is promote the sale of more copies of WC2. It expands the WC2 market into the Linux and Macintosh world. How terrible."
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Freecraft is horrible, It sounds pretty cool to me. Problem is, blizzard has every right to make them stop. As it is essentially the same game as the one they sell. If people download freecraft, they have a free copy of warcraft II, minus the graphics, this may not look like promoting the sale or expanding the market to blizzard
So does Blizzard have some sort of patent on a game involving the building of structures and training of units for battle purposes in a game like setting? The FreeCraft project is writing code with clean room techniques. They are looking at how WC2 works from a user's perspective, and trying to implement it in their own code.
"Blizzard have a copyright on WarCraft, not a patent on the concept of a RTS game. Virtually every RTS game out there has the same model as WarCraft does, so why doesn't Blizzard go take out Command & Conquor or any of the others?"
No, blizzard does not have a patent on the RTS genre. It's just that freecraft is a little more specific than the genre. FreeCraft has peons and farms, it has the same units, it has the same buildings, it is an identical game. It may not be downloadable with the original graphics, but it's the same game.
And just for reference, command and conquer was made by westwood. Westwood made dune 2 which came previous to warcraft, so if anyone where going to sue for the genre it would be westwood.
yes, but it can also be used to play warcraft 2 without buying it, albeit with newer suckier graphics. Therefore, blizzard has every right to ask them to stop.
microsoft word = warcraft II Word processor = RTS Anyone disagree?
It's illegal to make microsoft word if you are not microsoft, you can still make word processors. Now, word processors are usually very similar, so yeah, it might look like every word processor is an imitation of the others. But games have a lot more variation than word processors do. It seems as though freecraft has identical game dynamics to warcraft II, the only difference being the graphics.
Some versions of simcity have exchangable tilesets, is it legal to distribute copies of it without the tilesets? no. Maxis owns the whole game. Not just the pretty little pictures.
Slashdot Mirror
Ford has patents on most of their parts as well as their cars, you can't imitate the parts exactly, even if you made them with a different machine or process. If another company makes a car identical to a ford, it infringes on the patent. The only way to use ford parts is to pay ford for them.
Freecraft was not licenced by blizzard.
Experience varies from person to person, It's not only about the experience. You can't sell VHS dubs of movies you don't own the copyright for even if they have the sound removed. It's true that a movie with no sound is not the same experience, but it's still the same movie, you could redraw a movie pixel by pixel, frame by frame, till it looked exactly like the original, and no matter how much of the original product you didn't use, it's still a violation of the copyright to sell it.
There is no magic, they can make a game like warcraft, they just can't make warcraft, which is what they did. It didn't stop blizzard because there wasn't already an identical game.
"What, precisely, have you been smoking?"
I'll assume you mean that question as an attack on my character. Next time you wish to be hostile, you should sign on with a real username.
This is not another game with the same story, events, and characters, this is the same game. They may have written their own code, but the code produces the same end result as blizzard's code.
"identically. Similarly. There's a big difference when it comes to the law."
The law is made up of people, any court shown the two games would decide that they were the same. There are too few differences between them to call freecraft an original work. Hell there were too few differences to even give the thing a whole new name.
And you don't think freecraft resembles a blizzard product in any way? never mind the fact that it's identical to warcraft II, the images are a bit different... sometimes.
If coke-a-cola can trademark the shape of the bottle. I think that blizzard could easily show that another RTS game with not only identical gameplay, but also an identical list of units and structures, was infringing on their copyrights.
My going to an art school does not qualify or disqualify anything. I merely mentioned it because someone assumed I was from blizzard, so I told them who I was. I've never worked for a computer game company.
I never said the artwork has no value, I think the sounds and the imagery are a big part of warcraf II. I just think that warcraft II remains warcraft II even with sounds and images replaced.
Playing freecraft is nearly the same experience, just not as good. Same game though.
I really don't care about any "foe list". I think that If you can't remember my name I'm not really your foe. I also think that "foe" is a stupid word, but nevermind.
They don't own the code to freecraft. But the code to freecraft mimicks a product that they do own, namely warcraft II. It mimicks it with ultimate precision, and I would consider it a violation of copyright.
And if you don't have a copy of the game. You are still playing warcraft II. Anyone who thinks freecraft is not warcraft II is probably in denial because they want to play the game for free. That's fine. I wouldn't mind playing freecraft myself. I just acknowledge that it's illegal.
"If you were to make an analogy to cars, this would be more accurately like making your own custom car that has a similar engine and frame to an existing Ford car then buying a Ford car and taking off all the panels and the bumpers and the lights and, yes, I guess the seats and the steering wheel too and putting them on the custom car. In the real world, with your own real property, you can do this and it is not illegal (depending on how well you do it, it might not be legal to drive it on public roads of course, but this has nothing to do with Fords rights)."
Unless you tried to market and sell the car.
I don't own warcraft II, If I wanted to play it right now, I could either buy the game, or I can download freecraft instead. Because of freecraft, blizzard didn't get whatever profits they would have from selling their game to me.
I don't mean to confuse anyone, nor do I believe that I misunderstand. My argument assumes that the game is still warcraft II, even if the graphics are modified.
There's text on the cards.
d +g ame
I was talking about the cards that you play a game with:
http://images.google.com/images?q=star+wars+car
like magic cards. You cant rewrite every magic card on paper without the illustrations and then sell it. Maybe you could, but wizards of the coast could still send you a Cease and Desist, and it would be more than fair for them to do so.
They did copy the code. It's not the same code on the bit by bit level. It uses different means to perform the same task. The code in freecraft, from the user's point of view, is the same. Yes, I can see how you can say the output doesn't make the code, and that because the code is different, it is a different program. But since it is no secret that they were imitating the warcraft II code, it should be quite clear that this is in essence, no different than a hacked version of warcraft II. If someone hacked every piece of code in warcraft II till it was completly different, yet it performed the same function, it would still be illegal.
Yes you can. What about the coke-a-cola bottle.
No, they didn't use blizzard's code. But they imitated the function of blizzard's code. And they imitated it in a way where the output is identical. It's plagiarism with a different pen.
Yes it is.
I find your suggestion to be rude and unhelpful.
Shut up? Surely someone involved in legal politics should understand that debate is a healthy way to determine legality, rather than placing blind trust in someone who studied the law. Blizzard told freecraft to shut up.
My area? I'm a human, same as everyone else. And I'm intelligent enough to know more than one subject. Art is just more fun.
I don't think I'm wrong, you think I'm wrong. Next time you think I'm wrong, try to make a point instead of complaining about me and how wrong I am... Stupid law students.
As I've said before, freecraft is more than look and feel. It's the exact same game. Same units, Same health, Same research tree, same spells, same build order. It's the same game. And I would say it's more than fair that someone who goes to an art school be allowed to argue that.
a xerox machine makes every page it prints. The ink is in different places, the brightness is original to that copy, everything is created on that moment. But it's guide for creaton was the original document.
The game was not made from scratch, they didn't do any preplanning or pre-development, they just took someone elses game and made it again.
So, is it legal to create an identical replica of a macintosh computer? complete with identical osX functionality? So long as it looks different, right?
The truth is, it's not a single thing called game dynamics:
When people try to prove in court that someone stole an idea for a movie, they must prove in court a certain number of identical points. If we were comparing FreeCraft to warcraft II, every unit name, every game mechanism, the research tree items and heirarchy, we would have an astounding number of similarites. Coupled with the fact that we have very few differences(come on, someone name one!). I would say that it could be quite easily proven that the games are pretty much the same.
I still think the word processor analogy is stupid. Word processors are a lot more simple than games are.
Blizzard is not complaining about marketshare infringment. Warcraft II is not a pencil. I understand capitalist economics. A pencil has no patents on it, warcraft II is considered intellectual property, in due time it will become as generic as a pencil, but for a while blizzard will own the rights to it, and any other game that just so happens to be identical to it.
...
"The FreeCraft project used no WarCraft code and they did not copy any of its graphics"
Yeah, graphics are the only things they didn't copy. The code is meant to reflect the functionality of the warcraft II code.
"FreeCraft was NOT a "linux version of WarCraft". It was a entirely different beast, re-created from the ground up."
Re-created... Identically.
I am aware of openoffice. I use it (crashes less than ms office). yes, it is very similar to MS office. And microsoft could have legal grounds to sue them. I don't think openoffice uses things that are exclusive to microsoft, office tools are common sense, some things are features that are the most efficient way to do something. It's hard to argue that the most efficient way to make an RTS is "orcs vs humans".
If you write and publish a book. Am I allowed to rephrase it sentence by sentence, so that the sentences have the same meanings, and give away for free?
Ford could stop people from making cars if they are inch by inch identical replicas to the ford cars. minus the paint. This is not "warcraft-style", this is nothing to do with the style. This is an identical game. Same units, same responses, same gameplay.
Your two cents arn't worth much.
It's more than a game engine, it's a game engine that plays exactly like warcraft II.
It's not a mod, it's a reverse mod, they left the game the same and changed the engine.
"OKay, let me try again. So it should be illegal for someone to write software that can read, modify, and write Microsoft Word formatted documents then?"
No, and that's totally different. Lots of companies make chairs, anyone can make a chair, no one owns the right to the idea of a chair. But only one company has the right to make star wars trading cards. No other company can legally make star wars trading cards, even if they take the pictures off.
Word processors are generic, games are not. While they have similarites, those similarites are referred to as a genre. FreeCraft's similarities extend beyond genre in that aside from graphics, in that it is nearly indescernable from the the original.
"It seems to me that all FreeCraft does is promote the sale of more copies of WC2. It expands the WC2 market into the Linux and Macintosh world. How terrible."
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Freecraft is horrible, It sounds pretty cool to me. Problem is, blizzard has every right to make them stop. As it is essentially the same game as the one they sell. If people download freecraft, they have a free copy of warcraft II, minus the graphics, this may not look like promoting the sale or expanding the market to blizzard
So does Blizzard have some sort of patent on a game involving the building of structures and training of units for battle purposes in a game like setting? The FreeCraft project is writing code with clean room techniques. They are looking at how WC2 works from a user's perspective, and trying to implement it in their own code.
"Blizzard have a copyright on WarCraft, not a patent on the concept of a RTS game. Virtually every RTS game out there has the same model as WarCraft does, so why doesn't Blizzard go take out Command & Conquor or any of the others?"
No, blizzard does not have a patent on the RTS genre. It's just that freecraft is a little more specific than the genre. FreeCraft has peons and farms, it has the same units, it has the same buildings, it is an identical game. It may not be downloadable with the original graphics, but it's the same game.
And just for reference, command and conquer was made by westwood. Westwood made dune 2 which came previous to warcraft, so if anyone where going to sue for the genre it would be westwood.
yes, but it can also be used to play warcraft 2 without buying it, albeit with newer suckier graphics. Therefore, blizzard has every right to ask them to stop.
blizzard owns the whole game, not just the graphics.
microsoft word = warcraft II
Word processor = RTS
Anyone disagree?
It's illegal to make microsoft word if you are not microsoft, you can still make word processors. Now, word processors are usually very similar, so yeah, it might look like every word processor is an imitation of the others. But games have a lot more variation than word processors do. It seems as though freecraft has identical game dynamics to warcraft II, the only difference being the graphics.
Some versions of simcity have exchangable tilesets, is it legal to distribute copies of it without the tilesets? no. Maxis owns the whole game. Not just the pretty little pictures.