[Freeciv-Dev] Re: the lack of respect for cloners

[Thomas Strub <ue80@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, Dec 20, 2003 at 01:33:20PM -0800, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> Per I. Mathisen wrote:
> > While they contain nothing that by itself is covered
> > by copyright -
> > since you cannot copyright common names and concepts - it may
> > be argued
> > that the sum of them fall under a compilation or database copyright.
> >
> > Compilation and database laws are still a young field in
> > copyright law,
> > with few established cases to go by. Such laws vary from country to
> > country. Freeciv is in fact older than many of these laws. So
> > whether we might infringe or not is not easy to say for certain,
> 
> That sounds like a plausible summary of your position.
> 
> > but I am fairly confident that we do not.
> 
> And that does not, because YANAL.

He wrote nearly that which i read about legal issues in computer
programms. Where is he wrong? You have your own opinion but you have
nothing to prove it. I think you should read a little bit and after that
come back after that.
 
> > However, since so much time has gone by since the owners of
> > the relevant
> > copyrights must have known about us, we are almost certainly
> > immune to any claims of damages.
> 
> Again, YANAL, and you have no basis for assuming this.  Certainly you
> would be *threatened* with such liability for damages in a Cease and
> Desist letter... people don't just write those things to say, "Stop!
> ...or I'll say 'Stop!' again."  And whether Hasbro or Firaxis' lawyers
> could pin you on it, depends on how good their lawyers are vs. yours,
> and how much money you each spend at a trial.

You forget here one thing! The law.  
 
> > Not that anyone would ever sue us - we do not have the
> > kind of money that would make that worthwhile ;)
> 
> They might still do it to punish you and make an example out of you.
> The primary objective would be to halt the Civ cloning, with making your
> lives miserable a secondary concern.
> 
> The reason you aren't currently a target is that to date, you haven't
> produced anything commerically competitive.  For instance, your UI and
> eye candy isn't good enough to stand up in the arena of commercial
> competition.  But if your eye candy were to suddenly become as good as
> Civ III's, due to the mobilization of volunteer artists and whatnot, and
> you're still cloning rather than creating your own content, I bet that's
> when the copyright holders would come knocking at your door.

I would hold that bet. How high?

I think you are speaking big words without knowing the law and the real
difference between freeciv and civilisation 1.
 
> Take the example of "Dogs of War," for instance.  A straight knockoff of
> Axis & Allies that even used a digital image of the A&A boardgame
> artwork.  DoW was left alone for years... until Hasbro finally decided
> to make an A&A computer game.  Once commercial competition was at stake,
> DoW was shut down quickly.
 
Digital image -> protected by law.
Original text of rules -> protected by law.

That was a clear case. There isn't much which is compareable with
freeciv.

> Another variable to consider is how thoroughly you'd be required to shut
> down to avoid going to trial.  DoW is no more, after all.  The copyright
> holders might make demands of you that aren't legal, but that you have
> precious little power to do anything about because you can't field the
> lawyers.  Such as shutting down www.freeciv.org, and removing all
> Freeciv distros from everywhere.

Think we would have the power of the FSF behind us. *We* aren't that
small as you think.
And I don't think any of that would be needed to continue the
freeciv-project.
 
> Of course your *code* would live on, but you'd have to change your
> infrastructure and faceplates.  Could be a bit disruptive for you.

Even when that would be neccessary, what is the problem?
 
> The amusing thing is, it would take only a few major rule changes to
> make you completely immune to this.  Look at how close CTP2 is to Civ
> II, after all.  Yet you've never made such changes.  On that basis, the
> copyright holder's case looks pretty good.  Years and years of
> transgression, no interest whatsoever in producing an original game
> design.

You know how big the differences have to be to make 2 different games? 
I would say you don't. You know the copyright-laws from the countries
where the developers are from?

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Strub  ***  eMail ue80@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
jb: people are stupid, they don't want to learn.