[Freeciv] Re: it's like a screenplay

["Brandon Van Every" <vanevery@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > You decide you like this play very very much so you take all the
acts
> > verbatim and do a production of "Chinese Hamlet" without securing
any
> > rights of performance from the playright.  Guess what?  If the
> > playwright is on the ball, you get sued.  If you change a few lines
of
> > the play, it doesn't matter, you still get sued.
>
> What are ,,verbatim copies''? Home video? If i made home video to show
my
> family such a smart guy I am i get sued?

Unauthorized taping of a performance will most certainly get you sued,
if someone catches you and feels like doing it.  It's certainly within
the playwright and production company's legal right to do so.  They have
the right of distribution of the performance in various media, not you.

> If i wrote by hand scenario? If
> some my friend ask me to show him scenario because he likes it and
want it
> play too?

I guess by "scenario" you're talking about a game scenario, not plays
anymore.  I'm not sure I understand what it would mean to write a
scenario "by hand" for Civ II.  Sounds more like you're talking about
level editing.  There's certainly nothing wrong with creating your own
levels if the authors give you the tools to do that.  If they don't, and
you reverse engineer the file format to make your levels, I really don't
know.

> What about parodies?

Parodies have certain protections.  But to be a parody you have to
actually parodize something, for humor value.  Certainly this hasn't
occurred with Freeciv.

> What about pseudo-conans? Matrix, who had
> ideas borrowed from everywhere and had no single one original idea?
> Shakespeare himself, who borrowed ideas too?

Ideas don't have to be original.  Expressions of ideas do have to be.
Putting a "tech tree" in your game is fine.  Putting Civ II's tech tree
in your game is not.  You can make a RPG about hacking up monsters with
swords and use dice rolling to implement it.  But you cannot lift the
AD&D melee combat system with all its weapon tables verbatim, that's
TSR's intellectual property.  You can't be "compatible" with AD&D, you
have to use your own different game rules.


Cheers,             Infernal Troublemaker                    Troll
Mallor              "By simple mistake, mortals themselves amuse."