Oolite Bulletins

MadMax wrote:

Here, several graphics that had been in Wesnoth for years had to be changed, just because their heads were coincedentally similar to those of the skeletons in Final Fantasy 4

As a matter of fact, the Wesnoth trailer was yesterday discovered to have been banned from YouTube because of alleged copyright infringement (thread is here).

Also, I do not know German copyright laws, but American laws are indeed very strict (no, I'm not a lawyer either), to the point where a company sued 754 people in one day ( http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/12/ ... ues_1.html ).

This has nothing whatsoever to do with the law. It is intimidation, pure and simple. In the latter case they do have the law on their side, but this is essentially coincidential. The purpose is to scare people into behaving in the way that is most profitable to the organization in question, not to enforce the spirit or letter of the law.

The RIAA issue is irrelevant, because it deals with actual illicit copying of copyright-protected data. The Wesnorth case comes closer, and the validity of a copyvio claim in that case is much less clear. Nevertheless, accidentally recreating a sprite which is very similar to a previous one is easy because the sprites are so small. Texture maps are much larger, having much more detail in which to vary.

If the publishers of homeworld did decide to attack Sung, their first course of action would be to issue cease-and-desist letters to Sung and anyone hosting the file (I just realised I don’t know where to get these textures). If Sung chose not to cave in (after seeking actual legal advice), and the publishers chose to pursue it (which is far from given), it would go to court and the onus would be on the publishers to show that Sung had copied their textures. In principle, pointing at previous similar work and any original Photoshop files or similar Sung happens to have would provide the basis of a pretty solid defence. In practice, cases of this nature have rarely – if ever – actually gone as far as a court ruling.

None of this would reasonably affect Oolite as long as the textures are not part of the standard distribution. That said, a publisher going down the intimidation route might very well send a C&D to Berlios anyway; having a case is not the core of such a strategy.

Dr. Nil wrote:

I suppose that this is different from country to country. I'm not even sure how it works with the Internet and all. Can companies just choose to sue in the country that gives them the most beneficial tilt of the playing field or does it depend on the physical location of the offender or the server with the material in question?

The latter – the location of the offender or the server depending on precisely what they’re going after.

Again, though, I Am Not Your Lawyer.

To say my textures look like the Wesnoth sprite copy is a insult of my work.
Some details maybe similar to homeworld (e.g. the engine exhaust). I wrote that i will change this point.
Further i don't want to host the texture pack because of it's traffic.

I'm really happy about the good critics of the texture look. Thank you all!

Thats it

Sung

Oosat2 is desgined as a site that we can all submit our work to (to avoid traffic on our own websites and so that players can find all the AddOns in one place). Hope you'll upload your textures there when you are done.

Great work and adds so much to the Oolite experience!

PS: I'd love to see your textures as you delevope. You could do what I've done to make Work in Progress Devs available. If you go to https://www.box.net you can get a free file hosting of upto 1G. You upload to the Box site and then put a link for people to download from. No traffic to your own site!

If you click the black monks link on my signature, you'll see how its done.

Sung wrote:

To say my textures look like the Wesnoth sprite copy is a insult of my work.

I never said that. I only mentioned Wesnoth because of their copyright policies and issues.

As far as UK copyright law is concerned, anything that takes it's starting point as another existing design has to show that it is 'colourably different'. Many court cases have centred around what exactly this means.
It's fine to take an existing artwork, and modify it in some way to create something new. Homage and Pastiche are quite acceptable artistic techniques in their own right.
Anyone remember the club night posters from the 90s, based on various trademarked logos? They were fine - particularly because they weren't for a similar product.

However, if you make a musical arrangement of "Yesterday" for flugelhorn and bagpipe with a completely different harmony, you still have to pay Macca , because you have included the actual song in your new arrangement.

The Star Wars OXPs etc. could be classified as a breach of copyright - however, because no-one is making money from selling Oolite or the OXPs, no-one is likely to care.

Everyone who contributes to Oolite has moral rights to be identified as the author - which rights they may choose to waive. The Creative Commons licence is something which everyone agrees to go along with, over and above their existing IP rights under UK and international law.

I would suggest that applying the pattern from Homeworld onto Oolite ships would create a design that is colourably different, and therefore street legal.

That is all.

Wiggy wrote:

As far as UK copyright law is concerned, anything that takes it's starting point as another existing design has to show that it is 'colourably different'. Many court cases have centred around what exactly this means.
It's fine to take an existing artwork, and modify it in some way to create something new. Homage and Pastiche are quite acceptable artistic techniques in their own right.
Anyone remember the club night posters from the 90s, based on various trademarked logos? They were fine - particularly because they weren't for a similar product.

Ahh, but a trade mark is a completely separate type of protection. A trade mark symbol may or may not be subject to copyright; either way, the fact that it’s a trade mark is irrelevant (as long as it’s not used to promote a competing product or service in the same domain).

Ahruman wrote:

Ahh, but a trade mark is a completely separate type of protection. A trade mark symbol may or may not be subject to copyright; either way, the fact that it’s a trade mark is irrelevant (as long as it’s not used to promote a competing product or service in the same domain).

Ziggactly. You're ferpectly right.

The logos were trademarked (and probably copyrighted too), but because the Ministry of Sound isn't a chocolate bar, they can't be done for that. They had also expended some creative effort.
But my point was in analogy to our "being influenced" by other designs and creating stuff on Oolite. If you've exercised some creative nous, then you are arguably ok.
However, if you use the words "Tie fighter", that's probably asking for trouble. Paying homage to SW but changing it just a bit, is probably ok.
Again, the main virtue is that no money changes hands for Oolite, so the legals can't smell the blood.

Wiggy wrote:

Ziggactly. You're ferpectly right.

(c)Goscinny Uderzo


Captain Hesperus
"This is getting ridiculous."

Half past three.