Legal Question

[Knox]

Sierra no longer exists...I believe they were bought by Vivendi (I think), and now Vivendi has been bought out by Activision (or merged together).

Can we still make games with their titles, such as King's Quest, etc...? I know there are remakes out there, but what does one have to do/not do so that a user-made game doesnt get pulled..."cease and desist", etc...or get sued by a company?

If all sprites, backgrounds, animation, etc...are originals, but we use the same "series" title, and use the same characters + locations + storyline...is that "ok"?

[Knox]

I guess the most important part of this question is...since sierra, vivendi no longer exists, who can sue for a sierra-based adventure game?

Did the Activision/Blizzard merger retain rights on the sierra quests line?

[Ghost]

There's more to a "series" than the firm who sold it. King's Quest may be the name of the game, but copyright for characters and art often sticks with the actual authors- for several decades. And they don't stop existing (the authors, that is) just because someone bought the firm they happened to work for. So if you're about to make a game using title, characters and art (original or derived), I'd always make sure there really is no-one minding.

I'm no lawyer though, so it's just a personal opinion. I'd also say it tastes like a grab for a popular name, though the game in question *might* be very well made. As far as I know the major KQ remakes were at least grumpingly nodded at by some officials.

[jetxl]

This is a quote from an article about using copyrighted characters for t-shirts but it can be applied to games too.

I get lots of questions from people who want to get into the shirt business asking me about using licensed imagery, sayings, and characters in their designs. They ask me if it’s “ok” because they deviated from the original works by a certain percentage, or because it’s a parody, or some other excuse they claim will allow them to cash in on their design while not getting into trouble. The fact is: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and even quacks like a duck…it’s copyright infringement. That means that the little “personal flair” you add to the design idea isn’t enough to keep you off the radar of any major company protecting their intellectual property rights. Make any excuse you want, but you know what? You’ll have to prove it in court…and do you have enough money to do that? That’s what I thought…

Full article here.

In short: it's undeniably wrong but does the copyrights holder give a shit?

[monkey0506]

There's a difference between trying to profit from a copyrighted work (or deviation thereof) and "fair use" of copyrighted work. For example, if you go to Walmart and buy T-shirt iron-ons and print out a copyrighted work (or deviation) for your own use, realistically there's zero chance you're actually going to be charged with copyright infringement.

If you mass produce the shirt and sell it for profit (of course depending how profitable your work becomes) you're exponentially more likely to get caught and charged.

The same principle can be applied to the concept of amateur game development. If you're doing it as a fanatical or parodic work with no intent to profit, the copyright holder is unlikely to pursue a case against you.

However if your work draws too much attention, if you plan to sell it, etc. you're likely to get a "cease and desist" order, in which case you'd better stop.

One popular example is the Fate of Monkey Island series, which IIRC got to it's 5th episode before LucasArts said "hey now..." and shut them down. They weren't (AFAIK) profiting, but there is a reasonable boundary that must be taken into account as well.

Further, I don't believe LA has shut down a single MI project since then. There hasn't been as large a project since either, but you get the point.

So as long as you're not being stupid then it's "safe" to do this.

[Knox]

Ok, I think I understand a bit more. Im just wondering if those old sierra-game authors are really that "contactable"...I mean if I sent them a letter (if I can actually find out where they live first!)...will they respond, read it...care?

I dont plan on selling the game I would make, however I guess I kind of was thinking of adding a "donate" option for those who were interested, IF they wanted to...

I wonder how an optional "donate" feature would effect the legality of it all.

I guess then another option would be for me to change all the names and places, change the title...but keep the same "flavor"...I mean, if it were a police quest type game (which it most probably will be), if I called it Cop Quest, I wouldnt see how that could raise any flags (not saying Im going to name it that, just using that as an example). The idea of a police officer as the main character cant be copyrighted by Sierra, right?

If I include somewhere "based on the ideas of" or "inspired by" or "any events or similiarities are pure coincidences", would that offer some level of "protection"?

Anyways, I know these things can be tricky, the safest bet is to make 100% original content...its just that sometimes you get inspired by others people's work and its often difficult to remove those influences.

[Ghost]

Yes, but there's a great difference between "influence" and "copy". To name a recent example, "The Lost Years (of Monkey Island) have been made into Picaroo- so a game that was intended to be a Monkey Island Prequel/Sequel of sorts is now an original game with a Monkey Island flavour.
When we just talk interface and style, we would have a hard time finding ANY original content in any AGS game. But as soon as you also account for story and characters, you find there are original things.

IMHO a "taste" of an original work is perfectly okay and perfectly safe too. Nobody will sue you just because a clumsy pirate appears in your game. But name him Guybrush (or Jack Sparrow), and you *might* hit problems. (Personally I was always a bit surprised how few people noticed all the MI references in POTC 2...  : - voodoo lady much?)

As for contacting... well, if you are serious about your project, and it has a certain size and quality, why wouldn't an author care? Al Lowe still maintains a website and is open for personal questions, and you can easily contact the Woodruffe guy who made Simon the Sorcerer... it's teh interwebz times, man! They gave us the voice, now they need to cope with it!

[Knox]

Heh! I know man...

Im giving myself a long time to do this game because (after reading many many posts from people who are currently working on their own), its seems its the only way to go. Plus, many people have seemed to abandon games half-way through, probably under-estimating the effort and time creating a good game requires.

Ive actually pitched the idea about a year ago to the game company I work at (when we still had Vivendi as one of our publishers), but I got no news from anyone...so I let it go and decided just to do something myself, for fun.

I will try to contact Jim Walls actually...I dont know how, but I'll find a way. The worst case scenario, in my opinion, is I just wont use his characters/locations/background story from Police Quest 1 + 2 + 3...and get my own protagonist. Thats not a bad thing, just I wanted to capture the feel of the "Lytton Universe" once again, know what I mean? I guess thats not too bad an option, and the more I think about it, the better it seems. Perhaps I could mention "Sonny Bonds" as a long-lost cousin or something,

[GarageGothic]

Im just wondering if those old sierra-game authors are really that "contactable"...I mean if I sent them a letter (if I can actually find out where they live first!)...will they respond, read it...care?

The original authors are not in any legal position to give you permission (at most they can give you their personal blessing, but that doesn't really stand up in court). Game designers generally don't own the rights to their works - if that was the case we would have seen a Gabriel Knight 4 and a proper Larry sequel a long time ago. Vivendi owned the IPs of the Quest franchises, including brand names, character names and possibly also character likenesses, and with the merger I assume they are now in the hands of Activision.
Vivendi DID give permission to a number of fanmade games including AGDI's King's Quest and Quest for Glory 2 remakes as well as the in-development The Silver Lining (previously KQ9). What Activision's stance on this is, I don't know. However, the amateur developers of those games had to sign contracts with a bunch of conditions, amongst other things to submit their games to Vivendi for approval and being purely non-profit. Which leads us to:

I wonder how an optional "donate" feature would effect the legality of it all.

Very much. The AGDI team have expressly stated that as part of their agreement with Vivendi they cannot receive any kind of monetary compensation and therefore don't allow donations.

I guess then another option would be for me to change all the names and places, change the title...but keep the same "flavor"...I mean, if it were a police quest type game (which it most probably will be), if I called it Cop Quest, I wouldnt see how that could raise any flags (not saying Im going to name it that, just using that as an example). The idea of a police officer as the main character cant be copyrighted by Sierra, right?

If you did this, there would be absolutely no legal issues if all the artwork and other resources are also original. Hell, Jim Walls, the creator of Police Quest did exactly this with Blue Force after leaving Sierra.
Actually I would suggest you go this way to avoid any kind of legal hassle. It's not like Sonny Bonds is a very well defined character, nor is there any real "mythology" to the series (unless you plan on having the offspring of Jesse Bains' second-cousin returning for revenge). If you make a generic cop game, even calling it "a tribute to the Police Quest series" wouldn't get you in trouble. And I'm sure most Police Quest fans would enjoy the game just as much even if the player characters isn't named Sonny Bonds.

[m0ds]

It is still totally illegal. I got an email from the Omar Administration Over Copyright Infringement the other night and they explicitly explained that anyone making or attempting to make a point and click adventure is in violation of Omar Law Rule #57856 which is "Do not ******* make point and click games you ****"

Go figure

[Knox]

Well I wrote to Al Lowe asking his opinion, and he said the same thing you said...even he doesnt have the rights to LSL...wow, if he wanted to, he couldnt even make another LSL game...This, I didnt know!

I'll still try to contact Jim Walls, and Activision, and see those terms. If not, well, I have no problem doing what Walls did with Blue Force...I dont believe my own interpretation of Sonny HAS to be "sonny", it can be Charles Williamburg the Third for all I care, lol!

Thanks for all this info, I learnt some stuff this week!

[Ghost]

AND you talked to Al Lowe! (well, *communicated*)

[Knox]

Heh..yeah!  He responded pretty quick, I was surprised...!

Pretty nice guy actually.

[Knox]

I read that if you use mp3's in your game, and you sell your game...you need to give money to the guy who has the mp3 patent, right?

What about .wav files...I think ogg is royalty free...but is wav "ok" to use for a commercial game?

[jetxl]

You have to pay the company (guy???) that developed mp3 royalties, but only if you sell like a million units or whatever.
Wav is free methink, but it'll make your game unnesisary huge.