[Kde-games-devel] About 'cloning' games

[Rob Kaper]

On Thu, Jan 15, 2004 at 05:26:35PM +1100, Ian Wadham wrote:
> It would be an interesting test case if someone was sued for offering for
> free a product that is no longer actively marketed.  I think the copyright
> owner might have to demonstrate financial loss, but I'm no lawyer.

I don't think so: some house band made a cover of Carmina Burana ten years
ago or so and I'm am sure the Orff family wouldn't lose any sales for the
original work because of it, but the records were pulled.

Also, I have repeatedly tried to convince ANCO to ease up on clones of a
no-longer marketed product and IMHO still the best game made ever, "PLAYER
MANAGER", but alas.

On the other hand, Hasbro once told me "no" but then I discovered the truth
about copyrights and patents on the Landlord's Game, and despite havng a
high-profile project for half a decade and knowing I was working on
KMonop/Atlantik, they never ever bothered to contact me.

I have no idea whether it helped, but I feel a lot safer having done some
research that turned into a legal disclaimer on my website:

http://unixcode.org/atlantik/legal.html

Rob
-- 
Rob Kaper     | Gimme some love, gimme some skin,
cap at capsi.com | if we ain't got that then we ain't got much
www.capsi.com | and we ain't got nothing, nothing! -- "Nothing" by A
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