Licensing an Abandonware Game? 148
WolverineOfLove writes "I'm recreating a 1980s abandonware game with copyrights that have been seemingly unused for the past 18 years. The situation is detailed further in a Slashdot journal entry I just wrote, but in short: Is it worth dealing with all the copyrights and paying money if I want to recreate an abandonware title as an open source game? I know there are legal implications to certain decisions I might make, but there is a real possibility that this game's copyright holder will do nothing with the rights, and I'd much prefer preserving it for others than letting it fade away."
Contact the Owners (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Contact the Owners (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only might they surprise, they might even be supportive!
If they aren't, then at least one has learned that you'll want to alter enough things so they won't succeed in complaining. (Or loses could be cut now before time is invested...)
Either answer they give is a win.
PS: Document attempts to contact in case they don't respond, at least you can show a good faith attempt.
1980s abandonware copyrights unused for 18 years (Score:5, Funny)
Gosh, you are trying to code Duke Nukem Forewer on your own ????
Re:1980s abandonware copyrights unused for 18 year (Score:4, Funny)
"I'll rip your L shape off and shit down your T shape"?
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It's really annoying when they moderate something as insightful, when really it's informative. I really question Slashdot mods these days.
Re:Contact the Owners (Score:5, Interesting)
I very much agree. If you want to remake the game I can only assume that you enjoy playing it and have some respect for the game. Show the original authors that respect and contact them; the game represents a great deal of effort on their part and deserves a dialog. From your description of the situation in you journal entry, the author would probably enjoy hearing of your interest and you could ask them what the position of the copyright holder is on the subject and discuss options.
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Contact the owners and ask them if they mind. You might be surprised.
I'd add talking to an IP lawyer as the law can get quite complex. The original owners may not even own the rights anymore; so it's important to figure out who really owns them.
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If you do this try to get permissions that cannot be revoked. I've read a story or two here about plugs on indie projects getting pulled because the copyright owner gave permission and then changed their mind.
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Ah, here we go. http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/03/01/0546238/8-Year-Fan-Made-Game-Project-Shut-Down-By-Activision [slashdot.org]
Vivendi granted a non-commercial license for development of a Kings Quest game, Activision acquired Vivendi and revoked the permission. Just make sure this doesn't happen to you. Tell them you want to ensure the viability of your project on the off chance that Activation acquires them.
Forget about the copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
Make your new game. Don't use any exact names or words from the original. By all means select your names so that people know this is a successor to the original.
After all, open office exists along side microsoft office. Afterstep came after nextstep. You need a name like "afterstep" so that people know what you are on about.
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Also don't reuse any designs, whether level or character (or whatever else populates that particular gameworld).
Re:Forget about the copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
And there's OpenOffice.org [openoffice.org], which is a completely different product from Open Office. Which brings us right back to copyrights and all that...
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when windows had mouse-over focus
Like this [howtogeek.com]? Or this [blogspot.com] for XP?
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I turn on mouse focus on any machine I use, click to focus is wasteful.
Patents (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Patents (Score:4, Insightful)
If he's trying to recreate a game from the 1980s, any relevant patents would have already expired by now.
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Not necessarily. It depends on the issue date of the patent.
In particular, if issuance of the patent was delayed, it may be issued for longer than 20 years.
For instance, if the patent was filed for in 1994 and issued in 2000, it could be 7 more years before it will expire, PLUS a number of additional years, according to the issuance delay.
Also, some special types of patents (as in gov' patents) can get terms much longer than 20 years.
Assuming is not good here, unless you have looked up the patent
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What about copyright? You might rapidly discover that `abandonware` is a meaningless term legally; not only that, but that a company owns the rights to the game and will come after you for a lot of money should your game before profitable for them to do so.
Re:Patents (Score:5, Informative)
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Or more practically, when there's no value in the company the rest is sold off to some liquidation company that has liquidated all the asset (like down to furniture and office supplies) and don't know or/and don't care that they got any IP rights. I imagine someone would put up 1$ for the remaining assets and the bankruptcy board will "have to" take it rather than 0$, if not it might be a good business model. You don't need much of a hit rate to earn a little net.
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Well, if he signed away copyright to it the right will revert to him after 30 years or so, but that's a log way off still.
The Game Is More Than The Code (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as it isn't covered by a dreaded software patent, you should be fine. Software patents need to die in a fire.
The gamer-geek will be pursuing other game assets which may be independently licensed and legally protected: character designs and props, background art, music and audio effects, story, script, dialog, vocal performance, and so on.
I've heard music composed and performed for the LucasArts adventures used in Disney television animation.
Talk to people who have done it before (Score:5, Insightful)
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I can second talking to other projects that have done similar things, such as the team behind UQM* or OpenTTD**.
* http://sc2.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
** http://www.openttd.org/en/ [openttd.org]
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UQM is different in that it was an actual open-sourcing of the code to Star Control 2.
The code is open source, the assets are free-as-in-beer (as in free to distribute with the game but not free to modify)
Only things they cant use are some music tracks and cinematics they dont own the rights to plus the actual "Star Control" name (which the publisher owns)
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Warzone 2100 is different because it was the people who owned the copyright who released the code first for other people to work on, not other people asking the owners to release the copyright.
You're right about the remake being good though. It was one of my favourite games back in the day, and I was incredibly surprised to find I could download it and now play it on my mac without any hitches, probably smoother than the original ran in windows.
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Yeah, but if I remember correctly, at one point Pumpkin studio's (or the new company that bought them) released all the source once the community asked for it. All they kept was things like in-game movies etc... which were owned by third parties so could not be open sourced.
And I also have to agree that the remake is good. Not only is it more stable than the original, but they have made improvements to gameplay. It was one of my favourite games back in the day as well, and it's cool now that I can play it
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No. No no no no no. Do you know how many hours of my life I have lost to that game? You son of a bitch! Why would you do this to me?! T_T
Makes one wonder... (Score:4, Funny)
What would 3DRealms do if someone just went ahead and wrote / released an open source version of Duke Nukem Forever.
Re:Makes one wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
Duke Sue'em Forever
Re:Makes one wonder... (Score:4, Funny)
What would 3DRealms do if someone just went ahead and wrote / released an open source version of Duke Nukem Forever.
Make them an offer?
Won't work ... (Score:4, Funny)
... It would never come out and I'm out of gum..
Re:Makes one wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
What would 3DRealms do if someone just went ahead and wrote / released an open source version of Duke Nukem Forever.
They would probably announce that they'll sue you soon if you don't stop this. However, the actual sue date would be shifted to the future indefinitely. :-)
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Or Count Dukem for Never!
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand why you want to create an exact port of the original game.
If you want to preserve the original game, then use an emulator like DOSBox on the original executables. It will save you a load of time.
If you want to popularize the game, then contact the owners to see if they'll sell it to you or put it under an open license. That way you can redistribute the game for use on emulators without legal worries.
If you want to make something new, then you should really put your energies into a new game inspired by the old one.
By the way, I once made a game that was a clone of a game on a portable system (with the intent of adding Internet play). It was an unexpectedly massive undertaking and by the end I was wondering why I was pouring so much energy into a derivative project that I might have to worry about lawsuits over when I finished it. It's really not worth it. You'll feel better in the end if you spend that time making something new that you can proudly take credit for.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd imagine he wants to make an exact replica of the game for the same reason people build Warhammer battlefields, model train sets, etc. by hand.
Yeah sure, there's something out there you can already buy and get working, but I bet I could make a really good (if not 1:1) replica by myself!
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If you want to preserve the original game, then use an emulator like DOSBox on the original executables. It will save you a load of time.
Emulation has its limits.
The LucasArts adventure The Dig was to have been "high defintition" for its day - until budget cuts ruled that out.
The game has a magnificent sound track and solid vocal performances.
The background art is elegant and effective. Less so when scaled up to the 21" wide screen.
The low res sprite animation was a disappoint from Day One.
The game was s
SDINAL (Score:4, Insightful)
I know there are legal implications to certain decisions I might make, but...
But nothing. You're asking a legal question, you need to go to a legal expert. Slashdotters are not legal experts, they just think they are, and their advice is worse than useless.
Re:SDINAL (Score:5, Informative)
I know there are legal implications to certain decisions I might make, but...
But nothing. You're asking a legal question, you need to go to a legal expert. Slashdotters are not legal experts, they just think they are, and their advice is worse than useless.
As a supposed legal expert (yes, IAAL), I can advise that if it cannot be positively determined that copyright is not in force (and after only 18 years it seems impossible that it would not be) then yes, without permission you could be sued, very likely successfully-- but then, the copyright holder may not wish to sue, and as another post noted, even be supportive. Be sure to get that expression of support in writing. (And be sure the author and copyright holder are one and the same.)
How does one find the copyright owner? (Score:3, Interesting)
How does one find the copyright owner?
For example, who owns copyright in the video game Zero Wing?
Re:How does one find the copyright owner? (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_registration [wikipedia.org]
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Is the registry kept up to date ? E.g. if a company gets bought by another and that company then decides to sell part of its IP, etc. A lot of old game companies from back in the 80's went through that dance several times.
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You have to track what happened to the original copyright holder. By the way, you don't have to register to have a copyright-- that just makes it easier to prove you created the work and when. A copyright attaches by law as soon as you create the work.
That does mean, if there is no registration, you are in a murky area-- never knowing if someone will come out of the woodwork and offer evidence he created the work before you took over. You're much better off finding out there is a registered owner.
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http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=Zero+Wing&Search_Code=TALL&PID=T5I32hDmtQlC8vGJrqqzQ4M&SEQ=20100313121910&CNT=25&HIST=1 [loc.gov]
Wow, the Federal Government is actually pretty on-the-ball with this. I'm impressed.
You can even get a list of all the works copyrighted by that corporation in the US: http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?SC=Author&SA=Toaplan%20Company%2C%20Ltd.&PID=TMgAaxP2Z2dDvBeDvaZQzQYU&BROWSE=1&HC=19&SID=2 [loc.gov]
Toaplan broke up in 1994 (Score:2)
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The registration on all those works is out of date because Toaplan broke up in 1994 [wikipedia.org]. Who owns the copyright in a work whose copyright is registered to a company that no longer exists?
Then the copyright devolves to the successors in interest of the company, e.g the individual partners or shareholders. Much more likely there will be a purchaser or an entitled creditor, though, than either of the former.
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Then the copyright devolves
Which is why copyright registration records are next to useless to prospective licensees: by the time you need them, they're out of date.
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Re:SDINAL (Score:5, Funny)
But nothing. You're asking a legal question, you need to go to a legal expert. Slashdotters are not legal experts, they just think they are, and their advice is worse than useless.
Goes to show what you know! We think we're experts at EVERYTHING, not just law. And we're pedantic and petty! We know it better than you do and your spelling sux and your mother ate worms! And we're abusive. I'll demonstrate: Get it right, loser!
(Anyone who mods this as anything other than humour is a complete moron).
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(Anyone who mods this as anything other than humour is a complete moron).
First you give us that delicious bit of irony, then you go and spoil it!
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Legal experts usually have little knowledge with such things, however. They very often unnecessarily advise caution to hide their lack of expertise.
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I know there are legal implications to certain decisions I might make, but...
But nothing. You're asking a legal question, you need to go to a legal expert. Slashdotters are not legal experts, they just think they are, and their advice is worse than useless.
Slashdotters think that they can logically guess the way the law works and/or that the law works the way it ought (logically) to work despite the fact that the only way to know how the law works is... to actually find out how the law works, and that it isn't always logical or consistent.
The other thing I've come across is that when you point out the law doesn't work in that idealised way, it'll be assumed that you endorse the (arguably) illogical, inconsistent and/or faulty way it *does* work. (*)
Not at all
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You're right on all counts. But you've overlooked the biggest reason people get into trouble: they're just plain out of their depth. Law is full of complicated principles and concepts that take years to master. Even if you know the basics--and many folks who think they do are just full of it--you're still not prepared for most legal issues.
It's like those people who learn a little math and decide they can prove that pi is a rational number. Except it seems to be a lot easier to get away with bogus law
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And if it had been clear the guy was specifically asking for legal advice from a legal expert, you'd have a point. But, as often happens with Ask Slashdots, people ask what they think are general questions but are really requests for legal advice.
Anyway, the place to go for that sort of thing is a site like nolo.com, where people know what they're talking about. One or two actual lawyers on Slashdot tend to get drowned out by the dozens of people who don't understand the law nearly as well as they think the
Get permission! (Score:1, Interesting)
Whether or not you think the copyright "no longer matters" is irrelevant. If you do not get legal permission it is breaking the law pure and simple.
See the case of "Alien Abuse", an iPhone port of Abuse by defunct Crack.com. The authors released the code and graphics as public domain, but the whole game (including SFX) was redistributed without legal permission. This resulted in a nasty dispute with former Crack.com founder Dave T. Taylor, and the game being removed from the iPhone app store.
The lesson I
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The authors released the code and graphics as public domain, but the whole game (including SFX) was redistributed without legal permission. This resulted in a nasty dispute with former Crack.com founder Dave T. Taylor, and the game being removed from the iPhone app store.
That sounds a bit ambiguous. Do you mean the original game author released it as PD, or the remake authors? If the former, then the original author can go jump off a cliff. If the latter, then that makes a whole lot more sense.
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That sounds a bit ambiguous. Do you mean the original game author released it as PD, or the remake authors? If the former, then the original author can go jump off a cliff. If the latter, then that makes a whole lot more sense.
You emphasized the wrong bits, and therefore seem to have missed the point. Here, allow me...
The authors released the code and graphics as public domain, but the whole game (including SFX) was redistributed without legal permission.
Now do you understand why there was a problem?
Ask the ScummVM guys (Score:4, Interesting)
My Advice (Score:2, Interesting)
If the game company has gone bankrupt it might be a situation where the company was liquidated and its assets sold. If that is that case then the company no longer owns the copyright.
In any case I doubt it is worth purchasing the copyright. You state that you will be remaking this game from scratch which means purchasing someone else's
imo (Score:4, Funny)
imo instead of bionic commando it should be bionic fartmando. instead of having a bionic arm you eat cans of super beans and fart to kill enemies. you also fart to jump, so the amount of beans you eat means that your jumps are limited. so to clear levels in the best way you have to conserve your farts and figure out how to do the least jumping. anyway bionic fartmando. code it up and i'll buy it. also i'll buy a second copy for my son marticock.
WSL3
Re:imo (Score:5, Funny)
Never before have alcohol and an Internet connection come together to make something this funny.
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I'll give away my e-mail address when they invent a pill that cures OCD or the bar is lowered by everyone else steppin' up the crazy.
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But Bionic Commando can't jump!
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Bionic Fartmando doesn't have arms.
Give it a try (Score:4, Insightful)
The people you want to talk to, by the way, are the publishers, not the developers. In some rare cases the developers own the copyright, but in 99.9% of cases games are works for hire and the publisher owns the copyright.
Now, as to what they'll do? Well who knows? There have been varied results. You may well find them very amenable to the idea and they may want little or no money. You may find they flat out say "No," or don't even respond. However you don't know until you try.
A recent example of a success in that regard is Stardock just got the license to distribute and update Total Annihilation. The CEO is a big fan of it and talked to Atari and got the rights to sell it on Impulse, as well as the rights to update it with new features. So this sort of thing can happen.
However there have been failures too. In one case, Xcom I think, it turned out the original source code had been lost so the publisher couldn't license it out, even if they wanted to since they didn't have it.
You don't know until you try what will happen. However, do be prepared that they may blow you off. One thing that may improve your chances is if you have a solid plan for what you intend to do with it. Show them a business plan, more or less, that shows you have seriously thought out how you'd improve it and so on. They may be more likley to deal with someone they believe will make something rather than someone they think might just be playing around.
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But you can buy Xcom on Stardock. It runs in DOSBox, though.
Make use of the Original (Score:5, Insightful)
How about coding yours so that it loads resources it needs from a copy of the original game which you leave it up to the end-user to acquire? This is how Quake reimplementations work and ID don't seem to have complained about it.
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As someone pointed out, Quake opensourced the engine, not the content. More importantly, if the new game relied on the old game to load textures, etc., then you would have to be distributing the OLD game. This would likely violate the copyright, and open you up for even more lawsuits. Direct distribution of copyright content is worse than making your own version of it (which is often perfectly legal).
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As someone pointed out, Quake opensourced the engine, not the content.
Indeed - which is why nQuake and others want you to provide pak1.pak from the full game to get textures and other content.
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And if you haven't bought the game, it is considered piracy. If you are sending it with your new game, it is considered copyright infringement. Not a good idea for a method of distributing your new game.
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You don't get it. The people who make games based on the Quake engine don't distribute the pak files with their release. Getting the pak file is left entirely up to the user, if they want to pirate it, buy it or whatever. The person distributing the game is not responsible for the choice of the end user, and
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I get it perfectly. The guy who is NOW trying to recreate a game can't exactly expect people to go provide their own *pak file, the game is abandoned, thus not available. The point isn't "who is liable", the point it, "it is illegal regardless of how you do it".
Not so fast (Score:2)
Remember, just because they haven't "done anything" with their copyright over the last 30 years, that doesn't mean they don't still have copyright. Or more importantly, that SOMEONE could still have the copyright, and that they might not be very nice.
Writing any code on the basis of "they probably won't care" isn't a great idea, and other projects have been burned by that in the past.
As said elsewhere in the comments, contact the owner or creator first. If it really is abandonware then he probable won't min
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Or more importantly, that SOMEONE could still have the copyright, and that they might not be very nice.
Then how does one go about locating this SOMEONE if the game's original publisher is defunct?
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With difficulty, unfortunately. Asking the game's creators might be a good start, as they might have an idea of what happened to the rights- their company was bought by A, that company was bought by B, etc.
If you try looking and after a reasonable amount of effort still can't locate anyone, then maybe just go for broke and press on with the project. At least you tried though.
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Admitting that you tried (but failed) to not break a law is not a good defence.
"I tried to find somewhere to pay for the laptop before I finally just walked out of the shop with it under my arm" is equivalent to saying "Yes, I stole it."
PS for the anti-IP brigade, I am not equating copyright breach with theft. It is an analogy.
Oh Look (Score:1, Redundant)
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Nope.
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In other words, no copyright reforms are coming anytime soon.
What do you mean my "recreate"? (Score:2)
The main trouble you might run into and which many other projects have run into are naming conflicts. Publishers like to protect their trademarks, so any name that is a little to close to the original will give you a cease&desist, but those are mostly harmless, as you just need to change your project name then.
Taking over gameplay ideas and concepts is however a non-issue, lots of games do that, even commercial ones.
If you want to create a pixel-perfect replica using original artwork and stuff you shoul
I've done this before... (Score:5, Insightful)
First thing I did was emailed a few of the principal owners of the game, and told them about my intent, and asked about who holds the copyright and trademarks. I got the go ahead, with the caveat that another company owned the trademark to this particular game.
I also searched the web to look at other projects based on remakes. It seems that the best way to handle remakes of abandownare games is to not to bother the company that made it (especially if they're big like EA or Activision). The unwritten rule seems to be if you don't bother them, they won't bother you. Otherwise, they'll just say no and might put the kibosh on the project.
This should also be obvious, but don't sell the game. Just don't.
I never finished the game I was remaking since writing the tools to make it got laboriously time consuming.
Start a company - limit your personal liability (Score:2)
You could always go the non-profit route, but ironically, non-profits typically cost more to start up a
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IANAL, but this is a subject I've looked into. Limited liability can help greatly when you have acted in good faith, but it is unlikely to shield you if you have shown malice or willful blindness. This is especially true for very small companies that are effectively a vehicle for the acts of one person.
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Don't mean to troll but to help you (Score:2)
Rather than sending this to "Ask Slashdot", you ought to send it to "Ask a Lawyer" (prepare to pay).
You're not coding, you're prevaricating (Score:2)
Due dilligence (Score:2)
At least try to contact people you think might own the copyright and the original authors. Save a copy of anything you send and any response. If you're sued, then you can prove you don't have any malicious intent and you actually tried to do right.
YOU take the risk (Score:2)
To create an "open source game", you're giving your customers a license but you would be given them a license for something you KNOW you don't own. You're setting yourself up for a world of hurt. Not only can the original copyright and/or patent holders come after you, but every single one of YOUR licensees could come after you for damages as well. Whether or not you charge a fee has absolutely no bearing on the matter. The real question you need to ask is not whether you'd be in the right or wrong but
try a nonprofit art law organization (Score:2)
Video game design is an art. So look for a nonprofit lawyers for the arts organization in your state.
They will almost certainly be able to give you more informed legal advice than you will find on /., and some of them might be able to set you up with a pro bono attorney. Here's a list (from NY's Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts) of state arts law organizations:
http://www.vlany.org/resources/vladirectory.php [vlany.org]
(Btw, based on the handful of such organizations I've contacted, it seems that calling is often necessar
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When people clone an existing game they rarely create art, they usually just take what they can and clone the rest. That's not really a creative endeavor.