im sertiant this will be a great game when its finished

Glad you think so. We do as well.

If you encounter any problems or want to post a review, feel free to do so. And welcome to the forums.

i know your not finnished but have you ever thought of using some things from other games?



it me again

Yes we have thought about it...but doing so would be illegal.

You can't use content that you don't have permission/the rights to use. Doing so would leave you open to claims for damages, court and so on. It's for that exact reason that BotE was de-trekked - even using the Star Trek name itself is dangerous since we don't own the licence nor have permission. We're banking on our game not becoming too popular.

We are using some of the images from BOTF though, such as the structure images. The images are surprisingly high-quality, even if they are 9 years old now, and in fact we have been trying to contact the guy that made them in the first place to see if he has any that we can use/can make more for us. I haven't heard how successful we have been in doing so yet though.

This is why we're asking for 2D artists, 3D artists, writers, musicians, modellers, texturers, programmers, and playtesters to help us make the game. Having our own content would greatly reduce the risk of legal issues in the future.

Hey there again!

I think he meant ideas from other games, which is perfectly alright, and in fact we are doing it already.

I don't mean to cause any apprehension, and I posted on this in the BOTE forum a while back, but it does not matter whether you make your own trek content or 'borrow' it from others, so long as it is substantially similar that is what the law looks for. However, there is a point to not blanently using commercially used copyrights because it does avoid attention (and tends to make the owner less upset when you are just ripping them off). This does not obviate liability though, but I would emphasize that your liability is generally going to be limited to ceasing and desisting, rather than monetary damages, because this game is not being used for commercial purposes. Most companies also tolerate fan games because it helps their fan base (unless it interferes with an active or future product, then they may be less willing to tolerate it).

I would also like to make the point that there are copyrights in software and its content - ie Microprose (now Activision I think), would own the copyright to the general game design, while Paramount most likely retained their copyrights to anything and everything trek (only licensing its use to Microprose for purpose of the game).

At the moment I don't think there is much to worry about so long as everything remains non-commercial, and if anything came up it from a big company (Activision or Paramount) a likely response is a simple cease and desist letter as they don't like the bad publicity from suing or asking for money damages.

Of course I have to say, if you want to rely on legal advice you should seek counsel and this represents only a brief and cursory opinion on my part.

It's Atari Interactive, not Activision . General game design as in mechanics can't be copyrighted but patented ( http://www.daledietrich.com/gaming/nova ... copyright/ http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=15727244 http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... ation.html ). But of course, the rules descriptions and such are copyrighted. The button "Intel" and "Diplomacy" however is not, since it's commonplace in the genre and botf wasn't the first to use it. It bears no artistic or literally worthy perfomance in it.

If only there was a way you could replace "rather than" with "no" in your text and "tolerate" with "giving explicit permission for all", then I'd be perfectly fine . But as it turns out, they all wanna reserve the right to kick off non-commercial games when they plan similar commercial ones which is understandable.

You are right game mechanics/rules cannot be copyrighted, but the general layout/interface may (and I emphasize may) be copyrighted or patented, but copying would likely have to be very similar (sorry if my writing confused layout with game mechanics, not my intention, I do make lots of grammatical errors and ommit words). Game rules (or mechanics) can only be copyrighted if printed (treated as a litery work aka a book), but liability is only for literal copying (and I mean literal/exact copying) not the expression that the rules accomplish (such as playing or developing the game, this is uncopyrightable).

Copyright law protects a lot of stuff, most people make copyright violations everyday (if you draw Micky Mouse in your home you are violating Disney's copyrights, even if you don't sell it or show it to anyone). Fan art/games are often recieved well, but as you are correct to point out again Mal , the copyright owner reserves their rights and can take action at anytime if they so choose (key is whether they choose to do so, they could go after anyone here for trek avatars, but I admit I have no clue as to what goes on in the minds of people at Paramount or Atari ). Copyright is a hard area of the law to find a truly safe harbor in, best thing is of course to get permission, but failing that try not to be noticed or become a threat (which is of course impossible if you don't know what they are thinking).

If you see mods, ship modelers, and fan games getting shut down left and right, then you should worry. On the topic of using material from other games v. making your own trek content, they are both equally violative of copyrights, one is just less likely to make the owner feel as ripped off (but they are ripped off in either case under US law).

There is potential, but monetarily limited (if non-commercial), liability in anything trek that is unauthorized, so I kind of see all this as an question of "in for a dime, in for a dollar" or "get out while you can". But of course the makers of the great games of BOTF 2 and BOTE should only do what they feel comfortable doing or what they feel is safer.

There is actually an official botf strategy book (still available at Amazon) so rules are in fact printed. Now I don't quite understand if this makes a difference because we're not really wanting to do the same, i.e. print a book about our game. The rules should still be equally copyrighted when appearing on-screen as on-book so to speak. Where's the difference there?

Btw. I decided to get out while I can with the option to knock again at the right doors .

In the eyes of US law, printing a rule is different from expressing rules in a game (playing the game). When you publish rules you are creating a "literary work". Fixation onto a tangible medium (something physical to place the work on) is required, and putting a work onto computer memory is sufficient, but note the difference to playing the game versus reading the rules of the game.

For example, if your game literally had a screen showing you all the rules that another game has, that could be publishing the rules, and if the rules are an exact copy you would likely infringe. However, if you can express the rules in a different manner (just like how code can be written in many different ways to achieve the same result) there would be much less of a problem or none at all. And again, merely using the rules in your game's code would likely not infringe unless you copied the code exactly (code is also considered fixed once it is on memory and would be treated as a literary work).

Also, rules have been treated similar to publishing a phone book full of phone numbers. You can copyright that exact order and manner those numbers are published, but you cannot prevent someone else from changing the order here and there, adding a few numbers and publishing their own version. In the case of a phone book its because the literary work contains only facts available to the public and the idea of copyright law is to encourage expression, so certain categories of "literary" works recieve less protection (ie infringement only if there is exact copying). US copyright law does not look at how much labor went into the work, it looks to the type of contribution made, and phone numbers or facts are not very expressive and recieve less protection. Gameplay and development cannot be copyrighted (you cannot make someone infringe merely by playing the game or if someone borrows some of the rules) but you may stop them from publishing rules in the exact (nearly word for word) manner you may have.

Once the rules are published in a book the literal copying of the rules into another book could infringe. If there is accompanying text explaining the how the game and its rules work that would also be copyrightable, and could recieve more protection than the rules, but less than a story about the game that is written in some format (a story recieves full protection and is considered more expressive). But note that infringement can also depend on the amount of copying taking place.

Games and their rules are an interesting area of copyright law and many cases on it come from cases on board games (like Monopoly or Clue), making it hard to appy it to video games. Video games are generally analogized to software copyrights/patents. It has not really been discussed as to the status of code being game rules/mechanics, but rules often are associated with ideas (which are broad and cannot be copyrighted if they only have a few forms of expression that would prohibit others from using them if someone had a monopoly on their use) rather than expressions of an idea. The "general look and feel" of user interfaces can be copyrighted, separate from the literal code (and in some cases file structure and organization), but courts have struggled to come up with a consensus of principles on software (and tend to disfavor strong protection for code, but thats where patent law comes in). Some courts take a "totality" (total concept and feel) view to see if the believe that the works in question are similar enough, even though smaller compenants may not be exact copying.

It really depends on what you are doing with the rules, ie using them to play or printing them (or otherwise fixed them in a tangible medium such as a book or on a computers hard drive) along with how much copying took place. Rules may require a lot of exact copying to infringe, which is why its hard to bring a case for copying rules and why patents on code are favored. It is also why software makers can focus on the artistic content and interfaces separate from the code (generally more expressive than code).

I love these academic discourses . You know, we could just plain ask Atari Interactive and Paramount

anyway, you made the whole thing very clear. BotE should be safe since our UI and code is selfwritten resp. sufficiently different in the looks and arrangements vs. botf UI. Supremacy is out of the hook as well when it comes to its unique UI arrangements and stuff, but not so much from the content side I guess. I don't know how much descriptive text from botf was plain copied cause it did fit well. If there was no copying then my excuses .

btw. stegrex, have you read this intriguing essay: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jdlitman ... dayton.htm ?

The conclusion out of that discourse is that even browsing an infringing site makes me an infringer myself since I copy stuff into RAM while browsing in fact duplicating it and possibly making it hackable and distributable by others. It sounds hysterical but I think U.S. copyright law seriously needs amendments concerning digital reproductions. It only seems to work on old analog basis..

You're right, its is very strange how US copyright law can work in certain circumstances, but courts have been focusing more on the facilitators of copying (an ISP is not resposible for making available infringing works on its servers or machines, unless it is aware of the infringment and it does nothing or aids in it). Also be aware that de minimus (very very small) copying is a defense to infringement, along with many other defenses.

US copyright law is still trying to adapt to the digital age, some changes make no sense, other areas are great. This of course causes great confusion and can get people in trouble. I do think Supremacy and BOTE are generally safe regarding the GUI, but there are still a few Circuit Courts in the US that could still find similarity based on the test for similarity they use (there has yet to be a ruling from the US Supreme Court on how to determine substantial similarity, and there are 13 Circuit Courts (appellate courts) in the US, not all using the same standards.

The article you point to seems interesting, a little bit out of date, but the same criticism have continue in copyright law. Personally, I find a lot of copyright law can be ridiculous, especially in digital stuff, but at the same time can make sense in other areas. The general trend in the US and around the world is for more protection, but exceptions do get carved out.

I find the discourses very interesting as well , and hopefully others are reading, although the topic can be so dry and boring may not be reading the posts.

well, if you look at galciv II gui, I also see similarities there. There is a (okay, 3D) map which is prominently displayed taking large portions of screen size, various buttons and small windows for showing stuff so that in principle, all those 4X tbs game GUIs look essentially the same. Don't think there is a case on similarity to win there.

You can find similarities everywhere, and it can really be up to whatever a judge is feeling on a particular day. But if you have a game you are directly basing your GUI off of the judge would take notice of that and influence the decision. Generally an interface would have to be very similar, for example Microsoft cannot copyright the menu bar at the top of its programs, but that is also an issue of not limiting functionality. The interface would probably be the last thing a copyright holder would worry about when a franchise such as star trek is involved.

exactly. In theory, I have nothing against even asking Atari about if they are okay with our game('s gui) once and if we got a positive answer from the big guys over at Paramount. I think it's all relatively easy: go and ask, but do it with the right timing . Anyway it's always better to do that before going to court or waiting for c&d letters.