Re: RES: Open Transport Tycoon - if it was like freeciv
On Tue, 17 May 2005, Humberto Massa Guimarães wrote:
> Rules and behaviour IMHO are (in Brasil at least) safe, even from
> patents. What would be a good translation for "mise en scene"? This
> is a concept that I find kind of difficult to explain.
> Anyway, you are *confessing* in your first paragraph that you are
> *transforming* the storyline that is part of the game TTD into
> another work. So, your FreeTycoon game *is*, for starters, a
> derivative work, since its first inception.
Yes. Seems like in this case boils down to: what is the difference between
a storyline and a ruleset?
To countinue my strangeness: If we viewed *civ and *tycoon as utility
software :-) ? Like, freeciv - itsn't a game - it a reseach utilization
simulation and modelling software ... And TT could probably be educational
software for the operation of public transit, or if we made somthing more
exact - a good schedule-simulation software for your transport department :-)
In this case, you should relly be able to make competing software that
fills some purpose. If the storyline is just "a program that allows you to
simulate public transport operation with advancing technology", it sould
more like a (stupid) SW-patent than something that can be copyrighted. Or?
I can say "I like the idea of a Office suite with this and that look and
features" and then write a software package that many users even can't
tell is something other than the original Office suite. Not sued yet. Or?
> Any scenery and/or characters you draw that resembles the original
> ones -- and interacts as would the original ones -- would be
> construed IMHO as proof of infringement (provided you don't have an
> authorization from the copyright holder to make a derivative work).
Hmm. But isn't this *very* much how freeciv works?
Both games IMHO are more of the concept/utilty-type, and have a pretty
non-existing storyline (of the "once upon a time ..." kind).
/Per Eric
--
^): Per Eric Rosén http://rosnix.net/~per/
/ per@rosnix.net GPG 7A7A BD68 ADC0 01E1 F560 79FD 33D1 1EC3 1EBB 7311
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