Re: Bug

[Raul Miller <moth.debian@gmail.com>]

On 5/29/05, Nathanael Nerode <neroden@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
> The history of the game using material from a copyrighted game is unfortunate,
> however, (much like the history of FreeCiv), and would probably look bad in a
> court.  FreeCiv no longer does that; the history would still look bad,
> though.  OpenTTD still does, and I would be quite uncomfortable with it until
> they fix that.  The use of the TTD artwork in another program is probably
> legal for an individual (who already possesses the artwork), but writing a
> program which depends heavily on that artwork could perhaps amount to writing
> a derivative work or unauthorized sequel.

This is where the "interface defense" and "ephemeral change defense"
comes in.

Note that you don't have to uninstall openttd to revert to the standard
presentation of the standard game.  All you have to do is run the 
microprose game (which, admittedly, would require an appropriate
version of wine to run on most linux systems, but owners of that 
artwork own copies of the microprose game and so they are legally 
entitled to run it).

In other words, the defense would be that not enough creative elements
have been introduced to create a different work.  The use of existing
artwork is fine for people who have legal copies of that existing artwork,
in cases which aren't new and separately protected works.  You're not 
depriving Microprose of any creative market more than someone writing 
a version of wine which lets you set and save breakpoints to modify 
code flow is depriving Microprose of a creative market.  The changes are
functional, or temporary.

But this artwork  is why OpenTTD goes in contrib (as would any 
other game, Sid Meier or otherwise, where someone had implemented 
a freely distributable game engine that requires the original game 
data).