Re: My new game: Tales Of Eriyius
Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 10:42 pmThere are two types of infringement: Copyright infringement and Trademark infringement.The graphics, sound, and dialog are copyrighted, while the name is most likely trademarked.
Copyright infringement is only prosecutable only if you make money off of it or use it to build up your own trademark.
3rd party money isn't a problem, like if you have a freewebs site that displays a freewebs ad, this would be no different than Youtube infringement, where they can dump your account but they can't sue you, because you weren't making the money.
If you host google ads for profit, however, that would be direct infringement, punishable by fines up to 250,000 USD, as well as compensation (you'd have to give them all the money you made). However, i don't think this is where Azou is going with this. The bigger issue here is called "Trademark Dilution".
TradeMarks
The name of the game, Tales of Symphonia, is a Trademark. Trademark laws are not a onetime protection like copyright, but instead are ongoing. This means you can't use the Coca Cola logo without their permission, because then you could make people think that coke supports what you're doing. (this is why mickey mouse isn't public domain, even though the copyright should have expired).
This was reinforced in the case of "The Brothers Grime" who made dirty cartoons using Disney Characters, which reflects poorly on the Disney Trademarks, and if it were allowed, corporations could use it to constantly attack and devalue trademarks that the owners put a LOT of advertising money into to built up its popularity and recognition.
(what if i went around flaming and spamming forums using the nickname "Azou"?)
Often times, when you see advertisements that say that their product is better than another specific brand, they avoid lawsuits simply by weakening the legal case; If clorox says their product cleans tile better than formula 409, they didn't say 409 kills people, or is used by terrorists. They still showed 409 cleaning a bathroom, which is what it is for, so the trademark isn't really diluted. And saying another product is 'better' isn't really a crime because there are no laws saying a commercial has to be truthful. (someone who doesn't like Lucky Charms cannot sue lucky charms for saying they're "Magically Delicious", because 'delicious' is impossible to define. They could only sue lucky charms if they said "lucky charms cures cancer" because that would be an outright lie that could result in real deaths.)
Calm Down
Its not likely that anything will happen in this situation, Azou doesn't have 10 million dollars so the companies aren't going to bother sueing him; and since the game isn't commercially distributed, and the trademark doesn't seem be used in a bad way, there's really no case to make here.
I hope that clarifies things for everyone. I made my first post on this thread more to give respect to Fujishima than to bash Azou, as i have been a fan of the tales series for a while. Tales of Phantasia had all the stuff a Playstation game would have, but on a SNES! It's incredible!
Copyright infringement is only prosecutable only if you make money off of it or use it to build up your own trademark.
3rd party money isn't a problem, like if you have a freewebs site that displays a freewebs ad, this would be no different than Youtube infringement, where they can dump your account but they can't sue you, because you weren't making the money.
If you host google ads for profit, however, that would be direct infringement, punishable by fines up to 250,000 USD, as well as compensation (you'd have to give them all the money you made). However, i don't think this is where Azou is going with this. The bigger issue here is called "Trademark Dilution".
TradeMarks
The name of the game, Tales of Symphonia, is a Trademark. Trademark laws are not a onetime protection like copyright, but instead are ongoing. This means you can't use the Coca Cola logo without their permission, because then you could make people think that coke supports what you're doing. (this is why mickey mouse isn't public domain, even though the copyright should have expired).
This was reinforced in the case of "The Brothers Grime" who made dirty cartoons using Disney Characters, which reflects poorly on the Disney Trademarks, and if it were allowed, corporations could use it to constantly attack and devalue trademarks that the owners put a LOT of advertising money into to built up its popularity and recognition.
(what if i went around flaming and spamming forums using the nickname "Azou"?)
Often times, when you see advertisements that say that their product is better than another specific brand, they avoid lawsuits simply by weakening the legal case; If clorox says their product cleans tile better than formula 409, they didn't say 409 kills people, or is used by terrorists. They still showed 409 cleaning a bathroom, which is what it is for, so the trademark isn't really diluted. And saying another product is 'better' isn't really a crime because there are no laws saying a commercial has to be truthful. (someone who doesn't like Lucky Charms cannot sue lucky charms for saying they're "Magically Delicious", because 'delicious' is impossible to define. They could only sue lucky charms if they said "lucky charms cures cancer" because that would be an outright lie that could result in real deaths.)
Calm Down
Its not likely that anything will happen in this situation, Azou doesn't have 10 million dollars so the companies aren't going to bother sueing him; and since the game isn't commercially distributed, and the trademark doesn't seem be used in a bad way, there's really no case to make here.
I hope that clarifies things for everyone. I made my first post on this thread more to give respect to Fujishima than to bash Azou, as i have been a fan of the tales series for a while. Tales of Phantasia had all the stuff a Playstation game would have, but on a SNES! It's incredible!
!
