🎉 Celebrating 25 Years of GameDev.net! 🎉
Not many can claim 25 years on the Internet! Join us in celebrating this milestone. Learn more about our history, and thank you for being a part of our community!
Mech characters and copyrights..
Author
I''m working on a major project that''s going to be released as shareware later this year and we have decided to use mech models for the player and enemies.
My question is, does any one company or individual lay claim to these kinds of characters? Will I end up in trouble with the makers of Mech Warriors for example?
I''ve seen these mech walker designs used in many places over the years, the Star Wars AT-ST, an Amiga game from Psygnosis called "Walker", and more recently the Mech Warrior series of games so I would like to assume that they are a very generalised concept and as long as our models do not appear to duplicate any of the afore-mentioned mechs we''ll be safe.
My biggest fear is that Hasbro *spit* is involved with the distribution of the official AT-ST Walker toy. While our models are nothing like this, they do follow the walker theme and could potentially be construed as clone.
So, would we be safer avoiding the mech theme altogether?
Thanks,
Matt
matibee.com
Nonsense. Hasbro *spit* doesn''t own the copyright to the Star Wars AT-ST mech, they only retain the license to produce "official" toys with the SW name on it.
I would not worry too much about copyright law for something like this, as long as your products are within reason. Mechs'' concept are certainly are more refined than automobiles for example, but no one seemed to mind the obvious rip-off names found in GTA for example. I haven''t seen LucasArts suing Activision over MechWarrior 2 because AT-STs and AT-ATs could conceivably be the "grandfathers" of MW mechs.
You certainly could get in trouble if your mechs had names taken from other TM''d sources, although making a huge mech called Zeus or Atlas -- I think there is such a thing found in MW2 -- would be hard to bring you to court over. The name Zeus or Atlas suggests a massive, powerful, sluggish mech (for example), but if your entire game stuck with Greek deities'' names, it would be indicate consistency rather than copyright infringement (since both sources use a name taken from something which has no copyright or trademark).
If you''re seriously concerned about copyright law, I would suggest hiring a lawyer that has experience in the game development (or at least the IT world), and have them survey the intellectual properties that your company has.
Kinda like no one owns the rights to the concept of "orcs", "elves", "starships", and "laser guns". They''re all fictional ideas, but no one entity, organization, or person owns a copyright for them. Try to put "phasers", "transporters", "Drizzt Do''Urden", or a "warp drive" into your game, and then you might have a problem, as these are all very specific instances of the aforementioned un-copyright-ables that each exist in only one concept.
I would not worry too much about copyright law for something like this, as long as your products are within reason. Mechs'' concept are certainly are more refined than automobiles for example, but no one seemed to mind the obvious rip-off names found in GTA for example. I haven''t seen LucasArts suing Activision over MechWarrior 2 because AT-STs and AT-ATs could conceivably be the "grandfathers" of MW mechs.
You certainly could get in trouble if your mechs had names taken from other TM''d sources, although making a huge mech called Zeus or Atlas -- I think there is such a thing found in MW2 -- would be hard to bring you to court over. The name Zeus or Atlas suggests a massive, powerful, sluggish mech (for example), but if your entire game stuck with Greek deities'' names, it would be indicate consistency rather than copyright infringement (since both sources use a name taken from something which has no copyright or trademark).
If you''re seriously concerned about copyright law, I would suggest hiring a lawyer that has experience in the game development (or at least the IT world), and have them survey the intellectual properties that your company has.
Kinda like no one owns the rights to the concept of "orcs", "elves", "starships", and "laser guns". They''re all fictional ideas, but no one entity, organization, or person owns a copyright for them. Try to put "phasers", "transporters", "Drizzt Do''Urden", or a "warp drive" into your game, and then you might have a problem, as these are all very specific instances of the aforementioned un-copyright-ables that each exist in only one concept.
The concept of big walking killing machine is not copyrighted/trademarked, however you should be careful with what names you use. The BattleTech universe (which includes the RPGs, wargames, collectable card game, and both computers games lines: MechWarrior & MechCommander) is owned by FASA Corporation. They have several registered trademarks that you cannot use without paying royalities to them, some the most important names are: BattleTech, MechWarrior, BattleMech and ''Mech. If you want to avoid legal hassle just go with the general term "Mecha", its been in use for so long that a company would find it very hard to try and gain ownership of it.
FASA got into alot of trouble in the early years of the battletech paper and pencil game because there first edition used the exact designs from the Robotech/Macross series. They phased out all of those mechs when they introduced the Clans. Their shouldn''t be any problem using similar architectures/layouts but with a different articstic approach.
Author
quote:
I would not worry too much about copyright law for something like this, as long as your products are within reason. Mechs'' concept are certainly are more refined than automobiles for example, but no one seemed to mind the obvious rip-off names found in GTA for example. I haven''t seen LucasArts suing Activision over MechWarrior 2 because AT-STs and AT-ATs could conceivably be the "grandfathers" of MW mechs.
That was my thinking too. I''ve never owned a MechWarrior game, so I wasn''t sure if there might actually be a notice to the effect of "Mech walker designs appear courtesy of G. Lucas" on the box!
Thanks everyone.
Matt
matibee.com
If it were possible to sue for copying something like the design of a starship then George Lucas himself should be hauled into court by the producers of Tron over the shameless Solar Sailer ripoff. Nevertheless, put something that looks like a Tie Fighter in a popular game and see how fast you find yourself up to your eyeballs in legal trouble.
This topic is closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Popular Topics
Advertisement
