[Enigma-devel] Re: Oxyd revival

[Cellar of Rats]

There are a lot of misunderstandings with copyrights, so allow a few 
comments from a member of entertainment industry. 

First and foremost, copyrights protect expressions of ideas, not the ideas 
themselves. So from that standpoint there is no copyright infringement with 
Enigma. 

Secondly, copyright is a right that gives the owner of the content exclusive 
rights to decide how, when and where will their material be published. By 
publishing is understood any release to general public, like posting to 
internet. 

Since Enigma is written from scratch, uses original artwork and sounds, 
there is no copyright infringement from that standpoint either. 

Thirdly, copyrights are set for certain regions including entire world. 
Since you are not limiting the download of Enigma for german users only, it 
is assumed that you are distributing it for entire world. 

There is one small problem, though. The "expression of ideas". This can be 
very ambiguous in the case of Enigma. Oxyd is a very unique game. It has 
unique concepts of gameplay, and it could be argued that Enigma is a 
derivative of Oxyd with substantial amount of similar parts. However, 
proving that would demand lawsuits and large amounts of money which, I 
firmly believe, is in no one's interest here. 

The worst thing that can happen, hypothetically, is that a software giant 
picks up the rights for Oxyd and sues Enigma. And in that case the worst 
thing that can happen is for Enigma project to be shut down. Hypothetical 
worst case scenario. 

By the way, a patent and a copyright are not the same. Game ideas *can* be 
patented. Anything can be patented. 




Erich Schubert writes: 

> Hi, 
>
> > didn't violate any trademarks AFAIK.  And I doubt that game ideas can be
> > patented.
>
> Well, of course this could change soon (stupid patent laws coming
> up... stop software patents, ensure interoperability!), but I asked
> Ravensburger some years ago about an online "Memory" type game I made.
> They quickly replied to me that they have a trademark on the Memory
> game, so I must not use that name, but the game principle is not
> protected.
> All parties mentioned here - Ravensburger, me (ok, not right now, but
> back then), Dongleware 8the makers of oxyd) and AFAIC the main authors
> of enigma are based in germany, so that is most likely the legal
> situation for us. IANAL.