Potential legal issues

[Smokey]

Hi, I believe I commented on this game before but I really feel I should say something again.

I really love the look of this first of all, however you guys really should not use that tripod design cause it will put you in legal trouble!
I understand that war of the worlds as a story is public domain, but that is just the story, not the art associated with it! You really do not want a big movie studio after you for this!

You have to change the tripod design to something original or you will lose this game. Simple as.

Sorry if I'm a buzzkill but I don't want to see a cool project like this die off

[АsteroidBuggs ☂]

This is supposed to be based off of War of the Worlds (2005 Adaption), but the tripods development as an AI is too far in to change design anyways (I think, I'm not really much of a coder, so I'm just guessing that part), and if you read other discussions, the dev is already working on the legal stuff.
Unless you simply hate the 2005 adaption like a lot of other people. That would explain the specific paragraph to tell raf to change it to something original. Sorry if I sound rude at all.

[Smokey]

Originally posted by AsteroidBuggs:

This is supposed to be based off of War of the Worlds (2005 Adaption), but the tripods development as an AI is too far in to change design anyways (I think, I'm not really much of a coder, so I'm just guessing that part), and if you read other discussions, the dev is already working on the legal stuff.
Unless you simply hate the 2005 adaption like a lot of other people. That would explain the specific paragraph to tell raf to change it to something original. Sorry if I sound rude at all.

I personally love the adaption and I think this game looks great and has a concept which I personally have wanted to see done. I'm just worried about a promising project being destroyed because of legal issues.

And to be completely frank, as someone who studies the game industry and has been looking into the licensing process, the odds of this game getting the rights are pretty much 0. Unless the creator can show that they will sell like a AAA game... Which again, I hate to say it but it just wont happen.

That's why I'm writing this, because realistically even if they tried they're not going to get the rights. I understand being inspired by the movie, but you can be inspired by it without using the same design. If the creator plays it smart in their re-design process, they can pay homage to the movie in a way that the audience will understand whilst still being safe from takedown notices. Personally, I'd love to see that. I think the spielberg design is the best we've seen and seeing a new artistic take on the design that's distinct yet has similar energy would be awesome.

My personal pointers would be to look at the 2005 movies concept art, parodies and other adaptions/artwork done for the book. There's so much that can be done whilst being authentic to the original vision for this game.

[Smokerbait]

From the Devs in a previous post:

"Hello, I see your concern however we are in the process of replacing all the sound effects with in house made sounds that are eerily similar to the ones from the movie but not exact so there wont be an issue in terms of sounds. The design of our tripod is not 100% replicate of the ones in the movies but very close. We have a backup design in case we need to replace it in the future but the chances that we are forced to change it are extremely low."

He addresses this issue in more depth here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NL83IFGbOg&t=1s

I don't know how this will go down. I am not positive he is totally safe from Paramount's lawyers, but at least it is certain he's not going into this blindly.

[АsteroidBuggs ☂]

Originally posted by Smokey:

Originally posted by AsteroidBuggs:

This is supposed to be based off of War of the Worlds (2005 Adaption), but the tripods development as an AI is too far in to change design anyways (I think, I'm not really much of a coder, so I'm just guessing that part), and if you read other discussions, the dev is already working on the legal stuff.
Unless you simply hate the 2005 adaption like a lot of other people. That would explain the specific paragraph to tell raf to change it to something original. Sorry if I sound rude at all.

I personally love the adaption and I think this game looks great and has a concept which I personally have wanted to see done. I'm just worried about a promising project being destroyed because of legal issues.

And to be completely frank, as someone who studies the game industry and has been looking into the licensing process, the odds of this game getting the rights are pretty much 0. Unless the creator can show that they will sell like a AAA game... Which again, I hate to say it but it just wont happen.

That's why I'm writing this, because realistically even if they tried they're not going to get the rights. I understand being inspired by the movie, but you can be inspired by it without using the same design. If the creator plays it smart in their re-design process, they can pay homage to the movie in a way that the audience will understand whilst still being safe from takedown notices. Personally, I'd love to see that. I think the spielberg design is the best we've seen and seeing a new artistic take on the design that's distinct yet has similar energy would be awesome.

My personal pointers would be to look at the 2005 movies concept art, parodies and other adaptions/artwork done for the book. There's so much that can be done whilst being authentic to the original vision for this game.

I get that, but I don't think the tripod designs will lower the chance of this games success as much as its campaign will, since the entire story line of it is based off the movie (Of course, this is considering Raf has never diverged the campaign from how the movie plays out.), but this is just a guess for me, since I don't know much about how copyright and licenses work with this kind of stuff. And I am terribly sorry for assuming you hated the adaption, I jumped to conclusions too fast.

[Smokey]

Originally posted by Smokerbait:

From the Devs in a previous post:

"Hello, I see your concern however we are in the process of replacing all the sound effects with in house made sounds that are eerily similar to the ones from the movie but not exact so there wont be an issue in terms of sounds. The design of our tripod is not 100% replicate of the ones in the movies but very close. We have a backup design in case we need to replace it in the future but the chances that we are forced to change it are extremely low."

He addresses this issue in more depth here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NL83IFGbOg&t=1s

I don't know how this will go down. I am not positive he is totally safe from Paramount's lawyers, but at least it is certain he's not going into this blindly.

This is great to see! Thank you for this link, this really gives me renewed confidence in the project :)

[Smokey]

Originally posted by AsteroidBuggs:

Originally posted by Smokey:

I personally love the adaption and I think this game looks great and has a concept which I personally have wanted to see done. I'm just worried about a promising project being destroyed because of legal issues.

And to be completely frank, as someone who studies the game industry and has been looking into the licensing process, the odds of this game getting the rights are pretty much 0. Unless the creator can show that they will sell like a AAA game... Which again, I hate to say it but it just wont happen.

That's why I'm writing this, because realistically even if they tried they're not going to get the rights. I understand being inspired by the movie, but you can be inspired by it without using the same design. If the creator plays it smart in their re-design process, they can pay homage to the movie in a way that the audience will understand whilst still being safe from takedown notices. Personally, I'd love to see that. I think the spielberg design is the best we've seen and seeing a new artistic take on the design that's distinct yet has similar energy would be awesome.

My personal pointers would be to look at the 2005 movies concept art, parodies and other adaptions/artwork done for the book. There's so much that can be done whilst being authentic to the original vision for this game.

I get that, but I don't think the tripod designs will lower the chance of this games success as much as its campaign will, since the entire story line of it is based off the movie (Of course, this is considering Raf has never diverged the campaign from how the movie plays out.), but this is just a guess for me, since I don't know much about how copyright and licenses work with this kind of stuff. And I am terribly sorry for assuming you hated the adaption, I jumped to conclusions too fast.

Don't worry about it! I can see how you took that from it as it's a bit of a divisive movie haha.

I think the story of the movie is very close to the book... Closer than anyone gives it credit for, therefore I don't think the story is in any danger as the story is public domain. It's just a design issue, but the post above yours has cleared all that up!

[Arcticspyder]

The Copyrights to War of the Worlds ended in 2013. The copyright was for the author and 50 years after his death, H.G. Wells died in 1963, so the copyrights are now public domain.

[Smokey]

Originally posted by Arcticspyder:

The Copyrights to War of the Worlds ended in 2013. The copyright was for the author and 50 years after his death, H.G. Wells died in 1963, so the copyrights are now public domain.

As i stated above, that's just for the story.

Adaptions of it do not fall under public domain.

[Arcticspyder]

Originally posted by Smokey:

Originally posted by Arcticspyder:

The Copyrights to War of the Worlds ended in 2013. The copyright was for the author and 50 years after his death, H.G. Wells died in 1963, so the copyrights are now public domain.

As i stated above, that's just for the story.

Adaptions of it do not fall under public domain.

I think that you are correct, I could find nothing about the copyrights to the 2005 movie and that is where this game may cross into legal issues.

[Zen_Abe]

Simple as this: offer the movie studio to own this game. I mean it's cool as heck, and there will be hundreds of thousand petition signature if they so refuse to acquire the game and release it OFFICIALLY. If that happens and comes down to that.

[АsteroidBuggs ☂]

Originally posted by Zen_Abe:

Simple as this: offer the movie studio to own this game. I mean it's cool as heck, and there will be hundreds of thousand petition signature if they so refuse to acquire the game and release it OFFICIALLY. If that happens and comes down to that.

Smort.

[Arcticspyder]

Originally posted by Zen_Abe:

Simple as this: offer the movie studio to own this game. I mean it's cool as heck, and there will be hundreds of thousand petition signature if they so refuse to acquire the game and release it OFFICIALLY. If that happens and comes down to that.

LOL, never going to happen!

[CYAANIDDE]

Originally posted by Myobi:

Originally posted by Smokerbait:

From the Devs in a previous post:

"Hello, I see your concern however we are in the process of replacing all the sound effects with in house made sounds that are eerily similar to the ones from the movie but not exact so there wont be an issue in terms of sounds. The design of our tripod is not 100% replicate of the ones in the movies but very close. We have a backup design in case we need to replace it in the future but the chances that we are forced to change it are extremely low."

I've commented on this subject in another thread, but apparently that one got deleted quite fast.

The devs seem to be under the impression that you need to ripoff assets to be considered copyright, that is just wrong, and it should be hinted by the word itself... copy... right, I've seen a lot of people getting screwed over even by making none profitable projects based on popular franchises (I'm looking at you Nintendo.). Also this isn't based on just War of the Worlds, but on the 2005 movie, and I highly doubt they had Paramount Pictures permission or that they even bothered seeking legal counseling before start charging 100 bucks for a beta access of a indie project.

That said, my bet is that in a couple of months someone will get himself a cease and desist letter and shut the project down or risk getting dragged and destroyed in court... as for those who spent cash on this.... ;)

I love how you have yet to link any sort of actual legal document against this and have just been talking out of your ass THINKING you know what copyright is even though this completely falls under parody rule of copyright Section 107 of copyright and is completely in fair use. The only thing similar to the movie is the tripod model and horn but even those are completely redone to not be a 1:1. Please don’t be a clown on the internet, you’ll just look stupid.

Sources: https://www.copyright.gov/title17/title17.pdf#page=39 Parody and Fair Use Copyright

[CYAANIDDE]

Originally posted by CYAANIDDE:

Originally posted by Myobi:

I've commented on this subject in another thread, but apparently that one got deleted quite fast.

The devs seem to be under the impression that you need to ripoff assets to be considered copyright, that is just wrong, and it should be hinted by the word itself... copy... right, I've seen a lot of people getting screwed over even by making none profitable projects based on popular franchises (I'm looking at you Nintendo.). Also this isn't based on just War of the Worlds, but on the 2005 movie, and I highly doubt they had Paramount Pictures permission or that they even bothered seeking legal counseling before start charging 100 bucks for a beta access of a indie project.

That said, my bet is that in a couple of months someone will get himself a cease and desist letter and shut the project down or risk getting dragged and destroyed in court... as for those who spent cash on this.... ;)

I love how you have yet to link any sort of actual legal document against this and have just been talking out of your ass THINKING you know what copyright is even though this completely falls under parody rule of copyright Section 107 of copyright and is completely in fair use. The only thing similar to the movie is the tripod model and horn but even those are completely redone to not be a 1:1. Please don’t be a clown on the internet, you’ll just look stupid.

Sources: https://www.copyright.gov/title17/title17.pdf#page=39 Parody and Fair Use Copyright

Extra source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107

[АsteroidBuggs ☂]

Originally posted by Myobi:

Originally posted by Smokerbait:

From the Devs in a previous post:

"Hello, I see your concern however we are in the process of replacing all the sound effects with in house made sounds that are eerily similar to the ones from the movie but not exact so there wont be an issue in terms of sounds. The design of our tripod is not 100% replicate of the ones in the movies but very close. We have a backup design in case we need to replace it in the future but the chances that we are forced to change it are extremely low."

I've commented on this subject in another thread, but apparently that one got deleted quite fast.

The devs seem to be under the impression that you need to ripoff assets to be considered copyright, that is just wrong, and it should be hinted by the word itself... copy... right, I've seen a lot of people getting screwed over even by making none profitable projects based on popular franchises (I'm looking at you Nintendo.). Also this isn't based on just War of the Worlds, but on the 2005 movie, and I highly doubt they had Paramount Pictures permission or that they even bothered seeking legal counseling before start charging 100 bucks for a beta access of a indie project.

That said, my bet is that in a couple of months someone will get himself a cease and desist letter and shut the project down or risk getting dragged and destroyed in court... as for those who spent cash on this.... ;)

You're discussion was deleted because you have a nasty attitude towards a potentially successful game, and that you're pessimistic thoughts are unneeded. (And like CYAANIDDE said, it seems you have only skimmed on what copyright is.)