PSA: Copyright vs Trademark

[Horror]

I'm mostly putting this up for workshop stuff. Boardgames cannot be copyrighted, but names can be trademarked.

What does this mean? Well, do you want to make your own monopoly for this game? Great! don't call it Monopoly, because Monopoly is a trademark.

However, Board game instructions are a series of facts, and thus, board games cannot be copyrighted, so companies can only enforce the use of their names. So sure, Make monopoly, but don't call it that! Make all the placed named different, all the card types named different, but follow the exact same board layout and general suggested rules, and you are fine.

tl;dr: If you put up a game on the workshop called Monopoly it will be removed by Hasbro. If you remove everything trademarked, but make the same type of game, it will not.

[#1 Slime NA]

I'm not totally sure Hasbro cares enough to petition Valve to remove workshop content anyway, since it doesn't profit off their brand and thus doesn't set a precedent for weakening their IP rights. There's a lot of copyrighted and trademarked content floating around in various workshops.

[CueZero]

Originally posted by Horror:

tl;dr: If you put up a game on the workshop called Monopoly it will be removed by Hasbro. If you remove everything trademarked, but make the same type of game, it will not.

Just wanted to say that this is not true, you can make whatever material you want based off whatever you want for the workshop as there are no profits to be made.

Just take a look at the Audiosurf 2 workshop, half of the items there include Mario, Sonic, heck even My Little Pony characters. Not a single one of them has been taken down, warned or sued by Nintendo, Sega, or other related companies.

As the previous poster already pointed out, unless you're attempting to make a profit off of your creation there is nothing to be worried about.

[la_nague]

it is not true that "no profit" makes you immune to all legal claims.


You cant just burn the newest movie on 1000 DVDs and distribute them free of charge and then just say " well i didnt make any money, so its okay"

So you also cant just give everyone a free monopoly game.

[CueZero]

Well yeah, except we're talking about the Steam Workshop, where yes you *can* use licensed terms and characters. A few examples include Hobbit House mods for Skyrim, Sonic and Mario levels for Audiosurf, the list goes on really. Would love to hear of an example where someone had a user-made Workshop entry taken down due to copyright infringement (there aren't any).

I just feel like it's important to let potential creators know that this isn't true and that they should be encouraged to make whatever they feel. As a friend of many Workshop modders, you don't have anything to worry about. Make whatever you want as long as it isn't offensive, that's exactly what the workshop is *for* and no one should be discouraged from creating whatever is on their mind.

[tim_pkmn89]

You can use it; it's still not fully legal.

[CueZero]

Just spectated a match of people who had created their own deck of Cards Against Humanity. It was actually quite incredible, and I really can't wait to see how people recreate other licensed board games in Tabletop Simulator.

Anyway, I'm off to see if I can make an exact replica of Monopoly to put up, I'll let you know when I get my cease and desist letter from Hasbro (lol) ;)

[Kimiko]

Check out our official forums. YOu have to be registered to see the "custom content" section, but there's all kinds of good things there. We also have Nexus page up http://www.nexusmods.com/tabletopsimulator/?

[CueZero]

Holy moly, the possibilities! That is seriously inspiring, now I gotta get to work on some of my own projects. Really excited about this game :)

[Horror]

A few things.

The cards against humanity people are really really awesome, and never care if people make their own cards against humanity.

The "Non-profit" claim you are making is part of the fair use clause in the DMCA. It is quoted quite commonly by the internet, and often incorrectly. Fair use does state that you can use elements for a non profit means, among other things, but it also states a reasonable percentage of the work must be your own. This is where quite a lot of people get in trouble.

I'm not going to go into more detail, because that is copyright, and as I said, instructions of a game are a list of facts (In that, if you follow these instructions, the game will be the result) and facts cannot be copyrighted. Same goes with recipes, and even clothing designs (That is why clothing uses brand names to pump up price, and knockoffs are common)

Trademarks, however, do not have a fair use clause. You cannot use trademarks such as Monopoly (In respects to a board game) Connect 4, etc. You can make the -same game- but call it something different. Extra safety in naming all the pieces something else.

Lastly, just because someone -can- take something down, doesn't mean they will. Yes, you listed examples of things that violate trademarks and copyrights that aren't taken down, but that is simply because the company did not enforce it yet. It is much better to be safe then sorry.

Hope that clears up confusion!

[CueZero]

Hm, well the first entry I see on the nexus for this game is Clue ( a trademarked name) and that doesn't seem to be taken down. So, I guess what you say doesn't apply to this game.

Anyway, these are just my observations, but thank you for your opinion! There's already plenty of licensed boardgames on here already just as there are plenty of licensed video game and movie characters in other Workshop items that aren't taken down, and I suspect more to come so the entire point is moot, anyway.

If you're against "copyright infrigement" in user-made content produced by non-profiting users of an independant video game then I guess the best thing for you to do is just ignore all of the licensed stuff that you will inevitably see on the workshops because they aren't going away :) We need to be protecting the people and their freedom to create, not corporations.

[Horror]

Just to point out a paragraph from my previous post..

"Lastly, just because someone -can- take something down, doesn't mean they will. Yes, you listed examples of things that violate trademarks and copyrights that aren't taken down, but that is simply because the company did not enforce it yet. It is much better to be safe then sorry."

I'm not saying berserk games is obligated to remove these submissions: they are not. And legally, it's a better option for them never to do so. Their two options are to ignore it entirely, and let the trademark owners deal with enforcing it, but comply with them and steam. Or, if they ever take down -one- on their own, they are then legally obligated to remove all trademark infringing content (which is basically impossible since they can't know who holds said trademarks)

Just because there is a clue game on their nexus now, doesn't mean it's technically something that is legal. Small things will go unnoticed, and frankly, I don't care much. I love the idea of this game, and want to see all sorts of cool things on it, but I don't want to see the workshop becoming a warzone of removals in the future.

Just because some dude uploaded a movie to youtube and you found it, doesn't make it okay, he just didn't get caught by the people that can enforce that. Hope that makes it more clear :P

[CueZero]

It isn't really a clear situation at all, because the fact that every single Workshop on Steam and mod on Nexus at this very moment has had dozens of licensed materials forever without any dispute sort of nullifies what you said in *this* particular case. The people recreacting these boardgames are doing it in a constrained video game with limits and unprofessionally, akin to recreating pieces of art in Minecraft or Terraria for you and your friends' personal use.

The day people get barred from participation for recreating licensed boardgames in an indie simulator will be the same day that kids are banned from playing Minecraft for recreating their favorite levels in a popular videogame or setting from a movie, and quite frankly, I don't see that ever happening. These aren't the kind of things those corporations would bother with, anyway.

[#1 Slime NA]

Horror: all I'm saying is that for things like this it's super unlikely any company will bother taking action. Even the infamously litigous Games Workshop lets 40k mods for Steam games slide.

[Skinner]

Oh.mer. gerd.

Playing warhammer or warhammer 40k without having to sell my left testicle....and online?!?! This news pleases me beyond words! I suck at painting!

[shockedfrog]

Audiosurf 2 isn't selling itself as a host for a Sonic skin, and the fact that there's a Sonic skin for Audiosurf 2 doesn't mean that Sonic fans are going to buy it instead of buying the latest Sonic game. As an example, though, a Monopoly clone within Tabletop Simulator effectively serves the same/similar purpose as a Monopoly game and can be argued as far more likely to damage sales of official Monopoly products (including the Monopoly game already on Steam) and so it's reasonable, if such a clone became popular enough that it threatened Hasbro's sales/brand, for Hasbro to take action. Whether things will actually get to that scale or not is another matter.

Anyway, this shouldn't be an issue. If anyone really wants to copy an existing board game exactly just for personal use, nobody's going to know and it's not going to be a big issue. If you want to make a version of something and share it on the workshop, isn't it better if you put some creativity into it? Create your own style for it, or at least steal with some style - again using Monopoly as an example, someone could make a version where the pieces and places are based on other Steam games. Plenty of devs (especially indies) would even give permission for that.