Dan, Soren, Jeff....please take a peek here....:)

[Q Classic]

Hmm... just a thought, Vel... maybe if you published in eBook format, through a good dealer, you could circumvent Infogrames/Prima's silly little thing.

and in it, in the forward, you could suggest that Firaxis drop such a prickish publisher, to just quickly dump them, maybe rename their flagship series to something else...

[sophist]

Originally posted by Libertarian
Sophist,

Logic? We're talking law here.

Logic will work to a point. After all, for the most part, the law is self-consistent. Namely, one part of the law shouldn't contradict another part of the law. When that happens, there's usually court decisions and explanations determining why one has priority over the other.

[scientist]

A few thoughts

Since the game is starting to get boring, I'm back discussing the political economics behind the game with my fellow civ scholars.

Isn't this forum a "publication" in its own way? Could Infogrames shut it down? IANAL, but I suspect that Infogrames could not shut down Apolyton. They can't stop people from publically discussing a game. I would posit that a publication is a form of speech. The fact that money is made from that publication should not allow that speech's rights to be heard to be inhibited. Once they put their product into the public sphere by selling it, they have opened it up as a subject of free speech.

An allowance might be made with regard to any "official" appelation, but that's about it.

And I have taken a look through Prima's guide, and besides some basic info and stats that should have been included in the manual, it is a shoddy worthless book.

[Expatriate]

I just had a thought! (amazing, huh? )

Even if Prima had some way of claiming the sole right to profit from advice on Civ III, they have to protect that right to keep it. So if we all start selling each small pieces of advice for 1 cent each, they basically have to sue us all.

And no, they cant possibly secure the sole right to profit from a guide to a game. What is the next step? Will they start suing all the magazines that have reviewed Civ III? After all, a lot of those magazines include information that may help someone to being a better player. Maybe Vel should publish his guide under the name "Civilization III review booklet" and claim that its a very in-depth game review. There is no way they can sue one person for reviewing the game without doing it to every other reviewer.

[Velociryx]

Heh! Some excellent ideas here! I like the "everybody charge a penny" approach! They'd go insane just trying to chase everyone down....LOL

And the "extended, in-depth review...." that's every bit as pure gold....as doing a "review of Prima's work"

-=Vel=-

[rdomarat]

I doubt you'd get a reply from Dan or Jeff or any of the Firaxis posters on this issue. If Firaxis is anything like the software companies I've worked for, the legal department is tucked away in some corner and is staffed by those stangers that you see at the Christmas party each year that also seem to come and take the last donut on Friday mornings.

Not that there's anything wrong with being a lawyer..... (please don't sue me)

Reg

[Sauron07]

Interesting Thread

Hello all, nice discussion you have going on here. As an attorney(please don't hold it against me, I actually work for state gov't and my only real practicing is pro bono public interest work - like this) I have a couple of general comments to make, including an offer to vel to provide any advice he may need on this subject free of charge.

A caveat to start, its been several years since I took a trademark class in lawschool and this is not my area of practice. So until I do a little research and actually get some info on the agreement between Prima and Infogames I will just make some general observations.

First, trademark law, as I believe sophist correctly alluded too, is based on the premise of preventing another individual from capitalizing on your reputation/goodwill while copyright law focuses on protecting your intellectual property from being stolen or utilized for profit. Basicly if you trademark the logo/name of your product then another individual cannot utilize that trademark for commercial purposes in a manner which would lead or confuse consumers into believing that it is your work. The example of the civilization candy bar is entirely correct, anyone could create a civilization candy bar but creating a civilization board game might lead consumers to think it is a firaxis product, and thereby profiting on the value of the civilization name and infringing on infogames rights.

The issue at hand in the Prima/HG dispute is probably more of a contract and copyright issue however. My guess is that Prima paid infogames/firaxis for the rights to publish the "official" Civ III strategy guide(thereby profiting from the association with the creator of the game). Now if I was Prima's attorney, I would also want exclusive rights to utilize the copyrighted material from within the game(images, logos, screenshots) for a guide, and I think(dont know without seeing the contracts) that this is most likely what occurred. As a result, Prima can ask/force infogames to bring a copyright infringement case against any other guide publisher if those guides utilize screenshots, quotes or other images from within the game in their guide. Infogames does have the right to prevent reproduction of their original works for profit but it is generally not in their best interest to do so(i.e. magazine reviews=free PR so why stop them), but if Prima is paying them they may be doing this on Prima's behalf.


One other thing, there is no reason why Infogames would have to sue everyone if we all started selling strat tip for 1 cent. They could pick and choose who to make an example of so while it sounds like fun, it wouldnt really prevent them from taking action.
Lastly, and an important point is that the law doesnt exist in a vacuum, if Infogames took enough of a public relations hit from the translation project and HG guide issue, they may realize its counterproductive to enforce their rights(even though they could) and making the legal issue not the deciding factor in the dispute.

Anyway, I will do a little research into this subject and may just have to obtain a copy of the complaint filed against HG.

[Libertarian]

Speaking of board games, I always wondered how Microprose got away with using the name "Civilization" since it was an Avalon Hill board game at the time. And it worked very much the same way: global expansion, tech advances, etc.

[Heliodorus]

I'm not a lawyer and so I can't assert rules and precedents on how this exclusivity right works, but clearly they do work.

Examples of exclusive marketing rights are found all over the place:
Concert T-Shirts at music concerts. A thousand t-shirt makers create knock-off concert Ts and try to sell them around the venue, and it is illegal (I don't know why, but it is).

Movies promote their toys at McDonald's or BK, and the other chains do not create their own mockups and sell them in their kids meals.

Napster comes to mind, but that's about intellectual property rights, and I don't think that's in the same area as exclusive marketing rights, which is what we're dealing with here.

There is a VERY interesting precedent for what Vel is doing, though, from the site Gamespot.com. Gamespot is renown for writing and publishing gaming guides for games like Baldur's Gate and Tombraider. Some of those are on a fee-base download, and some of them are free. Vel, if you want to get some of the legal issues researched, they may be able to help.

In any case, if Vel did NOT intend to charge for it

[Sauron07]

No screenshots!!!

I just visited Hurricane Gamings webpage, and it further cemented my belief that infogames beef was most likely about the use of screenshots from the game(read copyrighted material) within the strategy guide. I have also emailed HG to try and verify this information and obtain a copy of any legal actions filed on the subject. I will be in contact with vel, and anyone else who is interested in the subject just send me a pm and I will be glad to help.

One last comment, the thread topic does not really identify the subject of this discussion and Im sure some more apoly-lawyers would join the fray if it was more clearly labeled.

[Velociryx]

Howdy Sauron, and thanks for the MOST generous offer! The information you've already uncovered has been quite enlightening (as Vel breathes a sigh of relief about having resisted the temptation to use screenies in the SMAX guide!). Good, heartening news indeed (tho I DO feel sorry for the folk of Hurricane Games.....I feel like I got my money's worth out of their short, but intriguing guide).

Still...this is good news! Soon as I unbury myself at work, I shall get right back to writing about more strategies I've been comin' up with...oh! And also finishing those Civ-Analysis articles!

-=Vel=-

PS: Yep....I forget what the title of the thread was originally, but as the discussion unfolded, I changed it to get the attention of some of the Firaxians....

[Expatriate]

Originally posted by Libertarian
Speaking of board games, I always wondered how Microprose got away with using the name "Civilization" since it was an Avalon Hill board game at the time. And it worked very much the same way: global expansion, tech advances, etc.

Im pretty sure I remember reading something about Microprose buying the rights to make the board game into a computergame. In an interview I know I have seen Sid Meier state that the idea for th computer game came from the board game, and it pretty obvious that many concepts are taken from the board game. Avalon Hill has later published an alternate "Civilization" computer game that is a direct copy of the board game, so maybe whatever agreement they had with Microprose must have left them the option to make a version of the game themselves.

[Libertarian]

I like your Einstein quote. It reminds me of my favorite quote about computers from, of all people, Pablo Picasso: "Computers are useless; they give you only answers."

[Sniffer]

Sorry that I have taken so long to get in on the discussion, as I have been quite busy for the past few days and didn't know about this thread. I am the writer for the hurricanegaming Civ 3 guide, so I know a fair bit about this issue and would like to help out a bit.

It was not only an issue of Screen Shots or anything like that when push finally came to shove.

The first contact we were given was from a lawyer at Randomhouse (Prima's publisher). She said that Infogrames wanted the guide sacked immediately. We asked for the reasons, and we were told that Prima had an exclusive for this guide. That meant that any guide with the following would be illegal:

Guides with any lengthy discussion of strategy
Guides that were or were not sold for money
Guides with Screenshots

This would cover almost all of IGN's guides (back when they did a lot more), might hit on Civ3 forums, and basically cover anything that could ever be done by the community. Officially, the lawyer claimed that this was not because the guide was being sold!

The screenshot issue has been done before, and those shots are legal! Game artwork is not (that is IP of the publisher), but the shots are public domain.

It may amuse you to know that Prima was sued by Nintendo back in 1997 for this type of thing, and Prima was the victor. That is irony for you. The only reason why we didn't fight was because I have no money. In fact, I am pretty much out of a job now because of this. I'm trying not to be bitter, but this really hurts--we tried our best to be part of the community, we didn't claim to have an exclusive guide, and all of those screen shots were my own work.

Even better, Prima does not have to disclose when they have an exclusive deal! There was no mention of this until the lawyers closed in. I was in the middle of working on a Return to Castle Wolfenstein guide (almost done, actually), when Prima announced that they had an exclusive for that guide--this was well over a week after the game came out.

My email address is mklummis@hurricanegaming.com if you have any comments or would like to find out more about this issue. I am perfectly willing to help out anyone who is worried about getting sued.

Take care guys,
Michael

P.S. I have received very unofficial support from Firaxis, saying that at least one person there was against this action. It would be very nice if Firaxis as a company was willing to say that I didn't deserve this. If anyone thinks that I was getting rich off of this work, understand that my most successful guide ever (Max Payne), took nine days of work and made me about $400 bucks. Some guides never make $100, and now I can't do any for fear of legal action. Just wanted you guys to know that I wasn't big business.

[Sniffer]

To Sauron07:

I don't have a written copy of anything that Randomhouse gave us. Everything was dealt with between Doug Walsh and Randomhouse, so I got a third hand report of the matter. Sorry that I can't be much help in that area.