13th July 2004, 2:07 PM
Thematic similarities just aren't enough though.
Think of it this way. Several years back, Capcom sued SNK because they felt that King of Fighters was obviously trying to cash in on Capcom's own Street Fighter series (and let's face it, they were, though actually I'm really not sure what SNK's first fighting game was, whatever it was, replace King of Fighters in the above statement with that). Anyway, Capcom's argument was the gameplay as well as the basic characters and story were VERY similar. The court ruled that while similar, it wasn't actually using any of Capcom's trademarks or copywrited material so the case was thrown out. This I believe, as you might imagine, was with Japan's courts, but their laws are based on ours, by force originally, as well as what I've been reading indicating that we too consider it not enough for a case. Let me put it this way. If you make a movie called "Lord of the Rings", you had better get permission because that's actually using copyrights and trademarks! However, if you make a movie called "Lord of Magic", using totally different characters and a different story, even if it's VERY similar in the sense that it's about a small band of adventurers attempting to work their way into the heart of the enemy's land to destroy the enemy, you can't be sued over it.
On a similar note, there was a case, and I'll have to look it up to prove it to you, in which someone was making a heavy Quake engine mod that involved Dragon Ball characters. Apparently, they were contacted by the makers of that... show... and were told to stop immediatly. They did, but so as not to loose all the work, they basically just replaced the story and characters with something that had pretty much the same theme, no more legal trouble.
Think of it this way. Several years back, Capcom sued SNK because they felt that King of Fighters was obviously trying to cash in on Capcom's own Street Fighter series (and let's face it, they were, though actually I'm really not sure what SNK's first fighting game was, whatever it was, replace King of Fighters in the above statement with that). Anyway, Capcom's argument was the gameplay as well as the basic characters and story were VERY similar. The court ruled that while similar, it wasn't actually using any of Capcom's trademarks or copywrited material so the case was thrown out. This I believe, as you might imagine, was with Japan's courts, but their laws are based on ours, by force originally, as well as what I've been reading indicating that we too consider it not enough for a case. Let me put it this way. If you make a movie called "Lord of the Rings", you had better get permission because that's actually using copyrights and trademarks! However, if you make a movie called "Lord of Magic", using totally different characters and a different story, even if it's VERY similar in the sense that it's about a small band of adventurers attempting to work their way into the heart of the enemy's land to destroy the enemy, you can't be sued over it.
On a similar note, there was a case, and I'll have to look it up to prove it to you, in which someone was making a heavy Quake engine mod that involved Dragon Ball characters. Apparently, they were contacted by the makers of that... show... and were told to stop immediatly. They did, but so as not to loose all the work, they basically just replaced the story and characters with something that had pretty much the same theme, no more legal trouble.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)