BASICS OF COPYRIGHT AND GAMES

by J. Hanju Kim

First some general definitions:

Copyright is protection of "works of authorship" from being copied. The U.S. Copyright Office has an extensive site. It includes a primer on Copyright Basics (PDF).

A trademark is either a phrase or logo which identifies the maker of a product or service. The primary purpose of trademark is to allow customers to recognize a distinct brand from others. Thus, it is illegal to use a trademarked phrase or logo which could confuse customers into thinking that your product is from that other company.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office also has a site which includes a primer on Basic Facts on Trademarks. However, this is a bit dense and is mostly concerned with registration fees rather than usage. The legal firm of Beck & Tysver has a site on intellectual property BitLaw which is more useful.

Other resources include Game Developer.com and the Stanford Library Site.

Game Systems

Game systems are different in many ways from other media such as books, music, and movies. Most importantly, games rely heavily on ideas like how to move around a piece on a playing board. New games constantly take the ideas of old games: like ways of rolling dice, or ways of moving pieces on a board, etc. Ideas cannot be copyrighted, this is explicitly emphasized in the U.S. Copyright Offices' form letter (form FL108) with instructions for copyrighting games. Games can in theory be patented, but this is a difficult process. The only non-computer game patent I know of is for methods used in the Magic: The Gathering card game, held by Wizards of the Coast.

In regards to role-playing and board games, there are a few points which I would emphasize. Please go to the sites above for any specifics.

• Copyright is valid to any work of authorship in a fixed medium. The law still applies regardless of whether the original is free, posted on the web, or lacking a copyright notice. In short, unless there is some legal document explicitly granting you rights, you do not have rights to reproduce material you see on the web.
• Acknowledging authors you draw from is respectful and in my opinion you should do it, but it does not gain you any more rights than otherwise. Any use is still a potential infringement. Very minor quotes generally fall under the "fair use" clause in Chapter 1, Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law.
  This law gives four criteria on which to judge, but does not say how to weight them. This leaves a lot of room for judgement on the part of the court. You should look very carefully before relying on this.
• A board or role-playing game relies heavily upon ideas. Ideas themselves cannot be copyrighted -- only specific text which explains the idea. The same game rule, expressed through totally different text, is not an infringement.
• Simply being "compatible with" a copyrighted system does not by itself constitute copyright infringement. It may, however, be a trademark infringement if you prominently use the name of the compatible system. A compatible work can be an infringement only if it reproduces substantial text and pictures from the base system.