Would It be illegal to make a “star wars” game or a “Spider man” game and put it on a website.
Technically, drawing a mario mushroom is copyright, so yeah. You only get sued though if you make enough money to where they want half of it.
^Yup…if you’re using it for non commercial purposes, it most likely OK. But if you plan on making money with whatever you’re using it for, then that would probably get ya a ‘Cease and Desist’ letter, which asks you to stop using it.
oh, ok
@Mhx Yes, but if one were to make money off the game by incorporating ads, would they still get sued?
@Muphins maybe…that’s the grey area up for debate right now. A lot of people’s YouTube channels have come under fire for placing ads on vids with copyrighted material. Like if you make vids of youself playing certain Video Games and upload it to YouTube, and if they contain copyrighted characters (like Marvel characters from Marvel vs Capcom 3, etc) you might get flagged for it.
I believe something similar happened to the guy who made Flappy Bird. Nintendo apparently asked him to take it down. I don’t have the source at the moment. Does anyone know if that guy kept his money or did Nintendo just snatch it from him?
Hey Guys,
I am not a lawyer but you can definitely get into hot water for using copyrighted content in a game whether you intend to make any money or not. Some companies are stricter than others, but to be on the safe side it’s always better to create your own original art and music!
@grazer But what about YouTube videos that feature copyrighted content, even without ads? I don’t stalk those videos or anything, but I don’t think those people are getting in trouble. Point being, what different would it make if it was a game with copyrighted material (without ads), and a YouTube video (without ads)? Just my 2 cents. But I guess this does depend on the company…
Youtube videos about a game are probably covered under the doctrine of “fair use”:
( http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html )
The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the authors observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.
Ok, at first I really had no idea what you said but now that kinda makes sense. I mean if you were makin’ Big Bucks on a game and then some kid comes along and snatches the money you’d be mad too.
Basically yes, it’s like all the Flappy Bird rip offs. I hated that game, but look, 100’s of rip offs, and there’s even rip offs made in Flowlab…
But long as you shown credit and what the original source came from.
i hope grazer can allow us to have a mini copyright so people dont have basiclly crappy ripoffs of thier game that other people made