Re: FN-FORUM accusations of plagarism

date posted 20th January 2003 22:50

cheers john and joe,

i have the business manager from the company backing me up now.

both games were *his* idea, he told them what he wanted from their kung fu
game and once we'd had plenty of empty promises asked me to to a 'scissors,
paper, rock' game.

afaict both concepts are only similar in a 2-player, 3 rounds way!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Pritchard" [EMAIL REMOVED]
To: [EMAIL REMOVED]
Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 9:59 PM
Subject: Re: FN-FORUM accusations of plagarism


> Hi David,
>
> First of all, I Am Not A Lawyer...:-)
>
> However, I am involve din film production and we have a saying - Where
> there's a hit, there's a write. basically, a lot of the major players in
> entertainment media will not accept unsolicited materials from you unless
> you sign a waiver that effectively says' Even if we produce a game
> /film/record that is VERY similar to your idea, you won't sue us.'. The
> reason for this is to avoid teh sort of issues that you're hitting now.
>
> First of all, you can't copyright an idea and unless any sort of
> non-disclosure agreements were signed it MIGHT be possible to argue that
> showing you something put the idea in to the public domain - dodgy but
I've
> seen it attempted. What is copyrightable is the manifestation of an idea.
> Characters graphics, music, even to soem degree actual keys and mouse
> movements used to control the game.
>
> First of all, you need to prove for yourself that your code has been
around
> for as long as you say it has. If you've got proof of this, get the proof
> safely stashed away. If you wrote teh code and then showed it around, you
> MIGHT get away with signed statements from the people you showed it to
that
> 'on or before the date in question, you had the code'.
>
> You would, I believe, have to prove you DIDN'T see any of their code -
this
> is difficult but I think that that is the way around it goes.
>
> Taking something like this to court is a bitch, and an expensive job.
Don't
> go there. Marshall the facts and then talk to them. Is there room in the
> market place for you both?
>
> This sort of thing happens a lot in film / story writing and often is
> coincidence. The usual advice to writers caught like this is tough, go
> write something else...:-(
>
> Hope it pans out and that you get some more legal advice...:-)
>
> Joe
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Eckersall" [EMAIL REMOVED]
> To: [EMAIL REMOVED]
> Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 8:55 PM
> Subject: FN-FORUM accusations of plagarism
>
>
> just wondering if anyones got any idea of what i can do about this?
>
> at a company i worked for last year we were approached by a company about
> hosting and marketing an sms game they had devised. after quite a long
while
> of excuses from them i finally built one myself.
>
> now i've just recieved an email where this company have actually finished
> off their game and after seeing my code accused me of plagarism - odd
since
> mines been ready to go for the last 4 or 5 months whilst theirs has only
> just been finished by the sounds of it and during building the sms games
> script i never once saw a line of their code.
>
> just wondering what legal recourse i might have? i've no plan to actually
to
> take them to court but i'd like to the frighteners on them to shut the
> tossers up.
>
> tia
>
>
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