That, I have no idea about. This is the first time I've heard of this keyboard cat thing.hermes200 said:In that case, the keyboard cat has no ground...-Dragmire- said:The issue is not references, it's the inclusion of the actual character in the game. Were I to make a game, I could reference Bugs Bunny, possibly with an anthropomorphic rabbit saying a similar catch phrase to Bugs, but I would not be able to include Bugs Bunny directly. If I did, Warner Bros would sue me for copyright infringement.hermes200 said:I don't agree with you, and don't see the point of this rant...
You act like this was a singular case and it is justified because "its a big company", but easter eggs and references are common in this industry, and only because WB is being sued now, its legitimate? For example:
- Guacamelee was released recently and had dozens (if not hundreds) of references to sites, memes, other games and public domain jokes, but I don't think they contacted any of the copyrighted material owners, so they are liable to be sued.
- Borderlands and (especially) Borderlands 2 had a lot of the writing being derivative of memes, internet jokes or catchphrases from popular TV shows (like having a character spew "cool story, bro" every few seconds), so that should make Gearbox and its writers huge targets for lawsuits. They even included the dancing alien from spaceballs (itself a reference to, gasp, WB's Michigan Frog) in Colonial Marines, so Mel Brooks should sue them.
- Bethesda included a reference to Minecraft (the Notch Pickaxe) in Skyrim. Given their less than amicable relation (Bethesda suing Notch for the use of the copyrighted word "scrolls"), I doubt they were given permission... So, I guess Notch should sue them for it.
Those are just some examples, from the top of my head, each one having the same validity than this case. Yet, since this is 7th Cell (a big developer) and they are just poor guys who want to profit of their totally original creations, this is different? No, this is not different. This is like Tim Langdell (a small guy) suing EA and Namco (big corporations)... how did that ended up?
senordesol said:Then again, the legal line might be a little blurry here (which is why lawyers are paid so very well to clarify it). For example: Obviously silver had to cross a few palms when Star Wars characters were featured in Soul Caliber -even if they weren't advertised as features in the game but just as a secret unlockable someone would have had to get paid. But what if it was just some dude with a lightsaber?
So I guess where the legal hairs get split is what counts as a 'reference' and what counts as a 'feature'? Does being able to summon a character on-demand to do the thing it's famous for count as a feature? I weight it pretty heavily as 'yes'. And as such, it's creators should definitely get paid for it. On the other hand though, references and parody tend to have a pretty wide berth.
I think you avoid legal trouble by not calling it a lightsaber. For example, in Terraria they're called phaseblades and in several games and shows, they're called beam swords.