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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

This is more common than you might think. A company once sent me a demand that I stop distributing my game Empire as I'd copied it from them.

Turns out I had a registered copyright for it that preceded their company by about 10 years.

Some people are just shameless.

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Did you counter-demand that they stop distributing their game? Seems like it would have only been fair.

Wait...Empire was published in 1987. Age of Empires was published in 1997. Are you talking about Microsoft?

Empire was created in the late 1970's.

The details of the case are long settled, so I prefer not to rake the coals.

For the benefit of others who could learn from this experience, rake the coals.

Please do. It would certainly inform folks what to expect.

I'm also interested, if there isn't any repercussions why not share?

MicroProse? Founded early 80s, creators of Civ

Kudos to you... It seems you created an amazing game, and possibly you didn't get all the credit you deserve for it. I might be mistaken, but if I am not... Thanks!

Empire is an amazing game! I grew up playing it with my dad. So many good memories, and I think it stands the test of time; I still play sometimes. Never thought I'd run into its author on HN!

> its author on HN!

I never could keep my yap shut :-)

It's a good thing the intertoobs don't keep a permanent record of every dumb thing I post.

Edit: oh crap

Holy shit I played the crap out of empire in highschool with a friend on IBM PCs, mid 1990's. So many good memories.

Cool! Anywhere I could look for details about your game?

Edit: Never mind, I took a look at your username and googled it with "empire". (google even did an auto complete to it!) for other's, here it is, looks great! http://www.classicempire.com/

http://classicempire.com/

Has anyone contacted you about licensing for a mobile port? Seems like it would be a good match for a more casual pseudo rts (in terms of no tech trees or damage stats) where you could have multiple games going at once as you wait for responses.

The rejection letters are good. They vary from the dismissive to the "do show us your other games" or "yes it is really addictive, but we won't sell it"

I liked, "In spite of your warning, several members of our staff became addicted to it."

Could you expand on this registered copyright thing? Which country? I'm aware of registered trademarks, but I've never heard of registered copyright - only the kind that automatically exists as soon as you create a work.

This should help:

https://www.copyright.gov/registration/

A registered copyright gives you additional legal protections, as well as solid proof of ownership.

You can register copyrights in the US: https://www.copyright.gov/registration/

It’s not required in order to have a copyright, but it can make it easier to prove a claim.

In the US, you can officially register your copyright by filling out a form, paying a small fee, and supplying a copy for archiving in the Library of Congress. It makes defense of your copyright much easier.

In addition to what everyone else said, registering your copyright in the US gives you the option of recovering statutory damages instead of actual damages from an infringer, which is real useful if, say, the work is FOSS and you'll have trouble demonstrating you lost more than $0 profit because of the infringement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_damages_for_copyrigh...

Totally off-topic now, but what was the lineage of the trademark for that that allowed New World to publish the seemingly unrelated tactical game Empire II? I impulse-bought that when I found it in a bargain bin and while it was fun enough for the small amount I paid, it was nothing at all what I was expecting from the name...

Turns out that the name "Empire" is not trademark-able. It's too generic, and/or I don't have Apple's lawyers to force the issue :-)

Wow! We had empire for our Amiga 500 when I was like... 6. It always impressed / intimidated me. Bravo!

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