Comment by biot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by biot | Hacker News Reader

I don't know the copyright claims process Atari uses, but the review[0] of Vector Tank the Kickstarter page links to says:

  First, let's step back a moment and take a look at the overall 
  Vector Tanks situation. Peter's original Vector Tanks appeared 
  in the App Store, published by Chillingo, just over one year ago. 
  It delivered a stylized iPhone take on Ed Rotberg's 1980 arcade 
  classic Battlezone, with a large helping of modern-day retro, 
  thanks to the lovely glowing vector effects that make the iPhone's 
  screen feel more like an Atari Quadrascan display than a 3.5-inch 
  LCD.

That's fairly telling. Additionally, if I were to come up with a generic name to describe Battlezone, Vector Tanks would be a top pick. I'm not experienced with copyright with respect to clones of games, but Atari might be the victim here.

EDIT: Even more damning, the original Vector Tanks review details how the creator loved Battlezone so much he wanted an iPhone version[1]. So he created one. The original app's description:

  Vector Tanks is a Battlezone remake with a "future retro" feel. 
  It's great fun and is perhaps the most enjoyable retro offering
  to be found in the App Store.

EDIT 2: The VentureBeat article[2] puts the nail in the coffin:

  Vector Tanks programmer Peter Hirschberg commented to VentureBeat: 
  “The cruel irony here is that I tried for years to get ahold of 
  Atari to license their IP but they seemed to have fallen off the 
  planet. Now this. It’s very depressing.”

The developer originally recognized the need for a license but, unable to contact Atari, decides to clone the game anyways.

[0] http://toucharcade.com/2010/03/01/a-closer-look-at-vector-ta...

[1] http://toucharcade.com/2009/02/16/a-look-at-retro-3d-shooter...

[2] http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/30/ataris-latest-legal-action...

Copyright is supposed to cover the actual code written and not the inspiration, if the original code base and images where not used and no trademarked assets where used then there should be no infringement. It is the reason that I can go out and write a spreadsheet application even though there are other spreadsheet applications. I can even draw my feature inspirations from other offerings. So long as I do not use their code and write it myself, I have not violated copyright. Now I am sure Atari has a trademark on Battlezone, but I think the tanks themselves would be too liberal of an icon to actually constitute a trademark, they probably have a trademark on the font lettering and the name Battlezone as applied to games. They would have a hard time wining this case in court, on either copyright or trademark grounds, which should be the bar that Apple is applying. If I where Apple, I would make all parties agree to arbitration and then comply with the outcome of that arbitration, even if Apple has to pay for such arbitration, it is a known cost, they are a third party with legal liability and I am surprised that they are comfortable in that position with such a loose process.

Someone else mentioned the Atari and Munchkin case. The facts were similar. North American developed K.C.Munchkin and originally wanted to obtain a PAC-MAN license. When they were unable to do so, they came up with the K.C.Munchkin name and changed a number of features.

The appeals court ruled in favor of Atari and granted an injunction against North American:

http://www.patentarcade.com/2005/04/case-atari-v-north-ameri...

Actual ruling:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1643313902072203...

I think your arbitration idea has merit, though the DMCA's claim/counterclaim process was designed to handle this type of situation.

Yeah i tried to disclaim it with "it is supposed" because the rulings have been all over the board. I agree that the claim/counterclaim should be used properly but, for me personally if I where Apple I would arbitrate to CYA alone. It's a small price to pay, to be able to prove you exhausted all means to arbitrate the dispute as a third party. I think most would rule out liability on Apples part if they did so.

Exactly. Here's what the US copyright office says[1]...

"Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form."

[1] http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html

Copyright is supposed to cover the actual code written

True

if the original code base and images where not used... then there should be no infringement.

Not so true anymore. Copying a work doesn't mean Xeroxing it. You can do 100% of the work, draw all the images yourself etc. As long as the output is, shall we say, unreasonably similar then it is copyright infringement. In this case all he had to do is not directly copy the artwork and everything would have been free and clear. Look at the images of the tanks in both games it is pretty open and shut to me.

Copyright covers the creative work, not the output of the creative work. So code, images protected. The pretty glowy lines produced when work is "executed", not protected.

Of course, everything (in U.S. legal system) is debatable and usually the party with most $$ (for lawyers) wins the debate.

I agree, but the author attempted to work with Atari to license Battlezone. Also, the game has been out for a while without complaint from Atari. These both seem to make Atari seem less of a victim.

As an aside, Atari is really Infogrames. The real Atari is no more.

This is astoundingly incorrect. At least where I live (int he US) copyright protects the game binary code, the game assets, the game's manual, etc. but doesn't protect the overall game concept or the game's general look and feel. Those things are in the realm of patent protections.

The OP is confusing a moral right (rather, a moral wrong, i.e. he clearly was making a Battlezone clone) with a legal wrong. The game breaks no copyright laws.

I was involved in a very similar situation, where a publisher made a copyright claim against a game of mine in the app store. But you can't copyright a game idea, or the way the tanks generally look. You can only copyright the actual game, or game assets. We pushed back and Apple accepted our arguments and the game went back into the store.

This is abuse of copyright for the sole purpose of eliminating a competitor in the app store, and it's got to be fought, or we're all going to be spending huge portions of our lives as developers fighting incorrect and spurious copyright claims.

You can only copyright ... game assets.

What do you think the tanks are? He made his game's tank assets identical to their tank assets. It doesn't matter if he ripped them from a rom or modeled them up himself he copied their assets.

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