To The People Who Copied Our Game: Good Luck | Hacker News Reader

To The People Who Copied Our Game: Good Luck

q42.nl

48 pointsmrtnkl36 comments

No. No no no. Sue them. Sue them dead. Where product and brand robbery thrives, developers wither. What's the point in working hard in developing a game (or anything) if all your hard decisions are just going to be copied in a matter of weeks? Why bother? There is certainly an evil side to copyright, trademark, and patent, but these weapons have a place on the side of justice too. Unprotected developers—at least those for whom the money or glory has significance—will give up eventually. When imagination doesn't pay off, the only ones left will be the unimaginative, the copy cats, the cloners. Sue them, for our sake if not yourselves.

One could argue they just gave the cloners a license to their trademark with this blog post.

My grandfather said that he went broke twice in his life: once when he was sued, and once when he sued someone else. Lawsuits are expensive, and if this game isn't making enough money to warrant that money-sink, they might end up putting themselves in an even worse position.

This is why there needs to be some kind of indie developers' (/ artists'?) union which can afford to fight the big companies abusing their position.

> Why bother?

one or more of :

- because it's fun to create things

- because you can still make money anyway

- to contribute to society and culture

- to stretch your mind

- because it might not be that big a deal in the whole scheme of things

- because being the underdog who plays nice can bring press and pennies.

- because not suing them is much less stressful and possibly cheaper

- there's more than one way to skin a cat

.. just off the top of my head.

"for our sake if not yourselves."

So you ready to pony up the lawyer fees?

You should steal one thing back: the Quento lite icon looks way better than the Quento one.

Or is that the new flat convention for iOS?

> Well, we’ve had our own share of Cease & Desist situations and we decided we didn’t want to be on either side of such a conversation.

This is exactly how it should be done. Take a stand against harmful practices and refrain from using them in your advantage when you have the chance.

It's absolutely, completely reasonable to take legal action against someone when they violate copyright you hold on things you created. Arguing that this is intrinsically a "harmful practice" is asinine.

Was copyright violated in this case?

It seems to me, this could actually drive sales for Quento. People will play the Quento lite, and not like the ads. They will go to buy the full version, and find Quento.

Or, Quento lite is so poorly done that people assume they are from the same company and simply avoid Quento altogether.

Giving a game to the world is a wonderful thing, and if it's a good game, it'll last longer than you. Better for the world that we compete on the quality of our implementations rather than the right to implement, or the right to identify what you're implementing.

To be clear: IMO you'd be entirely moral to defend your trademark here, but you're being exceptionally generous to let it go.

Looking at those two games side by side in the store the lite version looks more professional. Can I suggest having a nice appealing icon like Quento Lite? Might do wonders.Just from the icon you can tell that it is some kind of math puzzle, but you have no idea what you are getting with a plus in a yellow square.

so are you mad or are you not mad? Hard to tell if you're being edgy and sarcastic or ironic or what. Can't wait for the lite version of your other puzzle.

I must admit that “AkaSoft” is a stunning name.

Way to roll over and play dead in face of such blatant theft. The phrase "we’ve had our own share of Cease & Desist situations" also gives a fleeting reader the impression that the company's being complacent because they've been guilty of the same crime in the past: I didn't bother delving in to read that back story and I suspect many other readers may not.

If the above is not the case, then at a minimum, you should:

* Assess your rights vs economic implications: A C&D letter with legal help might be enough to get the offender to stop; nothing wrong in stating your rights and pointing out violations. Does it cost too much to do this? Contact the app stores; they might respond favorably and yank the apps.

* Assess branding/marketing implications: how is this playing out in your customers minds and actions?

- What can we learn? - What faults does this highlight in our product or operations? Note a few people have mentioned that the ripoff version seems more visually appealing. The only thing worse than being ripped off is if the ripoff is better than your product in any way. So maybe a visual edit should be placed higher on your task list.

- How do we respond tactically? Referring not to legal but customer facing options. Ie What is the minimum action we can take that will at least show users that the ripoff is not from us?

...Etcetera

Why the downvote? What's wrong with expressing why the company in question should not be complacent in face of such aggressive plagiarism/violation by another company?

I didn't downvote you, but I'm gonna guess it's due to the tone of your post :

> Way to roll over

> I didn't bother delving

> you should [do this]

etc.

Ah. But "The way to roll over..." was not meant as an insult, rather to express frustration at the fact that the person/company in the right was going to left the offender get away with it. Mentioning that many readers would read only the current story was to show how they could get the wrong impression about this company and I tried to keep it constructive by offering suggestion on minimal actions the company could take that could produce positive results.

Considering this situation where the developers don't want to take a stand against Quento Lite, what if, Quento developers add a couple of features to the original game release it as "Quento 2"? How would the reaction be like? More downloads, because of the new version? Would people ditch Quento Lite then?

I think you're right. It's really about adding value. Emphasis on the "ing".

So, they addED value once by creating the game. Then someone else diminished that value. Now it's up to them to keep adding value.

The people who deserve to win are not the ones who make an idea first. The people who deserve to win are the ones who put together a team and add value in all dimensions - marketing, delivery, support, innovation, accounting, etc.

Is there a good way to deal with this? Even the curated Apple Store is full of clones. In this case claiming copyright or Trademarking the name would force at least a small change in the clone, but they could adjust the spelling.

Writing a blog post about it that is likely to introduce your apps to tens of thousands of new people isn't the worst idea for a response :)

Has anyone tried both of these? I can't help but notice in the screens that Quento Lite has five stars while Quento only has four.

Quento has 3353 gradings, Quento Lite has 6.

Couldn't tell which screenshot was which.

is it only me or does one of the characters from the other game they mentioned look a lot like eggman from sonic

You should copyright the name before you release a game on the app store, then you can have some leverage when asking for removal.

Product names are not subject to copyright. Trademark is probably what you are thinking of.

The code and look / feel does fall under copyright though, so if it was using the same graphics or it can be proven to be using the same code (or a decompiled version of it), it can be removed under copyright law.

But yeah. This is kinda why people patent stuff, despite the brouhaha about patents: if you don't patent your gameplay idea (in this and similar cases), people will just take your idea, rebrand it and run off with it.

Look / feel isn't copyright able either. That is why there are lots of clones. It is a sleazy move to try and co opt the name though

I'm pretty sure you can get a more formal copyright paper if you file it. However, it doesn't matter and you could even do it after the fact if someone infringes your copyright.

http://www.copyright.gov/eco/

Registering your copyright entitles you to damages in court. It's quite valuable.

Edit: to be clear, with an unregistered copyright, you can still sue for an injunction to stop someone from distributing your material. You won't get your statutory damages, though.

You're wrong, I know for a fact that you can (and should) register your product (including the name) in Europe. I guess what you're saying only applies to US but the author is European, hence my advice.

When you register you specify your work, the name and the sector it belongs to (films, novel, web sites, etc.) and you get a document that testifies your rights over it. I know this because I used my filing to have Google remove a clone of my app from the store. It was a lengthy process, but with the registration you can have leverage.

"In general, registration can serve as prima facie evidence in a court of law with reference to disputes relating to copyright."

http://www.eucopyright.com/en/do-you-need-to-register-to-be-...

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