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> I am curious to know what would happen if someone decided to clone the exact level design of a game but changed all the audio/visual assets.

This actually happened quite often in early generations of computer games and consoles. Super Mario Bros had quite a few clones where all that changed were the visual assets.

More recently, there are many examples of this happening on the iOS App Store and other venues with a low barrier to entry.

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That such people got away with it doesn't mean it's not a violation of copyright law, just that nobody invested the time and money to sue them.

I seemed to recall such Mario clones as well. Nintendo is quite protective of their IP, so I have to think that they must have threatened legal action. Does anyone know? Is there precedent for legally protecting the layout of a level?

Are these bootleg carts? Otherwise they had to approve of everything that was sold on the NES.

I think the clone I'm semi-remembering was a PC game. Regarding your second question: There were very many unlicensed Nintendo games. I don't know how many of these Nintendo fought. They very famously battled Tengen over this issue in the courts.

Well, yes, that's what I meant by "bootleg."

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