I'm just today thinking about the rights issues of my little frogger game for the gamedev challenge. It is quite common place to make clones of games as a learning experience and for jams, but it is worth spending a little time thinking about rights issues.

I got to thinking about this because sometimes I notice a promising game, where the assets are obviously ripped from other games / sources without licence. I too had no qualms about this kind of approach when e.g. learning to program a new language, and not intending to distribute the result. Indeed this can be a valid use in production, with placeholder graphics, as long as you are sure to change the final versions (there is a danger of tripping up on this one, even big companies can mess this up!).

Plagiarism

I remember vividly being told of the dangers of plagiarism in my education, in the world of science, but equally applicable to games and artwork etc.

Once you spend some time either programming, making artwork, sound or music, you begin to realise the effort that goes into making the results. How would you feel if someone took your hard work, used it for profit and attempted to pass it off as their own? I like to think of it that I would like to treat others work how I would like mine to be treated.

On top of the legal aspects, when applying for jobs, many employers will take a very dim view of plagiarism. If you thought it was okay to 'steal' anothers work for something on your cv, what's to stop you thinking that it is okay to copy anothers work during your job, and expose them to huge risks? Quite apart from the fact  the interviewers may have personal experience of being plagiarised, in many cases your CV will be filed directly to the rubbish bin.

Creative Commons and Open Source

Luckily in the case of assets, instead of infringing on others works without permission, a huge number of people (including myself!) have decided to make some of their work available for free for others to use under a number of licences, such as creative commons, often for nothing other than an attribution in the credits. (And think of the huge contribution of open source software. I am writing this now on an operating system that is open source, and has been freely given away by the authors for the good of everyone. That to me is fantastic!)

I remember spending some time compiling the credits list for my tower defence game, making sure as well as I could that everyone was properly credited, every model, animation, sound, piece of music. It took some time, but I feel much better knowing that I had used the work as the authors intended, quite apart from feeling more secure from a legal standpoint, even for a free game. And also, speaking as an author myself, it is quite fun to google yourself and find where others have used your work, and encourages you to share more.

https://opengameart.org/
https://freesound.org/

Copyright++

Things seem pretty cut and dry for outright copying of assets, but the situation is more complex when it comes to assets that are 'based on' others work, and for things like game titles, and game designs. Some of this intellectual property (IP) protection is based on trademarks, rather than copyright. I am no expert in this, and would encourage further reading and/or consulting a specialist lawyer if in any doubt. Also note that IP laws vary in different countries, and there are various agreements that attempt to harmonize things in different areas.

Of course, whether you run into trouble making a clone game depends not only on skirting around the applicable law, but whether the rights owners are able / willing to take action against you (or the publishing platform). Nintendo for instance are known to be quite aggressive for pursuing infringement, whereas Sega have sometimes suggested they are happy with fan games:

https://kotaku.com/sega-takes-shot-at-nintendo-encourages-fans-to-keep-ma-1786527246

I do understand both points of view. Indeed in some jurisdictions I understand that legally the rights owner *needs* to take action in order to retain control over the rights (this seems nonsensical, but there you are). So a company being overly-aggressive may have been forced to do this by the legal system.

Anyway, for my little research into frogger, my first guess is that the rights are with Konami / Sega / both. Of course you never know. Companies sometimes sell the rights to IP, or one goes out of business and the rights are then assigned to a creditor. Who is to say that a future rights owner will not take a different approach to enforcement.

In the Wild

It seems there are a number of frogger clones out there, with some successful and profitable (e.g. crossy road). Of course that does not mean making a frogger clone is 'ok' in any way, it just suggests that the likelihood of running into trouble is lower than if there were no frogger clones in markets.

Currently I am thinking I will gradually modify the title / some aspects of gameplay so I can put it available for download after the challenge. I really should have thought of this sooner though, and made my main character something else, or put a different slant on it, like 'game of frogs', or 'crossy frog' (that one is taken!). :)

Some light reading

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_and_video_games
https://www.newmediarights.org/guide/legal/Video_Games_law_Copyright_Trademark_Intellectual_Property
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPS_Agreement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIPO_Copyright_Treaty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_Digital_Single_Market