16 minutes ago, sprotz said:

@DarkRonin So you call giving a copy of your game to your brother copyright infringement.

Not if you are the copyright holder.

2 minutes ago, DarkRonin said:

 

But, if you know better why did you create this thread?

Because it involved development of games for Commercial purposes.

1 minute ago, sprotz said:

Because it involved development of games for Commercial purposes.

Commercial or non-commercial. It is highly illegal.

So now you know

@DarkRonin I know it's not. It is illegal to give a copy of your game to your brother, uncle, grandma. What nonsense.

@jbadams  It is easy to take down a download page of a fan game but it is impossible to remove the game from players who already have it and have uploaded it elsewhere for some more sharing, with even more players getting to have it. Before you know it, the game is all over the web.

Just now, sprotz said:

@DarkRonin I know it's not. It is illegal to give a copy of your game to your brother, uncle, grandma. What nonsense.

Did you even read what I posted? Where did I say that it was illegal to share your own IP with your family?

This is starting to feel like one of those Troll threads.

Comes back to how much you are willing to bet that you are in the right.

Just say even if you were right, a company can bury you in court costs arguing otherwise. You may come out as the winner on paper, but be financially ruined for the rest of your life.

I am willing to bet Nintendo, Sega, and Sony have more in their bank account than you do.

1 hour ago, sprotz said:

You make a fan game with copyrighted characters, show it out for free, no profit, what's wrong with that?

The problem is misuse of someone else's property.

Imagine I started sharing your games with other people, telling them I made the games. Do you feel that is fair to you?  What if I started posting a modified version of your game, that I make supper buggy and horrible, telling people it is how you made the game, all in a attempt to ruin your reputation?

Copyright laws protect the creator and the creators rights.

30 minutes ago, sprotz said:

Definition: Distribution means to spread the product throughout the marketplace such that a large number of people can buy it.

No. Distribution-  "the action of sharing something out among a number of recipients."

Copyright laws don't have a clause that only applies to selling games. Using someone else's content without their permission is illegal, in most countries.

16 minutes ago, sprotz said:

So people made fan games and uploaded it to Google play. The games are still there. Google seems fine with it.

It depends on if any of the fan games are using actual copyrighted content.

It is against Google's terms for a developer upload anything they don't have the rights to. If discovered it will be removed, the developer will be banned from doing business with google, and could face heavy charges. It is really important to check the terms, because if you break even a small one it could be dire.

So either the games you are thinking of is only "inspired" and don't actually use any copyrighted content, or Google just doesn't know about them yet.

Just wanted to post to say thanks for the link to faq61 I hadn't seen that before and its very informative.

It also covers most points made here, I had specific questions about things like fair use or the non-commercial aspect and faq61 supplied both an informative and entertaining approach to the concept.

I'm pretty sure with the inclusion of faq61, that unless there are lawyers willing to put the license out there to give actual legal advice, i dont see how there can be much more argument.