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Geek Culture / Will I get sued?

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Major Payn
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Posted: 9th Jan 2005 05:46
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If I use a song from UT 2004 in my freeware game? Even if I give Epic Games full credit? I just don't want to put myself in a dangerouse situation.

Guns arn't the problem, people are the problem, shoot all the people and guns arn't a problem anymore.
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soapyfish
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Posted: 9th Jan 2005 06:03 Edited at: 9th Jan 2005 06:10
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I'm not sure if it's legal or not but I very much doubt a company the size of Epic Games is going to sue one person for making one game. Ofcourse if it becomes massively popular they'll probably be out for their share.

EDIT:: Just had a thought, it may depend on what your game's based on. If it's something like GTA then people could associate UT2004 with killing innocent people. Think on.

Formely code2kill
Is it really that hard to check your spelling before clicking the Post Message button?
the play2kill fan club
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Major Payn
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Posted: 9th Jan 2005 06:08 Edited at: 9th Jan 2005 06:17
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At the quality of work I am seeing at this point, on my own project, I highly doubt it will ever make it past a few downloads lol.

I am not so afraid of the devs, as I am the publisher, publishers are totall control freaks, and go to great lengths to control their assets, so hopefully Atari won't try and stop me.

Guns arn't the problem, people are the problem, shoot all the people and guns arn't a problem anymore.
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Neofish
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Posted: 9th Jan 2005 07:20
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Email them asking....formally of course

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Yu Une
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Posted: 9th Jan 2005 07:28
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@ Major Payn So long as you list them in your credits, I don't think there will be a problem, tho as Neofish said it wouldn't hert to ask.
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Philip
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Posted: 9th Jan 2005 07:37
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Yes, they could sue you if they wanted. Whether or not they'd waste money doing this is a different question. Thats not to say you wouldn't be the recipient of nasty letters from their lawyers though.

Philip

What do you mean, bears aren't supposed to wear hats and a tie? P3.2ghz / 1 gig / GeForce FX 5900 128meg / WinXP home
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The Freeman
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Posted: 9th Jan 2005 07:47
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put it theis way, if you used music from my game i would SUE your ass
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Foxy
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Posted: 9th Jan 2005 09:22
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Quote: "Email them asking....formally of course"


If you write to the copyright holders they will most likely let you so long as you don't try and sell your game and give them full credit for the music. If you were going to sell it then they would be in it for royalties.

You probably knew that already but I hope I have helped to some degree.

I'm here today, I'm here tomorrow. Meh, it's all the same.
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Ian T
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Posted: 9th Jan 2005 10:06
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It would be illegal without their, quote, "explicit written permission". Which they almost certainly won't give you. On the other hand I really doubt they'd bother unless it turned out to be one of the most popular freeware games in history. Even so, the common process is to send a warning letter instructing removal of copyrighted material before taking it to court-- it often doesn't hold up otherwise.

[center]
Join the fun in #darkbasic!
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Wiggett
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Posted: 9th Jan 2005 14:34
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Quote: "Will I get sued?
"


yes


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Wiggett
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Posted: 9th Jan 2005 15:10
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if whats freeware, all he asked is if he would be sued, so i said yes.


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Mr Underhill
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Posted: 9th Jan 2005 16:04 Edited at: 9th Jan 2005 16:07
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In other words:
Can they sue you...heck yeah
Will they sue you...probably not unless your game becomes really popular or you have incredibly bad luck

Better just to make your own song, just to be sure.

Quote: "A kilobyte is 1024 bytes, not 1028.
I mean.... not.. that i.... new that already.... i figured... maybe... CRUD! IM A NERD! -Ion Stream"

I feel your pain, man. Wait...pain?!
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Major Payn
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Posted: 11th Jan 2005 06:23 Edited at: 11th Jan 2005 06:23
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I really, really suck at soundforge and acid, that is why I have resorted to taking songs , I will send them an email or something, at the least they can't say I didn't try and contact them.

Quote: "EDIT:: Just had a thought, it may depend on what your game's based on. If it's something like GTA then people could associate UT2004 with killing innocent people. Think on. "


It's an RTS type game.

Guns arn't the problem, people are the problem, shoot all the people and guns arn't a problem anymore.
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BearCDPOLD
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Posted: 11th Jan 2005 07:13
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Soundforge and Acid uses samples right?

I recommend Fruity Loops, really easy to use.

Crazy Donut Productions, Current Project: Project Starbuks
Sony stole our name!
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Major Payn
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Posted: 11th Jan 2005 09:24 Edited at: 11th Jan 2005 09:24
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I was going to email Epic games to ask for their permission, but I cannot find an email adress anywhere on their site .

Surely they wouldn't mind!

Guns arn't the problem, people are the problem, shoot all the people and guns arn't a problem anymore.
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dark coder
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Posted: 11th Jan 2005 15:48
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well when was the last time some darkbasic developer got sued..


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Preston C
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Posted: 12th Jan 2005 00:18
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I was threatened to be sued by someone when I was working on my modeller in Dark Basic way back when. I was calling it Decoy3D (after my Decoy Animation Builder) but someone was using that name for a 3D engine. So he threatened to sue me.

Thats about as close as it's going to get for anyone here being sued.

Intel Celeron 1.3 Ghrz | 512 MB Ram | NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 128MB
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Prayne de crabug ahm rinedere be-yogt iglo kes gron
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Neofish
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Posted: 12th Jan 2005 00:43
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Quote: "So he threatened to sue me."

Did he even ask nicely first?

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Newbie Brogo
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Posted: 12th Jan 2005 04:29
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No, I outright threatened to sue him.. Err.. The evil man you threatened him came outright and did it..



--From your favorite Cat Overlord
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Preston C
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Posted: 12th Jan 2005 04:32
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Quote: "Did he even ask nicely first?"


Nope, he didn't. He flat out threatened to sue me if I didn't change the name of my project or stopped working on it completely.

The entire thing did teach me a lesson though. When coming up with a name for your project, google is a great tool.

Intel Celeron 1.3 Ghrz | 512 MB Ram | NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 128MB
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Prayne de crabug ahm rinedere be-yogt iglo kes gron
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Ali M Oldboy
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Posted: 12th Jan 2005 04:34
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Quote: "Will I get sued"


Of course! It's using their music they created.
Or you never know you could get lucky.

Cheers,
Ali M

[b]Nukesoft[b]
[b]Bigfoot's Choice! [b]
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Newbie Brogo
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Posted: 12th Jan 2005 06:37
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Add a little bit of a meowing cat and the middle, and you're fine.



--From your favorite Cat Overlord
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Major Payn
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Posted: 12th Jan 2005 08:22
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well I'm going to use one track from their game in my game, if they get mad at me, I will take it out, and never buy another product from them again.

Guns arn't the problem, people are the problem, shoot all the people and guns arn't a problem anymore.
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Newbie Brogo
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Posted: 12th Jan 2005 08:55
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[Next Sunday: Major Payn is at the store buying more products from Epic Games]



--From your favorite Cat Overlord
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Major Payn
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Posted: 12th Jan 2005 10:25
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hmm, I have it all planned out, if I get sued, I will find some way for the game to physically hurt me! That way I can sue them back! HA HA!

Guns arn't the problem, people are the problem, shoot all the people and guns arn't a problem anymore.
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bitJericho
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Posted: 13th Jan 2005 00:18
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certainly there's fine free music out there you can use

Try contacting some people who offer free music..

like, places like modplug.com or other tracker sites. contact the author before using it


Yarr join LoGD and defeat your fellow coders!
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BatVink
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Posted: 13th Jan 2005 01:13
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Big companies do go after small people, mainly because they don't want the public to associate their branding with your "inferior product" (It doesn't matter what it is, they will always consider it to be inferior). For example, "Toys R Us" threatened a local company here, "Inkjets R Us", for infringement. The local company sells printer ink from a small unit in a business block, it's not even a shop.

BatVink
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Major Payn
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Posted: 13th Jan 2005 05:54
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Wow, I'm scared now. I don't understand how they could sue me if I give them full credit for the music.

Guns arn't the problem, people are the problem, shoot all the people and guns arn't a problem anymore.
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IanM
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Posted: 13th Jan 2005 07:19
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It's because it's their music, not yours, and you don't have permission to use it.

You cannot use copyrighted material without permission and expect to get away with it. "I didn't think it would matter much" is not a good defence if it goes to court.

*** Coming soon - Network Plug-in - Check my site for info ***
For free Plug-ins and source code http://www.matrix1.demon.co.uk
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