Jamba Posted September 21, 2006 Posted September 21, 2006 Having spent some time over the past year or two chucking ideas around, I have started to come up with some game designs that I feel I will need to protect if they are taken any further in development. One of them in particular I think could hold a lot of promise and therefore, I am naturally cautious. I don't know anything about the copywriting process let alone how it is done with IPs so could someone give me some insight?
AshMat Posted September 21, 2006 Posted September 21, 2006 Mail it to yourself, with the date stamped on. easiest way i know.
Aimless Posted September 21, 2006 Posted September 21, 2006 First a bit of pedantry: you want to copyright your work; copywriting is the penning of publicity material or advertisement text. Might help with Googling. I don't know all the ins and outs of copyrighting, but as far as I'm aware you can't copyright an idea, only an expression. For example you can copyright the character of Micky Mouse, but that doesn't stop other people from creating talking mice so long as they have different idiosyncrasies. So if you made a game and then someone else repackaged it with tweaked levels and new artwork you would have a tough battle on your hands — I believe you can patent game mechanics, though. I don't see why any publishers or developers would be looking at your idea without proof of concept anyway, and I don't imagine stealing ideas is a very effective business model.
Dan_Dare Posted September 21, 2006 Posted September 21, 2006 First a bit of pedantry: you want to copyright your work; copywriting is the penning of publicity material or advertisement text. Might help with Googling. I don't know all the ins and outs of copyrighting, but as far as I'm aware you can't copyright an idea, only an expression. For example you can copyright the character of Micky Mouse, but that doesn't stop other people from creating talking mice so long as they have different idiosyncrasies. So if you made a game and then someone else repackaged it with tweaked levels and new artwork you would have a tough battle on your hands — I believe you can patent game mechanics, though. I don't see why any publishers or developers would be looking at your idea without proof of concept anyway, and I don't imagine stealing ideas is a very effective business model. I know Konami have a patent for mini games during loading screens, so yes that's possible.
Supergrunch Posted September 21, 2006 Posted September 21, 2006 I don't imagine stealing ideas is a very effective business model. You wouldn't believe how much that happens... Anyway, game mechanics can be patented, but the patents can be notoriously difficult to enforce. For instance, Nintendo patented the camera system in Mario 64, but if this patent had been strictly enforced, then almost all 3rd person games not made by nintendo would be illegal.
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