Practical IP Law for Indie Developers 301: Plain Scary Edition

Aloha and mahalo for the info!

2025 here and this is great I will be remembering this

watching this while Nintendo is copyrighting creature capturing in a grassy field with an object to sue pal world is interesting, not sure hoe they are getting away with that.

Enjoyed the trilogy

Great super informative talk with a beautiful presentation.. easy to understand and follow

Great talk !

2022: Practical Law for Indie Developers 401: Absolute Nightmare Edition

Are celebrity names protected too? People having same names is very common. What happens if you say there's a fictional character that has the same name as a celebrity?

Amazing lecture!

It's depressing that in American law the threat of going to court is 99% about getting crushed by legal fees and maybe 1% about whats actually legal or illegal. Larger companies routinely intimidate smaller companies, and that's just plain wrong.

Great vid!

It's good that he's educating people. However, DMCA takedowns can be easily abused.
A prominent example is when the developer Digital Homicide tried to sue to Jim Sterling for millions, simply because they did not like his opinion.
I wish the speaker had touched on this topic in particular, because I heard no mention of content use in works of critique.

Can anyone recommend a contract. I need a character and I will hire an artist but I need to own the legal rights .

This is so complicated. 😞😫😥🤯😨

@Chris Reid Law,

How safe are the indie game companies that develop JRPG monster catchers that are similar to Pokemon, like Nexomon or Micromon, in terms of world exploration and specific game mechanics? I wanted to make one of these kinds of games, because they seem like fun, but I may be a little bit concerned about later being charged with infringement ,due to the "too similar" gray area. I know you said that game mechanics can't be copyrighted, but are there any other pitfalls I'm not looking at here, or should this be okay as long as I use different graphics, music, story, and slightly different gimmicks?

Dude why you just skip pass the most important patent part. A game without a patent isn't a real game ffs. Don't cheesily skip pass it ffs.

Copyright is useless

good stuff

What if i own a logo
then i wanted to use the same logo but with different coloring or make it stretched or edited little bit, do i have to register the new one? even tho i may use both logos.

First off thanks for giving a great talk, lots of relevant advice put in a way that is easy to understand. I have one question for you: If I use works in the public domain or with a CC0 license (sound effects, images, 3d materials) and alter them (give a 3d model I've created a CC0 material, alter a sound effect in audacity) can I claim copyright on the altered work or does it stay in the public domain?

It may have been answered later but I have a terrible memory so I'm asking mid vid. by sale in regards to copyright do you mean putting the game up for sale, or a sale taking place? I know stupid question but my inner pedant made me ask this. Also, great video! you have 9 followers currently and no content Christopher...get a Chanel started!

and what is about the tetris mechanic?

Very informative, one of the best talks on game IP. Thank you so much!

"This is not legal advice" proceeds to give legal advice

Excellent talk. Easily the clearest explanation of these kinds of laws that I've ever heard.

He’s so good.

Lol at the start, "PUBG and fortnite can coexist" Bluehole just sued Epic over it

Wanna talk about using DMCA to target bad reviews? GDC also deletes any comment they don't agree with. So much about honesty and transparency. One universal aspect of all these organizations is they are all hiding some terrible practices they don't want anyone to talk about.

Great talk, liked the clarification of some of those myths on fair use.

Would be interested for the same kind of things but for Europe (and even elsewhere).

This reminds of that buffoon, what was her name Brenda Grose? The one who tried to sue other developers for using a fucking frying pan.
BTW, really interesting topic. Always wanted to find out more about copyright, trademark, and these little symbols that represent all those rules and regulations (law in general).

very informative, but I can't help but feel sad when I hear the guy say "This is helpful, because it allows us to sue people for a lot of money" even if it's just meant to be used as a tool to warn people.

It shouldn't be possible for devs to put a patent on something like the minigames that used to appear during loading screens, limiting other's creativity for fear of people without it.

Great talk!

One technique: Do something too good for the common casual.
Make a game so advanced or so good in it's elements that you can't match it. Like Undertale or a 3D platformer.
Make something distinctive and unique to the point where your game is no longer associated with just the genre. You must do enough good stuff good enough for anyone to say FUCK IT!

ha ha ha........... nice.

oh my god this guy is a riot, this is exactly my type of humor. Also he's basically on-point so time to link this around.

The thing missing from this talk was about false DMCAs as it has become a trend when a developer is not happy with a bad review

Kinda shitty to say "DMCA can be used to send a message"... I hope you aren't purposefully claiming that DMCA notices should be purposefully sent out to silence those you disagree with? Considering you specifically mentioned PewDiePie, I think you are. Keep in mind that there WAS a license publically available, where they said anyone could stream their games. They just decided because of their personal opinions, they didn't have to agree to that license anymore. Didn't have time to mention that during your talk though, huh?

Interesting. Can you patent mathematical equations / algorithms? For example for compression or encryption? I heard Hello Games almost got into trouble for admitting to use an algorithm for procedurally generating NMS creatures, designed by some professor in Belgium or whatever.

Thanks for your talk! So useful for a newbie like me. You explain very well complex thing!

God do I ever hate the term 'intellectual property'.

It completely guts and bastardises both the foundational concepts behind copyright, AND the notion of what 'property' actually is.

Post-conference correction to one of my Q&A answers: Trademarks registered in the supplemental register ARE entitled to use the ® symbol. Sorry about the error folks!

Game devs, an important thing - when it comes to copyright, PICK YOUR BATTLES. Going on a pissy offended artist crusade brought on by jokes, parodies, and negative reviews will only damage you and your work further. Remember Tommy Wiseau's war with the Nostalgia Critic.

Woohoo! At long last the "Plain Scary Edition!"