So, I recently saw a story posted within the past few days, and it blows my mind. It is the exact copy of a video game, in a books format. I, at one point, wanted to post lyrics from songs as inspiration. The moderators said it was against legal this that and the other. Why is this transcript permitted?
Use the webmaster link to report it to the webmaster with the info you have on the game. He can check it out and ask the poster - if they're the copyright holder they can do it, otherwise the webmaster will deal with it. But he has to be told first.
Here at SOL? What story? What video game?
I looked at the new stories list and I didn't see anything in the last couple of weeks that would seem to qualify.
1. You can't have an exact copy of a video game in a book format, because one is interactive and the other isn't, unless the story published source code.
2. That said, you can write a story that rips off protected elements of a video game.
However, the movie (Disney exclude), video game, and text publishing industries have a history of tolerating fan fiction as long as you aren't trying to make money off of it.
Technically, it's still a copyright violation, but you aren't likely to get sued for it.
On the other hand, the recording industry has no such history. Instead, they have a history of running search bots looking for copyrighted material and suing over what ever the bots find. In fact, in recent years, they have had a number of public embarrassments over suing for false positives (finding files that didn't contain infringing material, but had names similar to song titles) while doing almost no due diligence.
1. You can't have an exact copy of a video game in a book format,
The closest that you could come to that is probably one of those 'Choose What Happens Next' books.
If you drink the wine, turn to page 14
If you eat the cheese, turn to page 64
Uncharted: Drake's Demise by auguy87, I think. The title is right, I own the fucking game and the first bit of the story is pretty much spot on.
Uncharted: Drake's Demise by auguy87, I think. The title is right, I own the fucking game and the first bit of the story is pretty much spot on.
https://storiesonline.net/s/14042/uncharted-drakes-demise
Perhaps, you should have read this:
Sir Francis Drake: legendary explorer, captain, and privateer. Though the most successful sailor of his day, he still manages to stumble onto the treasure hunt of a lifetime in the twilight of his life, leading to a race against his Spanish rival for a potentially world-altering find.
Greetings, readers. This story is set in the universe of the Uncharted video game series. Though it does not feature the characters of those games, it does tell of the events leading up to the first game, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.
Sounds like the Uncharted video game world is built around pseudo historical events involving a real historical figure, and much of it predicated in real myths and legends.
Given this, it's somewhat unlikely that anything he may have in fact copied is copyrightable anyway as much of it doesn't originate with the game developers and is old enough to be public domain.
Even if he has straight up copied any elements of the game that are subject to copyright protection, as I said above, the video game companies love fan fiction.
Even if there is a technical violation, they are highly unlikely to pursue it unless he tries to actually sell the story.
The same can not be said for song lyrics and the music industry.
One music artist actually sued another for copying x seconds of silence.
The courts ultimately ruled that the silence wasn't a protected element, but the lawsuit cost both artists a lot of money.
The courts ultimately ruled that the silence wasn't a protected element, but the lawsuit cost both artists a lot of money.
In that case the true winners were the Lawyers. They got paid regardless.
One lawyer in a small town may starve, two will make a nice living for each other. I have read somewhere there is a sign lawyers keep, "God Bless the people who sue my clients."
