> > Sam,
> > Would it be OK if I wrote my own computerised RPG which would share the overall "feel" and algorithms of Murkon's Refuge?
> > I would be coding the entire thing from scratch without looking at one single line of your actual source code. But I would like to use the technical info you've published on RinkWorks as a reference.
> > This cannot count as theft because I would not be seeing your original source code, but can it count as plagiarism?
>
> I don't even know.
>
> But here's what would make me happy. If you use enough look-and-feel and algorithms that it is more of a clone or spin-off of MR than it is a wholly original work within the genre, then I'd appreciate credit and a link to MR and the citation that MR inspired your work. Whether or not I'd have the legal right to demand this, I don't know.
>
> But why not create something new? There is a lot of room within the CRPG genre for you to create your own gaming system. The end result will undoubtedly be better if you brought to fruition your own vision instead of mine.

I can't believe I didn't see and respond to this post earlier.

I happen to know a fair bit aboot intellectual property law. I'm studying to be a patent lawyer.

Copyright, surprisingly, is what it sounds like. It gives you the right to copy, and prevent other people from copying. If you don't actually copy Sam's code, your code doesn't infringe his copyright.

"Look and feel" can be protected by copyright. Copyright protects the expression of an idea, but not the idea itself. For example, you couldn't write another MacBeth (assuming that Shakespeare was still copyright) but you could write another book aboot a guy who becomes king and then dies ironically at the end. Romeo and Juliet - copyright. Tragic love story - no copyright. If you make a "Murkon's Refuge II" that substantially takes the look and feel from MR, and actually plays exactly like MR, you could be infringing copyright on that level. It wouldn't be enough to take the mere idea of a guy moving around on little squares and changing levels to get to bad guys.

Also, you probably couldn't write a game similar to MR and then promote it as if it were associated with MR or as if it were written by Sam, or in such a way that people would think it was. That would be passing-off, which is similar to trade-mark infringement.

Obviously, you can do any of these things with the permission of the guy who owns the right (Sam). If you're infringing his intellectual property rights, he has the right to ask you to stop, so he certainly has the right to ask you to either stop or do it his way. This is known in the industry as "licensing", and IBM makes $2 billion a year asking random people to pay them a minuscule royalty instead of stopping what they're doing.

Whether Sam has the legal right to demand anything is irrelevant, as long as you can both agree. Life is so much easier when you agree. No lawyers, no injunctions, no Anton Piller orders, no five year trials. Much easier.

^v^:)^v^
FB

P.S. I'm not actually a lawyer yet, so none of this is either legal advice or to be taken as authoritative.