I usually stick to the business forum, but I've noticed that a lot of IP issues (trademark, copyright, licensing, open source, patentable systems) come up in several of the forum topics. This may have been proposed before, but if not it may be helpful to have a forum exclusively for IP and licensing.
A nice idea - but very few of the forum members have any legal training. Unlike the technical side of game development where many of us are qualified and there are enough such people to challenge any incorrect answers.
I believe it would be wrong to give the impression that we can handle any form of legal issues here. Most of the advice boils down to "consult a lawyer" anyway.
I believe it would be wrong to give the impression that we can handle any form of legal issues here. Most of the advice boils down to "consult a lawyer" anyway.
Quote:Original post by rip-off
A nice idea - but very few of the forum members have any legal training. Unlike the technical side of game development where many of us are qualified and there are enough such people to challenge any incorrect answers.
I believe it would be wrong to give the impression that we can handle any form of legal issues here. Most of the advice boils down to "consult a lawyer" anyway.
Some of us do have legal training. :) But apart from that, plenty of people here are experienced enough with the intellectual property aspects of video games to provide sound general information or references. More to the point, people DO answer these questions, and while some of the answers are flat out wrong, there are enough people with enough experience to point out the bad opinions and point the OP in the right direction. That's pretty much the case with every forum.
The subforum wouldn't exist to provide legal advice, it's just a way to centralize and organize a subject matter that's scattered across pretty much every other subforum on the website. Look through Help Wanted, The Lounge, Business, and the Creative Side subforums and there are IP questions scattered all over the place. They're still being answered, but it's haphazard and people don't seem to know where to ask those kinds of questions.
I'm of two minds about this. I agree that there's a significant level of questions regarding IP, and that there's no forum (with the possible exception of the Business forum) that's tasked for it right now. Part of me wants to take every kid who posts "can i make a sonic game if i dont make money off of it and i tell everyone its a paredy" and beat them about the head until they agree to do something interesting and productive with their creative energies, but I suppose that's not my call to make.
The big thing I worry about is the blind leading the blind. I've seen IP questions spread around the different forums, and although the quality of responses has been good it hasn't been great. I see the same myths and misconceptions being spread around as the questioners came in with. A forum can be a good place to clear up myths, but it can also be an echo chamber for them, if it lacks the critical mass of people who know what they're talking about. I can't honestly say that I'm sure such a critical mass is present on Gamedev as a whole.
Now, to the extent that there are people here who actually know what they're talking about, they tend to congregate in the Business forum. So here's my (that's MY -- I'm not speaking on behalf of GDNet here) counterproposal: Rename the business forum to "The Business and Law of Game Development". We just renamed the DirectX forum to DirectX and XNA, because XNA turned out to be a big thing and we wanted to put the XNA questions where the people who knew the answers were already hanging out. I could see the same thing working here.
The big thing I worry about is the blind leading the blind. I've seen IP questions spread around the different forums, and although the quality of responses has been good it hasn't been great. I see the same myths and misconceptions being spread around as the questioners came in with. A forum can be a good place to clear up myths, but it can also be an echo chamber for them, if it lacks the critical mass of people who know what they're talking about. I can't honestly say that I'm sure such a critical mass is present on Gamedev as a whole.
Now, to the extent that there are people here who actually know what they're talking about, they tend to congregate in the Business forum. So here's my (that's MY -- I'm not speaking on behalf of GDNet here) counterproposal: Rename the business forum to "The Business and Law of Game Development". We just renamed the DirectX forum to DirectX and XNA, because XNA turned out to be a big thing and we wanted to put the XNA questions where the people who knew the answers were already hanging out. I could see the same thing working here.
Quote:Original post by Sneftel
Now, to the extent that there are people here who actually know what they're talking about, they tend to congregate in the Business forum. So here's my (that's MY -- I'm not speaking on behalf of GDNet here) counterproposal: Rename the business forum to "The Business and Law of Game Development". We just renamed the DirectX forum to DirectX and XNA, because XNA turned out to be a big thing and we wanted to put the XNA questions where the people who knew the answers were already hanging out. I could see the same thing working here.
If that's cool with Obscure that's cool with me.
Something like "Business & Law of Game development" sound good or even just "Business and Legal"
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