quote:Original post by dr_slash_uh
Are you tellin me that all of the homemade games I have played, many peope created who are in this forum have illegal music in them?

Probably, unless they wrote the music themselves or had a friend write it for them or whatnot.

quote:
If I was a big time company, I would hang out here and try to catch unsuspected victims who use there sounds. I am sure there is a clause. Not knocking anyone. I am going to look up more information.

I''d imagine they have more important things to do then to sue every minor copyright infringer; but, all the same, it''s probably not a good idea to test their limits.

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quote:Original post by dr_slash_uh
Are you tellin me that all of the homemade games I have played, many peope created who are in this forum have illegal music in them? If I was a big time company, I would hang out here and try to catch unsuspected victims who use there sounds. I am sure there is a clause. Not knocking anyone. I am going to look up more information.

Thanks

God Bless

[edited by - dr_slash_uh on January 14, 2004 12:43:17 AM]

No there is no clause. You have to get permission to use some copywrited material, period.

There reason why you see a lot of hobby games using this music is that attornies aren''t free. It cost money sue somebody and their is no profit in sueing some who cant pay. Another reason is that they don''t konw.

If the copyright holder finds that you made any money at all from the game, expect a lawsuit. If you didn''t make any money, they will likely send a cease and desist letter.

As mentioned, it''s copyright infringment, but, as many homebrew/hobby/fanmade games out there show, usually most companies aren''t willing the effort to pursue every small hobby developer who write a little game using some of their assets.

Of course, some companies are *really* picky about this, and you should take care to not mess with them (aka: try to avoid popular stuff).

But you should worry more if you''re using material from non-gaming sources.

An example: Capcom is pretty lax when it comes to homebrew/hobby/fanmade games using their graphics and sounds. Search for MUGEN sites and you''ll see plenty of Capcom characters avaliable, all using ripped sprites. But once, someone made this very, very cool shockwave version of X-men Vs. Street Fighter. It ran in a browser and had an online versus mode, that became quite popular.

But they received a cease-and-desist letter... from Marvel Comics, not Capcom. Marvel Co. recently became *VERY* picky on any unauthorized website with any of their copyrighted materials, be it wallpapers with Marvel characters, image galleries and such stuff, so that cool online game had to go down.

So, if you''re gonna infringe copyright, take care, and keep it as private as possible.