They were remaking 10 playable scenes from the original game. I decided to gloat (I know, I'm terrable!) and posted the following on thier website.
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Wow, what a waste!
When this website was shown to me not a month ago, I knew for a fact it would never see the light of day.
I mean honestly, you take someone else's copyrighted and trademarked work, not only that, something that Square spent *millions* in development and promotion, and all of the sudden you are all shocked that Square/Enix terminates a rip off of their product,
Oh, yea, I mean it's pretty, but it's still an unauthorized rip off.
Your abysmal knowledge of copyright law is staggering. You see, a "copyright" is an exclusive "right to copy" by the copyright owner. In this case it's Square's asset.
Here's a tip, copyright is more powerful that free speech. Not only that Copyright is mentioned *first* in the U.S. Constitution (Article 8). Free speech isn't mentioned until the bill of rights at the end.
You think that simply saying you are not affiliated with Square is going to indemnify you from a lawsuit. Guess what, an "Affiliation" means "To become closely connected or associated" I don't know about you, but it seems they took the Chrono Trigger trademark and blatantly copied the storyline, character art, and soundtrack. That sounds like an affiliation to me. You don't become affiliated by some magical agreement. Here's an example.
Mark launches model rockets in Germany.
Bob, who has never met Mark, launches model rockets in California.
Mark and Bob are affiliated with each other through model rocketry, even though they have never met.
Planning on distributing the soundtrack? Take my advice. Don't. You would just be distributing yet another one of Square's assets you don't have any rights to. I'm surprised they are letting them keep their logo up
You see, in the real world, you can't even distribute a MIDI file of a song without getting the rights to the composition. (The composer, not the singer, unless they are the same person)
I'm sure a posting the C&D letter will explain in full vivid detail what legal issues are at stake. I'm sure it includes such terms as "Trademark Dilution" and "Unauthorized Derivative". The cited JibJab case was based on parody, which is protected, but that issue never went to court as the composition (or instrumental music) of the song was discovered to be public domain. The actual words to the original "This Land is Your Land" is still under copyright and you will still get a C&D letter from Ludlow Music if you post the original Woody Guthrie song.
This wasn't a parody, it was a direct lifting of ChonoTrigger, all the way down to the swinging pendulum.
It just irritates me that something original couldn't if been made. Oh well, it looks like there will be now.
Oh, here's a parting comment. Once upon a time there was a Dragonball Z Total Conversion for Quake 3 called "Bid for Power" I mention this because it's was exactly what these guys were doing, all the way down to the Toriyama artwork. In their case it was done and ready for release. Here's what happened.
As many of you know Funimation owns the copyrights to Dragonball Z in the USA and has sold the exclusive rights to publish video games to Infogrames. On December 1st, 2000, the Bid For Power team received a cease and desist order from Funimation.
However, they seemed receptive to the notion of allowing Bid For Power to be released so long as certain conditions were met. We were put in touch with Infogrames who asked us, among other things, to recreate Bid For Power on Wild Tangent, a java-based engine, which would then be posted on the Dragonball Z website for people to play. This engine is incapable of running something as detailed as Bid For Power and we would have had to start work from scratch. Most of the team rejected the idea and talks went downhill from there. Without contact with Infogrames or Funimation the progress of Bid For Power slowed down even though we were sitting on a finished product and had been for some time.
We began dealing with Funimation directly in April when they asked us to send videos of gameplay to them so that they could have TOEI Japan review it. We sent the videos and heard nothing until we emailed them in July asking that we be allowed to release in August, since no objections had be made from TOEI Japan that we knew of. We were then sent another Cease and Desist order by way of Funimation.
Deader than a doornail, and for the same exact reason as this. You are dealing with millions of dollars in lost rights. If I were them, I would want to get any unauthorized works killed off too. I spent the millions of dollars for the rights, and they didn't. Simple as that.
Addundem:
If anyone is planning to contine with the "Resurrection" of "dead" programs without buying the rights, I suggest you stop now. This business model is flawed from the get-go.
Here's another thing. You don't have to make money to be considered a business.
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I think this should serve as a warning for our projects. Gears is the first step in a "clean room" dissasembly of FF7. I, however, post no code and minimal data sets in my document. I far as I know, writing specifacations and re-creating engines (Methodologies) are in that very very thin "fair use" band. However, one can never tell when a company has a wild hair up thier butt.
I'm not going to indemnify everyone and say that we are in the right. We are just innocent until proven guilty ^_^ However, when I made my PSX doc, I got real close and personal in a court of law with Sony. My PSX doc is still availible, and they had a copy of it when I was requested to give them a copy during discovery. As far as I can tell, it's legal or I would of been through the reamer four years ago.
Take that as you will.
