An internet search provides surprisingly vague information on this. The US Copyright Office says that each version of a game has to be registered separately (with a fee paid for each one), and also mentions rather vaguely that source code needs to be provided (except public domain code). It doesn’t seem to say anything about assets.
Re: source code: what is the expected practice for providing the hundreds of scripts that a typical game uses, which are obviously mixed in with stock code from Unity or the internet? Separating out only the ones we wrote or modified can be an enormously time-consuming task, and the end result obviously won’t be a functional, compilable program anyway.
Re: assets: I can’t find anything about this, namely: do we need to provide the various graphical assets that are used, excluding the many stock free assets or purchased assets? If so, how are we supposed to separate those out ?
Re; separate versions: I understand that we don’t need to submit every single version, but certainly the only way to secure copyright for the current version would be to register on a regular basis, which is not terribly easy for games still in development including early access, when new versions can be uploaded every few days in some cases.
Yes, I know. But it would be difficult to defend copyright in court without official registration.
The Copyright Office’s material says that the source code needs to be converted to a PDF or other acceptable format, with 50 pages of representative code (either first 25 and last 25 pages or a selection that represents the beginning and end of the program code), which was clearly written back in the days when a typical piece of software had only a single linear source file. It also talks about “audiovisual material that appears on screen” as a separate component of a video game, which also dates from the time of 2D graphics. It says you can submit a photograph (which today would mean a screenshot) and brief description of the game, so evidently there’s no need to submit the asset files, I assume. But it’s worded in a manner that is basically obsolete today.
You aren’t getting a copyright for the game, that isn’t possible. You can apply for copyright on the source or visuals. But that is not really needed unless you are actually doing something groundbreaking with the code, it which case you would probably patent it.
But as noted above, it isn’t needed. The point of registering a copyright through the copyright office is to establish a date. With most digital stuff, and certainly published stuff, dates are built in. If your game is published, the date is a matter of record and will serve equally well in court as a registered copyright. But if you are particularly concerned, burn your entire project to a cd/dvd and mail it to yourself. (don’t open it). This will serve as well as registered copyright, as a postmark is a legal mark. (and it is much easier).
My understanding is in the United States formal copyright registration is required before filing a lawsuit against a copyright violator. Otherwise, since 1989 anything you create is automatically copyrighted. Generally speaking, filing lawsuits over copyright infringement is relatively rare. You’re more likely to go the “DMCA take down” route, or send threatening letters which grab attention and are generally complied with except for the most extreme examples.
You can also document your game during and post development, using popular online media, which can be used for references with time stamp. Screenshots, videos, music, code, using anything like githib, bitbucket, youtube, imgur etc.
It’s not required. Why is well most probably don’t care but I like legal history. Common law systems often have rules like that. They state specifically what is legal and you need to follow rules and processes to gain the protection of the law. Common law systems like the US has is based on what courts have ruled over time. Which is a combination of what is reasonable along with precedent, how have higher courts ruled.
So copyright and also trademarks, registration can make things easier to prove. But if you for example can show prior work, it trumps whatever was registered. Registration is there just to help the system work better.
Edit: I didn’t read the statement clearly enough. Yes you need to file to bring a suit, even though you can just file immediately before.
You should trademark the logos etc. But thats about it. We did it for EU only beacuse like always the US is 200 years behind EU when it comes to online registrations. https://euipo.europa.eu
Lots of people believe in code reuse and it might be a little difficult enforcing any kind of copyright against someone that “stole” your code. Unless they actually copy and pasted the entirety of your project, I don’t see any point in going to court over it. If you don’t want anyone copying it, just write spaghetti code.
You can trademark an IP within a game, but not the game itself.
Example:
You create a franchise called “Bokemon” and make a “bokemon” game. You can copyright the Bokemon franchise as your IP but you cant do much about the game, anyone that makes a bokemon rip off game where you catch monsters etc will be in their right to do so. Sure you can send them C+D and its recommended to do that to protect IP but unless they stole a design of a copyrighted character etc and you can very clearly prove it (and more importantly have the capital to burn on the legal fees and lengthly process) you will be unlikely to get anything out of it
I think the point he was trying to make was that two people trying to solve the same problem independently can come up with very similar code. Copyright doesn’t help if someone comes up with code that does the same thing independently, all copyright helps with is preventing someone hitting ctrl+c on your code.
Its even permissible to read someone else’s code and use that as the basis to build your own algorithm that does the same thing.
You missed the point. @Kiwasi is trying indicate, that is possible that individual write same functionality in different way, than author. And that includes, even using different language, or directly machine code if you like.
Also using ilspy will only give you the code, there is more to it than just the code, there are prefabs, scriptable objects and even seriliazation directly to the scenes.
It’s probably very hard to reuse a none trivial system for a third party. Plus there is always the risk of getting caught. For example I often decode my competitions code to check if they have stolen anything from us
Then again you’ll find a hundred thousand developers all using identical code in their games…via Asset Store plugins they’ve purchased. I’d wager a good amount of games out there from Unity devs are all using hundreds of thousands of copies of identical code. What a strange thought when it comes to copyright or trademark or an IP. Tons of developers all using identical code on different projects all sharing the same license for the duplicate code. Your project could share massive chunks of code that are identical to a Marvel or Disney project.
