[Josho]

Originally Posted by Jeysie

Choosing whether or not to review the fangame before saying whether she minds it or not is her choice, and in the end she didn't shut them down. If she had it wouldn't have bothered me, and if the KQIX team ignored her and did it anyway I would take umbrage at them.

If I remember correctly, I believe she said at the time that, for legal reasons, she could NOT look at or comment on the game itself. I don't think she had a choice in that matter.

Originally Posted by Jeysie

I don't see KQIX as asserting ownership any more than any other team who creates a fangame or fanfiction. If you're going to call the KQIX team on that you need to call every non-original fangame team on that.

But not every fangame or fanfic purports to be the rightful next entry in its series. It's one thing to say, "This is the next King's Quest game," and another to say, "This is a game that uses settings and characters inspired by King's Quest."

Originally Posted by Jeysie

Isn't that what *every* fangame does, rewrite canon? AGDI's KQ2 remake *completely* rewrote canon. SQ7.org is playing with canon. Every other SQ fangame is rewriting or playing with canon to some degree. Etc. etc. It's essentially electronic fanfiction, and again, if you call one team on it you have to call everyone on it.

I'd be interested in exploring that notion. I think one can very readily design a fangame (or write fanfiction) with the notion of "clean hands," leaving canon untouched. In the case of SQ7, at least for the story I wrote, everything that occurs does so AFTER all recorded canon. The only place where -- arguably -- events occur before recorded canon is that the action predates the whole "married to Bea" affair. I simply don't touch those events and therefore do not interfere with their development.

In the case of KQIX, though, last time I saw the docs, there were a great many events that intentionally reframed canonical events, changing, for instance, characters' motivations for their original actions, changing the nature of their relationships, etc. I think that's a clear show of disrespect to the original designer (whether or not that designer publicly comments or objects), and one definitely sees a lot of it in fangames.

Originally Posted by Jeysie

To me the whole situation feels inconsistent. If Vivendi is going to shut down one fangame, they really need to shut down all of them, or at least give some concrete criteria of what they do and don't find acceptable and why, so every fan who wants to do a fanwork isn't looking over their shoulder with paranoia.

I agree fully, it does seem inconsistent. SQ:TLC seems to have gotten a total pass. AGDI's remakes have gotten a partial pass. KQIX seems to have gotten no pass whatsoever. Then again, these games are all quite different in the degree to which, and manner in which, they impinge upon the copyrights. In a court battle, I wonder if a defendant could not point to SQ:TLC and say, "You can't selectively enforce your copyright." I'd guess that you CAN selectively enforce a copyright, but I'd love to hear a lawyer weigh in on that.

As far as making criteria clear, I'm not at all sure a copyright holder has a responsibility to publicly declare what is or isn't fair use of their property. The existing presumption is that NO use of the property is fair. I would think the onus is on the designer or writer to seek out the copyright holder and find out what the criteria are...or at least make a good-faith effort to do so (and ensure a paper trail that documents it!).

--Josh