Wasteland rights / legality if money is involved?

Sduibek

Sduibek

Creator of Fallout Fixt
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I was considering bringing a Wasteland- or Fallout- style game to Android and iPhone, and would want to charge something like 1$ for it, assuming it didn't suck and was actually worth paying for.

I know this would be illegal with any audio or visual content from Fallout 1 or Fallout 2, but what about Wasteland?
 
Tagaziel said:
InXile (or EA) will probably sue you to death and into your next two reincarnated lives.
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lol

Would that still apply if not charging money for it? Don't copyright infringement claims only have weight if the person using [resource] is trying to profit off of it, thus "causing the original owner of the copyright to lose profits"?

For example a free app that was not meant to be a Fallout or Wasteland clone, but used images and sounds from one of them.

Re: doing it for money, I know that InXile doesn't own the original Wasteland rights, and I thought it was abandonware, so...
 
I think, instead of posting this on a forum you should really go and seek a professional laywer or what ever about it if your plan is really to make something wasteland related. Maybe even ask simply EA or InXile.
 
If you're going to make a game and charge money for it you might as well seek out an artist and pay him with a cut of the profits
 
Sduibek said:
Re: doing it for money, I know that InXile doesn't own the original Wasteland rights, and I thought it was abandonware, so...
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Abandonware is not a legal concept. EA still owns the rights to content from Wasteland, assets, sound, whatever. If you're going to use them in a for-profit venture, you are risking a lawsuit.

Non-profit often falls under fair use law but not always. Fair use is not a catch-all excuse as some people think. It is very per-case depending on amount of content used, how explicitly it's used, if it can damage the existing brand, if it was necessary to use, if it's for education or parody or reporting, etc...
 
Formerk said:
If you're going to make a game and charge money for it you might as well seek out an artist and pay him with a cut of the profits
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Heh, fair enough.

Brother None said:
Non-profit often falls under fair use law but not always. Fair use is not a catch-all excuse as some people think. It is very per-case depending on amount of content used, how explicitly it's used, if it can damage the existing brand, if it was necessary to use, if it's for education or parody or reporting, etc...
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Doesn't that mean technically this would apply to mods, remakes, etc? Like Doom ports, the Ur-Quan Masters of Star Control II, etc. I seem to recall a huge mod of Alpha Centauri was worked on for years and then scrapped because the company began threatening them endlessly.
 
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