Building a Marathon scenario? Read this!
Claude Errera
There has been far too much "I think that might be illegal", or
"That's definitely not gonna fly" with regard to upcoming Marathon
scenarios that use older Marathon artwork in newer Marathon engines.
(The M1 to Infinity project Raul Bonilla announced a few days ago is
only the most publicized... there are others. :) ) I got tired of
wondering who was right, so I went to the source (Bungie), and asked
some very specific questions. (Mr. Bonilla's scenario was one of 3
specific examples I tried to clarify.) Matt Soell checked with Alex
Seropian, and with Microsoft's legal department... and here's his
answer:
> We're not worried (and neither is MS Legal; I checked) about
> copyright violation with this stuff since it's squarely targeted at
> people who are already fans of the game and probably bought their
> copies long ago.
>
> SO:
>
> As long as the two golden rules you mentioned (no money changes
> hands and all copyrighted Bungie content is explicitly denoted as
> such) are adhered to religiously, people who develop these types of
> projects (old Bungie game in a new Bungie skin) may distribute them
> with our approval. If they choose to distribute their revamped
> Bungie stuff with an Aleph One app, they must make clear that the
> GPL that covers the Aleph One app does NOT apply to the copyrighted
> Bungie content in the art/sound/map/etc. files. We're allowing
> people to use those copyrighted works because we're nice guys and so
> are they. The only way we'll get pissed and reverse ourselves on
> this would be if someone started selling something deriving from our
> copyrighted work, or claiming it as their own.
This is very, very cool news. Again, for those who missed Matt's
references, there are two requirements for using Bungie artwork in
Marathon scenarios:
- no money changes hands (this means no CD compilations, either)
- Bungie is explicitly credited with copyrights in all documentation
And don't forget that Aleph One warning, either. Documentation of
copyright might seem trivial... but it's not. It only takes a sec to
paste in the needed line in your readme (or to include the needed
line all by itself if you're too lazy to write a readme)... do it. :)
This should make life easier for anyone involved in making a
Marathon scenario, as long as the above (very reasonable) rules are
followed. Don't forget... Bungie now has the Microsoft legal team
behemoth behind them... play nasty, and I bet they'll play nastier.
Now go build cool stuff!
--
Claude
err...@bungie.org