Copyright Infringement Problem Help

[GuyOfDemise]

Dear TurboRisk,

First of all i love the game. Keep up the good work because somebody
has to make a program that doesnt leave a money trail and keeps the
boss thinking that your still working.

As far as your copyright issue though, I've read your blogs about
possible solutions being name, rule, and map changes. I think for the
games sake, that yes they are correct in saying that "TurboRisk" is
similar in meaning and sound. They have you pinned on that so a quick
name change to something like TurboRBWD (Role-Based-World-Domination
or at least something drastically different in pronounciation) would
be advisable. Obviously RBWD isnt exactly nifty or tendy so you can
throw that out the door already, it was just my quick example.

As far as the maps: It may be necassary to change the connections if
they persist in legally going through, worst case scenario. This is
only because its not where but how many, and how the territories
connect that can be considered "intellectual property." The map itself
of the world is in fact not trademarkable. Only depictions of man-made
terretory lines in which your blog suggest you vary already. If this
isnt true though (Your maps appearance is similiar, pertaining to its
man-made references, number of territories, and connection placements)
an overhual of a simple earth map would be advisable legally.

One possible solution to this is the incorporation of the Navy into
the game. Make two boards in one essentially. Create connections
between territories over water territories. The person that owns that
water territory owns the right to travel over or through it with the
land based armies.The player that conquers an ocean (equivalent to a
continent) recieves bonus troops. The turn system could either be set
up so that each player essentially has two turns, or has one turn. The
draw back to one turn is that the value of the number of additional
troops from conquered water and land territories could not be
differenciated from. Thus, the player could spend "Navy resources" on
the army and vise versa meaning the value of one ship is equal and
transferable to that of one army unit. Obviously this is just a long
shot that would require alot of work and planning, but its been a
dream of mine for sometime and seemed to fix a substantial copyright
problem for you. It would also make your product the only one on the
market with such features, essentially shoving it in Hasbros face.

The rules on the other hand are your strongest suit. You vary in that
your rules (from experience) are not set in stone and are malleable,
therefore much different to that of Hasbro's Risk. I see no problems
from them there.

If anything at all i would like to see this product succeed. I see how
much work has gone into it for little profit and i have been in that
possition all my life volunteering. Thank you very much.

While im writing this i might as well mention that the idea of making
a turn based strategic game with more realistic and current national
borders is attractive. Obviously countries like switzerland are
understandably left out but to have more regions and to have a concept
of naval power in war through water connections is very attractive and
would probably increase your image on the market. As much as i would
hate to see it happen, with those features and a low price you could
turn some money in. I wouldnt enjoy having to torrent the program
though because of viruses today. Thank you for actually reading
through all of this though if you took the time. Im not really
expecting a response anyway.

[Mattias]

Hi

It won't be very hard to change some map links i guess, but it gives a big other problem, The AI's...
I will rewrite my AI if nescessary, no problem at all (and quite easy knowing brainless_iv)
But not every AI maker will know of the changes i guess

Also adding oceans, ship routes, and other things might change the gameplay alot - its a risk game, if the name contains that word or not...
i do not know what Hasbro claims we should change, but i'd prefer the map to stay (approximately) the same.
I once heard a suggestion of changing names and stuff, and i think that's a better idea

but this is just me - any other thoughts?

Greetz, Mattias

2011/5/16 GuyOfDemise <guyof...@gmail.com>

[GuyOfDemise]

I can see that changing the game play would ultimately make it less of
a risk game, therefore the thought of adding the naval territories
into play would be contraversial. It could lead to a possible loss
between the original intention of the game and its users partiality to
its gameplay experience. Good point.

I did see the name change solution pop up in and earlier discussion,
but it goes back to if hasbro has copyrighted the man-made boundries
and number of territories... etc. you would still have the problem on
hand. You could go anonymous and offer the freeware from a more
widespread source, making it impossible to sue you seeing that there
is no physically identifyable entity. That would eliminate groups like
this though and a much broader based work force to contribute to the
game would be impractical to use.

I guess the solution either way is that someone somewhere is going to
have to put some work into the software somewhere. I just hope the
program doesn't dissapear one day from google.

[Mario]

The current situation on the Copyright Infringement Problem is this:

- I agreed to change the name. I didn't find the time to do the
change, but it's still planned.

- Hasbro accepted the the rules are slightly different from their
original set (number of
players, intial armies and a few other minor changes) and dropped the
point.

- I pointed out that the map is already slightly different from the
one in the box game
they are currently selling. It's a very small difference, but there
is. This IMO is enough to
say that the maps are not the same.

Anyway, my last contact with them occured about six months ago. Nobody
ever
contacted me to ask for why I didn't change the name yet nor for any
other issue.

> I guess the solution either way is that someone somewhere is going to
> have to put some work into the software somewhere. I just hope the
> program doesn't dissapear one day from google.

It will not! :-)

The plan is:

- Select a new name with some help from the users (I'm not yet
convinced with
the one I choose the last time we discussed the topic).

- Start a new open source project, with the new name. Initially, the
program will be
identical to TurboRisk.

- Implement new features: LAN/Internet game, hints, game history to
playback, sounds...
and whatever we'll be able to think to improve our gaming experience
with
TurboRisk.

Mario

[GuyOfDemise]

Awesome