Preparing to Kickstart: PnP, copyrighting, etc.

It's $35 to copyright your game, which will pay for about 700 words of editing or a rough sketch from a decent artist. Copyrighting does not protect the mechanics of a game, but it does protect all of the non-functional and creative elements. Without one you have no substantive legal recourse even if someone were to steal your game outright, by selling POD copies of your pdf in a game store, for example. Your cost in legal fees would outweigh any actual damages that you are eligible to recoup. With a copyright, your ownership of the work becomes a matter of public record, you receive a certificate of registration, you become eligible for statutory damages and lawyer's fees in any successful litigation, and after five years your copyright is prima facie evidence in a court of law. Your copyright also extends to several other countries that our nation has agreements with.

To give you an example, up until last year, the mechanics for Magic the Gathering were protected by a patent. This has since expired, so anyone can produce a collectible card game that mechanically plays exactly like Magic. The filing fee for a patent is $130 with additional $100+ fees for the drawings included, but most people require a lawyer to draft and file the documents, which tacks on another $2k+ in expenses. That said, WotC still felt they had sufficient grounds to sue Cryptozoic over the latter company's game, Hex, on strength of copyright protection and trade dress infringement. This is because their copyright still protects the layout and arrangement of materials on the cards, artwork, and aesthetic themes. I'm not saying that WotC will win, particularly since this is a large company suing a small one, so the tactic is usually just to bankrupt the competitor with legal fees and drawn out litigation. WotC can bear those costs easier than lost sales to a viable competitor. Without that copyright though, they wouldn't even have had a case.

That is worth $35 to me.

Myth Busting: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/493249/mythbusting-game-design-and-copy...

Quote from BGG Article (referenced above):

Copyright

Copyright protects printed works of artistic expression. You do NOT have to register a work for copyright protection, nor are you required to put a copyright notice on your work. You are automatically protected when your work is published (i.e. offered to the public).

Games, however, have virtually no coverage under US Copyright Law:

According to the U.S. Copyright Office:

Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form.

Material prepared in connection with a game may be subject to copyright if it contains a sufficient amount of literary or pictorial expression. For example, the text matter describing the rules of the game or the pictorial matter appearing on the gameboard or container may be registrable.

Other Helpful Links

Copyright: http://www.copyright.gov/
Copyright FAQ: http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html

Public Domain: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/

I respectfully, yet strongly, disagree with your statement. I have been reading and posting on this site for many years and I have consistently seen the regular posters defending IP. For example, there have been many times over the years that an enthusiastic newcomer has written about their great idea for a Robotech/Star Wars/other-copyrighted-fictional-universe game, and every single time they are gently reminded by the regular posters that they must seek permission from the IP holder before publishing such a game.

And here is the key point with which you contradict your earlier accusation. Let me contract your sentence for clarity: "Mechanics [have] no legal protection under copyright law."

In this sentence you are absolutely correct. There are frequent discussions on this site about game mechanics, and these discussions frequently use existing games for comparison and explanation. These discussions are not IP theft, because there is no IP on mechanics.

Similarly, it is true that users on this site "enthusiastically encourage" others on this site to read, play, or otherwise research games similar to the ones they are working on. Indeed, I've seen at least a half-dozen such encouragements in the last week.

There is nothing, I repeat, nothing wrong with making such statements. Nobody's "ownership" (moral, legal, or otherwise) has been infringed, because nobody owns game mechanics.

Every art school encourages its students to research and learn from the artists of the past. Once the student has learned the basics, they can then apply the techniques to create something new.

The same principle applies to every creative endeavour, including game design.

The point at which a student moves into the advanced stage of learning is when they are able to "apply the techniques to create something new", rather than copying verbatim. I have seen hundreds of such inducements on this site, and long may it continue.

In summary, there are two key points which have been stated and repeated many times for many years on this site:
- Artwork, characters, settings, game worlds, etc are protected by copyright/IP. You cannot copy these unless you get permission from the owner.
- Game mechanics have no legal protection. You can copy/modify/recombine game mechanics in any way you like.

Regards,
kos

Information was duplicated from link to provide a excerpt for reference as I found it very helpful in dealing with a copyright attorney in discussing S.t.U. initially.

Art once published (Paintings/Prints/etc) are considered copyrighted. http://copyright.gov/circs/circ40.pdf Exceprt from link "A work is automatically protected by copyright when it is created, that is,
“fixed” in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. Neither registration in the Copyright Office nor publication is required for copyright protection."

If the entire link is read and the sub links within the document on BGG it will be more relevant and less misleading.

There are three things that need to be done:

1- Copyright of Mechanics
2- Trademark of Logo
3- Protect you work when you find an infringement

Please see the entire BGG link as they speak about art/rules/mechanics/etc. at length and sub links are provided with reference.

Let me rephrase my point since you seem to have misunderstood. To begin with, I didn't intend anything as an accusation or condemnation. I'll steal a good idea the same as the next guy, but I don't consider it wholly ethical just because it isn't against the law. To me, borrowing an idea for a game mechanic is like finding ten dollars on the street, something I may do but also find to be a moral conundrum. Fortunately, the law has changed many times to affirm our evolving standards of human decency. I hope that some day the law will extend greater protection to the works of game designers. This could happen, as IP law is a relatively recent innovation in a historical sense. To argue from a Utilitarian perspective, better protection would give incentive for better games with fresher ideas rather than the insipid nature of cloned titles "inspired" by the innovations of their peers, although this attitude proves contrary to how IP law has been purposed until quite recently.

By IP, I meant "a creation of the mind," the notion of ideas as intangible property, not the exclusive rights afforded to IP holders that constitute IP law, as you were referencing. An idea that originates with you is your intellectual property even if U.S. law accords game mechanics as much protection as the personal property of slaves in mid-19th century Georgia, who likewise couldn't own what they created. Of course, no idea is original and people have the same idea all the time, which makes demonstrating a superior claim so important when it comes to legal matters. Your position, as I understand it is that there is nothing wrong with taking something from someone if they have no legal right to it. I disagree in that I do think that there is a moral consideration outside of the law. From a Lockean standpoint, that person has put hard work into constructing their game mechanic, certainly more work than Stephanie Meyer put into writing Twilight, and as such deserves to profit from it.

Andy,

While you have finished the cards (this I'm sure is a typo: "Marketer
Administrative I can make anyrhing look interesting") and the rulebook, play-testing is one of the most essential things you need to accomplish in the months ahead. I've run successful KS projects and they're a blast...but I've also run one unsuccessful campaign and in retrospect, I knew that I had rushed things a bit.

Definitely take the time to read all of the posts...Jamey does an outstanding job in combining around a dozen essential posts and Kickin' It Games provides a laundry list of things to do in preparation for running a KS. Most notably, the Game Crafter Video cites solid numbers (and ones with which I, as a Developer would agree) regarding play-testing. You want your game play-tested about 100 times by about 100 people. Also, play-testing appears more than any other singular piece of advice.

It shows up in almost every thread regarding board game design and development...even Tom Vasal has a Top 10 list of "Things Every Board Game Designer Should Know"...and it's right near the top of the list. We're excited for you...but we also want you to succeed. Take the time you need...and KS the project only after you've done all of the homework.

Cheers,
Joe