Star Trek Rights-CBS

posted on November 29th, 2010, 8:51 pm

to the best of my knowledge, copyrights are only violated when you use someone else's design or program to make money. But since fleet ops is free it should be fine.

posted on November 29th, 2010, 11:47 pm

Or can be shown to be reducing the amount of money the copywriter takes.

posted on November 29th, 2010, 11:55 pm

The only way I can think of that they'd lose money is if people use a pirated version of the original disk to install, which doesn't seem like something they could blame on FO.

posted on November 30th, 2010, 12:25 am

but if anything, they wouldn't mind because even after all these years people are playing their game and still giving them the free advertising for it

posted on December 13th, 2010, 12:27 am

Usually companies are like "oh a mod, that's good free advertizing for us," but when it comes to source code of a game that is no longer produced, they realize that they will get more money out of reusing old code than they will with free advertizing for a product they can't sell.

posted on December 13th, 2010, 3:06 am

I do not know what the laws are in Europe but in America is doesnt matter if you make profit or not. Every DVD/Video tape you buy here starts with a FBI Warning, If you copy this you get 10 years and/or a $50,000 fine. Even news services must have rights to give a discription of a football (I dont mean soccer)/basketball game. If not they face a lawsuit from the NFL,NBA,MLB or what have you.

I remember something about someone trying to remake Birth of the Federation and something about sopyrights spooked thim enough to take all star trek content. As far as source code I have no idea. Interplay has been gone for along time now.

I doubt anyone is going to make an Armada 3 and if they did if would not be nearly as good as Fleet Ops already is, finished or not! I wish I knew something about software or game code, if I did i would offer my services!

posted on December 13th, 2010, 3:40 am

I do not know what the laws are in Europe but in America is doesnt matter if you make profit or not. Every DVD/Video tape you buy here starts with a FBI Warning, If you copy this you get 10 years and/or a $50,000 fine. Even news services must have rights to give a discription of a football (I dont mean soccer)/basketball game. If not they face a lawsuit from the NFL,NBA,MLB or what have you.

I remember something about someone trying to remake Birth of the Federation and something about sopyrights spooked thim enough to take all star trek content. As far as source code I have no idea. Interplay has been gone for along time now.

I doubt anyone is going to make an Armada 3 and if they did if would not be nearly as good as Fleet Ops already is, finished or not! I wish I knew something about software or game code, if I did i would offer my services!

The game you are thinking of is called Birth of the Empires. It was concieved as basically a Birth of the Federation 2 but they took out the trek content to avoid any copyright infringement (Also BotF was microprose not interplay). Once they finish the game they are going to release a mod for all the star trek stuff to be added in, it wasnt that they were spooked, they just figured it would be safer to make a non trek game like BotF then mod it with trek stuff just to cover their own butts.

On another note someone stated something about Blizzard being somewhat friendly about modders, not always true. There was a group of people modding Warcraft III and remaking Starcradt with the WIII engine, the recieved a threat from Blizz to stop what they were doing. And this was years before Starcraft II was even annouced. Granted SC and WC are big ticket items but still, by far the best company out there to support modders is by far Valve, thats how wer end up with Counterstrike and Team Fortress, Valve knows how valuable modders can be.

posted on December 13th, 2010, 4:05 am

I don't think Valve would be too happy if a mod turned Half-Life 2 into Half-Life: Episode 1 and 2. When you make a total conversion, ripping off the story and gameplay of another game is a good way to get sued. Companies probably won't worry about a Star Wars mod for a Star Trek game as long as the mod doesn't try to replicate a certain Star Wars game.

[Tyler]

posted on December 13th, 2010, 4:13 am

Last edited by Tyler on December 13th, 2010, 4:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

Valve probably wouldn't mind, they're pretty lenient and supportive of mods as long as their games are the ones 'borrowed'. Mods that put the characters and story of their games into others of theirs isn't unusual, especially ones of the same series.

posted on December 15th, 2010, 2:41 am

Characters, Story, and Gameplay?

posted on December 15th, 2010, 2:47 am

I said characters and story, I don't know their stance on gameplay. Considering they've ported things from at least one game to another themselves as an official download, it's tough to tell the exact limits of their support.

posted on December 15th, 2010, 2:48 am

Thing you have to remember about Valve is, they know how important the modding community is for a game. They are so lax because is no one is making money off it, who cares? And if it turns out to be uber popular, Valve just turns it into a full fledged game and sells it, they arnt stupid.