On a Legal Note

[Dragon324 16]

I know there has been a lot of debate about piracy, and what exactly constitues as "Copy Right Infrigiment" so let me take you down the road from a law side as it applies to the United States of America. So as I have said this only applies to the United States:

 

Copy Right Infirigment is actually a form of theft. Theft is simply 1. The unlawful taking. 2. Of anothers property. 3. with the intent to permantly deprive the person.

 

Those are the three main elments of theft and for those of you who are confused by unlawful taking I mean the taking without permission. So lets see if by using music or video of a companies if its theft.

1. The unlawful taking. ( well this is pretty easy to establish most of us are taking and most of the time without permission, and we are obiously taking it to use.)

2. Of Anothers Property (another that is easy to establish, you are using someone elses music or video in terms of applying it to a game in rpg maker.)

3. With the intent to permantly deprive the person ( Yes whether you realise it or not [ and I know a lot of people are going to argue this because if your not making any money if your not selling your game] you are depriving the company wether you paid for the music or you pirated it or if your game is free or not free because people are still hearing their work.)

 

The point on number 3 is the reason I say that is because you are using their music in your game for example but they are not getting any money from it which they made so they are being deprived.

 

 

Now. I'm actually going to break this down even more to a crime called Larceny which has 5 elments.

"1. The wrongful taking (again wthout permission)

2. And the carrying away

3. Of Personal property

4. Of another

5. With the intent to permantly deprive."

 

Ok a closer look at this one, we can already say from the previous example we meet elment 1, 3, 4, and 5.

So now what about 2? The carrying away, well your not physically carrying anything away. This could get a little troublesome to answer while my personal opinion would be no your not carrying away anything physically. The only way I could see someone even trying to charge you with this is if your music or movie was pirated.

 

Anyway now that we have taken a closer look let me sum up real fast. Yes you can be charged in the United States of America with theft for using someone elses music in your game. It does not matter if you purchesed the music or pirated it, it also does not matter if you plan on commercially selling your game or not making any profit from it. The elments have been met and so you can be charged with theft.

 

So I do warn you for those who live in the US. Personally I dont think you will ever be charged or even found with it, but I'm here to let you know it could happen and you could be held criminaly responsible.

 

Disclamer:

This information was found in Pearsons Criminal Justice book by Professor Roy and Criminal Justice Today an introuductory text for the 21st century elventh edition by frank schmalleger.

 

I'm also not an attorny and therefore cannot be held responsible for any legal advice, and any advice above is for your personal benfit only. I therefore do not claim that anyone is breaking the law, only offering my opinion on this matter and what I know as a Criminal Justice Student.

[ForeverZer0 44]

[Dragon324 16]

This is not related to piracy, this is related to using "others" materials in your games. Sorry that should have been made more clear. Again this is just from what I was told/ read :P. And everyplace has a diffrent take on it, I listed the elments of theft and by wut standards I'm taught if you can match the elments then you have the crime.

[Jon Bon 43]

What about the 'fair use' aspects of US copy right? Also known as 'fair dealing' to the Common Wealth countries. It operates with four determining factors.

1. Purpose and Characters - "The first factor is regarding whether the use in question helps fulfill the intention of copyright law to stimulate creativity for the enrichment of the general public, or whether it aims to only 'supersede the objects' of the original for reasons of personal profit"
    
   
2. Nature of copied work - "Although the Supreme Court of The United States has ruled that the availability of copyright protection should not depend on the artistic quality or merit of a work, fair use analyses consider certain aspects of the work to be relevant, such as whether it is fictional or non-fictional."
    
   
3. Amount of substantiality - "The third factor assesses the quantity or percentage of the original copyrighted work that has been imported into the new work. In general, the less that is used in relation to the whole"
    
   
4. Effect upon work's value - "The fourth factor measures the effect that the allegedly infringing use has had on the copyright owner's ability to exploit his or her original work. The court not only investigates whether the defendant's specific use of the work has significantly harmed the copyright owner's market, but also whether such uses in general, if widespread, would harm the potential market of the original."
   

There is now a some what fifth category, which is a sort of guilt by association. If your product is a on legit site, it is likely considered honest, where as if it is part of a pirate site that is held against you.

Examples of fair use in commercial media, The song Barbie, from the band Aqua, MANY animated series doing parodies on other characters (to the extent where their animators completely redraws exact duplicates of the copy righted material), Stephen Kings the Dark Tower book series, borrows many aspects from popular fiction.

 

If one is to read and fully understand the above 4 parameters, then it is clear that MOST fan made games, do not automatically fall under infringement, but COULD, depending on what the fan does with the original license, and how much new content they add, and of course they can not sell the game.

It is also important to note that the 'fair use' law is not a protection from being sued for infringement but is in fact a form of defense for if it happens. It is also important to mention that fair use is taken as a case by case scenario rather then a blanket law.

 

For further information you may visit the Stanford Universities website, from which I fact checked this information.

 

Then there are things like the Audio Home Recording Act, which allows the public to release media (non previously copyrighted) and sell it using Tapes/Discs. Since if you were to buy a blank tape/disc and sell it to someone that was technically copyright infringement because the original company owns the rights to the medium(Tape/Disc) you are selling.

 

 

EDIT: Using others material in your work could also instantly become Piracy. As you mentioned including music that is required to be paid for to listen to, if that is included in your work, people can in theory download your game/media in order to solely listen to the music. This turns the product into piracy. Piracy is a form/type of theft/stealing, like plagiarism is also a form/type of theft/stealing, not something completely different. Much like man slaughter and homicide are both types of murders, not different than a murder, just a sub category (type).

 

Webster's Merriam Dictionary clearly defines piracy as it pertains to this conversations as: "the unauthorized use of another's production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright".

 

A good rule of thumb of any 'law' is no victim, no crime. In the case of 'victimless crimes' as some people like to fabricate, the victim is always society.