16:23 <@minus> hey matricks, how's it with the copyright on tees? the guys from http://store.steampowered.com/app/407620/ asked whether they could put a tee in their game
16:25 < EastByte> "Indie Game Battle is a multiplayer fighting game for up to 8 players inspired by the Super Smash Bros series. However, IGB features indie characters instead!"
16:25 < EastByte> the tee would fit perfectly in there :p
16:36 < Socialdarwinist> Tees in most cases do not reach the threshold of originality necessary for protection under copyright law. They are just colored circles with mostly generic stuff.
16:36 <@minus> =D
16:36 <@minus> Socialdarwinist: where'd you get that from
16:37 <@heinrich5991> from a copyright point of view, they're licensed the same as the game (pre-0.7)
16:38 <@heinrich5991> I don't think there are trademarks
16:38 <@heinrich5991> from a moral point of view, ask matricks :)
16:38 <@minus> the graphics are CC, and if there's nothing trademarked there's no issue
16:38 <@heinrich5991> in 0.7 :)
16:38 < Socialdarwinist> Why should I have got that from anywhere? There is copyright law, and every right has its requirements one can read from the statutes themselves, or, if they are not clear enough, juridical commentaries and articles.
16:39 <@heinrich5991> well, whether tees reach a threshold of originality is probably something you could ask a lawyer for :)
16:39 <@minus> Socialdarwinist: aye, was just wondering if you found that somewhere as a statement from matricks or so
16:43 < Socialdarwinist> I am a lawyer. And I know the judicature in Germany and the European Union well enough to say that it is unlikely that a court would accept it as “work” protected under copyright law. Look at the wording of the law that works are “original personal creations”. What is personal about tees?
16:44 <@minus> i never said (nor intended to imply) that i don't believe you
16:46 < Socialdarwinist> Ah, okay, it is just alien to me that someone excepts that legal views I have are from someone else. As lawyer law is something I have to findout myself :/.
16:51 <@minus> also, as someone on the internet i can't really know that you know that you're a lawyer and know what you're saying
16:52 < Socialdarwinist> That is why you can look it up. In Germany the point is § 2 Abs. 2 UrhG: https://dejure.org/gesetze/UrhG/2.html
16:53 <@minus> now you're implying i'm not too lazy to do something like that :D
16:55 < Socialdarwinist> True, as a lawyer I have to be patronizing :/ and do like nobody could understand my business.
16:57 < Socialdarwinist> Then there is a reason why any author’s copyright would be exhausted even if there would be copyright of the tee creators: It could be exhausted because of the creation of an “independent work”, § 24 UrhG: https://dejure.org/gesetze/UrhG/24.html Namely this understanding can arise because of the game being 3D. It depends on how much they do for it being an independent work.
16:57 < koomi> as someone not trained in reading legal text, it's hard to know how a law will actually be interpreted
16:58 < Socialdarwinist> The problem is seldom the interpretation of the law, but applying it to individual cases :/.
16:58 < koomi> right
16:58 < koomi> e.g., that game probably includes weapons, what does that change?
16:59 < Socialdarwinist> Maybe the player characters will have holsters or something like that, this would make a more different look of the characters, one step towards an independent work.
17:00 <@minus> sounds just like patents to me
17:01 < Socialdarwinist> However, I can tell you nothing about likelihoods of results in the US law. I can just tell you that in the US, they tend to set the threshold of originality lower than in the European Union.
17:01 <@minus> they do set a bunch of thresholds lower than the rest of the world.
17:02 <@minus> anyway, they did the nice thing to ask; and i guess they won't use the tee if asked not to even if it were perfectly legal
17:02 <@minus> i like when people are not assholes
21:16 <@matricks> minus: got an email from those guys :) didn't answer due to the fact that I was busy
21:20 <@minus> ah, you got it too? good good