@hipoonios
I hope i already downlaoded that smurf game, not sure, for i was really looking forward to playing it, was just planning to make a video about the first time i play it, and hence didnt get to it yet as i have been having trouble with getting all things to work.
I have actually been afraid something like this could happen one day to fellow Amiga members as when cammy had that fan game competition thing, it seemed like Amiga community didnt quite erspect copyrights at all and when i warned about it, answer was pretty much "shut up!"
Dont necessarily think of stopping making games completely Hippoonios, but rather, contact the copyright owners first. Quite many are happy to give you permission to make a fan product as long as you ask permission first.
Also, I dont think someone told you to to peyo necessary, it might be that they just keep doing for example monthly google check of what comes up with some certain keywords like "smurf game" "smurf video" and naturally check also youtube videos etc.
if you check from youtube, you can see that useing smurf rescue brings up both your gameplay video, as well as official smurf rescue games gameplay video, it might be that one of the words they use for checking, is actually using "smurf rescue" due to this game already existing officially.
Some companies are very jealous of their copyright while some or not. For exampel George Lucas encourages fan made products, and this is also why there are so many Star Wars things like "Thumb Wars", "Family Guy" star wars episodes as well as robot chicken star wars episodes.
But then there are others, like Smurfs, who are very tight with their policies when it comes to smurfs. Didnt know they were this tight, but I did know they do have some very specific rules to their licensees. As example iof how tight rules can be was Stanley Kubricks Clockwork Orange, in which (to my understanding) he was actually measuring the size of letter O in "Clockwork Orange" sign in movie theaters showing this movie to make sure they are of right size.
Reason why some are more picky than other are many. Peyo have probably took 0 tolerance policy to avoid any confusion. For basically, if you let other free products pass, then what when comes that one free product, that is potentially actualyl damaging you, and they claim that since peyo didnt react on other free ones, then they shouldnt react on that one either.
As example I would give Dora the eplorer. One day my then 3 year daughter was watching dora the explorer clips from youtube. Suddenly she starts talking "Horrible... terrible..:" I go and see what is it, and had came to relevant videos this 2 minute video of different ways how dora would be getting killed. Now while i found this video hilarious myself, I surely didnt want my daughter to see it, and what happened as result of this? Well, if i see my daguhter watching Dora videos, i try to get her to watch soemthing else so that this same video doesnt come up again, since it is not suitable for her to watch. And by other words, that video is hurting dora the explorer franchise, since effectively, I am not thanks to that video avoiding my daughter watching them at all from youtube, although she would like, and i wouldnt otherwise mind either.
Hence it is understandable that some want to take full control of their franchise and avoid any misconfusion. You can also say, that if you see a smurf, you always know it is official to being plus too for the licensees.
But then to the actual helpful information. I dont thin you really need to worry much here. Even in worse case, they cant get you bankrupted.
Supposing you have some way to actually measure how many games have been downloaded, lets suppose it is 50.
Basically at max they could argue it is full a-class game with full price. At this we could say they could have got damage of about 50 euros each game at max. In this case at max they could ask 50 x 50 = 2 500 of damages.
More likely is that your games value is evaluated differently. You can quite easily argue that it is a crappy game, just look at it and compare it to other games in market. At max it could have been released as a mobile game (which it wasnt) and sold for 0.99. In this case lost profit is 50. They perhaps might be able to argue it could have been released on PC for price of 5, but even then it is still only 250.
Damages to franchise would be hard to show. Especially since i can testify that i personally remembered there is this smurf movie existing thanks to that game. So rather than damage, they got some free advertising.
What comes to them taking you to court, that is quite unlikely. As someone already pointed out, contact some lawyer, and point facts out to them. That it was made to computer barely existing anymore, as well as was downloaded 50 times only. For then there comes the point that even if they woudl argue that 2 500 claim, it just wouldnt be worth their time.
In Finland there was this Finnish Madonna Copy in 80s. She made Madonnas songs in Finnish language, and they sold I think it was 10 or 20 thousand copies in Total. When Madonna heard of this, she simply sent a letter telling to stop and withdraw all the copies. 10 to 20 copies means that there could have already been maybe 20 thousand euros or even more there to get throug court, but truth is. Just sending the lawyer to Finland had cost her more than that.
Hence when peyo realises there is no real money to gain, they wont be wanting to go to court, since it will be costy for them. They rather just tell you to remove everything.
However, to point out the downsides of this thing, there are two things to remember.
1. the downloads. If you cant prove the exact amount of downloads, then they can argue any amount of downloads, plus that it have been copied around.
I once had a problem with this concept. I released a techno bands cd in 2000, and i was thinking of hiring someone to make a computer demo and use that music on that demos background. However, these artists had joined Teosto NCB, and hence their songs are used under their rules. So i contacted that Teosto and told them about my marketing plan for them, and they said that even i am distributing it for free, and for marketing purposes, i would need to pay 5 cents (or something like that) from each copy, and because they didnt have any way of calculating how many copies there would be coming, it could be based upon million copies because i was thinking of both putting it to internet for download, as well as distributing it on cover cds of magazines. No need to mention that I decided not to make it after that.
Hence, basically Peyo could argue that there are now million copies existing of that game, and even if not now, will be in future.
2. Upon which jursdictions laws will apply? Is it Belgiums where Peyo is places (unlikely, unles you agree to it)?, is it where you live?, or is it where the server(s) exist where your game was distributed at? Or if there are only few downloaders, could it even be that laws of those countries where they were downloaded to applies (unlikely again)? Or if you are EU citizen, it could be based upon EU citizenship to be in some specific EU disputes place (germany, france, maybe even belgium again being suers home country)?
Anyway, although i told you some practical law things, they might not have any meaning, depending upon which juridictions laws are applied to this. |
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hipoonios 
