How legal is offering abandonware for download? A quick background to my project (it's essential to the question, as you'll see later): My project offers a multiplayer server platform for server listings for a game (Crysis Wars), allowing players to connect to these servers (note that it's not a gameserver); the online platform (called GameSpy) went bankrupt and closed down in 2014, leaving the game (and many others) without any multiplayer capability. The project has a fair few users, and now I'm looking to expand. I am considering advertising on a well-known gaming website, and offer a copy of the game for download from the project's website to enable people who don't have the game to play. I'm questioning the legality of this since the game can still be purchased from online retailers (but not from the publisher's own store), however it should be noted that the game is abandoned: No updates in almost six years; Not possible to verify whether a copy is genuine or not (no way to verify the serial keys); I'm pretty certain that almost 100% of copies using my system are pirated/non-genuine (I can't verify this of course, but as 44.8% of users are Russian this is probably the case) If I do offer a copy of the game (clean, no modifications) for download on the project's website, how legal is this? Should I obtain written permission from the game's developer first? I acknowledge that I could potentially be sued by the game developer/publisher for 'financial loss', however this is questionable since the game is abandoned (I'll be surprised if they've made any money from it in the past two years!). If it matters, I'm located in Guernsey with the service (and the project's website) running from Ireland.
It is possible to abandon copyright ... maybe. However, this game has not been abandoned. When the owner of the company was liquidated, the copyright became the legal property of the liquidator in trust for the creditors. It is for him or her to decide how to deal with the property but the copyright still exists until 70 years after the author(s) death. If you allow downloads you are breaching copyright unless you have permission (or you meet the Fair Dealing criteria - you probably don't). The person to seek permission from is the liquidator od the company. If you get sued they do not need to demonstrate financial loss - copyright claims can either be pursued for actual or statutory damages, that is, a fixed amount per violation. In addition, in egregious cases, copyright violation is a crime prosecutable by the state.
Possibly The game company has almost certainly excluded liability under the contract you entered. There may be some consumer protection that you have that they cannot exclude - I don’t know enough about German law to meaningfully comment. Notwithstanding, if you were to initiate legal action against the, as yet, unknown wrongdoer, you could subpoena the relevant records from the game company with a court order. No matter what privacy or other protections the other person has, the game company must obey the order or be in contempt. Without such an order the game company is right that they can’t disclose details of other users. As a practical matter, it will cost several hundred € to initiate legal action and several thousand to pursue it to the end. And you might lose. A better response is to treat the lost €80 as a relatively cheap life lesson - many people lose a lot more learning to recognise scams.
Copyright protection is about certain acts, and not about relationships between products. Copyright law says that the creator of an original work hold the exclusive right to copy and to authorize creation of derivative works. Copyright law does not say that anybody can freely create derivative works as long as they are different to a certain extent. So if you take an original Mario and modify it a teeny bit, that is a violation of copyright; if you take an original Mario and modify it hugely, that is a violation of copyright. Degree of similarity is relevant on some cases when the factual question arises whether the allegedly-infringing work is based on some protected original. This is most obvious in music cases, where all baroque music has some similarity to all other baroque music, all death metal has some similarity to all other death metal, and so on. There is not a legal quasi-statutory standard for measuring substantial similarity in music. The scientific underpinning of such a standard would be based on (weighted) combinatorics and the idea that there are only so many tunes possible (that would be a huge number, until you get to the "within a genre" condition). It seems obvious (by your "admission") that the derived works are based on protected works, so Nintendo's permission is required to legally create such works. However, you do or would hold copyright in your unauthorized derived work. Without a trail of evidence such as a SE question pointing to the connection, the derived images might be hard to connect to the originals. In addition, you may be able to avail yourself of a "fair use" defense, in case you get sued by the original creator. Factors favoring such a defense are the insubstantiality of the copying (a small portion) and the "transformativeness" of your creation.
You don't just want to ask, you are required to obtain a license (or in other terms: the OK of the author*). Your game is based on a book. That makes your game a derivate work. Under berne convention, any signer state has to make sure that the author* has the right to authorize any derivate. That includes translations, films, or games. Without a license, you violate copyright law. It doesn't matter if your game is free. To stay safe, you need to obtain a license. Quite some authors would be happy to cut a deal, license or guidelines for fan-projects. As an example, the late Sir Terry Pratchett OBE has specific guidelines on what is ok and what not. Ask your author* about these questions and consult a Lawyer! Only then make your fan project! * This means the author, their estate or whoever they assigned their rights in the work to. Some examples: For that teenage wizard in a private castle charter school that'd be a certain J.K. Rowling. For those hairy-halflings running all over the continent hunted by orcs that'd be the J.R.R. Tolkien-Estate. And for those space wizards using blades from solid light that'd be The Walt Disney Company or one of their subsidiaries.
The only issue relevant to your age is the (ir)revocability of the license. GPLv3 purports to be an irrevocable license. To be really irrevocable, the license would need to grant certain rights in exchange for something of value, that is, you need a license that passes muster as a contract. Copyright licenses are typically treated as contracts, but it is not clearly established in law that licenses are contracts or are not contracts. Out of the goodness of your heart, you can grant permission to use your property, but you can also withdraw that permission. If you have a contract granting perpetual permission to use your property in exchange for something of value, then you can't later withdraw that permission. In the case of Jacobsen v. Kratzer, the sides advances opposing theories that the license was a "bare license" vs. was a contract. (The matter was ultimately settled out of court). This article puts together the legal factors surrounding the notion of license as contract, see p. 21 ff, and esp. §IV for arguments that licenses should be contracts, to be fully enforceable. A contract for non-essentials formed with a minor is not enforceable, until you are 18. You could therefore revoke the license, until you are 18. Anyone who uses the software does so at their peril. However, if the license is not a contract, no existing legal doctrine (in the US) whereby the permission is irrevocable. In other words, yes you can, at their peril. The whole license-as-contract issue is very complicated, and I'm only focusing on the revocability issue. There is a separate question whether one can sue a user for both copyright infringement and breach of contract. The case of Artifex v. Hancom, see also this analysis, found that (in the particular case), plaintiff can pursue the matter as both infringement and contract breach.
If your app is published under US law, then the DMCA would apply, just as if it was a web site. The DMCA doesn't say anything about what particular technology the distributor is using. TO be protected by by the DMCA's &quot;safe harbor&quot; provision, you will need to include a notice in your app that you accept takedowns, and provide an address or method by which they can be sent, and an agent who will receive them. (You can be your own agent if you choose.) When and if you recieve a take down notice, you must check if it is valid in form. According to this Wikipedia article, a takedown notice must include: (i) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed. (ii) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site. (iii) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material. (iv) Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted. (v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. (vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed. (See the actual text of the relevant section of the law.) If you receive (through your designated agent) a valid takedown notice, you must promptly remove the content and notify the poster (or you can instruct to poster to remove it, but you must do so yourself if the poster does not). If the poster then files a valid counter notice (see the linked sources above) with your agent, you must notify the sender of the original notice, and if the sender does not notify you of a copyright suit filed within 10-14 days, you must restore the content. Provided that these rules are complied with, the host gets a 'safe harbor&quot; and cannot be sued for copyright infringement, nor for the act of taking down the content. I believe that the agent must be registered with the US copyright office. The courts have not ruled on just how quickly an ISP or other host must react to the takedown notice. It must be &quot;expeditious&quot;. Moreover, Under the DMCA (i) 1) (a) The host must have, post, and enforce a policy denying access to repeat infringers, or lose safe harbor protection. The text of the provision is: (i) Conditions for Eligibility. -(1)Accommodation of technology. —The limitations on liability established by this section shall apply to a service provider only if the service provider— --(A) has adopted and reasonably implemented, and informs subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network of, a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network who are repeat infringers;
What are exactly the legal consequences of "All rights reserved"? Almost none. You have to explicitly grant copyright rights. You don't even need the Copyright notice for them to apply. My "almost" is because the notice makes it harder for somebody to argue "they didn't realize". Do I still need an additional SW License Agreement or is the Copyright notice above + a Disclaimer of liability sufficient? If this is free software (I know you said it isn't), do yourself (and everyone else) a favour by picking a license you like. Preferably either GPL or MIT (depending on your taste). There are far too many free licenses already. Please don't add another. (It also makes it much easier for any user of your software: "Oh yeah, GPL v2. We understand that. We can use it." as opposed to "What are the implications of using this one??" As this is not free software, I think you need a paid-for lawyer (who understands IPR in your juridiction.) Edit: In principle, I believe you don't need anything. The code is copyright, so the customer can't do anything with it (without explicit permissions that you haven't granted). However if the customer doesn't realize that or thinks you won't mind, you then have to go to court to enforce your rights (and probably end up with a disgruntled customer). A short, clear, license will make it clear to the customer what they are allowed to do, and save all that aggravation.
It would be terribly risky for you to simply link another company's terms of service. What if they take their server down? What if they change their terms? You would not even know when exactly the changes were made. Copying their terms means you might run into copyright issues on the text. Either pay a lawyer to write your ToS for you, or see if you can find something in the public domain.