Can o' worms: IP and unauthorised creation of online games

For quite a number of external properties, the right to create an online game (or even any form of computer-based interactive entertainment) is restricted and licensed. But what is the line between producting some related content, and producing effectively an online subgame?

I think you need a better explanation of your question.

When I first joined Linden Lab was using banner ads to promote various facets of Second Life. One of these ads read, "Yesterday I created an online FPS. Today people are paying me to play it." While this of course was a lie, LSL doesn't have the power, speed or reliability to execute even basic FPS gameplay, and the in-world combat system is a broken, useless joke, the concept falls within the boundries of your question.

Users could build "maps" using their parcels, decorting them with pre-fabs and other items. They could use the access fee parcel flag to "charge" to play. Other content creators could build weapons, uniforms and other character-customization items that could act as content for the game.
This combination of elements could be considered an online subgame, how does it fit into your question?

Well - let's take, for example, Dungeons and Dragons. There is a license for Dungeons and Dragons which allows quite a bit of the published material to be used in products. But one thing you _cannot_ do is to create an online Dungeons and Dragons game - because the makers themselves are planning to do that, and they don't want you competing with them.

The question, though, is - what content can you create? Are you, for example, forbidden from creating a D&D-style environment because people might play D&D in it? (Bear in mind that even the "official" D&D game doesn't have the rules scripted into it - it basically provides graphical play aids plus a chat facility - so the lack of scripted rules doesn't disqualify a sim from being an online D&D game)

It could apply to many of the trademarked things used in SL. Trademark violation is one thing, but creating an unauthorised MMORPG is quite another.

Okay, I understand your analogy, and a blatant attempt to "computerize" Dungeons & Dragons should be no different then scanning a dress from a fashion magazine. But D&D doesn't preclude you from creating a fantasy world like Dark Life any more than counless online and off fantasy games from The Bard's Tale to World of Warcraft.

The other circumstance I'm guessing you are referring to is using Second Life as a medium to "play" Dungeons & Dragons. As a sim owner you and your friends decide that rather than a map and list of encounters hidden behind a fold-up played in person to play the game using virtual props on a parcel, executing standard combat through dice rolls in-game and communicating through chat. If this were done amongst friends I don't see how any copyright has been violated. If you advertise it and create a group is it different than putting up an ad in a game store or on a grocery store's community board? I'm sure some people would argue that it is simply because we now live in a litigous and paranoid society. But I don't think there is any issue.

Creating a region called "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: and populating it with bots modeled and named after creatures in the "Monster Manual" that aren't part of traditional mythology and scripting a combat system that mimics the game's written rules but automates them? That's a violation because you are no longer playing the written AD&D game through an alternate communications medium but instead attempting to create your own derivitive work when Wizards of the West Coast control the licensing of the game for other mediums of implementation, not execution.

Who owns the copyright to dice?

Mr and Mrs Dice?

D6 are in the public domain; I think they were being used back when the Pyramids were under construction. I dunno who holds the patent (if any) on D4, D8, D10, D12, D20.

And it would be a patent, not a copyright.

I'm fairly sure there is no patent on the multi-sided dice themselves, only on the distinctive design each company uses to make them (finish, texture, font, etc.)

No, that would be Mr. and Mrs. Die.

I think it would be fun to build a big ("life-sized" Monopoly board in SL, and set it up so people could play in it, walking around on the board, getting teleported to jail. Customizing houses/hotels for each property so they resemble the RL properties, as of say 1940 or whenever.

Of course, MB would probably be forced by their lawers to have a hairy fit, if it came to their attention.

Then again, I doubt anyone would have the patience to stay ingame long enough to play a whole Monopoly game!

I could call it the "Monotony" game.

Non-transferrable tokes for play money, of course. Wouldn't want to be accused of gambling!

The scripting and building would be fun, anyway. Wouldn't want to try to turn a profit, unless proceeds were to go to MB.

This thread is quite old.

Are you bored this morning Conan, or are you developing some weird necro-posting fetish?

I'm just sayin'

the romans use d12 back 2000 years ago so I'm guess that is public domain as well