Legal standing of this project

[x]

Hi all,
I am curious as to the legal status of this project. I'm sure everything's fine, especially since YYG hasn't taken any legal action, but I still have a few questions:

• Is GML the intellectual property of Overmars?
• Could this project be sued for using a near identical IDE layout in LGM to GM's? (especially the button artwork, actions etc)
• Is the GMK format copyrighted?

Cheers.

[popcade]

Maybe replacing the button artworks with new icons is a good idea....

[Goombert]

1) No, languages can not be copyrighted and the Supreme Court has said so and will uphold this.
2) No, again Apple vs. Microsoft, you can't patent the look and feel of applications, the Supreme Court has said so
3) No, because it is just binary compression, it is un-copyrightable, hell if that were copyrightable, I don't know where the fuck the computer industry would be today, probably in the dark ages

[TheExDeus]

3) No, because it is just binary compression, it is un-copyrightable, hell if that were copyrightable, I don't know where the fuck the computer industry would be today, probably in the dark ages

Computer file formats can be copyrightable (and oftentimes are), but I don't think GMK (or any GM format) is. I think they are just too lazy to do it legally and they change it too often. Usually for copyright they can just add "(c)" with some more info and it would be legally binding, but they can only add that for file format specification. As they haven't released the file format openly (and for LGM project it has always been reverse engineered), then they cannot do that.

[x]

1) No, languages can not be copyrighted and the Supreme Court has said so and will uphold this.
2) No, again Apple vs. Microsoft, you can't patent the look and feel of applications, the Supreme Court has said so
3) No, because it is just binary compression, it is un-copyrightable, hell if that were copyrightable, I don't know where the fuck the computer industry would be today, probably in the dark ages

Good to hear!

[time-killer-games]

Here is something I don't really understand:
http://www.64digits.com/users/index.php?userid=T%20G%20M%20G&cmd=comments&id=20488&hl=ames&page=2

Just as I added the gml parser, Mark decided to make G-java and all other projects that read gmk files illegal. So I had no choice but to give up. I made the project open source, so if their are any java programmers out their who would be interested in viewing the source they can.

This appears to be a red flag and if Mark/YYG can seriously make GMK parsers illegal, what would happen if ENIGMA finally started to be a serious, enormous threat to them and their business, would they get jealous and shutdown enigma like the already did to G-Java? This raises a little concern to me and the more I find out about YYG the more I increase in disliking them. The fact that they can do stuff like this whenever they feel like it is just stupid.

Just that easy it appears that all the countless hours of work put into this project over the years can be permanently halted with legal threats. Of coarse, I'm not 100% all I fear is true, but if it stopped G-Java's development how is enigma any different?

[Goombert]

@TKG we're not breaking any single copyright law, they don't even care about GMK, they have GMX now, and they don't care that Jobo made a GMX reader for Parakeet shit .NET IDE, so trust me, they don't care about the formats. As for everything were in perfectly good legal standing, we also implement functions and features to the language so everything is not exactly the same.

Edit: Oh and lets not forget, they use tons of free and open source stuff like Box2D for physics and what not, they just go around jacking up open source shit and duct taping it together and slapping $100's of dollars price tags on the shit.

[TheExDeus]

@TKG we're not breaking any single copyright law, they don't even care about GMK, they have GMX now, and they don't care that Jobo made a GMX reader for Parakeet shit .NET IDE, so trust me, they don't care about the formats. As for everything were in perfectly good legal standing, we also implement functions and features to the language so everything is not exactly the same.

Technically they do care as the formats are the only legal standing they could have on projects like ENIGMA (as they didn't patent the IDE design or anything). But they have stopped with all the legal stuff since gmk's way back many years ago. Then they really were hurting people making decompilers and obscurers and stuff. I remember that they even added some line to the EULA many years ago (I think it wasn't even YYG back then) which made it illegal to decompile a game. So while they have stopped with the enforcing, it doesn't mean they cannot do it.

Edit: Oh and lets not forget, they use tons of free and open source stuff like Box2D for physics and what not, they just go around jacking up open source shit and duct taping it together and slapping $100's of dollars price tags on the shit.

That is nothing to do with this topic.

[Goombert]

Ahhh w/e harri like there's anything ethical about what they are doing.

[TheExDeus]

Nothing really unethical either.