this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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The same way you can tell if you repainted a Banksy yourself. If you don't realize, and monetize, then you are liable for a copyright lawsuit regardless of the way you created the piece in question.
And if noone can detect similarities beyond influences, then it's not infringing anything.
You may recognize a Banksy but to another it's like I said you aught to know your work is like one from Coinsey: who?
This is exasperated when people can create creative works via AI, having even less knowledge about your peers who know how to DIY. A potentially life-ruining lawsuit is a bad system to find out you can't monetize something.
If only there was some way to find out prior to selling stuff as if you made it. If only. Darn it!
I don't understand. If I make something that doesn't mean I'm not infringing someone's works.
Point: regardless of the HOW it was made, the process of figuring if it infringes on something is the same. It's still not always easy and due to the shittyness of current IP laws, even long time professional artists sometimes make mistakes.
In the end it's just about money.
I am familiar with SEGA owning a software patent on Crazy Taxi's "arrow above car points where to go" because my interests in creating games happened to lead me to an article stating such.
That seems related to HOW my works are made, to me. I know of no other way to find that out.
Like this one in Midtown Madness? Did MS actually have to pay SEGA to do the same thing? Both were originally released in 1999, it seems. I'm unsure which came first, but does it even matter if SEGA managed to get the patent first?
Midtown Madness 1/2/3 all have the arrows from what I've seen. At least 3 has a part where you pick up people in a taxi.
I am unsure what would happen if Midtown Madness did it first but didn't patent it, game mechanic patents are not common (I hope...). Perhaps they knew they could win but didn't want to lose money fighting the Microsoft of that time? I can find no mention of MM regarding the Sega v. Fox lawsuit where Fox privately settled over Simpson's Road Rage in 2003.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
you pick up people in a taxi
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Crazy! I had never thought of this sort of arrow as something that would have a patent. Isn't it pretty common in various other driving/racing games? Maybe not?! MM1 & MM2 definitely had the arrow — I've spent way too many hours fucking around in those as a kid! However, there's no taxi mode in any of them. Sadly, I've never tried MM3, since it was never released for PC, iirc only for Xbox, but the video you shared indeed confirms it had the arrow too, and even a taxi mode! How similar is it to that of Crazy Taxi? I've never played that. At least, SEGA probably doesn't own the patent for the taxi/delivery/ambulance driver game format too?!
Looks basically the same, as you get closer to the destination in Crazy Taxi the arrow pluses in size and switches colour from green, to orange, to red.
Are you aware that mini-games during loading screens were patented (expired now)?