Has (edited) another game shut down your site?

[Lilith]

It has come to my attention that I am not the only Mccodes Licence holder that has been shut down by the owners of another game. They have done this based on the claim that our sites are "complete rip offs of" another game. I was not aware that because they have made and developed a game similar to mccodes, or possibly even with the mccodes licence, that they have reign to shut down mccodes based games? So I am wondering, is this an isolated incedent limited to two games? Or is this an epidemic that threatens all Mccodes licence holders? Please post to this thread if you have been shut down by them.

[BrowserGamesFactory]

If you have a valid game script license from mccodes, they have no ground to shut you down.

Coldblooded and Dabomstew will confirm this.

In theory you could actually ask them for damages (immortal whatever, as he is surely not immortal) for the mistaken shut down.

That if it's worth to hire a lawyer and it could even bring him down if he doesn't has the funds to fight you ....

[Lilith]

Both games that have been shut down are valid licence holders .... http://www.battleforpurgatory.com and http://www.darkness-realm.com or http://www.darknessrealm.com If it will save the whole licence debate, I encourage CB and Dabomstew to confirm these sites are licensed in this thread. Unfortunately, I don't have the funds available to hire a lawyer for a game that was not generating much income. Im more curious than anything.

[BrowserGamesFactory]

Mailing your hosting provider showing mccodes.com and your paypal receipt that it's a game engine everyone can buy should be enough.

If it's about modifications direct them to makewebgames.io so they can see the hundreds of FREE modifications for the game script.

They have no ground to send a DMCA to your hosting provider.

However if you stole images from their game then it's possible, so change the layout and all should be fine.

Looking at http://www.immortalnight.com and http://www.darkness-realm.com I do see quality GFX and as you claim yourself you have barely funds pretty sure you didn't make those images, and have taken them from their game as artist style looks pretty similar.

So that is more likely the reason of your shut down and has nothing to see with mccode as script.

[Lilith]

ummm, thats BC I am the artist on both games. *facepalms* and If Immortal Night wants to bitch about their graphics, perhaps they should have hired someone who didn't use images made from base victoria4 framework (available at http://www.daz3d.com free of charge) for their 3d renderings used in the header that they paid over $5000 (strictly according to roumor) for. I'm currently a student at edited in the game art and design program sorry if I am able to create comparable stuff in my fist semester. I wish some sucker would pay me a fortune for it.

Both games referring to Darkness Realm and Battle for Purgatory.

[MaddDogg49]

I Own Darkness Realm... Lilith owns Battle for Purgatory... just to clear up a smalll misunderstanding

[bladewolf2010]

IN is just a joke now.. There game is so flawed in so many ways. The owners don't really give a damn to restrict access to there images or even fix simple bugs.

[Lilith]

IDGAF if they restrict access or not, its not my work on their site, and I wont ever claim it, or copy it. ESP If I can do comparable work after one semester of school.

[ColdBlooded]

They have no right shutting down any game that's valid they would off probably done through your layout, however I nor mccodes can do anything about that, You may tell your hosting provider to mail us at [email protected] if they need confirmation that the games have valid and legit.

 

I haven't personally checked but if your hosting provider would like to drop us a mail we will do the checks and help get your site back online

[Spudinski]

Just threaten them. That should be sufficient.

But personally, I would sue the hell out of the complainer. They have no right what-so-ever!

In addition, your hosting provider should have done research on the topic before disabling your hosting account. So it's part of their negligence as well.

I would recommend you switch to a host that has your well being in mind as well.

[Lilith]

Thanks guys for the advice on getting it back online, Looks like this is pretty limited to the two games, but it still sucks that we have to go through this. I had no idea the most successful game got to call dibs on a 3 column layout (even tho mine is only 2). Anyone with internet can go to w3schools and learn to do simple css. But they would have known that if they had designed their own instead of paying a fortune .... if anyone would like, you can feel free to pay me a fortune for a good layout, just don't shut down any games BC of it.

 

Update. Your Guy's advice is awesome! As of Nov/13/2010 3:16:11AM Battle For Purgatory was put back online. I don't believe they even had to check with the Mccodes owners where I provided my paypal receipt for the licence. I can now continue to develop this game.

[MaddDogg49]

Ok I just got a new letter in the mail from there lawyer...

I am in receipt of your letter dated November 5, 2010 addressed to T&Z Gaming, LLC ("T&Z"). As you know from prior correspondence., I represent T&Z. Please direct all future correspondence or notices regarding T&Z only to the undersigned

T&Z owns and commercially operates an on-line inter-active game known as "Immortal Night". At one time, and for almost a year, Joshua R. Nix was an authorized player of that game under the username "madddogg29. However, upon information and dislief, Mr. Nix subsequently began operating his own substantially similar game known as Darkness Realm located on a server operated by Gobal Net Access, LLC or its affilate. T&Z asserts that Mr. Nix illegally and without authorization appropriated T&Z's copyrighted materials, game strategies , concepts and operations.

Notice to cease and desist was issued to Mr. Nix on August 4th, 2010. A Copy of said notice is enclosed with this letter. Mr. Nix failed to terminate his game and a take-down notice was issued to Global Net Access. A copy of that notice is also enclosed. Upon information and belief Mr. Nix moved the game to a different server, placing a notice of transfer on the GNA site.

The prticulars of this infrigment, without limitation, are discussed in the attachment, Exbit A, to this letter. Moreover, I have requested that others play both games and they have reported that the games are virtually identical.

T&Z asserts that this infrigment continues to date hereof.

However, more direct to the issue raised in your letter of November 5, 2010, beginning in the time shortly before Mr. Nix launched his game, he used Immortal Night's platform to solicit players for his competing game. This conduct constitutesa tortious interference with T&Z's relationships with its customers and is an actionable business practice. This activity also violated the rules for players using Immortal Night. Its is for those reasons that Mr. Nix was terminated as as an authorized player for Immortal Night.

T&Z will reinstate Mr. Nix as a player, will full rights and benefits, when he agrees in writing not to improperly comete with T&Z and not to infringe on its intellectual property rights. This must include his taking down the game Darkness Realm and not reintroducing that game in the future under his direction or control.

Next is the letter from Terry... the owner of IN

To Norm Wright

From Terry

RE: Darkness Realm

Per your request to detail infringement by Nix:

1. His top two menu bars(Home and The Academy) are basically our bars edited slightly in Photoshop to provide less detail.

2. He originally was running our blue side graphics but has since replaced them with red ones. He has actually made several recent changes since we sent the original demand letter to try and mask the fact that he copied our original sire design.

3. He has an Assignment link on Explore . Although it is not yet part of the game, he is trying to clone our proprietary assignments module

4. He has an Trades link on Explore . Although it is not yet part of the game, he is trying to clone our proprietary trading module

5. He has an Contracts link on Explore . Although it is not yet part of the game, he is trying to clone our proprietary Contracts (aka Hitman) module

6. The game has a mining system that is almost identical to ours. The primary exception being they don't know how to make an image map work like we did, so thier system is more primitive when compared to ours. Clearly, however, its an attempt to copy our mining system

7. The Elders is a clone of our " Ancient Offerings system" where players must donate gems found while mining in order to progress through various levels

8. Their Russian Roulette module looks identical to ours, the only exception being a modified primary graphic

9. Their Laboratory system is identical to our smelting system differentiated only by adding the need for equipment before converting the minerals.

10. He copied our concept of having a new player group which allows new players to join but players are kicked out of the group after a stated number of days in the game and/ or level. In the case of Immortal Night, our groups are called Houses (Fledgling Camp), on Darkness-Realm they are called Clubs (The Immortal Academy)

11. They copied our concepts of having species-oriented bombs as donator items. They just named them something differently. Bombs that work on Vampires are called Dead Man's Blood Bomb(ours are called Holy Water Bombs) and bombs that work on Werewolves are called Mercury Nitrate Bomb(ours are called Silver Silver Bombs)

12. Their donation page is clearly a clone of ours. Looking at theirs and ours and the visual similarities are immediately clear.

13. He copied our Hall of Fame design and the breakdown feature by species as well as player rank(player ranks, were also a concept stolen from Immortal Night)

14. He Copied our Intensive Training concept. They simply renamed theirs the Secret Gym. Intensive Training is a primary revenue maker for Immortal night where players have to pay with USD to obtain a special item that grants access to the intensive training center. Intensive training is 4X as effective as normal training, the exact same ratio Darkness Realm is using.

15. He copied of Stat potions, another paid donator item, which increase player stats by 50% for 30 minutes. Same on his game.

[BrowserGamesFactory]

Is this a joke ?

[Dave]

Ok I just got a new letter in the mail from there lawyer...

I am in receipt of your letter dated November 5, 2010 addressed to T&Z Gaming, LLC ("T&Z"). As you know from prior correspondence., I represent T&Z. Please direct all future correspondence or notices regarding T&Z only to the undersigned

T&Z owns and commercially operates an on-line inter-active game known as "Immortal Night". At one time, and for almost a year, Joshua R. Nix was an authorized player of that game under the username "madddogg29. However, upon information and dislief, Mr. Nix subsequently began operating his own substantially similar game known as Darkness Realm located on a server operated by Gobal Net Access, LLC or its affilate. T&Z asserts that Mr. Nix illegally and without authorization appropriated T&Z's copyrighted materials, game strategies , concepts and operations.

Notice to cease and desist was issued to Mr. Nix on August 4th, 2010. A Copy of said notice is enclosed with this letter. Mr. Nix failed to terminate his game and a take-down notice was issued to Global Net Access. A copy of that notice is also enclosed. Upon information and belief Mr. Nix moved the game to a different server, placing a notice of transfer on the GNA site.

The prticulars of this infrigment, without limitation, are discussed in the attachment, Exbit A, to this letter. Moreover, I have requested that others play both games and they have reported that the games are virtually identical.

T&Z asserts that this infrigment continues to date hereof.

However, more direct to the issue raised in your letter of November 5, 2010, beginning in the time shortly before Mr. Nix launched his game, he used Immortal Night's platform to solicit players for his competing game. This conduct constitutesa tortious interference with T&Z's relationships with its customers and is an actionable business practice. This activity also violated the rules for players using Immortal Night. Its is for those reasons that Mr. Nix was terminated as as an authorized player for Immortal Night.

T&Z will reinstate Mr. Nix as a player, will full rights and benefits, when he agrees in writing not to improperly comete with T&Z and not to infringe on its intellectual property rights. This must include his taking down the game Darkness Realm and not reintroducing that game in the future under his direction or control.

Next is the letter from Terry... the owner of IN

To Norm Wright

From Terry

RE: Darkness Realm

Per your request to detail infringement by Nix:

1. His top two menu bars(Home and The Academy) are basically our bars edited slightly in Photoshop to provide less detail.

2. He originally was running our blue side graphics but has since replaced them with red ones. He has actually made several recent changes since we sent the original demand letter to try and mask the fact that he copied our original sire design.

3. He has an Assignment link on Explore . Although it is not yet part of the game, he is trying to clone our proprietary assignments module

4. He has an Trades link on Explore . Although it is not yet part of the game, he is trying to clone our proprietary trading module

5. He has an Contracts link on Explore . Although it is not yet part of the game, he is trying to clone our proprietary Contracts (aka Hitman) module

6. The game has a mining system that is almost identical to ours. The primary exception being they don't know how to make an image map work like we did, so thier system is more primitive when compared to ours. Clearly, however, its an attempt to copy our mining system

7. The Elders is a clone of our " Ancient Offerings system" where players must donate gems found while mining in order to progress through various levels

8. Their Russian Roulette module looks identical to ours, the only exception being a modified primary graphic

9. Their Laboratory system is identical to our smelting system differentiated only by adding the need for equipment before converting the minerals.

10. He copied our concept of having a new player group which allows new players to join but players are kicked out of the group after a stated number of days in the game and/ or level. In the case of Immortal Night, our groups are called Houses (Fledgling Camp), on Darkness-Realm they are called Clubs (The Immortal Academy)

11. They copied our concepts of having species-oriented bombs as donator items. They just named them something differently. Bombs that work on Vampires are called Dead Man's Blood Bomb(ours are called Holy Water Bombs) and bombs that work on Werewolves are called Mercury Nitrate Bomb(ours are called Silver Silver Bombs)

12. Their donation page is clearly a clone of ours. Looking at theirs and ours and the visual similarities are immediately clear.

13. He copied our Hall of Fame design and the breakdown feature by species as well as player rank(player ranks, were also a concept stolen from Immortal Night)

14. He Copied our Intensive Training concept. They simply renamed theirs the Secret Gym. Intensive Training is a primary revenue maker for Immortal night where players have to pay with USD to obtain a special item that grants access to the intensive training center. Intensive training is 4X as effective as normal training, the exact same ratio Darkness Realm is using.

15. He copied of Stat potions, another paid donator item, which increase player stats by 50% for 30 minutes. Same on his game.

Providing you haven't directly stolen any graphics or code your not breaching any laws. I'd personally suggest contacting your lawyer/solicitor and look into claiming against Immortal Night for costs and damages towards your business.

[Lilith]

Guess they think that gaming concepts are proprietary? can you copy write something like that for a game? EG: I want to get donations, so I copyright the idea of selling donator items used to train your character's stats. Can you do that?

Edit, question 2: Whats the point of Mccodes allowing you to create custom items if the above were true.

[BrowserGamesFactory]

He has no ground to stand on, just MWG is good enough as source to show the 100s of free modifications available under the GNU GPL

If he attacks your game any game that has been released earlier than his can attack his with exactly the same remarks.

[MaddDogg49]

Is this a joke ?

noo joke... LMAO... but notice my name. and the name they said...

Last time I checked im not MD29

[BrowserGamesFactory]

Also Terry aka UCC is or has been a member of CE/MWG and has the same free resources as you have to develop a game, mccode is very generic in game development and modules/free mods.

[BrowserGamesFactory]

Quoting some relevant info.

 

- Copyright: "right over copies of the original work". If something is not a "copy" but instead "inspired by" the original work, then copyright law give you ZERO protection. If something started of as a copy, and then was morphed into something substantially different, you ARE protected - because the original act of copying was illegal.

However, if the new thing is created from scratch, perhaps by looking at the original, but never precisely copying it, copyright is irrelevant. Hence the interest in "clean room implementations" of things == you can prove that the original was not copied. But usually proving non-copying is not trivial. Many lawyers trip up on failing to prove/disprove because of their own lack of skill. Good ones do things like subpoena source code, or copying bytes from an image, and doing statistical analysis to establish whether one was probably a copy of the other. There is lots of relevant history in Maps and Dictionaries - publishers used to deliberately introduce errors into their works so that when they thought someone had copied them they could "prove" it by saying "look, you even have EXACTLY the same errors as we put in deliberately!".

- Patents: "granting of an exclusive monopoly". Basically, the idea was that you gave the ruling monarch some cash, and he gave you the right to ignore all laws on monopolies and would guarantee to prevent anyone else from competing with you. That fundamental idea is, fairly obviously, a pretty dangerous one. For a while people managed to make it encourage innovation, but a few corrupt bureaucrats (especially in the USA) have screwed that up completely and in many places it's now FUBAR.

Games, however, are considered "artistic works" making them inherently unpatentable. You can get around this by pretending it's not a game, and getting it patented as a non-game, but very few games have any value beyond entertainment. I have seen several patents for games that are worthless, since they will be trivially destroyed if they ever go to court. I suppose it makes the patenter's ego a bit bigger to be able to say "I own a patent; I invented something!" but other than that it's usually an expensive waste of time for a game.

IIRC most patent offices have been underfunded, and the US was the worst of all, unluckily having a terrifyingly large number of patent applications (the curse of having an inventive population!), creating a huge backlog, which is why they started allowing pretty much any patent application. Bear in mind that a large number of patents get invalidated each year because the owner tries to extort money and the victim easily proves the patent is invalid.

Patenting is tricky and expensive - and as you can see it is also never a guaranteed thing, neither for patent-owner nor competitor. Unless you have at least $100,000 to spend on legal fees I wouldn't bother patenting a game - it will cost you approx $20,000 to patent worldwide, taking at least 2 years (!) before you can tell anyone about it, and if you don't have the extra $80,000 then you won't be able to afford to defend the patent if someone does infringe it.

- Games: This is harsh, but ... who really cares about your game idea? Who would be stupid enough to try and steal it? If "good ideas" were what made games profitable then 98% of professional games developers would be rolling in money (almost everyone working in the industry knows games very well and has at least one really cool game idea. Seriously - I've heard hundreds of great ideas). Games fall neatly into the "2% inspiration, 98% perspiration" category; OK, so that's a gross generalizaion, and yes, there are some exceptions, although as technology and player-expectations move on these become rarer and rarer. Maybe your game is one of those exceptions, in which case you're only option is to make the game ASAP before someone else invents it too! In theory, patents would be your only protection, but thank [insert deity here] that they don't work for games (yet)! [iMHO patents desperately need reform, and if no-one can think of anything better, they need to be completely invalidated instead!]

In reality, a great game idea is worthless.

You might also contact Dan at http://www.obscure.co.uk/ as he is always interested in topics as these and might be a big help also.

[Lilith]

Would find it funny if the creators of Dungeons and Dragons shut down Immortal night for using "familiars" as magical companions. Makes about as much sense.

[BrowserGamesFactory]

Officiall US Copyright doc

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.pdf

First line of it

Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for

playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material

involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public,

nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar

principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary,

artistic, or musical form.

[Paradox]

affilate comete

I am sorry, but you were fooled. Did you not notice the spelling errors? "constitutesa, tortious, affilate, comete"

Also a lawyer does not write in that sort of style. Anyway, if it was a lawyer, he would provide you with contact information such as his address and telephone in the footer of the email, if that was missing, I very much doubt you communicated with a lawyer at all. They have no ground to take action against you, especially when they are using the same base script... You should pursue legal action.

 

[BrowserGamesFactory]

@Paradox

No offence but spelling errors are common for lawyers

quoting a mail from my lawyer last night, as always in a pdf attachment...

 

De zaak staat woensdag 2 december a.s. voor pleidooi vastgesteld. Uw aanwezigheid is niet vvereist.

U kunt het vonnis verwachten rond de jaarwisseling.

Hoogachtend,

Mr. R. Mittenaere

Mr. Roland Mittenaere

Advocaat

Residence Isis

********* 7/Bus 8

***** *******

Tel. & Fax *** *** ***

*******@********.be

So vvereist = vereist , typo prob but reading all his pdf mails they all hold tons of spelling mistakes... or typo's...

Anyway

Took out address, phone, fax, and e-mail which might all be found back by google....

But yes lawyers do sign all docs they send so you can reach them with any possible method.

So in a way I agree with Paradox that this could be fake, just do a search for Norm Wright Law Offices on google .... seems to be a pretty generic name for a lawyer ....

now is this Mr. a real lawyer, heck it is .... he likes to fight with the big guys as recorded here http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/auditing/docs/dir/transpo/be01.pdf (page 80 german, french and dutch)

Mr. stands in he dutch language as Meester which is how you address a lawyer

[Jordan Palmer]

If I was you I'd simply ask them for a case reference number along with contact details then pass the information onto your solicitor/lawyer and let them deal with it

[Paradox]

@Paradox

No offence but spelling errors are common for lawyers

quoting a mail from my lawyer last night, as always in a pdf attachment...

 

De zaak staat woensdag 2 december a.s. voor pleidooi vastgesteld. Uw aanwezigheid is niet vvereist.

U kunt het vonnis verwachten rond de jaarwisseling.

Hoogachtend,

Mr. R. Mittenaere

Mr. Roland Mittenaere

Advocaat

Residence Isis

********* 7/Bus 8

***** *******

Tel. & Fax *** *** ***

*******@********.be

So vvereist = vereist , typo prob but reading all his pdf mails they all hold tons of spelling mistakes... or typo's...

Typo's are a human error. I would be surprised if there is any lawyer who cannot spell "infringement." See he did not just make several typo's, the multiple use of "infrigment" suggests that he did not know how to spell it. And as I said a lawyer who cant spell "infringement" which is pretty much key to their day to day job, hhmm, smells fishy. :)