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▲ paxys 2 days ago

What copyright? OpenTTD doesn't copy any code or assets from the original game. It is a ground-up rewrite. There is no copyright violation.

▲jorl17 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Note that, while it is a rewrite, it was done so through disassembling the original game, not via a clean room implementation. I find this particularly relevant given that the original was written (mostly) in assembly too.

▲Closi 2 days ago | parent [-]

Also even if it is a ground up rewrite, the look and feel still matters.

Try creating a 1:1 dupe of a Hermes bag or a Rolex and see how their legal team reacts (even if you call it an OpenBirk)

▲tomik0091 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The maker movement died partly because the gap between "cool prototype" and "actual product people use" was too big. Vibe coding has the same risk but the gap is smaller. The biggest friction point right now isnt building, its deployment. Thats why I built vibmy.com where you paste code and its live in 5 seconds. If we can keep shrinking that gap between idea and live product, vibe coding has a real shot at sticking around unlike 3d printing did

▲20k 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Clean room reimplementations of software projects have been tested in court and are legally fine

▲ikiris a day ago | parent [-]

Software projects that do things like edit spreadsheets, transform data, do calculations, yes.

Software projects that are themselves a type of art that is itself copyrighted, lol no.

▲Suppafly 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>Try creating a 1:1 dupe of a Hermes bag or a Rolex and see how their legal team reacts

That happens all the time, as long as you don't put their logos on your thing, there isn't shit they can do about it.

▲ 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]
[deleted]
▲anthk 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

- OpenArena

- Chip's Challange and custom levels pack

- Freedoom+Blasmepher for Doom/Heretic

- LibreQuake

- Supertux2

- Oolite

- Kgoldminner/XScavenger with level sets

- Frozen Bubble

- Any X11/console/9front sokoban clone. Everyone reuses the same level set over and over.

▲Closi a day ago | parent [-]

This list might just be survivor bias though - it only includes the projects where they didn’t get sued and taken down (either because the developer was ok with them, or because they strayed far enough into fair use).

There are clear counter examples - see Tengen vs Nintendo, Nintendo vs Palworld, Microsoft vs halo inspired games, Microsoft vs Minecraft clones. Most are settled out court. Examples that go to court tend to be from companies with budgets to fight, lots of projects will just get DMCA’d and won’t fight, or will back down after a legal letter.

Ultimately copyright and IP infringement is decided in the courts, and the rules aren’t entirely black and white.

▲anthk a day ago | parent [-]

The actual list at https://osgameclones.com it's so huge that literally invalidates any point stated by HN commenters ignoring that, yes, Giana Sisters for the C64 was taken down but after that several Mario shareware clones existed for PC and a few years later we even got Supertux and, in the 2000's, Secret Maryo Chronicles which got renamed in order to avoid any issues with "Mario" as a TM, but the gameplay was 99% the same of Super Mario World.

On software recreating something propietary:

- FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD... vs AT&T Unix.

- GNU+Linux or GNU+Hurd against propietary Unix kernels.

- Coreutils+Findutils+Sharutils... every tool reimplemented being propietary.

- Bash, GAWK, GCC, binutils, Clisp, SBCL, GNU GCJ+Classpath, Red, FreePascal+Lazarus, GNUStep+WMaker, LessTif, EMWM+Motif vs Irix' Maxx Desktop (still propietary, and from the 90's) Gaim, AMSN, 7zip, Haxima+Nahzgul (and Ultima it's still being sold at GOG), Supertux2, Supertuxkart, ReTux (very Wario like), Hexoshi (Metroid), SMC (Super Mario World), Pingus (Lemmings), XMMS/Xine cloning WinAmp and maybe PowerDVD (Xine with skins), WordTsar for Wordstar, Nano for propietary Pico (and Alpine for propietary Pine), BSD vi and Amiga vim for maybe propietary vi under AT&T/commercial Unix, Lincity and Lincity-NG for Simcity, FreeCiv against Civilization (it can use both the OG Civ rules and their custom ones), Frozen Bubble (I think the level set it's from the Neo Geo release), KGoldrunner and such for Lode Runner, Kapman for Pacman, every BSD shipping Tetris and Boggle, GNU Octave for Matlab....

The list example for both software and games being just reimplementation/clones of propietary tools goes on an on. Even DOS had propietary clones which had to reimplement the same interface as MSDOS because if not the tools written for it would just crash. Same commands, same output, same formating tools, same memory layout, they ran the same DOS binaries and drivers...

▲Closi 15 hours ago | parent [-]

Giving a list of examples doesn’t mean this example is legal or would stand up in court.

Other than the fact that most of these are very different situations, but even if they were the same it is like saying “snorting coccaine is legal because I can give a list of celebrities that have done it and have not been arrested”

The examples that are similar - eg FreeCiv, imo probably survive because of the decisions and polices of the original publisher rather than some magical legal protection which allows you to make 1:1 copies without being sued.

TuxRacer isn’t really a copy of anything, and an OS or computer utility will likely be treated in a materially different way to a computer game by a court of law.

▲anthk 13 hours ago | parent [-]

No, your example can't stand out a simple analysis since both GNU and BSD reimplemented propietary UNIX without the original code, as the OpenTTD rewrite is. How come OpenTTD works on a G4 PowerPC arch if the original code was written in x86 assembly?

GNU AWK it's literally copycat of Unix AWK having all of the functionality of the original AWK without being bound to the original source. So is GCC vs any vendored Unix 'cc', 'ld' and 'as', where GNU GAS was the alternative.

Again, there's GNU Bash against Unix SH, with the same exact flags for interoperativity. Ditto with Alpine against Pine, or GNU Nano against Pico with the literal same interface, commands and layout. And these are older than TTD itself.

Should I go in? Lesstif against Motif. If you installed Lesstif tons of Motif stuff would work straightly as is, as XPDF did. Another one? XMMS. Once you skinned both the were the same.

▲Closi an hour ago | parent [-]

GNU != Transport Tycoon

Different types of media get treated differently by courts. If you repaint a painting 1:1 then you are liable to copyright. If you make a song that is too substantially similar you are liable to penalties. If your branding is too similar to the Oscar’s or Starbucks you are liable for infringement.

On the other hand if you reimplement Java the courts have decided that’s OK.

Different media are treated differently. A game and an OS kernel have different attributes in reality (even if technically they are both bundles of code - courts don’t always decide things on technical literalism, they often apply the spirit of the law, understanding if the application meets the original intent and precedents).

▲anthk 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

▲dang a day ago | parent | next [-]

Please don't cross into personal attack on HN. You can make your substantive points without that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

▲bjt 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The fact that these exist does not mean that they're immune from legal challenge. If the original creators wanted to sue, there are all kinds of claims that would have a decent shot in court (e.g. trademark, trade dress, design patents) besides "you copied our copyrighted source code." The clones exist more because people are being cool about it, and because there's not a strong economic incentive to challenge them. Those things can change at any time.

▲anthk 2 days ago | parent [-]

Sony vs Bleem. They already lost this case in court.

▲comex 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

That was a very different case.

Out of the two claims, the only one that made it to appeals court was about whether it was fair use for Bleem to use screenshots of PS1 games to advertise its emulator (which was compatible with those games). The Ninth Circuit decided it was. But that's not relevant here.

The other claim was more relevant, as it was an unfair competition claim that apparently had something to do with Bleem's reimplementation of the PS1 BIOS. But the district court's record of the case doesn't seem to be available online, and the information I was able to find online was vague, so I don't know what exactly the facts or legal arguments were on that claim. Without an appeal it also doesn't set precedent.

If there were a lawsuit over OpenTTD, it would probably be for copyright infringement rather than unfair competition, and it would probably focus more on fair use and copyrightability. For fair use, it matters how much something is functional versus creative. The PS1 BIOS is relatively functional, but a game design and implementation are highly creative. On the other hand, despite being creative, game mechanics by themselves are not copyrightable. So it might come down to the extent to which OpenTTD's code was based on the reverse-engineered original code, as opposed to being a truly from-scratch reimplementation of the same mechanics. Visual appearance would also be relevant. Oracle v. Google would be an important precedent.

▲anthk a day ago | parent [-]

FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD at first when every BSD OS was just part of 386BSD it used to have AT&T code. That code was rewritten replacing every propietary part and after that (and noticing BSD 4.4 was incomplete) we got clean FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD from a NetBSD fork.

Another similar case with exact grounds was GNU which with Linux it completed an OS albeit in a hacky way, because the original OS would have been GNU+Hurd, but both are reimplementing Unix. Same SH derived shell, but extended. Kinda like OpenTTD. We have GNU Coreutils, Findutils, GNU AWK reimplementing and extending AWK (even when AWK was propietary), GNU Zip, Tar... the list goes on and on.

Oh, another one: Lesstif vs Motif. Same UI, if not very, very close to Motif 1.2 in order to be interoperable. Today it doesn't matter because nearly a decade a go Motif was relicensed into the GPL, but tons of libre software depending on propietary Motif was just seamlessly running with LessTIF libraries except for some rough edges/bugs. One of the most known example was DDD, a GUI for GDB.

▲ 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]
[deleted]
▲InsideOutSanta 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think I'm even older than you, because I remember what Nintendo did to the Great Giana Sisters.

▲anthk a day ago | parent [-]

And later the DOS PC world spawned several Mario clones as legal shareware.

▲haunter 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Good luck making an open source Pokemon game clone and see how it goes

▲anthk a day ago | parent [-]

Tuxemon. And before that, several more a few decades ago.

▲Ekaros 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It might be improved and changed in many ways. But I have zero doubt it would not lose in court any argument over copyrights. Most reasonable people would tell that it looks way too close to original. And that would probably be enough.

▲Macha 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's two issues:

1. OpenTTD is not a clean room rewrite. It started by disassembling the original game and manually converting to C++ on a piecemeal basis.

2. As the game was updated, sure lots of this code has been rewritten. Almost certainly the majority. But has all of it been legally rewritten? Ehh... much less clear.

This sort of process has generally been held to produce a derived work of whatever you're cloning, even if the final result no longer contains original code, hence why clean room reverse engineering even became a thing in the first place.

It's probably fuzzy enough at this stage that you could have a long expensive drawn out legal battle about it (and I suspect we'll see at least one for some other project in the coming years with the recent trend of "I had AI rewrite this GPL project to my MIT licensed clone"). Would OpenTTD win? Who knows. Could OpenTTD afford it? Certainly not.

▲mghackerlady 2 days ago | parent [-]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't BSD in a similar legal limbo for a while? In that case wouldn't there be precedent for such projects to be legally fine so long as they've existed long enough and been heavily modified?

▲Macha a day ago | parent [-]

BSD was resolved by a settlement of BSD dropping a handful of disputed files and mutual copyright acknowledgement after it was determined that the company suing them also infringed in BSD’s copyright, so as precedent it’s pretty inconclusive

▲not_the_fda 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Its not a clean ground-up rewrite. They dis-assembled the original binaries into assembly and started from there.

▲sylos 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I read somewhere that it's not a clean room rewrite but rather it started off as a reverse engineering.

▲ 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]
[deleted]
▲iso1631 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If I were to create a new game from the ground up, with new artistic assets, and not an LLM in sight, with the characters of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader playing around on the Millenium Falcon, I would be breaching copyright.

I'm not sure if look and feel of a game like Transport Tycoon can be copyrighted, but I wouldn't like to be against it.

(I remember buying Transport Tycoon from I think Beatles, in Altrincham. I clearly remember riding on the front seat of the bus upstairs on my way to Flixton back in 1994 reading the manual)

▲ 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]
[deleted]
▲ikiris 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It seems you don't understand copyright. The entire game is copyrighted. Not just the specific sprites.

You can see the same effect if someone were to make a yellow short guy with metal claws and regeneration as a character.

▲hrmtst93837 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[dead]

▲hrmtst93837 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[dead]

▲designerarvid 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Reproducing someone’s intellectual property and publishing it is exactly what constitutes a copyright violation.

You can retype someone’s book with your keyboard, it’s still not yours.

▲Sharlin 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Reproducing the surface behavior of a program, no matter how faithfully, is not in itself copyright violation if it's a cleanroom implementation. But int this case it's not to write the new one, the developers studied (and manually translated to C++) the original code, not just the program's behavior. So this is more of a case of a derived work, like a translation of a novel.

▲orphea 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Reproducing is absolutely not a copyright violation. Otherwise emulators would have no legal option to exist.

▲designerarvid a day ago | parent | next [-]

That is a question about which copyrights are enforced. Different question.

▲ErroneousBosh a day ago | parent | prev [-]

An emulator is not a reproduction of the thing it emulates.

▲anthk 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Learn something new, dear GenZers:

https://osgameclones.com/

Maybe you all realize how much brainwashed from corporations yall actually are.

▲designerarvid 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

GenZ?

▲iso1631 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Look and Feel in computers and how it interacts with copyright is hardly something new

https://jolt.law.harvard.edu/assets/articlePDFs/v03/03HarvJL...

▲anthk 2 days ago | parent [-]

And Sony vs Bleem (or the IBM BIOS reimplementation) already set a precedent so that doesn't really matter anymore. Look at Wine. Or Exegutor. Or DOSBox.

All of them totally legal reimplementing either prior look and feel and functionality.

▲iso1631 2 days ago | parent [-]

> The code of computer programs are excluded from design protection, but visual aspects of software are very commonly protectable as long as they are ‘new’ (i.e. not a direct copy of anything that has come before) and possess ‘individual character’ (i.e. that the design produces a different ‘overall impression’ than anything that has come before)

I'm no expect, but Chris Sawyer style games certainly provided a unique overall impression to me. Whether it needs to be a registered design or not I couldn't say, but it's not going to be cheap to find out.

More recent battles have relied on Trademark and Patent law rather than Copyright, but "Look and Feel" is still a legal grey area

▲anthk a day ago | parent [-]

Wine literally copies both the Win32 UI -needed to respect that for interop- , some of the kernel functions and Win32 which is just an API implementation and not copyrighteable per se. If not, we woudn't have GNU. Or Microsoft services for Unix.