'Manic Miner/Jet Set Willy' Copyrights

[SymbolShift]

Greetings!

I have been developing a MM/JSW inspired game for some time, in GameMaker Studio 2. The game will be free, and is intended for the enjoyment of the MM/JSW fan community. However, I recently discovered that Elite Systems (since 2019) now hold the intellectual property rights for both Manic Miner & Jet Set Willy, as referenced in the legal document below. It's a complex situation, since Matthew Smith still insists that he holds the rights to the games (but cannot legally prove), and has always been cool with fan released games.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X-cGCu4azEog1bml5J6zxI5Fv8dT8iP2/view
 

To clear things up, I contacted Steve Wilcox at Elite to receive clarification on to following questions:

Am I permitted to use any of the sprites, graphics, sound effects, music from the original ZX Spectrum MM/JSW games?
Can my game be released (for free) on Google Play Store, Apple App Store, etc?
Am I required to mention 'Elite Systems Ltd' in the game credits?


I received a brief response stating:

Our position on the matter is as outlined in Link Legals statement, which you reference.
Without sight of the 'MM/JSW inspired retro game' of which you wrote (and in the absence of the necessary further information to evaluate the likely commercial impact of your proposed activity) we're not able to elaborate on Link Legal's statement and we reserve all of our rights.
Regards - Steve Wilcox, Director & Co-founder


I appreciate a response from Steve, but he dodges the questions and the vagueness continues, as it did in the document. The document does not breakdown usage rights of sprites, graphics, sound effects or music, and just clumps everything under an 'intellectual rights' umbrella. I need specifics on what I can and cannot use. They can't exactly say "oh, that's a guy that jumps around on platforms, that's an infringement!". I also do not feel comfortable sending an 'evaluation' version of my game, which is far from finished.

Has Elite realized that there is no longer money to be made from selling their games (as they tried with mobile versions), and decided there is more money to be made from suing individuals? I hope I am wrong, but If this is true, it is very sad. Especially from Elite, who have a huge catalog of ZX Spectrum games that are cherished by many. Not only that, but the one thing that has kept the MM/JSW legacy alive all these years are the countless remakes, mods and homages. If people are afraid to develop more games due to copyright infringement, is this the death of MM/JSW as we know it? From a legal perspective Matthew Smith was 'just the programmer', but I can't help feel that he has been screwed out of his own creations. It's games like MM/JSW that got many of us into programming in the first place.

I'm at the point where I don't know if should spend any more time and move forward with this project.

Does anyone have any input or suggestions regarding MM/JSW remakes and copyright infringement?
Thanks!

Edited October 13, 2021 by SymbolShift
Title change (suggested by Admin)

[jetsetdanny]

Welcome to the forum, SymbolShift! 🙂 

First of all, my kind suggestion would be to change the title of this thread to e.g. 'Manic Miner/Jet Set Willy Copyright', or something like that, to delete the word 'infringement'. You haven't been accused of copyright infringement yet and neither has anyone else around these parts. Let sleeping dogs lie...

Secondly, there has been some discussion recently regarding MM/JSW's current copyright in this thread. It won't help you much, but might be of some interest.

Thirdly, my personal suggestion would be to go ahead, design and release the game for our enjoyment 🙂. Make it free, of course, make sure you don't make any money on it whatsoever. I would think that the more the game is MM/JSW-inspired (rather than copying the original content), the better.

Please note I am not a lawyer, just a MM/JSW enthusiast, so I am not giving you advice based on any legal foundations. Having said that, I am not aware of anyone making free MM/JSW remakes being prosecuted to the point of having to pay anything to the alleged copyright owners and I hope this situation will continue, as we are on the scene not for profit, but for the love of these extraordinary games and the inspiration they give to create more weird (and free!) Willy's worlds.

A couple of further ideas: The person you contacted mentions an "evaluation" of "the likely commercial impact of your proposed activity". I would understand it as follows: if your "activity" impacts their company's operation negatively in the commercial sense, they might go after you. If it doesn't, they shouldn't.

I would think that the negative impact could theoretically be that instead of buying their product someone might buy your product (which will not be the case if you offer your game for free) or that by enjoying your free product someone would desist from buying their commercial product, thus stripping them of some hypothetical income. I am not sure if the latter could be proved in court in any way, but just to err on the side of caution, when you release the game, why don't you put links to their commercial products in the Readme / on your website / wherever pertinent, encouraging people to buy them (something along the lines: "if you enjoyed my game, don't forget to buy the current official version of MM/JSW which you will certainly enjoy even more"). I'm not sure if this would be helpful from the legal point of view, but, if it came to the worst, you could make an argument that you actually advertised their products, so you acted in their best interest, aiming at boosting *their* sales, without making any profit yourself. Just an idea... 🙂

[SymbolShift]

3 hours ago, jetsetdanny said:

Welcome to the forum, SymbolShift! 🙂 

First of all, my kind suggestion would be to change the title of this thread to e.g. 'Manic Miner/Jet Set Willy Copyright', or something like that, to delete the word 'infringement'. You haven't been accused of copyright infringement yet and neither has anyone else around these parts. Let sleeping dogs lie...

Secondly, there has been some discussion recently regarding MM/JSW's current copyright in this thread. It won't help you much, but might be of some interest.

Thirdly, my personal suggestion would be to go ahead, design and release the game for our enjoyment 🙂. Make it free, of course, make sure you don't make any money on it whatsoever. I would think that the more the game is MM/JSW-inspired (rather than copying the original content), the better.

Please note I am not a lawyer, just a MM/JSW enthusiast, so I am not giving you advice based on any legal foundations. Having said that, I am not aware of anyone making free MM/JSW remakes being prosecuted to the point of having to pay anything to the alleged copyright owners and I hope this situation will continue, as we are on the scene not for profit, but for the love of these extraordinary games and the inspiration they give to create more weird (and free!) Willy's worlds.

A couple of further ideas: The person you contacted mentions an "evaluation" of "the likely commercial impact of your proposed activity". I would understand it as follows: if your "activity" impacts their company's operation negatively in the commercial sense, they might go after you. If it doesn't, they shouldn't.

I would think that the negative impact could theoretically be that instead of buying their product someone might buy your product (which will not be the case if you offer your game for free) or that by enjoying your free product someone would desist from buying their commercial product, thus stripping them of some hypothetical income. I am not sure if the latter could be proved in court in any way, but just to err on the side of caution, when you release the game, why don't you put links to their commercial products in the Readme / on your website / wherever pertinent, encouraging people to buy them (something along the lines: "if you enjoyed my game, don't forget to buy the current official version of MM/JSW which you will certainly enjoy even more"). I'm not sure if this would be helpful from the legal point of view, but, if it came to the worst, you could make an argument that you actually advertised their products, so you acted in their best interest, aiming at boosting *their* sales, without making any profit yourself. Just an idea... 🙂

Thanks JSD, you raise some good points. I just found the JetSetWilly3 thread on here today, so I will read that. I also posted this on the GameMaker Forum to see what their take was. One of the members suggested that I avoid the legal minefield altogether and not to incorporate any of the original assets. My reason for doing this was to keep the nostalgic feel of the original games, to make the player feel at home, if you will. Most of the assets will be my own, but also adding original ones also. It's also good to know that no one else (to your knowledge) has ever had to pay-up for MM/JSW copyright infringement. However, Elite has only held the IP since 2019, so that could possibly change.

The idea about "sending traffic Elite's way" in the credits is also a good one. It's tempting to just keep my game as-is and if a copyright issue occurs after the release, then make the changes accordingly. In my experience, they tend to warn you before taking action.

It just saddens me that any legal red-tape could discourage remakes. It's been almost 40 years, and we are still creating these purely for the love of the originals, and certainly not to get rich from doing so!

 

[Spider]

I don't think I can add anything (sensible at least) to @jetsetdanny's excellent post.

Apart from perhaps if you look at the trademark images themselves, the player sprite does not look quite right, the wrong hat. It actually reminds me of the player sprite hat from RollerCoaster...

Over the years (going well back before 2019) I've heard that much hearsay that I can no longer differentiate between fact and fiction, this is worse when its combined with what as someone with no legal training I'd just call 'legalspeak' too from various parties. 🙂

[SymbolShift]

42 minutes ago, Spider said:

I don't think I can add anything (sensible at least) to @jetsetdanny's excellent post.

Apart from perhaps if you look at the trademark images themselves, the player sprite does not look quite right, the wrong hat. It actually reminds me of the player sprite hat from RollerCoaster...

Over the years (going well back before 2019) I've heard that much hearsay that I can no longer differentiate between fact and fiction, this is worse when its combined with what as someone with no legal training I'd just call 'legalspeak' too from various parties. 🙂

Yeah, it would appear the legalities are designed in a way that we are not supposed to understand it. I have seen the trademark images you speak of, and it is strange that they differ from the originals. Then one could argue that trademarks and copyrights are not the same thing. It's like "intellectual property" can mean whatever they want it to mean. I may even suggest that I could finish the game (containing original assets), under an untraceable alias rather than my name. However, it's difficult to distribute mobile versions since the App stores can be traced back to the submitter quite easily. It's also possible that the .exe could contain a GameMaker license fingerprint? who knows.

[jetsetdanny]

This leads to some surreal scenarios. People designing free MM/JSW games and releasing them clandestinely, masking their IPs, etc. - not to make any profit, but at the same time to remain anonymous and free from possible prosecution. The alleged copyright holders chasing them relentlessly, following their digital fingerprints, etc.

The former living in fear, lurking in the MM/JSW underground, suffering from PTSD, but still determined to carry on their sacred mission of making new MM/JSW games and offering them freely to the whole world. The latter wasting their time and resources on persecuting poor souls who have only poured some financial resources into their endeavours (such as finding slightly expensive ways of purchasing GameMaker licenses anonymously), never made any profit...

What a world to face! I hope it's just a figment of my sick imagination 😆

[SymbolShift]

48 minutes ago, jetsetdanny said:

This leads to some surreal scenarios. People designing free MM/JSW games and releasing them clandestinely, masking their IPs, etc. - not to make any profit, but at the same time to remain anonymous and free from possible prosecution. The alleged copyright holders chasing them relentlessly, following their digital fingerprints, etc.

The former living in fear, lurking in the MM/JSW underground, suffering from PTSD, but still determined to carry on their sacred mission of making new MM/JSW games and offering them freely to the whole world. The latter wasting their time and resources on persecuting poor souls who have only poured some financial resources into their endeavours (such as finding slightly expensive ways of purchasing GameMaker licenses anonymously), never made any profit...

What a world to face! I hope it's just a figment of my sick imagination 😆

Unfortunately, this is how things are now. You'll spend countless hours and brain power on creating something for a handful of people who may actually appreciate it, and then spend the rest of your life having panic attacks every time you see a black helicopter. They will hunt you down in the name of money. When did we become the bad guys here?

 

[SymbolShift]

Someone posted this tweet on the GameMaker forum regarding Elite, thought I would share...

https://twitter.com/Horsenburger/status/1129900800279502848

 

[Spider]

Have to say I was aware of some of the things mentioned on Twitter, although (as above) how much is fact vs fiction , I'd rather not say in public 😄

[SymbolShift]

That's true, it's a gamble, and if you are wrong then you're on the receiving end of a lawsuit. I just wish we could get to the bottom of this and see if he has any real legal power. If he does not, then he's a dark cloud on the retro-remake scene, and that bothers me.