How hard could it be to make our own game??

[darthviper107]

As long as you're Not making any money off the liscense, you can claim public domain and get away with it. but if you start making money off it, they can sue the crap out of you.

so rule of thumb is : if you're gonna give it away for free, you can use whatever likeness you like.

if you're gonna charge money for it, got to be completely original, or you got to get permission.

Actually, they can still sue you for using copyrighted material. The only way you can use stuff legally (without paying for the rights) is in parody or documentary.

Most places don't care as long as you don't make money, but they could sue you if they wanted to. For instance, Lucasfilm doesn't care about people making Star Wars fanfilms, but they can't make money off it.

 

[cerebus23]

having followed the shadowrun saga with microsoft and etc, the free mmo people had to contact them and inform them of their intent with assurances that it was free etc, if its a licensed property, especially a big one, best to reach out and get permission else you can get nailed later on if they choose to. MS did reply to them and lay out what they could and could not do and gave them permission.

tho generally speaking there is little chance less your overtly making money off someone elses licensed property. good example is mods for say rfactor where ferrari, porsche and other licensed manufacturers are used for mods there has never been a cease and desist order issued agaisnt any of them cause they are free mods made on peoples free time. if your were charging for the download or the games tho you would more than likely run into problems sooner or later.