Bug#501508: similar, but not same

[Riku Voipio]

Dont' cc: me, please continue at debian-legal.

Dude, you are opening a can of worms here.

According to openarena pages, both of these models have been
created by openarena authors - thus they are not direct copies.

http://openarena.wikia.com/wiki/Kyonshi
http://openarena.wikia.com/wiki/Grism

They do hold resemblance to the originals, yet they are
also representative on their generic genres. Exactly how much
the resemblance is needed to be a copyright violation is a
matter of court to decide. So Just foaming "it looks like a blatant
copyright violation to me" isn't very productive.

For example, compare Donald duck with "Howard The Duck". Marvel
avoided legal action from Disney by merely adding trousers to
the character.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_the_Duck

> Similarity? They're nearly exactly the same in OpenArena and
> Darkstalkers.

Funny, the darkstalker char has wings, trousers and boobs jumping out.
While the openarena character has none of those. Rest of the features
sans face are directly from the Jiang Shi genre. Which, the original
submitter failed to research before filing a grave bug on copying
vampires:

http://disraeli-demon.blogspot.com/2007/12/stickleback-englands-glory-in-2000ad.html

But this IMHO discussion needs some more experienced input than
the original reporters gut feeling. So over and out for me..



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