crack attack trademark issues / ok for Fe?

[Hans de Goede]

Hi,

I was wondering why the game crack-attack was in that other repo instead
of in FE.  So I asked the other repo, I got a reply pointing to this post:

https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-extras-list/2005-April/msg00727.html

Which talks about the Tetris trademark. I however do not see how thats
an issue as the name crack attack does not seem to use the word Tetris.

Now the game play / mechanics may be copied from Tetris Attack, but that
is not a problem (IANAL). game play / mechanics cannot be trademarked or
copyrighted *. What could be a problem is if the game had copied more
then only game mechanics, for example have very similar graphics,
identical levels (not relevant here as the levels are not mazes or
something similar), etc.

Thus I've comapred some screen shots. Here are screenshots from the
Trademarked Nintendo original:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tetris_Attack_box_art.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lakitu_Tetris_Attack.png

And here are those from crack-attack:
http://www.nongnu.org/crack-attack/screenshots.html
http://www.aluminumangel.org/attack/index.html#screen%20shots

Now that seems like original graphics to me. So I would like to reopen
the discussion about including crack-attack into FE. I assume there will
be objections, if so with arguments please. If there are no objections
I'll coordinate moving it to FE with that other repo and submit it for
review.


Regards,

Hans

* For more on the copyrightable status of game mechanics see:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html . Also keep in mind that many
commercial games are essential remakes of older games with better
graphics, luckily game mechanics cannot be copyrighted (IANAL).