Gfk:
Why should small developers worry about minor copyright infringements that could well be fair use when commercial publishers go as far as using watermarked preview images from stock photo websites on their game packaging? (Or at the very least, their publicity materials.)
http://kotaku.com/gaming/instruct-them/ubisoft-puts-women-in-their-place-287100.php
There's being honest, and then there's being stupid. You're going under the assumption that nobody should ever "violate" copyright, even when one's use of said works may not actually violate copyright laws because under said laws it's fair use.
Copyright law is not black and white, like you seem to want it to be, and businesses operate all the time on the edge of legality. If you try to make sure everything you do is absolutely 100% perfectly legal... well... that's not possible, because the law isn't black and white. You could do something which one court finds is fair use and and appeals court finds is not. How can you be expected to determine that for yourself properly 100% of the time if two judges can't even agreee on it?
Anyway, you're wrong here. Fair use dictates that if what you sample from a work is not a significant part of the whole then it's quite allright to do. Crowd sounds are not an integral part of a sports game, or even created by the people that recorded them, and they're trivial to recreate. Any court in the land would throw out a case against someone for copying crowd sounds from a TV program.
Why should small developers worry about minor copyright infringements that could well be fair use when commercial publishers go as far as using watermarked preview images from stock photo websites on their game packaging? (Or at the very least, their publicity materials.)
http://kotaku.com/gaming/instruct-them/ubisoft-puts-women-in-their-place-287100.php
There's being honest, and then there's being stupid. You're going under the assumption that nobody should ever "violate" copyright, even when one's use of said works may not actually violate copyright laws because under said laws it's fair use.
Copyright law is not black and white, like you seem to want it to be, and businesses operate all the time on the edge of legality. If you try to make sure everything you do is absolutely 100% perfectly legal... well... that's not possible, because the law isn't black and white. You could do something which one court finds is fair use and and appeals court finds is not. How can you be expected to determine that for yourself properly 100% of the time if two judges can't even agreee on it?
Anyway, you're wrong here. Fair use dictates that if what you sample from a work is not a significant part of the whole then it's quite allright to do. Crowd sounds are not an integral part of a sports game, or even created by the people that recorded them, and they're trivial to recreate. Any court in the land would throw out a case against someone for copying crowd sounds from a TV program.