A hypothetical question that I think I know the answer to came into my head the other day, and I thought I'd see what you guys think.
If I were to create a killer Pong clone (don't worry - this is all hypothetical... there's no way I'd ever do anything productive with my Blitz purchase...), could I legally sell it, or would that be copyright infringement? Could I even distribute it for free? I'm not talking an exact Pong clone, but an upgrade. Powerups, the like.
This same question goes for all of those retro games, and really all games in general. I mean, tons of people have made revamps of the same RPGs, but for some reason I feel like even a completely revamped Pong would still feel like Atari copyright infringement.
I'm simply wondering, because I've seen tons of free, award-winning ripoffs (Plasma Pong comes to mind), but on the other hand, the free Blitz Geometry Wars clone was taken down.
Any ideas?
If I were to create a killer Pong clone (don't worry - this is all hypothetical... there's no way I'd ever do anything productive with my Blitz purchase...), could I legally sell it, or would that be copyright infringement? Could I even distribute it for free? I'm not talking an exact Pong clone, but an upgrade. Powerups, the like.
This same question goes for all of those retro games, and really all games in general. I mean, tons of people have made revamps of the same RPGs, but for some reason I feel like even a completely revamped Pong would still feel like Atari copyright infringement.
I'm simply wondering, because I've seen tons of free, award-winning ripoffs (Plasma Pong comes to mind), but on the other hand, the free Blitz Geometry Wars clone was taken down.
Any ideas?