• Franklin@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    It might be a ripoff, but my question to you is should that be illegal? The entirety of humanity is monkey see monkey do iteration on our previous ideas. It’s a dubious thing to litigate.

    To add to that, no fan of either is going to confuse one for the other, so where’s the issue?

    • NineMileTower@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      Again, this isn’t a copyright lawsuit. Making a game with monsters that look similar to theirs is not what the lawsuit is about. It’s about patents. Likely design patents like I mentioned before. If I made a country song with Eminem’s lyrics, of course you wouldn’t confuse it with Slim’s music, but I would need his permission first.

      • amelore@slrpnk.net
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        10 hours ago

        Marshall has copyright on his lyrics, you just said yourself patents and copyright are different things.

        Sufficiently different rip-offs that don’t confuse consumers as being the original should be legal. They already are as far as copyright is concerned.

        Many design patents should never have been registered, and should lose when defended in court. Design trademarks are a third similar issue.