Seeking advice about protecting my ideas/IP

Edit:  As the thread title states, I'm looking for actual, detailed advice, not yes/no lists.  If you're going to answer my questions, please do elaborate and leave some detailed answers that both answer my questions as well as give me some advice about how I should proceed. What I should do now and what I should do later. Do I need a trademark? Do I need to form a company before I start releasing anything? When it comes to protecting a fantasy world IP, how would I go about getting a copyright on something like that? It's obviously quite different from simply copyrighting one story, since a world concept is always changing and I can imagine the laws would work a bit differently. Etc. etc.  Please describe the plan you think I should follow to have the best chance of protecting my IP.  Both in my own country and abroad. Thank you for your time. 

 

Edit: I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this, but I felt like it didn't really belong in many of the other forums since it wasn't questions specifically related to RPG Maker. 

 

 

Hello, I'm an amateur game dev who's been working, in my spare time, for some years now on developing some games. Classic RPG's mostly.  I feel like I'm reaching a point where I may be ready to start releasing some games beyond my close circle of friends. 

 

I've spent several years developing a very detailed and immersive fantasy world which I use as the setting for my games and stories.  

 

So, this brings me to my dilemma...

 

I'm very protective of my ideas and IP, as most writers and artists would be. I've put years of my life into it. So, I'm very concerned about releasing games (some of which may be free) and having my ideas/IP stolen. 

 

I realize good ideas are pretty easy to come by and there's 7 billion other people out there that may (and probably are) better at world building and game design than me... and that I probably don't have too much to worry about realistically. However, this doesn't ease my fears in the slightest.  I'm just a writer that wants to tell my stories and share my world with others while using a medium I highly respect... without some larger company or random scam artists coming along and stealing it all away from me. 

 

I do plan to always fully manage every aspect of my rpg projects myself.  

 

I currently live in the U.S. but my game releases would probably be mostly digital downloads online. 

 

 

My Questions:

 

1. How should I go about legally protecting my IP and my stories and characters in general and for the long term?  

 

 

2. What should I do in the short term to protect my IP before I start releasing games that use my IP as a setting?

 

 

3. In preparation for worst case scenarios, how should I go about making sure my IP is protected from team members or contractors who may work with me for a while then decide to take my ideas and run?  

 

 

4.  Is my IP always legally separate from any art, music or programming I hire someone else to do for the games?  Is there any way that an artist or programmer can legally argue that they hold some legal rights to my IP because they supplied art, music or programming skills to it? If so, is there any way to avoid this trap? 

 

 

5. Since I would be releasing games for download online... is it possible that someone from some other country could try to steal the rights to my IP and get away with it because of different laws?  If so, is there any way to prevent this? 

 

 

6. Do I really need to hire or consult with a lawyer or some sort of legal consultant about this first?  If so, what sort of legal professional should I look for? 

 

 

7.  Anything else I should know about the legalities of IP ownership or watch out for?  Helpful advice is appreciated. 

 

 

I know some of these questions are probably pretty basic but I'd be the first to say that I'm a writer not a lawyer. I wouldn't be asking legal questions in the first place if I knew anything about this. So I would really appreciate some helpful answers and advice. 

 

 

Thanks for the help! 

We're not really lawyers in this place, but I can definitely tell you that you cannot copyright ideas. Your work needs to be tangible. You need to have it written down at least, to prove it even exists. You can't just come up with this amazing idea, and then claim copyright on it, without it ever leaving your head.


Characters cannot be copyrighted either. Or well, they can, but it has to be very well distinguished.

My advice? Go create your game and stop being paranoid about someone 'stealing' your ideas.

Honestly, the very best way to protect your IP is to have it so popular and so firmly established in everyone's minds as something that belongs to you that there is no way for someone to get away with tricking someone into believing that it's theirs. It's true, ideas are cheaper than dirt, and are so common that you can't even give them away no matter what their quality. In fact some of the best games and movies are built on very old ideas. It's the execution that matters, that's where all the hard work, creativity and things that only you have to offer come into play. Someone could straight up rip off every single one of your ideas, get away with it, release it first and get a buzz going, but if you do it better, you will be the one who people associate the idea with, and you'll be the one getting all the credit for it. This means the inverse is true too, but that shouldn't mean you should be scarily hard core about defending your ideas, it means you need to make sure that your execution is the part where your game really shines.


Honestly though, it sounds like you've got world builder's disease. Stop fiddling and start producing, no one will ever care about your ideas if you never do anything with them.

I have no idea if the Video Game industry is going to be different from Creative Writing, but here is at least an answer to "should I copyright my story idea before I get published?": 

Skip to 3:00 to get the start of the question.

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2013/10/14/writing-excuses-8-41-out-of-excuses-retreat-microcasting/

Stories are composed of ideas, and ideas can't be copyrighted. It is very possible that two people will come up with roughly the same storyline (close enough that you might think they copied each other), but they will differ in a variety of ways simply because every writer speaks in a different voice. You can't avoid someone not coincidentally coming up with a similar story to yours.

As for your concerns about people working for you and whether they can steal your ideas and publish them first: As Celianna said, we're not lawyers here, but perhaps look into writing a contract with explicit terms as to their involvement and their duration of employment and have them sign it. Don't leave anything to word of mouth. Also, artists, programmers, or sound designers probably won't even know what the storyline in your game is. If you are hiring them, their responsibilities do not involve reading the script and understanding the story. You can choose how much you reveal to them on that side. Keep in mind that they will want to see how their hard work is contributing to the game, so it's probably not going to help their morale if are a worrywort and hide everything from them if they get curious. From my experience, artists, programmers, sound designers, or animators won't even fully know what the game's storyline is until the very late stages of development.

And if you're unsatisfied with our answers, you should probably consult a copyright lawyer instead.

Pretty much echoing the others, dude, just GO FOR IT! 

It doesn't matter WHAT you put out there, there will always be some knuckle-head who will try (Keyword TRY) to take it.

But... if they "steal your idea" then sadly you've no one to blame but yourself.

Besides, if you don't, you'll be robbing the world of one more great mind, and as we all know, a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

First, let me state that I agree with all of the above - the ideas are cheap, it's the implementation that counts.


And mostly you can only protect your implementation of the idea, because there is no "new" idea anywhere, every imaginable idea has been used before.


That said, here are a few specific answers to your questions:

The key to your setting is it's name. As long as you don't publish anything, that name can be changed - changing it after you released something due to legal claims will cause you a lot of problems from all sides.
So, first search your selected name in google. If anything comes up that is more than a private note, then change it - you don't want to go against a company for trademarks, even if it's a small independent company working at something entirely different. You can do that (the same words can be trademarked multiple times in different product areas), but it's simply not worth the trouble if you haven't used the name before.


Second, go to the website of the trademark office in your country and search it again there - sometimes trademarks are registered but used only years later.


If you want trademark protection (which will cost you probably several hundred dollars), then repeat the searches every few months until about half a year before your planned publication, and if the name is still free then ask for a trademark for that name for yourself.


If you do not want to spent that money, check the use of the trademark by others until the day of your publication, and if it's still free then make a proof that you used it on that day (perhaps by claiming a website with that name then, that will das your claim in the hoster contracts)

Written contracts with non-disclosure-clauses 
 
There are two different copyrights involved in any artwork (or music or whatever) - the content copyright and the work copyright.


To use something you need licences for both, and while the content copyright is yours, the work copyright is always that of the artist creating the work.


That's another reason why contracts and agreements are important - they can be by email if you hire someone on the other side of the world, but you need some proof that you talked about it and decided who can use what - otherwise the resulting artwork can be displayed by neither of you unless risking lawsuits.


Some contracts do transfer one of those copyrights to the other side permanently, but those contracts are rather expensive and usually only big companies use them.

If you want to make it a business, then you need a consultant - for tax purposes before anything else, but also for legal trademarks and more.
But in a lot of countries, the government wants you to start a business (because that will give them more taxes), and often provide those consultants for a reduced fee. For example in Europe there is a program for new business starters to get about thirty hours of professional advisements with a 90% discount on the fees - which means that when you ask for an hour of advice from the people handling that, you'll only have to pay 10% of their hourly fees and the EU pays the other 90%.


Look if your country has similiar programs (however, in most cases you need to proof your business concept before they allow you to claim that help, no one wants to put money in a stupid and doomed business concept)

How should I go about legally protecting my IP and my stories and characters in general and for the long term?  

> Publish it, make sure its being handled with a licensed publisher, or a company placing the ownership to you in placement to their company's effort. Just like how writers today have gone to their own claims of their ideas, characters, and of course, their stories.

In preparation for worst case scenarios, how should I go about making sure my IP is protected from team members or contractors who may work with me for a while then decide to take my ideas and run?

> Trust other people and don't be a paranoid. You're not the only smart ass in town. Someone out there from Chile, Canada, Japan, China, Philippines or even the smallest part of the world may have thought of the same idea as yours, have published it first than you, and you can't do anything about it.

Since I would be releasing games for download online... is it possible that someone from some other country could try to steal the rights to my IP and get away with it because of different laws?  If so, is there any way to prevent this? 

> Putting it on download means its free. depending if it is commercial and its patented over your name (published legally). If not, again, you can't be sure. If someone out there thought the game idea is nice and decides to make another version of it or something about being of the same content, you have no chase against them, since it was after all, free, not unless it was licensed to you through a production.

So my advice, publish your works, patent it and you're good to go.

Thanks everyone for the replies and advice, I really appreciate the help!  If anyone else has any information or suggestions they want to add, please feel free to do so.

 I understand it's unlikely anyone's a lawyer here and even if they were, they're not going to give me professional legal advice over a forum. However, I do know there's a lot of creative types, artists and writers in this community and I figured they would have some experience with this sort of thing. 

Thanks, Andar, for the detailed answers. 

Well, I can say that two of my names which may be in titles for my work (both published stories/novels and games) are common names.  One of these names is a common star name with... last I checked, over 22 million results on google.  The name for my setting is a common alternate name for Earth, since I'm just that uncreative I guess. 

I've heard that words or names in common usage can't really be copyrighted or trademarked, they're sort of in the public domain?

I figure the massive common usage should at least help support my right to use these names, as long as my setting isn't confusingly similar to anyone else's setting or stories, I guess?

I don't see how anyone could enforce a trademark or copyright on such names anymore than they could trademark the word "Earth" or "Sun". Obviously, I wouldn't be trying to copyright/trademark these particular names either. Only the content I attach to them. 

Edit: 

About work copyrights, from what you said Andar, it kind of sounds like you're saying the artist or musician always maintains the right to revoke your usage of the art or music they produced? Unless you get some really expensive professional contract? 

So if I commission art or music for my games and... 5 years later, the artist or musician decides they just don't like me anymore... they can just turn around and revoke my use of their art/music... regardless of how much I paid for it already or what written agreements we had in place?  What if the games are already distributed?  That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. 

No, that's not how it works. Most contracts you'll get from an artist will be a license to use. So you get to use it in your game and they can't change their mind (because that's what you paid for). You have to give them credit for the use. They can use that artwork in their portfolio. You can't resell the artwork to other game makers for their use, but neither can the artist. You should make clear in the contract if you want to use the artwork for more than just a game because that is where things get changed around a lot. Are you going to want to use it in multiple games? How about advertising? What about merchandising? The more things that you'll have license to use the artwork for the more expensive it tends to get.