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[AtionSong]

[PROJECT] Save Perplex City!

[poozle]

I know this is going to sound negative but I can't see it ever happening, I would be very suprised if they let us do it and I just don't think it would be the same without the original writers, art-team, etc. Sorry I really want Perplex City back but I just can't see it happening.

[Caz]

Yes we can start a fan game,

If make new characters have live in perplex city and have min/sub-story's I can't see how MC can stop us after all it helps them to sell more cards.

I had the idea of in the brake after of Running an ARG with in the ARG using the make own cards and putting meta puzzles on them that led to a sub/fan story.

but there a catch 22 here if where put time and effete in to the PXC fan game just let MC sell there cards, why don't we just start owner own games free of MC.

[isca]

Yes..Perplex City could have a twin city!

As for the legitimacy, it depends what MC want to do with PXC - it might be on the backburner at the moment and waiting for a better time, when technology has advanced; when funds are available; when MC has explored other avenues (childrens gadgets) and tested them to destruction.

I feel the target audience didn't integrate well with the financial model for PXC and MC were way too generous to be sustainable - who else gives away cards, beer, tshirts, etc...

[YahwehTzVaoth]

Can't speak for British copyright law, but in the good ol' US of A I can talk a little.

Using the intellectual property of Mind Candy to create a "fan game" without their permission is a clear copyright violation.

So, if you want to be crazy safe, don't do it, its illegal.


However, as with everything in the law, proper analysis is more complicated than that.

The complication here comes from the "fair use" doctrine. The doctrine stands for the basic premise that once a copyrighted work is diseminated, it becomes a part of a places culture to a variable degree. It would not make sense to have the law set up such that I could not publically say anything about Star Wars without the Copyright holder's permission (20th Century Fox?).

Thanks to fair use, two essential things are largely allowed, the appropiration of copyrighted material for review purposes and satire. Thus, I can write "I feel that Jar Jar Binks looks silly," and provide the attached photo without running afoul of the US Copyright Code. Also, the creators of innumeral parodies of Star Wars around (i.e. Chad Vader) do not have to have anyone's permission.

Broadcasters may be in an odd - irrelevant in your case - situation as they are showing copyrighted material to a great many people. This may be why movie clips on TV often say "Provided by _________ Studios>"
Haven't looked into this, I don't represent any broadcasters.

(I could talk about how you cannot copyright an idea, but that's sort of off-topic).


The situation of a fan-made product falls under fair use analysis wherein four factors are examined:
1. the purpose and character of your use
2. the nature of the copyrighted work
3. what amount and proportion of the whole work was taken, and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Factors three and four are the most important. Taking four first, any fan made game/senario for perplex city is unlikely to uproot Perplex City from the Pay for parts of an ARG market. Also, if the game is not going to be run in the near future, the copyrighted work - PXC arg - is no longer in the market. Furthermore, given that the ARG portion of Perplex City did not really requrie money to begin with, it somewhat difficult to establish that there ever was a market. At the very least, damages would be difficult to calculate as the primary business model behind PXC at Mind Candy seems to the use of an ARG to promote extra merchandise. Difficult to say that a fan game would not have grant this same benefit in the ARG community.

Part three is where things could get troublesome. If you took up all of the characters and aspects of Perplex City into your own fan-game, that'd probably be a violation. Anything less than this muddies the waters.

CONCLUSION: You can probably make a fan-made ARG without Mind Candy's permission so long as you do not sell anything for a profit. I always wanted to get something in the mail from an ARG, you could charge cost of production and shipping.

Maybe something real neat would happen and Mind Candy would absorb you into thier fold like EA did Trauma Studios after the total conversion Desert Combat mod for Battlefield 1942.

SUGGESTION: There must be thousands, if not millions, of people who live in Perplex City. In making a fan PXC ARG, invent some new characters and have them do things in the city while interacting with familiar themes and landmarks. I find it hard to beleive that te Perplex City Sentinel is the only newspaper with an interdimensional website. All sorts of people can have blogs.

On a more personal level, if you do do this, in addition to the mail thing I mentioned, I would really love to see what everyday life is like when you live in Perplex City. It seems like the kind of place where you have to solve a puzzle just for doing simple things.
Guy A: "I'd like a hot dog, please."
Guy B: "Only if you can answer this riddle: What has...."
Guy A: "Sorry to interupt, but I'm pretty sure that I just want to give you some money and get my dog and maybe some change. Kind of only have an hour for lunch."

There's an idea for your premise: People from Earth try to live in Perplex City.

[xnera]

Good post, YahwehTzVaoth.

Orson Scott Card allows fans of his works role-play in special forums on his message boards. I haven't participated much myself, but my understand is that there's some specific rules you must agree to:

1) You cannot play any character from any of his works. I'm not sure about this, but you might not even be allowed to mention any of his original characters.
2) The period of the role-play does not coincide with the period in the books. For example, I believe the role play for the Alvin Maker series is set several decades before the events in the books.

Both of these rules help to ensure that copyright is maintained. Personally I think it'd be really cool to explore the past or future of PXC, so you might want to consider that. IANAL, though... just wanted to share one example of fan role-play. I'd strongly suggest getting permission first before venturing forward with your plans.