Hi Charles, Sigh...Sorry, but that is not a sound legal defense in my opinion. Granted I am no lawyer, and my understanding of copyright law, is based on what I have read. However, the fact that said content is inaccessible to a blind person doesn't give someone legal rights to just use it without explicit permission.That's where the catch 22 comes in.
If I want to use Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, whatever I must legally license it from the copyright holder. However, the copyright holders are use to licensing their stuff to big name game developers like Activision, Capcom, Sony Entertainment, etc and their royalties are generally pretty steep. A lot more than a guy who might make $10,000 tops off a game could afford. So their counter argument would be I should have legally licensed the copyright from their licensing division, and the courts may uphold that argument. The fact I was unable to pay the licensing fees would be immaterial. Besides which you are forgetting the cost of court fees to begin with. Weather the "I'm blind and your games isn't accessible" argument holds up or not where am I suppose to come up with $1,000 for the retainer fees for a lawyer plus any other court fees just to file the initial motions etc. I just looked at my finances and found out if I paid $75 for the Blindsoftware.com games I would be cutting things pretty close this month. Now, imagine if I can't come up with $75 on short notice money for fighting it out in court with a copyright holder with money to burn isn't very darn likely. Cheers! On 4/19/13, Charles Rivard <[email protected]> wrote: > I would probably be wrong, but if they want to take someone who produces an > > audio game dealing with their material, could this be a defense: There is > no game that blind people can play based on this material from anyone, you > in particular. You have been contacted several times on this matter, and > have not responded concerning the making of such a game. The fact that no > such game existed until now shows that this game does not detract from your > > sales. You had the opportunity to produce such a game and did not do so. > > -- > If guns kill people, writing implements cause grammatical and spelling > errors! --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
