berzerk78 Posted September 5, 2003 Share Posted September 5, 2003 hey all brand spanking new to this forum. im a graphic designer / artist. one of my current projects ive come up with recently is a site dedicated to a specific old school atari 2600 activision character - specifically activision ice hockey. i was going to do a website under the title of something along the lines of "Hockey Man". anyhow my question is one i see posted all around the forum. Do i need legal copyright concent for a site dedicated to a character ??? i mean u can search anywhere on the net and see sites dedicated toward a slew of video characters i just wanted to be sure. on a more riske topic. what is the legality of making a tshirt dedicated to "hockey man" ????? I know there must be some sort of copyright but, can anyone direct me to a site or enlighten me with their knowledge of such a matter. Hockey guy is of course a very raw and crude character built from basic pixels. does anyone know if one could get in trouble for copying pixels. so anyways. 1. is a website dedicated to a character ok?? and 2. tshirt with image? thanks in advance for anyone who can help me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariDude Posted September 6, 2003 Share Posted September 6, 2003 I am not a lawyer nor have I been in discussion with a lawyer but I think so long as it is not a complete exact copy of the game characters in the game then you are ok. You need to make enough changes to the characters so that it does not appear to be an exact match. The issue at hand is whether or not you wish to present the character as your own original artwork or if you are merely taking a screenshot, re-drawing the character based on the screen shot and then claiming that it is your original work. That is what could possibly get you in trouble. I don't think Activision would go to the trouble of suing you because financially, it would not be worth their while to do so. Unless you are making untold millions of dollars on an unofficial character that is based on the game character from the original game, I don't think they would bother. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sku_u Posted September 6, 2003 Share Posted September 6, 2003 I think you'll be fine. There are several sites that use Pitfall Harry as a character. Whether or not it is legal is another matter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 welcome to the grey area, yea its illegal. chances of that being an issue : very small. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolenta Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 The CGE shirts this year featured characters from Space Invaders and the Intellivision Sports Games (there was a third but I don't remember what it was). You may want to check with John or Sean to see if they dealt with this copyright issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 AFAIK the image of the hockey player itself is not copyrighted...so you could use it as long as no references to AcTiVision's Ice Hockey are made. Same goes for the individual Space Invader images or InTV sports character images (identical-looking characters appeared in many games by different companies for different platforms back in the day...there is only so many ways you can arrange 8 bits). However, if you were talking PacMan or Mario...that would be a different story. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwilkson Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 The CGE shirts this year featured characters from Space Invaders and the Intellivision Sports Games (there was a third but I don't remember what it was). It was the "duck" from Adventure!!! -Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 That's no duck, It's a space station! (err... dragon, yea!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.FoodMonster Posted September 11, 2003 Share Posted September 11, 2003 i think that if you infringe then you will be sent an email and have so many days to take down the site, so you should be good Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.