What exactly is covered under copyright of a game?

If I make a turn based "card" game with magical creatures, is that copyright infringement on Magic: The Gathering (tm)?

The laws can't be that tight because Untreal Tournament is not an infringement on Doom. Warcraft is not an infringement on Command and Conquer.

What exactly is covered under the laws? It seems like gameplay can be almost duplicated with minor changes and it's ok.

i can give you dozens of games that are
more or less clones of Magic, from pokemon cards
to star trek cards...

my best bet is to do 2 things:

1. buy a "Magic: The Gathering" small cardbox and see
what exactly they copyrighted. You can do the same by visiting
their webpage.

2. look at other games that came out (even before) that
uses the same scheme.

like you said, once you have lots of the same game in the
market, you can use it as a new game in the genere and
not as a trademark violation.

Well, I’m no lawyer, but…

According to freeadvice.com, “Copyright protection is available only for "original" works that are "fixed" in a "tangible medium of expression"”. So, as long as your card game does not have a card with the same image or text as one of Magic’s cards, there should be no copyright infringement. But, if your card game was so close to Magic that you could be “mistakenly accused” of copying it, then you have a problem. :D In computer gaming land though, game designs are pretty much considered as “ideas”, which cannot be copyrighted. So, as long as you’re not copying a game’s source code, art, binary, etc. you “should” be fine.

Oh, and you don’t have to state something is copyrighted, it’s automatic. So, say you start writing an original essay. It’s already copyrighted once you put your pencil to the paper.

Originally posted by Caeddyn
Oh, and you don’t have to state something is copyrighted, it’s automatic. So, say you start writing an original essay. It’s already copyrighted once you put your pencil to the paper.

Wouldn't it be wise to warn people who arent farmiliar with
copyright laws by stating its copywrited?

Okay, I'm no lawyer either, but I've been down this road a few times. There are three or four separate issues here: copyrights, trademarks, patents, and maybe intellectual property.

Copyrights as others have said are essentially the rights to make copies (not too hard, huh? :) ). As soon as you put an original work into a fixed form -- on paper, an electronic doc, sculpture, whatever -- you own the copyrights to it. You can create something like what someone else has created, but the degree of likeness can be an issue: something that's considered a 'derivative work' -- that derives most of its value from its similarity to the original work -- probably violates the owner's copyrights. OTOH there are things like parodies that are specifically excluded from copyrights. And you can't copyright a title (which is one of the reasons why TSR originally trademarked the title "Dungeons and Dragons").

Trademarks are sort of like copyrighted material, but not quite: these are the marks of your trade. Unlike copyrighted material, you typically have to register a trademark for it to have any validity. But there are exclusions for non-registered trademarks that become exclusively associated with you. These days having the rights to a domain name online is often deemed more important than registering a trademark, unless you really held (and used) the trademark first, as was the case with the guy who registered mcdonalds.com back in the early 1990s and couldn't get the fast-food chain interested in it -- until a few years later when they summarily took ownership of it. And then there are trademarks that slip into common usage (kleenex, zipper) and which, if left 'undefended' can lose their validity.

And then there are patents, which are registrations of novel or unique processes. If I recall correctly, WoTC (now Hasbro) was awarded a patent on the process of tapping (turning 90 degrees) cards as part of gameplay. You might say this is just another example of an incredibly stupid patent that would never be upheld on an appeal, and I'd agree with you. I'd also be be very reluctant to go up against Hasbro's army of lawyers, as I don't have the $500K or so needed to challenge a stupid patent in court.

The last one, intellectual property, is the most nebulous of all. Can you copyright the idea of a collectable card game? No, you can't copyright ideas, only their implementations. Can you trademark a CCG? No, but you just might be able to trademark "CCG" (probably not, but it's possible). Can you patent the key gameplay elements that are part of a CCG? Yes, definitely: WoTC and 3DO have relevant patents in this area; others may too. But can you create a cool card game that sorta feels like Magic:The Gathering but doesn't violate their copyrights, trademarks, or patents? Probably. If it was a really strong game one of two things might happen: either Hasbro/WoTC would send you a "cease and desist" letter from their lawyers ... or they'd offer to buy your little company. It could go either way. In general, the more you rely on someone else's idea -- and more importantly, the implementation of their idea -- then the more you're relying on their perceived intellectual property. This may or may not stop you from making a successful game, but it does increase your chances of having your efforts hampered by having to spend more time dealing with the other guys' lawyers.

Thanks for the help.

My game design is significantly different from any other game, but it does contain "magical" cards, and it is a strategy game. The game play is drastically different though.

Good to know tapping is patented. I won't use that. (That is probably the dumbest patent I've ever heard). But while I'm at it, I think I'll patent the process of "drawing" a card from the deck. I'm going to use that and I don't want anyone to copy that.