Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 11:56:29 -0500 From: Kevin Day <toasty@dragondata.com> To: Andrzej Bialecki <abial@webgiro.com>, Kevin Day <toasty@dragondata.com> Cc: Narvi <narvi@haldjas.folklore.ee>, "Daniel C. Sobral" <dcs@newsguy.com>, Nik Clayton <nik@FreeBSD.ORG>, freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: "The Matrix" screensaver, v.0.2 Message-ID: <4.2.0.58.19990822114423.00ad3cc0@nfs.dragondata.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9908221837420.54625-100000@freja.webgiro.com > References: <4.2.0.58.19990822095052.00ad17c0@nfs.dragondata.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
At 06:44 PM 8/22/99 +0200, Andrzej Bialecki wrote: >On Sun, 22 Aug 1999, Kevin Day wrote: > >[trademark violation warning] > >Ok, maybe you have a point - I dont know, I'm not a lawyer. But with this >line of reasoning they could claim that anything using falling letters >effect on your screen partly violates they trademarked special effect, >which is silly. > >What can we do, then? Why don't we ask them politely if it's ok? > >Andrzej Bialecki While I can't speak for how Warner Brothers' lawyers are, as a general rule.. "It's much easier to say No, than it is to say Yes, and regret it later." If you ask, you'll probably get a No. It's not that you made a falling letter effect, it's that you made a falling letter effect to copy the effect in the movie, and it does look very much like what's in the movie. That could be called willful infringement. While I doubt they'd stop a fan from making something like this, (I don't know this for a fact though, see what Paramount did with Trek sites before, or Mattel with Barbie) they may be more led to taking action against a product being sold that contains it. (FreeBSD being sold by Walnut Creek and others). If this is distributed as a fan based thing, the worst they'd likely do is say "Take it down.". If this is on thousands of FreeBSD cd's, it could become a financial problem if they want to take it far enough. This is just my opinion though, and not to be used as legal advice for anyone. I just don't want FreeBSD to become a ball of intellectual property infringements. :) Kevin To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?4.2.0.58.19990822114423.00ad3cc0>