
To The People Who Copied Our Game: Good Luck - mrtnkl
http://q42.nl/blog/post/88954895323/to-the-people-who-copied-our-game-good-luck
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pertinhower
No. No no no. Sue them. Sue them dead. Where product and brand robbery
thrives, developers wither. What's the point in working hard in developing a
game (or anything) if all your hard decisions are just going to be copied in a
matter of weeks? Why bother? There is certainly an evil side to copyright,
trademark, and patent, but these weapons have a place on the side of justice
too. Unprotected developers—at least those for whom the money or glory has
significance—will give up eventually. When imagination doesn't pay off, the
only ones left will be the unimaginative, the copy cats, the cloners. Sue
them, for our sake if not yourselves.

~~~
stackcollision
My grandfather said that he went broke twice in his life: once when he was
sued, and once when he sued someone else. Lawsuits are expensive, and if this
game isn't making enough money to warrant that money-sink, they might end up
putting themselves in an even worse position.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
This is why there needs to be some kind of indie developers' (/ artists'?)
union which can afford to fight the big companies abusing their position.

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Pxtl
You should steal one thing back: the Quento lite icon looks _way_ better than
the Quento one.

Or is that the new flat convention for iOS?

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stefantalpalaru
> Well, we’ve had our own share of Cease & Desist situations and we decided we
> didn’t want to be on either side of such a conversation.

This is exactly how it should be done. Take a stand against harmful practices
and refrain from using them in your advantage when you have the chance.

~~~
matthewmacleod
It's absolutely, completely reasonable to take legal action against someone
when they violate copyright you hold on things you created. Arguing that this
is intrinsically a "harmful practice" is asinine.

~~~
wtetzner
Was copyright violated in this case?

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amykhar
It seems to me, this could actually drive sales for Quento. People will play
the Quento lite, and not like the ads. They will go to buy the full version,
and find Quento.

~~~
joekrill
Or, Quento lite is so poorly done that people assume they are from the same
company and simply avoid Quento altogether.

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pessimizer
Giving a game to the world is a wonderful thing, and if it's a good game,
it'll last longer than you. Better for the world that we compete on the
quality of our implementations rather than the right to implement, or the
right to identify what you're implementing.

To be clear: IMO you'd be entirely moral to defend your trademark here, but
you're being exceptionally generous to let it go.

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izzydata
Looking at those two games side by side in the store the lite version looks
more professional. Can I suggest having a nice appealing icon like Quento
Lite? Might do wonders.Just from the icon you can tell that it is some kind of
math puzzle, but you have no idea what you are getting with a plus in a yellow
square.

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waterfowl
so are you mad or are you not mad? Hard to tell if you're being edgy and
sarcastic or ironic or what. Can't wait for the lite version of your other
puzzle.

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Eric_WVGG
I must admit that “AkaSoft” is a stunning name.

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Geekette
Way to roll over and play dead in face of such blatant theft. The phrase
"we’ve had our own share of Cease & Desist situations" also gives a fleeting
reader the impression that the company's being complacent because they've been
guilty of the same crime in the past: I didn't bother delving in to read that
back story and I suspect many other readers may not.

If the above is not the case, then at a minimum, you should:

* Assess your rights vs economic implications: A C&D letter with legal help might be enough to get the offender to stop; nothing wrong in stating your rights and pointing out violations. Does it cost too much to do this? Contact the app stores; they might respond favorably and yank the apps.

* Assess branding/marketing implications: how is this playing out in your customers minds and actions?

\- What can we learn? - What faults does this highlight in our product or
operations? Note a few people have mentioned that the ripoff version seems
more visually appealing. The only thing worse than being ripped off is if the
ripoff is better than your product in any way. So maybe a visual edit should
be placed higher on your task list.

\- How do we respond tactically? Referring not to legal but customer facing
options. Ie What is the minimum action we can take that will at least show
users that the ripoff is not from us?

...Etcetera

~~~
Geekette
Why the downvote? What's wrong with expressing why the company in question
should not be complacent in face of such aggressive plagiarism/violation by
another company?

~~~
RobAley
I didn't downvote you, but I'm gonna guess it's due to the tone of your post :

> Way to roll over

> I didn't bother delving

> you should [do this]

etc.

~~~
Geekette
Ah. But "The way to roll over..." was not meant as an insult, rather to
express frustration at the fact that the person/company in the right was going
to left the offender get away with it. Mentioning that many readers would read
only the current story was to show how they could get the wrong impression
about this company and I tried to keep it constructive by offering suggestion
on minimal actions the company could take that could produce positive results.

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intull
Considering this situation where the developers don't want to take a stand
against Quento Lite, what if, Quento developers add a couple of features to
the original game release it as "Quento 2"? How would the reaction be like?
More downloads, because of the new version? Would people ditch Quento Lite
then?

~~~
chillingeffect
I think you're right. It's really about adding value. Emphasis on the "ing".

So, they addED value once by creating the game. Then someone else diminished
that value. Now it's up to them to keep adding value.

The people who deserve to win are not the ones who make an idea first. The
people who deserve to win are the ones who put together a team and add value
in all dimensions - marketing, delivery, support, innovation, accounting, etc.

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chrisBob
Is there a good way to deal with this? Even the curated Apple Store is full of
clones. In this case claiming copyright or Trademarking the name would force
at least a small change in the clone, but they could adjust the spelling.

~~~
eli
Writing a blog post about it that is likely to introduce your apps to tens of
thousands of new people isn't the worst idea for a response :)

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BrianEatWorld
Has anyone tried both of these? I can't help but notice in the screens that
Quento Lite has five stars while Quento only has four.

~~~
pgsandstrom
Quento has 3353 gradings, Quento Lite has 6.

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joshdance
Couldn't tell which screenshot was which.

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sevkih
is it only me or does one of the characters from the other game they mentioned
look a lot like eggman from sonic

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cliveowen
You should copyright the name before you release a game on the app store, then
you can have some leverage when asking for removal.

~~~
dragonwriter
Product names are not subject to copyright. Trademark is probably what you are
thinking of.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
copyright isn't something that you 'do', either, it just 'is'.

~~~
izzydata
I'm pretty sure you can get a more formal copyright paper if you file it.
However, it doesn't matter and you could even do it after the fact if someone
infringes your copyright.

[http://www.copyright.gov/eco/](http://www.copyright.gov/eco/)

