[joepie91_]

No different from eg. OpenTTD. If they don't distribute any of the original assets or code, copyright is not relevant. That's most likely why they require an original installation to get the game assets from.

They don't present themselves as AoE2 either - saying that it's like AoE2 is not infringing - so no trademark issue either.

Can't see a problem with this.

[Rizz]

Copyright affects more than just assets, it also includes e.g. creative physics. The idea of an RTS in a medieval time period is not copyrightable, but copying all the specific choices AoE2 made even when those choices weren't made because the setting required them can very well be infringement. Calling yourself a clone will also not help you in a court.

Read up on some judges' verdicts on video game clones at: http://adlervermillion.com/copyright-illustrated-video-game-...

[jcl]

Actually, it's quite different from OpenTTD. OpenTTD's source is based on a disassembly of TTD. So far as I can tell, OpenAge is being coded from scratch.

[jehb]

I don't disagree in principle, but the last time I got excited about an open source RTS clone using a game's original assets, this happened:

http://games.slashdot.org/story/03/06/21/1323249/freecraft-c...

(And yes, it's been 11+ years since I got excited about one.)

[Houshalter]

>The development team received a cease and desist order due to the name 'FreeCraft' causing possible confusion with the names StarCraft and WarCraft

Good job blizzard on preventing any games from ever ending in "craft".

[ajuc]

Minecraft seems to bo OK, so it's probably only rts *craft games, possibly only such games that are clones of the real thing.

This kinda makes sense from the trademark POV, try starting sports car company called "Ferari".

[pbhjpbhj]

Starcraft is a product of Blizzard. If you wanted to draw a parallel it would be with a product of Ferrari, so a Testarossa say. And it's only the suffix that's duplicated.

So to get close to a car analogy [it's still poor] it should rather be "try giving away plans for a car called a 'Triangolorossa'".

The real chance of confusion is pretty close to zero but no doubt a motivated lawyer and a legal system corrupted to favour mega-corps would still be able to decide it was a genuine trademark confusion.

If it's a clone then there are copyright issues. If it's not a clone then having a similar but clearly distinct name is not a genuine point of confusion for the public.

[Houshalter]

It would be more like coming out with a sports car with a name ending in "ri", which is meaningless.

Also from the comments on that page:

>I am not a lawyer, but on the surface this case looks similar to one the Supreme Court just decided recently in which Victoria's Secret sued a sex-toy company called Victor's Secret for trademark infringement because of the soundalike name. Victoria lost---the Court held that you must present strong evidence of serious harm before you can sue for trademark infringement over a similar-sounding name.

I doubt there was any evidence of "serious harm", or that any of the players thought it was actually a Blizzard product. A big disclaimer saying "not associated with starcraft, bizzard, etc" should be more than enough to stop any confusion if it existed. But they didn't ask for that, they asked for them to take down the whole thing.