Because I thought it seemed awful similar to something the Action Age guys had already published last year... Exterminape
Now when I first saw Hitman Monkey, I thought the two ideas were similar, but didn't say much about it because I sometimes see connections and patterns that other people don't see. (It's a blessing and a curse...)
But this week over at Bleeding Cool, Rich Johnston has a post about another person working on a project called King Monkey for Zuda. In the comments thread this is spun off in that post, another poster makes the same Exterminape/Hitman Monkey connection that I did. (Albeit, this poster doesn't exactly make a favorable comparison, but people on messageboards can be douchebags sometimes...)
Anyway, this brings me to the point of my post today.
Seeing the problem of people sort of stepping on each others ideas like this makes me wonder, exactly how do you protect your idea in this day and age?
In the old days, the best way to ensure a poor man's copyright was to send yourself a script in the mail and not open the letter - the idea being that a US Postmark would hold up in court as proof that you came up with an idea first. (With the given assumption that you will then use the concept or script in a working format and not just put it in your desk drawer. If you just send yourself ideas all day, but don't actually implement them, then the poor man's copyright is worthless.)
Now, I don't really think that Hitman Monkey is really going to tread the same ground as Exterminape, but what if it did? How would one take action if you felt your ideas were being usuped by a multi-billion dollar corporation? Does a blog timestamp stand up in court as proof of first concept? Maybe this whole idea of just throwing ideas onto the internet isn't the best course of action?
I have no clue, so please feel free to tell me what you think!
Have a great weekend,
- Jim
3 comments:
What about CREATIVE COMMONS:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/
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Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Attribute this work:
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Here is an article on how CC has all ready been held up in a court of law:
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5823
monkey's, gorilla's, and various other simian critters have a long history in comics. As far as protecting your ideas go, monkey/Ape character that uses a gun/is smart, nothing original about that -Monsieur Mallah comes to mind along with Gorilla Grodd. Your better off just trying to make your story stand out -by whatever means- from everything else that has gone before, or is out there now.
@Caine - Yeah, I think that Creative Commons license might be a good way to protect yourself now. I've actually seen it on a number of sites.
@RKB - yeah, I agree. A lot of times, it's not about the the originality of an idea that makes it work, but the way it was carried out. I've seen quite a few Zuda ideas that were very original, but didn't seem to get implemented in the right way. And on the flipside, I've seen ideas that were not original at all, but were carried out in a really nice fashion, so they ended up succeeding.
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