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[leojava]

Hi to everyone, I'm Italian so, excuse me for my really poor english
I'm currently developing a PSP port of pokemon, but I'm not sure it is legal :
I'm using sprites and images from the net that I think are took from the gba/ds rom.
If it is illegal to use these sprites, is it still illegal if they are drawn by some my friends -> scan -> gimp -> used by the EBOOT
thanx for answers

please can anyone answer me?

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[C4TurD4Y]

Using sprites from game is illegal, i think, but if your friends will draw it, it should be ok.

Anyway i think Pokemon (and Poketto Monsuna) are registered trademarks of big N, so i don't know state of fangames with "Pokemon" title.

Wait for NPT's or Wololo's answer, they will tell you closing answer.

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[leojava]

I think there is no matter with the name because there are so many port of SuperMario, so, i think it will be OK naming it PSPokemon (or something similar) (I hope so )

[wololo]

Pokemon is a trademark, I would strongly advise against using this name in a homebrew. As far as the sprites are concerned, if they look too close to the original, this can be considered as plagiarism, so be careful too. The fact that hundreds of games illegally use them doesn't make it legal. Again, it's your responsibility to make sure your game is legal.

[leojava]

"PSPk"?
About the sprites, too close --> if i draw them in another pose, is it ok?
(e.g. a fighter that is standing up --> a fighter that is kicking something (i don't know!! ))
or if i say to the user that he must to download them from the flash, or from the web ?

Anyway, sorry for my bad english
And thanx to everyone who will answer me

[noname120]

"or if i say to the user that he must to download them from the flash, or from the web ?"

This is legal but not for the user unless he have to take the img from a dump of nds card. If the user have to download it, it isn't legal.
I think for the psp genesis, you've to put the full game for the psp genesis.

If you don't know what you can do instead, is a port of mozilla firefox for mobile. I think it isn't hard to port and the full comunity try to find a good web browser. Take a lokk at this link : http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/mobile/

[ultimakillz]

@noname120:

we get it, you want firefox ported to psp. you have posted it three times in different threads, which is considered spamming. you are receiving an official warning for this. if you continue to spam you will be warned/banned appropriately.

[noname120]

Ok, but it's for a good cause.

Promised, I won't spam no more
But It would be nice for everyone.
It's a pity, that there isn't a thread for this.

[Kasumi]

Alright, so this seems to be a good place to post a couple questions.

1. Can one person (who enters more than one program of course) win more than one prize? For instance, get the money for both second and third for two different good programs?

2. I see people planning to enter, or entering clones/psuedo sequels to copyrighted work. Realizing using copyrighted sprites/music and trademark names is not okay, what about obvious clones with none of the above?

My primary project is original, though of course has a passing resemblance to other games. (As similar as say, Metal Slug and Contra are to each other.)

I ask because, should I actually finish I may start on an entry that will likely be a clone of a popular game.

[wololo]

Sorry for the late reply, I'm slowly catching up on posts from the past 2 weeks

Alright, so this seems to be a good place to post a couple questions.

1. Can one person (who enters more than one program of course) win more than one prize? For instance, get the money for both second and third for two different good programs?

Yes

2. I see people planning to enter, or entering clones/psuedo sequels to copyrighted work. Realizing using copyrighted sprites/music and trademark names is not okay, what about obvious clones with none of the above?

My personal opinion is that one cannot copyright and idea. Of course, using trademarked names is not a good idea (you shouldn't name your game "Final Fantasy 14", for example), but we don't have the manpower to verify that you are infringing on somebody else's work. It is your responsibility as a homebrew developer to make sure your stuff is legal. If the judges find out that some work is infringing some copyright, this will obviously have a negative impact on the marks we give to the homebrew, and depending on how big this is, the homebrew might get removed from the competition.

My primary project is original, though of course has a passing resemblance to other games. (As similar as say, Metal Slug and Contra are to each other.)

I ask because, should I actually finish I may start on an entry that will likely be a clone of a popular game.

I wouldn't worry about that. Ideas are not a thing anybody can copyright. As long as you stay away from trademarked names, and copyrighted material, my personal opinion is that this is perfectly fine.