I guess it was to be expected at some point, but I wasn’t expecting it that fast, I must say.
I received a very aggressive email from WotC’s lawyers today.
It doesn’t seem to be a prank, and I do respect WotC’s work enough not to think about it twice. Downloads, videos and pictures have been (or will be soon) removed, until we can come back with a version of Wagic that doesn’t use any copyrighted material.
Please do not complain about downloads not working, we’ll be working as fast as we can to find a solution.
Below is a copy of the email I received (email address removed to prevent this poor guy from getting spam):
We are counsel for Wizards of the Coast, Inc. (“Wizards”), the owner of the copyrights and trademarks for the MAGIC: THE GATHERING® trading card game. We have recently became aware that you are posting on YouTube videos and making available on your own website a game called Wagic that you admit to be a copy of the MAGIC: THE GATHERING® trading card game. This unauthorized copying of Wizards’ MAGIC: THE GATHERING® trading card game constitutes blatant copyright infringement in violation of 17 U.S.C. § 501.
On behalf of Wizards, we therefore demand that you immediately cease and desist from providing, and remove or disable access to, the infringing content identified above, as well as to remove from your website infringing visual content copied from Wizards’ game.
In addition, to assist Wizards in determining the harm that has been done by this very serious infringement, we also demand that you furnish us with information concerning the length of time that you have been making the game available and any revenue you received from the downloads of the game. We will then be in a position to discuss monetary compensation for his unauthorized use.
Please provide us with the requested information and your written agreement to the above, as soon as possible and in any event within five days. This letter does not purport to be a complete statement of the facts or the law and is without prejudice to Wizards’ legal and equitable rights.
Kim J. Landsman
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP
1133 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10036-6710
Direct Tel: 212.336.2980
Direct Fax: 212.336.2985
E-mail: xxxxxxxxxxxx
WAHHHHH!!! T.T
that is the worst news I have heard… here you are helping us to be able to play our favourite card game on psp without paying a single cent but they just want to stop you from making our dreams come true…
hope that wagic will continue to grow into an awesome homebrew
good luckdont let it get you down willow… you can find a work around….much less you were already removing WotC copyrighted material and you never did get any money for your downloads…….
Monetary damage that Wagic may have caused? If anything, Wagic has probably benefited Wizards of the Coast by attracting new fans from the PSP user base and by bring old fans back to the game. I, for example, had not played MtG for over 2 years. However, in finding this homebrew game, I started playing Magic again and have actually BOUGHT SOME CARDS. I’ve even convinced some of my other friends to play. I can speak with certainty that I am not a unique case.
I hope that they do not fine you. I would find that simply ridiculous.
I’m curious as to which parts of your program fall under copyright infringement. Is it the use of the MtG rule system? The use of card images? If the problem is the rule system, I’m not sure how this can be remedied; However, if the only issue is the use of card images, I think I have a simple work-around. (Although I’m sure that you can or already have come up with this possibility yourself).
“We will then be in a position to discuss monetary compensation for (T)his unauthorized use.”
hmm they misspelled “this”… bad bad lawyers
i hope they burn on a stake
Let’s keep cool with all of this, they’re just doing their job, after all.
Their main concern I think is copyrighted stuff. For MTG that means the graphics (card images, icons, …). All of this will be removed from next release.the game rules don’t have copyrights, but are protected by a patent system. Such a patent doesn’t exist in France (you cannot patent game mechanics in France), and I’m sure they wouldn’t lose their time going through the French law complexity to sue some poor homebrew. But to stay safe, we’ll try to put the rules outside of the code.
If only this meant WotC was planning to release something on the PSP, that’d be great, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the case
Actually, you do ask for donations, which can be considered monetary compensation. So be very careful. I would consult a lawyer.
read the words… the law-dogs say “revenue for downloads”, willow does not charge money for use to enjoy this program….
Yeah, that Anonymous post was definitely a non-educated statement, and if suggested in court, would not hold up at all. Don’t worry about revenue as it has been obvious that you haven’t made any for sales of the program, since it’s been free ever since existance. This really is a poor move on Wizards of the Coasts side. I use to play MtG way back in the day, and stopped playing all together in 1995. This game has actually brought my interest back to the game, and if WoTC decides to further continue a lawsuit against you.. I for one will definitely stop supporting them in any purchaces, and certainly will explain the situation to everyone I know that plays.
I think WotC won’t go as far as suing me as long as I play by the rules and remove the copyrighted images. Actually, they probably don’t even know about this whole story. I think their lawyers do all the “bad” work for them without them even having to know this happens.
It’s nice to read your supportive comments guys, that’s really appreciated!The dreaded Cease & Desist, eh? Well, I’ll be interested to see what happens if you do keep releasing, just without card images. We’re considering (among many options) releasing with completely custom-designed cards, and wondering exactly what legal gray area it falls into.
So I’d be your Guinea Pig, hu ?
I wonder how the creators of magic workstation manage to avoid any problem with wotc whereas their program is used by lots of people. I think you should ask them.
While these lawyers are probably really good at telling you what you can’t do, it may be worthwhile if given the chance to speak with them to ask exactly you can do in order to keep developing this game. Perhaps they’ll understand that you have this wonderful product with a strong fan-base and as said before simply removing any WotC trademarks will get you out of the fire.
Good luck!
I wish you luck with this issue. I hope you can get away with just removing copyrighted material and keep the rules checking! I’ll follow your progress…
Before this port, i never picture myself playing Magic in my life. Since the second or third release of Wagic i’ve been playing. and now at school, instead of paying attention in English class, we bought Magic cards to play. everything i know about Magic was through Wagic. it taught me through trial and error until i finally understood the fundamentals of the game (even though i lost like 100 times xD)
I feecl fohr yoeu brko anyd i wisoh yoru thpe besmt of luck
p.s. sorry for the spelling, but you could always sound it out
Sorry to hear this, as I am a HUGE fan of the program, and am very grateful to you for it.
I’m no lawyer, but I’ve seen this issue come up before about M:tG. There are three things that are protected by law in the game. The artwork, the flavor text (except for the ones that quote from literature), and the game mechanics. the artwork in PSP Wagic though is so low-resolution that Wizards would have a very hard time going after you for those. Thumbnails (less than 150×150 pixels, I believe) do not qualify as copyright infringements. The mana symbols, however, are very specific to the game, and they might qualify as infringements. Wagic doesn’t include flavor text (or at least I haven’t seen any), so that leaves just the game mechanics. If Wagic had no AI and forced the player to do everything himself, then that would cover that problem as well.
Someone asked how Magic Workstation (another free program) gets away with it. One reason is it doesn’t include the artwork, which is all copyrighted. They leave that to third party sites that the player can download from those instead. The Workstation also doesn’t include the actual game mechanics – the players have to do everything. Wizards could go after them for including the card text, but maybe they feel that would be too weak of a case? Unlike Wagic though, Magic Workstation does cost money for the full version, so you would think that WotC would be much more concerned with them. They might also have based their business in some untouchable third-world country.
They should play WTH and pay you to make a commercial version =)
Haha that would be great
Fuck you, Wizards. Fuck you with a rusty poleaxe handle, douchebags.
I am quitting Magic NOW. And will solely play Wagic from now on.I believe wizards believes that if people can play magic on thier psp they prolly wont want to spend on cards, i have spent $14,000 on cards since beta came out, and i stopped playing cause i didnt want to trash my cards, now im playing again because this homebrew got me intested again,
they could prolly learn something from a company like microsoft when somebody makes a good software buy it from them and kill 2 birds with one stone, im sure this game would take off like wildfire many psp owners have money or they wouldnt have a psp, would be nice if it were sold in expansions sets. anyhow im sure all will be fine just getting copyright stuff off your page…. best wishes… i will keep playing wagic and magic.Pingback from Wagic – Magic en PSP o PC - Feel The Byte on November 15, 2009 at 8:37 pm
But how and WHERE to insert the cardpictures?
You are the best programmer for the magic game!!!
The Company of Magic is unworthy to programm a good game, you should get the license ^^
I tried to program for magic in Basic but i must say its really hard.
Ok i hope som you can add some cards eg. Magus of the future and so, if not please contact me and descript me the code and i try to program ^^
ok good job ^^ (sorry for the ugly english)
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