I've just read Brad's post....
Hmm...
"unrelated"
"ideas not copyrightable"?..
Actually, when dance moves are copyrightable (
Fortnite cases), certain expressions (ideas) certainly are.That's what books, films, and images are about.
And hammering on the Street Fighter (Capcom) case does not help, as the judge did find the games substantially similar. (
Source) The idea of a martial arts game was not being defended by Capcom, but the characters, moves, and control sequence for the special moves were.
In the streetfighter case, "The court did not find Data East’s [
defendant] evidence persuasive, as while other outside sources may have influenced the development of the Fighter’s History characters, there was no doubt that Street Fighter II characters also provided a significant source of inspiration."
Also regarding the similarity in how the special moves were activated (button sequence): "While the Court was disturbed by these “coincidences” in some of the arbitrary control sequences, it concluded that because the control sequences did not constitute protectable expression, these isolated similarities were not actionable. "
Also, "
The court found that three characters and five special moves in Fighter’s History were similar to protectable characters and special moves in Street Fighter II. ", but the final "
subjective analysis of similarity" (not objective, so not a clear cut case, an appeal court may have a different subjective feeling) found that Capcom held no copyright because the stuff was known from before (outside of games).
Resulting in "the court determined that Capcom had failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits or even serious questions concerning the merits". (they failed to show that they actually had a copyright.)
Finally, the Street Fighter distributor lost, because martial art games simply have typical moves transferred from martial arts, and those weren't copyrightable in the game because "known", and the button sequence often followed that move. Read
Claude Stern's interview on Street Fighter 2 History page for a short summary (he was the defendant's attorney). (the passage/paragraph starting with "I think [Data East was] very nervous.")
Also, it was no full-blown case, but "only" a request by Capcom for a preliminary injunction against the alleged copy.
Now if Stardock could prove that scientifically a "HyperSpace" is likely to be red-shifted (and not just black), will likely have moving "streaks" and will have a hole near gravity wells, then F&P could not claim a copyright on that FTL expression (or the scientific paper would lead to them losing the copyright held until then), but again, I presume if Stardock would be able to prove that, earning money with games would become a lucrative side-job when selling games to the crews outward bound from our Solar system with the HyperSpace drive provided by Stardock Inc.
I was not that happy about the DMCA at that late stage, but F&P did agree to not send a DMCA while Stardock had their preliminary injunction in court phase...
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