After ZeniMax sent the lawyers knocking, the developer of what was called DoomRL (Doom Roguelike) has changed it's name to 'DRL' [Github, Official Site] and it's now open source.
ZeniMax are well within their rights to "protect" the Doom brand, but I still think their lawyers are idiotic for doing this. It's not like small-time roguelike was actually competing with the real Doom.
It's quite amusing really, the logo still uses the Doom style, but is also now just DRL and the title of the website is now "DRL - D**m, the roguelike". The developer must have had a giggle editing it all.
The code is under the GPL 2.0 license, while the original art is under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.
Find it on github here.
The developer is currently working on Jupiter Hell [Official Site], a new roguelike without any ties to Doom that needs a push on Kickstarter.
1. You have to defend your brand if you want to keep it else you risk a summary judgement against you for not doing to when it 'matters' ( eg. when a large competitor uses your brand )
2. Their mooching off of tre doom brand dilutes it's value and may cause harm to the brand.
I doubt any one would batter if an eye if coca-cola squashed "coca cola: the refreshing rouge lite adventure", so I don't get why people are rushing to the defense of a game that obviously named it self after another larger game to attract attention.
Quoting: dibzIt's just copyright law, they have to defend it whether it's competing or not unfortunately.
No they don't, it is completely optional whether they want to make an issue out of it on a case by case basis. They could also just give permission for this instance. If he was making money from it I can see how it would be an issue, was he charging for the game?
Last edited by m2mg2 on 7 December 2016 at 3:30 pm UTC
Quoting: dibzIt's just copyright law, they have to defend it whether it's competing or not unfortunately.No they do not. They choose to.
Edit: minor spelling
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 7 December 2016 at 4:10 pm UTC
I will repost the Eff link I put in the comments last time :
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not-require-companies-tirelessly-censor-internet
It's an interesting and not too long read, especially by lawyers' standards.
Disclaimer: IANAL
That's nice to see them going open source, I could see myself contributing some day (So many open source projects... :D)
They changed the subdomain on chaosforge though...
What matters is both games are still alive and doing well.
Avehicle7887 Dec 7, 2016
Quoting: GuestNext up: the Catholic Church sues Zenimax for infringing upon the concept of Hell.
Except the concept of Hell isn't a Christian concept ( they have purgatory ) it comes from the Ase faith ( eg Forn Sidr ) where it's directly derived from Loke's daugther Hel ( see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hel_(being) )
I'm not trying to be offensive, but it is a tad amusing how supposed Christians can't even seem to get their faith straight :D
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