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Response from PopCapResponse from PopCapPosted Apr 17, 2006 23:51 UTC (Mon) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688)Parent article: Rockbox gets cease-and-desisted
I sent an email to Dave Haas to ask what the issue was. He responded and said that the icons in PluginJewels and the Palm version of Bejeweled appear to be identical. He included these links of screenshots:
PluginJewels:
Bejewled:
I have to say they look almost 100% the same. Zooming in shows some minor differences but they are "too close for comfort."
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Response from PopCap Posted Apr 17, 2006 23:58 UTC (Mon) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link] Oops. The second link is http://www.astraware.com/products/bejeweled/palm/bejewele...
PluginJewels images come from Gweled Posted Apr 18, 2006 0:18 UTC (Tue) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] Note that the images for PluginJewels come from the game Gweled, a GNOME Bejeweled clone.They clearly aren't pixel-per-pixel copies of the Bejeweled images, although I don't know if they are close enough to constitute infringement. Given that there have been dozens of "Jewel-matching" games, dating back many years now, it would be interesting to try to put together a systematic timeline and see who is copying whom.
PluginJewels images come from Gweled Posted Apr 18, 2006 0:20 UTC (Tue) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] Note also that version 0.2 of Gweled lists the change:
PluginJewels images come from Gweled Posted Apr 18, 2006 1:19 UTC (Tue) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link] Note also that 0.2 was the first public release.
Response from PopCap Posted Apr 18, 2006 0:03 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Interesting. So an icon change would fix the problem? That seems like an easy fix - the game could be played just as well with kittens, national flags, or just about anything except those new OpenOffice icons which all look the same...
Response from PopCap Posted Apr 18, 2006 1:21 UTC (Tue) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link] To me, they look nothing alike. The blue and orange gems, in particular, show a huge design difference. On the other hand, PluginJewels looks almost exactly like a scaled-down version of the Geweled gems, which are known to be free.
Response from PopCap Posted Apr 18, 2006 1:53 UTC (Tue) by frazier (guest, #3060) [Link] Indeed, here's the Geweled graphics:1) http://sebdelestaing.free.fr/gweled/Images/gweled_screens...
When comparing to these (as mentioned before):
...it is my opinion that 1) and 2) are from the same art base and they are not modified versions of 3), and are cleanroom.
Now, how close can they be to another game and not be in violation of copyright? I don't know. I am reasonably confident after close examination that the art in the 1) and 2) does not contain data from 3), however.
redrawn != "cleanroom" Posted Apr 18, 2006 2:58 UTC (Tue) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] ...it is my opinion that 1) and 2) are from the same art base and they are not modified versions of 3), and are cleanroom. Indeed, the Rockbox developers themselves state that their graphics are taken from Gweled (see above), and the Gweled author claims to have created "SVG original graphics". However, this doesn't make them "cleanroom"—that term (which is usually applied to reverse engineering efforts) would imply that the Gweled graphics were created by someone who had never seen the Bejeweled graphics. I highly doubt that is the case here. The question is, were the elements of the Bejeweled graphics that were (probably) copied sufficiently original to be copyrightable? (i.e., the shapes of the jewels and their facets, their coloration, and the general shading of the facets.)
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