《Swing Copters》，《Swinging Copters》，《Swing Bird》，《Swingy Copter》，《Pro. Swing Chopper》，《Copter Bird Swinging》。

最近随着越来越多游戏开始复制《Flappy Bird》的创造者Dong Nguyen的新游戏，我们可以清楚地看到复制品所带来的威胁。

今年年初他的独立热门游戏《Flappy Bird》撤离了手机市场，但是在那之后仍出现了许多复制品。

几周前，Nguyen的全新游戏《Swing Copters》也遭遇了同样的情况。在这款游戏的官方发行日前夕，Google Play上便出现了超过30款的复制品，并且有些游戏也将出现在苹果的App Store和Windows Phone Store中。

Swing Copters(from softpedia)

Nguyen并不是遭遇其它工作室复制了自己的作品的第一个开发者，并且我们也不相信他会是最后一个牺牲者。所以开发者到底该如何保护自己的创作呢？

版权问题

在法务公司Harbottle & Lewis负责互动娱乐和体育事务的Nicolas Murfett表示，版权可能并不会像开发者们所期待的那样给予他们保护。

他说道：“版权并不能保护理念—-它只能保护这些理念的表达方式。这看似能够提供给工作室一把锋利的剑去攻击复制游戏。然而，存在一个重要的判例法认为这把剑其实只是孩子的玩具罢了。”

“如果找不到任何对于现有游戏的源代码或游戏中其它带有版权的内容（如美术或音乐）的直接复制，那么一款看起来或感觉非常相似的游戏便不算侵犯现有游戏的版权。”

“在英国，一款游戏的‘外观和感觉’及其机制都是不受保护的。”

纽卡斯尔大学法律专业的学生Daithi Mac Sithigh补充道：“英国法院拒绝了一个关于街机游戏的版权侵权案件，因为不存在任何关于代码的复制，并且两款游戏的相似处是在于游戏玩法和机制，这是不属于版权的保护范围。欧洲法庭仍然在努力抗争着这一问题—-特别是关于界面是否是原创作品。”

Murfett建议开发者应该寻求其他知识产权的保护。例如有些工作室便为游戏或公司名称中的一些文字注册了商标。

他说道：“这种方法更加简单，因为你无需去呈现任何被复制的内容。注册商标将保障所有者的权利，并阻止第三方在自己的产品或服务中使用已经被注册的商标，这同样也能够抵制带有类似名字的复制游戏。”

“然而，使用这种行动过程的工作室可能需要牢记游戏社区对于这样的策略的看法，并需要确保法律与业务的有效平衡。”

平台的职责

随着《Swing Copters》的复制品的出现，人们的焦点不可避免地转向了平台所有者。谷歌快速清理了其市场上一些厚颜无耻的复制内容，尽管有时候仍会有些残留存在。Windows Phone Store也是如此，虽然苹果的App Store容忍复制品的存在。

苹果和谷歌都拒绝作出评论，但是微软的发言人却向我们的读者保证：“微软非常重视我们的应用合作者的知识产权，我们会使用多个层面的方法努力去保护他们。”

“首先，所有的应用都需要加密以阻止盗版行为，我们会鼓励开发者利用模糊工具以加深对于自身作品的保护。因为Windows Phone Store是应用和游戏的唯一授权来源，所以开发者可以通过监视商店并在被侵权时告知微软以抵制侵权行为。”

“最后，我们会在应用提交前便教育每一位开发者—-在我们的开发者协议和政策中提醒他们，微软不会允许任何对于知识版权的侵权行为。”

Murfett强调关于平台所有者对于这种复制行为的抵抗存在一些限制。他说道：“尽管苹果和谷歌并没有法律义务在他们的平台上监督这样的复制行为，但是他们却有兴趣去帮助工作室抵制它，如此过多的复制游戏将很难出现在用户面前。”

“但是平台所有者却不可能同意将检测复制游戏作为其认证过程的一部分，因为这么做将延长认证时间，并会导致额外的管理压力。”

“但这并不是说平台所有者什么都不愿做。这三家巨头都愿意去探究开发者的抱怨，甚至也有些平台所有者已经采取措施去简化这一过程了。”

预防措施

我们都清楚复制游戏是很难减少的（这将会带给开发者更多烦恼）。Sithigh及其同事Tom Phillips（游戏邦注：东英吉利亚大学的高级研究助理）认为抵制复制游戏的最佳方法便是对侵权开发者保持更高的警惕性。

Phillips说道：“我们很难说开发者本身应该采取怎样的预防措施—-如果你的游戏出现了一款复制游戏，那么最有效的行动便是对此作出反应。开发者可以采取的最佳行动便是确保他们自己游戏的价值能够得到最大的增长。”

Sithigh补充道：“存在这样的法律论据，即过度保护可能会带给社区长远的消极影响，因为这会培养一种风险规避开发文化。市场将会随着时间的发展而变得更加稳定”

Harbottle & Lewis的Murfett补充道，在今后几年里，复制行为是不可能轻易被根除的。实际上，现在的新游戏越难在应用商店里被发现，那些致力于“快速赚钱”的开发者将会把复制游戏作为更快获得吸引力的选择。

然而，如果平台，工作室和用户采取积极行动去复制复制游戏，那么这个产业便更有可能遏制这种行为。

他说道：“在产业，法庭或新法律能够适当处理游戏复制问题前，它将仍然作为一个难以解决的问题而存在着。”

“对于工作室来说，抗争复制游戏的最佳方法可能是着眼于更加实际的措施，如努力宣传自己的游戏，从而让它们能够获得更广泛的认知度，如此用户便会知道是哪家工作室创造了自己喜欢的游戏。同样地，用户也应该记得给自己喜欢的游戏评级并进行评价—-从而突显这些游戏的搜索结果，并向相关平台所有者报道自己所怀疑的复制游戏。”

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转功，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The fight against app clones

Experts explain difficulties in policing mobile marketplaces

Swing Copters. Swinging Copters. Swing Bird. Swingy Copter Pro. Swing Chopper. Copter Bird Swinging.

The threat of copycats was best demonstrated in recent weeks by the wave of titles mimicking Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen’s new game.

His indie hit Flappy Bird was pulled from mobile marketplaces earlier this year – and an army of replicas and clones were released in the days that followed.

And just a few weeks ago, the same thing occurred to Nguyen’s new game Swing Copters. On the eve of its official release, more than 30 clones were made available on Google Play, with others appearing on the Apple App Store and Windows Phone Store.

Nguyen isn’t the first developer to suffer from other studios copying their work, and few believe he will be the last. So what can devs do to protect their creations?

COPYRIGHT PROBLEMS

Nicolas Murfett, associate for interactive entertainment and sport at legal firm Harbottle & Lewis, says that copyright may not protect developers in the way they think it does.

“Copyright does not protect ideas – it only protects the expression of those ideas,” he told Develop. “This may seem to offer studios a useful sword with which to attack clone games. However, there is a significant body of case law that suggests this sword is more of an inflatable kid’s toy.

“Absent of any direct copying of an existing game’s source code or of any of the other copyrightable works in that game – such as the artistic or musical works – it is unlikely that a title looking or feeling very similar will infringe the copyright in that existing game.

“Neither a game’s ‘look and feel’ nor its mechanics are protectable in the UK.”

Daithi Mac Sithigh, reader in law at Newcastle University, added: “The English courts turned away a case of copyright infringement in arcade games because there wasn’t any copying of code and the similarity was in gameplay and mechanics, which are harder to define as protected by copyright. European courts are still grappling with this – particularly on whether an interface is an original work.”

Murfett instead suggests that developers look to other forms of intellectual property for protection. Some studios, for example, register trademarks for words in the titles of their games or company name.

“This can be easier as you don’t need to show that anything has been copied,” he said. “A registered trademark grants the owner the right to prevent third parties from using that trademark in relation to the goods and services for which it is registered, and can be used to remove clone games with similar titles from the marketplace.

“However, studios pursuing such a course of action may need to bear in mind the certain parts of the gaming community’s strong views on such strategies and get the balance right between good law and good business.”

PLATFORM DUTIES

As the Swing Copters clones emerged, attention inevitably turned to the platform holders. Google was quick to clear dozens of blatant copies from its marketplace, although at the time of writing several are still available. The same is true for the Windows Phone Store, although the Apple App Store appears to be clone-free.

Both Apple and Google declined to comment, but a Microsoft spokesperson offered the following assurance to Develop readers: “Microsoft takes the intellectual property of our app partners seriously and we use several layers of deterrence and response to help protect them.

“First, all apps are encrypted to help prevent piracy and we encourage developers to take advantage of obfuscation tools for an added layer of protection. Because the Windows Phone Store is the only authorised source of apps and games, developers can more easily police infringement of their apps by monitoring the store and notifying Microsoft if infringement occurs.

“Finally, we educate every developer from the very start – before apps are even submitted – reminding them in our developer agreements and policies that Microsoft does not permit infringement of intellectual property of others.”

Murfett stresses that there are limitations to what platform holders can do against such a force of cloned titles.
“While Apple and Google have no legal obligation to actively police cloning on their platforms, they may have an interest in helping studios to combat it as a plethora of cloned games only serves to make it harder for users to find the games they actually want to play and spend money on,” he said.

“However, it is unlikely that platform owners will agree to include clone detection as part of their certification processes, as to do so would extend certification times significantly and result in an additional administrative burden.

“That’s not to say platform owners are unwilling to do anything. All of the big three are willing to investigate complaints and some have even recently taken steps to streamline this process.”

PREVENTATIVE MEASURES

The consensus is that cloning – as distressing as it may be for developers – is highly difficult to curtail. Sithigh and his colleague Tom Phillips, senior research associate at the University of East Anglia, suggest that the best defence against copycats is more vigilant reactions from infringed developers.

“It’s difficult to say what preventative measures can be taken by developers themselves – if a clone of your game appears the most effective action is more likely to be reactive than proactive,” said Phillips. “The best action a developer can take is to make sure the value of their own game property is maximised.”

Sithigh added: “There’s a legal argument that overprotection ends up hurting the community in the long run because it fosters a risk-averse development culture. Markets tend to stabilise as time goes on – what’s happening at the moment is classic gold-rush behaviour and we already see talk of cleaning up the space.”

Harbottle & Lewis’ Murfett adds that cloning is unlikely to diminish over the next few years. In fact, as it becomes harder for new games to be discovered on app stores, developers “looking for a quick buck” will see cloning as the more attractive option.

However, if platforms, studios and users pro-actively take action against copycats, the industry has a better chance of stopping them.

“Until the issue of game cloning is properly addressed by the industry, the courts or new legislation, it will continue to be very difficult, for the reasons set out above, to prevent cloning,” he said.

“The best way to combat cloning may be for studios to look to more practical solutions such as publicising their games so that they get the credit they deserve and that users know which studios are responsible for the games they love. Similarly, users should be educated to remember to rate and review the games they love – to help with the search result prominence of those games – and to report any games they suspect of being clones to the relevant platform owners.”(source:develop-online)