One Hour One Life Forums

jasonrohrer

Administrator

Registered: 2017-02-13

Posts: 4,802

TapTap responds (strangely) to my withdrawn take-down request

I sent them another message canceling it, but I guess they didn't see it.

Here's what they wrote:

Hi Jason,

We receive your content violation accuse for One Hour One Life 100%.
For releasing the overseas game on TapTap, we would request the publisher to provide the necessary document to prove they have the legal right to operate and release the game on TapTap.

We did have an official authorization agreement from Chinese publisher 亿儒 declared to have legal right to publish and promote One Hour One Life 100% in China and it was authorized by Wereviz AB.

In this case, we are also confused about what you described in the previous e-mail.
We are sincere to help you to figure out the issue and provide the information you need.
If you have any further question, please feel free to contact me via e-mail: REDACTED

Thanks for reaching out.
Have a nice day.

I decided to take this opportunity to explain the details of the situation to them, and request the changes that I would like to see made:

Thanks for writing back!

It's a pretty complicated situation.

I made the entire game by myself, including all code, all drawings, all music, all sounds, all characters.  I have original paper artwork and master sound recordings for everything here in my home.  I can send you photographic evidence of this if you need it.

I placed the entire game in the public domain.  The entire thing is on GitHub:

https://github.com/jasonrohrer/

This means no one has "exclusive" rights to it.  Not Wereviz AB.  And not the publisher 亿儒.

I have no specific agreement with Wereviz or their publisher.  It seems like they are now claiming copyright to the content and trademark over the name One Hour One Life.  These claims are fraudulent.

There is no issue with other people publishing ports and adaptations of One Hour One Life.  However, fraudulent claims about the game cannot be made.  I made the original game, they did not.  They do not hold copyright or trademark over it.  They are not the "official" developer or publisher of the game.  They are "unofficial."

The situation needs to be explained.  I'm sure that TapTap was not made aware of the situation before publishing.  In fact, the original text on the TapTap store made no mention of this situation.

This is an Unofficial Adaptation of my work, which has been placed in the Public Domain, and I did not specifically approve of this adaptation.  Everyone needs to know this.

The title of the TapTap game should be changed to:   "Unofficial One Hour One Life"

The text in the TapTap store should include these lines, in Chinese:

>>>>>>>>>>>
Unofficial Adaptation
Not specifically approved by original author Jason Rohrer.
The original game is in the public domain, so anyone can make an unofficial adaptation like this.
Wereviz AB and 亿儒 have no exclusive rights to this game or title.
>>>>>>>>>>>

Note that that Store text has two extra lines in it.  The second-to-last line is a placeholder for the "explanation" that DualDecade will hopefully want to give.  The last line addresses the current situation with copyright and trademark in China.

carbon

Member

Registered: 2018-08-09

Posts: 47

Re: TapTap responds (strangely) to my withdrawn take-down request

You assume that the company is a rational actor, but with their apparent recent history of exploitation and lifting assets from a different game, it's clear that they have no regard to the opinion of others: the original creator, the one who ported it to mobile, or the devs they stole the assets from.

I sincerely hope they respond to your message and sort this shit out, but I'm at a pessimistic standpoint of not expecting the best. It's definitely worth a shot to reaching out, but know that none of this has ever been in your favour.

But at least it's a great starting point to talk about how releasing a good idea into the public domain would cause heartbreak, fallout, and cannibalization.

I'm still hoping that this whole kerfuffle is an elaborate scheme to show that society still hasn't progressed past caveman discord, just like players in OHOL. I just love it when games are used to illustrate the human condition.

breezeknight

Member

Registered: 2018-04-02

Posts: 813

Re: TapTap responds (strangely) to my withdrawn take-down request

have you considered to approach the matter from a completely different angle
the proactive one ?

1. the meandered tryout solution :

A) you decided & designed your game as open source & public domain, having mainly PC in mind, since afaik you have no plans to port it to mobile & consoles (your action)
B) someone ported the game to mobile (their reaction)
C) you don't want to be mixed up as the autor of this port (your reaction !)
D) the game has a mobile feel, one of them - regular content updates !!! (your action)
E) the game depends on regular updates (their action)

suggestion to close the tap (pun intended ?)
F) from now on copyright internationally - all your content updates - (your action)
G) the mobile game happened but what will they have to do if they are not allowed anymore to update it with new content you provide for free ?
i'd guess, if they go legally, then they have to make their own content, this means the game will develop in different directions if they are lucky, if they mess up, then the game becomes slowly unpopular because they don't have a creative genius in store (if they had, then they didn't need your public domain open source in the first place)
they can oc still pull their copyrigt infringement act (their reaction)

2. the clean solution :

i still think, your main problem is created by the absence of your original game on mobile
the PC situation is a completely different one because there is "the original"

so the cleanest solution would be to find an option for you to port the game for mobile officially
this would move every other port where it belongs, to an unofficial port corner, no matter what the makers do

3. the stubbornly creative solution :

you just treat any problems resulting from any mobile port as spam & set it to an automated response
& just forget about being mixed up because your answer is clear as day - there is no other game of OHOL than on PC -
you can include that line into those responses

this solution works oc only if you can stand unperturbed by your initial idea - to make the game public domain open source
& can sever yourself from people bothering you with their stuff, mainly probably regarding making money
should they sue you because of the copyright infrigement, then you can develop an additional strategy from where it is actually happening,
cause so far that danger didn't materialised
& should you get sued for China only, then you can treat China as the mobile market - block their communication per automated responses, hire a lawyer for chinese market
your game is not in chinese or any other than english language anyway, so ...

- - -

futurebird

Member

Registered: 2019-02-20

Posts: 1,553

Re: TapTap responds (strangely) to my withdrawn take-down request

suggestion to close the tap (pun intended ?)
F) from now on copyright internationally - all your content updates - (your action)
G) the mobile game happened but what will they have to do if they are not allowed anymore to update it with new content you provide for free ?
i'd guess, if they go legally, then they have to make their own content, this means the game will develop in different directions if they are lucky, if they mess up, then the game becomes slowly unpopular because they don't have a creative genius in store (if they had, then they didn't need your public domain open source in the first place)
they can oc still pull their copyrigt infringement act (their reaction)

This is a good idea. I get the objections to intellectual property, the laws aren't really designed to protect or help artists, however, I don't think that means that artists should just go without protection at all or shoot themselves in the foot. You are working in a broken system refusing to use any of the small advantages you have won't really change that system. Protect the new content. Require approval for new art and assets. Go after low quality games that don't listen.

We all want more people to create and build off of existing good work, but too often it's just vultures who make lower quality knockoffs or see those who avoid protecting their creations as fools who deserve to be plundered.

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omnem cibum costis
tantum baca, non facies opus