Manapot Legal Issues

nico · Administrator Joined: 28 Oct 2003 Posts: 837

angryclown: manapot is not meant to print cards, you are thinking of the program linked in the first post, wich is mtg editor. He offered it for download including the needed templates, wich means copyrighted stuff like the tap symbol, the manasymbols, and also, I believe, the card frames.
A similar thing happened to misetings a few years ago, when they hosted psd files of frames and other essentials to make mock magic cards. They got a mail from wotc legal to remove the stuff from the site or get a lawsuit slapped to their backs.

Greetz Nico

Trotsky1 · Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 943

It may be useful to e-mail the legal team in advance and ask them what you can and can not do, as i do not believe they are entirely opposed to programs like yours, just if they infringe on certain things, of course be vague, do not use your actual e-mail address and do not name the program etc but it could settle some of your issues.

They may well be like no no you can not do that at all, in which case its upto you what you do, or they maybe like as long as you do not break these boundaries what your doing is actually helping promote our game.

Craze · Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Posts: 5481 Location: Indiana, U

Why is the program going to be a mtgo like system in the first place? Winning cards in a card pool sounds like alot of additional work that would just cause legal issues, I really don't understand why the program just doesn't offer every card like MWS/Apprentice.

Another thing is by making this program your kinda sorta making a league in on itself, one offering points to in fact trade in for cards. Thats a threat to ML, which makes me wonder why this and your other topic aren't locked...

MattCatt · Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 7

Ggerg · Joined: 04 Sep 2005 Posts: 487

Jorbes · Joined: 14 Feb 2006 Posts: 296 Location: Netherland

You want to emulate the IRL game as much, by letting people only use cards they own.. but..

When I play a tourney IRL and I dont own some cards, I can always ask some guy to borrow his and with enough time between asking and submitting decklist, the chance is about 99% that I can actually borrow the cards I need. This goes for T2, never tried to ask for a black lotus Razz

So, there is really no need to limit the cards people can use.
Therefor, the store, cards database, etc, can go out the window and you can go ahead and create a cool program in wich people can load card database that you dont really need to provide if your code is dynamic enough. Even the pictures can be supplied by users.

In short, look at MWS and copy the main features.
When you're done with that,.. say, mid 2009, you can always think of other stuff to put in.

Don't let some email scare you, you can always go rogue by publishing via a free filehost from some internet cafe.

Trotsky1 · Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 943

I like the earning cards idea, it gives people something to aim for, more like a computed game like world of war craft or something, its not going to appela to people looking for serious testing but it makes it more like an ineractive version of the old magic the gathering pc game accept you can actually play vs other players which is cool.

Azania · Joined: 13 Aug 2008 Posts: 52

GiftsTrix · Joined: 15 Apr 2008 Posts: 2

Why don't you just use the same out MWS uses? R=the red mana symbol Tap=the tap symbol, etc. etc. etc. More importantly I don't think work on manapot should stop until magic makes you, then change the name and fix their complaints until they do it again.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Laplie · League Staff Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 551

Couple things you can do:

1) Start an LLC. If you are sued, you as an individual are protected from the liability of the company. You can also start a corporation but that requires a lot more "red tape" (annual report, shareholders meetings, etc). The typical filing fee depends on state and type of business. Fees for an LLC registration run from ~$50 to $300

2) Contact WotC and ask what you can and can't do. (though this might change charges of infringement to willful infringement.

3) Consult a lawyer. Advice on this thread is somewhat useless. Most people here aren't even legal adults.

The card texts and rules of the game are NOT copyrighted. WotC owns copyrights to the mana symbols, tap/untap symbols, card template (borders, etc). The artist own the copyrights to the card art and give WotC distribution rights.