Square Enix Sends C&D To Developer Creating OpenCarmageddon

from the that'll-win-fans dept

Whatis42? writes in to let us know that Square Enix has sent a cease and desist letter to a guy who's been developing an open source version of the game Carmageddon. Now, it's almost certainly the case that this version does, in fact, violate the original copyrights (and potentially trademarks) of Square Enix, but should it really matter? The game is well over a decade old and not for sale anywhere anymore. The re-creation of the game appears to be a pretty cool learning experience for a developer and fans of the game.

On top of that, if you believe the Wikipedia entry on Carmageddon, the original creators of the game based it on a movie, which they tried to license, but when that failed, they went ahead and created it anyway. So now they don't want anyone else to do the same thing?

Historically, if you look at the way creativity has worked, it's quite frequently involved people directly copying the work of someone else, to learn how it was done and to build off of it. It's too bad that companies are looking to shut that down these days. Of course, this isn't a new stance for Square Enix. In the past, we've noted that the company has gone after other fan projects as well.

Filed Under: carmageddon, cease and desist, open carmageddon
Companies: square enix