- What are some of the key milestones in copyright law?
I will use the history of music copyright as the starting point as it gives a clear timeline of what happened in the history of copyright.
The first copyright law called ‘Statue of Anne’ was appeared in 1710, Briton. The full title of this article is: ‘An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned.’ ( from History of copyright law, Wikipedia). The promulgation of this law changes the way how people use sources and create origins.
Although ‘Statute of Anne’ was the first official copyright law published in the history, but the concept of musical copyright has an older history than the former. In the reign of King Henry VIII of England who asked copies of all printed matters and offers protection to printers in the form of licenses. (From History of Music publishing, Wikipedia).
However, what King Henry VIII has done was not effective, a lot of artists and musicians were still using each other’s resources by the time, however, most of them were not in the same countries or regions, therefore the law didn’t affect them that much. This phenomenon lasted until 1886.
In 1886, Berne Convention was created and it was the first international agreement involving copyrights. The key point of this convention is that protection for works applies onto each of the contracting countries, this convention is still functioning today, and there are 165 countries had become parties to it by March 2012. (From Berne Convention, Wikipedia)
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_music_publishing#Copyright
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law
- Give some examples where you see games being clearly influenced by other work?
I will use Metal Gear Solid as an example to describe how it influences lots of other games.
Metal Gear Solid is one of the core milestones in the stealth-type game, and one of the key principle mechanics in this game is ‘Hide and Seek’. This principle was inspired by ‘The Great Escape’ ( ‘He reversed the focus of the gameplay from shooting down the enemy to avoiding the capture’ from Metal Gear (Video game), Wikipedia). By the time, this principle starts getting more and more popular, here is an example:
Splinter Cell 6 (Splinter Cell 6, steam page): This is a stealth game which is about an agent completing his missions in enemy bases, and the principle of this game is to stay in the dark and try to avoid enemies. Apart from ‘avoiding enemies’, there are other mechanics which clearly influenced by Metal Gear Solid: to have the lean against the wall playstyle. This is a stealth mode which helps the player to avoid enemies, provides wider sights and brings out tension. This mode was famous as one of the key mechanics in Metal Gear Solid. According to Hideo Kojima, this mechanic was inspired by playing Hide and Seek when he was still a child. (From Hideo Kojima, Baidu).
An example that might be influenced by Metal Gear Solid is the game called ‘Crysis’ (From Crysis on steam). In the game, the player will get to wear a special gear called the ‘Nanosuit’. One of the function can be used is light bending which is also known as Cloak mode(Invisible mode). In Metal Gear Solid, the player is awarded a light bending camouflage when they complete the game. (From The Technological Alt-History of ‘Metal Gear Solid’)
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Gear_(video_game)
https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%B0%8F%E5%B2%9B%E7%A7%80%E5%A4%AB/645442?fr=aladdin
http://store.steampowered.com/app/235600/Tom_Clancys_Splinter_Cell_Blacklist/