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Sven Hollesen4 years ago

Hi,

I cannot play the game because I don't have access to Windows, but your name coupled with the game mechanics might get you in trouble.

"Flappy Bird" has been registered as an official Trademark.

https://trademarks.justia.com/862/09/flappybird-86209920.html

and a quick google search found incidents, where this trademark was actually enforced, even against games not called 'Flappy Bird' precisely, but rather 'Flappy Wings World' for example.

https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/45313-flappy-bird-trademark-issue/

Even though that particular claim may have been frivolous, a similar one against your game would not, given the exact same name and similar gameplay mechanics.

So what I'm trying to say is, please consider renaming your game before some nefarious copyright trolls come along. Naming it Flappy Bird will also not help your search algorithm score. 

I'm sorry for not providing more constructive advice.

Best regards,

Sven

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Uju Studio4 years ago

Can I change my game's name and get ride of that problem?

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Uju Studio4 years ago

Actually, I searched on search bar and there are many flappy bird game made by different kinds of guys. So I thought making a flappy bird game is allowed by everybody.

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Sven Hollesen4 years ago

Disclaimer : I am not a lawyer.

Making a clone of Flappy Bird is arguably legal, as long as you only copy the game mechanics I think.

Any artistic property that uniquely identifies the original title, be that the bird's design, the overall color scheme, the title font, etc, or any combination thereof can be enough for copyright protection. A general rule of thumb is :

If you show random people on the street the content, would they identify it as the original (infringed) content? If a large portion of the people would misidentify your game as the original "Flappy Bird", then you're in a bad spot. And your game is not even such an edge case. You straight up copied both the name AND major parts of the design.

That other people are doing the same should not be taken as an excuse, since it wouldn't hold up in court. Not unless it has been done for many years already and there's evidence that the original copyright holder knew of the problem but intentionally didn't address it (I'm not even sure even that would make a substantial difference, please consult a lawyer on this).

As it stands, "many people doing the same" only makes it a more juicy target for a joint lawsuit.

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