Is recreating a proprietary game legal?
<p>I was wandering how is that open source projects on GitHub that aim to and in many cases succeed to recreate beloved games from the 2000's are not taken down?</p>
<p>I think it's great and all, but if I am to recreate some NES game for example like &quot;super mario&quot;, will my game be illegal to distribute for free, and should I really care if it isn't legal, as long as no one in their right mind is going to sue me for an old 80's game?</p>

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<p>will my game be illegal to distribute for free,</p>
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<p>Yes</p>
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<p>and should I really care if it isn't legal,</p>
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<p>I don’t know if you should care. The worst that can happen is that they can sue you for damage. Depending on how many downloads you get, that can be a lot or a little.</p>
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<p>as long as no one in their right mind is going to sue me for an old 80's game?</p>
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<p>People very much in their right mind will sue you. In the US, that’s $750 to $30,000 per download. If you get 1k downloads at $750 that’s $750,000 — well worth rolling the dice on a lawsuit.</p>

<p>There are two reasons they survive.</p>
<p>First, abandonware. When it's unclear who actually owns the IP or when the company owning the IP doesn't exists, nobody can take legal action. This doesn't make it public domain, but it often may as well be.</p>
<p>Second, when companies allow it. It could be because it's not worth the hassle- most tiny fan projects have no negative effects on the IP owner (if the owner even knows about them). It is also done when companies let them. Many see these efforts as genuine appreciation. There can also be significant PR backlash to a big greedy developer bullying a passion project.</p>
<p>Note that Nintendo is well-known for being litigious when it comes to fan projects.</p>

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