How to not let someone steal your game ?

General Discussions
#1

Hi Guys, well im working on a game with Libgdx.
Its probably going to be free, and hm, im just wondering, how can i be sure, someone wont steal it?
What should the steps i should take? Just so i can claim its me who did it? I have the historic of my code if that helps :stuck_out_tongue:

#2

You can do obsfucation, list of Java obsfucators.

#3

What if i post a video in youtube , since i used free sprites, will someone take the sprites and reverse enginner and then sue you and claim its not your property? Or im just being neurotic?

#4

dont bother. just make sure, you use all third party code and resources. like its permitted in their license. then youll be fine.

regarding code stealing prevention, i would not even jump through the hoops to obfuscate your code. you would need to have something really genious and unique to make someone want to steal your code. and even if he does - what would you loose?

you can always put your code under some license, then any use violating that terms would be illegal.

#5

“you can always put your code under some license, then any use violating that terms would be illegal.”

How can i do that?

#6

Your problem is covered by copyright, so you just need to prove you made it.

Also, I have seen some licenses where the moment you take legal action against the creator, you lose the right to use their works.

#7

I see this as a goal instead of a hurdle. If I make something popular enough for people to want to steal from it, then it’s a good day.

While it doesn’t hurt to research and ask questions like you’re doing, just don’t lose any sleep over it unless you start to amass a lot of attention.

#8

Define steal.

#9

Im just neurotic.
Im keep thinking : “what if someone, goes and reverse engineer your game and claim that hes the owner and sue you.”

I know my game isnt omFG its Freaking awesome, but still… idk

#10

If it is open source you can require that people credit authors. If it is open source the argument changes from “I made it first. Who are you going to believe?” to the implausible “He made a clean room reverse engineered implementation of my game with commits in public repositories predating my video game. I did not make a nearly identical game derived from his source, which any one could build upon, and break the license by omitting credit to the other authors.”

I know the FSF does legal work to rescue open source projects with legal trouble. You could see what that entails.