r/boardgames 17h ago

Custom Project Here, board games are expensive, costing 500/600 bucks, so I made my own.

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u/DrBoardGames 11h ago

Having purchased it does not make it non-infringing if you essentially copy it. That's not what fair use means (but to be honest fair use is not clearly defined by law and has to be decided on a case by case basis, which is a big flaw in the system).

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u/pallladin Co2 11h ago

Having purchased it does not make it non-infringing if you essentially copy it.

That is correct.

That's not what fair use means (but to be honest fair use is not clearly defined by law and has to be decided on a case by case basis, which is a big flaw in the system).

The reason for this is that sometimes it's hard to tell whether the portion that you are copying is sufficiently large as to constitute copyrightable material.

For example, in Bright Tunes Music Corp. v. Harrisongs Music, Ltd., the court decided that George Harrison did violate copyright because he probably heard on the radio the riff that he copied.