According to BoMbErLiNk, Bombergames contacted SEGA about the project in 2007 by email and sent a formal letter notifying them of the game’s development. It is unclear what the response was, but Bombergames continued developing Remake. Within a week of Remake’s release, SEGA contacted Bombergames and requested that it cease distribution. SEGA released the following statement to a number of videogame websites such as IGN.com:

The IP at Stake

Videogames may be covered by the traditional forms of intellectual property—copyright, trademark, patent, and trade secret—but only copyright and trademark seem to apply to Remake. Copyright could protect the code, the resulting images for the characters and backgrounds as they appear on screen, the music, the sound effects, and the story. Trademark could also be employed to protect the brand name “Streets of Rage,” the images and likenesses of SOR’s characters and game backgrounds, and perhaps the sound effects if they could be attributable to SOR and Sega.

Resolving for the Consumer

SEGA does have potentially strong infringement claims against Bombergames. However, putting aside the fact that SEGA waited until the final version was released before threatening Bombergames to pull the download links (four beta versions were released in the years prior to 2011), SEGA’s actions beg these questions: is it fair for SEGA to deny a developer’s efforts 8 years in the making, when SEGA itself has not developed a new Streets of Rage game in almost 20 years? Does such an IP regime benefit the consuming gamer?

Copyright’s dual nature of promoting the arts for the public good while giving the creators exclusive rights for limited times is in constant conflict with itself. However, life of the author plus 70 years weighs heavily on the “exclusive rights” side of copyright. Under such a regime, videogame characters and franchises won’t see the light of day unless the original developing company allows it. The franchises lose relevancy should consumers have to wait for life plus 70 years. Videogames are complicated by the fact that they can be trademarked too. Videogame companies not only trademark their company names (SEGA is a registered trademark), but also their games (“Streets of Rage” is a dead trademark), and in some cases, presumably their characters. Should no one be able to use those marks unless they pay for a license? Isn’t one company’s trash another’s treasure? In the interest of promoting the arts for the public good (read: consumption), would a more flexible regime be appropriate?

Perhaps a shortened trademark/copyright regime would be more appropriate. Since videogame development cycles—the start of development until release date—are about two years, a regime that gives parent developers/companies 10 years from the release date of a game to make a new franchise-related game may be more appropriate. The cycle would reset each time the parent released a new game (not for ports of old games or downloadable content to existing games). If the parent decides to let the franchise die in those 10 years, a new developer/company could, in the interest of progress and innovation, develop their own game in a similar likeness. This would essentially be a free license. Should the parent want the franchise back, the clock is reset and new developers are estopped.

The 10 year regime described above would allow companies to keep their franchises as long as they developed for them, and would allow new developers to step in should the parent deny their child. In this way, the nerd rage over the pulling of Streets of Rage Remake could be alleviated.