A copyright lawyer has spoken out about Peter Molyneux’s new game, which coincidentally has the same setting as Xbox’s Fable series.
Peter Molyneux recently said that his new god simulator Masters of Albion should not get into legal trouble due to the setting of the titular Albion – another word for old England and also the fairytale world in Molyneux’s Fable games – as the word itself “cannot be copyrighted”. However, he also admitted that he is not entirely sure about this.
Attorney Haley MacLean then joined the social media discussion and issued a statement “for information purposes only,” pointing out that there is an important difference between the word “Albion” and the world to which Xbox owns the rights.
I got so many DMs for my opinion on this haha so here it is! https://t.co/LdTVpjaIHq pic.twitter.com/WpUgVWOurM21 August 2024
MacLean explains that Molyneux is right: “No one can trademark/copyright the word for a real/historical place in and of itself.” However, Microsoft can copyright a “fictionalized version” of said historical place. “It depends on how much creative effort is put into creating a ‘world’ that has originality.”
MacLean uses MMO Albion Online as a good example – a game set in a world called Albion, but his Albion doesn’t include Fable-like elements like the Heroes’ Guild, characters like Theresa, or other lore related to the series.
“The question is not really whether 22Cans can use the word Albion, but whether their interpretation of Albion is substantively similar to the world/lore of Albion from Fable,” MacLean continues.
Things get a little tricky, as Molyneux was directing both versions of an old, whimsical, magical England – silly chickens included. “A lot of what Fable was, a lot of what Masters of Albion is, is inspired by Guildford – the green, rolling South Downs and the old ruins that were scattered throughout,” Molyneux explained in an interview with Eurogamer, but chickens and rolling hills are probably not copyrightable either.
There is no release date yet for Masters of Albion. best city building games while you wait?
