Hello everyone. I published a game here a month ago, and only now I realize that I haven't set up the licenses. I have no license on both items (game and assets). Is it a problem? Which ones should I put? Excuse my ignorance.
And second, if tomorrow someone takes my apk and puts it on google play, can I do something to block it?
can I do something to block it?
No. Someone could take your game and reupload it to itch and you could not block it. Some scammer will probably do that in the future, or already has done it and hopefully was reported and removed.
You can take action after someone did that and complain to the site owners or stores. Most do have a policy to not allow impersonating to be the creator of the game. But some places might allow uploading free software and your game is available for free.
So it would be prudent to include links and some watermarks to your sites, so people will find you, if they aquire the game at other places.
Having a license won't help you combat piracy. People who steal games and assets, know that they're doing it, and don't care.
The only issue where you'd need a license is to let people know if they're allowed to use your assets commercially - i.e. put it into their own games. You could write it in the description, but that's risky for the users. If they have a "readme" file they download with the asset, users are better protected in case there's a dispute.
If you report a game to Itch.io / Google, it's up to you to show it's your game and a license alone won't help you. You'd need screenshots perhaps of the game in your software, and of the publishing date that shows you published first.
(+ do what redonihunter suggested by putting in links to your itch.io pages or website etc. in the game itself)
True. Licenses do not protect you or your work directly, but they can only help you if you want to bring stuff in court or something, but unless the offender is a bit commercial company or something doing this on a big scale it will not be worth the trouble (not to mention that such companies can easily put themselves above the law, so you'll need a good lawyer too, and some publicity).
Now I do not know how the itch.io staff responds to clear license violations on smaller skills. For example, Scyndi's Creative Interpreter is a game engine I created myself and released under the terms of the GPL3. Makes you free to use my engine, even in commercial productions actually, but if you modify the original source code create a new game with it, sell it without releasing the modified source code, then we got a violation of the GPL3. Of course, I cannot prevent people doing that, but I take it the itch.io rules do ban that practice, right? That being said, it can still be handy to have a license included in your game.
When it comes to protecting yourself against copyright infringement in general. I was young in the 80s and 90s and have seen the countless creative ways in which game developers put in copy protections to prevent piracy. They all failed as document with the codes so you could print them, or even hackers managing to remove these protections were countless, so piracy happened any way and for legal users they were only a big source of irritation. Long story short, it was futile.
I do not know how the itch.io staff responds to clear license violations
Should you see such a clear violation, report it as a tos violoation. Of course it should be really clear and not guesswork. For your stuff you know what licenses apply. For stuff of other people you might be mistaken and then there is all those fair use things where it seems someone might be in violation of some things, but also might not be.
https://itch.io/docs/legal/terms#4-publisher-content
Publishers affirm, represent, and warrant that they own or have the rights, licenses, permissions and consents necessary to publish, duplicate, and distribute the submitted content.
You are aware of the nature of your own game, are you? Not even you could publish it on google play.
Someone could steal your stuff an publish it on Steam maybe. Or other platforms that allow it. But that is the same for every game. Respectable platforms will remove plagiarisms and copyright violations and the like. Even Itch. Though on itch it usually is malware and not trying to actually sell the copied game.
I think there is a sweet spot for the criminals. A game popular enough to copy and sell it, but not popular enough that it gets banned immediatly. Games in the nieche you make barely ever reach that sweet spot, let alone overcome it. Not only is it adult, but also ai. And it is not finished. There are not many places for such games. Actually, I am not even aware of any place except itch. One might count patreon and the like, but those have no game catalogue and library. There is some small publishers that do direct marketing and have their own shop system.
