Is DOS Museum ripping off Classic DOS Games?

[DOSGuy]

A few weeks ago I was editing my section on DMOZ (the Open Directory Project), and there was an application from a website called DOS Museum. I reviewed and approved it because it met DMOZ's requirements, but I couldn't help but notice that it's pretty much a carbon copy of Classic DOS Games. Even the mission statement is almost a word-for-word copy of ours.

Theirs:

"DOS Museum exists to preserve DOS games and applications from being lost to degrading disks and hard drives. We offer a wide variety of game downloads and “extras,” such as patches, save games, and add-ons. DOS Museum has larger goals than just being a file repository for DOS software. We also take an active role in the preservation of DOS titles by encouraging copyright holders to make their work available, either for sale or as freeware."

Ours:

"The highest ideals of this site are to support the authors by providing links to their web sites and ordering information for the full versions of games that are still sold, and to encourage the authors of classic games to preserve their games for future generations by making them available for sale or as freeware. If you enjoy a shareware game, please consider buying it from the author."

Plagiarism much? lol

Every game on their site also has a "License & Availability" section, just like Classic DOS Games. The concept is identical: support the authors with availability information, and prove freeware status with license information.

Obviously the site has a lot less features than Classic DOS Games. Games can only be sorted by genre, not by publisher, legal status, video mode, year released, and sub-categorized for shareware (full/partial version), freeware (always freeware, former shareware/commercial), and the resolution of each video mode. It doesn't have a blog or interviews or tutorials or petitions, complete version archives of each game, or release dates for each version. As far as I know, they haven't liberated any games. Yet. Maybe all of those things are yet to come, or is it an attempt to capture our audience with an identical mission statement, but without doing all of the work that made Classic DOS Games what it is? I mean, anyone can say that they want to encourage copyright holders to make their games available for sale or as freeware, but what have you done to make it happen?

So, what to do? Our mission is honorable, so anyone who copies our mission has an honorable mission, too. The similarity of format and concept could be a coincidence, but there's no possibility that they copied our mission statement almost word for word without reading ours. If they did rip us off, does it even matter? If we're both supporting the same cause, what's the harm in that?

I know that imitation is the highest form of flattery, but something about copying my work without giving me any credit doesn't sit well with me. If they wanted to do what we're doing, why not offer to help Classic DOS Games? I can understand the owner wanting to do it his or her own way. After all, Classic DOS Games wasn't the first DOS games site! I incorporated the things that I liked about other websites into my own. The license information is a direct result of my attempt to imitate Liberated Games. Of course, I also post at Liberated Games and help them with their cause, and I also have a completely different mission than they do. They liberate games for any platform, and only list liberated games. I only do DOS, but I list shareware games and games that were always freeware. I incorporate the strengths of other websites, but I always make sure that my site is significantly different from everyone else's. I wrote every word that appears on the site! (Thank you to those of you who submitted corrections)

I just have mixed feelings about this whole situation. Am I seeing similarities that aren't there? Should I be flattered, outraged, or should I offer to help? What would you do in this situation?

[she's long gone]

I know that that site has obtained permission from copyright holders to release games as freeware... though I haven't checked, are they hosted here? Do the two sites have any partnership?

[DOSGuy]

The webmaster of DOS Museum acknowledged copying Classic DOS Games, and apologized for following our mission statement a bit too closely.

I apologize for the plagiarism in my mission statement - I used yours as an example when I made mine and it looks like I followed it too closely. While putting together my plans for my website yours was definitely the example to follow (as far as a quality DOS game website - and one of the only ones who works on contacting authors). Those similarities will be phased out as I expand and streamline what I'm doing, I didn't mean to take more than some of the general ideas and concepts, and I apologize for that.

He said that he's liberated 5 games, which I mostly hadn't heard of, so they aren't hosted here yet. The focus for the last month has been Quality Assurance (a massive edit of the entire review database for typos, converting licenses and images to more browser-friendly names, an RSS feed, anchors, a new color scheme, etc.) to try to improve search ranking and user friendliness, and I've written a couple of interviews which are going very well. My focus in April will be catching up with requests, most of which involve adding games, so I'll try to add any liberated games that other sites have that we don't -- provided that I can verify that they're freeware.

There is no formal partnership, but there is a common understanding. I suspected that DOS Museum was copying Classic DOS Games in a deliberate effort to steal my concept and work in order to steal my visitors and compete with me. Competing with me is fine, so long as you don't achieve your success by stealing my work! To the contrary, their webmaster says that Classic DOS Games was used as a template because of the quality of the site, and his intention is to do the same good work that we're doing. We have an understanding that I approve of his efforts to liberate games and popularize DOS, so long as he isn't stealing my concept or design. We are partners in the sense that we both want people to be able to play great games, but there is no content sharing or any kind of formal or legal partnership.