I know many people took little notice to the thread above, mostly because people hadn't even heard of the show it was based upon, but the maker of the fan-game has recently recieved some exceptionally bad news. It would appear that the representatives of the owners of the show have issued a cease and decist write to Piers Bell (the game's creator) and told him he must stop making this game.
This is an outrage! Typical short-sighted organisations trying to crush the little guy doing nothing but good for their own products! Please, can all the great game lovers on this site do me (and Piers) a small favour and write a very small e-mail to the idiots responsible for this travesty conveying disgust at their demand? The games website link is below and all of the details of the demand, as well as the e-mail addresses of the poeple involved, are included on the link.
I'm not expecting an essay of anything like that but many peoples voices might get these fools to change their mind! Please help!!
I'd like to thank Mark an awful lot for giving these corporate cretins a right load of stick by email.
Fair Use is something that is decided on a case by case basis.
In my opinion fan games (of TV series at least) do qualify as fair use as they pass the 4 main tests for fair use as follows:
1. They don't generate any profit
2. They are for personal use only
3. They use only the amount of copyrighted work necessary to complete the stated goals of the project
4. They don't cause any loss of revenue to the original copyright holders (and probably serve as free advertising anyhow).
When it happens to be a fan-game of an original game these points are harder to justify but provided the above criteria are met - the usage can be strongly argued to be fair.
Hello Crash All the same, more pressure = less likely chance that this would ever have to be decided via courts or successful threats. Let's make ourselves heard!
Frankly I would completely ignore it. Send a long list of links to them of other fangames and fangame sites with the short explanation that no legal action has ever been successful against them. Then stop responding to the e-mails entirely.
I don't beleive they can sue him as long as he doesn't try to sell the game. Sueing him definitely is wrong. How is it different than anyother fan game? The Terminator 3 fangame you're working on, it's no different, and it shouldn't be.
to be perfectly honest, unless you leave a paper trail to your doorstep, its impossible for them to take legal action against you. What do they say, some anonymous person on the internet is creating a fan game about their show? What have they got beyond your email? And even then, they can't even prove you're working on it. What can they do, have the cops take your computer in as evidence?
Just don't tie it to personal information, and then ignore anything anyones 'lawyer' says.
You're quite right - Unless it were a full-on criminal matter no company would supply them with my address - my ISP isn't even hosting the files in question.
There's not a lot they can do - but even so I was absolutely distraught on Friday when this email first hit and after I rang them to find out what the problem was.
I still think that literally one or two emails like Mark's will go a long way to giving them a sore nose over this and reminding them that they don't want to take this any further.
Ugh, I'm tired of stuff like this happening. Just take the fan game down. Put it on a torrent or something. Then once the company goes bankrupt (which is usually less than 5 years after they attack loyal customers), put the game back up.
A lot of incredibly stupid people spend a lot of time and money attacking the little people who actually helps them. You'd be surprised how far they're willing to chase you just because of ego.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
I shall bombard them with emails citing the Fair Use law later this evening. It's daft what they're doing. Boo hoo, poor f***ing mr Go Nagai. Certainly living up to the first 5 characters of his name.
Originally Posted by Wiiman I don't beleive they can sue him as long as he doesn't try to sell the game. Sueing him definitely is wrong. How is it different than anyother fan game?
Maybe when the fan game starts looking better than the original people start to get mad.
Big case in point: The 3d Chrono Trigger project that Square put the stop to a few years ago. Such a shame..
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But of course the Chrono trigger game would have taken sales away from the real game had Square enix decided to re-release it. So thats probably lawful.
Thanks very much for all the support guys - the game is NOT stopping - I just released a new version at 2:30 this morning (which kinda sticks 2 fingers up at them).
I know a good couple of people have sent them complaints and what not - I think just one or two more should tip the balance.
I said to someone earlier today that the only way that site was going down was if the datacentre was hit by a large missile.
The ideas about not actually hosting the game file itself are great - it's legal to host torrent files nomatter the content (never mind the fact that our files aren't illegal). Even then you can upload it to as many freeware download sites as you feel like. That'd keep 'em busy sending takedown notices to everyone and their dog.
The awesome thing is that my hosting is given to me and owned by a sort of cool benefactor of ours. His reaction to the news was basically to tell them to sod off.
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All the same, more pressure = less likely chance that this would ever have to be decided via courts or successful threats. Let's make ourselves heard!
Edited by the Author.
