Another great move on Nintendo's part

[OB1]

From Games Are Fun:

Nintendo cracks down on fan-game developers and their projects
Posted by Ash Paulsen at 04:57:45 AM EST on 8.19.2004.

There's news coming out of Zelda Universe today that Nintendo has gone on the offensive and sent warning E-mails to the developers of various fan games based on their most popular franchises, and also to the websites that host current builds of these games on their servers.

In addition the increasingly well-known, popular "Ocarina of Time 2D" project, other fan-games - including "Open Zelda," "Adventure Zelda," "Zelda: Link's Odyssey," "Zelda 2: Enhanced," and "Super Mario World Classic" - have already been targeted and affected by Nintendo's actions.

Nintendo is no doubt only doing what they feel is right to protect their interests and properties, but this is also sparking some heated controversy on whether or not the company's going too far and/or picking the wrong targets. In any case, there are heated arguments on both sides of the issue and it will be interesting to see how this develops.

If any more news of interest develops from this story, we here at GAF will be sure to let you know!

Source: Zelda Universe

Well there goes that planned Zelda fan game for me! I must say that this is one of the dumbest things that Nintendo has ever done. They're struggling enough as it is to gain new fans, and now they're alienating the few hardcore fans that they have left. Microsoft didn't stop those fans from making that neat-o 2D Halo game, Valve didn't stop those fans from making that 2D HL games. The only reason why people are doing this is because they love Nintendo's games so much. Lucasfilm embraced the fan film community and even hold an awards ceremony each year to congratulate and award the people who make these wonderful tributes to Star Wars. And several of these amateur filmmakers have gone on to work for ILM and Lucasfilm! What better way to find new talent!

Nintendo is making a huge mistake here. This is the last thing they should be doing. Well fuck 'em, this is going to hurt them a lot more then it will hurt us.

[Great Rumbler]

Surely there are better ways for Nintendo to spend their time and money.

[geoboy]

I would not be surprised if I saw something like this a few years from now...

*** THIS JUST IN ***

Nintendo is issuing subpoenas to thousands of people of all ages -- including children -- for drawing trademarked characters from various Nintendo franchises.

Nintendo claims that these unauthorized duplicates, called "fan art", are a violation of copyright law and a direct threat to Nintendo's business.

"All we are trying to do is protect our fans from themselves. They may see a 'fan art' drawing and confuse it with our official character art. These 'fan art' drawings are often grossly inaccurate and therefore threaten our company somehow"

:D

[OB1]

Heh, that wouldn't surprise me one bit. I bet they'd sue me for dressing up like Link when I was 7 if they could.

[A Black Falcon]

They could. I mean, copyright law is pretty broad -- even just DISCUSSION of Nintendo copyrighted things on websites without their permission could be sued over... I think. Unless judges ruled against TSR when they tried that...

[Great Rumbler]

I doubt Nintendo could make a case against discussion of their copyrighted things because of the Fair Use Act, or whatever the heck it's called.

[OB1]

It's also apparently illegal for a little child to draw a picture of Spider-Man without permission by Marvel, but Marvel would be destroying themselves by suing people for drawing their characters in their notebooks. Kids being allowed to draw their favorite superheroes helps comic publishers like Marvel and DC, just as people making fan-tribute-games based off of their favorite Nintendo franchises can only help Nintendo (or at the very least, couldn't hurt them). Remember how I wanted to make that top-down 3D Zelda game? I was very serious about making it, just a short little game that takes place right after Link's Awakening. I wasn't even going to use any of Nintendo's artwork, I was going to create everything from scratch. Well, now it's obviously never going to happen. It's not like I was going to profit from it or anything like that. I love Zelda, and wanted to see what I could add to it, as small and insignificant as it may have been. It would have been no different than making a Star Wars fanfilm or my own Batman comic.

[A Black Falcon]

Maybe not win, but they could try... as I said some years back TSR sued people for talking about their products on websites and chatrooms... yeah, they didn't win. But you don't always have to win to get your point across.

[OB1]

Nintendo is doing the same thing that Paramount did, which is threaten to sue makers of Trek fanfilms. And just like Nintendo, Paramount is struggling very hard to keep their existing (Trek) supporters, so pissing off the fans like this is only going to contribute to their downfall.

[OB1]

Maybe not win, but they could try... as I said some years back TSR sued people for talking about their products on websites and chatrooms... yeah, they didn't win. But you don't always have to win to get your point across.

Right, even if their case is bogus, there's no way these small fans could ever afford an attorney to defend them.

[A Black Falcon]

Note the case of commercial PSX emulators. They were legal (well, except for that last thing Bleem did with the copyrighted image), but they lost because of mounting legal fees...

[OB1]

Right.