I'd like to personally address the people who think that it's 'hypocritical' of Jim to think that it's fair for WB to get smacked by copyright laws when he complains about publishers sitting on IP or pulling out the banhammer on 'offending' youtube videos because of the same laws:
Guys, there's nothing wrong with making a piece of work and expecting to get credit for it. Anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together would agree. The problem is that copyright laws as they rife for abuse and allow copyright holders to completely screw over people for minor infringements such as fan tributes or charity works. If Nintendo sued WB for using it's characters in Scribblenauts without permission, there would be absolutely no debate: Everyone would agree it was stupid of WB to use said characters offering money or at the very least asking, plus I very much doubt that they would ignore an angry letter from Nintendo saying "Give us our due, you thief" (yes I know they were licensed out, I'm not an idiot). And yet here we are in exactly the same circumstances, except for the fact that the copyright holders aren't massive companies (and also that the characters were only licensed just before the third game if I'm not wrong).
We don't hate copyright owners as a rule. We don't have a problem if WB gets mad when people put Bugs Bunny as a feature (rather than a reference) in their pay-to-play game or uses him to advertise said game, and we would fully respect their rights to sue. We understand WB's concerns with piracy and we don't mind legitimate threats being warned and/or taken down. What we DON'T like is when companies ban Youtube accounts because of fan-tribute videos (or even game reviews featuring game footage or even TRAILERS for the game, god forbid), threaten to sue men who craft copyrighted character costumes to wear at Cancer charity events (Nickelodeon threatened an NZ man for making a SpongeBob SquarePants suit from raw materials and attending a charity parade, even though owners of dozens of other characters featuring in the parade didn't mind) or using automated software to threaten anything that so much slightly resembles the TITLE of one of their films. Those acts of douche-baggery simply cannot be compared to what is undeniably stealing something and using it to promote your own paid software without so much as any sort of recognition.
Oh, but Nyan Cat and Piano Cat surely aren't making them any money or influencing any sales? THEY'RE IN THE FREAKING ADVERTISEMENTS. LOOK IT UP.
You are allowed to copyright something, gain profit off it and expect to be the only one gaining profit off it. We're fine with that. We just don't want you to be a dick about it.
Orekoya said:
personion said:
I love 5th Cell and Scribblenauts. They're some of my favorite games. It's a shame they're getting hit with this. I don't really agree that they're "getting what they deserve" by using Keyboard Cat and Nyan Cat in their games. It was an amazing experience to find in-jokes like that in a random DS game. As for the snubbing, it seems like they didn't think that the creators understood how the memes worked- after all, many other sources of media use pop-culture references and don't sued. I hope the lawsuit doesn't go through, I want to see more Scribblenauts.
This is not a pop-culture reference. If you typed in 'nyan cat' and the game just made the nyan-nyan sound bit from the video or made a rainbow pass quickly through the far background where you wouldn't have able to see the cat; that is a pop-culture reference. What actually happens when you type 'nyan cat' is that game pops out the nyan cat's likeness. You've typed in a copyrighted character's name and got said copyrighted character. If this game was produced by another company, you typed in Sam Winchester and then got Jared Padalecki's likeness; it would be a safe bet to say that Warner Bros would be quick to do the same if not worse.
What he said. Claiming something is a reference and not a feature because the developers 'used their own art style to create their version' is ridiculous. Because stealing/failing to give credit for someone else's work/creation is only wrong when you copy it pixel for pixel, right?