MineCraft Players Putting Themselves at Risk of Copyright Lawsuits

[maximara]

Personally, I suspect that companies probably won't do this for fear of alienating some of their fans. Besides, it's basically free advertising for them.

I would like to point out that fanfiction would also fall under "derivative works" and most authors and companies turn a blind eye to that sort of thing.

Also satire is IMMUNE to copyright claims in the US so if you have a mock up of a restaurant called Old McDonald's with day glow arches managed by a humonid cow from a place called Thunder Guff McDonald's or Blizzard could try to sue for copyright claims but odds are an reasonable judge would laugh the case out of the courtroom.

Now trademarks are a different matter and as a rule of thumb you really don't want to be using those as under US law there is this kind of "if you don't defend it you lose it" attitude.

 

[Sir_Tor]

What if I recieved a cease and desist letter? Does it mean I would have to destroy my creation and then fuck off from minecraft forever or just destroy my creation?

 

[maximara]

I've received C&D emails from the BTCC to remove all cars with their logo on them and their logo itself from my storefront in Forza Motorsport 3 so this is not outside the realm of possibility. Though the BTCC.net logo is trademarked and not copyrighted it's close to the same thing.

Come to think about it, the BTCC is the only organization that has sent me a C&D regarding Forza and I've made plenty of racing car replica paints since Forza 1... to tell you the truth, I wonder why there aren't more of these issues popping up. With the push toward user generated content on consoles I'd expect to see plenty more of this type of copyright/trade mark defense in the days ahead.

Actually copyright and trademark are NOT the same thing. You can never loose the right to enforce a copyright by not taking actions against violations but you CAN lose the right to defend a trademark by doing nothing. This makes unauthorized trademark use a lightning rod for problems--to keep control over their trademark a company MUST take action.

 

[Knife-28]

Well, lucky for me I can't build pixle art to save my life. Awthough I did build a space invader.

 

[Something Amyss]

In general, though, that involves stuff that could conceivably hurt them. For instance, fan translations of games that were never ported to the US could hurt sales if they eventually DO decide to port it, so it's understandable that a company might stop that.

This stuff is just stationary sculptures of things. Unless Sega is planning on releasing "Sonic and the Immortal Sculptor", they don't have much to worry about.

...I hope I didn't just give Sonic Team an idea, since I'm sure they'd consider that a brilliant move for some reason.

there's a lot that has little to do with commercial protection. Fan sites, including fan fiction and fan art have been targeted before. Not necessarily Sega (I don't know offhand), but a stationary sculpture seems as possible as any other form of fan art.

I'm not saying it will happen, nor do I want it to happen. I'm not big on Minecraft, but seeing this stuff done impresses me. However, people should be aware of the risk, and there's always the potential for a lawsuit.

 

[little.09]

instead of lawsuits why not gladiator fights

 

[FalloutJack]

Put simply, if you want to strike at one for this witch hunt, you've got to strike at them all. And you know something about all these derivitives that don't even make a cent? They are legion. Not like...banded as one against all, but so numerous that you're already a billion behind as soon as you start and they just keep adding up as you go. It's entirely pointless and literally impossible to get them all, so why bother when it is, in fact, harmless? Shit, man! Most companies can't even bury decent pirates!

 

[CD-R]

Now that he has lost his trademarks can someone create a 300ft high, Hollywood Style Sign of the word EDGE!

I second this motion.

 

[subject_87]

It seems like companies would only be willing to touch this if they were unbelievable copyright whores. *cough* Disney

 

[PinkiePyro]

its still fairly unliky they will bother not after that one famous case where disney went after a preschool that had made a disney murel and had them remove it only to have WB come alone and be like
"lol disney are jerks here we will paint a mural of our char.s for you for free lolol"

 

[TheStickman]

But... I made Donkey Kong! D:

 

[flaming_ninja]

I've made a massive Charizard, and if gameshark comes after me, I didn't just say that. To be honest though look at Deviant Art there are hundreds even thousands of derivative works on there, if someone were to attack a minecraft player, surely they would attack the DA members first, because you can actually make money from DA.

 

[Baldr]

Most companies understand the difference between fandom and real copyright cases. It is against copyright laws to put up images on your website of videogames, but companies understand this as almost free advertising, which is good for the company.