Copyright Infringement

[Camy]

Glad I wasn't the only one who reacted that way seeing the tile XD

[Todd]

Edit: ALSO I HAVE TO SAY THAT WHEN I SAW THIS THREAD THE TITLE ALONE GAVE ME A CRAMP

lol Sorry!

I think as long as we don't profit, we'll be fine, too. Like dubs brought up, critics would be out of a job if writing about a copyrighted subject could result in legal charges. I think summary and analysis is absolutely A-OK. The one issue I think any of us would have is image galleries, or altered official images for layouts.

[Emma]

It's not something I worry about. Yes, we are technically infringing on copyright with the images we use (as far as I know), but we don't profit from it and could you imagine trying to police that and the horrible backlash it would have if TPC said unauthorised use of their images wasn't allowed? They'd be alienating the people who play their games and who go to fansites and wikis for news and game tips. It would be impossible to police, not worth their time, and would piss off their customers.

I'd be more worried if I was an Etsy seller selling, say, Pokemon themed crafts.

Also, TPC and Nintendo are really bad for this kind of thing, as much as I love them. They did claim ad revenue from LPers using their games and generally were (still are?) against streaming. (Remember they blocked Smash Bros from streaming at EVO until they realised what a bad idea that was and reversed it?) They just seem to be really against anyone using their IPs for profit, however little. I always thought it was interesting that they had an issue with LPers when other game companies will send out preview copies to popular ones because they know it's basically free advertising for them.

[Destinie]

This is the reason I always put a note on my sites. And I think it's clear we are definitely not making any money so we should be fine. I think of all the Pokemon fangames and things that continue to exist with no problems. It would be unrealistic for a company to try to sue every person who enjoyed their products. How would that make them look?

[Mikari]

A cease and desist should have been enough if this was the first time he was caught. I can understand if he received a C&D in the past, but if not, it seems a bit severe. I guess the profit makes the difference, but the question is: was the party having a negative effect on the franchise or was it just free publicity? I can't say unless I know what went on, but the chances of it having a negative effect are slim, while the lawsuit might actually have more of a negative effect. I don't think he should profit from an IP that's not his, but if they had just issued a C&D then they wouldn't have such high lawyer fees. I've never really worried about this happening to me for sites, fan art or fanfics, since I'm not making a profit. Plus if they went after stuff on Deviant Art, etc. which is where the majority of my fan works are, then a lot of archives would be in trouble, the news would be big and nasty, and they would most likely focus on the person running the archive more so than on individual users. Overall, if there's no profit involved and there's a copyright note, the worse they might do is tell us to take the sites, I doubt it would ever escalate from there and this is an unlikely worse case scenario anyway.