I've been involved with open-source gaming for nearly a decade now. I mostly contribute to popular Linux games, like Xonotic or Minetest... but plan to make my own games of various genres as well. Since this is an important part of any successful FOSS game, especially when using content made by other people (like OpenGameArt), I've gotten familiar with free licenses and other legal components that might be involved.
As a fan of LoK, I can't help being concerned with how the series relies on a copyright character (Krystal). Especially since Starfox belongs to Nintendo, which is a very evil company when it comes to community content. Some might be familiar with how they destroyed an open-source game called Pokenet / Pokemon Global many years back... then attempted to implement their own SOPA type law across the internet, because they wanted to forbid even posting screenshots from one of their games (Pokemon Black & White). Idea is, any LoK game as well as this website might be in for a Cease & Desist at any moment... especially considering the not-so-socially-acceptable nature.
Now I know what some might be thinking: These games are a parody and therefore protected by Fair Use. To a good extent this is true... but: First of all, this doesn't stop corporations from still sending threats to fan projects that use their IP in order to intimidate them, even when they know there's no legal basis to do so. And quite often, this succeeds at taking the projects down... because people get easily scared at the thought of being sued by large corporations and prefer not taking any risks. And second, the project must fit the theme of a parody to remain covered by Fair Use. This means that small and simple games should be fine, but large ongoing projects which claim their independence might no longer qualify as parody. Legal issues aside, I think being fan art for a character from another series can only allow LoK to go this far, whereas using our own IP would let the idea go further and represent an evolutionary step.
As a result, I've been pondering what I consider the best solution in such a situation: Having the LoK community create characters of their own... similar to the existing ones, but placed under a free license which makes it okay for anyone to include them in their works. Obviously I'm thinking of a vixen character similar to Krystal... but with a different appearance, different personality, a different background story, and a different name. Of course I'm not talking about just taking Krystal, changing her fur color, modifying a letter in the name, and saying that's a new character... people qualify that as a ripoff and often look down upon such approaches, while it might not offer full legal coverage either. Still, we could use the existing sprites to make a fully original character using the same anatomy, but which is separate from Krystal by all other means. It could eventually be used in more than just LoK games, such as animated films!
Another advantage is that we could design our character to have an appearance and personality even better suited for what we want to do with it. After all, Krystal is beautiful but not perfect... so an even prettier character design with the same feel could be researched. She was also designed to be a space warrior, not a super-attractive nymphomaniac So in the case of a serious project, we'd be trying to fit a sphere through a square hole to some extent.
What are your thoughts? Does anyone else think it would be a good idea to also make LoK games using original IP, and replacing Krystal with a character of our own? Who's interested in working on such a design if so?