How safe is LoK from a legal attack for using Krystal?

[MirceaKitsune]

Although I found this project a few hours ago, I'm already in love with it. I really wouldn't wish to see it ceasing development or getting into any trouble. But sadly, I've been around free games enough to know that's possible to happen, if the game will keep going and getting more popular.

The reason is that LoK uses Krystal, a character by Nintendo. Which sadly, the retarded laws of our countries can deem as an illegal thing. I'm also not sure if anyone here is familiar with Nintendo's take on this. All I can say is that they're bloodthirsty for taking down fan sites and fan games that contain anything they own. Pokemon is the franchise they've been doing that with most. Such as taking down an open source pokemon game earlier this year, and recently making it illegal to even post screenshots of their new pokemon game on the internet (yes that's not a joke). I actually made a journal about it. In case anyone's curious, you can find it here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1728756/ (I also drawn some yiff art against them, but I won't post that here ). As for that project, you can read about what happened to it here http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1480286/ All I'm saying is, I find this very concerning and dangerous.

So the question I wanted to ask is: How safe is this project from a legal attack asking it to cease development? If such a thing happens, is there an alternative to change or rename something to keep that from happening? I'm guessing that in the worst case, we could edit the Krystal sprites a little and modify / recolor some parts, then change the name from Krystal to something else. Not sure about these things in detail, but that should normally fix such an issue. I don't want to bring any negativity here, but like I said I really care for this project already, and would be sad to see it having the same fate as Pokenet. Hope everything will be well and someone is prepared to defend it though

[Valithan]

Far as I can tell, there probably isn't any safety in this what so ever. Any fan made (or at least unofficially) product that features an existing company's characters is probably liable for a law suit of some kind or another. From what I've seen, companies take these things in stride as they tend to draw more attention to their products, or at least don't merit sufficient attention for stirring up legal threats, as either there is probably little to be gain, and a lot of reputation to lose.

From what I can tell, the usual "bad guy" in pressuring fan projects has been Square-Enix. Outside of this case on pokémon, Nintendo and Capcom are generally friendly, or at least apathetic, to fan flash games, rom hacks, etc. (and may even use fan productions — Capcom has) If Nintendo were blatantly the bad guy these journal posts try to portray it as being, there would be a huge upheaval in projects of much greater acclaim than this one, such as explodingrabbit's Super Mario Bros. Crossover or other porn related productions where money is involved. My guess is the nature of what was going on with pokemon was sufficient to feel a threat to their product line. Pokemon games tend to be generic on graphics and effects and story (least that I can tell) with the addition really only being a pokemon event and a few extra new breeds and evolutions. Competitive pokemon is a big thing (hence the big push to keep pumping out new games) and if a fan project can create that for free, that's a big blow to Nintendo, esp if they just decide to finally make an mmo out of it.

Out of curiosity, how long had that fan game been online?

[BananaBread]

Can Nintendo procure a profit by attacking fan-based projects? No.

Is Nintendo interested in protecting the sanctity of their innovations? Probably a little.

Look, if LOK becomes virus internet phenomenon, Nintendo would likely put forth measures to squelch the project. But lets be realistic, not to many people are interested in watching an animated fox get railed by a bunch of lizards; LOK will remain under the radar and largely out of reach of the foreboding iron-fist of Nintendo.

[Oriandu]

Pretty sure that this could fall under parody.

[MirceaKitsune]

That makes sense. Was thinking of the scenario where LoK does become popular, and turns into something more eventually. Of course that may not happen, though it would be nice I seen flash games that got pretty far.

As for the Pokenet project, I don't remember precisely how long it's been there for. I think it existed for at least 2 years or so (I know it's been for one year at least since that's when I found it).

[Renara]

What did the Pokémon game try to do? If it was very similar to the original games and free, or worse a pay-to-play game then Nintendo has every right to go crazy at that. LoK however I think comes quite happily under parody laws, and isn't exactly what you'd call similar to the official games, nor desperately mainstream (even popular adult games are still niche at best).

So I expect we're safe, as we won't be accepting payment for the game, even in donations and we won't be adding advertising or anything like that. People will be free to do what they like with the engine as I'm going to make it open source and as well documented as possible, so it'll be possible for someone to build a similar game with all original content and charge for that if they wish. I mean, parody laws would actually allow us to charge if we wanted, but personally I'd prefer to steer clear of any issues entirely.

Technically we could accept donations for engine development and still be in the clear, since strictly speaking that has nothing to do with the content of the game, and I probably will release it on my Renara site as a separate entity since it's not necessarily adult or even LoK only. But that won't be for some time, as while the v0.3 engine will be released with the rest of v0.3, it won't really be complete at that point.

[MirceaKitsune]

I understand. I think that clears a lot of confusion, thanks And iirc Pokenet did accept some donations, but was certainly not pay to play. It became very popular though, and had a lot of users (it was also open source). But yeah, LoK should thankfully not fall in the same position.

[Renara]

Well, the real issue with PokéNet would be how similar it was to the official games, as even if it were free if it had official characters and similar gameplay then it would infringe on the official games too much to be considered a parody or just a harmless fan-made spin-off, as people might prefer to just play PokéNet instead of buying the official games.

I think it would have been better if Nintendo had bought it up instead though, as quickly searching it looks like a good fan-made game. While an MMO it doesn't seem like it would have been different enough for Nintendo to let it slide I think.

[MirceaKitsune]

Yes, that it was (very similar to the official Pokemon games). I heard it was using ripped sprites from it as well. Was still upset to see that happening to a good open-source project though, and wasn't sure if the similarity was the real reason. But last I heard the project didn't entirely die, so there is good news. They're planning on creating new creatures in the same style as Pokemon, but not anything specifically from it. I'm watching it from time to time to see how it goes

As for LoK qualifying as a parody. As silly as it may sound, I do hope it could become something more than that in time. Like have a very large world, savegames, and maybe become a whole complex single-player mmo with lots of active players and stuff to do... of course over months and even years. It would be silly (in the positive sense) and unique for a project like this to become an actually popular and constantly playable mmo, but imo not impossible

[something]

Aw come one I guess when the first time Nintendo introduced Krystal (or Zero Suit Samus) they began to hope that one day a few hentai addicted would start to make a hentai game of Krystal (or Samus)

[MirceaKitsune]

Aw come one I guess when the first time Nintendo introduced Krystal (or Zero Suit Samus) they began to hope that one day a few hentai addicted would start to make a hentai game of Krystal (or Samus)

Hehe. I'd like to think that for some reason When I see yiffy art of some characters, I sometimes wonder if the artist might secretly be an artist from the company of that series

[toddymon]

thats what i think about pokemon. some pokemon look like they were just for rule 34.

[Xadinel]

these guys are relatively safe from lawsuit because they're not getting money/selling the game and when the game is fully made the credits will credit nintendo for the games they are burrowing the characters from, plus nintendo don't go around searching for fan made products on the internet just to make lawsuits.

[8749]

I'm pretty sure it's been mentioned, as I really cannot be stuffed reading the massive boards of texts, but [speaking from a lawyer's POV] as LoK is a non-profited foundation, these fan-made creations are perfectly legal and does not break any law. As far as I can see, unless Nintendo is going to go bankrupt and decides to sue all fan-made projects because they receive DONATIONS, [which still does not breach the law, as they are classified as gifts, goods received for various other purposes willed by the giving side], they can't even create a case.

[Rinzler]

Can Nintendo procure a profit by attacking fan-based projects? No.

Is Nintendo interested in protecting the sanctity of their innovations? Probably a little.

LOLWUT!? I know damn well, Nintendo cares about protecting the sanctity of their innovations (as you call them) At the tokyo game show I believe 2007 and 2008 in which shigeru miyamoto not only hosted most part of the event but also supervised (this he always does), He rejected entry of about 70-100 people because their cosplay or costume as one of his personal characters (mario, link, etc) was not appropiate and was not fitting of his original work, as for about 2-8 people in which both events assisted wearing a costume that somehow mocked or made fun of characters like mario (some of em with actual nudity showing), He complained at the fact he could not force them to leave the area as soon as he wanted so he made sure the WHOLE NINTENDO COMPANY sued (demanded) these individuals for defamation, violation of copyrights, violation of both event and city order and he also used as a rule book the tokyo federal law agreement. not only did he won the demand over the majority of the lawsuits, but he also got the support from the other 2 contender companies at the show (Sony, Microsoft) and some others like Blizzard. I'm pretty sure given how strict japan is these people faced at least 5 year imprisonment for their little stunt!

So this is not to scare the crap out of people here but it is something to be handled carefully!

Note: This story I read on magazine in my country called "Cyberespacio"

[trunks2585]

Here's why i don't worry, how many dojin's have been made of mario, starfox, zelda, ANYTHING nintendo? they arn't as common as some, and a lot you can question how fap worthy they actually are, but they exist and are made within japan and a few other countries, so if they can do it, i'm pretty sure we can as well. also you're talking about cosplayers showing up at a game show showing some nudity on their costumes, public indesency. we are just a little site making a porn game, it's not like we're trying to sell this to nintendo or something or trying post it in a place it has no business being in.

[hornguy6]

As long as no money is being made via specifically the project (donations don't count) this won't be subject to copyright.

[Rinzler]

Here's why i don't worry, how many dojin's have been made of mario, starfox, zelda, ANYTHING nintendo? they arn't as common as some, and a lot you can question how fap worthy they actually are, but they exist and are made within japan and a few other countries, so if they can do it, i'm pretty sure we can as well. also you're talking about cosplayers showing up at a game show showing some nudity on their costumes, public indesency. we are just a little site making a porn game, it's not like we're trying to sell this to nintendo or something or trying post it in a place it has no business being in.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but I found it really stupid, the comment I quoted, Nintendo does take protection of the sanctity of their products! to think otherwise so surely could bring up real issues, but the whole point was, the comment is not based on anything, nintendo does care!

[trunks2585]

well if they decide a flash game of a secondary character from a game made by Rare who's no longer with them, is so much worse than a handful of doujin's featuring peach and zelda, then we'll take it down, they'll have to go after playshapes as well.

[dudelikeporn]

He complained at the fact he could not force them to leave the area as soon as he wanted so he made sure the WHOLE NINTENDO COMPANY sued (demanded) these individuals for defamation, violation of copyrights, violation of both event and city order and he also used as a rule book the tokyo federal law agreement. not only did he won the demand over the majority of the lawsuits, but he also got the support from the other 2 contender companies at the show (Sony, Microsoft) and some others like Blizzard

Sorry, but this sounds like a load of horse shit, especially that last part.

Citation. Needed.