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Fair Use And Game Mods?
brtb asks: "Rumors have been flying high on IRC that the popular Quake 3 mod "Bid for Power," based on DragonBallZ, was recently cease-and-desisted by Funimation and forced into selling out. I'm not speculating as to the validity of these rumors, but I'm sure the mod-making community (including myself) would want to hear from all the copyright experts out there in /. - even the IANAL ones - what possible legal problems can TV/game based mods get into, and are they avoidable? What's fair use in the way of names, images, characters, settings, etc.? Is there anything in particular that we should stay away from doing while developing mods?" Rumor this may be, but it raises an interesting question: what use is fair when it comes to character licenses, scenes and other such things that can result from parodies and game mods based on something seen on TV or at the theater? Update: 12/16 08:44 PM EDT:As expected, this is a rumor and nothing more. Bid for Power has not received a cease-and-decist order.
Who's the "you" that you are referring to?? Nobody's said anything about id's IP. The people that are rumored to be trying to stop this are the people who make Dragonball Z.
I think that would be defensible in court. Sadly, even a successful defense is costly. That is how the threat of litigation works.
It might have been funnier if it hadn't been stated 50million times on Slashdot before, and better too. It was funnier when it included descriptions of characters posturing over how much of an exact percentage of their total powerlevel they were currently using to "just play with you."
Heh heh- I'll "feel their familys!"
Fair use allows you to use, in part or in whole, copyrighted works for personal and/or educational purposes. It does not cover wide-spread distribution (for free or for profit) of copyrighted materials--obviously.
The owners of the DragonballZ license are in their right to ask that development of this mod stop and all distribution be cancelled. The mod has the potential of diluting the strength of the DBZ brand and hindering sales of a DBZ game if/when one comes out.
To answer your question of, "Is there anything that can be done with fair use so that mods created on licensed materials can survive?"--no, there isn't.
Maybe if some of the mod makers fused with lawyers and trained hard in 100x gravity they could gain a higher power level than Funimation and defeat them in a epic battle over the fate of earth!
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
As far as I know there is nothing stopping someone from making a mod based on someones elses movie/TV show/cartoon/whatever, however, they can't sell said mod without getting the permission of the original creator (or liscencee thereof).
I.e., I could make a Animaniacs or Freakazoid mod for Q3, and pass it around to a few friends without getting in trouble. It could even (probably) be hosted somewhere for download. But the minute I start asking for money, Warner Bros. can just in with the lawyers...
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
The problem is that you can't just appropriate someone's work for your own even if you're not making a profit. The company owns the DragonBallZ characters, so you cannot use them in your own game. You could license the characters from them if you wished to. It's not fair use when you're appropriating their characters for your game, because you *are* depriving them of profit if they were ever to release a game themselves using their *own* characters.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
IIRC, the Aliens TC for Doom met the same fate. A shame, too. I managed to grab it before it was Foxed, and pummeling the alien Queen with a power loader was much fun.
There's also the issue of existing games based on the franchise in question. There was a DBZ fighting game on Ye Olde Nintendo. And there could possibly be others that were only released in Japan. Aliens TC may have been Foxed because of Alien vs. Predator, which was originally an Atari Jaguar title. (The only good Jaguar title, IIRC.) The PC version was a remake of the Jaguar game by the same studio. In either case, the license holder can claim that they're not just protecting their own intellectual property, but also existing licensees' rights to that IP.
We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead
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Warner Brothers has the copyright on the Animaniacs cartoon characters. Any representation of them is protected, except for "fair use". Just because you produce something which WB has not does not let you use their images. And you can't use your own drawings of Animaniacs cartoon characters any more than you can use wooden hand-carved renditions of Disney's mermaid as a fish restaurant logo...not without permission.
Of course, if you happen to independently create cartoon characters which happen to bear a coincidental similarity to Animaniacs then it's a different matter. But juries and art critics get to decide such issues, so an artist unlucky enough to have created similar creatures would probably try to create different ones instead.
Yes, this is offtopic. But where else can I voice a legitimate concern? I doubt "Ask Slashdot: What's Wrong with Slashdot?" would get posted. So please wait a little while before moderating down.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Unless stated specifically, the images, names, phrases, story lines, yadda yadda yadda of pretty much anything are considered to be intellectual properties. Any unauthorized use of those properties is itself justification for cease and decist orders and/or other legal action by or on behalf of the rightful owner. That said, unless you're using these images, names, yadda yadda... for research purposes only, your usage probably doesn't meet the criterion for "fair use."
As a starting resource for our faculty, staff, and students our library website includes the following information:
FAIR USE, 17 U.S.C 107
Fair Use is a limitation that allows reproduction in certain instances, without securing the copyright owner's permission. Fair Use acknowledges the importance of educational use of copyrighted works, by allowing reproduction for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, and research.
Materials that meet the four factors of fair use may be used without obtaining copyright permission.
Four factors must be examined on a case-by-case basis, weighed, and balanced to determine whether copying represents fair use. The courts have maintained that no single factor is determinative. The four factors are:
- Purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
- Nature of the copyrighted work
- Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
- Effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished does not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all of the above factors. [17 U.S.C. 107 (1994)].Code commentary is like sex.
If it's good, it's VERY good.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
Seen this before many a time. I remember an unreal mod that was started which was going to be based on southpark, or maybe the simpsons. One C&D letter later, and the project team folded their tent and replaced their webpage with a copy of the letter and a short note saying goodbye - their project had been "foxed".
They weren't a commercial company, just a bunch of fans who thought they could make something cool. The IP owners found out, sent a lawyer-letter and left the team with little choice but to throw up their hands and walk away. Afterall, a bunch of volunteers aren't going to hire a lwayer so they can keep their non-profit project going.
I remembered another one that was in the works to do a wolfenstein mod and id sent a letter. They weren't dicks about it, asked nicely for them to shut it down. From what I remember, id claimed they had to defend their copyright in each and every instance they learned of, regardless of how non-threatening it was or they risked losing a legal leg to stand on if some commercial entity were to start selling shrink-wrap games based on id's IP.
What I wondered at the time was, can id license the wolf-3d stuff to this mod team for, say $1 and thus get around this supposed legal pitfal and still support the community?
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
All those stickers on the back of the trucks that have Calvin urinating on company "X's" logo are not actually Calvin.
My favorites are the two racer Danny Sullivan has on the window of his pickup; Calvin is pissing on the numbers 3 and 24.
-
You might want to look at the following provisions of the United States Code.
17 U.S.C. Sec. 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works, provides: See: 17 U.S.C. Sec. 106.
17 U.S.C. Sec. 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use, provides: See: 17 U.S.C. Sec. 107.
You also have to look at trademark and unfair competition law.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
There's another area where this sort of thing creeps up from time to time: fanfiction.
Fanfiction, by definition, uses characters that aren't the author's. Now and again, we see companies try to stamp out fanfiction sites, but we also occasionally see a company endorse or create their own site for fanfiction of their property.
It's the first thing I thought when I saw this article - the DBZ mod is nothing more than a DBZ fanfic, albeit interactive.
Similarly, at one point, I'd considered writing a star wars game, fanfic style, but I imagined my efforts would have been rewarded only with Cease and Desist letters. I personally see nothing wrong with fanfiction (or game mods themed like fanfiction) when it's not-for-profit.
Moves like this don't bode well for people who want to make game mods, nor does it bode well for fanfic authors. Will Funimation start shutting down DBZ fanfic sites, or has this already begun?
-Denor
IIRC, the Aliens TC for Doom met the same fate.
Not that it matters, but Aliens TC for Doom didn't meet the same fate - I think you're thinking of an attempted Aliens conversion for Quake.
When A-TC for Doom was brought to the attention of someone at Fox (can't remember if it was the legal team though), their reply was something like "Doom? Never heard of it. Your thing is probably OK so long as it's not distributed too widely".
Shortly after that, first person computer games were making too much money to not come to the attention of such companies, and as soon as thoughts turned to licensing the rights, protecting those rights became an issue...
Aliens-TC for Doom bascially snuck through just before the wave of Doom's popularity changed things.
From PlanetNamek Chris, lead designer of Bid For Power, has this to say about the situation: "Bid For Power has not been ceased by funimation and we as well heard about this from slashdot.org. This is just a rumor going around the net." Wow- even the _subjects_ of stories now get to hear about unsubstantied rumors about their work directly from Slashdot.
Really, how involved can this game be? The typical DBZ episode breakdown:
.agrippa.
3 minutes of recapping the last episode
4 minutes flying around
8 minutes powering up
4 minutes of those 8 spent talking about how the person powering up is achieving a new level of power previously not believed to be attained
1 minute of the bald short dude saying "I know I can't beat XXX but I must try"
30 seconds of fighting
5 minutes standing around staring each other down
1 minute of telling the other fighter how their efforts are futile
2 minutes of the announcer speculating on what is going to happen next
1 minute of the characters thinking what the announcer speculated on
2 minutes of the announcer speculating on what is going to happen in the next episode (again)
The rest of the time is commercials/credits.
So in a typical 30 minute map you would have 30 seconds of playing the same fighting animation over and over against a striped background. Sounds like fun!
And more to the point, where could anybody get the idea that making a game mod based on a cartoon somehow was "fair use". The inadequacy of mass education rears its head again.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
There was a time when companies and other copyright holder understood that when someone (like say, a game mod maker) makes something that uses some parodies or some other representation of a copyrighted, trademarked, or otherwise "owned" character, it would generate more interest in the "real" character.
For some reason, common sense has totally left this field. It seems that the only way to be truly "safe" is to avoid using any material that is owned by anyone.
The other thing that bothers me is that protecting copyrights and trademarks used to be about protecting companies/owners from losing money. If someone makes something, and totally gives it away, absolutely does not require any payment at all for it (like some game mods), how are they causing the original "owner" to lose money? They are creating something that gets the name owned by the owner more exposure, thus generating more interest in the owners "product" and if anything creating more revenue for the owner. Much like fanzines and such, why would you want to destroy someone that is giving you free advertising?
This entire bunch of copyright/trademark disputes just makes me sick. What happened to common sense in this day and age? Do we all have to have a law degree before we are considered to have any knowledge that is "worthwhile"? I just don't get it.
------------
In '94 I made a Doom conversion based on a movie. It was very popular, and opened up a lot of opportunities for me. I imagine that its success was not inconsiderably aided by the movie being a part of the culture shared by the gamers.
:-)
Despite this, I found it not only artistically unsatisfying (to be chained to existing ideas), but that the legal limits imposed on what I could do with my own work (due to my work being based on IP that I didn't own) were more annoying than I anticipated. I wouldn't even dream of doing it again.
So what do you do?
You can either be original, drawing from all your favorite things (which is awesome fun and my recommendation), or you can decide to match the "feel" in your game without infringing on any IP, and simply let the gamers imagine themselves to be in the world that you're technically not allowed to portray. This isn't as difficult or dodgy as it sounds, and at the end of you, it could be you ending up with valuable IP. Don't try to make an imitation that's just far-off enough to not infringe, try to make 'em some competition - something that is appeals for the same reasons, but is even better...
(And if you suceed, you could end up being paid to do that stuff
I am the head of a company that produces a magazine every quarter a year. It's about Anime & Manga and we had a magazine with DBZ on the cover and an article of several pages about it inside. It's in Europe, but the rules apply anywhere, only the companies differ.
For every country there is a company which holds ALL rights of productions about DBZ, that is for those that will be spread. Your own drawn images don't count, UNTIL you are making copies of them and giving them away or something.
Also, it DOES NOT matter if you are making money out it or not. We, for one, are a non-profit company, so we weren't filling our pockets or anything.
Once you want to make something that has to do with DBZ, you have to contact this company (for the Netherlands this was a French company!) and request clearance for what you have made. Once they think it is good enough, more often than not it is send to Japan, to the original creators. After their examination and clearance you can use the DBZ material that you have shown to them.
Almost always they don't want any self-made creations of DBZ. You'll have to use original art (probably from an artbook) which you can adjust to your need in case of the mod. 'Self-made pictures will degrade the product of the original artists.' they say.
Keep in mind that when you start another project it all begins from the beginning again...
It took us 5 weeks to get clearance for the cover.
Final note: DBZ was shown on TV in Japan about 20 years ago!
--- Anyway, here's Aniway!
The copyright laws are an agreement between the public at large and the copyright holder. There is an exchange of rights inherent in the copyright law, not a grant of supreme irrefutable autocratic power.
This applies even in places such as the USA where there have concerted efforts to turn copyright into some kind of "irrefutable autocratic power".
f those who construct the "mod" or whatever can show that it meets the criteria of Fair Use, which is just as much a part of copyright law as the limited monopoly,, then all the lawyers and all the cease and desist letters are going to find themselves utterly defeated by something called a Judgement for the Defendant.
Assuming the case actually gets before a judge, one problem here is that there is little restriction on using lawsuits as a method of herassment. (Also IIRC in the US such a judgment need not require the plaintiff to pay all the defendant's costs.)
You could license the characters from them if you wished to. It's not fair use when you're appropriating their characters for your game, because you *are* depriving them of profit if they were ever to release a game themselves using their *own* characters.
This is a flawed argument since it's based around the assumption that commercial orgainsations have a right to make a profit. Whilst they might have a duty (to investors and shareholders) to attempt to make a profit this is something different from having the right to do so.
Further its rather difficult to deprive anyone of something which may not even exist in the first place.
Let alone that using copyright in this way tends to discourage creation and innovation. Certainly in places such as the USA the whole point of copyright is to encourage creative work. The best way to do this would be to give copyright protection only to people who actually do creative work, rather than giving copyright holders right over other people's work. e.g. if someone produces a mod to a game then they own the copyright on the mod. The original game producer owns the copyright on the unmoded game. If anyone (including the original game producer) wants to distribute a version of the game which includes the mod then they need permission from both.
it depends on the mod.. if I make a barbie mod it's clearly parody. if I make a DBZ mod, it's less clear, because basically the content is similar (cartoon violence, little story). You can also bet that a 'wallace and gromit' mod is a parody. you have to look at it on a case by case basis.
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Now, i might be wrong about this, but i have read/heard that Japanese copyright laws explicitly PERMITS fan-fiction style derivate works. That is, as long as you name the original copyright owner, you can even SELL something based on someone elses world/characters/etc.
IIRC its more that the US is out of step with the rest of the planet in making "derived works". Since most things are "dervied works" anyway, this would have been far less of a problem with the original short term US copyright though.
They should just do a 'clean room' implementation of all the skins and models
This is called "creating your own cartoon environment, based on the same character stereotypes that the DBZ creators used, and making a mod about it." This would work and would be legal, but you'd need to pay lots of animators. Character stereotypes are uncopyrightable (see also Capcom v. Data East), but implementations of those stereotypes in any commercialized cartoon (Draggin'BallZ, PokeMoney, etc.) are trademarks of their respective companies; trademark infringement is unfair competition under the Lanham Act. And don't count on waiting for trademarks to expire; USPTO trademark registrations are renewable for an unlimited number of 10-year terms, and copyright is already perpetual.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Yes. Coolio wasn't even the first rapper to sample it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Sadly, not only has a game company been liscenced to make a DBZ game, but a TERRBILE company has been picked. So this mod, which was looking to be very fun and well done, is going to get nixed so that a game made by the creators of Deer Hunter. What I don't understand is why mod makers using copyrighted material are so cavalier about putting up big websites displaying what they're doing. They seek publicity before the mod is even done, and often that publicity leads lawyers straight to them. Why not keep quiet until you're done- so that once released, the mod is out there and can't be stopped up? Another option would be to release all the character unskinned and unamed- with no direct DBZ references, and then release a second pack more covertly that has all the illegal DBZ skins and data.
The way a court will address a game modification matter is going to be a really complicated and touchy matter. The copyright issues involved are far from resolved. Not only are there different international standards (Europe is much more protective of copyright than is the U.S.), but the U.S. has not resolved differing interpretations of the law among its courts.
Copyright in characters usually depends upon how well defined and delineated the characters are. The more personality and distinctiveness ("originality") you give a character, the more likely it is that the character will be protected by copyright. At its extreme, this standard let the movie studio owning the James Bond movie character sue Honda for a commercial which depicted unnamed Bond-like characters doing Bond-like things. (That case came from a district court in the Ninth Circuit, which is very copyright-friendly.)
That standard, however, was developed for use in books and films. It's unclear how delineated a computer game character can be. However, the character-and-storyline rationale supported the decision in the Micro Star v. Formgen case, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In that case, the 9th Circuit held that Micro Star's distribution of map files for Duke Nukem 3D infringed Formgen's Duke Nukem copyright. Personally, I think the case went too far, especially since Formgen had distributed a map editor to users along with the game. (The court, if I recall correctly, implied a license for users to design their own levels and maybe even trade them, but not for Micro Star to compile and resell them. But that might have been my copyright class filling in a gap in the court's reasoning.) The Ninth Circuit said that Formgen's characters were distinctive enough that distributing files which put the characters into new scenarios infringed Formgen's copyright. Rather than get into the mechanics of the game, the court seemed (to me) most interested in preserving (perhaps extending) a general rule of copyright: The author of a story (including, now, a story in the form of an interactive game), if it is adequately distinctive (and the bar is apparently pretty low in the 9th Circuit), generally has the exclusive right to write, develop, or license sequels.
Another case which deals with the use of characters in surroundings where their authors did not originally put them is Disney v. Air Pirates, from the same Court of Appeals in 1978. Air Pirates wrote a magazine which depicted Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse involved in all sorts of decadent activities (drug smuggling, etc.). Disney won the copyright infringement case because its clearly delineated characters were copied by someone else. It helps that the characters were in graphic form, and so copying was easily recognizable. Disney's characters are more delineated than the characters of most computer games, but I would not be shocked if, under this standard, many computer game characters would be easily infringed.
The issue of supplanting the characters in a given game with different characters in the same game engine and surroundings, or supplanting the capabilities given to the characters in the game with different capabilities, has not yet arisen in the courts. But it seems that it would be easy to infringe, and that at least in the Ninth Circuit it would be quite possible for the plaintiff to win. (I can't predict what would happen if the case went to the Supreme Court.) The Ninth Circuit is an important court for us to consider, because it covers the west coast of the U.S. Its jurisdiction thus includes not only Hollywood (which is why it's had so many copyright cases), but also all of the west coast software developers.
Fair use:
Fair use is determined by weighing four statutorily defined factors:
(1) The purpose and character of the use,
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work,
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, relative to the whole copyrighted work, and
(4) the effect of the use on the potential market for the work.
No one factor is dispositive -- courts must weigh them all.
I don't have time even for a halfway full discussion of fair use, but I'll talk briefly about the four factors.
Purpose and Character of the Use: Commercial uses are accorded less worthiness than are noncommercial uses. Uses which change the ideas expressed in a copyrighted work get more benefit than do uses which don't change the ideas. Copying for purposes with specially recognized benefits (parody, book/music reviews, etc.) gets a little more benefit even if done for a commercial purpose, but the copier may copy only so much as is absolutely necessary to make his or her point, and no more. Air Pirates did not get a fair use defense for the idea of "parody of drug use" because there was no reason for them to choose the Disney characters in particular. That the Disney characters seemed better or funnier for the purpose was not a good enough reason.
The Nature of the Copyrighted Work: Having not seen fair use defenses in software copyright cases before, I don't know how the court would look at this factor here. This inquiry seems to me to be a question preliminary to the fourth factor, which asks what the effect of copying is likely to be on the market for the original. It can also be read more broadly, as an instruction to the court to "remember to find out what it's dealing with" in each case.
Amount and substantiality of the portion taken: If you take the "core material" from a work and reproduce it without really changing the idea conveyed, that's more offensive to copyright than if you copy a few snippets. The Nation magazine may have only copied a few thousand words from Gerald Ford's rather long memoirs, but they copied the thing in the book everyone was most interested in: his thoughts on his decision to pardon Richard Nixon. They lost their fair use defense. While it seems to me that this would lean in favor of a mod maker or at least neutrally, because not much is usually taken, I can't say anything for sure.
Effect on the Market for the Original Work: We all know that a mod maker's reproduction of characters is generally not going to deprive the characters' authors of any of the market for their original work. It might even help. But it's going to depend on the way the copying was done in the individual case. If you make a mod that uses characters from an isolinear game in a first-person-shooter, this would probably run in your favor. If you take the characters from a not-so-wonderfully-designed first-person shooter, port them into Q3, and design levels to resemble the poorly-designed game only better, this factor is going to hurt you. Note that the plaintiffs do not have to prove actual damage to their market-- they only have to show potential damage to swing this factor their way.
Notice, most of all, that fair use is a defense that is applied from case to case. It is a weighing of factors based on the facts of each case. So, you don't know for sure that you've got a fair use defense in a given case unless it's been tried in court.
The moral of the story (in my non-lawyerly opinion): if you want to avoid trouble, the safe route is probably to try to get a license from the people who created the character to use it in the context you want to use it in. The fact that you may not be selling the mods for a profit might help a bit in a fair use defense, but it does not preclude a finding of infringement. Copying from a copyrighted work and giving the copies away for free is just as illegal as selling copies.
I'm still not a lawyer. If you think you're going to run into this sort of trouble, you need to find one.
Yea, this sucks. Everyone Got pissed when I made the "Columbine, the adventure continues" Quake Mod. Geez...
Maybe that was a bad idea.
Unfortunately Fair Use seems to mean for your own use. So you can make something, but can not distribute it and be garunteed protection under fair use. Even satire, which is supposed to be under fair use has been deemed illigal (look up some of the Disney cases if you want to..that company is EVIL).
If a company wants to ban a free, NFP game that some kids write on their own free time, just because it uses the companies carichters, they can happily sue them under our laws, and anyone else who has a copy too.
I just whish more companies were like Lucasfilm, where you can make as many Star Wars games stories comics and artwork as you want and share freely, you just can't sell it without their permission.
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
Translation: It's very very likely that the owners of the DragonBall Z franchise will want to release their own video game in the near future; even if they don't, the franchise is popular enough that the probability of a video game is high. So while the owners of, say, the Barney the Dinosaur probably won't fight too much over a Quake mod featuring their characters, the owners of DragonBall Z will want to reserve that right to those who legally license the rights.
However, it's always illegal to use someone's legally-owned characters without their permission. Some are just more likely to send lawyers out than others.
I want to buy a sticker of Calvin pissing on the sort of people who buy pissing Calvin stickers.
Weird Al, long may he reign, always gets explicit permission to do parodies. The only exception was "Amish Paradise", and Al at least claims he was informed by his people that permission had been given.
And as far as "you should be ok", I'd revise to include "if you can afford a decent lawyer". Being sued can ruin you, whether or not you're right.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Ask Slashdot is not legal advice. It is not a substitute for time with a lawyer. It's still a resource. Ditto USENET and any other distributed discussion forum. I sometimes read the forums at vwvortex.com for ideas and help with my car. I still take it to the mechanic.
My advice for the original poster is to be very careful about investing time on a project that is based on a TV show, movie, etc. The game industry refers to this as a license, as in "The Matrix is a hot license"--the right to use Warner Brothers' Matrix trademarks, copyrights, and possibly patents is valuable. Incidentally, some folks are working on a Matrix mod for Half-Life. They are setting a trap for themselves. Warner Brothers can shut them down (or threaten to do so, which is almost as good). Another poster on this topic mentioned that this happened to the Aliens TC for Doom.
Some game companies will develop a game in the hope of securing a license. This is kind of like typecasting a role for a play or a movie. For example, M. Night Shyamalan wrote The Sixth Sense with Bruce Willis in mind. It worked out as he hoped. That was lucky. As an independent working more for love than money, don't count on such luck.
There are some articles at Gamasutra that discuss this topic in more detail. For instance, "Artistic License: Acquiring, Managing and Dealing with Licenses (and Making Them Profitable)" in the Business & Legal features and "Adapting Licensed Products to the Computer Medium." Most of the rules that apply to a game company apply to a mod maker. It doesn't matter that you're not trying to make money. It doesn't matter that you love The Matrix, DragonBallZ, Aliens, etc. The owner of the licensed property will defend his trademark, copyright, and patent rights.
It shouldn't be made into a game mod precisely because it isn't an outlet for teenage violence -- it's a source of teenage violence.
So I guess Hitler must have played Der Juden Pong when he was a kid, is that it?
Videogames incite children to violence, period.
Period? You're the supreme authority and final word on the topic? There has been no proof of that assertion. It would be akin to saying that having condoms available makes kids want to have sex. Or my personal favorite, that peaceful protesters incite more radical elements to commit violence.
I should know, because whenever I used to play videogames, I myself would start to get violent, and so did all of my friends.
I don't think that slamming the controller whenever you'd lose counts.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The only exception was "Amish Paradise", and Al at least claims he was informed by his people that permission had been given.
The funny thing about that is that Coolio used a sample that was used in a track made 2 or 3 years earlier by a rapper called DMG.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
IMHO, as long as you're not profiting from someone elses work, or depriving them of profit, it should be fair use.
The flip side would be to follow the Calvin and Hobbes example: All those stickers on the back of the trucks that have Calvin urinating on company "X's" logo are not actually Calvin. It is similar, but it has some specific thing that makes it different, and therefore, marketable. People just THINK it's Calvin.
Just make Goku blonde, and call him kuGo.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
If someone makes a Q3 mod, the author isn't talking about id's IP being infringed. It's more like this, if I make a BC3000AD based Half-Life mod, are Derek Smart's coprights violated? Can he sue or C&D me for it?
If id didn't want people to code mods, it would be easy for them to stop it. They write the fscking game engines.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The press release is here.