FFVII RPG Running in Second Life with Square's OK (Maybe)

wjamesau writes "A group of Second Life Residents have created an amazing-looking RPG inspired by the city of Midgar from Final Fantasy VII , with a scripted combat system and game masters who run SOLDIER versus AVALANCHE action set-pieces. An interesting twist is that Squaresoft, the owners of the Final Fantasy IP, apparently gave the non-commercial project their blessing — or maybe not. The island of Midgar has changed ownership so no one's quite sure, but several hundred players keep it going through donations. 'Operating as if Square gave approval has made them act as if they work for Square. They have rules about never sharing information about pirating Final Fantasy gear, and are the best promotion of any brand in Second Life. If Square were ever to come to Second Life, no PR manager could dream of creating a more dedicated player base than this one.'"

Comments

Re:But look how loyal and dedicated those fans are

[Xistic]

I don't know about the Final Fantasy properties, but they have brought the smack down on at least two Chrono Trigger fan projects: Chrono Trigger Resurrection and Chrono Trigger Remake

Re:But look how loyal and dedicated those fans are

[tepples]

I believe the issue is more that if they fail to enforce their copyrights, they lose the rights to them entirely.

Use it or lose it is true for trademarks, not for copyrights. Laches, which does apply to copyrights and patents, is much more narrow.