Slashdot Mirror
Nintendo Shuts Down Fan-Made Zelda Movie
Andorin writes "An independently filmed adaptation of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, called The Hero Of Time, has been taken offline by Nintendo as of the end of December. The film's producers write: 'We came to an agreement with Nintendo earlier this month to stop distributing the film... We understand Nintendo's right to protect its characters and trademarks and understand how in order to keep their property unspoiled by fan's interpretation of the franchise, Nintendo needs to protect itself — even from fan-works with good intentions.' Filming for the feature-length, non-profit film began in August 2004 and the movie was completed in 2008. It premiered in various theaters worldwide, including in New York and Los Angeles, and then became available online in the middle of December, before it was targeted by Nintendo's legal team. As both an avid Zelda fan and an appreciator of independent works, I was extremely disappointed in Nintendo's strong-arming of a noncommercial adaptation to the Game of the Year for 1999."
Big business only likes "grass roots" when they can control it.
Yeah, Nintendo have to protect them? No, they could license it for free and it would not dilute their ownership of trademarks. It's bollocks - like when companies say "unfortunately we can't fix your product for free". It's not unfortunate - it's a result of their policy, which they could change whenever they felt like it.
You clearly don't understand a thing about culture. Taken to its logical conclusion your position would stop all creative work dead in its tracks because nothing exists in a vacuum - nothing is created completely from scratch. James Campbell pointed out that there are probably less than five stories in all of human history, we just keep telling them over and over again with slight variations, and most of those are just retellings of one specific story, the monomyth.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.