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A Broke Fan Owes $5,400 For Pokemon-Themed Party Posters

Posted by timothy on from the clueless-managers dept.

Jason Koebler writes: A fan has been ordered by a Washington judge to pay the Pokémon Company International $5,400 for copyright infringement after attempting to throw a Pokemon-themed party earlier this summer. Even though he canceled the free event, the Pokemon Company successfully sued Ramar Larkin Jones, for using an image of Pikachu to promote the Unofficial PAX Pokemon Kickoff Party.

3 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. If that's how Pokemon Int'l treats its fans... by ldobehardcore · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If that's how Pokemon Int'l treats its fans, I shudder to think of how they treat their enemies and competitors. What a fucking shitty thing to do. These people love Pokemon enough to have a big fun party kicking of PAX, and all Nintendo cares about is extracting it's fucking pound of flesh and in the process looking like a big, wobbly, flaccid dildo. In other words: Go fuck yourselves Nintendo, if you can't treat your fans well, then you deserve no fans. You bunch of litigious morons.

    --
    Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you
    1. Re:If that's how Pokemon Int'l treats its fans... by whoever57 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hate to be a dick, but you DID charge admission using another company's IP.

      Whoever posted that is a dick. According to the Gofundme page, he only charged $2, which was intended to cover the cost of prizes for the cosplay contest. No huge profit involved.

      To the parent poster: you also are a dick, for posting this drivel, which misrepresents the situation.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    2. Re:If that's how Pokemon Int'l treats its fans... by The+Rizz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Defending your trademark" does not mean "suing anyone who doesn't pay you to use it". As long as there's no brand confusion being caused it doesn't need to be defended. As per the Wikipedia article: "It is not necessary for a trademark owner to take enforcement action against all infringement if it can be shown that the owner perceived the infringement to be minor and inconsequential."

      Arguably, you can even let infringement go in many larger instances as long as they're not believed to cause brand confusion. Look at Star Wars - George Lucas has allowed fan-made works to do a helluvalot that would get them sued by just about any other IP-based company out there. He's even commented on fan works, showing that he is quite aware of them. None of this permissiveness with his trademarks has ever led to him coming even close to losing the brand.