Gunpoint.
  • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    159·
    2 years ago

    Never in all of human history has there been a more appropriate time for the Surprised Pikachu Face meme.

    • nanoUFO@sh.itjust.worksOPMEnglish
      112·
      2 years ago

      Guy put a pokemon mod behind a pateron paywall, he was asking for it. Making a profit off nintendo’s IP blatantly.

        • nanoUFO@sh.itjust.worksOPMEnglish
          13·
          2 years ago

          Also apparently he ripped the assets out of a pokemon game. Not 100% sure of that but I wouldn’t be surprised, he doesn’t seem too smart.

    • LadyLikesSpiders@lemmy.mlEnglish
      42·
      2 years ago

      But that’s not what’s going on here? Nintendo is suing a mod creator who modded their actual IP into the game, and furthermore locked that mod through a paywall (Patreon), so, you know, profiting off of unlicensed distribution of another’s intellectual property

      Regarding genre, yeah, nintendo has no leg to stand on, and they know it anyway. You can’t claim ownership of art styles or game mechanics, but that’s neither the article nor the situation

    • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      15·
      2 years ago

      They don’t even have a legal case to go against Palworld anyway, unless the conspiracy-brains at Twitter are somehow correct about the devs ripping Pokemon models.

    • xkforce@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      2 years ago

      Palworld has been in development for years which Nintendo was aware of, and could have done something about, the whole time. Both Nintendo and the company that develops and released Palworld are headquartered in Japan which doesn’t really have a concept of fair use so it wouldn’t exactly be a hard case for them if Palworld did infringe their IP. The mod OTOH was out for one day and Nintendo hit them with a cease and desist notice because it very clearly did infringe their IP and the mod was locked behind a paywall which makes it all the more egregious and therefore easy to get it taken down. Nintendo has a well deserved reputation as being sue happy when it comes to their IP being used in a way they don’t approve of. If Nintendo thought for even a milisecond that Palworld infringed their copyrights, theyd have taken them to court a very long time ago. But the internet, being full of armchair legal experts, thinks they know copyright law better than Nintendo’s cadre of lawyers. Its one of the most clear cut cases of the dunning krueger effect in a while.

    • Blueberrydreamer@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      That’s entirely missing the only reason Nintendo would actually pursue legal action. Many Palworld creatures appear to have literally identical base model proportions to Pokemon models. So exactly identical it’s hard to believe it could happen once by chance, much less with over a dozen different creatures. It very strongly appears they took and modified straight Pokemon models, or at best used them as a direct reference.

  • RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    2 years ago

    Perhaps in a bid to avoid any potential issues with Nintendo, mod site Nexus Mods appears to be removing any Pokémon-related mods for Palworld from its site.

    Nexus Mods out here making every decision possible to make me avoid them even more every year.

    • LemmyIsFantastic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      2 years ago

      Oh no!

      Anyway, Nexus Mods would have been sued into oblivion and what was left of it was a burning garbage pit if you had your way. It’s a good thing you don’t have decision making power there.

      • Kaldo@kbin.social
        5·
        2 years ago

        Aren’t free mods under fair use? There’s plenty of copyrighted material on nexusmods and even steam workshop, always has been and I hope always will be. The only issue with palworld pokemon mod was it’s monetization afaik.

        • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
          8·
          2 years ago

          Fair use doesn’t work that way. The mod may be defensible if it targets the copyrighted material with implicit or explicit commentary, doesn’t usurp the original market, and only takes what is necessary for that commentary. But even then, it is a legal defense and doesn’t prevent a lawsuit. And further, it is based on US law and Nintendo is a Japanese company that may assert its own laws in Japanese courts.

          Whether or not it’s free has next to no bearing, unfortunately.

          • Blueberrydreamer@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
            6·
            2 years ago

            You’re not wrong, but being free does make a pretty massive difference in this context. After all, there are literally hundreds of pokemon mods for other games, and hundreds more fan games and romhacks. Some of them are huge, like Pokemon Infinite Fusion has a discord with over 400,000 people. The only time Nintendo decides to come after those projects is when they start trying to make money.

            • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
              4·
              2 years ago

              Right, yes. Whatever the legal situation, there’s always the chance that Nintendo doesn’t come after you because you aren’t seen as commercially profiting, even though it doesn’t affect the fair use analysis.

              But also, Nintendo absolutely has at times gone after projects even if they don’t make money - they are the not always the most aggressive, but they are very unpredictable.

          • Kaldo@kbin.social
            1·
            2 years ago

            I dunno if that’s true but if it is, can you then explain why are nexusmods and steam hosting tons of marvel/disney content without any repercussions for example? What’s the difference between that and the pokemon mod, if not the asking price?

            • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
              4·
              2 years ago

              Nexus and Steam and U.S.-based sites have § 230 protections that prevent liability unless/until they receive a takedown notice or are acting recklessly.

              So they basically allow user-generated content until someone issues a DMCA notice. If they do not take down the content at that point, they can be sued. But at any point Disney or any other rightsholder can demand content to be taken down. If there is a fair use argument, the person posting it can respond to the service with a counternotice and demand it be re-enabled, after which the company has a choice to sue them directly.

              Based on that, most user-generated spaces do not police content unless they are asked, since they have liability protection and can respond case-by-case to complaints. Also, they may be held to a higher standard if they conduct active enforcement. Sites like YouTube that have very mature fingerprinting and enforcement do so because it helps them have relationships with businesses, avoid large litigations, and sell ads.

        • xkforce@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          2 years ago

          1. Japan doesnt really have a concept of fair use. Nintendo can and does go after a wide variety of things that might have been considered fair use elsewhere.

          2. What this mod did would not be considered fair use anywhere else either.