It looks like Nintendo is going after fan games again. Earlier this year, Nintendo sent cease and desist letters to two fan games that used Nintendo properties; Pokemon Uranium and AM2R. But it looks like NOA isn't quite done shutting down fan projects this year, as renown romhacker "Coolboyman" has received a C&D for all of his romhacks. Not only has his completed but unreleased hack called Pokemon Prism been targeted, but Rijon Adventures and Brown must also be taken down to avoid legal pursuit. (Of course the latter two have been distributed over the internet many times, so it's pretty much a nonissue.) Last week also saw Konami issue a C&D to a Castlevania 1 remake in Unreal Engine. It's a sad, harsh lesson to everyone that those who wish to create fan projects should not generate hype, but instead quietly release their works and then promote them after the fact. Pokemon Prism was the result of 8 years of Coolboyman's work, and will now likely not see a release.

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[Tigran]

As someone who worked for several lawfirms as tech-support *look up Intelliteach and Keno Kozie if you don't believe me*, Often times *especially firms such as Baker Botts* they will send paper work to other countries for simple things as word processing. And it would not be the first time that they forgot to change the dictionary in Word for spell checking. *the worse time was when it was stuck on Russian*.

 

[FAST6191]

Its funny to read how many of you think you understand copyright law. Also, wink wink nudge nudge, the games been leaked anyway for you to enjoy

Though I do encourage being versed in copyright law, mainly as it does help people look less silly online, it has about as much to do with this matter as marine salvage law; it is a trademark affair.

 

[HaloEffect17]

but less knowledgeable consumers may actually mistaken a fan game for a proper Nintendo title.

If you're a so-called "less knowledgeable consumer" (which I assume are people who only casually know Pokemon to being with), these kinds of people would likely not even hear about these types of fan games no matter how popular they become. And who accidentally mixes up a fan game with an official Nintendo game? If you never heard of the game before, I imagine a reasonable person would Google it and see it that it is clearly made by a fan.

 

[FAST6191]

If you're a so-called "less knowledgeable consumer" (which I assume are people who only casually know Pokemon to being with), these kinds of people would likely not even hear about these types of fan games no matter how popular they become. And who accidentally mixes up a fan game with an official Nintendo game? If you never heard of the game before, I imagine a reasonable person would Google it and see it that it is clearly made by a fan.

For what constitutes confusion among your target audience the bar is considerably lower than that, and I might even argue it has to be, not to mention the target audience includes parents buying things for their kids. Also this made it onto popular news sites prior to release even. To that end someone hears of this, sees the title, searches on ebay and gets a repro and Nintendo gets aggro that their trademarks are supposed to defend against.

 

[urherenow]

Acting on behalf of NoA does not mean the person who wrote the C&D is American.

Not to mention the letter mentions Australia...

EDIT: Went and looked at the full document. It does talk about Australian Copyright Act and such. And the letterhead... ADDISONS? Even if this was a legit letter from a legit company, I would laugh at it and wipe my ass with it.

Probably why it was "leaked" anyway

 

[Deleted User]

Real talk though, Ive been playing this hack for about an hour and I REALLLLLY want it on a cartridge. It's definitely a big cut above the other pokemon romhacks we've had

 

[The Catboy]

I know Nintendo is completely legally allowed to do this. But it still seems like a shitty move on their end. Like fans enjoy their products so much, that they are willing to spend time making free games. Then Nintendo is like, "Nope! Fuck that!" and ruins it for them. This kind of why I hate the copyright laws.

 

[ddraco]

I'm gonna say that the PDF-File this DMCA is delivered in the Tweet is very badly censored. I easily got the data and i dont say how and what was hidden. Well... I did check the censoring because i was bored.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

quoting the 4chan leak thread

"Someone I know on a hacking-lifestyle IRC chatroom has given me a leak that he has gotten of said romhack. After testing the validity of the files I am sharing it with you folks of /v/. Share it, save it do whatever is possible to keep it alive and make sure it is as widespread as it can be. "

This screams "The creator uploaded it from another computer/network". Since they already C&D'd this they could just find the "leak" and find out who uploaded it.

 

[ItsKipz]

This screams "The creator uploaded it from another computer/network". Since they already C&D'd this they could just find the "leak" and find out who uploaded it.

Technically no, as it was confirmed the creator had nothing to do with it, but is happy it happened

 

[RedBlueGreen]

Technically no, as it was confirmed the creator had nothing to do with it, but is happy it happened

How exactly was it "confirmed"? Just the creator saying so wouldn't hold up if he ends up actually being the one who did it. Even if it was somebody who helped with the hack or somebody the creator knows they could still argue that the creator requested it and is therefore responsible. Don't know how well it could hold up, but they can still make the argument.

 

[munchy_cool]

This screams "The creator uploaded it from another computer/network". Since they already C&D'd this they could just find the "leak" and find out who uploaded it.

4chan is an anon board, good luck getting the trace back on an ip from them ..

 

[Townsperson]

I know Nintendo is completely legally allowed to do this. But it still seems like a shitty move on their end. Like fans enjoy their products so much, that they are willing to spend time making free games. Then Nintendo is like, "Nope! Fuck that!" and ruins it for them. This kind of why I hate the copyright laws.

Can we stop blaming Nintendo? It's not their fault trademark laws are fairly strict. The real problem here was a dev who decided that their project, which uses properties and assets that they have no ownership of, needed to be advertised to the internet at large. Nintendo doesn't need to defend it's trademark in every seedy corner of the internet, but they have to do something when an obviously infringing project pops up with a shit ton of views on YouTube, is played on Twitch, and has its own website.

 

[ClayClaymore]

What the fuck is wrong with Nintendo these days? That company has gone to hell, ever since Iwata passed away!

And yet, you're still spending your welfare money on buying their Virtual Console games several times...

 

[LuxerWap]

I'm not mad honestly. I knew it was gonna happen. Nintendo really wants to protect their IP and I don't blame them. I mean, there has to be reason to why Nintendo is doing this.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

Can we stop blaming Nintendo? It's not their fault trademark laws are fairly strict. The real problem here was a dev who decided that their project, which uses properties and assets that they have no ownership of, needed to be advertised to the internet at large. Nintendo doesn't need to defend it's trademark in every seedy corner of the internet, but they have to do something when an obviously infringing project pops up with a shit ton of views on YouTube, is played on Twitch, and has its own website.

I half agree with this. Yes Nintendo is doing something about a huge ROM hack that's giving itself publicity and is basically a walking target, and the creator of the ROM hack did nothing to prevent it (like not advertising it as Pokémon, or using modified versions of Pokémon like Datel did on their Action Replay packaging), and it's something that they had to do. But there have been a couple of dumb things related to Pokémon.

Last year I think it was, there was a small fan tournament that got shut down that people were running as a side event to a gaming tournament. I'm not sure if it got shut down due to having an admission fee (which might have been just to cover costs, who knows). It was made clear by the host(s) that it was a fan event. Granted it was the Pokémon Company that shut it down, but still.

Comic book stores and game stores have held card tournaments for a while with admission fees so I fail to see what's so bad about a video game tournament.

I'm surprised Nintendo hasn't shut down the Pokémon MMO Pokémon Revolution Online since that has "donations" that are just thinly veiled memberships (so it's actually making money).

 

[Hells Malice]

Just rename it and release it. It's not like they could actually do anything about it. It's too easy to be anonymous on the internet.

 

[darklordrs]

I know Nintendo is completely legally allowed to do this. But it still seems like a shitty move on their end. Like fans enjoy their products so much, that they are willing to spend time making free games. Then Nintendo is like, "Nope! Fuck that!" and ruins it for them. This kind of why I hate the copyright laws.

I must repeat again and again that, if you just bother to read the letters that come with C&Ds, they make it very clear that they appreciate the hard work and love that goes into these projects but that it is not within the best interest of the company to allow such things to continue without permission and supervision.

the only way to get this to change is to slowly break nintendo down regarding their policies - and no, trying to sneak your stuff under the table to avoid asking nintendo for permission is not helpful to the process. Yes, anyone who asks for permission would likely be told 'no' at this current point in time, but when someone gets that 'no' and applies pressure using the attention they've gained.. that's where everything begins, not here.

 

[Erion]

Nintendo is acting really stupid.
nintendo never banned any gba/nds/3ds pokemon fan game(consoles on which they released official games).but they took down a pc game(for which they wont even release a game).

Nintendo

 

[xtheman]

Nintendo is acting really stupid.
nintendo never banned any gba/nds/3ds pokemon fan game(consoles on which they released official games).but they took down a pc game(for which they wont even release a game).

Nintendo

You know that Prism is a GBC game right? It was the makers fault for making to much hype for the game .