![]() ![]() Here are two more examples:īlizzard shuts down a fan-made Playboy parody of its Overwatch video game. When does fan art "cross the line"?Ĭompanies typically start to care about fan art when either the fan art is offensive, misrepresents the brand in some way, when the creators of said fan art start making lots of money, or when creators of said fan art start costing the original company lots of money. Publicly broadcasting a video game is no different than publicly showing any movie when it comes to copyright infringement.)įan outcry and public backlash was enormous, and Nintendo completely reversed its proclamation within three hours of the initial announcement. Melee is one of the most popular fighting games of all time, so Nintendo telling EVO it couldn't broadcast the event was a bit like the NFL telling ESPN it couldn't broadcast the Rose Bowl (even though, legally, Nintendo was completely within its rights to do so. EVO is the world's largest fighting game tournament, where thousands of fans watch players compete in a number of different fighting games, both in person and online. On July 9, 2013, Nintendo informed EVO that the tournament would not be permitted to live-stream Nintendo's fighting game, Super Smash Bros. The fallout from this incident was Travis Wellington, another player on the show, apologizing to the fan via Twitter and Orion being removed from Critical Role. This was not the first instance of Orion upsetting Critical Role's fan base, but it definitely was the last straw. This was the exchange that took place over Twitter: In late 2015, one of the players on the show, Orion, got very upset at a Critical Role fan who had used Orion's character's name on a t-shirt and then listed it for sale. Each player has a character that he or she created for the show, and everything about that character (name, appearance, traits, mannerisms, etc.) is the sole intellectual property of the respective player. Here are two examples.Ĭritical Role is a show "where a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons." (That's the show's actual tagline). Have companies or organizations ever backed down in the face of fan outrage? The answer is unequivocally: Yes. Prosecuting everyone who creates a piece of fan art (even by just issuing Cease & Desist notices) would dramatically upset the fan base, would cost an arm and a leg in lawyer fees, and would severely limit future profits (since upset fans won’t buy future games, merchandise, etc.) Happy, enthusiastic fans ALSO make fan art. ![]() Happy, enthusiastic fans spend money on games and merchandise. It’s good because allowing fan art keeps the fan base happy and fan art can be free promotion for the game, movie, TV show, etc. It’s bad because every instance of fan art is a copyright infringement. Except.my quilt would be considered fan art, and that makes it a bit different.įan art is a double-edged sword for owners of popular characters. When it comes right down to it, I am using Nintendo’s intellectual property without permission. As far as the law is concerned, my making this quilt is against the law because I don’t own Link, Legend of Zelda, nor Breath of the Wild. Copyright law is written very much in favor of the creator/copyright holder. There’s no “getting around” the copyright issue. How did I avoid copyright infringement when using him in my quilt? The reason for that is because the subject, Link, is from the video game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and he is property of Nintendo of America, Inc. Of all the artwork I've made so far in my life, this is one of only two quilts that have sparked discussions about copyright. Here is a photo of the quilt that has sparked the discussion: If you have any questions about copyright law, I would encourage you to talk to a lawyer.īack to my quilt. Let me preface this post by saying I am not a lawyer, so everything I'm about to say is based on my own opinions developed from the research I've done on my own time. I’ve been asked about copyright by a number of quilters as it relates to my newest quilt, so I decided to make this blog post about it. ![]()
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