E3 2017: EA Withdraws from the Gaming Agreement

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EvilPinkamina
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Re: E3 2017: EA Withdraws from the Gaming Agreement

Post by EvilPinkamina »

All the MvCI DLC is on disc already.
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Re: E3 2017: EA Withdraws from the Gaming Agreement

Post by Jeffery Mewtamer »

I think the statement "fangames are illegal" is a gross oversimplification of the situation with projects like Metroid AM2R and Pokemon Uranium. Taking assets from official media would be illegal, but creating your own assets is effectively equivalent to fanart, and even then, many of the assets created for a fangame could be passed off as original content. Trying to sell a fangame would be illegal, but as far as I know, all legit downloads of the projects in question were free. The extent to which derivative works are protected by fair use and freedom of expression is a bit murky, but a large number of creators have set a precedent of ignoring derivative works as long as they aren't guilty of plagiarism or are sold for profit. A precedent that makes creators who do attack derivative works come across as assholes for doing so.

I don't know enough about the fangames in question to know if any plagiarism occured, and perhaps my views on IP law are too deeply in the "IP law is broken" camp to be taken seriously, but if such a case ever went to court and I found myself among the decision makers, I'd probably rule in favor of declaring all derivative works protected by fair use provided:
1. Source material and creators of such are credited.
2. The derivative work is not guilty of plagiarism.
3. The creator of the derivative work isn't selling it for profit.

And even then, I think there should be criteria under which 3 can be relaxed(such as if a search and replace of every trademarkable name, term, and expression results in something no longer identifiable as derivative or if the derivative work is of a quality the publisher of the source material would consider publishing an original work of similar quality).

Sadly, as far as I know, no one has ever been in a position to challenge a cease and desist letter in court, and even if someone did find themselves in such a position, given the courts tendency to rule in favor of money rather than reason, the statement "fangames are illegal" being made literal is probably more likely than Nintendo or another asshole game publisher being put in their place.

Anyways, I never really got into the Metroid Prime games, but for fans of those games, here's hoping Prime 4 is a decent follow up to those games and not Metroid's Sonic 4 or Other M 2 under a different name.
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Re: E3 2017: EA Withdraws from the Gaming Agreement

Post by EvilPinkamina »

No, fangames are actually just flat out illegal, regardless of how much they cost. Source here
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Re: E3 2017: EA Withdraws from the Gaming Agreement

Post by Triert »

Alternatively people could always take woolies advice

"Shut the **** up"
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