Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

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where is the 'all the fansites' coming from? have any others been given cease-and-desists other than 'beach and serebii?

'mom
 
AyameHikaru said:
My bad on not quoting the source. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
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The United States Copyright Office could not have allowed any copyright on a picture from B&W if the game has not been copyrighted at the US CO by Nintendo of America. This is something that can be confirmed, however those stories are too boring to do…

Regarding that the lawyer's interpretation is the only one that matters - Not really. Don't suings go to a judge? In that case, it's really what the judge thinks. Let's hope he's a fan of Serebii/WPM. :)
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Well, that should be true, however in a perfect system a judge that is a Serebii's fan should not judge this case, because the judgment can be altered by personal thinking when the Law and only the Law should be applied. The world is not perfect, so someone being paid / who is too lazy to check a mountain of patents and copyrights to verify something can obey to what the richer want. If there is a jury, the jury can bypass the judge.
Well, all this stuff is complicate and boring…

where is the 'all the fansites' coming from? have any others been given cease-and-desists other than 'beach and serebii?

'mom
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Light of the stars for example.
 
I'm willing to bet they don't really care about B/W images on fansites.

Pokebeach posts the images, the hype goes crazy for a few days. People are sharing the pictures, linking to the Beach, talking about BW and Pokemon in general.

A few days later the hype starts to settle down, so Nintendo sends up a cease and desist, which just gets everyone talking about Pokemon and BW again, re-starting the hype train.

I'm not pretending to have any inside info about Pokemon or Nintendo, it just seems like a smart play to me, and something that happens regularly when new products from big tech companies 'leak.' on the internet.

Just a thought.
 
I doubt it's a marketing thing by nintendo. All this kind of stuff does it make me NOT want to buy their products.
 
Zarmakuizz said:
Light of the stars for example.
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It's pretty pathetic that you'll do anything to advertise your site, even if it's copying and pasting the letter Nintendo sent me and putting your own website's name on it (I modified the letter I posted and you have the same modifications). This isn't the first time you've gone to extreme lengths to advertise your website. :/

@ 'mom: They sent the letter to me, Serebii, and the Spanish site Pokexperto. That's what the lawyer told me he was doing and I have confirmed with each of the webmasters that they got one. I don't know if they sent it to anyone else; the lawyer did seem to imply they would be hitting every fan site that had B/W images, but he obviously hasn't, so I don't know what the deal is. It'd help if the guy would answer my calls or reply to my e-mails with more than statements that just say what I'm going to do.

I kinda get the feeling if I didn't comply with them, nothing would happen. They said they would take away my .com name, but can they really even do that? Can any company just e-mail your registrar and tell them to drop your domain name? It's almost like Nintendo is just trying to bully us. I have tried to look at this situation from every possible angle and I just don't get what their problem is. They act like news coverage is something new. I could see this kinda thing in the 90s but we're in 2010.

EDIT #2: Oh, and I like how every other website gets to post crystal-clear sprites of the Pokemon and yet my site and Serebii cannot. :/

EDIT #3: I also didn't know Nintendo could "pick and choose" which websites to target regarding the same content, since many other sites had the same photo contents as us.
 
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My site ? Since when am I working for it ? LotS webmaster is a girl :thumb:

What's more, Pokébeach is not a name copyrighted by anyone. However registrars are afraid of potential clients and may obey to everyone having lots of lawyers and money.
 
Oh, sorry, got you confused with that other site's webmaster. :p Still pretty pathetic he'll try to draw attention to his site by posting the letter as if they sent it to him. XD
 
Those sites explicitly stated that they were using the illegal ROMS to get many of their images. When they do this, Nintendo sees this as publicly endorsing the use of said ROMS and thus not buying the game and using the Roms instead. nintendo does not want to lose money: they are a company and this is their goal. The fansites who received the C&D were, in nintendo's mind, taking money away from them.
 
Nintendo is well known for taking a harsh stance against DS ROMS - it honestly has eaten up a huge share of their software sales. It seems reasonable to be asked to take down sprite images direct from game if extracted from a ROM.

If the only way to extract the images is to make a ROM, then let's ask: is it really fair for us to do that? Is it fair to let someone else do it and then put it up on our websites? Really?

If it isn't, then I guess my entire argument falls flat...
 
Moldy orange said:
Those sites explicitly stated that they were using the illegal ROMS to get many of their images. When they do this, Nintendo sees this as publicly endorsing the use of said ROMS and thus not buying the game and using the Roms instead. nintendo does not want to lose money: they are a company and this is their goal. The fansites who received the C&D were, in nintendo's mind, taking money away from them.
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Please don't speak for Nintendo or state what you think the situation is as fact, Nate. The lawyer never mentioned anything about a ROM even though I blatantly stated in the BW coverage story's first sentence that we were using one until our games arrived (again, to cover the game's STORY, not for the posting of images - I never once posted a photo from the ROM). The ROM was obviously not the problem since he never mentioned it and because we did not post any images from it. Not to mention that no one would argue that us using ROMs is a problem since a) we ordered the game, b) the ROM came out after the game was released, c) we could just "lie" and say we were using the games and no one would ever know since there's literally no difference between them, and d) we didn't distribute the ROM, just gathered info from it. The actual game is a ROM, so there's no real difference - it doesn't really matter which you are using for your news coverage. You could argue all day that us mentioning we were using the ROM for information is bad, but Nintendo did not have an issue with this or they would have said so during THIS situation and all the other times in the past Pokemon fan sites have used the ROMs to cover games. Serebii also lied on his front page and said he had the games in his hands when he did not (he was using the ROM just like me), so because he also got in trouble like I did, you can't argue that ROMs are the issue here - in everyone's eyes, he was playing the actual games.

I hope everyone stops bringing up the ROM issue now. It's not an issue here.

What the lawyer DID say on the phone, as well as in the letter, is that Nintendo had a problem with us posting images from the games. On the phone he highlighted all of the photos from 2ch in my Thursday post, saying that it was in violation of how much content could be posted under fair use (and yeah, like he has the right to determine that). He also had a problem with us posting the Pokemon images, which came from Pokexperto. So as you can see, I was only redistributing what was readily available all over the Internet (and it still is, btw). As I said before, I never posted images from the ROM, so that's not the issue here. Their ridiculously strict and harsh enforcement of fair use and their intellectual rights / copyright / whatever is the issue. So is them "picking and choosing" what some sites can and can't post.
 
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For those arguing that "it's just a lawyer. A judge gets to make the ruling"; that may be true, however, sites such as PokeBeach and PokeGym are not run as a business generating tons of cash.
In order to defend against any lawsuit that Nintendo might file, it would cost a fan site tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Nintendo has that kind of cash to spend.
WPM (and we) do not.

If we get a cease and desist letter from a large corporation, right or wrong, we're going to follow the request/demand.

To do otherwise would bankrupt us.
Just the facts of life.
 
Which is why if you can't fight them in court, you point out how stupid they're being. Like covering up all my BW images with Ditto, and pointing out how ridiculous their actions are in that one news post with the Evangelion video.
 
( I am so glad I have photographic memory :p )
Even if the images are ROM or a picture of the game from a Japanese Cartidge from a cell phone and placed for public viewing, it still is not wanted to be continued to be done by a company that is not wanting to share ANY profit that can be generated in any way so as to not lose what is copyrighted/trademarked to competiters or people looking to make fake/counterfit items.
If I were given the choice of going bankrupt or "cease and descist"- even if I think I did nothing wrong or thought this is a challenge I can defeat with rights I THINK I have- I would prefer to stay in business.
 
Water Pokemon Master said:
Which is why if you can't fight them in court, you point out how stupid they're being. Like covering up all my BW images with Ditto, and pointing out how ridiculous their actions are in that one news post with the Evangelion video.
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Actually it just shows that you acted childishly and threw a hissy fit because things aren’t going your way.

I mean if your boss (I know Nintendo is not your boss, but bear with me here) comes in and says "hey no more coffee breaks!" you don't go to the break room, get some chocolate milk and go to your boss's face and say "IS CHOCOLATE MILK OK!?!?!?!?!/11/1/1/1 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!" That's not going to help your situation at all.

So you going all psycho ballistic and renaming your site and remodeling the images and making threads that make fun of Nintendo accomplishes nothing more then making you look like an immature person who can’t cope with authority.

Nintendo won’t “respect” you more because you are getting mad and plastering your site with anti-Nintendo things. They won’t “change their minds” either.

You have three options here.

1.) Man up, accept what the letter says, follow instructions, and earn the respect of the people in charge who obviously have an eye on you.
2.) Ignore the letter and deal with the consequences (if there are any)
3.) Keep the course you are keeping, and show everyone exactly how you react when faced with authority and adversity.


WPM, you need to grow up. Nintendo sent you a cease and desist letter regarding something THEY own the rights too. You should respect it and comply with what it says. You should do it in a MATURE and uniform manner, and you should stop making a big deal out of it.
 
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WPM, I honestly get the feeling that someone is trying to pull yours and Serebii's leg here. =/ Albeit I may be wrong but this just doesn't make sense. You've had no further contact since? Don't most lawyers have an assistant to answer a phone at all times? Is there anyway you could contact Nintendo directly and ask THEM what's going on?

Although, if they weren't behind it you'd think they'd let you know by now.

Either way, why on earth would a huge company like Nintendo go after fansites in the US but not japan? It seems like this is only actually affecting three sites. All of which got early info. Maybe it's just some other webmaster's lame way of trying to get you guys back for getting ahead of them? It's a thought....
 
Zarmakuizz said:
The United States Copyright Office could not have allowed any copyright on a picture from B&W if the game has not been copyrighted at the US CO by Nintendo of America.
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Irrelevant. Under the Berne Convention, a copyright in one signatory country is recognized in all other signatory countries. Nintendo (Japan)'s copyright is considered valid here, and Nintendo (America) can serve as its enforcement agent.

Water Pokemon Master said:
What the lawyer DID say on the phone, as well as in the letter, is that Nintendo had a problem with us posting images from the games. On the phone he highlighted all of the photos from 2ch in my Thursday post, saying that it was in violation of how much content could be posted under fair use (and yeah, like he has the right to determine that).
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Well, yeah, he kinda does.

You can't quote an entire book and call it fair use. If their main issue is with the volume of imagery posted, then I'd say they're mostly in the right.

PokePop said:
For those arguing that "it's just a lawyer. A judge gets to make the ruling"; that may be true, however, sites such as PokeBeach and PokeGym are not run as a business generating tons of cash.
In order to defend against any lawsuit that Nintendo might file, it would cost a fan site tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Nintendo has that kind of cash to spend.
WPM (and we) do not.
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This is why I despise our system of civil litigation. Right and wrong don't matter -- only checkbooks. It has only been made worse by laws like the DMCA, where you don't even have to involve a court -- just fire off one brief letter and stifle anyone you want without having to actually prove anything.

starlighteevee said:
WPM, I honestly get the feeling that someone is trying to pull yours and Serebii's leg here.
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*facepalm*
 
  • Create a demand
  • Satisfy that demand
Rinse and repeat for a sustainable business.

So company N has a product that for whatever reason is released in waves. They can't restrict the private flow of the product from the early release area to others that are waiting. They can't restrict news comment on the release of the game.They can't restrict criticism. They can't restrict private use. But they can restrict activities that fall outside those that involve publishing or commercial gain. They can restrict comment that goes beyond that which is necessary for a news item. How? because they can restrict derived works (such as a walk-through)

Company N does not want a premature demand created for their product because they know/believe that the unsatisfied demand that such creates will be filled by the pirates. So what can they do?

Companies aren't stupid and Lawyers are expensive so the very first question is going to be: Is this a problem? Closely followed by how big? Then what can the company do about it? How will our actions be received?

  • So is this a problem?? Is approx $1billion in downloads a problem?
  • What to do that isn't disproportionate?
  • Does news require images?
So my guess is that they answered Yes to the first and No to the last.

Remember that it isn't your IP. Even when you buy the game you have only bought the right for personal use. You have not bought a right to publish.


[@Chairman Kaga that Epic fan art policy isn't anywhere near as open as you think. If you create a fan art site and base it upon that policy then Epic have complete control over the existance of your site if they decide to exercise the restrictions in the policy]
 
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