Those are some good sources of information about the topic D.
;)

Didn't know they didn't even care about fan-game profits.

A.T.H.K wrote:

You don't think they'll care? But FUNimation did..... And Square Enix. You don't seem to understand the damage this can potentially cause to a company.... Everyone would like to play an online Pokemon game with new features that are upgraded constantly so you might want to think again....

A fan game can't damage a company, regardless of how successful it is. The reason for this is, that fan games don't replace the original games, because they are different from the original games. Fan games won't prevent fans from buying the next original game from the particular company. The fan game is just an addition to the fan's collection. Only if the fan-made game is an exact, carbon copy of the original game, and is sold for a significantly lower price than the original game, only then it could potentially damage the particular company. But as long as the fan game is just a new game based on an existing game, no damage will ever done to the company.

Snitches.

The Pokemon Company has a history of handing out C&D letters to online pokemon games. Just because they haven't told YOU that you can't doesn't mean that you can.

Why don't everyone just make their own version of "Pokemon" i mean it would prob be more popular anyways...just do stuff the same way pretty much but with your own ideas.. lol :P

The best way is to go by inspiration. Don't make Pokemon, and don't make your own pokemon; make your own game inspired by Pokemon. Instead of looking up a bunch of Pokemon sprites and basically just drawing them yourselves with your own names or colors, look up animals and other creatures then draw your own take on them and only look at things like Pokemon and Digimon every once in a while for inspiration.

Looking up original Pokemon and Digimon made by fans is a good way to get less of a direct copyright inspiration too. Similar secrets are present for all fan-game types. Don't make a game based off another or an anime, make a game inspired by multiple other games or anime and do your own thing with a similar concept or game-play style.

That, I believe, is the secret to satisfying the fan-game fans on BYOND without problems. Unfortunately, though, there'll still be many disagreements and most people probably won't realize that is the best way or they will be too picky or lazy to follow through.

Ter13 wrote:

I believe the solution is going to be to actually keep it fan made. Accept no money period. Not even donations. Put a copyright notice in the HUB and game. Put a link to their site in your hub. Make sure its also expressed as FREE to play.

Even if it is free, you can still be shut down, and you probably will be. There's a clause for copyright infringement that applies to what's called "total replacement", where if someone uses an IP in a way that could be considered damaging to the sales of the original product because it is a replacement of the original, you can be shut down legally.

If the original company makes games using the original IP at all, or plans to, you can be shut down because your game could conceivably convince a person to play your game rather than buy the official one.

I wish you would quote the whole thing, statement I posted.

See what I am saying that anything you do like cos-play, make wallpapers, pictures, videos, and etc without the copyright holds consent is infringing on it. Why don't they go after all of them? Reason being they aren't harming them nor costing them profit. I'm saying a big reason Dragonball Z could of been sent CnDs was simply because they were taking money, some of the sprite artist were just simply recoloring copyright or ripping it and passing it off as their own.

I'm not familiar with that, but based off some quick searching on google I would say so. Monster Galaxy on Facebook would be another example.

Sure, they might be similar to Pokemon, and sure some people might laugh or joke about it, but they truly belong to the developers, they work, and they can be very successful.

Monster Galaxy is way too greedy about money, mind you, but that is a developer issue not a game or concept issue.

I wish you would quote the whole thing, statement I posted.

I didn't because you are wrong. I know the ins and outs of derivative works when it comes to copyright law a hell of a lot better than you do, which is demonstrably true by your completely wrong statements in your prior posts.

See what I am saying that anything you do like cos-play, make wallpapers, pictures, videos, and etc without the copyright holds consent is infringing on it. Why don't they go after all of them? Reason being they aren't harming them nor costing them profit. I'm saying a big reason Dragonball Z could of been sent CnDs was simply because they were taking money, some of the sprite artist were just simply recoloring copyright or ripping it and passing it off as their own.

The icons aren't the issue at all. The issue, is not when people use the likenesses, but rather, when they infringe upon a specific brand name, or product, which could conceivably impact the profits of the copyright holder, or can in some way damage the good name of the original.

Copyright law and patent was intended to protect independent businesses from misrepresentation by third parties, and to help secure the name and reputation of their enterprise.

Recently, it has also been expanded to aid companies in keeping under control the distribution and display of their products.

Clearly, fangames fall under the former. Anyone who uses Monster Galaxy as an example of copyright infringemet upon the Pokemon brand is patently incorrect, as inspirational content, and derivative works are permitted by legal precedent. If a gameplay style is patented, there would literally be no such thing as game development at all. As such, in order to protect the viability of the medium, courts have decided that the only portions of games that are themselves copyrightable are:

1) Fictitious names, places, and characters.
2) Individual game source code files.
3) Individual images and pieces of music.

In order to prove copyright infringement, the company would have to prove any of the above were deliberately, and methodically stolen with willful intent from the defendant. Secondly, it would have to be proven that the impact of this infringement would have to have no derivative value, be it psychological, philosophical, journalistic, or as a form of parody.

If it is found that the product was not a commercial work, then, it must be determined that the product in question does not fall under protection due to psychological, philosophical, journalistic, or as a form of parody.

Lastly, we should consider something else:

Games are a unique multimedia experience. They allow the player to be a part of the experience, and draw their own motivations and choices. As such, it would be nigh impossible to defend even a small subset of games as protected on grounds of parody, journalistic importance, of philosophical or of psychological relevance. While it could conceivably be done, it is not, however, likely to apply to just about any game on BYOND.

Above all, companies are legally required to protect their intellectual property through litigation. If they do not, they risk setting precedent that something has such cultural impact that it can no longer be considered wholly the property of the copyright holder. This is why things like Star Trek uniforms, Vulcan ears, Klingon foreheads are sold widely and by many, many different vendors --simply because the cultural impact of said items is so high, and there is so little precedent for litigation that they are no longer legally defensible in court for copyright infringement --that is, until in-niche-competitive derivative works (such as fan-made movies, fan-written books, etc.) begin to be sold and distributed with the name of the franchise emblazoned upon them.

The issue with BYOND games, is that they are profitable to the owners of the site, so it could be said that the copyright holders' intellectual property was used to raise money via ad revenue from website traffic. Therefore, even a free game on BYOND is not permissible with fangame work. It becomes even more dangerous due to in-niche competition, in which free variants of commercial games pop up (Final Fantasy Online, Dragon Warrior Online, Dragonball Online, Pokemon whatever) within derivative work channels. Due to the fact that these franchises also produce videogames using the same artwork, fictional places and names, characters, etc, they can risk losing their claim to litigate derivative works if they don't actively defend their copyright, and thus, eventually, lose their IP to public domain, and also the reputation of their brand.

This is why Pokemon games are not allowed on BYOND. That is all there is to it. There is no other answer. There is no argument with the above. Stop trying to deny the facts in order to produce fangames, and just come up with your own ideas. It's not that hard.

If you have issues with copyright law, don't complain to Tom and Lummox. Lawyer up, and start trying to get politically active. Why do you think I'm going to school to prepare to study law?

Ter13 wrote:

Clearly, fangames fall under the former. Anyone who uses Monster Galaxy as an example of copyright infringemet upon the Pokemon brand is patently incorrect, as inspirational content, and derivative works are permitted by legal precedent.

Since I'm the one who actually brought Monster Galaxy up, I'm hoping that wasn't directed at me, and instead was still directed toward GL_Liko like the rest of the post seemed to be.

I actually brought it up because, as you said, it's not infringement. It's one of the better examples I could think of using your own ideas, yet sticking with a similar game-play style to what you might intend when designing a Pokemon, Digimon, etc fan-game.

Anyways. The point is we seem to agree, and you made very good, well worded points. I know a lot of BYOND's community tends to be pretty young, and many of them may not see or read this, but I really wish that with or without it they would learn to utilize their own ideas more.