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[dfyb]

user generated content has been widespread in the PC world for like a decade now. if the content-owner doesn't like what's going on, they can send a letter.

 

[Ranger X]

Wow, user generated content is ok. As long as you don't sell it or as long as you don't copy (like those Crono Trigger guys).

I can draw Nike and Coke sign all over my ****ing house if i want. I can paint my car with whatever logo i ****ing wish. I can have a Mario T-Shirt i made myself.
It's the same thing for Little Big Planet. I will be able to plaster whatever texture i wish to on whatever objects and that's all.
There won't be any problem and there is no matters of lawsuits with Little Big Planet.

 

[mrpeabody]

Wow, user generated content is ok. As long as you don't sell it or as long as you don't copy (like those Crono Trigger guys).

I can draw Nike and Coke sign all over my ****ing house if i want. I can paint my car with whatever logo i ****ing wish. I can have a Mario T-Shirt i made myself.
It's the same thing for Little Big Planet. I will be able to plaster whatever texture i wish to on whatever objects and that's all.
There won't be any problem and there is no matters of lawsuits with Little Big Planet.

Can you make and sell a soft drink called Coca-Cola? Can you create and distribute a computer game with cans of Coke in it that poison the player? The answer is "yes, until Coke threatens to sue". Somebody owns that copyright and it isn't you.

 

[Victrix]

Speaking of, I spotted Transmorphers at the local movie store, I need to pick that up

 

[Ranger X]

Can you make and sell a soft drink called Coca-Cola? Can you create and distribute a computer game with cans of Coke in it that poison the player? The answer is "yes, until Coke threatens to sue". Somebody owns that copyright and it isn't you.

My examples does not imply the bolded. Of course you cannot sell anything that isn't yours. User generated content is ok. Having your Coca-Cola car in Forza is ok, your Coca-Cola level in Little Big Planet is ok.
As long as you don't do commerce using someone else trademark, promoting your stuff tks to X trademark or copying X trademark for your product = it's perfectly legal.

 

[mrpeabody]

My examples does not imply the bolded. Of course you cannot sell anything that isn't yours. User generated content is ok. Having your Coca-Cola car in Forza is ok, your Coca-Cola level in Little Big Planet is ok.
As long as you don't do commerce using someone else trademark, promoting your stuff tks to X trademark or copying X trademark for your product = it's perfectly legal.

Really? How do you explain free mods being shut down? There's no money being made there. Likewise, if I make a free version of Ultima IV, not a copy but a ground-up reconstruction, you can be sure I'll be hearing from somebody's lawyer. The important point is the use of someone else's characters or designs, not whether it's being offered for money.

At the end of the day it comes down to the attitudes of the copyright/trademark holder and the owner of the online space. Legally, Coke can sue or threaten to sue to keep others from using their trademarks. They could send cease and desist letters to you or to whoever runs the LBP servers. And, of course, most online worlds have pretty draconian EULAs that say "we own everything in our virtual world, we can ban or delete as we see fit". If NCSoft doesn't like your not-quite-Wolverine character, they can remove it. As a practical matter (as opposed to a legal one) most companies don't care until money gets involved.

Of course, I'm not a lawyer, and I'm guessing you aren't either. It would be interesting to hear from a professional on this issue and where the boundaries are.

 

[FightyF]

Recently, ******* interviewed Mark Rein of Epic about Halo mods in the PS3 version of UT3. As obvious as it is, it blew my mind. I seriously hadn't considered the idea.

In LittleBigPlanet's promotional material, there is an image of possible outfits for dressing up your Sackboy:

So you can see even Media Molecule is already advertising the potential for Trademark infringement.

Obviously appreciation of classic series transcend the business of platform exclusivity, but how do you think the trademark holders will react to this? Do you think fans will go to the length of fully recreating Halo1 and distributing it as a UT3 mod? If so, what will the repercussions be for the modders, Epic, Sony, etc?

Once the ability is there, its pretty much out of anyone's control what modders do with the tech. Sony can filter out infringing material from their servers, but if the content can be downloaded from a PC and loaded via memory stick, there's no way to suppress this activity.

Those sorts of MODs could be shut down.

People have been trying to make Duke Nukem MODs for the longest time, only to be shut down.

 

[smurfx]

would be cool if those guys that made goldeneye source ported it over to ut3 so we could have some nice goldeneye action.

 

[Tellaerin]

uh, yes. They used to delete your character. You could have a lvl 50 hero and cryptic would delete it just like that if it resembled anything too closely.

City of Heroes is a perfect example. You could create Wolverine. NC Soft got sued, and lost. Now, if you create Wolverine, that character and/or your account goes bye-bye.

In a case like that, you'd get generic'd - a GM would randomize your costume and temporarily change your name to 'Generic [string of digits]' until you pick another. They don't go around deleting your characters and/or accounts.

 

[monoRAIL]

If you copy someone elses idea (whether it's a halo mod, or a mario t-shirt) then you can't complain when they set their lawyers on you. Just make something original instead of copying.

 

[Chû Totoro]

Personal or private use = legal
No pb with LBP (player to player FREE transaction)

 

[charlequin]

Boy, this thread is a mess.

Things worth noting:

a) Trademarks and copyrights are different. Trademarks need to be protected or they can be taken away, copyrights are automatically protected no matter what. Characters that resemble the appearance of another company's characters are a copyright violation -- the company that owns that copyright can indeed safely choose not to take action.

b) Whether you are charging money for something that violates someone else's copyright does not affect the legality of your action, only the penalty for doing so.

c) Various forms of fair use do affect your rights in this situation. If you're making content that is not to be distributed, or that references a sufficiently small part of a copyrighted work, you're probably fine. It might be arguable that a skin that just represents the outfit of a copyrighted character is within the realm of fair use (though copyright-holder companies certainly prefer to say the opposite.) In any case, I don't believe there's any history of actual legal repercussions for user-made content of this kind -- allowable damages are basically zero if the infringers aren't doing so for profit, which means it's not worth it for companies to sue when they could just C&D to make the material disappear.

d) It's when your user-made content is distributed to others via an "official" channel that the real issue comes up. If there's a PSN function that lets you upload your sack outfits for others to download, I would expect it to be heavily policed for copyright violations, simply to protect Sony from liability. (If this was a PC game and people were distributing these mods on their own, most of them would stay up simply because it would be up to the individual copyright holders to ask them to stop -- there would be no reason for the publisher of the modded game to act.)

 

[commish]

This is a subject near and dear to my heart. I'm in law school now, and this summer I've done more research on trademarks, copyrights, right of publicity, etc than should be allowed. Fittingly enough, I'm also currently working on a paper that concerns some of the issues brought up here, but in a different light. Nothing like combining my nerdy love of law with my nerdy love of the gaming industry

As charlequin says, this thread is a mess! I don't have time to address much, as I'm at work now, but just remember that most companies are going to err on the side of caution when it comes to getting sued. Many issues in this area are unclear/unsettled and what's infringing and what's not can (and does) vary from circuit to circuit. While taking someone else's intellectual property and then selling a product based on their IP may seem like it's infringing, that's not always the case, especially when it comes to trademarks. However, as soon as money is involved, the user's rights get restricted and the IP holder's rights get stronger. Same with distribution, as someone else mentioned. However, Sony, or wheover, won't even put that much thought into it. They'll remove any and everything that an IP holder brings to their attention as possibly infringing. Sure, if a case went to court, the user *might* win, but that's irrelevant. Suing someone is expensive, so, like I said before, they are just going to err on the side of caution.

Anyway, I find all of this fascinating. I'll post my paper here in a few months when I finish

 

[neorej]

Adobe is carrying the Photoshop-product for some time now. They haven't been sued for allowing their users to recreate Marvel/DC/Nintendo/Microsoft/<insert other random copyrighted graphic material> ? Right?

Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

could this not be considered sackboy cosplay?
could this kind of cosplay be considered a parody ?

 

[AVclub]

I don't get it. The makers of LBP are providing people with tools to create stuff. If they create stuff that looks like copyrighted material, it's on the creator, not the people who made the tools.

If I draw a Calvin and Hobbes comic and start passing it out to all my friends, are the makers of the paper and pencils responsible? Further, it could be argued that the image of a dude in overalls with a hat and moustache does not infringe on any copyrights unless his name is also Mario/Wario/Luigi, et cetera. Any passing resemblence to Nintendo characters in a game like LBP is just free advertising for the cheaper console that's kicking PS3's ass right now.

I think this uproar is lawyers looking for a payday.

 

[RobertM]

MS has all the right in the world to kill that as does any other copyright holder when someone uses their intellectual property to further their own ends. It is pretty much identity theft.

What strikes me is why even spend 3 years of your own time to extend MS's property when you could be working on your own and reap the value out of that?

Ummm what?

They just made a mod for Command and Conquer: General with a Halo theme, what's wrong with that?

 

[The Jer]

Thanks for the free advertising.

Please accept these legal actions as tokens of our gratitude.

 

[Squirrel Killer]

Boy, this thread is a mess.

Ain't that the truth.

a) Trademarks and copyrights are different. Trademarks need to be protected or they can be taken away, copyrights are automatically protected no matter what. Characters that resemble the appearance of another company's characters are a copyright violation -- the company that owns that copyright can indeed safely choose not to take action.

Actually, many characters, especially mascot characters like Mario, are trademarked in addition to the copyright protections they would normally have.

b) Whether you are charging money for something that violates someone else's copyright does not affect the legality of your action, only the penalty for doing so.

"Purpose and character of the use" is one part of determining whether a particular use is fair. A non-commercial use by a non-owner is more likely to be held as fair than a commercial use, although that is not solely determinative.

c) Various forms of fair use do affect your rights in this situation. If you're making content that is not to be distributed, or that references a sufficiently small part of a copyrighted work, you're probably fine. It might be arguable that a skin that just represents the outfit of a copyrighted character is within the realm of fair use (though copyright-holder companies certainly prefer to say the opposite.) In any case, I don't believe there's any history of actual legal repercussions for user-made content of this kind -- allowable damages are basically zero if the infringers aren't doing so for profit, which means it's not worth it for companies to sue when they could just C&D to make the material disappear.

d) It's when your user-made content is distributed to others via an "official" channel that the real issue comes up. If there's a PSN function that lets you upload your sack outfits for others to download, I would expect it to be heavily policed for copyright violations, simply to protect Sony from liability. (If this was a PC game and people were distributing these mods on their own, most of them would stay up simply because it would be up to the individual copyright holders to ask them to stop -- there would be no reason for the publisher of the modded game to act.)

Exactly. When the distributor of the potentially infringing use is a corporate entity, they're a lot more likely to aggressively police the content simply because they have so much to lose. It's the deep pockets theory of legal action, why go after one guy with a infringing file on a random web server when a C&D will likely cow him into non-infringement, and save you time to go after a company allowing it to happen under their nose?

They just made a mod for Command and Conquer: General with a Halo theme, what's wrong with that?

Probably the fact that MS is making a Halo themed RTS themselves. Such a use by a non-owner could effect the potential market of MS's planned use of their own trademarked properties.

Thanks for the free advertising.

Please accept these legal actions as tokens of our gratitude.

The owners of the property have the right to not advertise their property as much as they have the right to advertise with it. There are many reasons why an IP holder would choose to not want advertising, even if it is free.

 

[commish]

Thanks for the free advertising.

Please accept these legal actions as tokens of our gratitude.

What you call free advertising, someone else calls dilution. In many instances, I agree with you, but after being on the other side of the table, I see where IP right holders are coming from. You have to consider the fact that the product may be substandard, some people will not know or understand that it's not an officially licensed product, and if you keep letting people violate your IP rights, it gets harder to prosecute.

 

[platypotamus]

If there is some sort of issue taken with it, then there should also be some sort of issue taken up with Autodesk. People could potentially build 3D models that infringe upon a copyright or trademark. Adobe too, people could create 2D digital images that infringe upon a copyright or trademark. While we're at it, go after the makers of pencils/paper, people could freehand draw something that's a copyright or trademark.

Why on earth is an in-game editor any different than a standalone editor?

Ultimately, it's the user of said editor's responsibility not to infringe on said copyrights.

 

[commish]

If there is some sort of issue taken with it, then there should also be some sort of issue taken up with Autodesk. People could potentially build 3D models that infringe upon a copyright or trademark. Adobe too, people could create 2D digital images that infringe upon a copyright or trademark. While we're at it, go after the makers of pencils/paper, people could freehand draw something that's a copyright or trademark.

Why on earth is an in-game editor any different than a standalone editor?

Ultimately, it's the user of said editor's responsibility not to infringe on said copyrights.

Then how do you explain the ruling against Grokster in the Supreme Court? Sure, there are key differences here, but a defense that merely says "hey, we just created the software, we aren't responsible for what our users do with it" isn't always a winner. I understand what you are getting at, though, and I can't say I disagree. It all depends on the situation in question... is it something totally under a company's control, as in an MMORPG, or something outside their control, as in a mod that someone else created using the tools provided by the company?