Well, that didn’t take long. Remember that $US90,000 Kickstarter to make a Metroid fan film — one that didn’t have Nintendo’s permission? Yeah, it ended about like you’d expect. They’d gotten about $US20,000, with two weeks left in the fund drive.
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15 responses to “Well, That Didn’t Take Long.”
$20,000 too much if they didn’t have the IP holders permission
How many of these stories does that make now….?
and yet people will still try and slip on past the keeper
It probably didnt help matters that it ended up being an article on a gaming website either. I wonder if the people that donated get that money back never really payed much attention to how Kickstarter worked.
Same
I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I am very hesitant, and somewhat skeptical, of crowd funding
I am aware of the great successes that come from it, but surely the initiators of this particular one had to know that it would never get past Nintendo…. so was there an ulterior motive?
With Kickstarter the money is only deducted from your nominated account if and when the project is successfully funded, so those that pledged won’t be out of pocket…
What happens to people who have no money in their bank account at the end of the kickstarter period if it was successful? Is the kickstarter technically successful if the actual money at the end isn’t over the success amount?
Pledges are typically made with a credit card.
Yup.. even if the pledges are not “honored” at the end, they still get funded (minus the declined payments), even if that means it will end up less than the funding goal.
Oh god I totally didn’t see that coming!
NINTENDO CRUSHES FAN PROJECT AGAINST STATEMENT
News at 11
Nintendo doesn’t mind if fans make fan movies. Nintendo does not like it however, if fans try to profit off of their properties, which they absolutely would’ve with this. I don’t see any sort of contradiction with their previous statement.
Was this the intention? I never saw the kickstarter brief and wasn’t able to peruse the details so it’s hard to say if it was a fan film for the sake of being a fan film or if the intention was to profit from another companies intellectual property.
That said, anyone with even the smallest knowledge of copyright law would know that if it was the latter it would never fly so why did 1) they even create the Kickstarter project and 2) how did it get past the screening that Kickstarter themselves do?
I won’t dump Nintendo in the scumbag pile for defending their IP, they’re well within their rights to but sometimes companies fail to see the silver lining in derivative works, authorised or not.
Also, while I’m no copyright guru (aka lawyer), what’s the go with the “fair use” copyright defence in a case such as this? Would it need to go to court or is it something that can be mediated? Does it even need to go that far, can they claim “fair use” and totally ignore Nintendo or is it really that “fair use” was included in copyright legislation so loosely and without any real legal backing in that context that it’s just a dangled carrot to keep the anti-copyright crowd happy?
Note: That last paragraph was more me thinking out aloud than actually asking you a question. 🙂
By allowing anyone to use their IP it lessons their claim to copyright. That is why Zenimax took Notch to court.
…and lost because it was not deemed an infringement on the trademark. Scrolls does not equal The Elder Scrolls.
Zenimax was only being precious about the use of the word scrolls. I’m amazed that one made it to court so is it any wonder they lost?
Wow. Great article.
How did the people handle that Starcraft one? I assume they contacted Blizzard and got permission BEFORE they launched the KS?