breaking this law isnt doesnt make you a worse person for breaking it or a better person for not breaking it really also i wouldn't say that fangames are morally wrong? i mean its kinda creating your own fantasy of characters you like, similar to if you played with mario toys as a kid. that's just how i see it though

I think P-Star has a bit of a point. He's not willing, morally, to break the law in this way. And I guess that's just where he stands. There's no hypocrisy there, and you can't fault him for believing that. Though, this community exists for the purpose of "breaking" this "law", assuming a law is indeed broken.

I'll just throw in my two cents on this considering I make most of my living off of fan art commissions. Basically fan projects, for the most part, fall under, or very close to the "Fair Use Agreement," where you are allowed to use an existing IP or assets from an existing IP to a certain extent if the purpose is for educational (one could even argue self-educational), parody (primarily where fan games would technically fall), or critical and reviewing purposes (analyzing the content critically to write a review or an article on it). After the dawning of Let's Plays, things became VERY muddy and gray in this area, as things have just become very unclear. It essentially boils down to the discretion of the companies themselves to take action, and what action to take at that. However, clear emulation or recreation attempts at existing IPs, especially with Nintendo, are an area of VERY thin ice. Fan games themselves are also another monster entirely because they are a product that could potentially threaten the business of the people they're paying homage to. An example of this being done successfully, however, is Dragon Ball Z Abridged. TeamFourStar actually seems to have a fairly balanced and amicable relationship with Toei Animation and other owners of the Dragon Ball IP, likely due to them, while yes, using direct assets from the show, making it an almost entirely different retelling of the story. However, in a recent happening, a representative of Toei Animation had TFS remove two DB related posters (one was a DBZA poster) from their booth at a convention. It was very polite and civil from what I understand, but it was also essentially Toei reminding TFS of their position. If you're going to make a fan game of a Nintendo IP, you need to be careful. Nintendo is very defensive of their IPs, and they'll flex their power at the slightest uproar. However, it also seems that they wont' strike a project until it's essentially finished, unless it is blatant copyright infringement (i.e. rom distribution or an emulation-rom hybrid like Pixelmon for Minecraft). And even then, they are fairly gentle in this regard, and I think they know what they're doing. They let the games be distributed for at least a day or so before issuing a DMCA notice, and at that point it's pretty much too late to stop their distribution across the internet anyhow. And they're only issuing DMCAs, they're not taking fangamers to court. I guess to sum it up, splicing in a few bits of info from Reggie in an interview...if you make a fangame of their IP, and they (meaning moreso the legal and corporate divisions) think it might influence the direction of the IP in consumers' minds, they'll politely tell you, "Okay, you've had your fun, people get to experience your project, so we're just gonna ask you to put it away now." It sucks, but it's in their legal right. Fan games are...technically legal to an extent. As long as you're distant enough from any official work (aka in the realm of parody), you're not breaking any laws. It gets muddier the more faithful you strive to be to the source material until it's almost indistinguishable. This doesn't mean you're safe from the IP owners coming in and telling you to stop either, but they're probably not going to sue you. And if your tribute turns into a recreation or a profit venture, you've crossed the line of legality, and companies are probably going to come at you hard and fast about it. The way I look at it in my work is like this: Different enough that it won't even be remotely mistaken for official = OK! Similar to source material, but not directly copying anything that already exists = Middle ground/thin ice Emulating/mimicking/recreating an existing piece of art, game, film, or music = Probably not OK!

Oh, by the way, before I respond to the last posts, any particular reason that you guys want to make fangames based on Nintendo properties even though they aren't appreciated? I don't want to "reward" them by still pouring hours into one when they won't appreciate it like SEGA will. SEGA can give approval to games like Sonic Time Twisted, which completely brush against Sonic Mania's niche, but not Nintendo apparently. Nintendo fangaming all seems like a waste of time to me. Not legally, because obviously we're still standing, but just by principle. I had a whole FOLDER with Mario junk for a game in it and I'm willing to drop the whole Mario business, so I'd just really appreciate opinions if you disagree.

[size=200]BECAUSE IT'S FUN[/size] The above statement can be used for any questions you have.

Besides that, why do you even care about Nintendo's opinion on fangames? It's the people that you should be caring about, not the Nintendo itself. And Nintendo is no more than just a corporation. The only thing that Fangames matter is that if they're making money or the attention. I'm pretty sure that most recent Fangame project got taken down from either profits from ads or too much attention.

It's their intellectual property, so yes... their opinion matters. Whether or not it's JUST a corporation has nothing to do with it. GameFreak/The Pokemon Company are likely the ones who took down that Pokemon fangame because they're very protective of their Pokemon IP and it gained a lot of attention in the press. Another Metroid 2D Remake got taken down because Nintendo was working on their own remake and AM2R was gaining enough attention in the press to be considered competition to their official product.

@Kritter: Not only is it rewriting the law when there is no emergency reason to do so (Isn't human society about controlling yourself unless you have a good reason not to (i.e. you shot someone but it was to defend yourself?), but it rewards the company for its bad practices. It's like making a bouquet of flowers you grew for your abusive mother. It may just be me, but doesn't it sting just a tiny bit at least on both accounts? @Psid: Yes, it is about the people, that's why I'm still here instead of giving up. If I really hated MFGG I would be leaving. I care about the company as well because of the two reasons above in my response to Kritter. @Pedigree: Yep, right. I don't have moral cause to rebel against Nintendo, so I won't.

[quote="P-Star7"]@Kritter: Not only is it rewriting the law when there is no emergency reason to do so (Isn't human society about controlling yourself unless you have a good reason not to (i.e. you shot someone but it was to defend yourself?), but it rewards the company for its bad practices. It's like making a bouquet of flowers you grew for your abusive mother. It may just be me, but doesn't it sting just a tiny bit at least on both accounts?[/quote] Almost nobody making fangames cares one iota about that. They make games "because it's fun" making games. They make a game and it gets pinged for copyright, such is life, that's the rules. I don't know what you're looking for but it seems like the easier option would be to just delete all your Nintendo fan stuff, disconnect from the internet and go be merry in solitude with the knowledge that at least [i]you're[/i] doing the right thing because going around in circles is getting tedious.

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying I agree with you P-Star 7. Fan-made works exist as a tribute to the source material and are not inherently bad, not to mention that fan works are protected under US copyright laws as fair use last I checked.

Well, what am I supposed to do? For many years I had no idea that to be a contributing part of this site you had to be a maverick, and Nintendo isn't helping with that. I take the view that "I get to make up my own rules" is not what I believe is right, but I've already bonded with this site. What am I supposed to replace it with? I've already had to leave several places in my life that were a bad match for me, but MFGG was always there. I don't want to think that those long years were just a sham and that I should never have come here or enjoyed it.

Simply being around something you don't believe in doesn't automatically dirty your own moral compass. If you like the community but don't like the idea of going against the wishes of Nintendo then that's fine, stay here and discuss games, give feedback on art and so on and steer clear of the things you disagree with. You don't automatically have to eject yourself from situations just because there are others who don't share your views.

Human morality isn't necessarily about self control. I'm not white knuckling a secret desire to murder everybody I see. It's about creating a society that works towards the greater good.

You're way too concerned with following (vague at best) wishes/double checking with a company that doesnt care unless it directly impacts their profit margin. No one here is actually damaging Nintendo. You've got to learn to think for yourself and not just blindly not question why certain laws are put into place (hint: in this case any possible law regarding prohibition of fan works is solely for the purpose of keeping money in the hands of an already multibillion dollar company). No one wants to take the first step in formally declaring laws policing fan work production because it DOESNT HELP ANYONE.

Another thing that I can't remember saying is that I'm Christian, so that's why I'm so concerned about stealing (a.k.a. using withoit permission). Does anyone else see it that way when you look at it from that lens?

This community isn't christian, buddy. It isn't our problem to judge it from that point of view.

[quote="P-Star7"]Another thing that I can't remember saying is that I'm Christian, so that's why I'm so concerned about stealing (a.k.a. using withoit permission). Does anyone else see it that way when you look at it from that lens?[/quote] "Theft" implies some form of loss from the victim. When you use a character for a fangame, you're not taking anything away from Nintendo: Mario can still be used by them perfectly fine, and by you using the character in a way that is not meant to generate profit nor interfere with their profit, they see no loss. The only time it can begin to resemble "theft" is when you attempt to create a superior product directly from the design of an existing work (that's why remakes are shut down so quickly) or any other situation in which your use of the character is meant to be in a manner that sabatoges the original company (honestly i dont know how a fanwork could do this. Maybe those PETA games? Even those were allowed to stay up due to fair use tho, so idk)

[quote="P-Star7"]Another thing that I can't remember saying is that I'm Christian, so that's why I'm so concerned about stealing (a.k.a. using withoit permission). Does anyone else see it that way when you look at it from that lens?[/quote] I'm Christian too, and I too would never steal someone's things because that's just morally incorrect. But in this case, by us making fan games Nintendo is not losing anything, so it doesn't really matter.

[quote="Evil Yoshi Toes"][quote="P-Star7"]Another thing that I can't remember saying is that I'm Christian, so that's why I'm so concerned about stealing (a.k.a. using withoit permission). Does anyone else see it that way when you look at it from that lens?[/quote] I'm Christian too, and I too would never steal someone's things because that's just morally incorrect. But in this case, by us making fan games Nintendo is not losing anything, so it doesn't really matter.[/quote] I'm glad to hear that you are. This is the kind of post I was looking forward to. Anyways, I view it as a "render unto Caesar" situation, because just as the coin had Caesar's face on it, so does Mario have Nintendo's logo on the box, and just as it was up to Caesar to let people have coins or be taxed, it's up to Nintendo to let people use Mario or not.

There's some confusion in this thread, notably at Black Boo's post. [quote]Different enough that it won't even be remotely mistaken for official = OK! Similar to source material, but not directly copying anything that already exists = Middle ground/thin ice Emulating/mimicking/recreating an existing piece of art, game, film, or music = Probably not OK![/quote] So this isn't true. Any work created in the image or likeness of a character owned by... any company, Nintendo, Disney, Blizzard, SEGA, etc. are the property of that company. You don't often see stuff against fan art(See Overwatch Porn removal), but you do see rules at some conventions limiting the amount of fan content or fan content from certain companies(Funimation at Anime North as an example). But they own anything you make involving their character, Parody laws and fair use protect you to an extent, but parody doesn't include using the character exactly, and fair use doesn't cover earning money. So, You're technically on thin-ice always with fan content, be careful, and understand it can be taken down at any time. And before anything is said, there is no discussion on this, it's a fact, you guys should understand, that while fan art/games/content are this gray area where a lot of things are looked the other way, it doesn't mean it's in any way legal.