Dear users,

If I may borrow your attention, I would like to point out how much I, as well as many other fans, really hate when the game industry shuts down fan games that are never out to make money. In fact, I despise the very idea. What makes Youtube videos, fanart and fanficiton so special? Why is it always games?

I finally decided to be one who would put his foot down and say no to fan game c&d's (Cease & Desist). There are plenty of cool fan creations we could all play. That is why I made this petition.

I'm not going to suck up to having no fan games. If you agree, help spread the word. https://www.change.org/p/game-industry-allow-fan-games-to-be-created

Noah Bangs

And this will accomplish what, exactly ?

Firstly, no. Secondly, who is this actually for? Thirdly, IP law in most developed countries makes such a blanket pledge impossible. Fourthly, are you actually surprised that products which are in direct competition get shut down more than products that are not? Fifthly, do you know else wouldn't make money? If I ripped the next Nintendo game and gave it away for free. After all, if it's not generating money it couldn't possibly be damaging.

Game developers produce content for you to enjoy, and it is by their grace and their grace alone that fan games are permitted. Kudos to those that allow it, but don't act like you're entitled to do what you want with someone's work just because you enjoy it.

You need to do some reading about intellectual property law to understand why allowing fan games does hurt companies that own the IP, even if the fan game is being made and distributed at no charge to the player. Furthermore, letting such projects go about unaddressed can cause a company to potentially lose their copyright or trademark over that content. I took a law class on intellectual property law when I was in grad school and it really helped me to understand why these laws are in place and why companies have to shut down fan projects (hint: it's not because they are evil).

I'm sure others can recommend a better source than what I have, but wikipedia is never a bad place to start learning:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States

OP, I responded to let you know that I don't care. I prefer to make games with my own ideas rather than someone else's.

You should probably do some more research into the claims you're making in your petition; you state that it's only the games industry, but that simply isn't the case - there are many examples from the music industry, and contrary to your claim many YouTube videos are removed for infringement every day. It's very common to hear about patent and Trademark cases from technology industries. There are regularly examples in non-games software.

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/664796-open-source-game-with-copyright-questions/

Hm,

While I'm not a huge player of fan-related games (I can't actually think of any I've played offhand), I actually support this idea in many ways, with several caveats. There is some precedent (fan fiction, satire, etc), I think, as long as it falls under "fair-use." If it's purely derivative, I totally agree it's in violation of copyright. But, the lines of satire/homage are very blurry. I do think copy-right enforcement has gotten way out of hand, lasts for damned near forever, and often times oversteps its case, especially when the copyright owner is a giant corporation that has a team of lawyers on retainer (not to mention copyright-trolls).

I think some clearer definitions/protections of fair-use when it comes to fan-made works would be a good thing. Perhaps they do exist, I've really not looked into it. So, take this opinion for what it is (pretty uninformed). But, there have certainly been some questionable high-profile examples of companies swinging their copyright fists and shutting down things that ought to fall under fair use.

That said, good freaking luck I think anything trying to relax copyright rules has a snowballs chance in hell of succeeding, unfortunately.

Instead of trying to petition in this manner, perhaps check with the EFF to see what you can do. There are already a lot of people working to keep the concept of fair use a thing.

My point of view:

While there are some freaking awesome fan-fics / -comics / -art, a lot of it is rubbish... and a lot of it follows Internet Rule #34, if you get my point

Personally, if I was on the other end, I would be VERY careful what kind of Fan-something I would allow to happen. There is an awful lot of damage fan-things can do to an IP (mostly related to rule #34, but could also be more a racist / violence thing), and a lot of time it can be kinda hard for people to distinguish between official and fan-made content. Thich then paints the original creator in a bad light for something he has not produced himself.

A blanket NO is the easiest way to deal with these issues. Might not be the most sensible way, might anger the fans, but generally, if I was in charge, I might make the same call... do I want to have to wade through the thousands of copies and fan-games created by "fans" worldwide to decide which of these might be harmful for the IP and myself and which I can let slip?

I think I would have better things to do with my time...

Personally, if I was on the other end, I would be VERY careful what kind of Fan-something I would allow to happen. There is an awful lot of damage fan-things can do to an IP (mostly related to rule #34, but could also be more a racist / violence thing), and a lot of time it can be kinda hard for people to distinguish between official and fan-made content. Thich then paints the original creator in a bad light for something he has not produced himself.

A blanket NO is the easiest way to deal with these issues.

This is basically why brands are very protective, especially for active products. The protections they are granted are strongly rooted in the law, and in many nations (including the U.S.) the protections are incorporated in the constitution and other founding documents.

In addition to fans potentially ruining your brand through sex or immaturity, there are others:

If you are making a series and you are aiming for some direction, it is easy for your fan base to demand a different direction through fan content. Fans are small and lightweight, they can generally make changes far more rapidly than major official content pipelines. You may be steering to the right but your fans build a runaway content that goes viral amongst them and they want to make a strong left. Then you get criticized for not listening to your fan base.

It is both possible and likely for a large fan base to guess the directions you have planned or the likely story lines. Given enough fans some percentage are going to guess correctly. Imagine when (not if) a piece of fan-based content that happens to go viral, but coincidentally your content is very similar to your official direction and was launched immediately before your ad campaign was to start. Now you as the content creator get a public black eye, possibly seen as stealing the fan-fic content or riding their coat tails, and quite likely your product suffers for it.

Very often the big brands will allow and quietly encourage the enthusiastic positive fans on the small scale, as they grow to prominence remind them that their work is unauthorized and they should stop, and if they get big reach for the legal tools to shrink them back down. Posting your own fan-made pokemon card of yourself online is one end of the spectrum, building a pokemon clone is the other. A little bit of positive fan sharing is good since it extends the product line through word-of-mouth. Too much dilutes or contaminates your product.