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I got a C&D mail from Interplay... (Read 137392 times)

Started by Basara Lapis, September 05, 2023, 02:25:51 am
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Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#61  September 14, 2023, 06:20:21 pm
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It is official, it's over, nothing to do against a videogame company who still got the rights of a fangame like mine.

Thanks to all for your support and your words, I'll make the announcements in all my social media and my site, then all Infinite Clayfare content will be removed. Maybe that's the way things are, that the good things don't last...

After I get off the IC content, I'll delete the fullgame thread and this one will be locked. Again, thanks for your support, people, it means a lot to me :)

If you'd contacted them from the beginning, then none of this would've happened.

No, it would not have changed a single thing.


Interplay is not interested in working with anyone else for a full game. There was no chance of Basara being a third party developer working with them.


Contacting them first doesnt matter as they clearly showed in the email they were not even interested in doing proper research about what Basara is and is not associated with.


They have the legal right to enforce their protection upon their IP as it is literally how you KEEP the IP in the first place. Not doing so risks losing access to said IP and Interplay does not want that as it is the only thing keeping them afloat.

"If you'd contacted them from the beginning, then none of this would've happened."  Well, two way: We have FULL game ( little possible) , or there nothing , just numeral stages, cahartes and thats all... (higj possible) .
Although, anyway i have still intrest what Basarakun make next!
Hey, can i help, or maybe i need help

lui

Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#62  September 14, 2023, 06:37:57 pm
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It is official, it's over, nothing to do against a videogame company who still got the rights of a fangame like mine.

Thanks to all for your support and your words, I'll make the announcements in all my social media and my site, then all Infinite Clayfare content will be removed. Maybe that's the way things are, that the good things don't last...

After I get off the IC content, I'll delete the fullgame thread and this one will be locked. Again, thanks for your support, people, it means a lot to me :)

Oh no... anyway.

What the hell is wrong with you? If you dont care about this, fine, but why do you have to be insanely rude about an actual serious thing like this.
Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#63  September 14, 2023, 06:46:13 pm
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It's more like he doesn't understand the gravity of the situation and tries to joke around, you shouldn't take him seriously.

Sad to see what happened. This sets a precedent, but only for Interplay. Hopefully other companies don't view fan-art and celebrations of their IPs as a threat.
Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#64  September 14, 2023, 08:43:37 pm
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If you'd contacted them from the beginning, then none of this would've happened.

Oh no... anyway.

You're both fucking idiots.

It's more like he doesn't understand the gravity of the situation and tries to joke around, you shouldn't take him seriously.

Sad to see what happened. This sets a precedent, but only for Interplay. Hopefully other companies don't view fan-art and celebrations of their IPs as a threat.
I mean, they literally have no power over fanart, because only artists have rights over their art, even if its art of a company's characters. The only way they'd have a problem with that is with people selling fanart, which even then, it depends on the situation, they cannot sue people over commissions, only if a person just has that a fanart of their stuff hanging there with a price tag.

Besides, I wouldn't worry about that, bigger (and more successful) companies than Interplay have already indicated that they're aware of MUGEN stuff and they don't really do anything about it, so I think the only reason this project got attacked was because Interplay is a rotten corpse that wants to pretend their IP is relevant.
Last Edit: September 14, 2023, 09:16:49 pm by DS
Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#65  September 14, 2023, 09:20:00 pm
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Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#66  September 14, 2023, 11:26:32 pm
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This is why I think identity concealment is nessecery for fan game creators, emulators developers and any kind of hobbyist work that involves copyrighted materials. No need to dox yourself, keep your internet persona seperate from your real life one. No one can sue an online user, lest of all try to subpoena non-US websites for their email information.
 
I'm not exactly sure about the following so please don't consider this legal advice:
is there anything they can do to you while you are non-US resident? I don't think they're gonna extradite you over a civil lawsuit, and from my understanding - for this lawsuit to begin its proccedings you will need to be served those papers face to face by court agent or something. Because plausabile denialbilty can be used against them.
It could come back and bite you in the ass if you ever consider visiting the US. So i can see why you would want to call it quits.

Good luck man!
I'm going to let god handle you people ✞
Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#67  September 15, 2023, 02:33:14 am
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Not super relevant to people's points here but I do want to clear up some misconceptions about copyright law.

They have the legal right to enforce their protection upon their IP as it is literally how you KEEP the IP in the first place. Not doing so risks losing access to said IP and Interplay does not want that as it is the only thing keeping them afloat.

This is how trademark law works, but not copyright law. The two are often conflated and confused.
You cannot lose ownership of an IP, short of the set in stone expiration of copyright that is 70 years after the creator's death, where it then enters public domain. Until then, anything you create is your copyright, unless you give/sell the rights to someone else. There is no such law in that other people making unlicensed works with your IP risks you losing your IP if you don't enforce your ownership.

Trademarks, which must be registered and are not granted automatically upon creation like copyrights are, do work similarly to this. Trademarks are essentially brand names. Clayfighter the name would be a trademark, but that's not the same thing as their IP. A trademark essentially means "Hey, this is the name of our product in the market, and we'd like to reserve that name for our product so that other products don't also call themselves the same thing and confuse customers." This does need to be defended, but there's more leeway than people give it credit for. Essentially, if you register a trademark, but then other companies release their products under your trademarked name (say for example, an entirely different company releases a game called Clayfighter that doesn't share any of Clayfighter's IP but has the same name) and then you ignore them while they sell that game and make a name for themselves using your trademark and you don't do anything to challenge that, then yeah you can lose access to your trademark because the name is no longer strictly associated with your product in public consciousness. (You, if you were Interplay, would still own all of the characters and media and IP of Clayfighter, but would no longer be able to enforce that no one else calls their game Clayfighter.)

An obscure fangame using the IP of Clayfighter itself doesn't have the same risk of disassociating the trademark from its product, so it is highly unlikely it would result in a loss of trademark. Fangames are far more a case of copyright infringement than trademark infringement, and whether a company chooses to enforce against copyright infringement is their choice, as they do not risk losing their IP if they don't.

I mean, they literally have no power over fanart, because only artists have rights over their art, even if its art of a company's characters. The only way they'd have a problem with that is with people selling fanart, which even then, it depends on the situation, they cannot sue people over commissions, only if a person just has that a fanart of their stuff hanging there with a price tag.

This is also not necessarily true. It's true that they don't have rights over the art itself, but this only prevents them from using said art without permisson. So they can't use your fanart in advertisements or sell it or anything of the sort without your permission. But they CAN C&D you, even for fanart, because you've used their intellectual property without permission. While they don't have rights to your art, you don't have rights to their characters, and publishing your own art of them violates their rights and ownership of the characters. They absolutely can sue people over commissions of fanart of their IP. The reason this doesn't happen is because its far too small and too abundant to prosecute each and every fan artist, + it would be a PR disaster. But they do have the choice, if they so feel like it, to crack down on fan artists. They don't, which is good. But fanart is no more or less protected than fangames, and we have seen plenty how they treat those.

Likewise, the inverse is true. These corporations COULD ignore fangames just as much as they do fanart, but have chosen not to.

is there anything they can do to you while you are non-US resident?

I'm not sure of Chile's laws in regards to copyright infringement, but his content was hosted on mugenguild.com so it'd actually depend on the laws where this site is hosted, as to whether copyright law would be enforced or not. Basically— what is MFG's policy to receiving Cease and Desists?
Last Edit: September 15, 2023, 02:41:48 am by OroCrimson
Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#68  September 15, 2023, 04:52:07 am
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I'm not sure of Chile's laws in regards to copyright infringement
Indeed, I mentioned about that in the first post, so being from Chile isn't a warranty that I'm safe:
I want to delete the mail and continue as nothing happens... but what about he and Interplay really make legal actions?? I mean, I'm from Chile, technically they can't do nothing, but there's a precedent here about "Miel Gibson" case (a small honey maker that has a wordplay between "miel", honey in Spanish, and the actor, whose laywers threatened them), so I'm not sure if I'm safe here...

Rest in peace, Toriyama-san...
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Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#69  September 15, 2023, 06:21:15 am
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Ironically, I probably wouldn't know or care about Clayfighter if it wasn't for MUGEN. My first exposure to it was Clayfighter characters on the roster of a MUGEN youtuber I used to watch. Fans are literally the only thing making Clayfighter relevant in this day and age. Corporations are dumb.
Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#70  September 15, 2023, 01:37:07 pm
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Being from Chile doesn't protect you from the law, you made me remember Billy Mitchell case against Karl Jobst, he is in another country (Australia?) yet he has to battle and defend himself.

What to do? Sadly what they asked.

But if I were you I would be sure that every living Interplay/Clay Fighter fan know about this, to give them the reputation they deserve and don't support them if possible, but not as a F'U response, more likely as an announcement of work not continuing and asking people to spread the news.

I mean, I don't want companies to fail, but I don't like this things.
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Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#71  September 15, 2023, 04:42:29 pm
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It's one hell of an unfortunate endeavor to get slapped in the face by Interplay like this. One would think a fangame would be a good chance to use the old guard of a fandom to get fresh eyes into one of their franchises, but pulling a Nintendo is more important to them. It is what it is.

Don't let it get you down, though. Whatever else you've got cooking in that brainbox of yours will be equally as great and supported by the denizens around here.


Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#72  September 15, 2023, 07:33:53 pm
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Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#73  September 15, 2023, 10:39:13 pm
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While it saddens me to see a fan game get shutdown due to shitty company C&D. I'm also glad that our Z2 bois never received one from Bandai or Toei.
I'm going to let god handle you people ✞

lui

Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#74  September 16, 2023, 10:23:50 am
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*long winded post about the semantics of copyright and trademark law because I got one of the terms mixed up with the other*

Look, semantics aside, the point was that Interplay has everything to lose if people start playing fan stuff more than buying whatever re-releases of their ip they have because they literally do not have anything else other than licensing out their stuff.

They were never going to work with Basara, did not even bother to research what projects he ACTUALLY was apart of, was never going to make him a third party partner and him even being able to get as far as he did was alot considering how fast they took down previous fan stuff. That's it
Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#75  September 16, 2023, 10:11:08 pm
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*long winded post about the semantics of copyright and trademark law because I got one of the terms mixed up with the other*

Look, semantics aside, the point was that Interplay has everything to lose if people start playing fan stuff more than buying whatever re-releases of their ip they have because they literally do not have anything else other than licensing out their stuff.

They were never going to work with Basara, did not even bother to research what projects he ACTUALLY was apart of, was never going to make him a third party partner and him even being able to get as far as he did was alot considering how fast they took down previous fan stuff. That's it
Well, then that is also objectively wrong because there are no re-releases of their IP.

Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#76  September 17, 2023, 05:36:29 pm
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Wtf I legit thought that Interplay was defunct and had sold off their properties. This sucks and I'm sorry this happened to you Basara, your projects are great and I wish they would work with you on this matter instead of being stubborn

Even looking at their "catalogue" on their webpage they don't have Clayfighter listed
Last Edit: September 17, 2023, 06:27:54 pm by Cobra Caddie
Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#77  September 18, 2023, 05:42:05 am
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I'm sure I replied with this on your twitter post on this.
Have you thought about reworking the game with original characters, original stop motion sprites, original stages, original music/sounds, and have it run on IKEMEN? I'd pay real money for it if it goes for sale as digital downloads.
Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#78  September 18, 2023, 06:28:00 am
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I'm sure I replied with this on your twitter post on this.
Have you thought about reworking the game with original characters, original stop motion sprites, original stages, original music/sounds, and have it run on IKEMEN? I'd pay real money for it if it goes for sale as digital downloads.

Uh.....actually, he released the screenpack and basically has made it a "DIY" game.
Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#79  September 18, 2023, 06:37:19 am
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I'm sure I replied with this on your twitter post on this.
Have you thought about reworking the game with original characters, original stop motion sprites, original stages, original music/sounds, and have it run on IKEMEN? I'd pay real money for it if it goes for sale as digital downloads.

Uh.....actually, he released the screenpack and basically has made it a "DIY" game.

He did do that but that still uses clayfighter assets, just isn't compiled into an actual game and is more random assets scattered into logical sections of his website. What pacsonic was referring to was a completely original game or IP that keeps the pixelated/digitized stop-motion style but uses its own characters instead of the clayfighter ones.

I really don't think he'd be able to do that, however. Stop-motion is time consuming and if basara were to get a team to do it it'd probably take several months just to make the sprites for one character. In general I just don't feel he has the resources to actually do something completely original, I have no idea if he even would want to create a team for it since he seems fine just doing things by himself and has other interests and hobbies than just clayfighter stuffs. Everything in this world costs money and it sucks.
Last Edit: September 18, 2023, 06:41:29 am by SquidlyPoli1
Re: I got a C&D mail from Interplay...
#80  September 18, 2023, 06:55:29 am
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I'm sure I replied with this on your twitter post on this.
Have you thought about reworking the game with original characters, original stop motion sprites, original stages, original music/sounds, and have it run on IKEMEN? I'd pay real money for it if it goes for sale as digital downloads.

Uh.....actually, he released the screenpack and basically has made it a "DIY" game.

He did do that but that still uses clayfighter assets, just isn't compiled into an actual game and is more random assets scattered into logical sections of his website. What pacsonic was referring to was a completely original game or IP that keeps the pixelated/digitized stop-motion style but uses its own characters instead of the clayfighter ones.

I really don't think he'd be able to do that, however. Stop-motion is time consuming and if basara were to get a team to do it it'd probably take several months just to make the sprites for one character. In general I just don't feel he has the resources to actually do something completely original, I have no idea if he even would want to create a team for it since he seems fine just doing things by himself and has other interests and hobbies than just clayfighter stuffs. Everything in this world costs money and it sucks.

Well, society made us so that without a precious commodity, we can't do shit unless we were forced into it.