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Larry Oji, Super Moderator, Judge, "Dirge for the Follin" Project Director, VG Frequency Creator
 Member 11726 Level 1.47 Aug 2006 
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About the doujin stuff mentioned earlier, I believe the reason why there is so much fan-produced material being sold in Japan has to do with the fact that there aren't that many lawyers in Japan. There apparently have been some lawsuits reported, but it's not a major crackdown.
In the US, there are many more lawyers and more companies seem keen on keeping an iron fist on their copyrights. While they may not have the right to prevent people from making remixes or using things under 'fair use' there are HUGE problems related to this. First off, 'fair use' is incredibly vague and not as clear-cut as we might think - you really need to pay a lawyer to get the 'go ahead' slip (and that's not guaranteeing you can get sued anyway and then your lawyer can get sued for malpractice). It's also incredibly difficult to calculate how you should pay all the different parties involved in a project to remix material simply because nobody keeps serious track of it. It can take years and lots of lawyer time. Second, companies like Square-Enix are big companies and so if they wanted, they could push lawsuits to sue anybody they thought was making money off their work to within an inch of their life (certainly not as bad as Fox though - you do NOT want to mess with those bastards). It doesn't really matter if you defend against them in court, either: for one, it's pretty damn expensive, and they have better lawyers. You COULD win, but you'd bankrupt yourself in the process - that is, if the trial doesn't fold first because you can't afford to keep going (there are some instances where the accuser simply has enough resources that he can drag the trial on for so long that you simply can't afford to keep the trial open and it closes, or they just charge you with something else). Yeah, it's a pretty shitty situation, but in general, companies simply don't have the resources to scourge the Internet and the world in search of copyright infringement (yet...). So they only really have the obligation to go out and send a cease and desist message if they are informed about it. If you send an e-mail to Square-Enix asking if you can do a remix, they will tell you flat out 'no', but if you go out and do it anyway, nobody is going to know unless they get e-mailed. What they don't know about, they don't have the resources to find out about. What they do know about, they have an obligation to at least send a form letter first. If that doesn't stop, then they can use the strong arm. The trouble is, if you already did it and didn't anyone, and then they find out about it because somebody tells them, then you can have a lawsuit on your hands anyway... Anyway, if anybody wants to know where I've been pulling this information, here's a free pdf book you can take a look at: ww.free-culture.cc/freeculture.pdf Jam it back in, in the dark.
"Until next time..."
Captain Commando |
CaptainCommando