There are "copyrights" for game characters?
Just a question:
Mario, for example.
Can a company, that is not Nintendo, create a character exactly like Mario and put it in a game?
Of course, that would be strangely ridiculous for game industry and consumers at all, but despite that, could Nintendo do something about it legally?
Mario, for example.
Can a company, that is not Nintendo, create a character exactly like Mario and put it in a game?
Of course, that would be strangely ridiculous for game industry and consumers at all, but despite that, could Nintendo do something about it legally?
Replies
If it's free, I don't think they would care. If not, then they may take legal action. I think anyone would.
When i make Mortal Mario with extra Gore i can hurt the good reputation.
However if it's generic soldier no. 157 then no. Other things get slightly more confusing to me, such as the shear amount of m4/m-16/black hawks in games. I'm guessing for those types of things you're free to create a model based off of them but would probably need permission of said weapon/vehicle manufacturer to use their copyrighted/trademarked name.
(Probably why a lot of guns in games use generic names like "Assault Rifle" or something similar but made up)
If you fail to protect in just once you make it harder to protect it in future.
Copycat a complete character lacks the distortion.
Best example maybe Wario and Mario from Nitendo itself.
Wario is the evil mirror image from Mario and can be a Parody of Mario.
I'm certainly not a lawyer, so this isn't actual legal advice in any way. Copyright issues are definitely legal issues, and so to get a REAL answer, you would need an answer from a lawyer, as opposed to guesses from random people on a forum.
So you can make games inspired by Super Mario just not use any of Nintendos characters. For example instead of italian mustachioed chibi plumber make your player character clean cut prepschool-uniformed chibi named Tim instead (but don't use my example exactly cuz it's been done already).
Otherwise, you'll have to license to use somebody elses characters and designs. Like how Sony can make Spiderman movies and Marvel does the rest: x-men, avengers, guardians....
Because most fan art is basically free marketing and these companies treat it as such. It only becomes a problem when people try to make money off the fan art.
As for 'Fan Art'. There's no specific allowance for that either and as above, the rights holder is well within their 'rights' to request removal. The fact that they don't doesn't mean they won't, nor should it be taken to be implicit permission; that they don't is largely a matter of resources and going after 'obvious' infringements (things easily proved in Court).