Some people are thinking of making pokemon 3D MMO using Unity3D for fun but there is the legal issue of copyright infringement. I thought to contact Nintendo but their website says they don’t reply to that. I found this. 2 relevant paragraphs are below
While we are grateful for all the requests for permission to use Nintendo properties, we are not able to grant such requests. We receive thousands of requests and we do not have adequate staffing to review them all. Therefore, our general policy is to decline requests for permission for the use of Nintendo properties.
Although we are not able to grant permission, use of Nintendo’s properties without formal permission by Nintendo may still be allowed under the relevant laws of the particular jurisdiction involved. Thus, we encourage you to seek your own legal counsel if you have any questions about whether your particular proposed use is permitted without Nintendo’s authorization. Nintendo cannot provide legal advice.
The part about them saying themselves that it may be legal in some cases made me think that as long as we credit them and don’t sell or charge any money it may be legal.
So would making a free Pokemon 3D MMO be illegal? We will credit Nintendo for their copyrights. Still illegal?
Can someone explain what is the meaning of this line in the information on their website.
use of Nintendo’s properties without formal permission by Nintendo may still be allowed under the relevant laws of the particular jurisdiction involved
Just for future reference. So I don’t misunderstand such legal info next time.
It means, that you can be jailed or sued in court.
Case example. ABC* LLC. vs. Nintendo of America filed in the State of West Virginia
Not their real company name.
Someone on this forum (now off-line) got sued and had search warrants served on their business address for making a PokeMon MMO (made with Unity). I have not seen them since.
It means that intellectual property law is very complex. Nintendo wants to control their ideas and characters and titles as much as the law will allow them to do so. However, if you live in some country that does not sign on to various international treaties like the Berne Convention, then it is theoretically possible that you might be okay to do things with Mario that would make Princess Peach blush, and would make Nintendo furious.
However, as soon as you published the work onto the Internet, they could legally send takedown notices and threaten to sue any US or Berne-friendly internet provider that made your project available to other people.
You want their permission. It just doesn’t happen.
Edit: Just to be clear, if you’re writing a school paper and you make a small quote of text to support your topic, you “give credit” to indicate to the reader how you came to learn or find the words you used. This is how you do proper research. “Giving credit” is NOT SUFFICIENT to make copies of images or to base your game on another creator’s trademarks or code without permission. Some authors and artists may say “Hey, I give permission as long as you give credit,” but major corporations generally do not do this, and you can never assume that this is the case.
There is actually a way to get around this and its what all good ROM hackers do. You don’t release the actual files but just a patch (that includes none of Nintendo’s work) and then you are not actually modifying there work. Hence why when you play ROM hacks you get a patch and they tell you what ROM to patch. Or in Pokemmo were you need to put in a ROM to install the tile sets and sprites. You could do that AFAIK but I doubt it would be easy without a great deal of skill to unpack a ROM in unity to get sprites and tiles etc.
If you really want to make such a game, just make it without the Pokemon name or characters. Gameplay can’t be copyrighted. You can make a game that plays almost identically to Pokemon if you want to. You just can’t use the names, characters, or illustrations from Pokemon.
A free-to-play 3d Pokemon MMO is one of my goals as well, However, and I cannot stress this enough:
TALK TO A LAWYER. I have yet to see one and so I have done nothing beyond some sketches and a single model of a Gyarados. As soon as I realized a lawyer was an absolute necessity, I stopped everything I was doing.
There have been free-to-play Pokemon MMO’s issued C&D’s by Nintendo that weren’t receiving any funds for development or anything. All funding was straight out of their pockets. There are also some that have been published and are fine, and some that are not.
The big thing you will want to ask about is derivative copyright laws. Basically, as per legal ruling, as long as there is a (roughly) 30% difference from the original IP and your creation, it’s covered under derivative copyright law. But the big thing is, how exactly is such a percentage difference determined?? What can, and can you not, do as far as funding/selling/anything of the above? All of this must be discussed THOROUGHLY with a lawyer. If you go to said lawyer fully prepared with your own plans and info on the Pokemon franchise (best not to assume they are familiar with it all), then one or two sessions with the lawyer may be all you need. But don’t bank on it.
Seek legal advice before you move forward with ANYTHING or you may be wasting precious time and money that could be spent on a truly original creation. The forums aren’t full of lawyers; we aren’t the experts to be asking.
It doesn’t matter. Seeking a a lawyer on this is pointless, it is illegal. And even if it wasn’t you don’t think Nintendo’s legal team would crush you anyway?
Generally speaking, everything you said is valid and good advice. But the derivative part is a bit off. Derivative works are works that are based on existing work, and they are part of the copyright that covers the original work. For example Nintendo owns Pokemon. Assuming they have never made a Pokemon FPS, if you created a Pokemon FPS, even though it is your original work, using Pokemon in a new and different way than used before, it is considered derivative and covered by the copyright Nintendo holds. You simply cannon’t use Pokemon legally without the permission of Nintendo (at least in terms of making a game/product).
Derivation also comes into play when you are talking about source. For example, If you want to make a movie or game about Snow White there are not copyright issues there. However, you can’t use her appearance in the Disney version. And the original version contains seven dwarfs but they are not named. The disney dwarfs (Dopey, Doc, etc…) are copyrighted by Disney, and are derivative of the original public domain material. Anyone can use that source, but not the unique variants in later adaptations.
If you used something that was Pokemon-like, or inspired by Pokemon, that is where the amount of difference will affect a court ruling. Copyright cases are civil, they need to show that your product is banking on being confused with theirs. Basically riding their IP coattails.
At any rate, your advice is good. Check with a lawyer if in doubt.
