Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted, mor

[Zekurom]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

I'd say the more mature and awesome thing to do would be to totally redo the site to be about Digimon and Spectrobes.

And Telefang. God knows that bootleg could do with a revival.

 

[Zeta]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

That's what someone needs to do. Tip kotaku or another blog about this. If they pick it up and spreads, then nintendo might rethink this.

Good idea, I just shot an email over to kotaku's email tipline. Expect to see Nintendo with egg on their face, soon.

Here's what I wrote:

It's been a few days since Pokemon Black and White were released in Japan and most of the information has been gathered up by US Pokemon fansites.

However, Nintendo has given several of the sites (serebii.com and PokeBeach among them) cease and desist notices for carrying info on games that have not been released outside of Japan.

Even though Fair Use means that info on games are free game no matter what country they've been released in, Nintendo has decreed it gets to decide what's fair use and what isn't, and claims that early coverage of the games before their localization will severely hinder sales (this being the same coverage that Diamond and Pearl got before they ended up being the best-selling games in the series).

 

[Cyber Jet]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

if they kill of fansites black/whites sales will go down.

 

[Amarillo]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

Individuals really can't fight Nintendo through legal channels, as that requires amounts of money to spare on such things which they have, and others don't. That fact is basically what companies rely on when having letters like this sent out... even if a case could be made for the usage being allright under Fair Use, nobody in their right mind would ever try to take Nintendo on in court to argue the case. Receiving a letter like WPM and Serebii have is usually intimidation enough for the person to comply, whether the demand is just or not.

WPM and Serebii could probably get the Electronic Frontier Foundation to pay for their defense; the EFF exists just to fight companies like NoA that abuse the DMCA.

 

[SearinoxNavras]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

Zeta absolutely is right. I've actually heard of a case where(this time an individual) got sued(this time on real legal grounds) but the suit was eventually dropped because he used his blog and the media to spread the case as negative publicity. No doubt some of the owners or staff of fansites have journalism capabilities, and an attack on Bulbapedia could easily be turned into a victimized, viral news article of the type "Nintendo Targets Pokemon Fans in Attempt to Prevent Spreading of Newly Released Pokemon Games" would make it across fansites and possibly even third party news sites, causing enough bad publicity to make Nintendo step down, especially if personal articles depicting site owners or community as a whole as "diehard young Pokemon fans who even imported the new games and have loved pokemon since they were toddlers.". This would no doubt cast enough of a stain on Nintendo's image, and more than any legal retaliation, should be the choice response for something like this. I fully support the idea!

 

[Joshawott]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

Good idea, I just shot an email over to kotaku's email tipline. Expect to see Nintendo with egg on their face, soon.

Here's what I wrote:

Shame it's Serebii.net xD

 

[Dr. GM]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

Good idea, I just shot an email over to kotaku's email tipline. Expect to see Nintendo with egg on their face, soon.

Here's what I wrote:

Smart move. We're the fans. We hold the power.

Nintendo may rethink this afterall if enough attention's dragged into it.

 

[Zeta]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

If anyone else had anymore details to add from my email (like perhaps the more legal details or what the timeline of events was), the address for Kotaku's tipline is the rather simple: [email protected].

Don't spam them, though.

 

[Eeveelution 2.0]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

To be honest with everybody, I've been terrified just to look at this thread, let alone post in it, for fear of being sued. If this is truly legit, then my image of Nintendo being fan friendly has been shattered. :bawl:

 

[Zeta]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

Companies are big. C&D notices like this usually come from some greenhorn paperpusher who just joined the company and wants to make a name for himself by busting "information pirates". It rarely goes anywhere, and it's often not the decision of higher ups or anyone outside of the company's legal team. And sometimes even just a small minority within that.

 

[Caitlin]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

Nintendo is not going to sue you for browsing a forum.

What this means for the average, regular Joe pokemon fan is pretty much nothing. You're not in any danger unless you start breaking laws.

(That is, assuming this isn't some massive troll. I wouldn't rule that out.)

 

[Eeveelution 2.0]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

Nintendo is not going to sue you for browsing a forum.

What this means for the average, regular Joe pokemon fan is pretty much nothing. You're not in any danger unless you start breaking laws.

(That is, assuming this isn't some massive troll. I wouldn't rule that out.)

Okay, good. I'm going to share my two cents now. First off, I'm pretty sure that none of us are just a "regular Joe pokemon fan", considering the fact that we are members of these forums. I'm a huge fan, and thus, this does indeed affect me and everybody else here if it is legit.

 

[Joshawott]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

Okay, good. I'm going to share my two cents now. First off, I'm pretty sure that none of us are just a "regular Joe pokemon fan", considering the fact that we are members of these forums. I'm a huge fan, and thus, this does indeed affect me and everybody else here if it is legit.

Sorry, but we are just "Average Joe Older Fans". That's the way it is and always will be.

 

[Zekurom]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

Okay, good. I'm going to share my two cents now. First off, I'm pretty sure that none of us are just a "regular Joe pokemon fan", considering the fact that we are members of these forums. I'm a huge fan, and thus, this does indeed affect me and everybody else here if it is legit.

I'm a "regular Joe pokemon fan". Literally.

It won't affect you legally at all. It might affect you in the fact that you won't have a website to go on anymore, but that's about it.

 

[Caitlin]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

What I meant by average Joe is that we're not important members of the pokemon community. We're the faceless masses who buy Pokemon merchandise and that's it. Nintendo's never heard of us, our life stories, and they don't care. We don't run popular websites, we're not well known software pirates, we're just... ordinary people.

 

[Falconwing]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

Ordinary people have a habit of becoming extraordinary people when they discover they have a voice.

 

[Rakarei]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

What I meant by average Joe is that we're not important members of the pokemon community. We're the faceless masses who buy Pokemon merchandise and that's it. Nintendo's never heard of us, our life stories, and they don't care. We don't run popular websites, we're not well known software pirates, we're just... ordinary people.

Divided we are powerless, but united we control the very existence of Nintendo. We should march on Nintendo of America HQ and demand they retract the leagal stuff.

 

[Falconwing]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

Not what I meant.

 

[Rakarei]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

Not what I meant.

Ok, how about we write angry articles about how Nintendo sucks because of this incident all over the internet?

 

[Shiny Staraptor]

Re: Fansites served with copyright infringement notices: PokéBeach, Serebii targeted,

Somehow I don't think that will work either...
might be worth a shot