The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after selli

[BulbaBot]

The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after selling tickets

The Pokémon Company International has issued a lawsuit against a group organizing a Pokémon-themed party at PAX Prime, alleging copyright violation.

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[Jersey Jimmy]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

What the hell?! This is the kinda shit I expect from Hasbro or something.

 

[The Outrage]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

What the hell?! This is the kinda shit I expect from Hasbro or something.

They're probably only going after them because they're possibly making a profit through entry fees and the fact that they're serving Pokemon-themed alcoholic beverages. They're trying to portray the franchise as family friendly so they don't want any associations with things that could tarnish that image. Its just convenient that they could cite "copyright infringement" to stop a party they don't want.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

When will TPCi accept that the franchise has been around already for 20 years and a large portion of the fanbase are adults who have jobs, pay bills, go to parties, drink and have sex? Come on, I've seen several Pokémon-themed weddings by now.

I don't think TPCi won or protected any image by doing this. Pokémon is already consolidated. It's a cultural thing, like Mario, like Zelda. Inspires art. Inspires music. Inspires wedding themes. It's referenced in another media. No one is going to think now Pokémon is some evil thing from Satan, except loonies who thought it already. I'd say the opposite happens, now the company looks like douchebags.

Like I said when I saw this on Reddit: "The only winners here are the lawyers who push the sue and then charge their employers for doing the impressive work of stomping an insect"

 

[Almonds]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

When will TPCi accept that the franchise has been around already for 20 years and a large portion of the fanbase are adults who have jobs, pay bills, go to parties, drink and have sex? Come on, I've seen several Pokémon-themed weddings by now.

I don't think TPCi won or protected any image by doing this. Pokémon is already consolidated. It's a cultural thing, like Mario, like Zelda. Inspires art. Inspires music. Inspires wedding themes. It's referenced in another media. No one is going to think now Pokémon is some evil thing from Satan, except loonies who thought it already. I'd say the opposite happens, now the company looks like douchebags.

Like I said when I saw this on Reddit: "The only winners here are the lawyers who push the sue and then charge their employers for doing the impressive work of stomping an insect"

I assume the lawsuit is because they gained profit from selling tickets. Weddings aren't for profit.

 

[The Infidel]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

What the hell?! This is the kinda shit I expect from Hasbro or something.

Disney shut down a 6 year old girl for selling cookies in the shape of the mickey mouse logo!

Pokemon does not protect its reputation by doing this, in my opinion, they damage it.

 

[The Outrage]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

Disney shut down a 6 year old girl for selling cookies in the shape of the mickey mouse logo!

Pokemon does not protect its reputation by doing this, in my opinion, they damage it.

The Disney example has no grounds other than not wanting anyone to use the Disney logo. Perhaps TPC is being a bit reactionary (considering recent events) and don't want a party where people get drunk, and possibly do something dangerous, linked with the franchise. The headlines aren't going to read "Alcohol fueled party gone awry", its going to read "Pokemon-themed party destroys venue" because while the former is more truthful, the latter would sell more.

Maybe it hurts their reputation, but the damage to their brand this lawsuit would cause would be minimal compared to what could happen when a bunch of drunk adults get together. I don't believe for a second this is for copyright infringement considering their core fanbase has both a simulator for VGC and TCG battles, directly competing with their 3DS games and their PTCGO app. If it was simply a matter of copyright and money, there's bigger fish to fry. And in the larger scheme of being a Nintendo company, its actually not that weird for them to be this controlling of their brand considering what Nintendo tries to do with Let's Plays.

Now Disney....maybe their lawyers have a quota for lawsuits?

 

[ReturnofMCH]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

Disney shut down a 6 year old girl for selling cookies in the shape of the mickey mouse logo!

Pokemon does not protect its reputation by doing this, in my opinion, they damage it.

The Disney example has no grounds other than not wanting anyone to use the Disney logo. Perhaps TPC is being a bit reactionary (considering recent events) and don't want a party where people get drunk, and possibly do something dangerous, linked with the franchise. The headlines aren't going to read "Alcohol fueled party gone awry", its going to read "Pokemon-themed party destroys venue" because while the former is more truthful, the latter would sell more.

Maybe it hurts their reputation, but the damage to their brand this lawsuit would cause would be minimal compared to what could happen when a bunch of drunk adults get together. I don't believe for a second this is for copyright infringement considering their core fanbase has both a simulator for VGC and TCG battles, directly competing with their 3DS games and their PTCGO app. If it was simply a matter of copyright and money, there's bigger fish to fry. And in the larger scheme of being a Nintendo company, its actually not that weird for them to be this controlling of their brand considering what Nintendo tries to do with Let's Plays.

Now Disney....maybe their lawyers have a quota for lawsuits?

this. just this.
remember the incident at worlds made people think that it "wouldn't have happened if they played big-boy games"

 

[Robo-Floatzel]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

I find this stupid, especially since they were sued for what is possibly the dumbest reason ever. TPCi just wants to keep the franchise as family friendly as possible by removing all references to the real "adult" world as possible, which is a prime example of pandering to the target audience rather than making a product that everyone can enjoy. Meanwhile, Disney theme parks have bars that sell alcoholic beverages, most famously the exclusive Club 33, all while Disney maintains it's family-friendly image, so why can't the same be for Pokemon, why does TPCi continue to want to ignore the adult fandom.

I know Nintendo is one of those companies that tends to be overzealous about their trademarks, but this is just stupid. I mean, fan-projects are one thing as long as they're not being profited (and Nintendo usually tends to be hands-off fan-projects most of the time), but a cocktail party? I mean, that has to be the dumbest and most trivial thing I've ever seen someone get sued for.

When will TPCi accept that the franchise has been around already for 20 years and a large portion of the fanbase are adults who have jobs, pay bills, go to parties, drink and have sex? Come on, I've seen several Pokémon-themed weddings by now.

I don't think TPCi won or protected any image by doing this. Pokémon is already consolidated. It's a cultural thing, like Mario, like Zelda. Inspires art. Inspires music. Inspires wedding themes. It's referenced in another media. No one is going to think now Pokémon is some evil thing from Satan, except loonies who thought it already. I'd say the opposite happens, now the company looks like douchebags.

Like I said when I saw this on Reddit: "The only winners here are the lawyers who push the sue and then charge their employers for doing the impressive work of stomping an insect"

I agree with you. Majority of the Pokemon franchise's fans are full grown adults who grew up with the franchise since an earlier generation, like me, who's been a fan of the franchise since 2002. It's just that... most kids today don't even care about Pokemon anymore, they're more into Marvel superheroes and stuff like that; you rarely see any kids playing the games or wearing Pokemon t-shirts (the last two people I saw who wore Pokemon t-shirts in the past few months were both full-grown adults). Heck, go to a mass-retailer store like Wal-Mart or Target, and try finding Pokemon merchandise asides from the games and the TCG, and you'll probably either find none at all, or only a small section of the toy aisle that's barely an 8th of the aisle all while franchises like Star Wars and Transformers dominate the shelves. Even in Japan, Pokemon is losing popularity, with Yo-Kai Watch gaining popularity instead. It doesn't help that TPCi continually seems to act like adult Pokemon fans don't exist.

Thing is, regardless of what age group has liked it since Gen 1, Pokemon was massively popular back in the early days and has one of the largest fandoms out there even now. In fact, the fandom is probably just as big as that of Star Trek, plus it is the second best selling video game franchise of all time, and the most reblogged video game franchise on Tumblr. I understand that TPCi wants to keep their franchise's credibility, but whenever money gets involved like this, companies will go insane just so they can gain more money, and companies will sue for the dumbest things ever.

The real reason this lawsuit happened was less because of the use of copyrighted characters from a copyrighted franchise, and more because of what the characters were being used for, which was something extremely trivial that TPCi did not agree with.

 

[Fig]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

Considering the number of uses of Pokémon content that TPCi tolerates, my gut feeling is that there is more to this than what we know so far. If TPCi was going around like the story portray, Serebii, Bulbagarden and Beach would have front seats for the trouble. The one time they did come for (some of) the big fansites, it was because those sites were repeating content that had been leaked to them in violation of a NDA. More to the point, they've tolerated this party in the past. Why the change now?

In short, while the legal reason they're giving is protection of their copyright and trademark (because that's the legal claim they have, and the legal argument they can make), my instinct is that there is something specific the Party did or was planning to do that moved TPCi to action.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

When will TPCi accept that the franchise has been around already for 20 years and a large portion of the fanbase are adults who have jobs, pay bills, go to parties, drink and have sex? Come on, I've seen several Pokémon-themed weddings by now.

I don't think TPCi won or protected any image by doing this. Pokémon is already consolidated. It's a cultural thing, like Mario, like Zelda. Inspires art. Inspires music. Inspires wedding themes. It's referenced in another media. No one is going to think now Pokémon is some evil thing from Satan, except loonies who thought it already. I'd say the opposite happens, now the company looks like douchebags.

Like I said when I saw this on Reddit: "The only winners here are the lawyers who push the sue and then charge their employers for doing the impressive work of stomping an insect"

I assume the lawsuit is because they gained profit from selling tickets. Weddings aren't for profit.

So what. First of all, selling tickets doesn't imply profit by itself. There's a good chance every single cent charged on tickets is to pay or recover the party costs. And even if it's not the case, again, so what. Is TPCi going to go bankrupt? Nope. Is TPCi's reputation going to hell? Nope.

Any deal could have been made. Something like the party organizers proving with numbers they didn't profit from the party, and if they did, pay a percentage to TPCi. Nobody is going to die for a deal like this.

 

[The Outrage]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

@Ziggy Stardust;
People open businesses and don't make profits either. It happens all the time. All that matters is that there was a monetary exchange for goods and services, and that they used Pokemon's image to "sell" these goods and services. Had they not charged, there'd be no legal basis for them to bring this up. Of course, we all seem to agree that they're not after the revenue from the party, so even if they have no real grounds, they'd likely have pushed forward with a lawsuit in the first place since the defendants aren't going to lawyer up for a party.

 

[Lysson]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

'What's this? Free advertisement? Welp, we better sue them!' -TPCi

Though, this isn't overly new since Nintendo's attack on Youtubers so TPCi would probably follow.

 

[Kit Chan]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

@Ziggy Stardust;
People open businesses and don't make profits either. It happens all the time. All that matters is that there was a monetary exchange for goods and services, and that they used Pokemon's image to "sell" these goods and services. Had they not charged, there'd be no legal basis for them to bring this up. Of course, we all seem to agree that they're not after the revenue from the party, so even if they have no real grounds, they'd likely have pushed forward with a lawsuit in the first place since the defendants aren't going to lawyer up for a party.

It says in the legal document they want all the profits as well as compensation for damages.

'What's this? Free advertisement? Welp, we better sue them!' -TPCi

Though, this isn't overly new since Nintendo's attack on Youtubers so TPCi would probably follow.

It was hosted close to Nintendo's own official event. People might just decide to go to the unofficial event instead.
Plus, there was an SSB tournament and Nintendo has been investing in the SSB tournament scene lately

 

[Tuoko]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

I don't really understand why people have a problem about TCPi or Nintendo shutting it down, because makes sense why they did.

1. Pokemon's supposed to be family-friendly and having a Pokemon themed party in a bar (?) that's close to an official event is just... Why do that?
2. The party was close to Nintendo's event and an SSB tournament, it'd possibly steal people away, so the non-official event would get attention.

 

[The Outrage]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

It says in the legal document they want all the profits as well as compensation for damages.

Because you can't sue saying "I don't want my brand associated with parties serving alcohol" since that has no legal basis. You really think the ticket sales would really recuperate the costs of taking this to court? The cost to consult their lawyers alone is probably more than the ticket sales at $2 a person.

 

[Kit Chan]

Re: The Pokémon Company International sues fan-run party: PAX Party shut down after s

It says in the legal document they want all the profits as well as compensation for damages.

Because you can't sue saying "I don't want my brand associated with parties serving alcohol" since that has no legal basis. You really think the ticket sales would really recuperate the costs of taking this to court? The cost to consult their lawyers alone is probably more than the ticket sales at $2 a person.

The Pokemon themed beverages probably aren't getting served for free.

There were some official Umbreon and Espeon shot glasses sold in Japan a couple of years ago, the art on them is the same as that 3DS theme