Hero No More: Fan Made Zelda Film Taken Down Due to Nintendo Copyright (Nintendouchebaggery)
There are very few things in this world that infuriate me. Currently the list stands at America’s political system, advanced mathematics, Boxxy, and when companies use their copyright gestapo to protect their intellectual property in ways that make very little sense. I’m not some bizarre Anarcho-communist weirdo who thinks that everything a company creates should be public domain so that anyone can come and rub their stink into it. I’m also not one of the hundreds of anti-Nintendo guys who are going to come crawling out of the woodwork using this as an example as to why Nintendo is actually the anti-christ. I probably spent more time with my Super Nintendo than I did forming healthy personal relationships during my development years. Still, if this doesn’t get your inner Bruce Banner boiling, I don’t know what will.
Nintendo has made the creators of the Legend of Zelda fan film, The Hero of Time, take down their work due to… I don’t know. Something involving copyright infringement I’m sure. Even though I don’t think they were trying to make a profit with it, nor were they representing themselves as if this was an officially licensed work. Maybe they were and I just missed that part.
On the team’s blog they had this to say:
“We understand Nintendo’s right to protect its characters and trademarks and understand how in order to keep their property unspoiled by fan’s interpretation of the franchise, Nintendo needs to protect itself – even from fan-works with good intentions.”
This reads like something a battered wife would say after trying to justify getting socked in the mouth for giving her husband a lovingly drawn portrait of himself. Keep their property unspoiled by fan’s interpretation of the franchise? Seriously? I would think at this point Nintendo would be more worried about protecting the franchise from their own interpretations. I guess this means the fan-fiction and cosplay communities are about to get their worlds rocked by a gigantic METEOR of Nintendo’s intellectual property enforcement. Hide your kids on Halloween if they are wearing a homemade Link or Samus costume, because the Big N is going to kick your door in and punch them in their cherubic faces before they leave the house! Also buy Spirit Walker.
Nintendo, and I address you directly because of how obvious it is you would be reading this, you let the Legend of Zelda CD-I games happen. You stick Mario in absolutely every hollow cash grab you can think of. You let Dennis Hopper be a human Bowser. Yet some people LARPing and recording it threatens the very being of your company? In all honesty, I didn’t even think the movie was very good, but I know everyone involved probably put a good amount of themselves into the film in order to get their artistic vision right. They did it because they were Zelda fans. Fans who, last I checked, are the ones that fill Nintendo’s coffers. So excuuuuuuuusssee me Nintendo for not being completely understanding of your strong-arming in this particular instance and cutting some obviously devoted fans a bit of slack. Oh, and I know they graciously allowed the team to keep it up over the holidays, but I still don’t think that balances the scales. I didn’t see any complaints from the company over the Legend of Neil parodies, although parody is still protected under copyright law. At least it is until the RIAA decides to go after Weird Al. I also don’t remember reading about Nintendo getting salt in their underwear about IGN’s “brilliant” April Fool’s Joke involving the Legend of Zelda. Maybe they got permission though, although I don’t really see what the difference between the two productions would be. Except for that one was a bunch of fans doing a labor of love while the other is a bunch of professionals doing veiled PR work.
I know, I know- I’m just being jaded and illogical. Of course Legend of Neil is protected by parody, and of course IGN can get away with doing a short trailer in comparison to an independent group producing a full length film. I can even kind of get behind the people saying that Nintendo might have been alright with it before they started showing it at festivals. What I can’t get behind is that this film has been in the makings for a while now. I remember seeing a preview video for it ages ago, and I presume that was before it was finished. My problem with this is the same problem I had when Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echos was aborted by the venomous lawyers of Square-Enix. Why didn’t they shut it down earlier if they had such a problem with it? Why did they allow these projects to continue for so long without check, but decide to swoop in when they are completed? I refuse to believe in either case that Nintendo and Square didn’t already have them on their radar. These companies both have enough money, from devoted fans buying their products of course, that their legal department is probably bordering on detecting pre-crime right now. Waiting until these projects are complete or near complete and then stopping them is just a dick move. Especially considering how absolutely futile it actually was. This is the internet, after all. Big N may as well have played it cool and thrown the fans a bone here. Now they now look like an overbearing corporation picking on the little guy. And for what? Telling the internet it can’t see something is probably the only real way to guarantee it is going to get seen.
Really though, as my rage meter depletes, I realize everybody wins in the end. The amount of attention the team who worked on the movie will get after this might lead to them finding some supporters on an original project despite the middling quality of this one. The movie will get more exposure than it would have, we all know any publicity is good publicity. Nintendo will get talked about constantly on every messageboard with more than a pair of users to rub together. The sites that are going to toe the company line and defend Nintendo for protecting their property will get hits, and the sites that are going to complain about draconian copyright enforcement are going to get hits. Video game journalists will use the inevitable fallout of the hyperbole and arguments to get on their soapboxes and talk to us about how this is what is wrong with video game journalism for the millionth time, all without realizing the only people that actually give a crap about what video game journalists think about video game journalism is other video game journalists.
And me? Well now that the Earth’s crisis is finally over, I think I’ll just lay down for a moment and.. Zzzzzzzzzz.
[Source: Kotaku]
