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this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2024
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At first I was like "WTF does an indie games site have to do with Funko?" then I Googled it...
Looks like they hosted a BUNCH of infringing games, so Funko, instead of doing the righteous thing and sending them a takedown request, just nuked the whole domain...
And this nuke should cost them dearly, as there are so many Devs and Artists affected by it.
I mean, I don't blame them for protecting their IP, they just picked a super shitty way to do it.
I don't even think they would have needed an official cease and desist... just a friendly note of "Hey, none of this Funko material is licensed, please remove it."
I blame them. Fair use is a thing and even beside fair use fuck em. copyright are getting more and more stupid by the day.
It's not fair use to use images and names you have not licensed.
See this asshat:
https://youtu.be/Nv8llGq9fkY
https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/s/TCK6HUAFm7
Fair use is country dependent. But here is the US definition:
https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/index.html
And from switzerland:
https://theswissquality.ch/understanding-the-legal-doctrine-of-fair-use/
buddy as if anyone on here would care about copyright infringement. i guarantee you 90% of users on here pirate all their stuff
Well, if you care about an indie gaming site being shut down for copyright violations, yeah, you might want to actually care about copyright infringement.
What they were doing here though was supporting developers profiting off someone elses IP. It would be like, I dunno, I started an independent Superman movie and was fundraising off that. It's a little different from piracy.
In the case of the Five Nights at Freddies game, the developer is infringing on not one but TWO properties.
No, it isn't.
https://copyright.psu.edu/copyright-basics/fair-use/
"In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
the nature of the copyrighted work;
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."
So, me, making a fan page for FunkoPop versions of the Five Nights at Freddies characters and using their images? THAT'S fair use.
Me charging money for a fan game based on the same Funko versions of those characters is NOT fair use.
"Section 107 of the Copyright Act gives examples of purposes that are favored by fair use: “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, [and] research.”"
Fortunately our laws aren't about what's moral or not. You need religious police for that.
The correct process would have been to issue a takedown request, then go after the domain if nothing was done, they just jumped the gun.
I blame them for protecting their IP like a old white person protects their property value by shooting at any black person that moves into the neighborhood.
But they didn't send a C&D, they sent an AI automated phishing report about a fan page for an actual licensed Funko game.
They weren't address copyright anything, even if it was there.
Hence the "super shitty way to do it". ;)
That's not just a shitty way of doing it, it's a fraudulent accusation of something unrelated.
Thanks, I was super confused for a bit!