Nintendo Shuts Down Fan-Made Zelda Movie

Andorin writes "An independently filmed adaptation of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, called The Hero Of Time, has been taken offline by Nintendo as of the end of December. The film's producers write: 'We came to an agreement with Nintendo earlier this month to stop distributing the film... 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.' Filming for the feature-length, non-profit film began in August 2004 and the movie was completed in 2008. It premiered in various theaters worldwide, including in New York and Los Angeles, and then became available online in the middle of December, before it was targeted by Nintendo's legal team. As both an avid Zelda fan and an appreciator of independent works, I was extremely disappointed in Nintendo's strong-arming of a noncommercial adaptation to the Game of the Year for 1999."

Actually...

[NemosomeN]

They took so long to enforce it as part of the agreement. If they don't enforce their trademarks, they lose them. Waiting to take it down was the best they could have done, honestly. Props for waiting.

Re:Why the surprise?

[erroneus]

Big business only likes "grass roots" when they can control it.

Kinda shocked

[lyinhart]

I'm not sure why Nintendo would want to do this - it's only a negative for them, spreading all this ill will. Look at Star Trek and Star Wars. Lucasfilm and Paramount generally don't "crack down" on fan films or most other fan works, as long as they're nonprofit ventures. And fan films are more comparable to Lucasfilm and Paramount products. Nintendo primarily sells interactive products, so a noninteractive fan film would not be in direct competition with well, anything they sell. That is, unless they decide to develop a full length Zelda film. Remember how well Super Mario Bros. [wikipedia.org] turned out?

Re:"Unspoiled by fan's interpretation's"

[Threni]

Yeah, Nintendo have to protect them? No, they could license it for free and it would not dilute their ownership of trademarks. It's bollocks - like when companies say "unfortunately we can't fix your product for free". It's not unfortunate - it's a result of their policy, which they could change whenever they felt like it.

ambush

[shentino]

If the geeks at Nintendo were even half way awake they'd have noticed this thing brewing a long time ago.

Wait until the fans sink all their investments into the movie, then blow it out of the water with a lawsuit after they're too low on the budget to fight back.

Fan projects == bad, porn == alright

[RyoShin]

Nintendo has always been stalwart when it comes to protecting their copyrights. Nintendo has a long history of comments about fair use, personal backups, and so forth that might even make Ken Kutaragi, Mr. "PS3 gamers should get a second job" [joystiq.com], laugh out loud. Their actions are usually quite in line with their statements.

But, something I have never heard about, despite trawling some of the darkest parts of the internet, is Nintendo going after creators of porn based on Nintendo IP. This has always confused me--I'm not really for nor against them going after the artists, but considering the potential harm they might do to Nintendo's brand, you'd think it would be of a higher priority. Even more astounding, at least to me, is that as far as I can tell THOT was being given away for free, while there are plenty of toon porn sites out there that charge for their content (though piracy often slips around this). I would think it almost a no-brainer for Nintendo to go after the commercial sites and more popular/notorious artists to scare off the little guys. And, yet, I've never heard of a single case or even a C&D.

In fact, I've never heard of any company acting upon toon porn (and any cosplay porn that may exist.) Why is this? Are they somehow not aware it exists? Rule 34 is a popular enough concept at this point that I would think the idea would have at least entered their head from somewhere. Are they scared of bringing the world of drawn pornography to the limelight? After an Iowa man was thrown in jail for kiddie toon porn [animenewsnetwork.com] ("shota yaoi"), Nintendo (and other similar companies) could get even more help from the FBI and local police forces (looking to make a name for themselves) going after the artists of any underaged characters. Nintendo obviously isn't going just for profit makers (Neither is Disney [snopes.com]), so their lack of action in this regard leaves me scratching my head. ..Oh, and, uh, boo copyright, overzealous corporations, fish, fish, etc.

Re:Lessons Learned

[Stormwatch]

That was long before they invented this sham called "intellectual property".

Re:Conversely

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You clearly don't understand a thing about culture. Taken to its logical conclusion your position would stop all creative work dead in its tracks because nothing exists in a vacuum - nothing is created completely from scratch. James Campbell pointed out that there are probably less than five stories in all of human history, we just keep telling them over and over again with slight variations, and most of those are just retellings of one specific story, the monomyth.

Re:So...

[mqduck]

Got a link?

Yup [btjunkie.org].

Way to go, Nintendo. I'd never heard of the movie before, but because of this story, I'm downloading it as we speak.

Re:Why the surprise?

[Dan541]

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5251247/The_Hero_of_Time [thepiratebay.org]