Garry's Mod Is Taking Down Decades of Nintendo-Related Add-Ons (theverge.com) 32
Following copyright takedown requests from Nintendo, the popular physics sandbox game Garry's Mod said it would be pulling all of its Nintendo-related add-ons. "Honestly, this is fair enough. This is Nintendo's content and what they allow and don't allow is up to them," said the developers in a post on Steam. "They don't want you playing with that stuff in Garry's Mod -- that's their decision, we have to respect that and take down as much as we can. This is an ongoing process, as we have 20 years of uploads to go through." The Verge reports: The takedown requests mean Garry's Mod will have to remove a huge swath of Nintendo-related maps and other items. Over the years, player-made content on Garry's Mod has allowed players to do things like turn Super Mario 64 into a first-person shooter or even explore Hyrule as Link. Since there is just so much Nintendo-related content on Garry's Mod, developers are asking the community to remove any infringing work they've uploaded.
Vote With Your Wallet (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes, technically that is correct. But Nintendo has suffered no actual harm and it could even be argued that Nintendo has realized more sales as a result of people being able to mod games. This is just another example of a big company being an asshole simply because they can.
Nintendo has the right to do this and I have the right to not give money to assholes.
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Re:Vote With Your Wallet (Score:5, Informative)
Trademark owners have to protect their trademarks, or they lose them.
Allowing unlicensed works without permission would be a de facto donation of the trademark to public domain. Thus, they have to protect it by asking unlicensed works to not be distributed.
Now, if Nintendo wanted to be cool about it, they could give some kind of license to Garry's Mod and it would still protect the trademark as it would be a licensed work. But my guess is that a takedown notice is a lot easier while maintaining exclusive control over the IP and it's use.
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They are unlicensed usage.
Go ahead and make a "free mod" that uses some trademarked Disney characters and see how that works out for you if you don't believe me.
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They really don't. Gary's Mod has been using assets from Nintendo IP for probably over a decade by this point. Trademark is still intact.
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You have no idea how this works.
If anyone infringes upon your trademark and you fail to stop them, the USPTO may interpret your inaction as abandonment.
Nintendo uses it's characters as registered trademarks for both it's games and licensed merchandise. They make hundreds of millions on this stuff, if not billions. If you think they would legally risk that in order to be "nice guys" to a bunch of people that are using their property without permission, then I don't think you understand how Nintendo has beh
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Allowing unlicensed works without permission would be a de facto donation of the trademark to public domain.
That's gonna need a big citation, bud - your logic would have meant that LucasFilm would not own Star Wars, SEGA Wouldn't own Sonic, VALVe wouldn't own Portal, TF2, HALF-LIFE, etc, Hasbro wouldn't own Dungeons and Dragons, My Little Pony, Magic the Gathering, etc, since those companies have a lot of permissiveness regarding fan made work. Something smells really wrong with this claim.
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This is just another example of a big company being an asshole simply because they can.
Playing "devil's advocate" for a moment, consider that if a company knows about unlicensed use of their trademarks and doesn't protect those trademarks, they are in danger of losing those trademarks to public domain.
Consider what it would mean to Nintendo if they lost their trademark on Super Mario Brothers or Legend of Zelda. It's a multi-billion dollar risk that they can't risk.
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But Nintendo has suffered no actual harm and it could even be argued that Nintendo has realized more sales as a result of people being able to mod games.
TFS is a bit hard to understand because "Garry's Mod" is the name of the game itself. This isn't about people modding Nintendo games. Ever see the movie "Ready Player One", where people inside the VR environment of the game recreated a bunch of nostalgic things from old video games and movies? It's like that.
Here in the real world though, you need permission for Mario or Link to appear outside of a Nintendo game. I'm not normally one to defend Nintendo, but this is no different than if Disney decided to
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Valve and Facepunch didn't create those assets. Users did (generally speaking).
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And Garry's Mod is acting like a distributor for that unlicensed content, which puts them in the legal crosshairs the same way Napster was in the crosshairs for distribution of "pirated" music.
That's why they received the takedown notice, and why they are complying with it - they know they have no legal right to distributed unlicensed works that are derivative of actively used trademarks. They know they have liability here, which is why they are acting to prevent a huge lawsuit that they would assuredly lo
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It's actually the Steam workshop doing that. Steam apps/games are fairly-reliant on the workshop as a way to distribute mods, as opposed to people installing them manually.
In theory all these asset packs could move to modder sites. In practice a lot of people will just stop playing gmod once they find out that ip holders can gripe whenever someone apes their property in a totally unrelated physics playground.
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Also these assets are user-created. It isn't Napster all over again since mp3s were ripped 1:1 from CDs or other sources.
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and they are still unlicensed works that violate Nintendo's trademarks.
Want to do a couple more laps? Because that fact does not change no matter how many times you want to circle around it.
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Agreed. Nintendo has never understood free advertising.
Are these mods taking away ANY sales of hardware? No. Fans do what Nintendon't.
And people are surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
The only surprise here is that these mods have existed so long as they already have *without* Nintendo getting them taken down... or suing the pants off the modders, Gerry, and Valve... or trying to get one or all those prosecuted and imprisoned. Nintendo has a long and reliable history of being very litigious with anyone who even looks at their IP funny. This goes at least as far back (in my own memory) to the old Game Genie for the 8-bit NES, the makers of which Nintendo sued and tried to put out of business. You think Apple is bad about jailbreaking or sideloading? Just you try to dare to mod-chip your Switch. Nintendo's lawyers will be on you like stink on shit. Tell others how to mod or sideload unsanctioned software on their Nintendo kit? Say goodbye to your website and hello to C&D's, fines, and litigation. Actually encourage people to mod and sideload on Nintendo hardware, help them to do so, or sell the tools to enable them? Well... I was not kidding before when I mentioned the possible fate of being prosecuted and imprisoned.
Dear God, those video links (Score:2)
Editors, not that you'll read this, next time please add a screamy obnoxious YouTuber warning.
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Honestly, this is fair enough
my estimation of garry newman as a man just fuckin plummeted
Why? Because he isn't "sticking it to the man"? I wager you'd be cooperating too if a giant corporation like Nintendo were asking "nicely" to remove their IP from your product.
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