UPNetwork  

Go Back   UPNetwork > General Forums > POKÉMON

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 07-02-2013, 10:54 PM   #1
deoxys
Fog Badge
 
deoxys's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 6,513
"The World of Pokemon" by Joshua Dunlop

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...mon?ref=banner

BORKED


Looks great, but I'd prefer it if it were a book instead, then I could get completely behind it. This is actually something I've wanted for a very long time... just in book form.

Thought I'd share it here if anyone was interested.
__________________





MAL - Fizzy Bubbles - Twitter



deoxys is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 11:04 PM   #2
Amras.MG
Not sure if gone...
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Or just lurking.
Posts: 2,709
Really? Realistic Pokemon fanart has always been so weird and offputting.

Wonder if he can legally do this, considering the UK's copyright laws and the fact that this is basically IP infringement, which Nintendo has been super against recently.
Amras.MG is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 11:14 PM   #3
Tyranidos
beebooboobopbooboobop
 
Tyranidos's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Krusty Krab
Posts: 3,800
Send a message via AIM to Tyranidos Send a message via MSN to Tyranidos
This has C&D written all over it. The fuck does he need 30,500 pounds for anyway?
__________________
Tyranidos is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-02-2013, 11:21 PM   #4
Amras.MG
Not sure if gone...
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Or just lurking.
Posts: 2,709
Wow, didn't even catch that this is just a website. Super lame.

Indie game developers ask for less money to make a fucking game than he is to make his fan website.
Amras.MG is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2013, 12:17 AM   #5
deoxys
Fog Badge
 
deoxys's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 6,513
Yeah, I know. I posted it because it's a super neat concept, though, but like I said, this is something I'd want in a book. Think how neat it would be to have a book that was professionally made and "adult" that compiled canon history of the Pokemon world in a very proper and eloquent manner, included art of "past pokemon culture" and such, along with data, biological backgrounds, habits, diets, anatomy, etc. of all of the Pokemon and gave information, detailed maps, etc. on the world, regions, and cities.... Like a true encyclopedia.

I would seriously LOVE that. Like, take my money... just, take all of it. But this is a website, and the amount he's asking for is surprisingly high if he's using it to a. pay for servers and b. pay artists and writers. If this was something he was going to publish, that would be different. I understand he wants to use the money to do one generation at a time so he can update it as they go along, but why not just do one kickstarter for each generation?

If this guy can get away with his realistic Pokemon book, there must be some sort of fair use law that allows it or something in someway, so I don't see why this guy can't try to do the same exact thing.
deoxys is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2013, 08:31 AM   #6
gmoyes
Thunder Badge
 
gmoyes's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Canada eh?
Posts: 632
Send a message via Skype™ to gmoyes
Wow. That is seriously amazing. Sure it might be a website, but then it can be easily updated with new things all the time. If it was a book, then you wouldn't be able to do all the interactive things and they mentioned that at a later date they would be putting videos up. Personally, making a book out of this would be like the books versions of Homestuck. Awesome in their own right, but you miss some of the things from the real version.

Yeah, I agree that the cost is a little high but I don't think putting in 10 dollars pounds will do much harm. And I'm sure that there are fans out there that would put hundreds of pounds into it.

And then of course this renders my FB research papers pointless. -_-'
gmoyes is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2013, 09:35 AM   #7
Talon87
時の彼方へ
 
Talon87's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Lafayette, Indiana
Posts: 20,578
I remember when CasteelArt's DeviantArt account was linked here years ago. I thought it was one of the coolest things ever to hit Pokémon. Still do, in fact. So while I appreciate what this other guy is trying to do -- who says only one superfan gets to be the realistic Pokémon fan artist and journal writer? -- it's not like he's the first to come up with it or is offering any take which is so, so special that I feel like funding him. That stated, I do wish Mr. Dunlop good luck and respect his great love of the franchise.

I'm not really sure how he can prove it, but he claims on his Kickstarter page that his is a "non-profit" venture. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how anyone goes about proving that a venture of theirs is non-profit. Is it enough to prove that you're only putting money towards materials and not towards labor? Does that mean that he can use the goal of Ł30,000 to buy himself a Wacom Cintiq and a full set of Copic markers and a $5,000 web server and claim that all of these are just "material costs"? I dunno. I think most people would frown if he could get the job done with colored pencils or traditional paints but is claiming he needs the thousand-dollar marker set. Anyway, that's his problem to sort out, not mine. But yeah, I think he's billing this as a non-profit venture because he knows that that's the only prayer he has of this not getting C&D'd by Nintendo.

The video Deo linked though suggests that Nintendo is only the first of his litigation worries. There's a reason why Hataraku Maou-sama has MgRonald's and not McDonald's. There's a reason Onegai Teacher has Pochy and not Pocky. There's a reason why so, so many television series have had Somy and not Sony. It's called wanting to protect your brand and not letting anyone have the license to use your brand (name, logo, trademark, you name it) without your permission. So when I saw in Deo's video a shot of McDonald's famous golden arch, completely unaltered in any way, I knew that this guy wasn't quite ready for the jump yet from private, non-$$$-making fan artist to public, $$$-making fan artist. He's gonna have to cut all of that shit out of his pictures if he doesn't want to deal with litigation threats from company after company after company.

Anyway, I wish the guy the best. And if he doesn't get C&D'd and if his site really does go up for free, then that'd be cool. If instead it's a paywall service where you have to front $5/year or something to cover server costs, then no thanks, I'll pass. Also, I expect it'll get shut down by Nintendo faster than you can say "Pikablu".
Talon87 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2013, 02:32 PM   #8
Loki
The Path of Now & Forever
 
Loki's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 5,304
C&Ds can happen regardless of whether or not you make profit.
Loki is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2013, 02:57 PM   #9
Talon87
時の彼方へ
 
Talon87's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Lafayette, Indiana
Posts: 20,578
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki View Post
C&Ds can happen regardless of whether or not you make profit.
Of course. And I know that! (You know I know that! We just saw it happen with Cockatrice.) So yeah, bad framing of the argument on my part. I used the language of getting C&D'd to mean getting actually ceased and desisted (i.e. actually heeding a C&D or, worse, trying to fight it and then being found in the wrong) rather than simply being mailed a cease and desist letter whether or not one has to stop what one's doing.

But Cockatrice illustrates the difference between your usual C&Ds that befall non-profit projects and the C&Ds that'd befall a non-profit like this one. Because there is a difference between releasing a free MtG card playing program which competes head-to-head with Magic: the Gathering Online and releasing a non-profit Pokémon website filled with nothing but fanart and encyclopedia articles which line up with his personal headcanon. So long as he's not making any money off of it, I would think that his site would fall under the exact same protections as Serebii and Bulbapedia. (While it wouldn't surprise me if Nintendo had issued C&D's to Serebii Joe and BMG's various owners, you can see what effect they had. Fansites are totally protected under the laws of the USA, Australia, Great Britain, etc. Nintendo can go suck an egg if they're upset that Bulbapedia is a better hub for Pokémon news and information than Pokemon.com is.)

That's why I framed the success or failure of this project in terms of money, or tried to, anyway. (Sorry for any confusion there.) Because he totally cannot make money off of their IP. But so long as he can somehow prove, legally, that his is a non-profit venture, then I'm not convinced that Nintendo can touch him, even if they will decide to send a C&D letter his way. This isn't the same thing as the Pokémon MMORPG Kuno played last summer or the fan port of Ocarina of Time to the SNES using the Link to the Past engine. All this guy really has to do, if he is taken to court by Nintendo, is to ask the judge or jury to consider whether Nintendo has any authority to tell Bulbapedia and DeviantArt to knock it off and, if not, how his site (which basically combines the two) is any different. If Nintendo tries to argue that they do have the legal authority to ask Bulbapedia to knock it off, a quick phone call to Liam's lawyers would probably give this guy's defense all the ammo they'd need to put Nintendo back in their place.

WE SHALL SEE. I don't imagine this ending well. Guy seems too small-timey and I'm not really buying the whole non-profit appeal when he's asking for so much money. Doesn't really help that nestled snugly in his list of financial needs is:
Quote:
The Ł30'000 will allow me to:
  • Website design
  • Pay for the domain for 5 years
  • Pay for advertisement space around the net to get the project noticed.
  • Server
  • Update all my equipment to get the highest quality product coming out to you.
  • Maintenance of the site
  • Merchandise
  • It will also keep the project afloat up to and past the release date.
  • (Hopefully go towards hiring 3D modellers and animators to create 3D videos)
The other bullet points range from perfectly fine to mildly questionable, but the one I've highlighted just seems like a really shallow attempt on his part to sneak one past Nintendo and his investors both. He's basically saying "Yes, I want your money to buy myself a new computer, a Wacom Cintiq, and other art supplies; no, that doesn't count as personal profit, I swear!" and he's saying it in the way that (awkwardly obviously?) protects him the best against both angry investors as well as Nintendo. To the angry investors, he can say "But I told you up front what your money would be going towards! " To Nintendo, he can say "What Wacom? :o I bought that with my own money! I put the Ł30,000 towards, uhh ... server costs! Yeah! It just, uh ... needed a second bullet, it was so important!"
Talon87 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2013, 03:53 PM   #10
Gemini Spark
Weavile Pillow
 
Gemini Spark's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Resting with Leila <3
Posts: 2,739
Send a message via Skype™ to Gemini Spark
Hmmm... I love this idea.
__________________


Avatar made by din-of-hyrule
Battlecut made by the crazy Daisy! *happy snek sounds*
Twitch | YouTube | Twitter | Wild Future
Gemini Spark is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2013, 05:56 PM   #11
Loki
The Path of Now & Forever
 
Loki's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 5,304
Well, for Cockatrice, they (Wizards of the Coast) can argue that players on Cockatrice were not using WotC's products such as MODO or the actual cards themselves, thus they are losing profits.

Nintendo will probably just argue unlawful use of their copyrighted/trademarked creations and that's the only real argument they need to make, just like how they have taken claim to all the Youtube Revenue from videos involving Nintendo games.
Loki is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2013, 06:00 PM   #12
Talon87
時の彼方へ
 
Talon87's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Lafayette, Indiana
Posts: 20,578
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki View Post
Nintendo will probably just argue unlawful use of their copyrighted/trademarked creations and that's the only real argument they need to make, just like how they have taken claim to all the Youtube Revenue from videos involving Nintendo games.
They may want to argue unlawful use but they haven't a leg to stand on if his use is 100% lawful. Burden of proof's on Nintendo to show how he violated the law.
Talon87 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2013, 07:34 PM   #13
deoxys
Fog Badge
 
deoxys's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 6,513
Cockatrice got a C&D? That's a shame

They might have felt it threatened their annual PC game release, which no one wants because you have to buy DLC booster packs to play... ughh
deoxys is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2013, 08:02 PM   #14
Tyranidos
beebooboobopbooboobop
 
Tyranidos's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Krusty Krab
Posts: 3,800
Send a message via AIM to Tyranidos Send a message via MSN to Tyranidos
Tyranitar

Quote:
Originally Posted by deoxys View Post
Cockatrice got a C&D? That's a shame

They might have felt it threatened their annual PC game release, which no one wants because you have to buy DLC booster packs to play... ughh
I think the argument was that it competed with MTGO, which you have to pay for.

You can still use Cockatrice, by the way, a new server was set up and it's fairly active.
__________________
Tyranidos is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-03-2013, 08:43 PM   #15
Amras.MG
Not sure if gone...
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Or just lurking.
Posts: 2,709
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki View Post
Nintendo will probably just argue unlawful use of their copyrighted/trademarked creations and that's the only real argument they need to make, just like how they have taken claim to all the Youtube Revenue from videos involving Nintendo games.
Weirdly enough, they've backed off on that recently. Seems they just want people to know that they're not going to put up with direct rip offs.

Can't remember if I read it on Polygon or Kotaku. Polygon's search function suuuuuuuucks
Amras.MG is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2013, 11:01 AM   #16
Talon87
時の彼方へ
 
Talon87's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Lafayette, Indiana
Posts: 20,578
So, an update on the legal quagmire of this situation ... Mr. Dunlop made an FAQ section, well over half of which is questions and answers about being C&D'd by Nintendo for making money off of their property. I'll quote the relevant Q&As below.

Quote:
Why are you trying to profit from Pokemon, Pokemon isn't yours?

We are in no way trying to profit from or claim Pokemon as our own. We are simply creating a fan site in homage to Pokemon.
Quote:
Are you profiting from the money donated?

The money we raise from donations you offer, is purely to help go towards costs of setting up the large scale website. Its funding to pay for all the commodities necessary to complete a high end, high quality website that can accommodate for high amounts of traffic. Websites, especially high quality ones, are NOT cheap.
Quote:
Will there be membership fees?

We will NOT be charging membership fees- This means we make absolutely no profit from the fans who visit our site.
Quote:
Won't Pokemon shut you down?

There are many, MANY Pokemon fan sites out there already, that have not been 'shut down' by Pokemon. They use copyright pictures, information and video on their site with no legal action taken against them. This is because:

1: They are not asking for any form of payment for the aforementioned material, including selling or charging membership for their site.

2: They are providing FREE advertising to the franchise, and they know it.
Quote:
But wont advertising on the site push Pokemon to shut you down?

Many of these large websites, such as Serebii.net had (and still have) to get funding to afford to keep the site afloat. I talked to the webmaster at Serebii about if we might have any issues with having advertisements supporting the site and he replied:

'Basically, in regards to the official Pokémon company, they don’t mind if you have ads to sustain the site. It’s when you actively start monetising is when they’ll start to have issues. They know we’re providing them free marketing so as long as we don’t piss them off they leave us alone.'

- Serebii.net Webmaster
Quote:
Will you make this into a book?

Funnily enough that was our first plan, however we didn't want to get tangled up in publishing legalities etc, plus as we were out right profitting from book sales we would be shut down quickly.
We decided to move to a website, this allows more people to view it, have interactive elements, have 10x the amount of information in it and finally be FREE for all its fans.
We are only on kickstarter because the size and quality of the website we want to create costs money, especially in the UK.
I started drawing up this post the moment I finished the bit where he dragged Serebii Joe into this mess. That gave me a real chuckle. As for the rest ... well, I'll let you decide for yourself. Me personally? I think it's very easy to read between the lines in his answers to many of these questions and I don't like what I'm seeing. That last question and answer in particular ...
Talon87 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2013, 07:14 PM   #17
Loki
The Path of Now & Forever
 
Loki's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 5,304
It's one thing if he asks for donations (kickstarters being all about donations). It's another if he puts up ads. But having both always makes me suspicious.
Loki is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-05-2013, 10:16 PM   #18
deoxys
Fog Badge
 
deoxys's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 6,513
It's funny, I asked the guy if he was going to try making it into a book. He only told me "we're looking into it however there are some real problems with publishing in terms of copyright, but maybe one day"
deoxys is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-14-2014, 01:04 PM   #19
Talon87
時の彼方へ
 
Talon87's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Lafayette, Indiana
Posts: 20,578
I was looking for something unrelated and this thread came up in the search returns. Skimmed back over all the posts and then decided to check the Kickstarter page to see what ever happened to this project.

Well, for starters, the Kickstarter was unsuccessful. It fell short of his stated goal, managing to collect Ł3,264 out of Ł30,500.

Then, he decided to try his luck with IndieGogo. So he launched a crowdfunding site there, asking this time for only Ł10,000. He managed to only collect Ł745. According to the IndieGogo page, "This campaign has ended and will receive all funds raised." So it doesn't look like you get a refund when an IndieGogo project fails to meet its financial goal. This is different from Kickstarter, iirc, although they do not enforce refunds. ("Kickstarter's Terms of Use require creators to fulfill all rewards of their project or refund any backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill," they proudly state on the one hand, followed closely with "Kickstarter doesn't issue refunds as transactions are between backers and creators directly. Creators receive all funds (less fees) soon after their campaign ends. Creators have the ability to refund backers through Amazon Payments (for US projects) and Kickstarter (for non-US projects)" on the other.)

So then I saw a link to his DeviantArt account on the Kickstarter page and I decided to give it a look. From the look of things, he has formally retired the Pokémon project and moved on to other artistic endeavors.
Talon87 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-10-2014, 02:09 AM   #20
Charzonsos
Pokemon Trainer
 
Charzonsos's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: West Virginia
Posts: 78
Send a message via Skype™ to Charzonsos
Sad to see this project never got off the ground, but at least he is still working on stuff. Wish I found him sooner and could have helped with the project, but I still like his work (I enjoy the drawing of fantastical animals in a realistic sense sometimes)
Charzonsos is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-22-2014, 05:52 AM   #21
Fictionerd
Pokemon Trainer
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Pipestem, WV
Posts: 11
Send a message via Skype™ to Fictionerd
Twelve days late, sure, but I have to agree it's sad to see this project didn't make it through Kickstarter. My attitude would have been support the site get the book later, and sure he would of used some of the money to get himself new equipment but you need good equipment to make a good quality product, from what I've seen he could have been a lot more dishonest. We may never know how this idea would have turned out, and I think that's a shame.
Fictionerd is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Lower Navigation
Go Back   UPNetwork > General Forums > POKÉMON


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 12:07 PM.


Design By: Miner Skinz.com
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.