07-02-2013, 10:54 PM | #1 |
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"The World of Pokemon" by Joshua Dunlop
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...mon?ref=banner
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.
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07-02-2013, 11:04 PM | #2 |
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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. |
07-02-2013, 11:21 PM | #4 |
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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. |
07-03-2013, 12:17 AM | #5 |
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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. |
07-03-2013, 08:31 AM | #6 |
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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 And then of course this renders my FB research papers pointless. -_-'
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07-03-2013, 09:35 AM | #7 |
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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".
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07-03-2013, 02:32 PM | #8 |
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C&Ds can happen regardless of whether or not you make profit.
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07-03-2013, 02:57 PM | #9 | |
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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:
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07-03-2013, 03:53 PM | #10 |
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Hmmm... I love this idea.
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07-03-2013, 05:56 PM | #11 |
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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. |
07-03-2013, 06:00 PM | #12 |
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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.
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07-03-2013, 07:34 PM | #13 |
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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 |
07-03-2013, 08:02 PM | #14 | |
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Quote:
You can still use Cockatrice, by the way, a new server was set up and it's fairly active.
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07-03-2013, 08:43 PM | #15 | |
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Can't remember if I read it on Polygon or Kotaku. Polygon's search function suuuuuuuucks |
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07-05-2013, 11:01 AM | #16 | ||||||
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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.
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07-05-2013, 07:14 PM | #17 |
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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.
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07-05-2013, 10:16 PM | #18 |
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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"
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02-14-2014, 01:04 PM | #19 |
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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.
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03-10-2014, 02:09 AM | #20 |
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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)
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03-22-2014, 05:52 AM | #21 |
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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.
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