Procyon wrote:

One of the funniest conversations. 😁

Looks like someone has been eavesdropping on my relatives talking about the "facts of life" 😁 🤣

Kerr Avon wrote:

Jorpho wrote:

At least we managed to get Tron 2.0.

Was that game any good? I did buy it for the original XBox (I love first person shooters!) but it didn't grab me, so I gave up very early on. If it is a good game then I'll probably give it another go.

It was often compared to NOLF (since it was from the same developers). It likewise contains situations where you can casually eavesdrop on the conversations of NPCs, which is why it came to mind just now. Never really got into it myself. I suppose it helps to be a fan of the source material.

I think they would've wanted to do the same thing in Shogo, but given memory-starved PC configurations and the gouged price of RAM in 98....

I personally never understood why NOLF was a FOX game. It wasn't based on any FOX property i've heard of. This reminds me that AVP2 would similarly be in the same publisher rerelease hell, right?

Tron 2.0 is awesome.

That is all.

Jorpho wrote:

Because characters are copyrighted, and copyright does not magically go away if you don't bother to challenge anyone who infring […]
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sliderider wrote:

No, I'm not conflating anything. Mickey Mouse, Ronald McDonald, Duke Nukem, Spiderman, etc are all trademarked characters and the law DOES specifically state that if the owners want to retain their trademarks they must defend them. Why should the government extend protection to characters if the owner can't be bothered to challenge anyone who infringes?

Because characters are copyrighted, and copyright does not magically go away if you don't bother to challenge anyone who infringes your copyright. Why exactly do you think Disney is constantly so desperate to extend the length of copyright?

So yes, you ARE totally ignorant.

Here's a thought: why don't you link to an authoritative source that substantiates your claims? Google <trademark protection for cartoon characters> and see if you can find anything resembling your above statement.

Now you are the one who is conflating trademark with copyright. They are two similar ,but separate, areas of IP law. When Disney got copyrights extended the first time, it was over the film Steamboat Willie. Films fall under copyright law. Characters fall under trademark law. Mickey Mouse wasn't going to be lost if the copyright for Steamboat Willie expired. Steamboat Willie would have become public domain, meaning anyone could distribute it, but the character of Mickey Mouse would have still been protected under trademark law. If anyone had made a film starring Mickey Mouse without permission, Disney could still have sued even though Steamboat Willie would have been in the public domain because Disney would still own the trademark for Mickey Mouse. If Disney does not sue every time someone infringes, then at some point someone is going to go to court and try to get a judge to declare the trademark to be abandoned and that is when Disney loses their rights to Mickey.

http://www.inta.org/TrademarkBasics/FactSheet … sFactSheet.aspx

Scroll down to the section titled: Failure to Police. What it basically says is that when a trademark holder fails to enforce their trademarks, they can be declared abandoned by the courts. That is the reason why Square-Enix had to send the enforcement letter to the people making the 3D version of Chronotrigger. If they don't send that letter, they can lose control over their characters.

I have often wondered whether Disney could still prohibit the distribution of Steamboat Willie if it fell into public domain because it contains three of its trademarked characters, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Pete. Thus any unauthorized publication ultimately includes unauthorized use of these trademarks. In other words, if Steamboat Willie were to lapse into the public domain, would the user have to airbrush out Mickey, Minnie and Pete and replace them with new characters?

Great Hierophant wrote:

I have often wondered whether Disney could still prohibit the distribution of Steamboat Willie if it fell into public domain because it contains three of its trademarked characters, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Pete. Thus any unauthorized publication ultimately includes unauthorized use of these trademarks. In other words, if Steamboat Willie were to lapse into the public domain, would the user have to airbrush out Mickey, Minnie and Pete and replace them with new characters?

No, not the film itself. Steamboat Willie could be distributed and exhibited by anyone once it falls into the public domain but creating new content based on the characters in the film would still require consent if the characters were still trademarked.

sliderider wrote:

Characters fall under trademark law.

You keep saying that. Yes, trademarks can be declared abandoned by the courts if a trademark holder fails to enforce their trademarks. It does not follow that a) all characters fall under trademark law and b) a trademark holder will lose the rights to their character by failing to enforce their trademark to a character, and that anyone can subsequently do whatever they want with a character.

If you can't name a source that suggests otherwise, can you even name one example of a character to which this has happened? That link you posted doesn't say anything about "characters".

Heck, I'll even get you started: consider the recent controversy of Sherlock Holmes.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/d … t-free-yet.html

But attorneys for the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle this week insisted that the complete characters of Holmes and Watson won’t be freed until the final 10 stories published after 1922 enter the public domain, in 2022.
...
“There is a very good reason why the Estate did not assert trademark protection: The Estate does not own any trademarks," Klinger told PW. “They have applied for them, and there will be substantial opposition."

Or consider James Bond. Some people were on the verge of releasing a new anthology of stories, because the copyright on the originals was expiring.
http://davidnickle.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/lic … james-bond.html
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2015/02/reports-in … sion-tpp-talks/

...Oh, wait, let's take the opposite side. Do you think Sony should be able to make their own Star Wars movie? And that if Disney tries to stop them, that Sony will be able to point at the unfathomably vast floods of Darth Vader fan art that the Internet is swimming in and say, "Ha ha, your trademark's generic now!" ?

Jorpho wrote:

You keep saying that. Yes, trademarks can be declared abandoned by the courts if a trademark holder fails to enforce their trad […]
Show full quote

sliderider wrote:

Characters fall under trademark law.

You keep saying that. Yes, trademarks can be declared abandoned by the courts if a trademark holder fails to enforce their trademarks. It does not follow that a) all characters fall under trademark law and b) a trademark holder will lose the rights to their character by failing to enforce their trademark to a character, and that anyone can subsequently do whatever they want with a character.

If you can't name a source that suggests otherwise, can you even name one example of a character to which this has happened? That link you posted doesn't say anything about "characters".

Heck, I'll even get you started: consider the recent controversy of Sherlock Holmes.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/d … t-free-yet.html

But attorneys for the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle this week insisted that the complete characters of Holmes and Watson won’t be freed until the final 10 stories published after 1922 enter the public domain, in 2022.
...
“There is a very good reason why the Estate did not assert trademark protection: The Estate does not own any trademarks," Klinger told PW. “They have applied for them, and there will be substantial opposition."

Or consider James Bond. Some people were on the verge of releasing a new anthology of stories, because the copyright on the originals was expiring.
http://davidnickle.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/lic … james-bond.html
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2015/02/reports-in … sion-tpp-talks/

...Oh, wait, let's take the opposite side. Do you think Sony should be able to make their own Star Wars movie? And that if Disney tries to stop them, that Sony will be able to point at the unfathomably vast floods of Darth Vader fan art that the Internet is swimming in and say, "Ha ha, your trademark's generic now!" ?

OK, you have just disqualified yourself from participation in this discussion. I NEVER, at any time, said that ALL characters are automatically trademarked. Like all other government protections, trademarks have to be applied for. I'm done with this conversation because your entire argument is based on a false premise.

sliderider wrote:

I NEVER, at any time, said that ALL characters are automatically trademarked.

And I NEVER, at any time, said that any characters are AUTOMATICALLY trademarked. OOOOO BURN!

"Ignorant", indeed.

P.S. Chrono Trigger is two words.

Nolf Sucks for Me, i Play another Lithtech Engine Game From 2004.

Never like Gaming Test Communitys.

Don't believe everything

I like Shooter, never Digital Released ,and never there are Mods.

Please do not necropost <- writing in old threads unless it is really important.
This one is 7 years old