Asmongold TV's video on PalWorld's recent complaints (summary inside)
(www.youtube.com)
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Asmon‘a argument is retarded. He’s basically saying that the market doesn’t care whether or not it’s plagiarism because people obviously bought millions of units, but no one is arguing that the game isn’t successful. People are arguing that the game might violate copyright law. The success of your product doesn’t determine its legality. Nintendo will weigh their options and decide if it’s worth pursuing litigation. If they Sue, then a court will decide if Palworld violated copyright. The end.
Personally, I think it’s pretty close, and the argument is made stronger by the probable use of AI. I’m not sure how copyright even survives if all it takes is a 5% alteration generated automatically and cheaply by computer programs. Of course, the death of copyright - and the “creative” class in general - doesn’t sound too bad to me either.
For one, Nintendo has a history of nipping potential copyright infringements (such as romhacks or remaster/sequel projects) in the bud, so if they knew about this already, they might think this is distinct enough.
Second, and what I think people like Asmon are arguing, is that if the product is successful enough, it could hurt Nintendo's reputation to try taking it down after the fact, or it becomes increasingly expensive as the competitor gains revenue.
Success, in a way, could determine "legality."
Success also determines the potential pool for awarding damages. Attacking a suddenly big fish discourages the smaller ones, too.
Nintendo does plenty of stupid shit that pisses off a lot of people. Nintendo survives because they protect their wildly valuable IP.
Nintendo doesn't give two shits about its reputation when it comes to protecting it's IP. They will sue if they think they have a case regardless if it was the best selling game of all time.
"Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed."
https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html
Tell that to Shadow of Mordor. Again, I’m not unopposed to AI shattering existing copyright law and the parasites who benefit from it.
I don't think he's using that as a legal argument. I think he's arguing that the criticism isn't based in law, but morality.
These are sufficiently different creative works. To be clear, I remember Akilah v. Sargon, where Mr. Benjamin took clips of Akilah's videos, placed them next to each other, and won a default judgement. He didn't make anything physically new. His assembly of different video clips was enough to pass the test of fair use.
In this case, this is more about the end product itself, which is very significantly different. If they were color-swaps, I could accept it, but similar characters aren't an infringement.