Re: Injustice Unlimited
This almost makes me wonder, how would a "hidden" patreon run afoul of copyrighted material?
My Patreon is "hidden" on Patreon; yet it's linked on at least 50+ other sites.
Same way people can find my Patreon, they can find any other Patreon, hidden or not, NSFW or not.
Not so much in the sense that you played with fire and wonder why you got burned, but in the sense of how would they even know you existed in the first place?
Word of mouth. This wasn't exactly a small game with a tiny fan-base; a LOT of people liked this game and talked about it frequently on multiple forums. Warner Brothers (and any other large company) has a department of multiple employees that literally spend their entire day just searching for copyrighted material; it's their main purpose for employment.
I more ask this because i think another patreon revolving around characters from a moba might well be next to get cut down.
Companies all treat copyright differently. Warner Brothers are notorious for going after people regarding copyright moreso than many other companies. MOBA companies are not nearly as large as the massive conglomerate that WB is, and are much less likely to have the resources available to go after someone for copyright as hard as WB can.
Additionally, most MOBA-centric companies were formed in the last 10 or so years (and they're based around gaming in general), meaning their staff is generally comprised of people who understand the benefits to "free advertisement" for their product much moreso than a much older company like WB, which generally has much more conservative/traditional staff at its highest positions (the people who make the rules).
Finally, one more note;
At this point we are leaning heavily on the renaming and quite distribution of the game. We just need to see if that will cut it.
Highly, highly do not suggest doing this. WB will still absolutely have a case against you if you do this, and they'll hit harder than before because you'd be deliberately ignoring/trying to circumvent their DMCA.
If you change the name of your drugs from "meth" to "Blue Sky" and sell it on the downlow, behind closed doors, does that make it any less illegal to sell to people?
Their case basically revolves around two things;
1) Your art is practically indistinguishable from the original artstyle for many of their series (even if they're older series) to the average person. This means that someone could, in court, reasonably argue that your stuff could be confused with being official creations. This is a MAJOR point in their case, for sure.
2) Your visuals of the characters (outfits, etc.) are pretty similar to the original designs. These would need to be radically changed; we're talking totally different hairstyle, costumes, maybe even body proportions. Anything less, and again, they could legally argue that you have just given the same character a different costume, and the average person could still mistake them for that recognizable character (much like palette swaps in Street Fighter, for instance).
Essentially, what people need to realize is that when people cite cases where people get away with recolors or costume swaps or alterations in name or visuals when it comes to skirting copyright, that isn't because it legally WORKS, it's because that company LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT.
There is so much stuff out there right now that could be sued into oblivion but the companies involved don't do it because they either 1) realize the value of free advertising for their product, even if it's pornography, or 2) they work out a deal with the people(s) making the altered or similar products that works in their favor or controls the amount of alteration/content involved.
Warner Brothers is not a company that gives leeway on this.
Just giving advice, is all; I honestly hope you succeed in making western hentai, I just don't want to see you get sued into oblivion by a mammoth company.
