I’m not here to be a dick to the creators or anything like that, in actuality I love this game and I seriously would be extremely upset if anything were to happen to it so I’m just raising this question more to assure myself. Is it completely legal to make a fan game like this and distripute it as long as you aren’t making money off of GameFreaks ideas? I had to raise this question because of how similar delta types and the new alola forms are and was wondering if anyone here can answer my legal questions as to who is in the right and if we have any rights to delta Pokemon?
@Sdude I understand that but this game is still based off of the Pokemon games. I’m looking for someone who has serious legal background into copyright law and such
In principle by using copyrighted and trademarked content, putting it in your own setting and distributing that you are going against the law. This means that Nintendo can send you a cease and desist letter, and you will need to comply.
While a lot of people might try and argue that it might be fair use, if you don’t comply with a C&D, Nintendo would drag you in front of a court, because that is the place these kinds of things are discussed. The issue with this of course is that you are extremely unlikely to win, and this will cost you quite a bit of money.
Luckily for us, Nintendo hasn’t sent too many of these recently. We try to keep on Nintendo’s good side by keeping all Pokemon content strictly non profit. This is why recently a lot of fangame developers got angry at another game (Generation 0), as he tried to sell alpha builds of his game. As we all love our fangames, we don’t want this to happen. Therefore, keep all games using content of Pokemon strictly non-profit.
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Also, no, we can’t sue them for using different formes of their own Pokemon. What the actual hell are you guys thinking.
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Actually, deltas were from the beginning in the TCG, and they got the idea from there.
@Deukhoofd Thank you for explaining that perfectly. I do hope that Nintendo and you guys stay on good terms, it would be a shame for them to go after you guys.
The basic rules of the copyright are:
- We can not claim Pokemon, or any property from pokemon as our own.
- We are not allowed to make money off of any pokemon fangame, or fangame content with the name Pokemon in it.
- Any custom characters, forms, abilities, or moves we created are technically ours, with the forms for deltas and megas might be arguable. That’s why we can do things like tshirts of our characters, because without the pokemon name or resemblance they follow copyright law.
Technically, Gamefreak could Cease and Desist this project because we are creating content under their property, but by not having it be a paid game, as deuk mentioned, we are working on Gamefreak’s “good side” to keep insurgence alive as a project for as long as possible. Thankfully Gamefreak has allowed many fangames to flourish and even complete their games, as long as they didnt claim any content on their own.
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They do, Deltas were conceived from the Trading card Game. We just decided to give them new designs to go along their new typings, and it seems that Gamefreak liked that idea and decided to adapt it in a slightly different way in the original games.
Besides the fact that they own all this content, none of our stuff is copyrighted and/or trademarked.
That is one of them yes
nothing will happpen to this game as legally pokemon insurgence came before sun and moon so actually they cant sue or copyright it to get rid of this game
that’s where your wrong. By using Pokemon at ALL, we could be taken down at any moment. It’s the risk you take when making a fangame, but it seems that normally Gamefreak only remove games that are in obvious violation of copyright, or games that are about to become copyrighted projects for gamefreak (like if someone put out a game called Sun and Moon as a fangame, they would most likely get taken down immediately)
the thing is they wont be able to take down a game that is a basis of their game. they use fan created content to add to the official games, such as one pokemon fangame gave them an idea for the legendary latias and blazeakin. that game didnt get taken down for that exact reason
also if this game had any legal issues with their alola region it would of got taken down when it was announced
The game is completely free, so i’m pretty sure it’s completely legal. Deltas came first, but Game Freak can still be jerks if they want.