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Warner Bros takes down fan-made Mortal Kombat HD remake

neolinear

neolinear

Noob
You probably all know about the awesome fan made Mortal Kombat HD remake being developed over at TRMK, if not, you can look through this thread that has over 11,000 posts and 564 pages discussing the project. Regardless, one of the main contributors to this project, Bleed has reported over on the TRMK forums about receiving a call from Warner Bros.

Basically, they were told that they may still keep working on it as a private project:

"I got a call from Warner Brothers saying we can't distribute a completed game. Doesn't matter if it's free, we can keep doing our art and showing stuff on the forum, but we have to take the website for the game down, and we can't let anybody download a working game. The lady says they don't care about a mash up, I guess she means like the typical mugen games, but what we have going is too much competition for them basically."

subhd1.jpg

However, the people working on it are ordered to take down games web-site and never to release playable version of the game, not even for free. Could this mean that there is something on the horizon for a Mortal Kombat announcement? Or have the contributors to this project just taken it as far as they can in the legal aspect? What do you think?

edited/promoted by STORMS*

Source: TRMK
 
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Johnny San

Johnny San

Shazzy's Biggest Fan
I've always wondered how these things worked. Are you not allowed to create and distribute a form of art through an existing IP? If so, why is fanart allowed?
 
RunwayMafia

RunwayMafia

Shoot them. Shoot them all.
Johnny San said:
I've always wondered how these things worked. Are you not allowed to create and distribute a form of art through an existing IP? If so, why is fanart allowed?
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Seems odd, really. I thought you could do whatever you wanted (artistically speaking) as long as you didn't charge?
 
Eric The Scruffy

Eric The Scruffy

Warrior
RunwayMafia said:
Seems odd, really. I thought you could do whatever you wanted (artistically speaking) as long as you didn't charge?
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Common misconception. Legally IP holders are fully within their rights to shut down fan works....but in most cases these days turn a blind eye to these kinds of projects since they don't want to go to war with their own fanbase, although there are exceptions like Nintendo and the Tolkien estate. Actually....them shutting down this project makes me wonder if this could be a situation like when Microsoft singled out and shut down a Halo RTS mod randomly.....and then a few months later announced Halo Wars. Not saying thats for sure the same case here...but it is curious that they singled out a project like this since there's no shortage of fan works out there for MK or other properties owned by WB.
 
RunwayMafia

RunwayMafia

Shoot them. Shoot them all.
Eric Z19 said:
Common misconception. Legally IP holders are fully within their rights to shut down fan works....but in most cases these days turn a blind eye to these kinds of projects since they don't want to go to war with their own fanbase, although there are exceptions like Nintendo and the Tolkien estate. Actually....them shutting down this project makes me wonder if this could be a situation like when Microsoft singled out and shut down a Halo RTS mod randomly.....and then a few months later announced Halo Wars. Not saying thats for sure the same case here...but it is curious that they singled out a project like this since there's no shortage of fan works out there for MK or other properties owned by WB.
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Ohhhhh...I always wondered when I watched the vids of those fan made games. Maybe MK10 is on the horizon?
 
Eric The Scruffy

Eric The Scruffy

Warrior
RunwayMafia said:
Ohhhhh...I always wondered when I watched the vids of those fan made games. Maybe MK10 is on the horizon?
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MK10 is definitely on the horizon...but I don't feel like that alone would prompt this kind of action from WB. There apparently was an HD remake of MK being developed prior to Midway being boughtout by WB that was cancelled, and this actually makes me wonder if its making a comeback.

Dirtylova said:
If its free, wtf can they do. Throw a hissy fit?
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Sue you, and win.
 
Vulcan Hades

Vulcan Hades

Champion
Weird, I thought this sort of thing was usually allowed as long as you didn't make any profit off of it and as long as you didn't make the IP or company look bad. (MLP: Fighting is Magic)

There a re a ton of independent fan made games and mods out there. They're free and were made for fun.

This sucks for the people who worked hard on it. But at the same time if you don't get approval from the copyright owners you gotta expect a cease and desist at some point. Especially if you're making some sort of profit or use the IP for publicity.
 
Eric The Scruffy

Eric The Scruffy

Warrior
FrothyOmen said:
based god @Eric Z19 with actual knowledge on the subject. thank you
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For the record, in case anyone is wondering, I am no legal authority. I've just been involved with and/or followed enough fan made mods or projects over the years to know how this story goes. Unless you want to argue parody and/or fair use, when the cease and desist letter shows up on your door its game over. Your only option is shut it down and cut your losses, or remove everything that could be considered a direct copyright infringement.
 
FrothyOmen

FrothyOmen

P!
Eric Z19 said:
For the record, in case anyone is wondering, I am no legal authority. I've just been involved with and/or followed enough fan made mods or projects over the years to know how this story goes. Unless you want to argue parody and/or fair use, when the cease and desist letter shows up on your door its game over. Your only option is shut it down and cut your losses, or remove everything that could be considered a direct copyright infringement.
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I guarantee that you know more about the topic than 99% of people on this forum. Thanks for clarifying, I definitely learned something new at least.
 
Vulcan Hades

Vulcan Hades

Champion
GrandMasterson said:
It's like WB is legitimately retarded or something. Why don't they just hire them to finish it and then sell it?

Some suits are so damn stupid they don't see an opportunity when it's staring them in the face.
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Yeah let them finish the game, then claim it as your own, sell it and profit. Isn't that what Capcom did with Street Fighter x Megaman?
 
JLG

JLG

Mortal
You guys have to understand that a lot of companies do not want their property (e.g. images, videos, brand names, etc.) to just start popping up anywhere and everywhere without their review and permission because it can easily be misrepresented. Sure it might be no big deal to some people, but then you can run into something damaging like a neo-Nazi group using a song from your favorite band as an intro at a rally. Even if there is almost no possible way for something to be misrepresented, some people don't like their ideas and other property to be used by anyone else at all beyond what was intended.
 
Eric The Scruffy

Eric The Scruffy

Warrior
More I think about this....more obvious it seems. HD remakes are all the rage these days. HD MK klassic is a comin. I'll be stunned if it doesn't happen.

Mr. Mileena said:
They can just change the character names and special moves, tweak the outfits and stages, etc
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They could. A lot of mods have gone that route. Bid for power was originally a DBZ mod for quake3 until funimation shut them down and they replaced all the names and character models. It was still clearly DBZ themed, but had no clear and obvious trademark violations. I'm not sure how hard it would be for them to do that or if it would even be worth it though.
 
F

Fred Marvel

It's actually Freddy Marvel
RunwayMafia said:
What was this flappybird? I heard about it but know nothing about it...
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a really stupid mobile game that was really hard apparently but the game got taken down beause of copyright issues i guess the layout was stolen from mario so other games that were the exact same thing with a different background anc character showed up
Flappy Bird

Iron Pants (showed up after fb got taken down)

there were many others also
 
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