17 replies to this topic

[Matthew Bluefox]

Something really concerned me today when I saw the fan-made 30 year Zelda tribute website asked to be taken down by Nintendo.

 

That brought up a hot question which is actually being discussed right now in the gaming section of this community here: When is Nintendo gunna ask Zelda Classic to be shut down as well? The ones who brought up this question do have a point, and I'd really like to bring this up to the administrators and developers of Zelda Classic. What can we do to make sure Nintendo can't ever force Zelda Classic to be shut down because it's too similar to Nintendo's copyrighted "The Legend of Zelda" business title.

 

ZC does use most of the NES sounds and graphics (if not all of them), and people who play Zelda Classic do in fact get an almost identical copy of the Nintendo game that was probably never meant to be played on a PC. They could really get us into trouble if they wanted to ... or couldn't they? I'm not the legal expert on this one, but I'd really hate to see ZC ever being endangered or even forced to be taken down by Nintendo. This is a jewel and it has to stay online. Look at all these sweet quests, all the people helping to make this a better place with their creative inputs.

 

What are your opinions? How big is the danger of a takedown order? How could we avert a possible legal issue if they spotted us (what would have to get changed, adapted etc.)?

 

~ Matthew Bluefox

[TheLegend_njf]

Not certain if I'd go with that title for the topic, but sure. lol

 

Either way, it's like I said in the other topic. I believe it's only a matter of time. 

 

I'm not gonna really elaborate on that, it's just something I believe.

 

Also, it's important to note that Nintendo really can't stop the PureZC community from sharing quests to each other privately through skype for example. PureZC as we know it though will be finished and so will our ability to share our quests with a wider audience such as we have here at the PureZC community.

 

We've had discussions like this before. But there really isn't much to be done if Nintendo decides to shut down ZC other than continue on privately and back up everything. 

Edited by NewJourneysFire, 07 April 2016 - 04:22 PM.

[Matthew Bluefox]

Well, maybe this discussion has been held before, but it suddenly feels much more real, because now that they found a small Zelda fan page with a small game-in-a-game style thing, they might be looking for more Zelda fan-made projects in the same run.

 

NJF, what topic title would you have chosen? I couldn't think of anything better or different.

[Binx]

This eventuality is actually why I started working on the generic tileset, and with the source released, it wouldn't be too difficult to rework the program to remove Zelda references.

[Russ]

If Nintendo were to go after ZC, it would be rather easy to rebrand ZC as a generic program, similar to how Open Zelda became Open Legends. A variety of entirely custom tilesets(such as Koten) exist, and the base code for ZC is all custom, and not based on a rom or anything. It would be annoying, but ZC could still continue, albeit it under a different name.

[Magi_Hero]

If Nintendo were to go after ZC, it would be rather easy to rebrand ZC as a generic program, similar to how Open Zelda became Open Legends. A variety of entirely custom tilesets(such as Koten) exist, and the base code for ZC is all custom, and not based on a rom or anything. It would be annoying, but ZC could still continue, albeit it under a different name.

Topdown Classic. o.õ

I forsee ZC being rebranded in the future anyway. It's only time before it gets put under the microscope again.

[Orithan]

I think the only real legal issue with ZC is that it comes packaged with Nintendo's Z I; the first and second quests (and the later prepackaged quests would be close enough to cause issues) the default tileset and possibly SFX. If ZC is to get shut down in the near future, it will probably be over this instead of anything else.

Edited by Orithan, 07 April 2016 - 06:12 PM.

[Anthus]

Nintendo knows ZC exists. I think the reason it still exists publicly is because it is free, and no one is profiting from the otherwise blatant 'theft' of Nintendo graphics, sound, characters, concept, etc.

But on a more serious note, it is something that totally could happen at some point. It would suck, and be very inconvenient but I think the community would survive, some way. I think Nintendo has bigger fish to fry. It's likely they removed the 30th anniversary site cause they have something in mind themselves.

[TheLegend_njf]

Nintendo knows ZC exists.

 

Does anybody have proof of this?

[kurt91]

Well, hasn't ZC been talked about on things like gaming magazines? I could have sworn I've seen it referenced somewhere offline.

 

Anyways, like what was already said, this is really more of an engine than a full Zelda game. We just have the original Zelda games to show off how accurate this engine can imitate the original, and as a sort of reference. Rearranging things to remove the blatant Zelda references would take maybe a week or so, I'd guess. Just replace stuff from "Link->HP" to "Player->HP", stuff like that. I'm sure we could just grab a non-Zelda tileset off the database and, after a quick request from the creator of the tileset for formality's sake (I doubt anybody would say no given the situation), replace the graphics bundled with the editor. We could even do the same with a 1.90 or 2.10 non-Zelda themed quest so we have an example to bundle with it.

 

So yeah, a week for a quick scrubbing of the code, and maybe another week at most to swap out graphics and the built-in quest, and ZC could be up and running again in less than a month. It couldn't be legally touched in that situation.

 

The way I see it, Nintendo knows that, and that's the real reason ZC's never seen a cease-and-desist letter. The 3D tribute game was built from the ground up to be Zelda, and probably couldn't be anything else without re-coding the entire thing from scratch. ZC really couldn't be legally stopped, given how quickly it could be cleaned up to be its own thing. Also, ZC is so well known at this point that Nintendo attacking it would only be bad publicity. They wouldn't succeed in stopping it, and they'd upset a lot of people. I'd bet anything a ZC C+D would make quite a few news sites and cause quite a bit of an uproar.

 

Now, considering this has been brought up before, has it ever been decided what would happen on the off chance that this did occur? Like, what tileset and quest would you use as the new default? Koten is nice, but it's still Zelda themed. We'd need a generic character and enemy pack to pull that one off. Also, ZC can do so much more by default than the original Zelda did. Would you pick a replacement quest that was still Z1-styled, or something that shows off all the additional features as well?

[Anthus]

I've also heard that ZC was mentioned in a magazine somewhere, but I can't actually find it anywhere, tbh so I can't confirm it for sure. It was a while ago when I heard about it. ZC has been around for almost 17 years. That's over half the life span of the Zelda series. I'd be surprised if Nintendo didn't at least have one person on staff who knows about it given it is fairly well known in the Zelda fan community. There are quests featured on Zelda Dungeon (One of the largest Zelda fan sites), along with dozens of other fan games. If Nintendo is that worried about fan games, I think they would have people looking on high profile sites for that kind of stuff. Plus, ZC comes up some what easily if you type a few choice words into Google.

 

I'm not sure if Nintendo really knows about ZC, tl;dr version.

[Matthew Bluefox]

Wasn't the 30 year anniversary game project also for free? Okay, Nintendo might have planned something on their own, butt then they should have released it by now.

 

Agreed, ZC shows up on quite some pages, including Zelda Dungeon ... however, ZC there is only a very small sub-area and I think only Lust Isle is currently featured as a custom quest. I've had trouble finding ZC on that site, I actually stumbled upon it by googling "Zelda Classic Custom Quests" some time ago.

Edited by Matthew Bluefox, 08 April 2016 - 02:04 AM.

[Jamian]

Iwata said this a few years ago (I can't guarantee this is still the way they feel about it):

 

Q: In connection with Nintendo's basic strategy of "gaming population expansion", I would like to ask about the handling of fan activities and intellectual properties. Recently, there are many fan magazines, original short movies, music bands, cosplay activities, websites, orchestras and so on, based on Nintendo's titles. If these activities threaten Nintendo's intellectual properties or licenses, will Nintendo crack down on them aggressively, or just view them as fan activities? If Nintendo has any policies, please let us know.

 

A: (Iwata):

 As the principle, please understand that the question is regarding a rather delicate issue to which no one can perhaps identify a clear-cut criterion. Of course, we cannot say that we can give tacit approval to any and all the activities which threaten our intellectual properties. But on the other hand, it would not be appropriate if we treated people who did something based on affection for Nintendo, as criminals. It is true that some expressions are detrimental enough to diminish the dignity of our intellectual properties, and others destroy our intellectual properties' world-views by connecting them with something not based on fact. We think one of the criteria for deciding how to respond is whether the expression in question socially diminishes the dignity or value of our intellectual properties or not. Of course, it is very hard to have a blanket standard as this problem involves many complex elements that are very difficult to judge.

  In these meanings, we cannot say OK to any and all such activities and, at the same time, it is not feasible for us to immediately respond to each small issue of this nature every time. However, these days an individual can easily transmit information through the Internet. Hearing your question today, as we cannot find these problems only by ourselves, we feel that a kind of contact window should be set up so that people can somehow report to us any inappropriate uses of Nintendo's intellectual properties which diminish their dignities or values, so that we can respond appropriately.

 

In my estimation, they would have no interest, or very little interest, in taking down ZC. It would be a hugely unpopular move; big corporations attacking little guys is never well received in the community. And for what benefit? There have been several Mario levels editors on the net, and IIRC they never did anything about that either.

 

Also, I'd be really surprised if nobody at Nintendo was aware of ZC's existence. Surely, they know it exists.

Edited by Jamian, 08 April 2016 - 03:21 AM.

[Magi_Hero]

Old post is old. http://armageddongam...hread.php?71978

Don't click the old links in this thread.

[Dark Ice Dragon]

Iwata said this a few years ago (I can't guarantee this is still the way they feel about it):

 

 

In my estimation, they would have no interest, or very little interest, in taking down ZC. It would be a hugely unpopular move; big corporations attacking little guys is never well received in the community. And for what benefit? There have been several Mario levels editors on the net, and IIRC they never did anything about that either.

 

Also, I'd be really surprised if nobody at Nintendo was aware of ZC's existence. Surely, they know it exists.

 

i think you right, but what interest have had to shut down the other website ? it was not a unpopular move too ?

Edited by Dark Ice Dragon, 08 April 2016 - 03:31 PM.