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How many people here believe that it is legal for Funimation to stop a small group of people from making pc game modification of DBZ.

And if you do believe it's legal, then how come they haven't stop ESF?
 
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It's not illegal for an amateur group to make an unlicenced product which they do not profit from. If anything, they're generating more interest in DBZ. If they started charging for ESF then it would be a different story, but they're not, so it isn't.
 
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You have to wonder about ZEQ2. They're not going to put so much effort into something to simply decide to close it down. If it isn't illegal, I don't see how Funimation could have any say over whether the project lives or dies.
 
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ZeQ2 only hints at 'legal complications'. ESF is older and more successful than BFP and ZeQ2, yet they both get 'closed down' by FUNimation. I smell a rat.
 
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Ravendust said:
It's not illegal for an amateur group to make an unlicenced product which they do not profit from. If anything, they're generating more interest in DBZ. If they started charging for ESF then it would be a different story, but they're not, so it isn't.
Not true. Under U.S. copyright law, any modification using an intellectual-property-holder's material can be sent a cease & desist order.

What you're referring to -- the "lack of profit," is just a factor in determining the degree of criminal culpability for copyright violations.

There are several factors:

1) Whether or not profit is being made from the infringement
2) If it has an effect on the sales of the original intellectual property
3) How wide-spread or pervasive the infringement is
4) Nature of the property, nature of the infringement

These aggravating factors make the infringement more serious, but an I.P. holder can demand (via a Cease & Desist order) even if you're not making profit, you're an obscure, esoteric group, and it has absolutely no effect on the original market.

The difference is what makes an I.P. holder actually want to go through the trouble. As mentioned, ESF doesn't hurt Funimation or Toei Animation's sales of DBZ, and in fact--might help. And it doesn't seem to hurt Spike's sales of Budokai games. If it did, ESF would probably receive a letter.

Understand now? :x
 
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DBZ, the characters therein, and anything related to it are NOT in the public domain.

Also, ESF doesn't fit any of the allowed categories on the site you linked.

In trying to sound smart, you completely contradicted yourself. Congratulations.
 
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ESF is well protected by the Fair Use Act.
Disregard anything SailorAlea said. If you actually buy into any of that I'd laugh at you. ZEQ2 got lazy, just like all the others.
 
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Spunky said:
Kurt is right. ESF is not protected by "fair use."

Revitalized Prince said:
Disregard anything SailorAlea said. If you actually buy into any of that I'd laugh at you. ZEQ2 got lazy, just like all the others.
What I said is the truth. I was not talking about ZEQ2 or ZEQ2's position. I was talking about the legality of mods.

I spoke the turth. So if you want to "disregard" the truth, be my guest. I was not refering to ZEQ2, ZEQ2's situation or justifications. I merely laid out the United States' legal system's protocol for complaints of copyright infringement.
 
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Since this seems to be about Zeq2's recent shut down...

If you read the letter posted in the Zeq2 IRC channel, funimation contacted Zeq2's host [dreamhost] and the host contacted the team and told them they have taken down the images that funi requested and that they need to take down the rest of the infriged content on their site and shut down the mod before funi takes legal action.

IMO, the folks at funi are a bunch of *******s. Other companies like Capcom don't mind if you make a mod or some kind of fanmade content, but oh no, not funi.

"Mommy! Look, I drew a picture of Goku in school today! My art teacher said she would put it up on the wall!" - next day - "Whats this mommy? FUNimation says my drawing has been 'Pwnz0red'?"

Blehh...
 
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I knew Square-Enix were pretty tight regarding Final Fantasy mods (Cease and Desist), but if ZeQ2 got shut down while it was incomplete, why has ESF been allowed to continue, as it has done for many years. Ditto DMZ. Is it something to do with the engines (BFP + ZeQ2 = Quake III, ESF + DMZ = HL1)?
 
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It all stinks of **** if you ask me. ZEQ2 could have done nothing but help DBZ's dying popularity, but now all I feel is contempt toward funi.
 
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Alea got it perfectly...

However, the previous mods mentioned that were "shut down" most likely were projects the makers didn't want to work on any longer, and came up with a BS excuse so as to take little flak from the fans as possible.
 
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I doubt that was the case with ZeQ2, I think pretty much everyone here knows how hard they'd been working on it and for how long. The results (well, what they had) rivalled Tenkaichi. It would be strange to want to drop all that.
 
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if it rivaled tenkaichi then thats prolly why...if some free mod is making one of their games have less sales, then its really no wonder why they shut it down
 
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last i checked tenkaichi isn't even going to released on the PC. If the PC and PS2 were rivals in any way, why did they release GTA3 on the PC and PS2? I'm sure most waited all of the time to play GTA3 on the PC... well I did anyway...

I have yet to see a DBZ game come to the PC...

I'm pretty sure it was either laziness or they tried to make a profit out of it in some way, either way I don't believe the whole legal notice. I'm sure there were people that weren't from America who couldve gotten a server from some other country to continue the work under those laws.

It's also a fact that Half-Life 1 is and to my knowledge always has been more popular than Q3.
 
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That's an interesting theory. They killed it because it threatened to be better than their games, yet it might never have been as fun as ESF. No official DBZ game will ever be as good as ESF, simply because they repeatedly try to make a flashy game with lots of characters that plays like your standard fighter. They succeed in that regard, but, following that formula, nothing they ever make will have the speed of ESF. It'd have to be on the PC for one thing...

I'm pretty sure it was either laziness or they tried to make a profit out of it in some way, either way I don't believe the whole legal notice. I'm sure there were people that weren't from America who couldve gotten a server from some other country to continue the work under those laws.
They can't simply replace the team members that live in countries respecting international copyrights law. Besides, it would be weird playing a DBZ game made in Swedish.
 
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english is also the main language of a lot of other countries, not just america. In the ESF team are american members, yet this mod is not being shut down. However the mod started, by my knowledge, in germany.
 
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I honnestly dont have a clue if this is true or bs. Imo if funi had some kinda sense It'd close down esf, because its miles ahead of any other dbz game. Thing is, the letter I read addressed pictures of dbz characters and the like, I saw nothing about stopping the project. There are millions upon millions of dbz character models, illustrations across the net, why do they all remain unscathed?
 
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who cares about ZEQ2, esf isnt making a profit so i dont see why its illegal
 

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