9 ms·

Full Screen Mario Takedown Notice

57 points by TheAuditor 13y ago

deckar01 13y ago
The internet archive still has it.
- deweerdt 13y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20131019203859/http://www.fullscreenmario.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20131019203859/http://www.fullsc...
hnrandom 13y ago
This took longer than I expected.
- rybosome 13y ago
  Agreed. This is the only part of the situation that has been surprising to me.
K2h 13y ago
looks like the repo is still up https://github.com/DiogenesTheCynic/FullScreenMario https://github.com/DiogenesTheCynic/FullScreenMario
- mattezell 13y ago
  Thanks for the link. Cloning appears to currently not be a problem.. Of course, for true fans just wanting a copy, hosting the cloned repo as a static site in Apache or IIS is super easy and a fully playable setup can be accomplished in just a few minutes...
  - sillysaurus2 13y ago
    Is there an easy way to rehost Github repos outside of Github?
    - Raphmedia 13y ago
      Bitbucket?
      - sillysaurus2 13y ago
        Same problem... They'll just serve bitbucket with a takedown. I was hoping there's a way for people to easily rehost repos on their own servers.
        benologist 13y ago
        Bitbucket has free private repos.
        jedbrown 13y ago
        $ git bundle create one-file.git --all That creates a single file containing all branches in the repository. It's a plain file so you can copy that around with any protocol you like. Open it with $ git clone one-file.git new-repo If you want to collaborate on further development and don't mind running something on the server, gitolite [1] is stable and powerful. Note that if your repo becomes popular, _you_ might be served with the takedown notice. [1] http://gitolite.com/ http://gitolite.com/
        jtreminio 13y ago
        Of course, it's just a git repo. Clone it anywhere.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  Does github get a pass based on safe harbour laws? Do those laws apply even now when github are going to be on very thin ice arguing they had no knowledge of the infringement or their hosting of copyright infringing content - seems like they'd be an easy target for a contributory infringement suite? A cynic might imagine that they're waiting for the usage statistics to go up so as to inflate the claim.
  - paulhodge 13y ago
    Github.com is protected by the DMCA. If they get a takedown notice then they have to comply, until then they aren't liable. One of the whole points of the DMCA is to prevent hosting companies like Github from being held liable when their users upload infringing content. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act#Title_II:_Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Ac...
krakensden 13y ago
Of course they did. Everyone told you they would. Copyright is not just something that a bunch of greybeards imagined and have been lying to young programmers about. Simple steps to protect yourself: * Try not to clone commercial products to the pixel * Pay attention to software licenses. Sometimes they matter * If prominent news websites accuse you of doing something illegal, consider what they have to say
- sillysaurus2 13y ago
  Some mobile users can't read your pointers because you're using source code formatting instead of italicizing with asterisks, fyi.
  - m_eiman 13y ago
    You can drag the "source code" text to scroll it.
- danso 13y ago
  If the OP thinks he's done the hard work and it's just Nintendo being a lazy ass corporation profiting off of old game brands...why doesn't the OP use the same code, but instead of Mario sprites, hire a freelance designer to make some, and have people play the game with different sprites. After all, if it's only the code that matters, people will flock to "fullscreenantonio.com" to play it, right? Of course not...part of the appeal of fullscreenmario and any other remake is from the psychological appeal of characters that the big bad corporation spent decades and millions to burnish. It's a cool project but don't play it off as Nintendo being the parasite
  - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    Not just the sprites but the level designs and general look & feel too.
    - stefan_kendall 13y ago
      General look and feel is not copyrightable. Exact level layouts are.
anonova 13y ago
A relevant issue from several weeks ago: https://github.com/Diogenesthecynic/FullScreenMario/issues/34 https://github.com/Diogenesthecynic/FullScreenMario/issues/3...
- kamjam 13y ago
  It would be good if Nintendo worked with him/them to release this on their own site. It would be some good publicity for them.
  - Silhouette 13y ago
    Agreed. Nintendo seem to be well within their legal rights, but surely there was a more constructive way to handle this situation than lawyering up first and asking questions never. They could have offered to buy him out and put the game on their own site to bring in traffic, or even just come to some arrangement where his site operated with their blessing in return for promoting newer Nintendo products in a useful way. There was a missed opportunity here.
    - krapp 13y ago
      But Nintendo doesn't need his traffic, nor do they need him to help promote their products. And if they wanted a browser-playable version of Super Mario Bros. I'm quite certain they could find their own people to develop it. Literally, as nice as this was, it has nothing to offer Nintendo (that wasn't taken from them to begin with).
      - Silhouette 13y ago
        Literally, as nice as this was, it has nothing to offer Nintendo (that wasn't taken from them to begin with). Well, apparently he had 2.7 unique visitors in a month. That's a lot of advertising they could have had for their current product range, and I don't imagine most of those people are going to go out and buy some new gear from Nintendo just so they can play a nostalgic game of Mario. No doubt Nintendo could have developed a similar web-based implementation of Mario if they'd wanted to, but the facts appear to be that they didn't and someone else did. They could probably have benefited from that, and maybe earned a bit of goodwill from the community in the process, for the cost of a mid-level rep spending a few minutes talking with legal and writing a couple of e-mails.
Frozenlock 13y ago
Oh Nintendo. You used to be so fun and innovative. But now, it seems you can't make anything newsworthy anymore. (Or when you end up in the news, it's because of some silly takedown like this one.)
- sebkomianos 13y ago
  C'mon man, if there is one innovative video games company it's Nintendo. At least in that scale. I agree with @kamjam that it would have been great if Ninty put it on their site but I didn't have the expectation from them to let anyone use their whole game.
  - sillysaurus2 13y ago
    What innovative things has Nintendo been doing besides the Wii? Nintendo is the opposite of innovative when compared to Valve. EDIT: Hmm, I've touched a nerve. Good. When proponents of Nintendo need to resort to "They invented the thumbstick" as an example of their innovation, it becomes obvious that they're not innovating in modern times, else it would be easy to give examples. Nintendo has no recent innovations when compared to other game companies. (The Wii isn't recent, and the WiiU is dead.)
    - sebkomianos 13y ago
      The DS and the Wii were two innovations pretty close to each other. We are only one generation after them and they are obviously still monetising on them while they are trying small things. It's not like companies innovate every other week. Valve is not at Nintendo's (or Sony's or Microsoft's, for that matter) scale.
      - sillysaurus2 13y ago
        Valve is not at Nintendo's (or Sony's or Microsoft's, for that matter) scale. For consoles, they're about to be. http://www.joystiq.com/2013/09/27/recap-valves-trio-of-steam-box-announcements/ http://www.joystiq.com/2013/09/27/recap-valves-trio-of-steam... For PC gaming, Valve is the gorilla. No one else comes close.
fit2rule 13y ago
Its a real pity, but consider it to your advantage that this occurred, because it means that all your hard work can be pushed further into newer territory. While you would have been limited by how far you can promote a Super Mario clone, now the engine can be re-purposed to something else instead - something creative, perhaps? (It wasn't something I would have considered to be terribly creative, btw: the correct word to use is derivative..) So, if you take the perspective that Nintendo are doing you a favour by pushing your next phase of development away from derivation and instead into creation, and if you do indeed re-factor the codebase to do something else, then you will have experienced a positive effect from this experience. If all you do is take it down and not think about the next generation of product that you can base on your proven, demonstrated working technology, then I think you will have kind of missed an opportunity. Of course, easier for some random stranger on the internet to say this: but if you roll your own content on top of this layer, then you'll have really made something ..
- Kequc 13y ago
  So since the source code is written from scratch and the only thing copied were art assets and level design. And since there is a level editor available. They would be able to release it again without prebuilt levels with different art. It's already not derivative other than cosmetically, I can understand trying to find silver lining but the whole DMCA thing is a ridiculous grey fluster cuck.
  - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    >It's already not derivative other than cosmetically // Appearance matters, form matters the moreso I'd say. If the appearance and level structure and such didn't matter there would have been no reason to duplicate them would there?
    - Kequc 13y ago
      I'd be hard pressed to come up with any way in which Nintendo was losing money here though.
code_duck 13y ago
Nintendo is known to be protective of their largest franchises. If you look at your average ROM site, there are only a few games they try hard to prevent downloads of - Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong. How about picking a less well known, but just as entertaining platform game? Many for the Sega Master System are either abandonware or close enough.
yeukhon 13y ago
But you can make this an extension and people can just play off their browser. They can't go after everyone downloading the source code and they are not in a position to stop people from playing off their browser.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  >They can't go after everyone downloading the source code // They could. But it's highly unlikely and probably in some jurisdictions they would fail.
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    I don't think it is the source code that the jurisdiction has problem with; I think it is the fact that he is offering a hosted service to play this in an emulation/js implementation. In my narrow opinion, anyone could share the source code that they wrote and playing off our own browser does not violating copyright and is entirely altruistic.
IvanK_net 13y ago
So if I understand, they had a huge website traffic and made lots of money (donations) thanks to stealing the product (Mario character) from another company (Nintendo), who invested lots of money and hard work into it, and they are still complaining about it?
- Peaker 13y ago
  They made a derivative work that added value to many people. And the law said that derivative works are generally banned, and society should be deprived of them. So their hard work to make Mario work for many people in the browser should be thrown away. The word "theft" is unproductive, because as this case shows, it might be more descriptive to claim that copyright is theft, as society was deprived of value for no good reason at all. Nintendo won't make more and better games because this website does not exist. People won't enjoy a single nice thing. Copyright stole this value from everyone.
  - Silhouette 13y ago
    You make a fair argument for changing copyright law to better reflect today's reality without undermining the motivation for having the law in the first place. I don't think someone has much right to complain if they blatantly violate the law as it stands today and then get minimally called on it, though.
    - rwmj 13y ago
      So he's going to change the law to make copyright terms reasonable? No. He should persist in civil disobedience (and of course be prepared to take the consequences).
      - Silhouette 13y ago
        And face a $150,000 claim for statutory damages for the wilful infringement? It's easy for a general to consider the optimal strategy for storming a fortified position. He's not going to be the cannon fodder who gets sent in first with little chance of survival.
Silhouette 13y ago
Can those of you who just want to advocate or share techniques for knowingly breaking the law please do it somewhere else? HN is one of the better forums on-line, and it would be a shame if it started getting associated with illegal activities, however much you personally might feel that law is wrong.
TheAuditor 13y ago
If they wanted to Nintento could have actually made use of the programmer to create a new empire in HTML gaming in partnership. But they choose to go for the same old 'its my stuff'.
- rgj 13y ago
  It _is_ their stuff.
basicallydan 13y ago
> Full Screen Mario was enjoyed by nearly 2.7 million unique visitors during almost a month of popularity, across 6 continents and dozens of languages. I’m glad so many people got to enjoy the game, and look forward to working on new and exciting (and legal) projects. Handled like a pro. Josh, I admire your dignity.
- wrongc0ntinent 13y ago
  Yes. Don't know how much he ever got in donations, but at least it was a good showcase for him.
danso 13y ago
I'm going to go out on a limb here: nearly everyone on HN respects and admires Bill Watterson, the creator of "Calvin and Hobbes." And yet Watterson has been quite protective of his cartoon creations, basically not allowing anyone to re-use them to make merchandise or new content, even though Watterson would become filthy rich off of it, and the world would likely be a better place with more Hobbes window-suction dolls than Garfields. But isn't it Watterson's right to do this? He's an artist, and he wisely saw that the crass commercialization of his beloved creations would, in the long run, reduce their nostalgic value. Hell, maybe he isn't even thinking in that way. In any case, I think it's possible that C&H holds such a special place in our consciousness because of Watterson's reluctance to license his characters, and good for him. Now imagine a situation in which a hard-working t-shirt maker puts the images of C&H on shirts -- shirts for which he risks a tremendous amount of capital to produce -- and makes a boatload of money selling $8 t-shirts? Is Watterson harmed financially? For some people, the answer is "No", because Watterson was not making money off of C&H t-shirts in the first place. And copying static images certainly doesn't remove them from Watterson's possession. Yet I would argue again that Watterson's artistic intent has been damaged...and that even though he hasn't been physically robbed, a well-intentioned t-shirt maker has watered down the value of Watterson's creation. Is this not the same situation as the OP here? Is it different because Nintendo is a big corporation that should be doing better things with its time? Perhaps...size does matter. But the principle is arguably the same, and for anyone to say that Nintendo is going overboard and doesn't need to protect its intellectual property, that requires making a huge assumption about Nintendo's strategy on how it wishes Mario Bros. to be experienced, same as it's a huge assumption to say that Bill Watterson doesn't know what he's doing when he refuses to license the use of C&H. More context. This is Watterson's opinion on turning C&H into a film: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/17/calvin_and_hobbes_creator_bill_watterson_gives_rare_interview/ http://www.salon.com/2013/10/17/calvin_and_hobbes_creator_bi... > Watterson also confirmed that an animated “Calvin and Hobbes” movie won’t happen: > > > The visual sophistication of Pixar blows me away, but I have zero interest in animating Calvin and Hobbes. If you’ve ever compared a film to a novel it’s based on, you know the novel gets bludgeoned. It’s inevitable, because different media have different strengths and needs, and when you make a movie, the movie’s needs get served. As a comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes works exactly the way I intended it to. There’s no upside for me in adapting it. Watterson is incredibly protective of his own creation, so far as to not even give Pixar -- legendary artists in their own right -- a chance to entertain millions of people with the goodness of C&H. Yet I don't think that makes him a copyright-villain.

57 points by TheAuditor 13y ago

deckar01 13y ago

The internet archive still has it.

deweerdt 13y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20131019203859/http://www.fullscreenmario.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20131019203859/http://www.fullsc...

hnrandom 13y ago

This took longer than I expected.

rybosome 13y ago
Agreed. This is the only part of the situation that has been surprising to me.

K2h 13y ago

looks like the repo is still up https://github.com/DiogenesTheCynic/FullScreenMario https://github.com/DiogenesTheCynic/FullScreenMario

mattezell 13y ago
Thanks for the link. Cloning appears to currently not be a problem.. Of course, for true fans just wanting a copy, hosting the cloned repo as a static site in Apache or IIS is super easy and a fully playable setup can be accomplished in just a few minutes...
- sillysaurus2 13y ago
  Is there an easy way to rehost Github repos outside of Github?
  - Raphmedia 13y ago
    Bitbucket?
    - sillysaurus2 13y ago
      Same problem... They'll just serve bitbucket with a takedown. I was hoping there's a way for people to easily rehost repos on their own servers.
      - benologist 13y ago
        Bitbucket has free private repos.
      - jedbrown 13y ago
        $ git bundle create one-file.git --all That creates a single file containing all branches in the repository. It's a plain file so you can copy that around with any protocol you like. Open it with $ git clone one-file.git new-repo If you want to collaborate on further development and don't mind running something on the server, gitolite [1] is stable and powerful. Note that if your repo becomes popular, _you_ might be served with the takedown notice. [1] http://gitolite.com/ http://gitolite.com/
      - jtreminio 13y ago
        Of course, it's just a git repo. Clone it anywhere.
pbhjpbhj 13y ago
Does github get a pass based on safe harbour laws? Do those laws apply even now when github are going to be on very thin ice arguing they had no knowledge of the infringement or their hosting of copyright infringing content - seems like they'd be an easy target for a contributory infringement suite? A cynic might imagine that they're waiting for the usage statistics to go up so as to inflate the claim.
- paulhodge 13y ago
  Github.com is protected by the DMCA. If they get a takedown notice then they have to comply, until then they aren't liable. One of the whole points of the DMCA is to prevent hosting companies like Github from being held liable when their users upload infringing content. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act#Title_II:_Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limitation_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Ac...

krakensden 13y ago

Of course they did. Everyone told you they would. Copyright is not just something that a bunch of greybeards imagined and have been lying to young programmers about. Simple steps to protect yourself: * Try not to clone commercial products to the pixel * Pay attention to software licenses. Sometimes they matter * If prominent news websites accuse you of doing something illegal, consider what they have to say

sillysaurus2 13y ago
Some mobile users can't read your pointers because you're using source code formatting instead of italicizing with asterisks, fyi.
- m_eiman 13y ago
  You can drag the "source code" text to scroll it.
danso 13y ago
If the OP thinks he's done the hard work and it's just Nintendo being a lazy ass corporation profiting off of old game brands...why doesn't the OP use the same code, but instead of Mario sprites, hire a freelance designer to make some, and have people play the game with different sprites. After all, if it's only the code that matters, people will flock to "fullscreenantonio.com" to play it, right? Of course not...part of the appeal of fullscreenmario and any other remake is from the psychological appeal of characters that the big bad corporation spent decades and millions to burnish. It's a cool project but don't play it off as Nintendo being the parasite
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  Not just the sprites but the level designs and general look & feel too.
  - stefan_kendall 13y ago
    General look and feel is not copyrightable. Exact level layouts are.

anonova 13y ago

A relevant issue from several weeks ago: https://github.com/Diogenesthecynic/FullScreenMario/issues/34 https://github.com/Diogenesthecynic/FullScreenMario/issues/3...

kamjam 13y ago
It would be good if Nintendo worked with him/them to release this on their own site. It would be some good publicity for them.
- Silhouette 13y ago
  Agreed. Nintendo seem to be well within their legal rights, but surely there was a more constructive way to handle this situation than lawyering up first and asking questions never. They could have offered to buy him out and put the game on their own site to bring in traffic, or even just come to some arrangement where his site operated with their blessing in return for promoting newer Nintendo products in a useful way. There was a missed opportunity here.
  - krapp 13y ago
    But Nintendo doesn't need his traffic, nor do they need him to help promote their products. And if they wanted a browser-playable version of Super Mario Bros. I'm quite certain they could find their own people to develop it. Literally, as nice as this was, it has nothing to offer Nintendo (that wasn't taken from them to begin with).
    - Silhouette 13y ago
      Literally, as nice as this was, it has nothing to offer Nintendo (that wasn't taken from them to begin with). Well, apparently he had 2.7 unique visitors in a month. That's a lot of advertising they could have had for their current product range, and I don't imagine most of those people are going to go out and buy some new gear from Nintendo just so they can play a nostalgic game of Mario. No doubt Nintendo could have developed a similar web-based implementation of Mario if they'd wanted to, but the facts appear to be that they didn't and someone else did. They could probably have benefited from that, and maybe earned a bit of goodwill from the community in the process, for the cost of a mid-level rep spending a few minutes talking with legal and writing a couple of e-mails.

Frozenlock 13y ago

Oh Nintendo. You used to be so fun and innovative. But now, it seems you can't make anything newsworthy anymore. (Or when you end up in the news, it's because of some silly takedown like this one.)

sebkomianos 13y ago
C'mon man, if there is one innovative video games company it's Nintendo. At least in that scale. I agree with @kamjam that it would have been great if Ninty put it on their site but I didn't have the expectation from them to let anyone use their whole game.
- sillysaurus2 13y ago
  What innovative things has Nintendo been doing besides the Wii? Nintendo is the opposite of innovative when compared to Valve. EDIT: Hmm, I've touched a nerve. Good. When proponents of Nintendo need to resort to "They invented the thumbstick" as an example of their innovation, it becomes obvious that they're not innovating in modern times, else it would be easy to give examples. Nintendo has no recent innovations when compared to other game companies. (The Wii isn't recent, and the WiiU is dead.)
  - sebkomianos 13y ago
    The DS and the Wii were two innovations pretty close to each other. We are only one generation after them and they are obviously still monetising on them while they are trying small things. It's not like companies innovate every other week. Valve is not at Nintendo's (or Sony's or Microsoft's, for that matter) scale.
    - sillysaurus2 13y ago
      Valve is not at Nintendo's (or Sony's or Microsoft's, for that matter) scale. For consoles, they're about to be. http://www.joystiq.com/2013/09/27/recap-valves-trio-of-steam-box-announcements/ http://www.joystiq.com/2013/09/27/recap-valves-trio-of-steam... For PC gaming, Valve is the gorilla. No one else comes close.

fit2rule 13y ago

Its a real pity, but consider it to your advantage that this occurred, because it means that all your hard work can be pushed further into newer territory. While you would have been limited by how far you can promote a Super Mario clone, now the engine can be re-purposed to something else instead - something creative, perhaps? (It wasn't something I would have considered to be terribly creative, btw: the correct word to use is derivative..) So, if you take the perspective that Nintendo are doing you a favour by pushing your next phase of development away from derivation and instead into creation, and if you do indeed re-factor the codebase to do something else, then you will have experienced a positive effect from this experience. If all you do is take it down and not think about the next generation of product that you can base on your proven, demonstrated working technology, then I think you will have kind of missed an opportunity. Of course, easier for some random stranger on the internet to say this: but if you roll your own content on top of this layer, then you'll have really made something ..

Kequc 13y ago
So since the source code is written from scratch and the only thing copied were art assets and level design. And since there is a level editor available. They would be able to release it again without prebuilt levels with different art. It's already not derivative other than cosmetically, I can understand trying to find silver lining but the whole DMCA thing is a ridiculous grey fluster cuck.
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  >It's already not derivative other than cosmetically // Appearance matters, form matters the moreso I'd say. If the appearance and level structure and such didn't matter there would have been no reason to duplicate them would there?
  - Kequc 13y ago
    I'd be hard pressed to come up with any way in which Nintendo was losing money here though.

code_duck 13y ago

Nintendo is known to be protective of their largest franchises. If you look at your average ROM site, there are only a few games they try hard to prevent downloads of - Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong. How about picking a less well known, but just as entertaining platform game? Many for the Sega Master System are either abandonware or close enough.

yeukhon 13y ago

But you can make this an extension and people can just play off their browser. They can't go after everyone downloading the source code and they are not in a position to stop people from playing off their browser.

pbhjpbhj 13y ago
>They can't go after everyone downloading the source code // They could. But it's highly unlikely and probably in some jurisdictions they would fail.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  I don't think it is the source code that the jurisdiction has problem with; I think it is the fact that he is offering a hosted service to play this in an emulation/js implementation. In my narrow opinion, anyone could share the source code that they wrote and playing off our own browser does not violating copyright and is entirely altruistic.

IvanK_net 13y ago

So if I understand, they had a huge website traffic and made lots of money (donations) thanks to stealing the product (Mario character) from another company (Nintendo), who invested lots of money and hard work into it, and they are still complaining about it?

Peaker 13y ago
They made a derivative work that added value to many people. And the law said that derivative works are generally banned, and society should be deprived of them. So their hard work to make Mario work for many people in the browser should be thrown away. The word "theft" is unproductive, because as this case shows, it might be more descriptive to claim that copyright is theft, as society was deprived of value for no good reason at all. Nintendo won't make more and better games because this website does not exist. People won't enjoy a single nice thing. Copyright stole this value from everyone.
- Silhouette 13y ago
  You make a fair argument for changing copyright law to better reflect today's reality without undermining the motivation for having the law in the first place. I don't think someone has much right to complain if they blatantly violate the law as it stands today and then get minimally called on it, though.
  - rwmj 13y ago
    So he's going to change the law to make copyright terms reasonable? No. He should persist in civil disobedience (and of course be prepared to take the consequences).
    - Silhouette 13y ago
      And face a $150,000 claim for statutory damages for the wilful infringement? It's easy for a general to consider the optimal strategy for storming a fortified position. He's not going to be the cannon fodder who gets sent in first with little chance of survival.

Silhouette 13y ago

Can those of you who just want to advocate or share techniques for knowingly breaking the law please do it somewhere else? HN is one of the better forums on-line, and it would be a shame if it started getting associated with illegal activities, however much you personally might feel that law is wrong.

TheAuditor 13y ago

If they wanted to Nintento could have actually made use of the programmer to create a new empire in HTML gaming in partnership. But they choose to go for the same old 'its my stuff'.

rgj 13y ago
It _is_ their stuff.

basicallydan 13y ago

> Full Screen Mario was enjoyed by nearly 2.7 million unique visitors during almost a month of popularity, across 6 continents and dozens of languages. I’m glad so many people got to enjoy the game, and look forward to working on new and exciting (and legal) projects. Handled like a pro. Josh, I admire your dignity.

wrongc0ntinent 13y ago
Yes. Don't know how much he ever got in donations, but at least it was a good showcase for him.

danso 13y ago

I'm going to go out on a limb here: nearly everyone on HN respects and admires Bill Watterson, the creator of "Calvin and Hobbes." And yet Watterson has been quite protective of his cartoon creations, basically not allowing anyone to re-use them to make merchandise or new content, even though Watterson would become filthy rich off of it, and the world would likely be a better place with more Hobbes window-suction dolls than Garfields. But isn't it Watterson's right to do this? He's an artist, and he wisely saw that the crass commercialization of his beloved creations would, in the long run, reduce their nostalgic value. Hell, maybe he isn't even thinking in that way. In any case, I think it's possible that C&H holds such a special place in our consciousness because of Watterson's reluctance to license his characters, and good for him. Now imagine a situation in which a hard-working t-shirt maker puts the images of C&H on shirts -- shirts for which he risks a tremendous amount of capital to produce -- and makes a boatload of money selling $8 t-shirts? Is Watterson harmed financially? For some people, the answer is "No", because Watterson was not making money off of C&H t-shirts in the first place. And copying static images certainly doesn't remove them from Watterson's possession. Yet I would argue again that Watterson's artistic intent has been damaged...and that even though he hasn't been physically robbed, a well-intentioned t-shirt maker has watered down the value of Watterson's creation. Is this not the same situation as the OP here? Is it different because Nintendo is a big corporation that should be doing better things with its time? Perhaps...size does matter. But the principle is arguably the same, and for anyone to say that Nintendo is going overboard and doesn't need to protect its intellectual property, that requires making a huge assumption about Nintendo's strategy on how it wishes Mario Bros. to be experienced, same as it's a huge assumption to say that Bill Watterson doesn't know what he's doing when he refuses to license the use of C&H. More context. This is Watterson's opinion on turning C&H into a film: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/17/calvin_and_hobbes_creator_bill_watterson_gives_rare_interview/ http://www.salon.com/2013/10/17/calvin_and_hobbes_creator_bi... > Watterson also confirmed that an animated “Calvin and Hobbes” movie won’t happen: > > > The visual sophistication of Pixar blows me away, but I have zero interest in animating Calvin and Hobbes. If you’ve ever compared a film to a novel it’s based on, you know the novel gets bludgeoned. It’s inevitable, because different media have different strengths and needs, and when you make a movie, the movie’s needs get served. As a comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes works exactly the way I intended it to. There’s no upside for me in adapting it. Watterson is incredibly protective of his own creation, so far as to not even give Pixar -- legendary artists in their own right -- a chance to entertain millions of people with the goodness of C&H. Yet I don't think that makes him a copyright-villain.