Most of us Will Never Play EarthBound Legally: Here's Why (and a question)

[MaxwellGT2000]

Khuutra said:

MaxwellGT2000 said:
Question how did the original come out with all of those issues with no lawsuits yet now it's an issue?

This is a very good question. I hope you don't mind if I quote Tomato.

Another common question is, “Why is this a problem now? They released EarthBound like 15 years ago and this stuff wasn’t a problem.”

In fact, Nintendo DID have a problem with a lot of stuff in EarthBound back in 1995. A lot of changes had to be made before the 1995 legal squad then gave its approval:

INSERT EXAMPLES HERE FOLKS

There are also things like default names, which had a set of Beatles names that was cut from EarthBound. There are probably many more things that I’ve forgotten or that have escaped my notice. My incomplete site chronicling EB’s censorship, legal-related changes, mistranslations, good translations, and other stuff can be seen here.

So the question is, why didn’t the legal people in 1995 change all this other stuff that’s a problem now? Intellectual property law hasn’t changed very much since then, right?

What’s changed is the Internet. Back in 1995, we didn’t have Google, or Wikipedia, or YouTube, or fansites. The legal people obviously went through the game as best as they could, but some of this other stuff IS pretty obscure. Nowadays, one search on Google and a check on Wikipedia and YouTube can get you all kinds of information about this sort of stuff.

Then of course is the fact that the recording industry is a lot more sue-happy than it used to be. RIAA and all that, I’m sure I don’t need to say anymore.

It also doesn’t help that the musicians and producers have gone on record in interviews stating that they used specific movies and songs for inspiration for stuff in the game. Though luckily most of it hasn’t been translated yet (someday! ) so that probably wasn’t a very big factor. I should mention quickly though that the game’s musicians LOVE music, so their use of samples and other stuff from other songs wasn’t meant to be cheap, but to pay homage to musicians who inspired them. They even used some of their own songs in the game, the bicycle song wasn’t meant for EarthBound originally, and Dalaam’s music was something else originally. The musicians borrowed from everywhere, which is why EarthBound has so much music and so much varied music. No harm was intended, but times change.

I bolded the most important part.

 

Still I don't think anything in the game is direct enough to even fall under a copyright of anykind, sure we know Runaway Five is a round about Blues Brothers, but they don't have the likeness or music, they play blues and they have hapless adventures much like the Blues Brothers.  I can't even think of anything else that is that direct and the thing is if thats such an issue then someone should have sued Blizzard a long time ago, even World of Warcraft has so many pop culture references and far more blatant then Earthbound. 

I think NoA's lawyers just need to get the corncobs out of their asses, but that's me.