Blizzard Clamps Down On Overwatch Porn

[Nuvendil]

Nymeria said:

Nuvendil said:

You missed my point:  copyright protects copying of distinguishable parts, not just the whole.  You can't just copy characters' designs yourself and use that fact that you are modeling it yourself to dodge a copyright infringement case. If you copy, to be more on point, a chapter from a novel wholesale and put it in your own work, it would get you in trouble.  If you copy Tracer exactlyor close to exactly, it doesn't matter if you did it yourself.  Her design, manner of speech, mannerisms, all these aspects are part of the intelectual property and protected.  now if you changed her design significantly you could get away with it but then again, that's not what we are dealing with here.  We are dealing with porn intentionally resembling the characters in question as much as humanly possible.  That's the whole point.  Therefore, it IS copyright infringement.  Tracer's design is also trademarked most likely.  And this would be a disparaging of the mark, also a form of intelectual property infringement.  Also, use for profit is not a prerequisit to copyright infringement.  If it were, any absolute jerk with time on his hands could torpedo any author's career by shamelessly giving away his book for free en masse digitally and physically.  It can be a mitigating factor in a strong Fair Use case but it does not absolve one of infringement. 

Again, watch the video.  It is far, far more informative than I can be and deals with the sort of thing directly.

Can pornography be defined as parody?  There are porn equivalents of hundreds of major movie releases.  I remember back years ago and working at Blockbuster and having to explain multiple times that this "Pirates" DVD was not the Johnny Depp movie.

The way those "porn equivalents" get away with it is that they aren't actually those films.  So it's not "Star Wars," not really.  It's Shtar Shwars, if you catch my meaning :P.  They are just similar enough to wink, nudge their way around it but not enough to infringe.  Also, keep in mind two things: 1), they might have discreet permission and 2) copyrights give people the *power* to stop things, it doesn't force them to.  Some companies - nearly all companies - allow a lot of things that are technically infringement to run rampant because A) they want the exposure, B) it would cause unwanted negative press coverage, and C) it's impractical.

Clasic example of that last bit, I was part of the Middle Earth Roleplaying Project for Skyrim.  We were shutdown by WB when they acquired the rights to make games based on LOTR.  However, they didn't shutdown other high profile, large scale LOTR projects like Last Days of the Third Age, Third Age Total War, Lord of the Rings Total War, the Edain mod.  Why?  because it would have caused an enormous uproar (even we got coverage from numerous sites and youtubers), it's impractical to pursue all these projects, and while they wanted to clear competition for Shadow of Mordor, they don't mind the exposure the IP gets from all these other, non-RPG/Action Adventure projects. 

However, back to the point, yes it could be parody.  In theory.  But it would be a tough case to argue.  Cause these people are trying, to the best of their ability, to make these things look like the official characters are officially getting it on :P .  There's no wink nudge here, that would defeat the point.  And that sits squre in the middle between ironclad fair use (criticism, scholasticism) and infringement.  When you make that argument in court and send your case to the Supreme Court for a fair use evaluation, you may as well flip a coin, it could easily go either way.  However, trademark infringement has very little defense when it comes to damaging the mark.  Which is what this is really about, disparaging the IP.  If the activity negatively effects the market itself or the marketability of the copyrighted or trademarked work or emblem, that tilts things towards the copyright holder.