Fighting is Magic gets ordered to Cease and Desist from Hasbro

[SweetShark]

Just remember that Hasbro only did this because they HAD to (kinda). The thing about IP law is that you only hold the rights to something as long as you protect it. If they let this go then future rip-offs could point to Hasbro's inaction here as evidence they don't care about the property and should therefore be considered public domain. So as much as they may not have minded the fan game, they had to either take legal action or buy up the game to retain their property rights. It would have been nice of them to do the latter, but there are many reasons why they wouldn't go that route.

I will officially give 1.000.000.000 Internet dollars, is Hasbro buy their game to make it an official game....

Btw, I have another question.
If Hasbro have a problem with this game, why Hasbro didn't hada problem with the full episode fan animation "Double Rainboom" ?

 

[Genocidicles]

Although I'm not too fussed about some pony game going down the drain, shouldn't something like this come under fair use? Like fanfiction or something?

Or were they going to be idiots and charge money for the game?

 

[Darren716]

Although I'm not too fussed about some pony game going down the drain, shouldn't something like this come under fair use? Like fanfiction or something?

Or were they going to be idiots and charge money for the game?

No they were going to offer the game for free so they weren't taking money from Hasbro.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Although I'm not too fussed about some pony game going down the drain, shouldn't something like this come under fair use? Like fanfiction or something?

Or were they going to be idiots and charge money for the game?

It wouldn't be Fair Use because it isn't a parody. If they used Hotdiggitydemon's character designs/names, for example, then it would fall under fair use. Leaving as is means that it's not protected though. (There are other qualifiers than just 'parody', but none of them could apply to Fighting is Magic.)

 

[hazabaza1]

Sucks for people waiting for it, sure, but if you're using official creations for a really popular IP you've got to expect this at some point.

 

[Jmp_man]

um they dont own the ip, they didnt ask for permission before they commenced making it and despite knowing all that they still went a head.

to those claiming its unfair because they put 2 years worth of dedication, love and hardwork into this well if they had of ask permission at the start they would of known one of two things, either they wouldnt be allowed to make it or hasbro would of made an exception as its a small fan made free game which does occasionally happen with IP.

its just plain rude and frankly stupid not to of asked permission before comencing work. just because you guys want it doesnt mean it was a smart thing to do

I believe they had already asked permission at the start of the project. I don't believe however that they had gotten a response from Hasbro. Really (IMO) the ball is in Hasbro's court with this one as they had already knew about it (How many MLP fan games of this magnitude do you think they get daily?). It was just a really dickish move when they could have shut it down whenever they wanted.

Also don't tell me that if they hadn't gotten permission they shouldn't have gone through with it because if they had they still wouldn't even have one line of code (after 2 years).

Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

The way I see it is that all of this could have been avoided if they just said: "This game is a fan game. We are not affiliated with Hasbro or its subsidiaries etc., etc., legal jargon."

Edit: For the most part that is... you could still argue other factors, but I wouldn't see anyone really going to that length (though I could be wrong).

 

[default]

Well this was a big surprise.

I don't particularly care that this was taken down but I'm unhappy at all the work and time that was wasted. But honestly, what did they think was going to happen? Even if it is for non-profit?

Why can't people actually be creative? I'm sure the mechanics of the game are great, so come up with your own IP (in the tone of what you want to pay homage to if you like) and you won't be tied down by the creative limitations or legal ramifications that come from basing it off something.

 

[Lunar Templar]

So they waited all this time before ordering the cease and desist? That seems pretty dickish, they could have just done it a lot sooner, not letting the developers spend two years of their life on a game they can't release. I bet they've known about this game for ages now.

I agree with Hazy here

There is no way they did not know about Fighting is Magic sooner, it was pretty high profile as far as fan games go, and ya know

EVO

That's no small thing in the fighting game world, not to mention it's these guys first fighting game.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

A lot of people seemed to see this coming but I for one did not.
With all the fan-art and videos and fan-made toys and fics and this and that and the other thing then all of a sudden they drop the hammer on a fan-made game...
Yeah, I can say I'm a little surprised.

 

[BX3]

I've read the thread, I've seen the rational explanations, and it seems pretty understandable why Hasbro would do this...

...But that doesn't keep me from being really really, really, really... REALLY annoyed currently. I just... can't... bring myself to rationally listen to the "they should've seen this coming for using a non-original IP" posters. Maybe in the near future but... I mean, jeez, i didn't really even wanna play the game (not big on fighting games myself), but watching its progress was great and I really wanted to see where it would go. Now all that effort's gone. As an amateur animator, I'm honestly angry enough to spit.

Recolor them horses, remove those ass markings or whatever, change 1 letter in the character select name, have one alternative color scheme conveniently look similar to the original (coincidence???!!?) and tell hasbro to go fuck themselves for waiting until right before release of this non-profit fangame that competes with none of their products.

Yeah, if the game is so important and good why not just remove the My Little Pony references and make it a standalone fighting game that happens to use horses as characters. If the game means anything other than just an MLP reference then remove the reference and let the game stand on it's own merits.

That sounds like a good idea in theory, but here's where we run into an issue. Part of the appeal of the game was the characters. It set out to be a spectacle-fighter as well as being a well put together fighting game by fighting game enthusiasts. For example: their most recently complete (or near complete) character was Fluttershy. They spent quite a long time planning and coding her character because of her shy demeanor; she's not the type to fight, so they struggled with finding a way to have her fight without fighting while still making her involvement in each match believable.

Stuff like this was half the game. Part of what made developement time take so absurdly long was taking the characters quirks and personalities and translating them into a fighting game that works. Take all that away, and as a standalone, it'd probably still be a pretty solid game (the developers were fighting game enthusiasts themselves and as such spent a huge amount of time on ways to balance the game), but it'd be a shell of what it was meant to be.

Saying "if it's such a good game, it'd still be the same if you replaced to characters" in this instance is the same saying it about, say, Marvel vs Capcom 2. It misses the point in a bad, bad way.

 

[SweetShark]

I just realized how horrible it would be if Hasbro learn that this game is the lowest concern must look at......
You know what I mean people, don't make me say it out loud.

 

[MPerce]

Twas inevitable, I suppose. It reached such a level of professional quality and was so counter to Hasbro's goals with the IP that they were bound to take it down at some point. They're a company. They wanna cover their asses. If they ever ended up in court because someone was making money with unlicensed use of their franchise, this game could be brought up as an example of unlicensed IP use. That would at the very least make things a whole lot messier.

There's also the bizarre tightrope that Hasbro's been having to walk for the past few years between keeping their main MLP demographic happy (little girls and their protective parents) and keeping the bronies happy. While Hasbro's been mostly letting the bronies do what they want, occasionally something comes along that they're afraid will offend and scare off the parents of those little girls that buy the vast majority of their toys. There was the Derpy Hooves mess, and now there's this. There are a lot of parents who wouldn't respond favorably if a fighting game like this hit the mainstream news after its release. It's such a high quality that they'd probably think Hasbro made it.

Sucks they waited 2 years to do it, though. But hopefully, the Mane6 team uses what they learned and the engine they've built to make another awesome game. Because ponies or not, the work they've done is really impressive.

 

[Verkula]

If Hasbro have a problem with this game, why Hasbro didn't hada problem with the full episode fan animation "Double Rainboom" ?

Because we have written permission. Its also our directors senior film, which might have helped our case to get it.

 

[Lono Shrugged]

So they waited all this time before ordering the cease and desist? That seems pretty dickish

It almost seems par for the course with these scumbags.

Look what happened to the Chrono Trigger fan game.

The di**heads waited till they completed the game before sending the C&D

Do you know how many mods are abandoned before they are even half made? Makes sense from a money perspective. Sending those letters costs money and it means they are not spending hundreds everytime someone posts an untextured ship from battlestar galactica

 

[Staskala]

I believe they had already asked permission at the start of the project. I don't believe however that they had gotten a response from Hasbro. Really (IMO) the ball is in Hasbro's court with this one as they had already knew about it (How many MLP fan games of this magnitude do you think they get daily?). It was just a really dickish move when they could have shut it down whenever they wanted.

Also don't tell me that if they hadn't gotten permission they shouldn't have gone through with it because if they had they still wouldn't even have one line of code (after 2 years).

Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

The way I see it is that all of this could have been avoided if they just said: "This game is a fan game. We are not affiliated with Hasbro or its subsidiaries etc., etc., legal jargon."

Edit: For the most part that is... you could still argue other factors, but I wouldn't see anyone really going to that length (though I could be wrong).

It's not like they will ever go up against Hasbro's lawyers, so who knows if it would fall under fair use. One of the main problems with copyright laws is that the odds are ridiculously skewed in favor of the holder, so most of what they do remains entirely uncontested. If you want a layman's analysis, Fighting is Magic is probably fair use because it is of transformative nature, not derivative. Generally speaking, if something only uses the original works concepts and does something new with it, it falls under fair use, especially when it's non-commercial.
But again, we will never know how an actual judge would rule.

 

[Xanadu84]

Hasbro has the right to protect its trademark sure, and if they did this when the game first started getting attention, i'd be disappointed, but I would understand. But in this case, Hasbro has been rather liberal with its allowance of fan made content, and that has probably fueled their success in a big way. To suddenly pull the plug on this project after a massive amount of work has gone into it is just arbitrarily dickish. At the very least, they could have offered to licence the IP to the creator for a percentage of profits, and then charged some paltry fee for a download of the game. It's a disappointing development from a company that up until now has been very forward thinking with its IP's.

The prospect of the game changing to be about Fausts new Galaxy Girls IP instead of MLP is very intriguing, though. Might be better to kick-start a new project then to add more content to an already massively popular IP. So maybe this could be for the best. Unfortunately, this move by Hasbro has a disproportionately negative effect on peoples perception of Hasbro for a company that until now has been pretty good about these sorts of things.