Can make parody?

[KayZaman]

Well, this word 'parody' crossed my mind when I was playing Counter-Strike Global Offensive. 


The question is......


Can I make parody of something by using RPG Maker to make project of parodies? Like 'RPG Strike : MV Offensive'. That's what is in my mind.

 

[bgillisp]

We're not really the right people to ask, as the people who can tell you if you can legally make it are the makers of the original game. Best to ask them.

 

[Andar]

I've moved this thread to General Discussion. Please be sure to post your threads in the correct forum next time. Thank you.


Tech-support is for getting the editors to run, and since this is not a question of how to do something, it doesn't belong in support at all.


What you're asking for are the specifics of the "fair use" laws, which allow to use the copyright of something else under specific conditions only.


In general, a parody is one of the few uses for those laws, but even then you need to follow specific rules to classifiy for "fair use".


So I suggest you start with checking the fair use laws in the wikipedia and how your country handles that (there are differences in local law, which is why we can't give you a definite answer).

 

[KayZaman]

Man, never think about that. Maybe I can't mess up with the Valve since that Steam gave me free Team Fortress 2 RPG MV characters for non-commercial use only. 


Edit: Thanks for moving this topic to the properplace, @Andar

 

[Tuomo L]

You can make a parody, that is protected by fair use.


Say I want to make Batman parody game. I can't call my character Batman or Bruce Wayne in game but I can call him Hatman with the real name of Truce Gayne who goes around putting oversized hats on villains to restrict them and it'd be okay then.


To be able to be classified as a parody, it has to be distinguishably different from the source material. The most common way is to change the name and likeliness of the characer a bit. In the said Hatman example, it's clearly different from source material and everything would be all right.


Your game however cannot be called Counter Strike. Call it Counter Swipe and it could be passable  or something like that. The time when it gets too close to the original is when the IP owners are going to start to get angry at you, because obviously they don't want your parody to be confused as official product.

 

[Kes]

This is a complex area of law, and as Andar pointed out, laws vary from country to country.  If you are thinking of doing a parody of something then you need proper advice.  All you will get here will be well-intentioned opinions which will range from somewhat informed to dangerously uninformed.  If you search this site using both the word parody and the word copyright as your 2 search terms you will pull up quite a range of threads where this is already discussed.  I suspect that nothing new can be added to what is already there.

 

[Tuomo L]

This is a complex area of law, and as Andar pointed out, laws vary from country to country.  If you are thinking of doing a parody of something then you need proper advice.  All you will get here will be well-intentioned opinions which will range from somewhat informed to dangerously uninformed. 

I beg your pardon but I actually happen to know quite a lot about this subject and my reply was accurate information.

 

[Leon Kennedy]

It also heavily depends on if you are going to make the game commercial or not, if you make commercial and people decide they have a problem with it most likely you will get sued if you sold any copies. Non- commercial more than 85% of occurrences I've heard people were just asked to discontinue as they were making no profit and probably couldn't be sued. That's how it is in the usa, as mentioned above it changes country to country but your best bet to avoid trouble is non-commercial and yeah to be extra safe you could rename the characters as tuomo mentioned and try to rename anything you use from the game you are making a parody of.


[A good recent example of this was the huge re2 remake project that was cancelled, the guy had the entire game verbatim and created in unity I think. The same as the commercial release game re2 except 3d backgrounds and wayyy better graphics and they were simply asked to discontinue and ONLY when capcom had decided they were going to make a remake. Not only this the creators were asked to assist with the official remake.]


good luck

 

[Tuomo L]

It also heavily depends on if you are going to make the game commercial or not, if you make commercial and people decide they have a problem with it most likely you will get sued if you sold any copies.

Whatever it is commercial or not has no bearing about the matter. A parody is protected by fair use, that is why there are parody movies that charge money to see them.There have been parody games that have been sold too, you make it sound like you can't ever poke fun of anything without being lawsuited, which is falsehood.


The only thing you may need to do is distinguish your work more away from the source material. If you have Italian Fireman named Fabio who kinda looks like Mario expect tall and dresses in blue, Nintendo cannot sue you about it.

 

[Leon Kennedy]

Whatever it is commercial or not has no bearing about the matter. A parody is protected by fair use, that is why there are parody movies that charge money to see them.There have been parody games that have been sold too, you make it sound like you can't ever poke fun of anything without being lawsuited, which is falsehood.


The only thing you may need to do is distinguish your work more away from the source material. If you have Italian Fireman named Fabio who kinda looks like Mario expect tal and dresses in blue, Nintendo cannot sue you about it.

What are you even talking about? Fair use can also cover the use of copywritten material as long as non-profit. Example youtube. You can post videos with copywrite material and 95% of the time at least these days they don't care. Try to monetize it though and it can be taken down along with legal action.


This person doesn't mention that they are intending to rename everything head to toe so I don't understand where you are coming from saying I'm wrong here lol. Sure they can do what you are saying and probably make it commercial but why when there are already 1000x non profit games on this site alone with exact name of the game it's parodying or remaking or whatever lol. I suppose if you REALLY want the money.

 

[Tuomo L]

What are you even talking about? Fair use can also cover the use of copywritten material as long as non-profit. Example youtube. You can post videos with copywrite material and 95% of the time at least these days they don't care. Try to monetize it though and it can be taken down.

Very bad example, Youtube has automated process that even flags videos that have literal people just sitting in car talking about movies somehow being flagged despite not having even a single frame of the movie (and literally, just guys sitting in car and simply talking like this about said movie was once flagged by Youtube) and official interviews with game creators, among other things. Youtube's copyright system is largely flawed at this moment and it's largely because it's easily abusable and automated.


Many of these cases are also protected by fair use and Youtube's own TOS and there are countless videos about this subject matter which I could bring up.

This person doesn't mention that they are intending to rename everything head to toe so I don't understand where you are coming from saying I'm wrong here lol. Sure they can do what you are saying and probably make it commercial but why when there are already 1000x non profit games on this site alone with exact name of the game it's parodying or remaking or whatever lol. I suppose if you REALLY want the money.

You said you can get sued if you make proffit but this is not true, you can make it free or non-free, parody does not mean that you have to make your product freeware. Comedians have to eat too, you know?


Your example of Resident Evil 2 remake is also different, because it's a remake and not a parody and isn't considered fair use because you're literally recreating the original game which IP belongs to another party. (Unless you have proof of written consent and all the red tape that goes with it, that you have the rights to do so)

 

[Canini]

Team Fortress 2 RPG MV characters

Holy heck I want those!


Another good point is that a work that comments on another work is more likely to fall under fair use. To continue from @Tuomo Ls Batman example, if I create a work that comments on how unfortunate it sounds to have a hero millionaire go above the law to punch mental patients in the face, that is a parody that would most certainly fall under fair use. 

 

[bgillisp]

What are you even talking about? Fair use can also cover the use of copywritten material as long as non-profit. Example youtube. You can post videos with copywrite material and 95% of the time at least these days they don't care. Try to monetize it though and it can be taken down along with legal action.

False, big time. Many people totally misunderstand fair use. It was so bad that my work actually brought in a lawyer and we had to sit through a long session on what the law REALLY says we can do, and what the cases are that people think they can do that if they really did they would be sued and automatically lose in court.


For example, I work at a college. We CANNOT photocopy more than a chapter of a book for our classroom use (even though it is academic and considered non-profit as most schools are classified as non-profit). If we need more than a chapter, we have to have everyone in the class buy the book, or the book author can sue us, and we will lose and have to pay big time fines.


Where many of these false conceptions come from is people see what people have gotten away with and assume gotten away with == legal to do. But that is false. Example is if  you run a stop sign. You will probably get away with it at 3 am in the morning when there is no traffic, but it is still illegal.

 

[Tuomo L]

Holy heck I want those!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/480560

 

[Kes]

@Tuomo L Then you probably come into the "somewhat informed" category.  However, as the OP does not give us a lot of salient information (e.g. country so that one can know what the law in that country says) it can be no more than a non-professional opinion.  Nor do we know the nature or extent of the parody.


As bgillisp points out, a lot of people (and I'm not pointing to anyone specificially) have misconceptions which appear to have logic on their side, but are inaccurate.  In a situation where getting it wrong can be an expensive mistake, I think the best advice is for the OP to check with someone who has specialist knowledge of how the local laws operate.

 

[Leon Kennedy]

False, big time. Many people totally misunderstand fair use. It was so bad that my work actually brought in a lawyer and we had to sit through a long session on what the law REALLY says we can do, and what the cases are that people think they can do that if they really did they would be sued and automatically lose in court.


For example, I work at a college. We CANNOT photocopy more than a chapter of a book for our classroom use (even though it is academic and considered non-profit as most schools are classified as non-profit). If we need more than a chapter, we have to have everyone in the class buy the book, or the book author can sue us, and we will lose and have to pay big time fines.


Where many of these false conceptions come from is people see what people have gotten away with and assume gotten away with == legal to do. But that is false. Example is if  you run a stop sign. You will probably get away with it at 3 am in the morning when there is no traffic, but it is still illegal.

Potential loss of profit is a weighing factor for fair-use. If you really knew so much about it you would know not everything is black and white. On the law it states: 


Using a copyrighted work for non-commercial use is always fair. WRONG This is an important – but not determinative – factor in the fair use analysis. A judge may take into account whether the alleged infringer made money from the use or if there a commercial motive. However, a judge must look at all of the other factors, and these may sufficiently weigh against a noncommercial, nonprofit, or educational use.


The other factors are commonly if the claimant for example has a book that you are using information from and therefore less people will buy their book because of your free information and then they can prove they are losing profit then can sue and all sorts of stuff. However in cases you are just using names, or things that won't directly effect something like a published book you need to buy etc it's far less likely anything will happen besides it being asked to be discontinued which can always be done very easily. Once they decide they want to sue or anything more extreme the judge will take important factors like non-profit, educational, parody etc into strong consideration. 


Don't believe me read the law yourself with a google search lol. 

 

[Tuomo L]

@Tuomo L Then you probably come into the "somewhat informed" category.  However, as the OP does not give us a lot of salient information (e.g. country so that one can know what the law in that country says) it can be no more than a non-professional opinion.  Nor do we know the nature or extent of the parody.


As bgillisp points out, a lot of people (and I'm not pointing to anyone specificially) have misconceptions which appear to have logic on their side, but are inaccurate.  In a situation where getting it wrong can be an expensive mistake, I think the best advice is for the OP to check with someone who has specialist knowledge of how the local laws operate.

It's not misinformation. There's previous court cases that are relevant to this subject, such as this one:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_v._Acuff-Rose_Music,_Inc.


While fair use is judged by case by case basis, generally it's judged on four basis  purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the copyrighted work used, and the effect of the use on the the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. This is why if it's very degratory to the original, it'll not be allowed but if it's seen as being completely independant of the original work, it is considered fair use. There was a RPG maker game that did get cease and decist for using Disney stuff in very degratory manner and it being the entire focus of the game to be offensive with said characters and using just rips of Disney pictures such as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and such.


TL, DR; The less you have to do with the original and the more you yourself do things from the scratch, the safer you are. You can't use anything from the source, obviously but you can use similiar likeliness. Going with Hatman again, having my Hatman seem kinda like Batman but dressed in purple and having comically large hat as a symbol intead of Bat ears and a hat logo would make him safe.

 

[Andar]

I think there is one other aspect a lot of people are forgetting here:


The fair use is a DEFENSE, not a right. Which means that in order to invoke this defense, you already have to be in court and have paid your lawyers and so on.


Yes, if that defense is confirmed, then the other side (the copyright holder) has to cover all costs - which is why they usually check if you are within the "fair use" limits before suing you.


But there are two problems here that people are easily overlooking:


1) The final decision is done by a judge, and that judge has a bit of leeway to decide based on his opinions.


2) You have to pay your lawyer first, and get the money back only after you've won (if you win that is). How many people can afford that?


That is another reason why you always should check with a local lawyer before deciding on making a parody (and no, fangames are NOT covered by fair use, the fact that fangames use the same names automatically disqualifies them from fair use).


And no matter how good informed some people might be on the laws in their own country, they usually don't know how it is handled in your country or in the country the copyright holder chooses to sue you in.


In fact in some countries there are laws preventing people from giving legally binding advice unless they're registered lawyers. you'll never find a German Lawyer to give such advice online for example because that can result in a revoking of his licences - simply because the matter is too complex for simple answers.

 

[bgillisp]

@gomiamiheat6804: First rule of the internet. Not everything on there is true. And I'll trust my legal advice over your google search anyday. Not to be snippy, but the internet has been full of misinformation since it was founded as any fool with a computer can post whatever they want.

 

[Leon Kennedy]

@gomiamiheat6804: First rule of the internet. Not everything on there is true. And I'll trust my legal advice over your google search anyday. Not to be snippy, but the internet has been full of misinformation since it was founded as any fool with a computer can post whatever they want.

Well that's from the USA government site. But that brings us back to the catch all, USA's definitions and factors for fair use will probably be different than other countries.