RPG Maker Forums

Sorry for posting here if that's not where I'm supposed to post, but after reviewing what I think I know about copyright laws, and considering the recent DMCA take-down of the Pokemon Essentials downloads and wiki (even though I have a copy and everything I need to make a decent fan game already), I'm beginning to wonder about the ethics of even making a fan game to post on a showcase where those kinds of things are hosted.

Since I'm a bit worried about it, and working on those kinds of things to learn game building mechanics might not do much outside of the Pokemon fandom anyway, as the scripts and mods are mostly plug-and-play, I think it's probably better to concentrate on making my own game, but where should I even start?

I've got sort of a story line, but it's a bit like Pokemon, and it would fit great with the Essentials plug-in, but that absolutely cannot be used for commercial game development, as it would violate the user agreement of the distributor. I would need a whole new plug-in that sort of acted like Essentials, or I would need to learn how to code my own events myself.

The default turn-based format on RM XP just isn't that good, and I see a whole lot less game building potential without using the Essentials plug-in. Does anyone have any advice?

What would be the best (and least risky) course of action for learning how to build video games?

Should I continue to work on my fan game and post on a website that hosts that kind of thing and ignore the possibility of committing copyright infringement, (even though parodies and derivative works are covered under Fair Use, are they not?),

...or should I abandon it and start trying to work on my own original project (which will require hunting down all kinds of graphics and plug-ins that are approved to be applied to commercial use if I don't want to be stuck with vanilla RM XP).