Terran Franklin

Nothing makes a company more evil than suing their own fans for being fans.  That’s why I don’t buy Music CDs and consider the RIAA a bunch of pedophiles.  It’s why I say, if you don’t want people to make fan-works of your movie or comic book, don’t fucking make the movie or comic at all.  It’s why I use the Creative Commons license exclusively because I want people to make fan-works of my stuff—and plan to publish one such fan-work as part of the Scarlet PI cannon.

And it’s also why Disney isn’t exactly hammering down Cory Doctorow’s ass for his own Disney-themed “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.”  They won’t exactly authorize it in the way they did the Kingdom Keepers series, but they accept it as a humorous and flattering take on Walt Disney World set in a futuristic setting.  I think—or at least I hope—they consider the same thing to Scarlet PI.  I’ve even mentioned this concern to various Disney fans and they pretty much say the same thing:  That I should be okay because I show Disney in a positive light.  Granted, the light is in the backstage areas and some of it is bent a bit (“Scarlet, Captain Sparrow’s drunk again in Adventureland!”) but it’s not demeaning or debasing to the company or the product they made.  In that light, they’re pretty much letting me go.  (And my offer still stands, I’d love to have Scarlet PI done in an more official setting, working with the company.)

There’s another company that apparently feels the same way.

Link:  http://kotaku.com/5585802/nintendo-doesnt-want-to-criminalize-obsessed-fans

Some would say that Nintendo is plagued with Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon fan activities, some of them could be as elaborate as the original works themselves.  So much so that some people wondered what the company’s official position is on them.  In fact, I could see someone in the referred Shareholders Meeting going, “Don’t your lawyers know how to use a fucking phone?” in a drunken doggerel voice while sodomizing the pre-teen girl they’re berating like a gangsta pimp for the audacity of watching Justin Bebier on someone’s YouTube site.  (Who let that RIAA asshole into the room?  Link, Bouncer Duty!)

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, answered with pure class in my book:

As the principle, please understand that the question is regarding a rather delicate issue to which no one can perhaps identify a clear-cut criterion. Of course, we cannot say that we can give tacit approval to any and all the activities which threaten our intellectual properties. But on the other hand, it would not be appropriate if we treated people who did something based on affection for Nintendo, as criminals. It is true that some expressions are detrimental enough to diminish the dignity of our intellectual properties, and others destroy our intellectual properties’ world-views by connecting them with something not based on fact. We think one of the criteria for deciding how to respond is whether the expression in question socially diminishes the dignity or value of our intellectual properties or not. Of course, it is very hard to have a blanket standard as this problem involves many complex elements that are very difficult to judge.

In these meanings, we cannot say OK to any and all such activities and, at the same time, it is not feasible for us to immediately respond to each small issue of this nature every time. However, these days an individual can easily transmit information through the Internet. Hearing your question today, as we cannot find these problems only by ourselves, we feel that a kind of contact window should be set up so that people can somehow report to us any inappropriate uses of Nintendo’s intellectual properties which diminish their dignities or values, so that we can respond appropriately.

(Emphasis added by Kotaku and Doubled by me)

See companies, this is how you do it.  As long as they’re not invoking Rule 34 or dragging people’s face into the dirt, don’t think of it as copyright infringement; think of is as free advertising.  Especially when the fans take the time and the consideration to link back to the company.  This is what I mean when I previously say that the Culture needs to be Libra—Free as in Speech—if not entirely Gratis—Free as in Beer.  Nintendo knows that if they squelch fan activities—all those fan web sites, fiction, costumes, and what not—to the point that the public would be worried about doing more than just watching the official movies or playing the official games, they might find themselves groping for people who would want to follow their narrow path of bring consumers.  These Nintendo fans are the company’s loyal—very loyal—customer base, and these need to be tended to and cared for if they’re going to keep on buying those motion sensing controllers and Metroid games created by the guys who make Ninja Gaiden.  You welcome their actions when they’re making fan pages so that you won’t have to deal with them putting up burn sites.  And if you criminalize fan activity, they will turn and burn you.