When Cease and Desist Letters Backfire

[rushingwind]

Square Enix isn't the only company out there that likes to fire off Cease and Desist letters every time it thinks someone might even be looking its way with a fan or derivative work. The Arthur Conan Doyle Estate just learned that bullying creators into paying up fees or abandoning their projects is actually kind of a bad idea because eventually, you know, someone's going to get pissed off and fight back and sue them (and win):

http://free-sherlock.com/

The ACD Estate's careless actions of the past will cost them huge money now. Even big Hollywood producers have an excuse to sidestep them and not pay to use their classic characters.

This situation is obviously different than the CE issue that happened here. But still, it warms my heart to the core to know that a greedy organization sent out a heavy-handed C&D letter to try and intimidate what they thought was some small-time creator, and then it blew up in their faces most magnificently.

[Acacia Sgt]

That's interesting. But yeah, it was possible since it was possible to win that fight.

[rushingwind]

It just occurred to me that I totally posted this in the wrong news forum (that's what I get for having too many tabs open at the same time). If a mod would move this to the "News Submissions" thread, I'd appreciate it.

I'm really sorry. I can't believe I did that. I'm usually super careful about posting in the correct forums.

[ZeaLitY]

If it's newsworthy, it ends up here.

[Dalton]

There is Streets of Rage Remake game. Fan game. Creators (Bomber Games) also have a C&D letter from Sega. But game was 100% complete at the moment though.

[Magus22]

There is Streets of Rage Remake game. Fan game. Creators (Bomber Games) also have a C&D letter from Sega. But game was 100% complete at the moment though.

There are times when I can understand C&Ds are necessary, and there are times when I do not understand...

Fan games (not-for-profit) have the potential to energize an old relic, and at the same, act as free advertising for any company.

Your post reminds me of the CE chaos back in 2009 - this site still holds the record for most users online that day because of the event.

[alfadorredux]

It isn't about money—it's about control, and what are called "moral rights". If it were about money, there would be a mandatory licensing law for derivative works with a payment clause specifying what was due the creators of the original work from the creators of derivative works, and Squeenix would just sit back and rake in the cash from fangames that were good enough to go commercial. They'd make money without lifting a finger.

That would mean that they would no longer be able to forbid people from using their IP, though, and the executives would have fits at the thought of someone just maybe making a bit of money on a game the company could have created itself . . . if it could have been bothered. And so they clamp down as hard as possible because they think they're losing less money that way.

[tushantin]

I realize this is kinda late, but I'm with Acacia on this one. It certainly was possible to win it. But I find it fascinating that the "musings" of a former author could eventually become the source of greed for the author's family, or any similar corporate entity. I realize that CDE have tried to finance some great projects, such as the Young Sherlock Holmes series by Andrew Lane. But I'm having two thoughts simultaneously here.

For one thing, when you make Art, it BELONGS to the ones you're sharing with. But at the same time, you must also be granted rights to have your incentives for creating it if the people love it (hence copyrights and patents), because you have contributed "something valuable". In this case, Holmes belongs to his fans, but both Doyle and his succeeding Estate were pretty stringent with the fictional property. Now, the funny thing is that these days it's EASY to find the entire canon in Public Doman online libraries, such as Project Gutenberg, so I have no idea what could CDE could possibly accomplish by C&D'ing Leslie Klinger for his annotated SH series.

Cease & Desist Estate?