Topic: The reason behind Nintendo’s overprotective-ness

So apparently Nintendo has copyright striked a bunch of stuff in Gmod and people are likely already going nuts. And I bet a lot of people are wondering why Nintendo is so overprotective of their IP’s. Well there’s actually a video made by a YouTube channel named... moon channel, that talks about the reasons behind it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i13hrynnGNY
Apparently the reason behind their overprotective-ness of their IP is because the law stinks.

Oh thank you for this video. I too think it's their desire to "protect" their iconic franchises is overdone. At least remember the old games that are over 10 years old....

@Binder12 Mario 3D World is 10 years old. Feel old yet?

I like how I already know the exact reason for it without having to click the video.. Or I assume I do, because its always the same reason people bring up.

I've heard some people suggest it doesn't actually make sense, but I absolutely believe that some stupid judge who doesn't know things beyond what happened 50 years ago could just pull a Blurred Lines (well, arguably the opposite of a Blurred Lines) and accidentally risk ruining things for everyone with one bad decision. (correct me if I'm wrong and this isn't about the need to defend their IP ala the Elder Scrolls vs. Scrolls debacle)

But my personal theory is that copyright lawyers need to justify their continued existence so they need to do something like go after (insert copyright they own being used by someone else here) or else they'll be out of a job.

I think it's about controlling their brand / image. As big a company, Nintendo is, they primarily have one stream of revenue. Their ip! Sony have music, film, electronics, phones, gaming. Microsoft have office software, cloud infrastructure and services, operating systems, electronics, gaming. Nintendo have Mario. Of course they are going to protet him lol. But when folk cite Nintendo as being a billion dollar comapny so it's ok to pirate their games...but their success has come from those games and that heritage continues to define them. The moment a generation views Samus as a meme thanks to some Fortnite footage, the Metroid ip might take a knock. I'm not sure if it's over protective, but it's definately very protective. And meh, they have every right to do it, so it is what it is.

Yeah, it's basically a requirement of trademark law that failing to respond to infringements runs the risk of a brand becoming genericised, and that would be very bad for Nintendo's business.

That said, other companies have far better attitudes towards fan works. Paramount - the owners of Star Trek - used to have a similar attitude to Nintendo, but eventually came around to the idea that, so long as fans follow an agreed set of guidelines, they won't take action.

https://www.startrek.com/en-un/fan-films

Note that they still reserve all their legal rights, so can sue anyone who breaks the spirit of the guidelines to oblivion even if they somehow manage to stay within the terms of it.

So, it's not like there aren't alternative to just sending everyone a C&D.

I wish SEGA were more like Nintendo and would send their lawyers after people, googling Sonic fan art is scary as fudge.

@jump I pity the poor parents who will inevitably mistype Sonic X Shadow Generations for their kids this Christmas. (I know the meme has been done to death, but you know that some poor sap coming home from their 9-5 work shift is gonna see the..."artistic" side of the fandom. May God have mercy on their soul.)

@jump LOL!

@Novamii I was thinking more of the out there stuff like Sonic being pregnant with a caption saying "mistakes happen" with a hand drawn picture of 9/11 in the background.

The Sonic and Shadow stuff is disgusting with how little respect they have for Sonic, everyone knows the Sonic canon is really that he has a hu-man girlfriend he likes to make cuddles with!

@jump I was kinda implying that too when I referred to the "artistic side" of the fandom, though I probably didn't describe it the best. Let's be honest though, you could just google "Sonic" (Just his name, nothing else.) and you'd most likely come across those types of images. The REALLY bad ones. I was just joking about how much of that stuff is all over the internet, and how easy it is to come across even just by searching for innocuous things, and that I think parents who don't know better will no doubt come across said side of the fandom just by Christmas shopping. Sorry for the confusion, I could've worded that better.