8 ms·
TL;DR: it's in a gray area, but nobody with power actually cares (at least for now), so it's effectively fine. As I understand it, Lego is aware of the project
by ktkaufman 1y ago
TL;DR: it's in a gray area, but nobody with power actually cares (at least for now), so it's effectively fine.
As I understand it, Lego is aware of the project (there's been a significant increase in interest in Lego Island in the past few years, with attempts to obtain the original source code) and simply does not care. It's an ancient IP and can't realistically compete with anything new, at least not in a way that would significantly affect Lego's revenue. This is not unlike the way several other companies have acted when their respective older games have been given the same treatment; if a fan project is not actively causing problems (reputational, financial, etc.), most companies will just leave it alone. For companies that actually seem to care about public opinion (as opposed to, say, Nintendo), I think it's fair to assume that the bad optics of taking legal action against a random fan project, however legally justified it might be, far outweigh any possible benefits.
- rincebrain 1y agoSpecifically, I would assume the calculus is about "how much damage does this do by existing" versus "how much risk is there that we attempt to shut it down and sue and set a precedent by losing", and because for most projects the first value is tiny and the second value is potentially enormous, companies leave them alone. When either value changes drastically in scale (e.g. a project does something making it very cut and dry which side of legal precedent it falls on, or to massively increase the damage to The Brand(tm)), that's when you get worried.
- h4ck_th3_pl4n3t 1y agoNote that companies usually ignore fan projects like this and don't mention them at all. If they would mention and tolerate them, it weakens their intellectual property in a future lawsuit. Once fan projects get too much traction, companies have to cease and desist them because that's the way intellectual properties work in the law. It usually has nothing to do with whether it was a cool project or not, it's just that there's way too much money at stake when not defending your IP.
- eskathos 1y agoIs there any way for a company, Lego in this case, to adopt a fan mod or remake, to make it legitimate IP/copyright wise?
- Krutonium 1y agoAbsolutely. They just have to license it, and that license can be for a nominal (think $1) cost. That said, Lego doesn't own the game, so if it came down to it, they could strip all the references to "Lego" from it and probably be fine.
- Krutonium 1y agoAmusingly I actually have Video of Atari's Lead of Marketing playing OpenRCT2 on Stream, giving away RCT2 Keys to promote RCT World. To this day, Atari has left us alone though, so yeah it's pretty much not worth it to them to try anything.
- reddalo 1y agoIf I recall correctly, somebody found out that the original creator of the game, Chris Sawyer, despises the OpenRCT2 project -- but he can't do anything about it, because the rights belong to Atari.
- WA 1y agoNintendo and Lego are on the same level when it comes to sue people for trademark violations. There are several cease-and-desist orders against YouTubers for calling no-name bricks legos.
- tempaway43563 1y agoAbsolutely nothing should be getting called "legos", dear god, its "lego" or "lego bricks"
- voidUpdate 1y agoProbably because they are "lego bricks", not "legos", in the same way that you don't call a bag of rice "rices"
- Y_Y 1y ago> you don't call a bag of rice "rices" Well I didn't until now
- supplied_demand 1y agoIf we are being pedantic, they are called “LEGO”.
- stuaxo 1y agoI don't know why, but the US invention "legos" is incredibly grating. Its like a whole country called spaghetti "basgetti" as kids and just went with it.
- themaninthedark 1y agoDon't worry, at least we don't call them legi
- perching_aix 1y agoNot really a US invention, pretty sure countless other languages will transform the word the same way. I know mine does, being an agglutinative one.
- debugnik 1y ago> the bad optics of taking legal action against a random fan project Just last month LEGO shut down Masks of Power, the Bionicle fan game. They were really close to a release and LEGO had allegedly met the team and given them permission in the past. I'm increasingly convinced that fan projects should be developed quietly and announced right on release, so they at least exist somewhere on the internet if they get shut down immediately after.
- ranger_danger 1y agoYeah I don't understand why fan projects aren't already developed anonymously to prevent issues from happening.
- ndiddy 1y agoIt looks like the team had made a Steam page for their fan game and were accepting donations for working on it, so I can see why Lego felt compelled to take it down. https://web.archive.org/web/20241125104301/https://masksofpower.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20241125104301/https://masksofpo...
- debugnik 1y agoI don't see where you've read that they accepted donations. Every article and Reddit post I find says they didn't? It was indeed releasing on Steam for free, but I don't know if they had contacted LEGO before doing so. Also, this wasn't the only Bionicle game that LEGO had endorsed, Quest for Mata Nui too, which makes this even more of a heel-turn. They won't have to shut down that one, though: the team went silent and then the main dev passed away.
- ndiddy 1y ago> I don't see where you've read that they accepted donations. You may have missed the "Buy us a coffee" link at the top of the archived Masks of Power page that I linked.
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- paulddraper 1y agoIt's definitely not a "gray" area though it may well be true that no one cares, so it's effectively fine.