How is the Subverse fight going to affect Adult Game Developers?

[Agent HK47]

most of the games here are probably walking on pretty thin ice anyway (i don't want to know how many games featured on this site and on patreon were built with "unpaid" DAZ3D-Assets)

Luckily, I don't have to deal with that problem. I just looked to see how much money I spent on various assets in the past year.... ouch. Even though I buy about 90% of my assets on 50% or higher sale, it still runs up fast as fuck.

In the past 13 months, this is how much my new hobby has cost me:

Renderosity = $2473,33
Daz Store = $5934,07
Renderotica = $1053,5

Total = $9460,9

I am either really smart or really stupid. Or maybe I just have too much money (I think I like option 1 & 3 best)

Well, at least I have almost gotten everything I want to get. Should be able to buy the rest before the end of the year, and then I can actually get started on my game for real. Yay.....

 

[mikeqb]

Fair use wouldn't allow you to make a mickey mouse cartoon. He's in the zeitgeist enough that you can get away with parodying him, but you can't outright use Mickey as a serious character in your work and profit from it, because mickey is the intellectual property of Disney. The same would legally follow for all of my content. A serious work containing my characters would be a breech of my intellectual property, and if I were so inclined, legally I'd be entitled to compensation for their use if someone was profiting from it. I don't agree with that, but it is in fact the way IP works.

south park family guy have both used mickey and even called him mickey using him as a parody. it can only be pushed on the legal side if they can prove that your use of there intellectual property damaged their their profits. its why project x was allowed to exist for so long even though they were taking donations for the game ( the same thing the people remaking Nintendo games were doing).

 

[DarthSeduction]

using him as a parody

I take it you didn't actually read my response then?

He's in the zeitgeist enough that you can get away with parodying him, but you can't outright use Mickey as a serious character in your work and profit from it, because mickey is the intellectual property of Disney.

Parody is fine, that is covered under fair use. Direct competition is not covered under fair use. If you made an actual mickey mouse cartoon you'd lose in court. There are plenty of porn parodies that aren't actually parodies at all that the judge could come down on one way or another depending on the smallest of details for this exact reason. However, if you made a porn game using someone else's porn game characters and they wanted to, they could absolutely take you to court and win, because that would be direct competition, and thus a threat to their profits.

 

[DaClown]

don't think tim is that type of guy. though have bin watching him for while and this first time i have ever heard him talk about his brand

Tim is absolutely that type of guy. Total opportunist dressed up as a "objective" journalist that just happens to have friends that are anti-communist neo-nazis and pretty much never gets gassed by the cops. He's a police informant and white supremacist apologist.

But this conflict has raised a question in my mind, Do Developers have to trademark our projects or be forced to give up our names to "respectable" companies due to legal action?

Trade marks are not like copyrights. You have to register a trade mark then you have to have lawyers on retainer to protect and enforce that trade mark. Trade marks are only applicable for identification of the source of a good or service.

Tim Cast might have some claim to the copyright branding of "Subverse" but he doesn't have singular claim over a single word or name. In any case, he'd actually have to file in some courts in which he has jurisdiction and legal standing to stake the claim. And for him to have a proper claim in the US he'd need to have the Subverse brand registered with the US Library of Congress and the US Copyright Office. It isn't generally speaking sufficient for him to just create a youtube channel with a name.

There's a whole set of conditions about unique expressions which is also relevant for copyright. Subverse the Youtube channel can be distinct from Subverse the lewd game which can be distinct from Subverse.net the webpage.

 

[Arigon]

Meh Tim is not going to win. His brother Chris has more claim to the trademark. Tim's mark is TimP.
Chris can and will win in court.

 

[Fliptoynk]

Tim> a shout out and a huge thank you to Mr NTR guy for joining the SUBVerse and donating $75 for our cause to fight the fucking libtards--

NTR guy> b-b-but I thought, this is a kick starter for a porn game!!! wtf?!