It’s less Nintendo and more shitty trademark and IP laws.
If you don’t aggressively go after anyone that is transgressing your IP, you can lose it.
IP really needs major and comprehensive reform. It’s not going to happen anytime soon as too much is built up around the status quo, but it really should be done.
It’s *less about shitty trademark or copyright laws, and more about Nintendo.
First off, in all of your posts, you really don’t seem to realize that trademark has nothing to do with fan fiction or recreations. Not a single project that anyone has referenced has attempted to mimic Nintendo’s name and brand to sell a product. Zelda is trademarked, yes, so people can’t sell video games with “The Legend of Zelda” name- which has no bearing on this article or the work cited.
Second, the statute of limitations doesn’t go back three years to some arbitrary date, it goes back to when the alleged crime or infringement occurs. So if someone begins selling a TLoZ knockoff game, they have no grounds in court to say something dopey, like “well actually I started thinking about selling Zelda knockoff games five years ago, so even though I just started last month it is out of the statute of limitations”.
Third, from your list of shitty companies making it the norm, try Valve, who actively gives permission for people to mod and remake their games, and even allow the selling of remakes on their own platform. Or try Capcom, a Japanese company who has never attacked a fan game and still has full control over its IPs. But I digress, not being the norm has nothing to do with this.
If the laws surrounding copyright were suddenly and drastically changed today, Nintendo wouldn’t change their stance or their scare tactics. They don’t have to do it, they aren’t losing out on sales from it- and if modders had the ability to stand up for themselves in court, I don’t believe Nintendo would win even a notable amount of cases.
One: Link’s Awakening trademark
Two: Actually, per Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s supreme court decision, damages are limited to 3 years prior to the suit being filed with no recovery for earlier infringements.
Three: Capcom cease and desist less than a year ago - did you not even bother checking before confidently stating it ‘never’ happened?
Edit: Also, it’s a bit more complicated in terms of IP, but it is relevant to future works.
For example, fictional characters.
Let’s take Mickey Mouse as an example. Steamboat Willie is entering public domain, so the protections on the character as defined in that work is entering the public domain. But characterization of the figure in works still under copyright that have added unique details are still protected.
But the test for infringement of a fictional character is twofold. (1) Can the figure be copyrighted? (2) Is there infringement of unique characteristics?
That second part becomes much more difficult to enforce if you’ve been allowing millions of variations of your protected character when you initial work defining the character is no longer enforceable.
So if LoZ on the NES enters the public domain making ‘Ganon’ as a pig usable by people, but since that game there’s been tons of spinoffs by others having Ganon as a human before Nintendo had Ganon as depicted in OoT, then they’d have a much harder time enforcing copyright on Ganon being depicted as a human even if Ganon as a pig was no longer under copyright.
No lawyer is going to say “yeah, let 3rd parties use your IP willy nilly, I’m sure it will be fine and not bite us in the ass later on.”
For example:
Copyright protection is effectively never lost, unless explicitly given away or the copyright has expired. However, if you do not actively defend your copyright, there may be broader unauthorized uses than you would like. It is a good idea to pursue enforcement actions as soon as you discover misuse of your copyright protected material.
Edit 2: Or the statute of limitations:
If you have experienced copyright infringement, you have the right to pursue a lawsuit. However, you only have a limited time frame during which to file a claim. This legal principle is called the “statute of limitations.” Ensuring that you file a claim to enforce your copyright within the statute of limitations is crucial. If you wait too long, you will lose the right to enforce your copyright and obtain your deserved damages.
So a fan project that you don’t enforce against for three years which eventually monetizes as competition without infringement trademarks would be a potential concern.
…yeah?
IP is different from trademark though. You’re using them interchangeably.
The main difference being IP doesn’t have a “challenge it or you lose it” rule.
