I have been playing Minecraft since the past few years. I have been rendering wallpapers and creating texture packs for the game since a while. A few months back I became aware that there was a thriving community on Amazon where I could publish Minecraft based comics and stories. I created a small thirty or so pages long, 'picture book' and published it. And then another longer comic. These books are targeted mainly towards 6 to 12 years olds.
Today morning I received an email from Amazon about a notice that had been given to them by a Miss Talia Grunt of Mojang Enforcement about how my two books 'infringed their trademark'. This had lead Amazon to blocking my books.
There are hundreds of writers and publishers on Kindle who churn out Minecraft based content. I don't know that it's so much about profit as it is about doing something you enjoy, just like people making mods and hosting Minecraft based websites. But nonetheless, I, who published two small comics, that made under 50 USD in total, was infringing on Mojang's trademark.
If this is the kind of attitude that Mojang is going to hold towards its community now that it's been purchased by Microsoft, then I got to say, the the future does not look bright. To say that it is disgusting and disheartening is an understatement. If this is how it is going to be, then Mojang just might actually be becoming worse than EA.
I would love to hear what the community has to say about this. I would also love to hear what Mojang reps have to say about this and what the future holds for fans who can monetize the game in some small way.
Very true.
Well, I'm really dissapointed to mojang, they also just want to focus on pocket edition minecraft, not xbox, they choose the SMALLER objectives first, although, I see that mojang is blocking your request, Maybe mojang is busy? or is mojang just to lazy to do what a fan wants to do?
If this is how it is going to be, then Mojang just might actually be becoming worse than EA.
Microsoft has a long road ahead of them if they want to catch up to EA's level of terrible. They're off to a good start at it, but I can't keep track of how many game studios EA has ruined, either purchasing them just to quickly shut them down or leaving them as a shell of their former selves. Wikipedia's got a good list though.
It's not that cut and dried. I did not do anything illegal that had not been given a nod by Mojang earlier. What next, will they start sending notices to every Youtuber who posts videos of Minecraft? Shut down every website with minecraft in it's title? The community grew up because of the game but also because of the peripherals surrounding it. Penalizing your fans willy nilly, specially when they are not doing you any harm is like biting the hand that feeds you.
Quote from echonite»
You did something illegal. Period. It doesnt matter how much money you made, you published copyrighted material, knowingly.
There is overzealous, and there is simple, every-day protecting of their rights. This is the latter.
Simple fact is you have to deal with it. You knowingly published something illegally, so don't act so surprised.
Stop making absolute statements when you are not in the know. I did not publish any copyrighted material. That would be plagiarism. I created original content, based on the game. The closest you can come is fanfiction.
If creating renders of a game in third party software without using any of the game's resources is publishing copyrighted material then, making in game videos, or creating mods and hosting them on websites with advertisement should certainly be illegal. And then where will this community go to?
Stop making absolute statements when you are not in the know. I did not publish any copyrighted material. That would be plagiarism. I created original content, based on the game. The closest you can come is fanfiction.
If creating renders of a game in third party software without using any of the game's resources is publishing copyrighted material then, making in game videos, or creating mods and hosting them on websites with advertisement should certainly be illegal. And then where will this community go to?
Technically, yes, all of that is illegal.
Gearbox could call up Youtube and demand they remove all videos containing, referencing, or anything related to borderlands. Money made from or not.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cast aside your festive doylaks: dragon stuff is about to happen.
Multiplayer is lonely once you understand how it actually works.
The textures were based on Meesa's HD texture pack and the skin on the figure was one I created myself.
Even if I forget everything that is wrong here and agree for one instant that I did do something illegal, (which I did not), even then there are hundreds of Minecraft clones using Minecraft code out there, selling on Google Play and Amazon app store that deserve to be put down first. My question here is why go after small timers first if you are actually serious about protecting your trademark?
How do you know they aren't going after them as well? Just because you are being vocal about your notice doesn't mean you are being singled out. Seriously, dock that high horse and take a step back.
You DID do something illegal, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered with you. Mojang has exclusive rights on EVERYTHING even remotely related to Minecraft. Regardless of the skin, the figure is iconic. If it was clear that you were doing fanwork related to Minecraft, you were in violation of their copyright. Fan work IS illegal by definition, it just largely goes unbothered, usually because its good publicity, but Minecraft doesn't need that at this point.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cast aside your festive doylaks: dragon stuff is about to happen.
Multiplayer is lonely once you understand how it actually works.
The textures were based on Meesa's HD texture pack and the skin on the figure was one I created myself.
Even if I forget everything that is wrong here and agree for one instant that I did do something illegal, (which I did not), even then there are hundreds of Minecraft clones using Minecraft code out there, selling on Google Play and Amazon app store that deserve to be put down first. My question here is why go after small timers first if you are actually serious about protecting your trademark?
You don't own the rights to Misa's HD texture pack, either. Unless you want to provide the permissions you received as proof.
And I quote:
nbsp; You are not allowed under any circumstances (barring special permission) to distribute my work in any form using adf.ly links or any sort of advertisement services. Nor are you allowed to accept donations or payment for anything that makes use of my work.
Also, most of those "Clones" are free. The ones that are charged for? Usually pulled from the market within days of being made available.
Have you ever stopped to consider that most of the things sold on Amazon actually have Mojang's support? Which you didn't bother applying for? You based something off their game - and they filed trademark infringement. It doesn't matter if it was a skin made by you, clearly you based the model (Does not matter if you recreated it) off of Minecraft itself.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.
Last I checked, you're getting a box. Of chocolates.
Aaaaand... you probably also slapped the name "Minecraft" somewhere in the title or content of your little illegal comic. Reason enough to shut you down regardless of the rest of the content.
PS: Went to register just to post this, turns out someone had registered my email with this silly username, a shame because I am a modern player, so if anyone knows how to change nickname send me a PM. Thank you.
I'm a fanfic writer myself, as well as a published author of non-fiction articles and columns. I've also (for a non-writing use) licensed some moderately well-known IP. So I have a bit of standing to respond here.
The bottom line is that writing fanfic is breaking copyright laws for fun. Most of the time, the rights owners tolerate this if you acknowledge their trademarks and you do nothing that can be even remotely considered making money from it. Most of the time; there are exceptions. And those exceptions will sue your ... bank account ... off if you infringe on their rights. While rights owners might tolerate infringement of their rights as long as the person doing so makes no money from it, very few will permit this for money -- I've seen terms going as far as "no ads on the page". And none that I know of will permit doing it for money if you don't ask them first.
In short, OP, you broke the law. Amazon got a C&D. They reacted according to their legal obligations. Be thankful it was just "stop doing that" instead of "hand over 3x the money you made from this" which, legally, they could do, and Amazon would have the records to tell them exactly how much.
If it was about doing something you enjoyed, instead of doing it for money, you'd have been posting on something like fanfiction.net, like thousands of other people. You chose to sell your stuff, not give it away, and at that point, you opened yourself up to all sorts of legal issues.
You think you didn't infringe on their trademarks? Would your stuff have sold as well (or at all) if it didn't connect to Minecraft in some way? If yes, then why bother with the Minecraft references at all? If no, then you have your answer. They created Minecraft, and they have every right to control who makes money from it. And they want it to be them, not you.This is perfectly reasonable.
And saying "other people do it too" doesn't justify breaking the law. Lots of people speed, too, but I've never heard of "other people were going faster than me" getting anyone off from a speeding ticket, nor "you didn't stop me yesterday" either. The answer will always be "That may be so, but I stopped you and I stopped you today, so sign here."
I have been playing Minecraft since the past few years. I have been rendering wallpapers and creating texture packs for the game since a while. A few months back I became aware that there was a thriving community on Amazon where I could publish Minecraft based comics and stories. I created a small thirty or so pages long, 'picture book' and published it. And then another longer comic. These books are targeted mainly towards 6 to 12 years olds.
Today morning I received an email from Amazon about a notice that had been given to them by a Miss Talia Grunt of Mojang Enforcement about how my two books 'infringed their trademark'. This had lead Amazon to blocking my books.
There are hundreds of writers and publishers on Kindle who churn out Minecraft based content. I don't know that it's so much about profit as it is about doing something you enjoy, just like people making mods and hosting Minecraft based websites. But nonetheless, I, who published two small comics, that made under 50 USD in total, was infringing on Mojang's trademark.
If this is the kind of attitude that Mojang is going to hold towards its community now that it's been purchased by Microsoft, then I got to say, the the future does not look bright. To say that it is disgusting and disheartening is an understatement. If this is how it is going to be, then Mojang just might actually be becoming worse than EA.
I would love to hear what the community has to say about this. I would also love to hear what Mojang reps have to say about this and what the future holds for fans who can monetize the game in some small way.
Without knowing the specifics I can throw out something that seems an immediate flag to my non-legalize self. You use their trademark and/or IP. Someone reads your content and is offended/upset/irate. They then contact Mojang, the OWNER of said trademark/IP to complain about "their book" and whatever they find so wrong about it.
Problem is, Mojang didn't have a thing to do at all with that book. YOU DID. But because you used THEIR trademark/IP, people assume they had control/a say/a hand in the creation of your project.
Just like Notch complained about before leaving.. Their support system for Minecraft was going through the roof getting help requests for all sorts of issues with peoples' games on other servers. Instead of players contacting the server admin of the server they were having an issue with, they'd go directly to Mojang and say "Hey, your server keeps disconnecting me". etc..
This would be my guess as to the 1st and foremost problem, second only to the almighty dollar - Meaning you're making money off someone else's trademark/IP without permission. Simple fix? Ask them for permission, who knows what they'll say. But just using it is going to get you in trouble, as you already noted. That's why places who host books for fan works, notably Star Wars stories (which there are 1,000's of) prevent monetary exchange and insist that all fan works remain free. Often, no money = no problem - But you always need to check into it.
You didn't say, the other works which you're complaining about, are they free whereas yours is pay? If they aren't free, and they use the same trademakr/IP infringement that yours do, it would be interesting to know where the difference lies. Only thing I could speculte would be the fee is being charged by Kindle as a service fee, meaning they get paid for hosting your book, and those authors aren't seeing dime 1 off of them. Just a guess..
If you find a book that says someone has had a Coca Cola, or they used a Hoover, or they threw a frisbee, do you think that it is acceptable to have that book blocked. No, it is not.
Back when I used to subscribe to Writer's Digest, there would be ads purchased by various companies saying how their trademarks had to be used. This was a part of protecting their trademarks. The one that sticks in my memory was from the Rollerblade company, saying that it was not permissible to write "Fred went rollerblading" but, rather, one had to write "Fred went roller skating on Rollerblades® brand of inline roller skates." They might or might not have actually enforced that (I never wrote about any type of skates, so I wouldn't know) but they were paying a fair bit of money to tell the writers of the world that.
So, whether or a writer might think it is acceptable to have something that contains "Fred went rollerblading" blocked, it is legal.
Today morning I received an email from Amazon about a notice that had been given to them by a Miss Talia Grunt of Mojang Enforcement about how my two books 'infringed their trademark'. This had lead Amazon to blocking my books.
There are hundreds of writers and publishers on Kindle who churn out Minecraft based content. I don't know that it's so much about profit as it is about doing something you enjoy, just like people making mods and hosting Minecraft based websites. But nonetheless, I, who published two small comics, that made under 50 USD in total, was infringing on Mojang's trademark.
If this is the kind of attitude that Mojang is going to hold towards its community now that it's been purchased by Microsoft, then I got to say, the the future does not look bright. To say that it is disgusting and disheartening is an understatement. If this is how it is going to be, then Mojang just might actually be becoming worse than EA.
I would love to hear what the community has to say about this. I would also love to hear what Mojang reps have to say about this and what the future holds for fans who can monetize the game in some small way.
Well, I'm really dissapointed to mojang, they also just want to focus on pocket edition minecraft, not xbox, they choose the SMALLER objectives first, although, I see that mojang is blocking your request, Maybe mojang is busy? or is mojang just to lazy to do what a fan wants to do?
That moment when you do the best thing in your life...
but you didn't record it.
Microsoft has a long road ahead of them if they want to catch up to EA's level of terrible. They're off to a good start at it, but I can't keep track of how many game studios EA has ruined, either purchasing them just to quickly shut them down or leaving them as a shell of their former selves. Wikipedia's got a good list though.
That moment when you do the best thing in your life...
but you didn't record it.
There is overzealous, and there is simple, every-day protecting of their rights. This is the latter.
Simple fact is you have to deal with it. You knowingly published something illegally, so don't act so surprised.
Cast aside your festive doylaks: dragon stuff is about to happen.
Multiplayer is lonely once you understand how it actually works.
Alpha 1.0.4
Quote from echonite »
You did something illegal. Period. It doesnt matter how much money you made, you published copyrighted material, knowingly.
There is overzealous, and there is simple, every-day protecting of their rights. This is the latter.
Simple fact is you have to deal with it. You knowingly published something illegally, so don't act so surprised.
Stop making absolute statements when you are not in the know. I did not publish any copyrighted material. That would be plagiarism. I created original content, based on the game. The closest you can come is fanfiction.
If creating renders of a game in third party software without using any of the game's resources is publishing copyrighted material then, making in game videos, or creating mods and hosting them on websites with advertisement should certainly be illegal. And then where will this community go to?
Technically, yes, all of that is illegal.
Gearbox could call up Youtube and demand they remove all videos containing, referencing, or anything related to borderlands. Money made from or not.
Cast aside your festive doylaks: dragon stuff is about to happen.
Multiplayer is lonely once you understand how it actually works.
Alpha 1.0.4
Even if I forget everything that is wrong here and agree for one instant that I did do something illegal, (which I did not), even then there are hundreds of Minecraft clones using Minecraft code out there, selling on Google Play and Amazon app store that deserve to be put down first. My question here is why go after small timers first if you are actually serious about protecting your trademark?
You DID do something illegal, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered with you. Mojang has exclusive rights on EVERYTHING even remotely related to Minecraft. Regardless of the skin, the figure is iconic. If it was clear that you were doing fanwork related to Minecraft, you were in violation of their copyright. Fan work IS illegal by definition, it just largely goes unbothered, usually because its good publicity, but Minecraft doesn't need that at this point.
Cast aside your festive doylaks: dragon stuff is about to happen.
Multiplayer is lonely once you understand how it actually works.
Alpha 1.0.4
You don't own the rights to Misa's HD texture pack, either. Unless you want to provide the permissions you received as proof.
And I quote:
Also, most of those "Clones" are free. The ones that are charged for? Usually pulled from the market within days of being made available.
Have you ever stopped to consider that most of the things sold on Amazon actually have Mojang's support? Which you didn't bother applying for? You based something off their game - and they filed trademark infringement. It doesn't matter if it was a skin made by you, clearly you based the model (Does not matter if you recreated it) off of Minecraft itself.
Last I checked, you're getting a box. Of chocolates.
PS: Went to register just to post this, turns out someone had registered my email with this silly username, a shame because I am a modern player, so if anyone knows how to change nickname send me a PM. Thank you.
The bottom line is that writing fanfic is breaking copyright laws for fun. Most of the time, the rights owners tolerate this if you acknowledge their trademarks and you do nothing that can be even remotely considered making money from it. Most of the time; there are exceptions. And those exceptions will sue your ... bank account ... off if you infringe on their rights. While rights owners might tolerate infringement of their rights as long as the person doing so makes no money from it, very few will permit this for money -- I've seen terms going as far as "no ads on the page". And none that I know of will permit doing it for money if you don't ask them first.
In short, OP, you broke the law. Amazon got a C&D. They reacted according to their legal obligations. Be thankful it was just "stop doing that" instead of "hand over 3x the money you made from this" which, legally, they could do, and Amazon would have the records to tell them exactly how much.
If it was about doing something you enjoyed, instead of doing it for money, you'd have been posting on something like fanfiction.net, like thousands of other people. You chose to sell your stuff, not give it away, and at that point, you opened yourself up to all sorts of legal issues.
You think you didn't infringe on their trademarks? Would your stuff have sold as well (or at all) if it didn't connect to Minecraft in some way? If yes, then why bother with the Minecraft references at all? If no, then you have your answer. They created Minecraft, and they have every right to control who makes money from it. And they want it to be them, not you.This is perfectly reasonable.
And saying "other people do it too" doesn't justify breaking the law. Lots of people speed, too, but I've never heard of "other people were going faster than me" getting anyone off from a speeding ticket, nor "you didn't stop me yesterday" either. The answer will always be "That may be so, but I stopped you and I stopped you today, so sign here."
Bottom line: You broke the law. You got stopped.
The golden age: it's not the game, it's you ⋆ Why Minecraft should not be harder ⋆ Spelling hints
Without knowing the specifics I can throw out something that seems an immediate flag to my non-legalize self. You use their trademark and/or IP. Someone reads your content and is offended/upset/irate. They then contact Mojang, the OWNER of said trademark/IP to complain about "their book" and whatever they find so wrong about it.
Problem is, Mojang didn't have a thing to do at all with that book. YOU DID. But because you used THEIR trademark/IP, people assume they had control/a say/a hand in the creation of your project.
Just like Notch complained about before leaving.. Their support system for Minecraft was going through the roof getting help requests for all sorts of issues with peoples' games on other servers. Instead of players contacting the server admin of the server they were having an issue with, they'd go directly to Mojang and say "Hey, your server keeps disconnecting me". etc..
This would be my guess as to the 1st and foremost problem, second only to the almighty dollar - Meaning you're making money off someone else's trademark/IP without permission. Simple fix? Ask them for permission, who knows what they'll say. But just using it is going to get you in trouble, as you already noted. That's why places who host books for fan works, notably Star Wars stories (which there are 1,000's of) prevent monetary exchange and insist that all fan works remain free. Often, no money = no problem - But you always need to check into it.
You didn't say, the other works which you're complaining about, are they free whereas yours is pay? If they aren't free, and they use the same trademakr/IP infringement that yours do, it would be interesting to know where the difference lies. Only thing I could speculte would be the fee is being charged by Kindle as a service fee, meaning they get paid for hosting your book, and those authors aren't seeing dime 1 off of them. Just a guess..
Back when I used to subscribe to Writer's Digest, there would be ads purchased by various companies saying how their trademarks had to be used. This was a part of protecting their trademarks. The one that sticks in my memory was from the Rollerblade company, saying that it was not permissible to write "Fred went rollerblading" but, rather, one had to write "Fred went roller skating on Rollerblades® brand of inline roller skates." They might or might not have actually enforced that (I never wrote about any type of skates, so I wouldn't know) but they were paying a fair bit of money to tell the writers of the world that.
So, whether or a writer might think it is acceptable to have something that contains "Fred went rollerblading" blocked, it is legal.
The golden age: it's not the game, it's you ⋆ Why Minecraft should not be harder ⋆ Spelling hints