Nazis

[shittakaburi]

I like the idea but I want to comment a bit about the copyright issues brought up on the first page. In the United States (i can't comment on other countries), we have a Fair Use component to our copyright law and, due to judicial review, there is a transformative component within that. The basic idea of whether a new work is transformative or not is based on supersedence. Supersedence is a judicial test applied to the new work that asks: "Does this supersede the old work?" Or, put simply: "does the new work replace, or attempt to replace, the old work?" In one Supreme Court case, the judges sided with transformative Fair Use in the case of a parody of the song "Pretty Woman" even though it used clips from the original song and some of the same lyrics. In it's opinion, the Justices said: "...the inquiry focuses on whether the new work merely supersedes the objects of the original creation, or whether and to what extent it is controversially "transformative," altering the original with new expression, meaning, or message." I think it is entirely possible that clips taken from an old Nazi war movie and used in a free mod of a modern video game could be considered tranformative fair use. The new work could not reasonably be thought to supersede the original and the non-commercial use would, legally, bolster the fair use claim (but by no means guarantee it). Clips taken from Call of Duty would almost certainly NOT fall under fair use since it would not be seen as transformative to take clips from a video game about killing Nazis to make a mod in a video game about killing Nazis. Even the non-commercial nature of it would not protect you.

 

HOWEVER...I completely agree with Nexus' official view on copyright because, though you might win the court battle, Nexus does not want to be involved in lawsuit that, if fought, would cost millions. Copyright law, unfortunately, is very murky and fair use, or common sense, has not stopped movie and video game studios from issuing DMCA complaints or lawsuits. In the case of Nexus, and any small web community, it is best to err on the side of caution in the currently turbulent and muddy waters of copyright. You could be legally correct and financially ruined at the same time.

 

The whole point of this post is to just point out that copyright law is not cut and dry and we shouldn't judge those too harshly who either err on the side of caution or who play fast and loose. Either person could be right...or wrong...at the same time.