Why Nintendo is so “Overprotective” of its Intellectual Property
Why Nintendo is so “Overprotective” of its Intellectual Property
by Moonsight
28 Comments
Moonsight
Hi! I’m a lawyer who has recently taken up video essaying as a hobby. I’ve seen a lot of discussion on this subreddit and others, about Nintendo’s apparent harshness with regards to its intellectual property.
With my background though, I wanted to share what I felt was the reasoning behind why Nintendo acts so harshly:
(1) Nintendo has a key traumatic moment involving intellectual property that shaped its infancy (Universal Studios v. Nintendo Co. Ltd., regarding Donkey Kong) and its leadership thereafter,
(2) Nintendo has extremely valuable brands (trademarks) that it protects using copyright only as the bludgeon, and;
(3) Nintendo is forced to act this way due to the mechanisms of Intellectual Property law.
Hopefully, you will find this video interesting! And let me know what you think: I’d be happy to answer any curious questions, as well.
brut43
Can’t wait to watch this. I love these sorts of analyses.
Calastra
Very interesting, thanks! It’s not often that people actually go in detail about intellectual property and it really helps actually understanding why companies act the way they do… even when we final consumers don’t like it.
I’ve never blamed Nintendo for how they act. I also think that the fact that Nintendo themselves saved the entire video game industry back in the 80’s by ensuring the Nintendo Seal of Quality and the importance of delivering highly polished first party titles would also lend credence to them fiercely protecting their IP they worked very hard on.
rdh2121
If so many other companies can do this right, then all of the arguments here are just empty corporate apologetics.
Corporations are not actually people (regardless of what *Citizens United* says), so multinational-billion-dollar-megacorp Nintendo’s 30 year-old “corporate trauma” (lol) in no way justifies their current behavior, though it’s not surprising the users of this sub are falling all over themselves to claim that it does (edit: mostly talking about the comments here, not the video, which was pretty neutral if overly lenient in its perspective).
Here’s your daily reminder that corporations are not your friends, and they only care about your “loyalty” as far as they can convert that into you giving them more of your money.
Edit: This is why we can’t have nice things. Y’all are the reason I can only play multiplayer games on the PC. Nintendo-senpai still isn’t going to notice you.
UnrealNL
Bookmarked, going to take my time to watch this! Looking forward to it.
ejiggle
Japanese Boomers
DragonballDurag
Thanks for the content! Grew up wondering why Nintendo always seemed to keep their IPs so close to their heart.
g7parsh
Being now reminded of the Universal vs Nintendo case, it’s interesting to note how they are now partnering with them to do both a theme part and a movie
Moonsight
Hi everyone! I just wanted to say, I am blown away both by the reception the video has received here on r/Nintendo and the quality of the comments I’ve received both here in this thread, in private, and on the video itself.
I’m so, so glad you enjoyed the video. I’ll do my best to respond to all of the questions and comments, too!
reecord2
I can’t tell you how happy I am to finally see a thoughtful take on this subject. I feel like I always see takes like “Nintendo hates their fans” or that they have no idea what they’re doing, why are they such assholes, etc, and what people fail to realize is that Nintendo is sitting on some of the most valuable IP in the world. We may not like what they do to protect it, but it’s so much more than them simply being ‘jerks’ or ‘greedy’.
Pink4everUwU
🤔
Squish_the_android
If you wanted to do another video, consider “Fair Use”.
The gaming community has no idea what “Fair Use” actually is when it comes to copyright law.
squishy_sprite
thank you! I’m not very good at understanding law and this really helped me put it into perspective
SpankTheDevil
Man, what a fantastic video. Thank you for taking the time to share your insight on this.
MidnightSnak149
The title of this post is so true. They even sent funky kong dressed as a lawyer to go to court with smg4 💀
RedditAcctSchfifty5
They’re no more protective than they should be for a valuable, rarely-sullied brand.
Bunnything
Great video!! It’s nice to see a lawyers take on this
averyoda
“Intellectual property”
airhoppz
Finally, someone untangled my thoughts. Thank you, fellow attorney!
Diabolus0
Very interesting video. I appreciate the hard work and research that you had put into it. Actually I didn’t know that it was one of the biggest media generating revenue companies. Wow. And you’re right they do it for profit and from fear. It all makes sense. It’s their right to do so too.
newpotatocab0ose
Excellent video – great production value, enunciation, explanations, analogies, and writing all around. Your YouTube channel absolutely deserves to grow by leaps and bounds!
VenusaurTrainer
Because that’s all they have left.
TheCrach
Why does the Super Mario 64 decompilation project still exist and I get that it’s apparently legal but Nintendo has the lawyer power to get rid of you if you even breath wrong.
Why haven’t they gone after all these decompilation projects.
Sufficient-Yoghurt46
TLDR: They actually have intellectual property.
Valve has a few franchises. MSFT has the dying Halo brand, and has a acquired a range of studios. PS has acquired a range of companies – GOW and Horizon being their most famous, but they’re not on the same level as Mario/Zelda in terms of global appeal.
Everyone talks about Sega (a company worth $3-4 billion dollars) using Sonic and good for them for resuscitating the brand, but Nintendo is galaxies larger than that, because of their appeal. Nintendo ($50B) wants to be Disney ($200B) guys, it’s just that simple. Merch, Games, Movies, Parks.
socoprime
Why do fans feel entitled to use IP that doesn’t belong to them?
breakawaychris
Anyone see the irony of Nintendo using the work of John Kirby to retain the rights to Donkey Kong, and then creating a new intellectual property based on his name, without his prior consent or subsequent remuneration?
I know he wasn’t upset about it. It just struck me as ironic.
28 Comments
Hi! I’m a lawyer who has recently taken up video essaying as a hobby. I’ve seen a lot of discussion on this subreddit and others, about Nintendo’s apparent harshness with regards to its intellectual property.
With my background though, I wanted to share what I felt was the reasoning behind why Nintendo acts so harshly:
(1) Nintendo has a key traumatic moment involving intellectual property that shaped its infancy (Universal Studios v. Nintendo Co. Ltd., regarding Donkey Kong) and its leadership thereafter,
(2) Nintendo has extremely valuable brands (trademarks) that it protects using copyright only as the bludgeon, and;
(3) Nintendo is forced to act this way due to the mechanisms of Intellectual Property law.
Hopefully, you will find this video interesting! And let me know what you think: I’d be happy to answer any curious questions, as well.
Can’t wait to watch this. I love these sorts of analyses.
Very interesting, thanks! It’s not often that people actually go in detail about intellectual property and it really helps actually understanding why companies act the way they do… even when we final consumers don’t like it.
Tldr: they’re old-school greedy pieces of shit
Edit: judging from the downvotes, my username is as accurate as ever 💩
I’ve never blamed Nintendo for how they act. I also think that the fact that Nintendo themselves saved the entire video game industry back in the 80’s by ensuring the Nintendo Seal of Quality and the importance of delivering highly polished first party titles would also lend credence to them fiercely protecting their IP they worked very hard on.
If so many other companies can do this right, then all of the arguments here are just empty corporate apologetics.
Corporations are not actually people (regardless of what *Citizens United* says), so multinational-billion-dollar-megacorp Nintendo’s 30 year-old “corporate trauma” (lol) in no way justifies their current behavior, though it’s not surprising the users of this sub are falling all over themselves to claim that it does (edit: mostly talking about the comments here, not the video, which was pretty neutral if overly lenient in its perspective).
Here’s your daily reminder that corporations are not your friends, and they only care about your “loyalty” as far as they can convert that into you giving them more of your money.
Edit: This is why we can’t have nice things. Y’all are the reason I can only play multiplayer games on the PC. Nintendo-senpai still isn’t going to notice you.
Bookmarked, going to take my time to watch this! Looking forward to it.
Japanese Boomers
Thanks for the content! Grew up wondering why Nintendo always seemed to keep their IPs so close to their heart.
Being now reminded of the Universal vs Nintendo case, it’s interesting to note how they are now partnering with them to do both a theme part and a movie
Hi everyone! I just wanted to say, I am blown away both by the reception the video has received here on r/Nintendo and the quality of the comments I’ve received both here in this thread, in private, and on the video itself.
I’m so, so glad you enjoyed the video. I’ll do my best to respond to all of the questions and comments, too!
I can’t tell you how happy I am to finally see a thoughtful take on this subject. I feel like I always see takes like “Nintendo hates their fans” or that they have no idea what they’re doing, why are they such assholes, etc, and what people fail to realize is that Nintendo is sitting on some of the most valuable IP in the world. We may not like what they do to protect it, but it’s so much more than them simply being ‘jerks’ or ‘greedy’.
🤔
If you wanted to do another video, consider “Fair Use”.
The gaming community has no idea what “Fair Use” actually is when it comes to copyright law.
thank you! I’m not very good at understanding law and this really helped me put it into perspective
Man, what a fantastic video. Thank you for taking the time to share your insight on this.
The title of this post is so true. They even sent funky kong dressed as a lawyer to go to court with smg4 💀
They’re no more protective than they should be for a valuable, rarely-sullied brand.
Great video!! It’s nice to see a lawyers take on this
“Intellectual property”
Finally, someone untangled my thoughts. Thank you, fellow attorney!
Very interesting video. I appreciate the hard work and research that you had put into it. Actually I didn’t know that it was one of the biggest media generating revenue companies. Wow. And you’re right they do it for profit and from fear. It all makes sense. It’s their right to do so too.
Excellent video – great production value, enunciation, explanations, analogies, and writing all around. Your YouTube channel absolutely deserves to grow by leaps and bounds!
Because that’s all they have left.
Why does the Super Mario 64 decompilation project still exist and I get that it’s apparently legal but Nintendo has the lawyer power to get rid of you if you even breath wrong.
Why haven’t they gone after all these decompilation projects.
TLDR: They actually have intellectual property.
Valve has a few franchises. MSFT has the dying Halo brand, and has a acquired a range of studios. PS has acquired a range of companies – GOW and Horizon being their most famous, but they’re not on the same level as Mario/Zelda in terms of global appeal.
Everyone talks about Sega (a company worth $3-4 billion dollars) using Sonic and good for them for resuscitating the brand, but Nintendo is galaxies larger than that, because of their appeal. Nintendo ($50B) wants to be Disney ($200B) guys, it’s just that simple. Merch, Games, Movies, Parks.
Why do fans feel entitled to use IP that doesn’t belong to them?
Anyone see the irony of Nintendo using the work of John Kirby to retain the rights to Donkey Kong, and then creating a new intellectual property based on his name, without his prior consent or subsequent remuneration?
I know he wasn’t upset about it. It just struck me as ironic.