My latest upload of Delphox and Charizard got deleted from my Tumblr for the reason in the title.

I'm not entirely sure, but from what I know, copyright infringement is making a profit off of a licensed character you don't own the rights to (I'm not sure if that's true or not).

All of my art is completely free, no if, and, or butts, and I feel like this is violating my right to free speech, but I need clarification on this.

May have something to do with it.

http://gbatemp.net/threads/nintendo-is-apparently-taking-down-inappropriate-content-of-nintendo-character.435197/

Chameloshi said:
no if, and, or butts

hehehe

Chameloshi said:
My latest upload of Delphox and Charizard got deleted from my Tumblr for the reason in the title.

I'm not entirely sure, but from what I know, copyright infringement is making a profit off of a licensed character you don't own the rights to (I'm not sure if that's true or not).

No, copyright infringement doesn't require that at all. In fact, if it did, torrenting sites wouldn't be continually getting shut down and seized the way they are. All that is required to infringe on someone else's copyright is to do something with their copyrighted material that they don't want you to do with it. As such, fanart is considered infringement. Some companies take a more hard-line stance on it than others do, and Nintendo has a history of being hard-line in this regard.

Any kind of fanart can be seen as copyright infringements unless it has a really strong parody value that displays some actual message (Protip : Smudgeproof's work isn't parody artwork despite those disclaimers on each picture) to make it fall under Fair Use. Blame the law that is completely gray and vague about what is infringements or not, because technically, you have to ask them permission to draw their characters.

However, 99% of copyright holders do not bother about fanart because they see them as completely inoffensive and even beneficial to their brand and/or just don't see it as problematic enough to bother about, unless you make money off their brand then they won't take it as nicely, if they spot you

furballs_dc said:
May have something to do with it.

gbatemp.net/threads/nintendo-is-apparently-taking-down-inappropriate-content-of-nintendo-character.435197/

lol they may try but it is far more likely that they will join the fallen who have tried to take down the great beast known as "pornography" and failed. many have tried but none have succeeded in this task.

These two videos will probably be helpful for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_rQsiwQOMw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYPSz7H3Q3I

From what I can gather from this, it's that:

*Fan art is copyright infringement, but is also one of those things copyright holder's usually leave be, being that fan art is usually harmless, if not helpful.

*Nintendo is better off accepting the fact that fan artists exist because it would cause way less unnecessary collateral damage.

*Porn is similar to death and taxes in that it's going to happen wether you like it or not.

*The copyright laws are rather vague in their description as to what is infringement and what's not.

*I made a rather humorous typo in my post.

*My phone takes way to long to buffer videos without high speed data.

Basically Nintendo being Nintendo and not getting with the times. They'd have a field day here.

The article said that it's a rumor and is very likely to be, probably just a troll who's annoyed by that kind of stuff or despises those people enough to make fake takedown notices

Well, it'll be best for everyone that Ninty accepts it.

And as for the people who are possibly trolling, "If you don't like it, don't look at it."

Neitsuke said:
The article said that it's a rumor and is very likely to be

Dunno about that, since it wouldn't be the first time. They did attempt to force R34 (Paheal) to take down all Pokemon art. ...which R34 circumvented by adding code that automatically rewrites Pokemon as Porkyman.

From what I heard about that is because of search results linked to searching Pokemon on Google and such, not exactly because pictures were here. That's why they use that Pork tag since, so searching Pokemon on Google wouldn't show up any results from rule34.

That and I'm preeeetty sure that making a name change still linked to Pokemon wouldn't circumvent anything if they really wanted the art being taken down anyway, they would still be able to see all the art by searching for the same exact word

Clawdragons said:
These two videos will probably be helpful for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_rQsiwQOMw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYPSz7H3Q3I

I was going to post those, you got it first :P

Seriously, should be required viewing on this site before some people think they know how copyright works lol

Nintendo is notoriously litigious and they have the money to back it up. This is just another example of them over protecting their intellectual property. Not too long ago they were flagging Let's Plays of their games on YouTube. Its just another example of Nintendo flexing their muscle to try and protect their interests.

Pasiphaë said:
Nintendo is notoriously litigious and they have the money to back it up. This is just another example of them over protecting their intellectual property. Not too long ago they were flagging Let's Plays of their games on YouTube. Its just another example of Nintendo flexing their muscle to try and protect their interests.

Well, given how many people are drawing lewd pictures of their characters, and the pull some of those artists have, Ninty is fighting a losing battle. Porn is a guarantee, no exceptions.

Then only thing Ninty can do as of now is let it happen, because trying to fight it will cause so much unneeded conflict and damage, possibly worse.

Neitsuke said:
unless you make money off their brand then they won't take it as nicely

Tell that to the people who are commissioned porn (hell, even drawings that aren't porn) featuring Pokemon, Star Fox, etc.

That is a different case, people are paying for a service, not for merchandise. However that's a different story for those who sell those dakimakura designs or other stuff like that.

For instance, me commissioning some artist to have a dakimakura featuring a Lucario because it has one glorious looking butt is completely fine, the guy isn't merchandising the Lucario, just completing your request as a service, however the same dude selling that Lucario dakimakura on some Online store is completely wrong.

Both can be seen as copyrights infringements, but the first case is really a big stretch. Again, one good real life example would be to ask for a tattoo of Mario on your arm, compared to some tattoo artist actually selling Mario as tattoos. I don't think Nintendo would go against a tattoo artist because someone asked for a Mario tattoo, but will go against one if they see him advertise they're doing Mario tattoos

Neitsuke said:
That is a different case, people are paying for a service, not for merchandise. However that's a different story for those who sell those dakimakura designs or other stuff like that.

For instance, me commissioning some artist to have a dakimakura featuring a Lucario because it has one glorious looking butt is completely fine, the guy isn't merchandising the Lucario, just completing your request as a service, however the same dude selling that Lucario dakimakura on some Online store is completely wrong.

Both can be seen as copyrights infringements, but the first case is really a big stretch. Again, one good real life example would be to ask for a tattoo of Mario on your arm, compared to some tattoo artist actually selling Mario as tattoos. I don't think Nintendo would go against a tattoo artist because someone asked for a Mario tattoo, but will go against one if they see him advertise they're doing Mario tattoos

That's... A really good point actually.

Like seriously that's really well said.

Jugofthat said:
Basically Nintendo being Nintendo and not getting with the times. They'd have a field day here.

I really hope they would stop making so good games, because that's the only right thing they are doing.

It could be just someone trolling and making takedowns in the name of nintendo, but if they really are taking down stuff, I would guess it's because tumblr. One thing is that they have already taken action to refuse hosting explicit video content meaning they want to distance themselves from being full on adult stuff hosting site. Tumblr always shows pretty high up in google searches, especially in reverse image search which nowdays can also detect the subject in the image to some degree and tumblr also has tools for takedowns. What this would then mean is nintendo trying to clean out their search engine results from stuff they do not want to show up in there. I'm guessing this is one of the reasons why many furry art sites try to keep submission pages out from search engines as well.

Kinda offtopic rant but...because when speaking about nintendo then holy fuck they can't get it into their thick skulls that not everyone is 9 years old and that they do not need to act as they are the parents of their customerbase. Would maybe help more to translate the parental tools to all languages that parents know about them and can use them like you competition has instead of taking out something like having way to message your friends, because they might be pedofile and you might be 9 years old.

I'm going to post that here since it is sort of relevant.
If you go to their Legal section on Pokemon.com, you will see that they basically give blanket permission to draw fanart. They only don't want people to have them sold as merchandise.

So basically, drawing Pokemon and using them as designs for buttons and t-shirts on redbubble, nope, but fanart/porn are completely fine by Nintendo. Commissions however, a little gray because they don't want anything commercial. However, I still don't think that commissions are commercial since the commercial aspect of commissions is done by satisfying the commissioner's demand, not to draw Pokemon stuff, like how running ads on your website showing your Pokemon fanart wouldn't make them commercial.

Those takedowns from Tumblr really seem to be caused by trolls as I mentioned, and now seems to be confirmed that it is indeed the case

one could read the law. but then it's a draconian mess.

as for OPs post, while the courts don't consider it a free speech violation, i believe that art involves ideas. when the artist has the ability to remove their ideas from other people who post them, then that's censorship.

indeed, anything is infringement if you look hard enough. avatars, Reddit posts, spreading memes... you name it.

Neitsuke said:
Any kind of fanart can be seen as copyright infringements unless it has a really strong parody value that displays some actual message (Protip : Smudgeproof's work isn't parody artwork despite those disclaimers on each picture) to make it fall under Fair Use.

I'd also like to add that satire and parody are not the same. Parody exclusively refers to when the intention of the satire is humor. It can be poorly-made or fail at being funny, but the overall intention must be for the sake of humor. So satire for humor's sake is okay. Humor for satire's sake is a grey area. Serious satire would not be protected as a parody and unless it can show it qualifies as an attempt to review something, isn't protected under fair use.

All the nintendo "claims" were done from a fake source from someone who was just anti porn. Its fake.

The I just find it funny when I see those "Parody" disclaimers on Smudgeproof's stuff, funnily enough, only when copyrighted characters are used. No judge in this world would rule that those pictures are parody because someone decided to slap a dick on them. Those parody disclaimers basically seem to be there to try to take the blind eye to any sort of copyrights disputes, and that just looks silly to me.

The only picture from that artist I've noticed that would actually have some parody element was that that one with Superman kriptonic stuff, but the 1000+ other pictures are basically ponies with horse dicks added to them in an explicit situation, which isn't parody at all

Nintendo is not sending these takedown requests. They bluntly said they do not police Tumblr.

In addition, they have ample reasons not to pursue pornographic fanart.

What people fail to understand is that the entire reason to pursue an IP infringement is to protect the brand's appearance & sales to the public. As such, companies go out of their way to ignore infringements - especially distasteful ones like porn - because they don't want to bring public attention to it.

If they can't ignore it anymore, or otherwise perceive it as more damaging to ignore than to attack, then they'll act.

But Nintendo has never gone after any fan work that wasn't already tremendously popular and widely discoursed (as Pokémon Uranium and AM2R were.) Individual fanartists on Tumblr are, for lack of a better term, beneath them.