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This year has seen Bethesda Software's legal team settle a pair of high-profile disputes with Minecraft creator Mojang and original Fallout publisher Interplay, but now the company behind The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 3 is turning its litigious attention to one of its fans.
In a post on his blog last week, Norwegian Fallout fan Erling Loken Andersen recapped a back-and-forth dispute he's been having with Bethesda's legal team over a Fallout poster art fan site he set up. Andersen said it started in December when he received a takedown notice from Bethesda's lawyers claiming his collection of freely downloadable Fallout-inspired posters were infringing on the company's intellectual property rights. The publisher also insisted that Andersen hand over the domain for his site, fallout-posters.com.
"What pisses me off isn't the fact that they're looking out for their trademark - as they have every right to do so," Anderson wrote. "What I'm pissed about are large companies abusing their monetary power, hiring global law firms to go after a fan online, immediately threating with a lawsuit." [Emphasis and grammar in original.]
He continued, "I'm tired of intellectual rights holders--be it RIAA, MPAA or in this case Bethesda--going after little guys like myself and threatening them into obedience. Some people doesn't have the intellectual capacity or money to fight their cause, so they just fold after receiving a letter like that. But just because you can't afford to fight, doesn't mean your oponent is right."
In his response to Bethesda, Andersen argued that his posters fell under the doctrine of fair use and were therefore not infringing on intellectual property rights. Although Andersen has pulled the art in question from his site, he has not turned fallout-posters.com over to Bethesda, and let the company know he would not willingly part with it.
I'm the wolf, yeah! I am the wolf! It's close, it's coming. You have come. The witness to the end, of time. It's now! I will rise to her side! I don't need the words! I'm beyond the words!
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Tue Oct 16, 2012 10:43 pm
Pantsman
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Re: Bethesda threatens fansite!
Orange Juice Jones wrote:
Man I thought Bethesda was one of the good guys what with there allowing modding out of the kazoo
What you need to understand is that Bethesda used to be a great company, but what few know is that its founder was kicked out of his own company with the help of Todd Howard and acquired by Zeni-Max, which the founder previously helped create. Zeni-Max is run by a Bobby Kotik like executive who also happens to be a former lawyer with past history in bank fraud among other things. Bethesda that you knew up till around the time of Morrowind is dead. It is Zeni-Max and the lawyers who run it that you have to direct your ire towards, this includes Toddler Howard who shouldnt even be in the position he is in.
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Wed Oct 17, 2012 1:07 am
Parpol
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Re: Bethesda threatens fansite!
What a bunch of assholes. He didn't even sell them, no money involved, yet they still go after him.
Orange Juice Jones wrote:
Man I thought Bethesda was one of the good guys what with there allowing modding out of the kazoo
The modding is a selling point, no one other than them is allowed to make money off the mods, though. But this guy... he didn't even sell these wallpapers... Maybe because the website had the word "posters" in it, giving the idea that you can buy printed posters is what made them do this?
I'm the wolf, yeah! I am the wolf! It's close, it's coming. You have come. The witness to the end, of time. It's now! I will rise to her side! I don't need the words! I'm beyond the words!
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Wed Oct 17, 2012 5:57 pm
Odin Anarki
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Re: Bethesda threatens fansite!
more reasaon to get forknet up and running, we can fight!
I'm trying i'm trying~ i'm making I'll try too slowly up my posting. At least once a day for a bit. Then I'll up that too twice, then four, then 8 and so on. Until eventually I wake up one morning and find out that I am actually an Idiot hero. On some quest too cheat on his gf or raise affection of 5 women who conveniently live in my the same dorm as me. In which I only have 100 days to seduce them all.
Remon wrote:
Now we can dominate the porn industry, camera industry, AND the world!
YomToxic wrote:
YOU BETTER STAY ALIVE OR ELSE I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND RAPE YOU DEAD.
I'm trying i'm trying~ i'm making I'll try too slowly up my posting. At least once a day for a bit. Then I'll up that too twice, then four, then 8 and so on. Until eventually I wake up one morning and find out that I am actually an Idiot hero. On some quest too cheat on his gf or raise affection of 5 women who conveniently live in my the same dorm as me. In which I only have 100 days to seduce them all.
Remon wrote:
Now we can dominate the porn industry, camera industry, AND the world!
YomToxic wrote:
YOU BETTER STAY ALIVE OR ELSE I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND RAPE YOU DEAD.
I'm trying i'm trying~ i'm making I'll try too slowly up my posting. At least once a day for a bit. Then I'll up that too twice, then four, then 8 and so on. Until eventually I wake up one morning and find out that I am actually an Idiot hero. On some quest too cheat on his gf or raise affection of 5 women who conveniently live in my the same dorm as me. In which I only have 100 days to seduce them all.
Remon wrote:
Now we can dominate the porn industry, camera industry, AND the world!
YomToxic wrote:
YOU BETTER STAY ALIVE OR ELSE I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND RAPE YOU DEAD.
I'm the wolf, yeah! I am the wolf! It's close, it's coming. You have come. The witness to the end, of time. It's now! I will rise to her side! I don't need the words! I'm beyond the words!
_________________
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Thu Oct 18, 2012 8:15 pm
n0th1n
Level 19
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Re: Bethesda threatens fansite!
Bethesda is still a pretty cool company, but they have grown lately and are now owned by another company ZenMax, which I here isn't a terrible company either, but it's a further detachment. On top of that, Fallout isn't fully their title, so they probably also have some sort of licensing or other legal obligations to seek and destroy anything that looks like infringment.
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