"The benefit of this is that a company has control over third party use of its material and generates a revenue from it. "Fans who wish to make fan games can approach the owner of the original and request a licence," Tutty says. There is something that creators can do if they want to make a fan game however, and avoid receiving a nasty cease and desist in their inbox. So no, without consent, making a fan game is not, generally speaking, legal. "We need to protect our intellectual property rights and this may result in us requesting that our fans remove online imagery, videos or games in some instances," a spokesperson for Sega told .uk at the time. This is the exact argument that Sega gave when booting out It's a not-so-simple case of use it or lose it. "Once the infringement of IP is ignored it becomes increasingly hard to recover lost ground," Tutty says. Streets of Rage Remake live, it'd have a harder time arguing its case if a real, bonafide rip-off of the beat 'em up emerged.
"If a company was to continually ignore infringements of a trade mark, the protection afforded by the mark is eroded and may render it invalid," Tutty explains. Unfortunately, by ignoring these infringements companies would be putting their hard-earned trade marks and copyrights in danger. Aren't these the most loyal, vocal and hardcore customers? Shouldn't publishers be embracing these projects, rather than suppressing them? "Effectively what you have in these instances are huge fans of a game being treated the same as other trade mark or copyright infringers despite having the best intentions," Tutty declares, hitting the nail squarely on the head. Take Streets of Rage Remake, which uses Sega's trade marked phrase, " Streets of Rage", in its name.Įven if you alter the name ("perhaps Roads of Rage", Tutty suggests), if Sega can "show that the fan game has used a similar mark for similar/identical goods and that there is confusion," they'll win. "To the extent that a fan game uses the title of the game it is paying homage to in its title, this may be trade mark infringement," explains Tutty.
He's seen a rise in fan games too ("Whether this is due to the accessibility of tech to create them or just that people are getting nostalgic, I don't know," he remarks).Įssentially, a game like Streets of Rage Remake orĬhrono Resurrection would be seen as simple trade mark or copyright infringement, and considering that these games slavishly emulate or reference the games in question, it would be effortless for a legal team to demonstrate the infringement in court.
uk spoke to Alex Tutty, a digital media IP expert from London-based solicitors Sheridans, who's advised and represented clients in relation to areas like games, apps, website development and virtual goods.
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