For a second, I thought this was bad news...

It's not the first time Funimation did something like this and they getting pretty uptight like Nintendo(makes you wonder when they start coming next =/). And WHY CAN'T MY PAGER STOP BLASTING "you got news!". Though I do feel sorry for the fans and the developers that had gathered a community and friends through this connection. Now without this bond, how will they coop? There may come up with some alternative but not everyone can develop things of original out of whim without some help and practice, and be happy with it. Then again...how many times the story of DBZ had been retold? To be honest, too many times(FFFFFF-*glares at the pager*).

It's more of a fresh air now that there's a possibility to actually see more variety of byond games now, as I already happy enough to see there's games here other than, ANIMEANIMEANIMEANIME, and it actually improved the degrading morals of developers that worked hard on unique games without being overshadowed by the genra.

It's seems bad now, but I'm more hyped to see what byond can pull through.

Gaud..SHUT UP PAGER!! >=V
Welp all i know is classified ad's, lolfuness will increase by over 9000.
Galactic Soldier wrote:
MojoGod09 wrote:
With BYOND having a membership option, it indirectly (whether it is intended or not) makes money off of every game put on here. Thus FUNimation wanting them taken down, because someone else is profiting from their intellectual property. The only way for ANY of those game to come back would be for BYOND itself to remove their membership option.

Well, that's easily solved. All you'd have to do is remove all of the BYOND Member benefits from all of the fan-games. I'm unaware if that was the reason, and I really doubt it is. Even if there's still a completely unfair reason why they were removed; the copyright owners can disclosure fan-games that pertain to them without reason if they wanted to.

Wrong, for all purposes, because BYOND's hosting DBZ material, then any memberships bought could be presumed (and rightfully) to be utilized by those playing DBZ games. It doesn't matter whether the members are there or not, the fact is all they have to do is provide to the judge evidence (which BYOND provides, in spades) that those who buy memberships play DBZ games, and then the shit would still hit the fan.

He's right, BYOND would need to remove "Memberships".

A Simple "Donation" function would work just as well. Take out memberships, etc.

As long as there's proof that they get ANYTHING out of BYOND, they can and WILL link it to a Game that's being hosted by BYOND, and use that as a basis. Even if it's only 10% of BYOND's population, they'll sue for maybe 30% worth...
That wouldn't be enough. DMCA permits that copyright holders can issue takedowns for any distribution of unauthorised works except in very limited parody / learning cases, which BYOND games do not meet strongly enough.

BYOND can either continue to receive DMCA takedown notices and remove the games copyright holders request are removed, and hope the copyright holder misses some, or they can pre-emptively remove everything that's a fan-game of a copyright work.

Once a DMCA notice is issued, BYOND is quite clearly in the wrong, unless they can argue parody (which they can't here). The infringement is not up for debate, and who's making money off it is completely irrelevant, the law is clear.

Infringement is infringement, and the copyright holder can issue legally obligating takedown notice for it if they want. There is no wiggling out of that responsibility.
Personally I don't see the problem here;
FUNimation have every right to make people stop basing creations on their intellectual property.

I don't particularly approve of the DMCA or of Int. Property law in general, but it happens to be law, so I happen to find it generally acceptable for them to enforce it.

Equally, I don't really like that I can't dig up the road outside and lay my own fibreoptic cable, but that's the law, so I expect that other people shouldn't really tear the road up, either.
It'd be a bit crap; there'd be no roads.

The issue isn't BYOND memberships, incidentally; it's branding. If you make a Dragonball/One Piece/Soul Eater/whateverotherIPyourippedoff game, FUNimation's blanket policy is - presumably - to stamp their foot down, legally.

Moving on, BYOND;
They have to do as they're told. It's not up to them what policy FUNimation runs under, and they can't 'just ignore it;' it's legally binding.

Thirdly, developers;
I don't really claim to understand the drive to make a game based on something that already exists; it's not 'your baby' then, it's basically a glorified advert. Or shoddy Chinese fake-merchandise.

Make original games. FUNimation's intellectual property is well and truly worn out, fangames wise; we have hundreds of the bastards. We don't even list them, by interior policy, and yet people keep making them. The slush pile for them is huge. Hueger than Xbawkz was hueg.

Finally, players;
Try something that's not Dragonball Grindtastic Reborn Revised Revisited Reincarnated Revenge of the Saiyan Apocalypse Dark Future Android Edition.
You might like it.

As a parting comment; your games still exist and you can still host and join them. They just won't appear anywhere on the website, at all. No HUB entry, either. You could hand out the server IP, start a forum. That sort of thing.

If the only thing keeping you on BYOND was Dragonball Ultimate Clusterfuck Legend of The Pirate Shinobi Vegeta's Pride, I'm somewhat confused.
Well, looks like i'm going to end up either converting my one game to non-anime(Which is going to be a pain) or just end up canceling it all together.
As much as i like anime games and byond. I would like for them to avoid legal trouble, so whats to stop the owners from simply recreating their hub and host their game again. I seen at least 3 or 4 dbz games do thsis.
Akriloth wrote:
whats to stop the owners from simply recreating their hub and host their game again. I seen at least 3 or 4 dbz games do thsis.

Nothing. BYOND will remove it. Also, you can't recreate a given HUB entry that was deleted.

If this becomes enough of a problem, and people keep remaking licensed HUB entries after DMCA notices, for legal reasons Tom will have to just ban them from the HUB;
If he claims to be co-operating, but FUNi's licensed works don't seem to be disappearing, and they notice this, BYOND ends up in a lot of trouble.

Simple solution;
You get banned. Anyone who even resembles you gets banned. Anime works get banned.

I suspect people don't want that to happen, so they shouldn't remake HUB entries.
I'm just a little surprised that all dbz games are being removed from listing, when only 24 games where asked to be removed but hey, whatever floats their boats. :/
Intellectual property laws in the US are hilarious, how can a company claim some fangames is infringing their intellectual property when they buy the lease from the people who actually make it. As I understand it, FUNimation only has the rights for several "animes", meaning not the original mangas, and only if the anime is in English.

Technically, if the fangame isn't in English, or isn't based on the Anime but rather the manga, FUNimation can't claim damages (another company might, but not them :p).
Hmm this has me worried, but didn't this happen with MUDS and eventually you was able to make them as long as you didn't make money off them?

Now whats to stop other companies to start telling them to removing games because they are using rips from other games ie icons?
BYOND Doomsday is now here. :D
Acebloke wrote:
Intellectual property laws in the US are hilarious, how can a company claim some fangames is infringing their intellectual property when they buy the lease from the people who actually make it. As I understand it, FUNimation only has the rights for several "animes", meaning not the original mangas, and only if the anime is in English.

Because they handle distribution, sales, etc. in the US. It is likely explicitly in their contract that they're allowed to do stuff like this.
This post has made me see the need for a link that will bring you straight to the beginning of the comments. I've suffered through hitting Older Comments multiple times, but with this one I'd be here all day.
You can hit "Oldest First".
"Because they handle distribution, sales, etc. in the US. It is likely explicitly in their contract that they're allowed to do stuff like this."

Even if its based on content they don't actually own the rights to? Because if it does, then that means they could claim nearly anything*.

* Not strictly true, just scaremongering :p
They can claim infringment because they're contractually permitted to do so, presumably on behalf of TOEI.

They do own the rights to distribute Dragonball et alia, hence why they can bitchslap you for fangames.
Well To Me FUNimation Are Just Greedy, They Have Loads Of Many And What Would Taking down BYOND games solve? Nothing Just Make Take Away Peoples Enjoyment, And Ruin Years Of Hard Work.
well byond has had dbz games for like ten years sad to see them go and surprised really after ten years yo think it would have lasted longer though we did have someone (perfectgoku) email funimation in a childish rage lol I just hope to see byond recover from this i wonder if people will try to get refunds on their memberships
DBZ sucks anyways :)
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