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Sunday, July 28, 2013

What happened to "Attack on Titan" fan game mod? And how could LL support users to build legal fan made content?

My previous posts: 
1) "Attack on Titan" fan game mod becomes a big hit
2) Copyright holder stops fan game mod 

NWN blogger Hamlet Au has published a post reporting on the discontinuation of the "Attack on Titan" (AoT) fan game mod in Second Life. There is also an interesting discussion going on in the comments. As a professional journalist he highlights the fact that there has been no official confirmation that the game has been pulled back due to a copyright claim. Hamlet mentions my blog post and that I stated that it was pulled for copyright reasons.

I have to admit that the game creators and supporters have NEVER officially confirmed that the game was closed due to a copy right claim. However the Youtube video presenting the fan game mod and the Flickr pictures of the Second Life game gear have been taken offline due to copyright claims (according to statements on both websites) at exactly the same day as the vendor of the SL fan game mod has been removed. So there is no witness testimony but the circumstantial evidence suggests it.





I admire the fact that Moeka Kohime and her team remain silent so far over the details as to what has happened. They must really be great fans of AoT that they prefer not to share the troubles that have lead to the discontinuation of AoT with the public. 

A very interesting suggestion regarding copy right and licensed fan articles comes from blogger Ciaran Laval:

 I was reading an article over at New World Notes: Attack on Titan Fan Game in Second Life Attacked by Attack on Titan Publisher? ]The franchise gets free publicity via usage in Second Life. Amazon have a model that could potentially be expanded to virtual worlds. Kindle Worlds is the Amazon model, it’s where fan fiction can be published. "Amazon Publishing has secured licenses from Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment for Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries; [and many more...]”
Cian is proposing that Linden Lab should acquire the rights for fans to create fan made worlds and games of popular titles:
Maybe Linden Lab could give a percentage of tier cost as royalties, that would be less problematic, but would of course hit Linden Lab’s own income stream. However, the thing with popular titles is that they can generate publicity for Second Life too, this doesn’t always work out great as we’ve seen in the past with CSI and I’m sure there was a Gossip Girl tie in of sorts.
Desura - now by Linden Lab

On first sight it does not seem very probable that the Lab would invest some of their income in order to buy royalties for fan made content. But think of the gaming platform "Desura", that Linden Lab has recently acquiredDesura is a digital distribution service for gamers, putting the best games, mods and downloadable content from independent game developers to the gamer community. Desura would have a much bigger growth potential if game mods can be based on a licensed well known popular titles. Isn't there a potential to kill two birds with one stone?

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