URGENT NOTICE: PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE THIS!!
Nintendo fans, it might be worth your while to take a look at this. I know this might have nothing to do with this news story, and it might not even be real, but if it is, it could be serious and have a real impact on the Pokémon community on the internet, and potentially the entire online Nintendo fanbase.
Pokébeach ordered to take down Pokémon Black and White images by Nintendo Lawyers
If the above article doesn’t appear for you then I’ll explain the story. The websites Pokébeach and Serebii.net were supposedly contacted by lawyers representing Nintendo of America and asked to remove content concerning the new Pokémon Black and White games. At the moment, no one knows why they're doing this, but Nintendo claim that images and videos of the games were "infringing on their intellectual property rights".
Everyone is saying that this makes no sense, because the Japanese games have already been officially released. These images are also only used for the express purpose of reporting news, and both sites have disclaimers openly stating the Nintendo owns the Pokémon franchise and the fansites are not making any money from posting them. So, why attack them claiming copyright infringement? What's more, the letter implies that the fansites should also refrain from posting images and videos for any further games or content related to Pokémon in the future, effectively cutting off their news reporting capabilities and restricting the content that they post. So far, only these two fansites have been hit, but the letter claims that they will go after other fansites as well. Whether this also includes Nintendo fansites in general is unknown at the moment.
These fansites work tirelessly to bring us up-to-date news; it would be a great blow if they were banned from posting any new images or videos ever again. Really, these sites provide free advertising for Nintendo and actually encourage people to buy the games. To me, it makes zero sense why they would want to punish them for that.
Seeing as Pokébeach and Serebii are two of the most popular Pokémon sites on the internet, if they fall, it's likely that the entire online Pokémon community might collapse along with them.
This also doesn't bode well for other Nintendo franchises. How long before they go after Mario or Zelda fansites? This may only be about Pokémon at the moment but, whether you like the Pokémon games or not, this could potentially affect us all.
Perhaps if we all band together we can do something to save the online Pokémon Community from being wiped out. So, here's what you have to do: spread the word. Post this message in every (Nintendo friendly) games site you can think of and let everybody know about this. I would urge people to follow this story and, if this does turn out to be real, contact as many Nintendo representatives as you can in regards to this story and what they hope to achieve by basically stomping on one of their largest fanbases. Let them know our feelings on this matter. Let them know that we don’t like it. Make them listen. Like I said before, we are the people who buy their games, we pay them money to keep making games. If they are going to start treating the fans that do so much for them like this, then they really don't deserve to be known as the world's greatest gaming company. This may not even get us anywhere, but you never know. Other fanbases have taken on big companies before and won, e.g. Harry Potter fansites.
This isn't spam, and I'm not trying to "troll" anyone by posting this. If you don't agree with what I'm saying then fair enough. That's your opinion; I won't hold it against you. I'm not that sort of person. I'm just a concerned Nintendo fan that doesn't want my two favourite Pokémon sites to be taken down by the big guns. I may even be blowing this all out of proportion, but there is a lot of confusion among most of the Pokémon fanbase at the moment and no one really knows what the outcome of this action by Nintendo will be, so I'm just going to roll with it for now. I’m just a messenger reporting this news story to the Nintendo fans. I have no intention of getting tangled up in any legal matters either, which is why I’m choosing to remain anonymous. It’s up to you to decide whether that makes me a “troll” or not.
The main thing here is that this hasn't yet been confirmed as 100% real. But in the event that it is, I believe something should be done by the fans to protect our community.
Thanks for taking your time to read this.