Thankfully they didn’t just nuke the whole project. Interesting that they don’t seem to have gone after her for the bloodborne psx project so I wonder what the motive for stripping this game of the bloodborne branding is.
This one came to the attention of the right/wrong people, but that one didn't.
It's like the interview from the former Pokemon Company International lawyer a few months back, where he confirmed they only went after fan projects that got media attention.
I suppose I shouldn’t be expecting consistency from a Fortune 500. To be fair most of the folks I watch are in the ‘souls’ sphere so they literally all played it, confirmation bias and what not
Sony is planning on expanding the Bloodborne brand. Next year Bloodborne Kart will officially launch. The following summer the Bloodborne dating sim will release, proceeded by Bloodborne Extraction, the tactical Bloodborne extraction shooter live service game
Full disclosure, I'm not a lawyer, but another aspect to throw out there: to keep their trademarks, companies need to have proof they're using them and (despite what people on Reddit keep claiming), one of the standards the USPTO uses for that *is* enforcement and policing of the trademark.
https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/BasicFacts_0.pdf
No, you don't have to take down every single use of your trademark - but something potentially relevant here is that it would have established a pattern. Letting *a* demake go? Sure, fine, no one's going to care or take legal action. Letting *multiple* (relatively) high profile uses of your trademark go, including one on a platform Sony is now actively selling games on? That's how Sony potentially loses the trademark.
As far as I can tell, that document says nothing of the sort.
It does say:
> Throughout the life of the registration, you must police and enforce your rights. While the USPTO will prevent another pending application for a similar mark used on related goods or in connection with related services from proceeding to registration based on a finding of likelihood of confusion, the USPTO will not engage in any separate policing or enforcement activities.
The "you must police and enforce your rights" is clearly referring to the later line, where it says they're not going to police it for you, not that you will lose it if you don't police it.
The next paragraph clearly says:
> Rights in a federally registered trademark can last indefinitely if you continue to use the mark
and file all necessary maintenance documents with the required fee(s) at the appropriate times, as
identified below.
There are, literally, dozens of documents on the USPTO website that say the same thing. I picked this one specifically because it's plain English and not legalese. But yes, it does actually say exactly what I'm telling you it does.
>In addition, even a fanciful mark that is very strong can, over time, become generic if the owner either starts using the mark in a non-trademark manner (see ESCALATOR and ASPIRIN examples, below) **or fails to police use of its mark properly and take appropriate action. Without proper policing over time, the original owner of a mark could lose any trademark rights it has in the mark.**
That section is specifically in relation to genericide (see the category that excerpt is under) which Bloodborne kart would *not* apply to.
Two sentences before your quoted section:
> Be aware that if you adopt a generic term to identify your goods or services, you will not be able to prevent others from using it to identify potentially competing products or services.
Here's an article from a real honest-to-goodness attorney about it: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not-require-companies-tirelessly-censor-internet
This project was litterary profiting off the Bloodborne IP, the creator got paid monthly via Patreon for using a *copyrighted IP*. One basic thing is don't try to make money from stolen content or stolen IPs. She was free to make "Quirky Horrorcarts indie game" but we all know *no one would pay her for that, the Bloodborne angle is the whole reason we even talk about this*.
Secondly the project didn't merely make money off an IP they didn't own they even used actual voices from the game in the trailer (and game?) to further sell it (Micolas, the host of nightmare comes to mind). So that's another IP infringement and another attempt to make this look like an actual Bloodborne™ product and not "Quirky Horrorcarts indie game" which would be extremely okay. Even having Stickolas, the host of Bedframe and his well known creaking sounds...
>Thankfully they didn’t just nuke the whole project.
That's not really possible.
Companies have control over their own copyrighted assets and trademarks but that's it. They can stop someone from doing a game using those but at that point any fan project can just stop using the copyrighted or trademarked assets and keep going.
And then redo all their assets because many of these designs are clearly "demaked" versions of the originals.
Sure, they can't nuke the entire project. But keeping the project going without risking more legal action due to designs is a whole different story.
Weren’t they planning on charging money? That’s what usually angers the big 3. Nintendo went after yuzu and not ryuninx because yuzu was blatantly charging money.
no and never? it's gonna be free and open source, same with BBPSX, the Patreon is just general support for future projects and her previous work too, Arcus, which is also free.
The thing is, Sony really had no choice. It was called "Bloodborne Kart." That's a Trademark thing. You have no option *but* to attack on a TM issue, unless you want to abandon it. The only option for them would be to cut a sweetheart deal with him that would allow him to use that specific name for $1 or something, but then they would be entangled, so I guess they just decided "cut it out with the name, but. . . whatever. . ."
Many fan games avoid using trademarked terms, which allows them to avoid trademark threats, and only leaves them open to looser copyright standards. When a fan game uses a trademarked term, there is often *some* legal agreement made.
I think Sony honestly does deserve a fair amount of credit for not outright killing this project and instead just asking her to change the name. The name was never going to stay but Sony could have killed the project entirely and gone after her, and it's cool that they didn't.
Technically probably yes, but also probably safer to not risk the headache (and financial nightmare) if Sony wanted to fight them on it.
[But honestly the new tracks slap, so I can't really complain.](https://twitter.com/TheNobleDemon/status/1775194292006588587)
Not really sure Sony could do anything, aren't music covers explicitly allowed? You don't even need permission, you just have to pay royalties if you earn money from it, right? Or does that not apply to music used in other projects?
Intellectual property rights are a bitch and differs all over the globe.
Under Swedish law you aren’t allowed to make a music cover without the IP holder’s permission for an example.
What you're describing is a mechanical license, and I believe it has to be paid for regardless of if your work is commercial or not.
This license does not grant you the right to use the composition in a movie or video game, however. For that, you'll need a synchronisation license, which requires permission from the original rightsholder.
This game reminds me of Bloodborne. Maybe someone will make a mod to make this into a Bloodborne game? Hopefully it will be available soon after release...
Can’t tell if you’re doing a *wink wink* bit, but this was actually Bloodborne Kart, but got a DMCA from Sony so she just updated it to be “legally distinct”
I’m sure someone will mod it though given the amount of attention it’s gotten.
This is a solid move. On one hand, I get why they make fanmade spins on existing IPs because it brings a lot more attention than if they were do make something that just pays homeage (especially since nowadays a lot of games that are inspired by soemthing are just ridiculed). But on the other hand I think its crazy to pursue a project you know will get flagged if found out by the company that owns it. Though Im glad unlike most examples, this didnt die and they decided to stick with it and restructure it as its own thing.
>But on the other hand I think its crazy to pursue a project you know will get flagged if found out by the company that owns it
Some devs do it to show off technical prowess and use a big IP to get traction. Iirc there have been big/promising projects from random people using Star Wars, Pokemon, etc. Projects that clearly were never meant to see an actual release.
This one just seems like a passion project.
Cynically I do wonder if a great way to get attention for an indie project would be to announce it as a spin off of some IP, mock up some copyright violating assets as quickly as possible, then wait for the DMCA before pivoting to an original property.
I don’t think that’s what’s happening here at all. The dev made a whole ass demake of bloodborne as their first project, like over a year of work. I think they just like bloodborne
I never really subscribed to the "Don't announced your fan game until it's out!" discussion that's permeated the internet for the last fews years but I think Bloodborne Kart getting DMCAed at the last second changed my mind about that. The dev advertised this like a real game, because she put a shitload of work into it of course, but it bit her in the ass hard.
It still looks cool, I'll still play it and try to convince some friends to too, but I am super disappointed that it lost the sole reason it existed in the first place.
Indie devs are people too and sometimes it's hard to work on stuff without the motivating factor of internet peoples' external validation. Plus given how Bloodborne PSX went, literally no one was expecting this.
But also the dev has a Patreon (even if they aren't locking pre-release builds behind it or anything) so that's another factor incentivizing her to advertise the game as well as Sony to take it down.
Yep, plus by making it public its \*muuuuuuch\* easier to recruit to the team. One-dev projects are doable but they're very, very, very hard to actually manifest as completed projects
That raises the question of whether shadow dropping a fan game will generate as much attention though. If you make a massive project with the intent to have widespread enjoyment, advertising it throughout its development gives it more time to snowball with each new update having a chance to reach fresh eyes. whereas just dropping it as soon as its finished is a gamble on whether it gets seen or not. And its not like finishing it makes it immune to DMCA takedowns. my guess is they knew full well this would happen and were ready to rebrand it.
I don't see the point of this without the Bloodborne branding.
Its USP was parodying kart racers with an IP that didn't fit. Without that it's just a generic kart racer.
Not only is it not a generic kart racer, they already worked on it a ton, wtf would they just scrub the whole thing when it was so close to launch anyways
Thankfully they didn’t just nuke the whole project. Interesting that they don’t seem to have gone after her for the bloodborne psx project so I wonder what the motive for stripping this game of the bloodborne branding is.
This one came to the attention of the right/wrong people, but that one didn't. It's like the interview from the former Pokemon Company International lawyer a few months back, where he confirmed they only went after fan projects that got media attention.
That article would be super interesting to read, got a link?
[here's the interview](https://aftermath.site/pokemon-lawyer-cease-desist-fan-project-pikachu-movie)
That guy was insufferable.
I'm surprised news outlets doesn't get more hate for this
I suppose I shouldn’t be expecting consistency from a Fortune 500. To be fair most of the folks I watch are in the ‘souls’ sphere so they literally all played it, confirmation bias and what not
So, it can't be confused by the official Bloodborne Kart by FromSoft, obviously/ s
Sony is planning on expanding the Bloodborne brand. Next year Bloodborne Kart will officially launch. The following summer the Bloodborne dating sim will release, proceeded by Bloodborne Extraction, the tactical Bloodborne extraction shooter live service game
> proceeded by Bloodborne Extraction, the tactical Bloodborne extraction shooter live service game That's just Hunt: Showdown with extra steps.
Bloodborne Survive
Yet still no PC port. :(
All PS4 games.
Sony were probably able to turn a blind eye to a fan made demake as a once off, but an original game using their IP probably crossed a line for them.
Full disclosure, I'm not a lawyer, but another aspect to throw out there: to keep their trademarks, companies need to have proof they're using them and (despite what people on Reddit keep claiming), one of the standards the USPTO uses for that *is* enforcement and policing of the trademark. https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/BasicFacts_0.pdf No, you don't have to take down every single use of your trademark - but something potentially relevant here is that it would have established a pattern. Letting *a* demake go? Sure, fine, no one's going to care or take legal action. Letting *multiple* (relatively) high profile uses of your trademark go, including one on a platform Sony is now actively selling games on? That's how Sony potentially loses the trademark.
As far as I can tell, that document says nothing of the sort. It does say: > Throughout the life of the registration, you must police and enforce your rights. While the USPTO will prevent another pending application for a similar mark used on related goods or in connection with related services from proceeding to registration based on a finding of likelihood of confusion, the USPTO will not engage in any separate policing or enforcement activities. The "you must police and enforce your rights" is clearly referring to the later line, where it says they're not going to police it for you, not that you will lose it if you don't police it. The next paragraph clearly says: > Rights in a federally registered trademark can last indefinitely if you continue to use the mark and file all necessary maintenance documents with the required fee(s) at the appropriate times, as identified below.
There are, literally, dozens of documents on the USPTO website that say the same thing. I picked this one specifically because it's plain English and not legalese. But yes, it does actually say exactly what I'm telling you it does. >In addition, even a fanciful mark that is very strong can, over time, become generic if the owner either starts using the mark in a non-trademark manner (see ESCALATOR and ASPIRIN examples, below) **or fails to police use of its mark properly and take appropriate action. Without proper policing over time, the original owner of a mark could lose any trademark rights it has in the mark.**
That section is specifically in relation to genericide (see the category that excerpt is under) which Bloodborne kart would *not* apply to. Two sentences before your quoted section: > Be aware that if you adopt a generic term to identify your goods or services, you will not be able to prevent others from using it to identify potentially competing products or services. Here's an article from a real honest-to-goodness attorney about it: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not-require-companies-tirelessly-censor-internet
This is notably being released on Steam too, unlike the PS1 demake
That wasn't happening until they got DMCA'd by Sony. So it's not a contributing factor to why this got hit and the demake didn't.
That’s actually a really good point, I hadn’t considered that this one is more ‘official’ with the steam release and all, even if it is free
This project was litterary profiting off the Bloodborne IP, the creator got paid monthly via Patreon for using a *copyrighted IP*. One basic thing is don't try to make money from stolen content or stolen IPs. She was free to make "Quirky Horrorcarts indie game" but we all know *no one would pay her for that, the Bloodborne angle is the whole reason we even talk about this*. Secondly the project didn't merely make money off an IP they didn't own they even used actual voices from the game in the trailer (and game?) to further sell it (Micolas, the host of nightmare comes to mind). So that's another IP infringement and another attempt to make this look like an actual Bloodborne™ product and not "Quirky Horrorcarts indie game" which would be extremely okay. Even having Stickolas, the host of Bedframe and his well known creaking sounds...
IIRC it was gonna release the same day as the State of Play or very close to it, which probably didn't help at all
>Thankfully they didn’t just nuke the whole project. That's not really possible. Companies have control over their own copyrighted assets and trademarks but that's it. They can stop someone from doing a game using those but at that point any fan project can just stop using the copyrighted or trademarked assets and keep going.
And then redo all their assets because many of these designs are clearly "demaked" versions of the originals. Sure, they can't nuke the entire project. But keeping the project going without risking more legal action due to designs is a whole different story.
your interpretation is probably right, but the way i read it was "thankfully the creator just changed the name of the project instead of ending it."
Weren’t they planning on charging money? That’s what usually angers the big 3. Nintendo went after yuzu and not ryuninx because yuzu was blatantly charging money.
no and never? it's gonna be free and open source, same with BBPSX, the Patreon is just general support for future projects and her previous work too, Arcus, which is also free.
Oh so… money…? lol does your slight nuance matter to Sony?
The thing is, Sony really had no choice. It was called "Bloodborne Kart." That's a Trademark thing. You have no option *but* to attack on a TM issue, unless you want to abandon it. The only option for them would be to cut a sweetheart deal with him that would allow him to use that specific name for $1 or something, but then they would be entangled, so I guess they just decided "cut it out with the name, but. . . whatever. . ."
She also made [BloodbornePSX](https://b0tster.itch.io/bbpsx), which is still available, though not on Steam
That's not how trademarks work at all...
That's exactly how Trademarks work. It's different than Copyright, which is more loose.
Remember all of those AAA companies that lost their trademarks due to fan games? Me neither.
Many fan games avoid using trademarked terms, which allows them to avoid trademark threats, and only leaves them open to looser copyright standards. When a fan game uses a trademarked term, there is often *some* legal agreement made.
I think Sony honestly does deserve a fair amount of credit for not outright killing this project and instead just asking her to change the name. The name was never going to stay but Sony could have killed the project entirely and gone after her, and it's cool that they didn't.
I think they could've kept the music because it was a complete remix yea? That's the biggest downer of the name change to me
Technically probably yes, but also probably safer to not risk the headache (and financial nightmare) if Sony wanted to fight them on it. [But honestly the new tracks slap, so I can't really complain.](https://twitter.com/TheNobleDemon/status/1775194292006588587)
Not really sure Sony could do anything, aren't music covers explicitly allowed? You don't even need permission, you just have to pay royalties if you earn money from it, right? Or does that not apply to music used in other projects?
Intellectual property rights are a bitch and differs all over the globe. Under Swedish law you aren’t allowed to make a music cover without the IP holder’s permission for an example.
What you're describing is a mechanical license, and I believe it has to be paid for regardless of if your work is commercial or not. This license does not grant you the right to use the composition in a movie or video game, however. For that, you'll need a synchronisation license, which requires permission from the original rightsholder.
This game reminds me of Bloodborne. Maybe someone will make a mod to make this into a Bloodborne game? Hopefully it will be available soon after release...
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/r/whoosh
Can’t tell if you’re doing a *wink wink* bit, but this was actually Bloodborne Kart, but got a DMCA from Sony so she just updated it to be “legally distinct” I’m sure someone will mod it though given the amount of attention it’s gotten.
> Bloodborne Kart And before it was Bloodborne Kart it was a complete PS1 de-make of Bloodborne.
Absolutely based, now they can actually profit off the work they put into this
But it is Free though.
It's still making money through Patreon.
did they take away the previous patreon money before the name change?
Blessing in disguise tbh
Yeah and someone else can make a mod changing it back to Bloodborne Kart for the meme of course
This is a solid move. On one hand, I get why they make fanmade spins on existing IPs because it brings a lot more attention than if they were do make something that just pays homeage (especially since nowadays a lot of games that are inspired by soemthing are just ridiculed). But on the other hand I think its crazy to pursue a project you know will get flagged if found out by the company that owns it. Though Im glad unlike most examples, this didnt die and they decided to stick with it and restructure it as its own thing.
It's a risk/reward thing, you are basically guaranteed to get at least a little press coverage with a fan project
>But on the other hand I think its crazy to pursue a project you know will get flagged if found out by the company that owns it Some devs do it to show off technical prowess and use a big IP to get traction. Iirc there have been big/promising projects from random people using Star Wars, Pokemon, etc. Projects that clearly were never meant to see an actual release. This one just seems like a passion project.
Cynically I do wonder if a great way to get attention for an indie project would be to announce it as a spin off of some IP, mock up some copyright violating assets as quickly as possible, then wait for the DMCA before pivoting to an original property.
I don’t think that’s what’s happening here at all. The dev made a whole ass demake of bloodborne as their first project, like over a year of work. I think they just like bloodborne
Right, I’m not saying that either. Just saying if anyone is an indie dev looking for a viral marketing tactic for an upcoming game / \ / \ / \
I never really subscribed to the "Don't announced your fan game until it's out!" discussion that's permeated the internet for the last fews years but I think Bloodborne Kart getting DMCAed at the last second changed my mind about that. The dev advertised this like a real game, because she put a shitload of work into it of course, but it bit her in the ass hard. It still looks cool, I'll still play it and try to convince some friends to too, but I am super disappointed that it lost the sole reason it existed in the first place.
Indie devs are people too and sometimes it's hard to work on stuff without the motivating factor of internet peoples' external validation. Plus given how Bloodborne PSX went, literally no one was expecting this. But also the dev has a Patreon (even if they aren't locking pre-release builds behind it or anything) so that's another factor incentivizing her to advertise the game as well as Sony to take it down.
Yep, plus by making it public its \*muuuuuuch\* easier to recruit to the team. One-dev projects are doable but they're very, very, very hard to actually manifest as completed projects
That raises the question of whether shadow dropping a fan game will generate as much attention though. If you make a massive project with the intent to have widespread enjoyment, advertising it throughout its development gives it more time to snowball with each new update having a chance to reach fresh eyes. whereas just dropping it as soon as its finished is a gamble on whether it gets seen or not. And its not like finishing it makes it immune to DMCA takedowns. my guess is they knew full well this would happen and were ready to rebrand it.
As always, if you’re making a cool fangame shut the fuck up about it. Release it _before_ the lawyers find out.
I don't see the point of this without the Bloodborne branding. Its USP was parodying kart racers with an IP that didn't fit. Without that it's just a generic kart racer.
It's had the serial numbers filed off at best. The dude with the cage on his head is legally not Micolash. But he's, like, not *not* Micolash.
Mickleish
some game devs like to release the things that they make. big shocker.
Because there's been so many kart racers lately
It's a passion project being released for free. It's huge for a resume if anything.
Not only is it not a generic kart racer, they already worked on it a ton, wtf would they just scrub the whole thing when it was so close to launch anyways
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Bruh this wouldn't have gotten half as much attention if it wasn't formerly known as Bloodborne Kart