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The Law of Anime Part I: Copyright and the Anime Fan

And once again Kikaioh feels the need to claim his own ethical code is the only objective one. Not everybody considers illegal behavior to be unethical; all sorts of silliness emerges if you get trapped in that box.

samuelp wrote:

DmonHiro wrote: This seems like a good place to ask. I've heard that if the Copyright holders don't enforce it, they might loose it. Is that true? That's trademark, not copyright, which are 2 very different things.

Although you don't lose your copyright if you don't enforce it, you may lose your ability to enforce it against certain parties due to the equitable doctrine of laches. If you allow someone to essentially infringe your copyright and do nothing about it for a prolonged period of time, and if they rely on your lack of enforcement to a certain level (usually by investing in the infringement to some substantial degree), a court might deny your ability to get damages or an injunction against that person.

For example, a current situation where this doctrine could have potentially applied at some point is an indie fighting game which I saw featured on Game Spot recently called My Little Pony: Fighting Is Magic. As far as I know, the game's creators had no agreement with Hasbro or the people involved with creating the TV show. They were operating under the hope that they wouldn't be shut down. Apparently the game had been featured at some MLP and game conventions, and people involved with the TV show were aware of it but didn't stop them until this month. I'm not sure how much these people actually invested in the game (money wise), but if they had been allowed to continue on to completion and actually start distributing the game, they might have had a valid defense against suit by Hasbro, which is probably why Hasbro shut them down.

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