Take a look at these blends:
http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/87926
It seems to me like the person who posted them didn’t actually make them. What do you guys think?
This is a fan made Legend of Zelda game for PC made with blender. It has some bugs and a few glitches due to this being the beta test. Comment any bugs and ill try to fix them! Rated E10+
what is Fanart?
When a person makes a blend that is copyrighted by someone else or a company.
Directly ripping assets from a games is copyright infringement.
Copying a design is IP (Intellectual property) infringement.
However, there are exception clauses. Copyright has fair use policy etc. (and I should really do more research on IP, as I’m a bit rusty on that)
Both copyright and IP are not held accountable by any government agency, and the ‘policing’ of them is up to the IP/copyright holders. In most cases, it is far too expensive. Imagine if Disney tried to sue every 10-year-old who painted a stick bright red and called it a lightsaber. It’s simply not affordable.
So is it illegal? If he ripped assets from the game, yes, it is (likely) an infringement of the EULA of the game, and I do not think this game falls under fair use. Regardless of anything else, if he used the assets and if that is against the EULA, then it is illegal.
However, if the author made the assets, then it may [may] be legally permissable under copyright. Thus, if nintendo hasn’t protected their IP actively in the past few years, and so the concept/design/IP has lapsed (and as a result it may have entered public domain) (different to copyright public domain), then it may be legal.
In short - who knows?
Also, copyright laws depend on country and I have no idea how they operate internationally.
Hint: It isn’t your job to police it
Hint: Hire a laywer don’t trust some random on the internet (me).
Final quote from wikipedia on fanfiction:
Works of fanfiction are more likely to constitute fair use if they are “transformative” with respect to the original work, if they are non-commercial, if they appropriate relatively little of the original work, and/or if they do not tend to detract from the potential market for or value of the original work.[9]
No, I’m not talking about fan art. I’m talking about that someone else made the game and this guy stole the blend.