I hope Gaia is sued over this.

[asmuwudeus]

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wow that's a bit harsh... Gaia protects their property so you wish them sued over homage items >.>?

My Little Pony, Adventure Time, and Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood have direct rips of their characters and recognizable items from their shows.

Since Gaia is making money by using the popularity of these shows, I believe the copyright holder has to authorize the derivatives. (Especially Adventure Time, because Gaia explicitly advertises Princess Bubble Gum's look can be bought for 299 GC when you go through the Inventory Search.)

Now, in the earlier days of Gaia, they still had homage items. However, they were very careful to make them different from the original. For example: The Ninja Headband had Gaia's logo on it, instead of one Naruto-verse's symbols.

Then there's those "grey-zone" items, where there's absolutely no alteration, but they're not explicitly stating that they're using another's intellectual property. Like Wayward Son. It's obviously Castiel items, but they were careful not to explicitly say "Castiel" or "Supernatural."

... weren't the FMA/MLP/AT items sponsored items?

I don't know if they were or not. But I'm citing them as examples of what would be considered major rip offs that would need the copyright holder's permission.

The MLP, AT, and FMAB items would be definite infringements without permission.

Then there's grey-zone items, like Wayward Son, would probably be up to the copyright holder to pursue. Same with most of the Sailor Moon items.

The homage items with definite changes, like the old Ninja Headband, could - theoretically - be in the clear. But, if the copyright holder pursues infringement issues, it might depend on the judge's call.

Oh, no. Homage, parody, whathaveyou is legal, though. To the extent of which would depend on a judge's ruling, but I really don't think that a judge would rule in favor of someone suing Gaia over these. Gaia has been pushing the line a bit and I think it's lazy and boring sometimes but they do have lawyers that are supposed to protect them from copyright law suits. Gaia will be fine.

Besides, this is really apples and oranges, sadly, and people keep bringing them up like they go hand in hand. tektek problem =/= gaia's parody items.

[Quiet Delight]

I personally think we're all not getting the true story because it's Gaia and they never divulge in the whole spiel. I mean why take over Tektek now? What happened to make Gaia finally pull a C&D? What did Tekton do to really make them go this far?

I'm surprised no one's asking these questions and just accepting that what's given is the real info. Does no one remember the 133T scandal? I mean we were all going to accept the huge spike as some random thing but a user was brave enough to use their resources and discovered that in fact the 133T scandal was due to staff.

I mean I think there is more to this story because some things do not add up.

I also find it amusing people want Gaia to shut down. Well good like finding a decent active avatar site out there because if Gaia goes I am sure recolor will end up in trouble too and then you'll be left with sites that are way more strict then you've experienced and will get most of you banned faster than a snowball melting in hell.

I still am hoping that more light will be shed on this before I go insanely rage-filled.

[Eruden Ki]

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wow that's a bit harsh... Gaia protects their property so you wish them sued over homage items >.>?

My Little Pony, Adventure Time, and Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood have direct rips of their characters and recognizable items from their shows.

Since Gaia is making money by using the popularity of these shows, I believe the copyright holder has to authorize the derivatives. (Especially Adventure Time, because Gaia explicitly advertises Princess Bubble Gum's look can be bought for 299 GC when you go through the Inventory Search.)

Now, in the earlier days of Gaia, they still had homage items. However, they were very careful to make them different from the original. For example: The Ninja Headband had Gaia's logo on it, instead of one Naruto-verse's symbols.

Then there's those "grey-zone" items, where there's absolutely no alteration, but they're not explicitly stating that they're using another's intellectual property. Like Wayward Son. It's obviously Castiel items, but they were careful not to explicitly say "Castiel" or "Supernatural."

those were made in cooperation with their respectful license holders... Gaia has the sole total permission to use the FMA,adventure time and mlp items, as well as the black butler items and the magica madoka items.

and even then the umbreon item doesn't give you a direct umbreon companion and gaia has tread lightly even with the really heavily obvious items so as not to completely infringe copyright.

What really irks me is that people are using this argument despite the fact that tektek used images DIRECTLY OFF GAIA ONLINE, I get it, it sucks that they took tektek but as a business it was risking losing its properties if it didn't at least stop tektek from advertising tektons other site.

Never said Gaia should be sued for those items. Just said those items would require the copyright holder's permission, since they are direct rips of the characters or recognizable items. (Sometimes people need a visual to see the difference between complete rips, grey-zone items, and homage items.)

The "grey-zone" items are the ones to be concerned about. Such as Wayward Hero, all the Sailor Moon stuff, and all of the Pokemon stuff. If a copyright holder feels they are too similar to their intellectual property, there could be repercussions.

I'd consider the Ninja Headband to be a pretty good example of a harmless homage. They changed the symbol on it to the Gaia logo, so it's differentiated from Naruto-verse headbands.

Tektek was not using Gaia's items for profit. Tektek has, repeatedly, been cited as a resource to Gaia. Gaia offers a community. Tektek offers resources for the community. Also, Gaia knew about Tektek for a very long time and even made a subforum - the Dressing Room - to encourage users to use avatar simulators. (Of which, TekTek is the only one still operable.) I don't think users would have cared if Gaia showed explicit aversion to Tektek from the get go, however, Gaia showed Tekton and its users encouragement of the site.

Suddenly, after a slew of bad decisions on Gaia's part, Gaia sees Tektek as a threat? After 11 years? Hm.

I wonder if Gaia will issue a C&D of the Gaiapedia, as well.

[Jayce Reinhardt]

Quiet Delight

I personally think we're all not getting the true story because it's Gaia and they never divulge in the whole spiel. I mean why take over Tektek now? What happened to make Gaia finally pull a C&D? What did Tekton do to really make them go this far?

I'm surprised no one's asking these questions and just accepting that what's given is the real info. Does no one remember the 133T scandal? I mean we were all going to accept the huge spike as some random thing but a user was brave enough to use their resources and discovered that in fact the 133T scandal was due to staff.

I mean I think there is more to this story because some things do not add up.

I also find it amusing people want Gaia to shut down. Well good like finding a decent active avatar site out there because if Gaia goes I am sure recolor will end up in trouble too and then you'll be left with sites that are way more strict then you've experienced and will get most of you banned faster than a snowball melting in hell.

I still am hoping that more light will be shed on this before I go insanely rage-filled.

Gaia is not taking over Tektek, they wanted to have him stop using Tektek to advertise Recolor me.

They opened the floor for discussion, Tekton could have spoken to them when he got the overnighted letter AND email. . . .back in February.

He chose to sit on it till now, chose NOT to talk to Gaia, then release the letter and close the site.. . . .why?

Couldn't he have talked it over with Gaia, attempted to work things out instead?

[Fartbag McGee]

For those who don't know, recolorme is likely to be in much more legal trouble than gaia. Recolorme has no age verification on their site and allows people to post 18+ content in a site for 13+. This means a person can make a thread asking for n***s or posting explicit content, and the only thing stopping people from seeing it is two buttons "Are you over eighteen and willing to see adult content? Y/N".

[Eruden Ki]

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wow that's a bit harsh... Gaia protects their property so you wish them sued over homage items >.>?

My Little Pony, Adventure Time, and Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood have direct rips of their characters and recognizable items from their shows.

Since Gaia is making money by using the popularity of these shows, I believe the copyright holder has to authorize the derivatives. (Especially Adventure Time, because Gaia explicitly advertises Princess Bubble Gum's look can be bought for 299 GC when you go through the Inventory Search.)

Now, in the earlier days of Gaia, they still had homage items. However, they were very careful to make them different from the original. For example: The Ninja Headband had Gaia's logo on it, instead of one Naruto-verse's symbols.

Then there's those "grey-zone" items, where there's absolutely no alteration, but they're not explicitly stating that they're using another's intellectual property. Like Wayward Son. It's obviously Castiel items, but they were careful not to explicitly say "Castiel" or "Supernatural."

... weren't the FMA/MLP/AT items sponsored items?

I don't know if they were or not. But I'm citing them as examples of what would be considered major rip offs that would need the copyright holder's permission.

The MLP, AT, and FMAB items would be definite infringements without permission.

Then there's grey-zone items, like Wayward Son, would probably be up to the copyright holder to pursue. Same with most of the Sailor Moon items.

The homage items with definite changes, like the old Ninja Headband, could - theoretically - be in the clear. But, if the copyright holder pursues infringement issues, it might depend on the judge's call.

Oh, no. Homage, parody, whathaveyou is legal, though. To the extent of which would depend on a judge's ruling, but I really don't think that a judge would rule in favor of someone suing Gaia over these. Gaia has been pushing the line a bit and I think it's lazy and boring sometimes but they do have lawyers that are supposed to protect them from copyright law suits. Gaia will be fine.

Besides, this is really apples and oranges, sadly, and people keep bringing them up like they go hand in hand. tektek problem =/= gaia's parody items.

I don't know. I think some of the grey-zone items could get Gaia in trouble. All it takes is one solid hit from Nintendo and I think Gaia would topple over. Homage, parody, whateverhaveyou is determined permissible by the copyright holder, too. There's some authors who do not permit fanfiction of their work, for example, and sites will explicitly disallow fanfiction from their books.

I don't think what Tektek was doing was infringement, though. They were a resource for the Gaia community. They didn't offer all the same services as Gaia offered. It's like how there's "cheat" sites for Neopet games; they're resources, not a threat to Neopet's trademark.

Plus, the fact Gaia made a subforum explicitly to encourage use avatar simulators, and allowed Tektek to go on for years, just makes the whole situation mucky.

I think it's a completely horrid decision on Gaia's part. They shouldn't have done it, especially after years of established precedent.

[Quiet Delight]

Jayce Reinhardt

Quiet Delight

I personally think we're all not getting the true story because it's Gaia and they never divulge in the whole spiel. I mean why take over Tektek now? What happened to make Gaia finally pull a C&D? What did Tekton do to really make them go this far?

I'm surprised no one's asking these questions and just accepting that what's given is the real info. Does no one remember the 133T scandal? I mean we were all going to accept the huge spike as some random thing but a user was brave enough to use their resources and discovered that in fact the 133T scandal was due to staff.

I mean I think there is more to this story because some things do not add up.

I also find it amusing people want Gaia to shut down. Well good like finding a decent active avatar site out there because if Gaia goes I am sure recolor will end up in trouble too and then you'll be left with sites that are way more strict then you've experienced and will get most of you banned faster than a snowball melting in hell.

I still am hoping that more light will be shed on this before I go insanely rage-filled.

Gaia is not taking over Tektek, they wanted to have him stop using Tektek to advertise Recolor me.

They opened the floor for discussion, Tekton could have spoken to them when he got the overnighted letter AND email. . . .back in February.

He chose to sit on it till now, chose NOT to talk to Gaia, then release the letter and close the site.. . . .why?

Couldn't he have talked it over with Gaia, attempted to work things out instead?

Yeah and I think that's where people are confusing the issue there. Even I got that because I have seen ads on TekTek for recolor but I never thought much about it I guess. I found recolor from a user though. I joined months ago.

But yeah seriously I'm curious about all that as well and I wish we were given the whole story from both sides but sadly I don't think it's going to happen so I'm not going to drive myself mad over this since I am not sure what really is going down besides Gaia wanting Tekon to remove his ads.

[Jayce Reinhardt]

Quiet Delight

Yeah and I think that's where people are confusing the issue there. Even I got that because I have seen ads on TekTek for recolor but I never thought much about it I guess. I found recolor from a user though. I joined months ago.

But yeah seriously I'm curious about all that as well and I wish we were given the whole story from both sides but sadly I don't think it's going to happen so I'm not going to drive myself mad over this since I am not sure what really is going down besides Gaia wanting Tekon to remove his ads.

Working things out doesn't quite have as much drama over it however. wink

[asmuwudeus]

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wow that's a bit harsh... Gaia protects their property so you wish them sued over homage items >.>?

My Little Pony, Adventure Time, and Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood have direct rips of their characters and recognizable items from their shows.

Since Gaia is making money by using the popularity of these shows, I believe the copyright holder has to authorize the derivatives. (Especially Adventure Time, because Gaia explicitly advertises Princess Bubble Gum's look can be bought for 299 GC when you go through the Inventory Search.)

Now, in the earlier days of Gaia, they still had homage items. However, they were very careful to make them different from the original. For example: The Ninja Headband had Gaia's logo on it, instead of one Naruto-verse's symbols.

Then there's those "grey-zone" items, where there's absolutely no alteration, but they're not explicitly stating that they're using another's intellectual property. Like Wayward Son. It's obviously Castiel items, but they were careful not to explicitly say "Castiel" or "Supernatural."

... weren't the FMA/MLP/AT items sponsored items?

I don't know if they were or not. But I'm citing them as examples of what would be considered major rip offs that would need the copyright holder's permission.

The MLP, AT, and FMAB items would be definite infringements without permission.

Then there's grey-zone items, like Wayward Son, would probably be up to the copyright holder to pursue. Same with most of the Sailor Moon items.

The homage items with definite changes, like the old Ninja Headband, could - theoretically - be in the clear. But, if the copyright holder pursues infringement issues, it might depend on the judge's call.

Oh, no. Homage, parody, whathaveyou is legal, though. To the extent of which would depend on a judge's ruling, but I really don't think that a judge would rule in favor of someone suing Gaia over these. Gaia has been pushing the line a bit and I think it's lazy and boring sometimes but they do have lawyers that are supposed to protect them from copyright law suits. Gaia will be fine.

Besides, this is really apples and oranges, sadly, and people keep bringing them up like they go hand in hand. tektek problem =/= gaia's parody items.

I don't know. I think some of the grey-zone items could get Gaia in trouble. All it takes is one solid hit from Nintendo and I think Gaia would topple over. Homage, parody, whateverhaveyou is determined permissible by the copyright holder, too. There's some authors who do not permit fanfiction of their work, for example, and sites will explicitly disallow fanfiction from their books.

I don't think what Tektek was doing was infringement, though. They were a resource for the Gaia community. They didn't offer all the same services as Gaia offered. It's like how there's "cheat" sites for Neopet games; they're resources, not a threat to Neopet's trademark.

Plus, the fact Gaia made a subforum explicitly to encourage use avatar simulators, and allowed Tektek to go on for years, just makes the whole situation mucky.

I think it's a completely horrid decision on Gaia's part. They shouldn't have done it, especially after years of established precedent.

Not that they're using Gaia IP, but that they're advertising a competitor on Gaia IP. THAT is a threat to Gaia's trademark. As soon as I saw those ads (which is about the same time Gaia's relationship with the userbase got shaky, mind you) I went 'oh s**t that's not good." because I knew it meant tektek was probably going to get shut down. Gaia has always had a good relationship with tektek and then he posts ads to another site that offers the same s**t as Gaia ON his resources for Gaia? That's shady. Especially when lots of people were unhappy with Gaia at the time?


that's what changed between Gaia and Tektek. That's why their established relationship is different. I've never seen a website that is used as a resource for a game directly advertise to ANOTHER game. That's like if a WoW database website put up advertisements for people to play FFXIV. Not through Adsense, but they were claiming to be a WoW-database but were directing people to FFXIV. Gaia legally has to protect itself, it seems from their C&D letter they wanted to talk it out, but they got outed before they could do that... it's hard to talk out something legal when the other party just refuses to talk to you at all. :/

[Eruden Ki]

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... weren't the FMA/MLP/AT items sponsored items?

I don't know if they were or not. But I'm citing them as examples of what would be considered major rip offs that would need the copyright holder's permission.

The MLP, AT, and FMAB items would be definite infringements without permission.

Then there's grey-zone items, like Wayward Son, would probably be up to the copyright holder to pursue. Same with most of the Sailor Moon items.

The homage items with definite changes, like the old Ninja Headband, could - theoretically - be in the clear. But, if the copyright holder pursues infringement issues, it might depend on the judge's call.

Oh, no. Homage, parody, whathaveyou is legal, though. To the extent of which would depend on a judge's ruling, but I really don't think that a judge would rule in favor of someone suing Gaia over these. Gaia has been pushing the line a bit and I think it's lazy and boring sometimes but they do have lawyers that are supposed to protect them from copyright law suits. Gaia will be fine.

Besides, this is really apples and oranges, sadly, and people keep bringing them up like they go hand in hand. tektek problem =/= gaia's parody items.

I don't know. I think some of the grey-zone items could get Gaia in trouble. All it takes is one solid hit from Nintendo and I think Gaia would topple over. Homage, parody, whateverhaveyou is determined permissible by the copyright holder, too. There's some authors who do not permit fanfiction of their work, for example, and sites will explicitly disallow fanfiction from their books.

I don't think what Tektek was doing was infringement, though. They were a resource for the Gaia community. They didn't offer all the same services as Gaia offered. It's like how there's "cheat" sites for Neopet games; they're resources, not a threat to Neopet's trademark.

Plus, the fact Gaia made a subforum explicitly to encourage use avatar simulators, and allowed Tektek to go on for years, just makes the whole situation mucky.

I think it's a completely horrid decision on Gaia's part. They shouldn't have done it, especially after years of established precedent.

Not that they're using Gaia IP, but that they're advertising a competitor on Gaia IP. THAT is a threat to Gaia's trademark. As soon as I saw those ads (which is about the same time Gaia's relationship with the userbase got shaky, mind you) I went 'oh s**t that's not good." because I knew it meant tektek was probably going to get shut down. Gaia has always had a good relationship with tektek and then he posts ads to another site that offers the same s**t as Gaia ON his resources for Gaia? That's shady. Especially when lots of people were unhappy with Gaia at the time?


that's what changed between Gaia and Tektek. That's why their established relationship is different. I've never seen a website that is used as a resource for a game directly advertise to ANOTHER game. That's like if a WoW database website put up advertisements for people to play FFXIV. Not through Adsense, but they were claiming to be a WoW-database but were directing people to FFXIV. Gaia legally has to protect itself, it seems from their C&D letter they wanted to talk it out, but they got outed before they could do that... it's hard to talk out something legal when the other party just refuses to talk to you at all. :/

The C&D letter didn't sound like they wanted to talk about it, at all. It sounded like an ultimatum. It also didn't mention the ads, at all. Just intellectual property and trademark, which leads me to ask: Are they going to take down the Gaiapedia, as well? It uses their intellectual property and could possibly confused as associated/ran by Gaia.

Tektek has always advertised avatar sites or sites similar to Gaia. It wasn't a problem then. Recolor.me is Tekton's own site, which I thought was a bit of poor taste at first, but they did spend a whole lot of time creating useful services that Gaia never wanted to bother incorporating into the site.

I think what changed is Gaia isn't doing as well as it was. There has been a recent slew of bad decisions that have pushed members to find greener pastures. Now, they're going to lash out at anything that even slightly "threatens" them, despite the fact Gaia's recent failings are Gaia's own fault. It smacks of not taking responsibility for their own poor choices.

In the case of Tektek, I think it's a bad decision on Gaia's part: they let Tektek knowingly run for years, they encouraged the use of simulators, and it is a community resource.

[asmuwudeus]

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... weren't the FMA/MLP/AT items sponsored items?

I don't know if they were or not. But I'm citing them as examples of what would be considered major rip offs that would need the copyright holder's permission.

The MLP, AT, and FMAB items would be definite infringements without permission.

Then there's grey-zone items, like Wayward Son, would probably be up to the copyright holder to pursue. Same with most of the Sailor Moon items.

The homage items with definite changes, like the old Ninja Headband, could - theoretically - be in the clear. But, if the copyright holder pursues infringement issues, it might depend on the judge's call.

Oh, no. Homage, parody, whathaveyou is legal, though. To the extent of which would depend on a judge's ruling, but I really don't think that a judge would rule in favor of someone suing Gaia over these. Gaia has been pushing the line a bit and I think it's lazy and boring sometimes but they do have lawyers that are supposed to protect them from copyright law suits. Gaia will be fine.

Besides, this is really apples and oranges, sadly, and people keep bringing them up like they go hand in hand. tektek problem =/= gaia's parody items.

I don't know. I think some of the grey-zone items could get Gaia in trouble. All it takes is one solid hit from Nintendo and I think Gaia would topple over. Homage, parody, whateverhaveyou is determined permissible by the copyright holder, too. There's some authors who do not permit fanfiction of their work, for example, and sites will explicitly disallow fanfiction from their books.

I don't think what Tektek was doing was infringement, though. They were a resource for the Gaia community. They didn't offer all the same services as Gaia offered. It's like how there's "cheat" sites for Neopet games; they're resources, not a threat to Neopet's trademark.

Plus, the fact Gaia made a subforum explicitly to encourage use avatar simulators, and allowed Tektek to go on for years, just makes the whole situation mucky.

I think it's a completely horrid decision on Gaia's part. They shouldn't have done it, especially after years of established precedent.

Not that they're using Gaia IP, but that they're advertising a competitor on Gaia IP. THAT is a threat to Gaia's trademark. As soon as I saw those ads (which is about the same time Gaia's relationship with the userbase got shaky, mind you) I went 'oh s**t that's not good." because I knew it meant tektek was probably going to get shut down. Gaia has always had a good relationship with tektek and then he posts ads to another site that offers the same s**t as Gaia ON his resources for Gaia? That's shady. Especially when lots of people were unhappy with Gaia at the time?


that's what changed between Gaia and Tektek. That's why their established relationship is different. I've never seen a website that is used as a resource for a game directly advertise to ANOTHER game. That's like if a WoW database website put up advertisements for people to play FFXIV. Not through Adsense, but they were claiming to be a WoW-database but were directing people to FFXIV. Gaia legally has to protect itself, it seems from their C&D letter they wanted to talk it out, but they got outed before they could do that... it's hard to talk out something legal when the other party just refuses to talk to you at all. :/

The C&D letter didn't sound like they wanted to talk about it, at all. It sounded like an ultimatum. It also didn't mention the ads, at all. Just intellectual property and trademark, which leads me to ask: Are they going to take down the Gaiapedia, as well? It uses their intellectual property and could possibly confused as associated/ran by Gaia.

Tektek has always advertised avatar sites or sites similar to Gaia. It wasn't a problem then. Recolor.me is Tekton's own site, which I thought was a bit of poor taste at first, but they did spend a whole lot of time creating useful services that Gaia never wanted to bother incorporating into the site.

I think what changed is Gaia isn't doing as well as it was. There has been a recent slew of bad decisions that have pushed members to find greener pastures. Now, they're going to lash out at anything that even slightly "threatens" them, despite the fact Gaia's recent failings are Gaia's own fault. It smacks of not taking responsibility for their own poor choices.

In the case of Tektek, I think it's a bad decision on Gaia's part: they let Tektek knowingly run for years, they encouraged the use of simulators, and it is a community resource.

C&D letters are NOT the first means of legal communication when it comes to stuff like this. You have to pay lawyers a lot of money, normally you try to contact someone directly first. obviously, if that doesnt work, then you get lawyers involved. AFAIK you don't just randomly sling C&D letters around, and usually it sparks a legal discussion between parties.

Was tektek featuring adsense ads or was it direct advertisements that he specifically chose to put on the site? And once again, that's not for his profit, his own avatar site is for HIS profit. And I'm sure gaiapedia will be fine, just like every other wiki for every other thing in the world. They're not directly pushing people to another website that is a direct competitor of gaia that will earn them money. >_>

On the contrary, Gaia seems to be doing a lot better now than it has been for the past few years. Community seems more active, they seem to be trying to bring things back to the users.

I don't necessarily agree with how they handled it, I think buying tektek off of him or something could have been better. but we really don't know if they're going to make any new features to make up for the ones that were on tektek, considering now that their legal dealings were exposed in a very tacky way. I think they'll offer some solutions and I am excited to see them because *hopefully* they'll be updated.

I hope Gaia takes this as an opportunity to shed some old features, gain some new ones and to rebuild some of the shittier parts of the website.

[Astra the Fae]

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wow that's a bit harsh... Gaia protects their property so you wish them sued over homage items >.>?

My Little Pony, Adventure Time, and Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood have direct rips of their characters and recognizable items from their shows.

Since Gaia is making money by using the popularity of these shows, I believe the copyright holder has to authorize the derivatives. (Especially Adventure Time, because Gaia explicitly advertises Princess Bubble Gum's look can be bought for 299 GC when you go through the Inventory Search.)

Now, in the earlier days of Gaia, they still had homage items. However, they were very careful to make them different from the original. For example: The Ninja Headband had Gaia's logo on it, instead of one Naruto-verse's symbols.

Then there's those "grey-zone" items, where there's absolutely no alteration, but they're not explicitly stating that they're using another's intellectual property. Like Wayward Son. It's obviously Castiel items, but they were careful not to explicitly say "Castiel" or "Supernatural."

... weren't the FMA/MLP/AT items sponsored items?

I don't know if they were or not. But I'm citing them as examples of what would be considered major rip offs that would need the copyright holder's permission.

The MLP, AT, and FMAB items would be definite infringements without permission.

Then there's grey-zone items, like Wayward Son, would probably be up to the copyright holder to pursue. Same with most of the Sailor Moon items.

The homage items with definite changes, like the old Ninja Headband, could - theoretically - be in the clear. But, if the copyright holder pursues infringement issues, it might depend on the judge's call.

They were sponsor items paid for by the sponsors themselves.

The difference being that the other items are parodies off of several known things which I think makes it legal.

If it's not then you might as well sue Weird "Al" Yankovic.

I'm lying here in deep red to comfort my pain. I will never again give out these memories that ... keep love away from me.

[Jayce Reinhardt]

Gaia Staff

Bottom line is, he decided to shut down without any discussion at all. Bluealaris is still open to a discussion I believe. The balls in his court to respond to us.

Hence this statement from Gaia staff.

Gaia is still waiting at the table for Tekton and his seat remains empty.

[abbacchio]

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wow that's a bit harsh... Gaia protects their property so you wish them sued over homage items >.>?

My Little Pony, Adventure Time, and Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood have direct rips of their characters and recognizable items from their shows.

Since Gaia is making money by using the popularity of these shows, I believe the copyright holder has to authorize the derivatives. (Especially Adventure Time, because Gaia explicitly advertises Princess Bubble Gum's look can be bought for 299 GC when you go through the Inventory Search.)

Now, in the earlier days of Gaia, they still had homage items. However, they were very careful to make them different from the original. For example: The Ninja Headband had Gaia's logo on it, instead of one Naruto-verse's symbols.

Then there's those "grey-zone" items, where there's absolutely no alteration, but they're not explicitly stating that they're using another's intellectual property. Like Wayward Son. It's obviously Castiel items, but they were careful not to explicitly say "Castiel" or "Supernatural."

MLP, AT, FMA, were all sponsors. As were Madoka, Black Butler, and The Walking Dead.

Other items, however, such as the Wayward Son, or the countless Pokemon/Dangan Ronpa/Persona/[insert anime here] are most definitely ripping off a series under the guise of "parody".

[Eruden Ki]

Jayce Reinhardt

Gaia Staff

Bottom line is, he decided to shut down without any discussion at all. Bluealaris is still open to a discussion I believe. The balls in his court to respond to us.

Hence this statement from Gaia staff.

Gaia is still waiting at the table for Tekton and his seat remains empty.

"Bluealaris is still open for discussion I believe." - Double speak. They "believe" bluealaris is still open for discussion, but this may not be true.

The C&D offered no invitation for negotiation. I'm dubious to believe Gaia staff, further, thanks to the very fact the C&D never mentions the problematic ad that the staff mentioned.