Bethesda threatens gamer over Fallout fan site

[garyopa]

He was just giving away free fan art Fallout posters...



Bethesda legal team accuse a gamer of infringing IP rights, by publishing a few fan Fallout posters on his website.

Norwegian gamer and Fallout fan Erling Loken Andersen got threatened by Bethesda legal team because he was giving away Fallout fan art posters on his website. They accused him of infringing on IP rights and demanded he transfer site domain.

In a post on his blog last week, Norwegian Fallout fan Erling Loken Andersen recapped a back-and-forth dispute he's been having with Bethesda's legal team over a Fallout poster art fan site he set up. Andersen said it started in December when he received a takedown notice from Bethesda's lawyers claiming his collection of freely downloadable Fallout-inspired posters were infringing on the company's intellectual property rights. The publisher also insisted that Andersen hand over the domain for his site, fallout-posters.com.

"What pisses me off isn't the fact that they're looking out for their trademark - as they have every right to do so," Anderson wrote. "What I'm pissed about are large companies abusing their monetary power, hiring global law firms to go after a fan online, immediately threating with a lawsuit."

They sent a two-page letter threatening him for having distributed the art, even if he was not charging for them, and that Bethesda does not itself offer such images for sale.

He continued, "I'm tired of intellectual rights holders--be it RIAA, MPAA or in this case Bethesda--going after little guys like myself and threatening them into obedience. Some people doesn't have the intellectual capacity or money to fight their cause, so they just fold after receiving a letter like that. But just because you can't afford to fight, doesn't mean your oponent is right."

Those who grabbed posters before they were taken down said they were "essentially recreations".

You can check out the letters on his blog linked below. Bethesda has not responded or commented on this situation. What do you think?

OFFICIAL SITE: http://stormen.wordpress.com/2012/04...-was-my-reply/

NEWS SOURCE: http://www.gamespot.com/news/bethesd...n-site-6372043

Our thanks to 'Gauss' for this news item!

[billysastard]

if you read the link his letter of reply made a heck of a lot of sense.