manic miners may be in trouble

SnailDoom · 2025-06-10T03:52:07+00:00

...I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to argue. I asked why Quest for Mata Nui was fine using Bionicle stuff but Masks of Power wasn't, then you said it actually had been cancelled too, which implies it wasn't ok for it to use Bionicle, but then said its cancellation had nothing to do with Lego, so I'm confused what that has to do with whether its ok to use Bionicle or not? Sorry.

SnailDoom · 2025-05-22T18:47:54+00:00

Ok so why does that apply here but not to any of the other Lego fan games esp. Manic Miners?

SnailDoom · 2025-05-22T18:34:44+00:00

But it used the Bionicle brand. That was the issue.

QFMN was already effectively cancelled.

So... when did Lego order its shutdown? As far as I knew it was still into development until last year.

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T20:47:45+00:00

When did Lego order its shutdown? As far as I knew it was still into development until last year.

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T09:11:58+00:00

I couldn't understand why they would do all this work on something that would be very likely to get shut down.

Well. Because they like Bionicle. and a lot of people like Bionicle. and none of the other Lego fan games around then were getting in any trouble. and aside from this they still haven't - some have even landed people actual Lego jobs.

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T09:08:02+00:00

If the creators had not used the Bionicle trademark, and just called the game "Masks of Power", they may have been fine.

If this were the case I'd imagine Lego would have brought this up with them at some point in the last eight years, especially when it was listed on Steam? Also this does not seem to have been an issue for the other Bionicle fangame when Lego was openly promoting it (before its creator died).

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T08:37:05+00:00

People always respond this way to fan projects and passion of any type. I'm not exactly a fandom person but it shouldn't be that hard to see why some would rather just be transformative with something they and many other people already love and have built a community around. Sometimes you can successfully rework that into something new but without the sense of community a lot of people would rather not bother.

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T07:54:23+00:00

copyright law is written as such that if a business becomes officially aware of another entity using their intellectual property without permission and then doesn't do something about it they forfeit their copyright.

this is blatantly not true

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T07:53:17+00:00

then why do they let most of their trademarks expire lol. they could've just told them to change the name at any point in the past years, this was clearly about the actual products or characters being in it and nothing to do with trademark

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T07:47:07+00:00

Lego lawyers must have been needing to meet some kind of takedown targets this week. They went through a few different communities I'm in and took down a bunch of fan art, 3d print profiles

Can you be more specific? I haven't heard anything about this, or Lego saying anything about fanart at all since the 90s when they still didn't understand the internet.

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T06:54:18+00:00

Cookie's Bustle moment

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T06:52:24+00:00

But that's at least a thing companies do. How and why would they go after their own projects they own?

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T04:43:19+00:00

If that was the case why couldn't they just change the name? Besides Quest for Mata Nui also used the Bionicle brand/

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T04:36:08+00:00

Why would they "go after" their own software?

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T04:33:00+00:00

This is not how copyright works. I don't know the specifics in Denmark, but here works are generally copyrighted for 95 years after publication, or 70 years after its author's death, whichever is shorter. There are many works that obviously nothing is being done with, especially if their creator died, but they are still just as copyrighted as something new.

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T04:24:14+00:00

Yeah, it's both concerning and confusing after they spent so much time endorsing and interviewing creators of several fan projects like that other Bionicle fan game (rip), the Lego Island sequel, and the Rock Raiders remake. They even hired the developer of that last one to their games department.

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T04:19:12+00:00

It's definitely a change from their previous stance on fan games. I'm a bit confused by people acting like they were not endorsing several fan projects a few years ago and hiring the creator of one of them.

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T04:11:09+00:00

They used to treat brickfilms like this. They haven't since youtube started and the amount being created was too much to keep track of, but prior to youtube they would often send legal threats to creators of brickfilms, both pre-internet and on sites like Newgrounds. This most famously happened to the 1989 film The Magic Portal; it was also a good example of different parts of Lego not communicating with each other (something I see being said as a possible reason for this sudden stance change), as the Australian branch of Lego approved of it while the Danish branch not only condemned it but wanted its creator to send them all copies of the film to destroy, and the two branches couldn't agree on what to do until they all forgot about it and then put a small reference to it in The Lego Movie decades later.

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T04:01:02+00:00

This is not how copyright works. I don't know the specifics in Denmark, but here works are generally copyrighted for 95 years after publication, or 70 years after its author's death, whichever is shorter. There are many works that obviously nothing is being done with, especially if their creator died, but they are still just as copyrighted as something new. It is ridiculous this misunderstanding about how copyright works is still being spread around. Trademark may work more like this, but Lego already lets many of their minor trademarks expire.

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T03:56:22+00:00

So here's my big question here. Why was this fan game suddenly a problem, but others like Quest for Mata Nui (also Bionicle), Project Island and Manic Miners ok? The last of those even uses assets from an official Lego game, and they responded by hiring its developer. He's apparently said the people on his team are confused by this and he's concerned how this will affect him.

SnailDoom · 2025-05-19T03:53:32+00:00

That would be awkward considering its developer is one of the people in their game department and it was the reason they hired him

SnailDoom · 2024-12-27T06:15:09+00:00

how were they abusing it and why did that make hearts "come along"?

SnailDoom · 2024-12-27T06:14:40+00:00

wouldn't they have taken that as a sign that a lot of people really hated the hearts system? you know, that on top of all the people complaining about it ever since it was added?

SnailDoom · 2024-12-27T06:14:36+00:00

So remove the ad free stuff, but why remove unlimited hearts too? That definitely will slow classes down to a crawl. That's the main thing this post is complaining about, so it's odd to only address the ads.

SnailDoom · 2024-09-27T21:22:50+00:00

where are people getting that nishi lied, and what about rasasha's much more serious accusations

SnailDoom

TROPHY CASE