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Nintendo has walked away from a UK lawsuit victorious, a win that ultimately means five of the country's major ISPs are now required to "block or at least impede access" to certain websites that facilitate piracy on the Nintendo Switch.

The ruling, picked up by Eurogamer early this morning, specifically requires ISPs to shut off access to four websites that either distribute pirated Switch games or help modify Switch consoles to play pirated games.

"Today, the UK High Court found the sale and distribution of 'circumvention' devices for the Nintendo Switch unlawful. Nintendo is pleased that the UK High Court has confirmed that dealing in devices or software that enable piracy on Nintendo Switch systems is unlawful," a Nintendo spokesperson tells Eurogamer.

Specifically, the court found that the websites in question targeted people within the UK, infringed on Nintendo's copyrights, and had no legal justification for the modifications being offered.

The legal ruling is the latest in Nintendo's saga against piracy purveyors, a battle that has tried to snuff out both Switch piracy and piracy of older classic games. Leading up to this lawsuit, the company moved to ban Switch consoles that took advantage of a hardware exploit found on older systems, and has been attempting to curb hackers' efforts to crack the system since.

To name just a few of those legal efforts, Nintendo landed a win in a Canadian lawsuit against a site a few years back for distributing piracy-enabling flashcarts, filed DMCA takedowns against the parties behind the homebrew 3DS app Freeshop, and won a copyright and trademark infringement case against the emulation sites LoveROMS and LoveRETRO, all within the past few years.

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Nintendo wins UK court case over Nintendo Switch piracy and modification

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Nintendo has walked away from a UK lawsuit victorious, a win that ultimately means five of the country's major ISPs are now required to "block or at least impede access" to certain websites that facilitate piracy on the Nintendo Switch.

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Olympic gymnast Beth Tweddle is taking legal action against the makers of Channel 4's after suffering a spinal injury on the reality show in 2016.

The 33-year-old bronze medal-winner, who retired in 2013 and starred in ITV's Dancing on Ice before taking part in The Jump, required surgery on her neck and spinal cord after hitting a barrier on a landing.

Tweddle, who is pregnant with her first child, said she was taking legal action to ensure "full accountability for people involved in creating shows like this" and to prevent other people suffering the same fate.

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"It's been a long journey and my recovery is still ongoing. I'm not sure I'll ever be 100% again," she said in a statement.

"The effects of my accident still interrupt my daily life and, aside from the severe physical injuries at the start, the hardest part of the recovery process has been the psychological element - dealing with and processing the whole accident and the aftermath of what happened.

"It's disappointing that we have had to seek court proceedings as we had hoped the makers of the programme might be willing to work with us to settle the case.

"I just want to make sure that there is full accountability for people involved in creating shows like this and to help prevent others having to go through what I have for the past three years."

Tweddle's lawyer, Demetrius Danas, said: "She has had to put many parts of her life and career on hold and, while Beth is making a good recovery, she still cannot do many of the things she previously could as an elite athlete and may never fully recover.

"Despite attempts to settle the legal case amicably, the defendants involved in making The Jump have so far denied any liability for her injuries and we have been left with no choice but to issue court proceedings as we seek to resolve the case."

In a statement given to BBC Sport, production company TwoFour, who make The Jump, said: "This matter is being dealt with by our insurers and we are unable to comment as the claim is ongoing."

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Beth Tweddle is suing the people behind Channel 4's controversial show The Jump

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Olympic gymnast Beth Tweddle is taking legal action against the makers of Channel 4's The Jump after suffering a spinal injury on the reality show in 2016. The 33-year-old bronze medal-winner, who retired in 2013 and starred in ITV's Dancing on Ice before taking part in The Jump, required surgery on her neck and spinal cord after hitting a barrier on a landing.

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People complain that the portrayal of Celt/Pict/Scottish character Merida in Wreck it Ralph 2 was needlessly horrible to people who speak Gaelic, if not Scotland in general.

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Around the world, much has been written about the Disney princess scene in the recently-released Ralph Breaks the Internet.

When the film's trailer was first released, a slew of memes captured the hilarity of being unable to understand what Merida (from Brave) was saying. Some even thought she was speaking Gaelic.

I gie ma mammy a cake, she turned in tae a big bear and my auld yin tried tae dae her in. If that's no a pure mess, I don't know whit is!

Merida, voiced by Kelly Macdonald

"We don't understand her", one puzzled princesses confesses to lead character Vanellope.

"She's from another studio," another replies.

But were the filmmakers guilty of throwing major shade at the only Scottish - and, for that matter, only British - Disney princess?

Alistair Harkness of The Scotsman explained to BBC Radio Scotland's The Afternoon Show that Disney's careful attempt at dismantling their own gender stereotyping might have ended up missing the mark.

"It's slightly ruined by the fact that it ends with them just making fun of the fact that nobody can understand the character from Brave because she's Scottish.

"I didn't understand why that was the punchline."

Alistair Harkness on The Afternoon Show

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BBC Scotland - BBC Scotland - Has Disney taken aim at the Scottish accent in new Ralph film?

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Around the world, much has been written about the Disney princess scene in the recently-released Ralph Breaks the Internet. When the film's trailer was first released, a slew of memes captured the hilarity of being unable to understand what Merida (from Brave) was saying. Some even thought she was speaking Gaelic.

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Disney stole some GW artwork and designs (Although GW may have stolen them from someone else, it's a long story), and then offered to pay GW to keep quiet and not make a fuss about it. GW accepted immediately.

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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/05/03 10:09:06

The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all

We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.

English people could cook as well as anyone, but it wasn't fashionable to have tasty food

It's not the first time that marvel have done this.

Back in 1981 or '82, Marvel used Angron also.

Oh, that's ok, though because GW didn't try to claim the name for another 10 or so years - whilst also trying to claim Malekith and a bunch of other names too.

I don't think GW have the balls to go up against Marvel and da mouse house (or the legal nouse).

I'm 50.
Old enough to know better, young enough to not give a ****.

That is not dead which can eternal lie ...

... and yet, with strange aeons, even death may die.

The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all

We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.

English people could cook as well as anyone, but it wasn't fashionable to have tasty food

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/05/03 10:11:57

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/05/03 11:09:18

Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer

Clearly they need marvel to do a 40k comic series as punishment.

- Wayne
Formerly WayneTheGame

Can't believe I'm saying this, but GW has a pretty clear case here.

They might lose if Marvel can claim that it's a parody, but that's a really thin case since it's going to be clear to any judge or jury that the designs and logos are copied direct and without humorous intent.

As for Clark and Lois, common first names are not effectively copyrightable and there is no case there unless the characters bear a visual likeness to their DC counterparts.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/05/03 11:52:37

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/05/03 12:12:48

"AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED."

Wow, they did use the likeness. Interestingly they did use them in a humorous way that could be construed as parody or humor for which the allowances are a bit wider.

I wonder of comic companies generally allow each other to take jabs as a matter of course. If both sides have been doing it for years without complaint, then it becomes accepted practice.

"The Omnissiah is my Moderati"

I always have hated how fast and loose disney can be with copyright TBh.

Posters on ignore list: 33

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- Nemesor Zahndrekh of the Sautekh Dynasty
Overlord of the Crownworld of Gidrim

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Tau vehicles in Marvel comics ? - Forum - DakkaDakka

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The row over Channel 4's Princess Diana documentary is just the latest controversy in which the British broadcaster has been embroiled.
Indeed, very few of its 25 years in operation have gone by without some headline-grabbing incident or public outcry.

Here are some of the key controversial moments in Channel 4's history.

The fledgling Channel 4 thought it was onto a winner with this pop music show featuring children singing chart-topping hits.

But the show was attacked for putting girls in adult clothes and make-up and encouraging them to perform provocative routines.

"Does the show thrust premature sexual awareness onto its wide-eyed performers?" asked the Observer.

A planned second series was cancelled in the wake of the public furore.

Channel 4 thought it could get away with screening 18-rated films in late-night slots if it placed a content warning on screen.
Titles shown included Themroc, a French film featuring scenes of incest and cannibalism, and the sexually explicit Montenegro.
The season was attacked in the media and by Mary Whitehouse's National Viewers' and Listeners' Association.

Though the films themselves drew large audiences, the practice was discontinued shortly afterwards.

Phil Redmond's gritty Liverpool-set soap began in 1982 on Channel 4's first night, courting controversy from the off with a series of hard-hitting storylines.
Of all its key moments, however, the one that got everyone talking was Beth Jordache's lesbian kiss in December 1993.
Shown just before the watershed, it was the first scene of its kind screened on British TV and made a star of actress Anna Friel.

It also paved the way for Queer as Folk, the channel's 1999 series about gay men living in Manchester.

Satirist Chris Morris provoked a flood of complaints with a one-off Brass Eye special about paedophilia.

In one scene a so-called paedophile was held in a stock and asked if he was attracted to a young boy in the studio.

The show was attacked for trivialising a serious issue and for duping such celebrities as Phil Collins and Kate Thornton into appearing.

Channel 4 was ordered to broadcast an apology by the Independent Television Commission.

Almost three million viewers watched illusionist Derren Brown survive his controversial Russian Roulette stunt in October 2003.
Police claimed it could inspire copycat incidents, though it was later reported that the bullets used had been blanks.
Complaints that the show had promoted gun culture were rejected by the Broadcasting Standards Commission.

Brown risked further censure in 2004 when his live TV "seance" become one of the most complained about shows in broadcasting history, although his show was cleared of any wrongdoing.

2007: BIG BROTHER RACE ROW

The allegedly racist bullying of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty by her fellow Celebrity Big Brother housemates provoked an international incident.
Questions were raised in Parliament, effigies were burned in India and crowds were banned from attending Jade Goody's eviction.
Channel 4 bosses defended the programme, saying it was "a good thing" it had provoked a debate.

But Ofcom ruled the station had breached its code of conduct and ordered it to make a number of on-air apologies.

In 1987 presenter Jools Holland was rapped for swearing during a live advert for music show The Tube.

The reaction, however, was minor compared to the one that greeted the screening of a live autopsy in 2002, conducted by Professor Gunther von Hagens.

A 2004 documentary showing a woman undergoing an abortion pushed boundaries further, as did last year's alternative Christmas message from a British Muslim woman in a veil.

Channel 4's digital offshoot More 4, meanwhile, created headlines of its own by staging the assassination of George W Bush in its film Death of a President.

In 2007, a contestant on reality show Shipwrecked was accused of racism, while The Richard and Judy Show began a wave of revelations about phone-in practices which spread to other channels.

With the ongoing Diana row, station executives can be assured Channel 4 will continue to make headlines.

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BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Channel 4's legacy of controversy

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The row over Channel 4's Princess Diana documentary is just the latest controversy in which the British broadcaster has been embroiled. Indeed, very few of its 25 years in operation have gone by without some headline-grabbing incident or public outcry. Here are some of the key controversial moments in Channel 4's history.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_ITwbtxfiY
This is an interesting story as it highlights issues such as ethics within companies, as well as touching upon artistic liberties that Disney has used over the years.

Over the years, Disney has been accused of perpetuating negative ethnic and gender stereotypes (think: Pocahontas and Cinderella), and mis-educating youths on the realities of adult life. While this may be debatable, it is the most recent controversy that Disney is caught in the centre of that is interesting to view from a business perspective. The link attached is a clip from the segment of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which airs on Disney owned ABC. The segment "Kid's Table" is meant to provide commentary as well as satire on common issues. The one featured in the clip asks the panel of children what should be done about US debt in China.

"Killing all the Chinese" is an idea suggested by an audacious little boy (perhaps no older than 4), which sent the Chinese community in the U.S. into outrage. Disney has been trying to quell the situation through PR and Marketing "Damage Control" (i.e., public apologies). This issue brings to the surface the various ethical issues which face companies. The dilemma arises when, Kimmel, a widely-loved American comedian and household name, makes humour of U.S.A.'s debt crisis, however engages in discourse which angers a national and ethnic group.

As a comedian, Kimmel makes lots of jokes and most of them do touch on sensitive topics, but it is quite obvious that Disney is taking special interest in this particular case because of it's financial interest in China. Should this anger us as observers? I don't see Disney apologizing to any Aboriginal tribes of North America for misrepresenting them in Pocahontas, or to the Arab and South Asian communities of the world for mixing up their cultures in Aladin? It seems that due to China's financial interests in China it takes special notice to this particular case. While it is a good step to rectify this mistake, Disney should make active efforts in all of its controversial involvements.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_ITwbtxfiY This is an interesting story as it highlights issues such as ethics within companies, as well as touching upon artistic liberties that Disney has used over the years. Over the years, Disney has been accused of perpetuating negative ethnic and gender stereotypes (think: Pocahontas and Cinderella), and mis-educating youths on the realities of adult life.

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-40653861

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Every now and then, game companies' PR and marketing backfires. Sony's 2007 God of War II promotional party featuring a decapitated goat made Fortune's list of the 101 Dumbest Business Moments of the year. Then there was the Wii port of Okami, for which Capcom swiped cover art from gaming site IGN--and forgot to remove the watermark.

This week sees another such misstep, this committed by Nintendo in an effort to promote the interoperability of the recently released Animal Crossing: City Folk with 2005's Animal Crossing: Wild World for the DS. To allow members of the media the chance to check out the function, Nintendo sent out copies of Wild World with a saved city already on it.

But as spotted by MTV Multiplayer and confirmed by GameSpot, not everyone in the city was very neighborly. Specifically, the character of Baarbara the sheep greets players by using a racial epithet (pictured) in a modified form commonly used as a greeting in hip-hop culture. The line also includes a line of dialogue from the film Full Metal Jacket that Asian-Americans might find offensive. Wild World lets players customize greetings, and it appears that the objectionable wording was inserted using that function.

Although embarrassing, the Animal Crossing N-word flap doesn't rank alongside the game industry's biggest PR fiascos. Those include Microsoft's steady drumbeat of denials of widespread Xbox 360 failures in the months leading up to its $1 billion admission that the "Red Red Ring of Death" was all too common. The Big Kahuna of publicity trainwrecks came in 2005, when Take-Two Interactive insisted that the "Hot Coffee" sex minigames in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas were the work of PC hackers...just days before the minigames were found hidden in the unalterable PlayStation 2 version of the game.

[UPDATE] True to its word, a contrite Nintendo issued a statement to GameSpot apologizing for any offense and promising to recall the offending copies of the game from media outlets.

"Previously played copies of the 2005 DS game Animal Crossing: Wild World were sent to 14 members of the media to demonstrate the ability of players to transfer items to the new Animal Crossing: City Folk for Wii," said the publisher. "We regret that an offensive phrase was included without our knowledge via a wireless function that allows user-generated catchphrases to spread virally from one game to the next. This version is limited to 14 copies created for media review purposes only and is not available at retailers. We sincerely apologize for the incident and are working with media who received the game cards to return them to Nintendo immediately."

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.
Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

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Every now and then, game companies' PR and marketing backfires. Sony's 2007 God of War II promotional party featuring a decapitated goat made Fortune's list of the 101 Dumbest Business Moments of the year. Then there was the Wii port of Okami, for which Capcom swiped cover art from gaming site...

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Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard is under investigation for fraud following claims brought forth by company investors, law firm The Pomerantz Firm announced Monday.

The investigation concerns whether Activision and certain of its officers and directors engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices. This comes in the wake of Activision's recent separation from " Destiny" developer Bungie.

"On January 11, 2019, the Company disclosed that it would be separating from its design and development partner Bungie, Inc. and that Bungie will assume full publishing rights and responsibilities for the " Destiny " franchise," reads a statement from The Pomerantz Firm, the law firm currently investigating Activision. "Bungie had developed the 'Destiny' franchise with Activision as publisher. In the first five days of the 'Destiny' franchise's release, it sold $325M at retail. Following this announcement, Activision's stock price fell sharply during intraday trading on January 11, 2019."

Bungie announced it would be severing ties with the publishing behemoth in a post last Thursday, selling the rights of the game back to the developer.

"We have enjoyed a successful eight-year run and would like to thank Activision for their partnership on Destiny," Bungie wrote in a post on its site Thursday. "Looking ahead, we're excited to announce plans for Activision to transfer publishing rights for Destiny to Bungie. With our remarkable Destiny community, we are ready to publish on our own, while Activision will increase their focus on owned IP projects.

"The planned transition process is already underway in its early stages, with Bungie and Activision both committed to making sure the handoff is as seamless as possible."

In a filing with the SEC last week, Activision wrote that as a result of the deal the company "does not expect to recognize material revenue, operating income or operating loss from the Destiny franchise in 2019."

Activision Blizzard also experienced an executive shuffle at the start of January that saw the departure of two executives and the company naming new heads for Activision, Blizzard, and King.

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Investors Launch Activision Blizzard Investigation Over Possible Fraud Following Bungie Split

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Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard is under investigation for fraud following claims brought forth by company investors, law firm The Pomerantz Firm announced Monday. The investigation concerns whether Activision and certain of its officers and directors engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices.

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12361790

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21108337

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Channel 4 has defended its decision to air new reality series just 11 days after 39 people were found dead in a lorry in Essex.

The experimental show, which sees eight British citizens attempt to enter the UK by evading border checks, launched on Monday 4 November after being postponed for one week.

Despite the broadcast delay, the Home Office has said Channel 4 was "insensitive and irresponsible" to show the series so soon after the victims were discovered in a refrigerated lorry trailer on an industrial estate on 23 October.

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However, Channel 4 has said the series is "a matter of urgent public interest".

A spokeswoman for the Home Office told the BBC: "Broadcasting this programme so soon after the tragic incident at Grays is both insensitive and irresponsible."

She added: "Organised crime gangs have no respect for human life so it is reckless to provide a platform for the illegal activity that they facilitate.

"Doing so can encourage them to exploit our border for profit, risking the lives of vulnerable, desperate people as they do so."

A spokesman for Channel 4 responded with: "This documentary series investigates concerns that the UK Border Force is failing to adequately secure the UK from clandestine entrants.

"Filmed this summer, the programmes question the security of UK borders and give the viewing public a much broader insight into an important issue facing this country - which is part of our remit as a public service broadcaster.

"More than ever, following this awful tragedy, the shocking findings of the films have become a matter of urgent public interest."

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Channel 4 defends 'insensitive' decision to air reality show Smuggled after Essex lorry deaths

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Channel 4 has defended its decision to air new reality series just 11 days after 39 people were found dead in a lorry in Essex. The experimental show, which sees eight British citizens attempt to enter the UK by evading border checks, launched on Monday 4 November after being postponed for one week.

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TV and radio presenter Samira Ahmed is suing her BBC bosses over alleged unequal pay.

Samira, 51, is taking the Beeb to an employment tribunal - with the landmark case set for next week.

The broadcaster claims she was paid less than male colleagues for doing "equal value work".

Samira presents BBC News show Newswatch - which often examines the corporation's editorial policy - and Radio 4's arts show Front Row.

An insider said: "This is deeply embarrassing for the Beeb as Samira is a highly respected journalist.

"If she's found to have been underpaid it will be seen as scandalous. If she succeeds, this is expected to pave the way for many similar cases involving other female BBC employees.

"The overall feeling on this issue is that the BBC still hasn't got its house in order."

There has been an increase in equal pay cases since 2017 when the BBC was made to publish the pay of its top stars.

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Men accounted for around two-thirds of stars earning more than £150,000.

Last year, Carrie Gracie, 57, quit as the BBC's China editor in an equal pay dispute. She won an undisclosed payout and an apology.

Samira started as a BBC News trainee in 1990.

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BBC presenter Samira Ahmed is suing her bosses over 'unequal' salary

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TV and radio presenter Samira Ahmed is suing her BBC bosses over alleged unequal pay. Samira, 51, is taking the Beeb to an employment tribunal - with the landmark case set for next week. The broadcaster claims she was paid less than male colleagues for doing "equal value work".

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issue with calling over games "souls like"

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We're only a few days into the new year, but it didn't take long for the latest viral embarrassment to hit YouTube, as yet another popular, telegenic young man posted something reckless and offensive on the video-sharing platform. This time around, YouTube star Logan Paul shared a video where he discovered and awkwardly laughed at the corpse of a suicide victim in Japan's Aokigahara forest.

"Bro, did we just find a dead person in the suicide forest?" he says in the now-deleted video.

Although Paul subsequently issued apologies, the callous stunt was just the latest in a string of incidents where popular YouTubers have posted jaw-droppingly offensive, prejudiced, or unethical content that would never pass muster at a traditional outlet.

Their behavior is enabled by YouTube's design as an effectively accountability-free platform, particularly for its most popular, envelope-pushing stars. There are rules and community guidelines about "disgusting" content and hate speech, of course, but they're enforced haphazardly, often with little context or transparency, and can be easy to circumvent.

It's a problem that extends beyond YouTube as a platform to streaming and social media at large, where large platforms tiptoe around the sensibilities of loud, angry users at the expense of anyone they can sacrifice on their pyre of rage. It creates a situation where women, people of color, queer, and disabled people all lack equal access to the service, laboring under the added burden of an angry mob scrutinizing their every move, even when they're not "famous" by any metric.

The idealistic dream these services sell to users - that anyone can be famous with a mic, a keyboard, a webcam, and a bit of elbow grease - sounds like the culmination of early cyber utopianism. But in practice, it often means elevating people to fame when they are wildly unprepared for the ethical responsibilities or consequences of broadcasting their content to millions of fans (including children) around the world. As a principle, it means companies tie their own hands when dealing with edgelords who think Nazism is cool; there are only empty platitudes about free speech to be found in their wake.

The internet's lawlessness came about as a feature, not a bug

The internet's lawlessness came about as a feature, not a bug, premised on a libertarian ideal of self-direction unfettered by systems. Everything would be permitted, the thinking went, and cyber-society would simply balance itself out automatically without the need for oppressive governments or organizational rules. It hasn't worked out that way, to put it lightly. The scope has also changed dramatically since the early days of the internet: the voices the internet amplifies are no longer niche or cordoned off from the "real" world. Social media celebrities can reach tens or hundreds of millions and sometimes have more impact on their viewers than television or film stars. They're not just influential: for many people, particularly younger users, they are the media - and they can do pretty much whatever they want.

There are two sides to this, of course. One great boon of the internet, particularly for marginalized voices, is how it allows people to share content and ideas that might never make it past old-school gatekeepers and censors. At times, it can be refreshing and enlightening to see media and perspectives that don't labor under stultifying FCC obscenity codes, to hear voices we might not have otherwise heard. But as we've seen over and over again for many years, this is an increasingly sharp double-edged sword.

The vile content that is amplified through digital megaphones is a reminder of why ethics and standards can be valuable, especially for the platforms that project the loudest voices in our culture. The solution, however, is not merely to clutch our pearls and demand that social media "think of the children," but rather to implement clear, contextual codes of conduct with transparent enforcement that is tailored to the distinctions of every case, including human oversight at every stage. The latter is important. Without it, we run the risk of employing automated systems that reproduce biases at light speed.

For a choice example, we need only look at a November incident involving the professional Twitch streamer aptly called Trainwrecks, who is a member of the platform's Partner program. In a fit of entitled pique, he decided to stream a misogynistic rant about so-called "boobie streamers," or female content creators on the platform who wear revealing clothing or inject elements of sexiness into their game streams. It described, in profane detail, his rage at the growing presence of these women in what his perceived as "his" community, and what he believed they were taking away from him:

"This used to be a goddamn community of gamers, nerds, kids that got bullied, kids that got fucked with, kids that resorted to the gaming world because the real world was too fucking hard, too shitty, too lonely, too sad and depressing...[Twitch now belongs to] the same sluts that rejected us, the same sluts that chose the god damn cool kids over us. The same sluts that are coming into our community, taking the money, taking the subs, the same way they did back in the day."

It's no secret that male-dominated online communities are often benighted by a invidious and sexist mythology, one that says their specific corner of internet culture - and particularly nerd culture - is their exclusive domain, a refuge from the real world with no room for the evil girls who rejected and bullied them in school. The women who do make their way into these spaces are trespassers and thieves who are "taking" everything away again, using their sexy wiles to steal men's rightly earned status and money (via ad revenue and subscriptions). This is the mentality that rules social media in the absence of meaningful enforcement, the entitled anarchy that rushes into the Wild Western void.

This is the mentality that rules social media in the absence of meaningful enforcement

And like any gaping black hole, it's never satisfied. "No matter what I fucking wear, there's always a comment. There's always someone calling me a titty streamer, fake gamer or a whore etc," said female Twitch streamer ZombiUnicorn on her Twitter. "If all the titty streamers were gone tomorrow, does anyone really think shitty people would stop degrading and insulting women?" tweeted streamer Renée Reynosa. "Truth is, they'd just find another hoop for us to jump through." That's the key here: women and other minorities face backlash no matter what they do, how they act, how they dress, or what they say. The solution, then, shouldn't involve regulating the behavior of the people who suffer the most abuse online, or enabling the people who inflict it.

It's a dilemma every social media platform confronts: cave to the angry fanbases of popular users who want unfettered license to do as they please? Or try more expensive, involving, context-based moderation techniques that uphold the principle that no one is too big to ban?

For the moment, Twitch's approach to this problem has mostly been one of monastic silence, in its own way validating the entitled complaints of men like Trainwrecks - who was banned for just five days and remains an active streamer on the platform. YouTube also remains loathe to take serious action, even as LGBT streamers have grappled with a year where their videos were effectively hidden by the company in a misguided attempt to automate moderation.

The automoderation craze, once trumpeted as an elegant solution, is now part of the problem. These companies want the PR boost from appearing to "do something" while implementing faster, cheaper systems that can't distinguish between a trans YouTuber talking about gender identity and a Nazi inciting violence. These systems are also notoriously exploited by corporations and harassers alike to get critical videos taken down or demonetized.

There is some promise in AI moderation - jerks on the internet aren't the most original folks, after all; there are patterns - but it requires considerably more diverse human hands at the wheel. Twitch's AutoMod system debuted with great fanfare, but has made few strides in cleaning up hate in live-chat. Without human insight, it cannot grapple with the ever-evolving nature of online hate that dwells in double meanings, memes, and in-jokes. Community moderation is not obsolete. It's a human skill that is needed now more than ever.

It's tempting to take the easy way out - technologically, financially, and morally. Automoderation is simple and cost-effective. Catering to "both sides" gives the appearance of fairness. This only compounds problems of access and platform equality, however, and caving into the moral panics of a few angry users only serves as a distraction from the larger problems facing social media and streaming sites. It won't in any way put an end to the embarrassing PR debacles that have consumed Twitter (which is now often criticized as a Nazi-friendly site), or YouTube (which has been embarrassed by one failing after another, from PewDiePie to Paul to disturbing videos aimed at children).

All of these platforms have rules, moderators, enforcement teams, and even researchers dedicated to improving safety - I've met some of them - but it seems like every social media company, from Reddit to Twitch to Twitter, is still overwhelmed by the explosive scale achieved by their platforms and breathlessly trying to catch up by automating as much of the process as possible. That would be a mistake. Going back to basics and strengthening their core values around this issue with human assistance is the necessary first step.

It boils down to a basic question: what is the harm being perpetrated by a user's actions?

In addition to clarifying their moderation policies, these platforms should also engage in a bit of moral education: make it clear, in fearless terms, why someone was suspended or banned, and what behaviors contributed to it. Just as critically, they need to recognize the importance of judging the impact of a streamer's alleged misdeeds.

For platforms like YouTube and Twitch, and indeed social media in general, codes of conduct should boil down to a basic question: what is the harm being perpetrated by a user's actions? For instance, while one group of streamers - the women of Twitch - stood accused of a fundamentally victimless crime, Trainwrecks and his misogynistic brethren espoused views and took actions with material repercussions for the women they targeted. The same goes for PewDiePie's "joking" Nazism, including the "gag" where he paid Indian freelancers to hold up a sign reading "Death to All Jews." (These men later said they didn't understand what the sign meant, and lost their jobs over it.) The ethics around issues of online speech are contextual, and it's time to act like it.

The playful universe of online streaming has much to recommend to it. Subjecting it to the same sort of strict broadcasting codes devised when the radio was the must-have gadget of the season seems unwise and counterproductive. But platform holders have to stop treating their users like someone else's wayward children and enforce some standards - especially where their most popular streamers are concerned. If YouTube wants to be the next broadcast network, it'll have to act like it. Meanwhile, it should also resist the temptation to stifle the creativity and diversity of others just because a few loud, hateful people have called for their sanction.

This would be a solution in search of a problem. Worse, it would hand a victory to the very people whose poisonous attitudes are the real threat to these platforms - assuming sites like Twitch, Twitter and YouTube want to be something more than toys for kids ( large and small) who can't be told "no." If social media platforms want to make good on the promise of a digital democracy where traditional power structures don't stifle us all, they will have to confront the ways in which their haphazard approach has built as many walls to speaking freely as it has taken down.

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It's not just Logan Paul and YouTube - the moral compass of social media is broken

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We're only a few days into the new year, but it didn't take long for the latest viral embarrassment to hit YouTube, as yet another popular, telegenic young man posted something reckless and offensive on the video-sharing platform.

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Ten women have now accused the Walt Disney Company of gender discrimination as part of a major class-action pay gap case that has expanded to include ABC Television and Disney's film studio.

The wage inequality lawsuit against one of the world's largest media and entertainment corporations alleges that divisions across Disney systematically mistreat women by giving them lower salaries than male colleagues doing equivalent work and by denying them promotions.

Four more women have come forward in a new complaint filed on Wednesday in Los Angeles, which provided detailed claims about their struggles to get paid the same as men. Their claims of unlawful discrimination are against Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney's music label, ABC Television's music department, and the company's finance department. Six of the 10 named plaintiffs are women of color.

"Being underpaid and undervalued year after year has a very real cumulative effect, financially," said Nancy Dolan, one of the new plaintiffs, in a statement to the Guardian, which first reported on the new complaint. "It's also demoralizing and emotionally draining. It's time for Disney to join the dozens of California companies who have pledged to pay their women workers fairly."

The class-action case, which seeks to represent all women employed full-time by Disney in California since April 2015, is escalating at a time in which there is intense scrutiny of pay gaps in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, the media industry and other sectors.

An earlier filing in July included accusations against Disney Music Publishing, a recording arm of the company; a business division responsible for ESPN and Hulu streaming services; Walt Disney Imagineering, a division that does projects for the company's theme parks, resorts, cruises and venues; and the Hollywood Records label, which has signed singers such as Demi Lovato, Zendaya and Miley Cyrus.

"There's trepidation about coming forward, but all of them felt like they had no other option," Lori Andrus, an attorney for the women, said in an interview Wednesday.

Disney did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the new complaint and plaintiffs. The company previously said the lawsuit was "without merit" and that the corporation had "robust pay equity practices and policies".
Four women allege discrimination in major Disney pay gap case
Dolan has worked for Disney's film studio for 18 years and has been a senior manager of creative music marketing since 2015. Her supervisor has repeatedly told her that her job responsibilities were the same as someone several steps above her current title and that a promotion was "long overdue", the suit said.

Her performance review in 2016 said she was "operating easily at director level, if not higher". In 2018, the review said she was working at "vice-president level" and was an "unparalleled expert in her field". Disney HR, however, has refused to promote her, the suit said, despite one review that stated: "Her contribution to Beauty and the Beast alone resulted in the most substantial music marketing campaign in recent years and yielded global success."

At one point, HR allegedly told her she could not be promoted from manager to director because she would be skipping a level, but then subsequently promoted two of her male counterparts in that exact manner. When she asked about this, Disney told her that one of the men was promoted because he was more of a "retention risk", since he was younger, the suit said.

One supervisor also directly acknowledged that Dolan was doing the work of an executive vice-president "for a fraction of the cost", according to the complaint.

Anabel Pareja Sinn, another new plaintiff, worked as a senior designer for Hollywood Records from 2006 to 2017. She was doing equivalent work to a male colleague, but he was classified as an art director, and she made significantly less money as a result, the suit said.

Sinn told the Guardian in an email that if the company took this issue seriously, it could have widespread implications: "Disney has such influence in our country, and in the world. If Disney leads the way for gender equity, all women in the workforce will be better off."

A third new plaintiff, Dawn Wisner-Johnson, worked for Disney's ABC Television music branch until 2017 (ABC is home to Grey's Anatomy, How to Get Away with Murder and other major hit television shows).

Wisner-Johnson was classified as a manager while doing director-level work and was also denied a raise, the suit said.

Kathy Ly, the fourth person to join the lawsuit this week, worked as an analyst in the finance marketing department from March 2017 to March 2018. She routinely worked 55 to 60 hours a week and received positive performance feedback, but made less than men doing the same work and was given a "much lower raise than her male counterpart" without valid reason, the suit said.

Andrus said it was difficult for some of the women to directly see the company valuing men over them without justification: "Sometimes the men are younger. Sometimes the men are not as good performers. Sometimes they are not as experienced. And they are just being promoted because of their potential."

For the women, it was an entirely different experience, the lawyer said: "They're getting great performance reviews and being told to wait a year while they are watching male colleagues skip steps and move up more quickly."

Andrus, whose firm has a history of equal pay cases against major corporations, said it was a "red flag" that a majority of the plaintiffs were women of color. The case does not allege racial discrimination, though research has repeatedly shown that women of color suffer a worse pay gap than white women.

The attorney added that it was not easy to come forward: "All of them love Disney, they love the work they do, the people they work with." But going public in court was the only step they had left after reaching dead ends internally, she said: "They've tried everything."
Topics

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'Underpaid and undervalued': 10 women claim systemic discrimination at Disney

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Ten women have now accused the Walt Disney Company of gender discrimination as part of a major class-action pay gap case that has expanded to include ABC Television and Disney's film studio.

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In the latest video (which contains a nod to Patrick and our Brooklyn Definition) for his Gamer Maker's Toolkit video series, Mark Brown proposes a four-step model of how video game genres form. Someone makes a hugely popular game; someone else copies it; those copies start dropping features from the original; and eventually, the "copies," deviating far from the original template, become recognized as an established genre of original games.

He argues that "soulslikes"-the Dark Souls-inspired games that we've seen pop up since 2014, such as Lords of the Fallen, Nioh, and The Surge -risk falling into the same pitfall that roguelikes did: Spending 20 years copying the original template, never advancing past that first stage. He goes so far as to decry the term "soulslike," saying it promotes thinking about the genre in a restrictive way, which seems hard to argue with.

It's a legitimate warning, and I think that Game Maker's Toolkit is a smart video series that people interested in the nuts and bolts of game design should be paying attention to. But I don't necessarily buy all of Mark's arguments in this video. It seems natural to me that we're still seeing fairly direct copies of Dark Souls. Even though it came out six years ago, the genre it inspired is still in its infancy, thanks to a relative slowness for games culture to really pay attention to Dark Souls.

Mark risks getting too prescriptive with his argument, ignoring the structures around what happened to the genres he brings up. Roguelikes stayed the same for so long because they were a hobbyist pursuit, games made by and for an audience steeped in the history of Rogue and most of all Nethack. When indie titles like Spelunky, Rogue Legacy, and Dungeons of Dredmor had to ask the question of how to make a roguelike accessible and broadly marketable, they came up with answers that advanced the genre enormously.

For now, there's no marketability problem with the "soulslike"-with the Dark Souls series proper having reached a (hopefully very definitive) ending, there's a huge thirst out there for more of that kind of game. But I think we can see the genre advancing already; between Hyper Light Drifter, The Surge, and Dead Cells, new branches are being explored and new design space is being carved out. Arguably, those games could all have done even more to zero in on what it is that makes Dark Souls an enduring classic. But as a designer, I have to sympathize a little with that timidity; it comes from not knowing, just yet, what's baby and what's bathwater.

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Making Souls-Like A Genre Might Actually End Up Hurting it

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In the latest video (which contains a nod to Patrick and our Brooklyn Definition) for his Gamer Maker's Toolkit video series, Mark Brown proposes a four-step model of how video game genres form.

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We're only a few days into the new year, but it didn't take long for the latest viral embarrassment to hit YouTube, as yet another popular, telegenic young man posted something reckless and offensive on the video-sharing platform. This time around, YouTube star Logan Paul shared a video where he discovered and awkwardly laughed at the corpse of a suicide victim in Japan's Aokigahara forest.

"Bro, did we just find a dead person in the suicide forest?" he says in the now-deleted video.

Although Paul subsequently issued apologies, the callous stunt was just the latest in a string of incidents where popular YouTubers have posted jaw-droppingly offensive, prejudiced, or unethical content that would never pass muster at a traditional outlet.

Their behavior is enabled by YouTube's design as an effectively accountability-free platform, particularly for its most popular, envelope-pushing stars. There are rules and community guidelines about "disgusting" content and hate speech, of course, but they're enforced haphazardly, often with little context or transparency, and can be easy to circumvent.

It's a problem that extends beyond YouTube as a platform to streaming and social media at large, where large platforms tiptoe around the sensibilities of loud, angry users at the expense of anyone they can sacrifice on their pyre of rage. It creates a situation where women, people of color, queer, and disabled people all lack equal access to the service, laboring under the added burden of an angry mob scrutinizing their every move, even when they're not "famous" by any metric.

The idealistic dream these services sell to users - that anyone can be famous with a mic, a keyboard, a webcam, and a bit of elbow grease - sounds like the culmination of early cyber utopianism. But in practice, it often means elevating people to fame when they are wildly unprepared for the ethical responsibilities or consequences of broadcasting their content to millions of fans (including children) around the world. As a principle, it means companies tie their own hands when dealing with edgelords who think Nazism is cool; there are only empty platitudes about free speech to be found in their wake.

The internet's lawlessness came about as a feature, not a bug

The internet's lawlessness came about as a feature, not a bug, premised on a libertarian ideal of self-direction unfettered by systems. Everything would be permitted, the thinking went, and cyber-society would simply balance itself out automatically without the need for oppressive governments or organizational rules. It hasn't worked out that way, to put it lightly. The scope has also changed dramatically since the early days of the internet: the voices the internet amplifies are no longer niche or cordoned off from the "real" world. Social media celebrities can reach tens or hundreds of millions and sometimes have more impact on their viewers than television or film stars. They're not just influential: for many people, particularly younger users, they are the media - and they can do pretty much whatever they want.

There are two sides to this, of course. One great boon of the internet, particularly for marginalized voices, is how it allows people to share content and ideas that might never make it past old-school gatekeepers and censors. At times, it can be refreshing and enlightening to see media and perspectives that don't labor under stultifying FCC obscenity codes, to hear voices we might not have otherwise heard. But as we've seen over and over again for many years, this is an increasingly sharp double-edged sword.

The vile content that is amplified through digital megaphones is a reminder of why ethics and standards can be valuable, especially for the platforms that project the loudest voices in our culture. The solution, however, is not merely to clutch our pearls and demand that social media "think of the children," but rather to implement clear, contextual codes of conduct with transparent enforcement that is tailored to the distinctions of every case, including human oversight at every stage. The latter is important. Without it, we run the risk of employing automated systems that reproduce biases at light speed.

For a choice example, we need only look at a November incident involving the professional Twitch streamer aptly called Trainwrecks, who is a member of the platform's Partner program. In a fit of entitled pique, he decided to stream a misogynistic rant about so-called "boobie streamers," or female content creators on the platform who wear revealing clothing or inject elements of sexiness into their game streams. It described, in profane detail, his rage at the growing presence of these women in what his perceived as "his" community, and what he believed they were taking away from him:

"This used to be a goddamn community of gamers, nerds, kids that got bullied, kids that got fucked with, kids that resorted to the gaming world because the real world was too fucking hard, too shitty, too lonely, too sad and depressing...[Twitch now belongs to] the same sluts that rejected us, the same sluts that chose the god damn cool kids over us. The same sluts that are coming into our community, taking the money, taking the subs, the same way they did back in the day."

It's no secret that male-dominated online communities are often benighted by a invidious and sexist mythology, one that says their specific corner of internet culture - and particularly nerd culture - is their exclusive domain, a refuge from the real world with no room for the evil girls who rejected and bullied them in school. The women who do make their way into these spaces are trespassers and thieves who are "taking" everything away again, using their sexy wiles to steal men's rightly earned status and money (via ad revenue and subscriptions). This is the mentality that rules social media in the absence of meaningful enforcement, the entitled anarchy that rushes into the Wild Western void.

This is the mentality that rules social media in the absence of meaningful enforcement

And like any gaping black hole, it's never satisfied. "No matter what I fucking wear, there's always a comment. There's always someone calling me a titty streamer, fake gamer or a whore etc," said female Twitch streamer ZombiUnicorn on her Twitter. "If all the titty streamers were gone tomorrow, does anyone really think shitty people would stop degrading and insulting women?" tweeted streamer Renée Reynosa. "Truth is, they'd just find another hoop for us to jump through." That's the key here: women and other minorities face backlash no matter what they do, how they act, how they dress, or what they say. The solution, then, shouldn't involve regulating the behavior of the people who suffer the most abuse online, or enabling the people who inflict it.

It's a dilemma every social media platform confronts: cave to the angry fanbases of popular users who want unfettered license to do as they please? Or try more expensive, involving, context-based moderation techniques that uphold the principle that no one is too big to ban?

For the moment, Twitch's approach to this problem has mostly been one of monastic silence, in its own way validating the entitled complaints of men like Trainwrecks - who was banned for just five days and remains an active streamer on the platform. YouTube also remains loathe to take serious action, even as LGBT streamers have grappled with a year where their videos were effectively hidden by the company in a misguided attempt to automate moderation.

The automoderation craze, once trumpeted as an elegant solution, is now part of the problem. These companies want the PR boost from appearing to "do something" while implementing faster, cheaper systems that can't distinguish between a trans YouTuber talking about gender identity and a Nazi inciting violence. These systems are also notoriously exploited by corporations and harassers alike to get critical videos taken down or demonetized.

There is some promise in AI moderation - jerks on the internet aren't the most original folks, after all; there are patterns - but it requires considerably more diverse human hands at the wheel. Twitch's AutoMod system debuted with great fanfare, but has made few strides in cleaning up hate in live-chat. Without human insight, it cannot grapple with the ever-evolving nature of online hate that dwells in double meanings, memes, and in-jokes. Community moderation is not obsolete. It's a human skill that is needed now more than ever.

It's tempting to take the easy way out - technologically, financially, and morally. Automoderation is simple and cost-effective. Catering to "both sides" gives the appearance of fairness. This only compounds problems of access and platform equality, however, and caving into the moral panics of a few angry users only serves as a distraction from the larger problems facing social media and streaming sites. It won't in any way put an end to the embarrassing PR debacles that have consumed Twitter (which is now often criticized as a Nazi-friendly site), or YouTube (which has been embarrassed by one failing after another, from PewDiePie to Paul to disturbing videos aimed at children).

All of these platforms have rules, moderators, enforcement teams, and even researchers dedicated to improving safety - I've met some of them - but it seems like every social media company, from Reddit to Twitch to Twitter, is still overwhelmed by the explosive scale achieved by their platforms and breathlessly trying to catch up by automating as much of the process as possible. That would be a mistake. Going back to basics and strengthening their core values around this issue with human assistance is the necessary first step.

It boils down to a basic question: what is the harm being perpetrated by a user's actions?

In addition to clarifying their moderation policies, these platforms should also engage in a bit of moral education: make it clear, in fearless terms, why someone was suspended or banned, and what behaviors contributed to it. Just as critically, they need to recognize the importance of judging the impact of a streamer's alleged misdeeds.

For platforms like YouTube and Twitch, and indeed social media in general, codes of conduct should boil down to a basic question: what is the harm being perpetrated by a user's actions? For instance, while one group of streamers - the women of Twitch - stood accused of a fundamentally victimless crime, Trainwrecks and his misogynistic brethren espoused views and took actions with material repercussions for the women they targeted. The same goes for PewDiePie's "joking" Nazism, including the "gag" where he paid Indian freelancers to hold up a sign reading "Death to All Jews." (These men later said they didn't understand what the sign meant, and lost their jobs over it.) The ethics around issues of online speech are contextual, and it's time to act like it.

The playful universe of online streaming has much to recommend to it. Subjecting it to the same sort of strict broadcasting codes devised when the radio was the must-have gadget of the season seems unwise and counterproductive. But platform holders have to stop treating their users like someone else's wayward children and enforce some standards - especially where their most popular streamers are concerned. If YouTube wants to be the next broadcast network, it'll have to act like it. Meanwhile, it should also resist the temptation to stifle the creativity and diversity of others just because a few loud, hateful people have called for their sanction.

This would be a solution in search of a problem. Worse, it would hand a victory to the very people whose poisonous attitudes are the real threat to these platforms - assuming sites like Twitch, Twitter and YouTube want to be something more than toys for kids ( large and small) who can't be told "no." If social media platforms want to make good on the promise of a digital democracy where traditional power structures don't stifle us all, they will have to confront the ways in which their haphazard approach has built as many walls to speaking freely as it has taken down.

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It's not just Logan Paul and YouTube - the moral compass of social media is broken

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We're only a few days into the new year, but it didn't take long for the latest viral embarrassment to hit YouTube, as yet another popular, telegenic young man posted something reckless and offensive on the video-sharing platform.

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Blizzard plans to sue Shanghai-based developer Lilith Games over its mobile game Soul Clash.

The title was published by Longtu Games in Taiwan and China as DOTA Legend, which also translates to Turret Legend. Unlike Blizzard's Dota, the game is actually a card collection and battle game rather than a MOBA.

As well as obviously infringing on the use of 'Dota' in the name, Blizzard says the game plagiarises elements of both Warcraft and World of Warcraft. Many of the characters bear likenesses to the familiar races of WoW.

In a press release, spotted by Gamasutra, Blizzard's COO Paul Sams said the firm will "actively protect [its] rights through law" and has filed a criminal complaint to the Taipei District Court Prosecutor's Office.

The twist is that Lilith Games is already suing Heroes Charge developers uCool for cloning Soul Clash, something the Chinese dev claims will damage its chances of bringing the game to Western markets under the name Allstar Heroes.

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Blizzard suing Lilith Games, which is suing Heroes Charge | MCV/DEVELOP

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Blizzard plans to sue Shanghai-based developer Lilith Games over its mobile game Soul Clash. The title was published by Longtu Games in Taiwan and China as DOTA Legend, which also translates to Turret Legend. Unlike Blizzard's Dota, the game is actually a card collection and battle game rather than a MOBA.

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To quote one of Indiana Jones' most famous exclamations, "It belongs in a museum!"

On Wednesday, one of the most entertaining lawsuits of the year was filed in Illinois federal court. It comes from Dr. Jaime Awe, director of the Institute of Archeology of Belize. This real-life Indiana Jones is suing on behalf of the nation of Belize over the Crystal Skull artifact, popularized in the 2008 Steven Spielberg film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Awe is demanding the return of the Crystal Skull from a treasure-hunting family that allegedly stole it 88 years ago from Belize. And if that's not enough, the lawsuit targets Lucasfilm, its new owner the Walt Disney Co. and Crystal Skull distributor Paramount Pictures for allegedly using a replica "likeness" of the Crystal Skull. Among the damages claimed are the "illegal profits" of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The movie grossed about $786 million worldwide.

According to the lawsuit, the Crystal Skull is attributed to Mayan culture and is a hardstone carving from clear or milky quartz that resembles a human skull. It's believed to have magical or otherwise supernatural powers, and there are four known valuable Crystal Skulls in the world. Three are on public display at the British Museum in London, the Musee du quai Branly in Paris and the Smithsonian in Washington.

And the fourth?

Awe, whose profile is listed here, says that a proclaimed adventurer named F.A. Mitchell-Hedges traveled to Belize in the early 1920s. His adopted daughter Anna Mitchell-Hedges is alleged to have discovered a Crystal Skull under a collapsed altar while exploring temple ruins in the Central American country. She reportedly disclosed this in a documentary that aired on Sci Fi Channel (now Syfy) in 2008. The skull is described as 5 inches high, 7 inches long and 5 inches wide. It was taken to the U.S in 1930, then traveled with the father to England and remained there until his death in 1959, after which it was kept by the daughter and later the daughter's husband in Indiana. The family is said to have made money exhibiting it.
STORY: Steven Spielberg Proud of Fourth 'Indiana Jones' Movie Criticisms
The 2008 film is noted as utilizing a replica that "clearly resembles" the Mitchell-Hedges Skull and specifically references it. On the other hand, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull says the artifact was found in Peru and was of unspecified Native American heritage.

"Lucasfilm never sought, nor was given permission to utilize the Mitchell-Hedges Skull or its likeness in the Film," says the complaint. "To date, Belize has not participated in any of the profits derived from the sale of the Film or the rights thereto."

The plaintiff is suing the Mitchell-Hedges family for removing the Crystal Skull from the country and never returning it. In movies, an adventuresome archeologist might steal it back. In real life, they go to court.

Just as provocatively, though arguably a tad late, is the claim that the exhibition of the skull in the Spielberg film is unlawful.

The lawsuit filed by attorney Adam Tracy attempts to make this claim by saying that Belize has a "right, title and interest in and to the Mitchell-Hedges Skull and its likeness" and that the film companies have participated in a civil conspiracy and tortiously interfered with its prospective economic advantage.

Paramount declined comment. The full complaint is below.

E-mail: eriq.gardner@thr.com; Twitter: @eriqgardner

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'Indiana Jones' Lawsuit Seeks Hollywood Profits from Alleged Crystal Skull Theft (Exclusive)

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To quote one of Indiana Jones' most famous exclamations, "It belongs in a museum!" On Wednesday, one of the most entertaining lawsuits of the year was filed in Illinois federal court. It comes from Dr. Jaime Awe, director of the Institute of Archeology of Belize.

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Haven't seen the new movie yet? The pop culture zeitgeist recommends that you binge-watch all six of the prior Star Wars movies before going to see Episode VII, The Force Awakens and, according to the Washington Post, there is some controversy about the proper binge-watching order. Should you watch them in narrative order (I through VI) or in film release date order (IV-VI and then I-III)? Apparently, the preferred order is: IV, V, I, II, III and then VI.

Well, I couldn't bear to sit through I, II and III again in any order so, instead of binge-watching six films, I binge-researched copyright and trademark opinions involving the Star Wars franchise and picked the six I found most interesting. Here they are in chronological order:
Star Wars v. Star Team
Before the first Star Wars film came out, the Ideal Toy company turned down a chance to make officially licensed products associated with the film. Ideal felt that "science fiction films were chancy," and that " Star Wars itself was a rather ordinary property." After the film smashed all box office records, Ideal "reexamined its opinion" and created a line of STAR TEAM-branded action figures, including the evil "Knight of Darkness" and the inseparable android buddies, "Zem-21 and Zeroid" (the Ideal catalogue advised that the purchase of additional Zeroids would increase the likelihood of defeating Darth V ... I mean the Knight of Darkness). Kenner Products, the official licensee for STAR WARS-branded toy figurines, sought a preliminary injunction against Ideal, alleging both copyright and trademark infringement. As to the trademark claim, Ideal admitted that it was capitalizing on the popularity of science fiction created by the Star Wars phenomenon, and survey evidence demonstrated that 65% of children who were shown the toys "made an 'association' between them and the film." Nevertheless, the Court held that "a finding of general 'association' - that the toys 'look like' the movie or remind someone of the movie - does not mean that the prospective purchaser thinks that the toys are derived from the movie or 'sponsored' by the movie." The Court also found that Kenner was unlikely to succeed on its copyright claims. Ideal Toy Corp. v. Kenner Products, 443 F.Supp. 291 (S.D.N.Y. 1977).
Star Wars v. Battlestar Galactica
The success of the first Star Wars film convinced Universal to quickly greenlight its own sci-fi property, Battlestar Galactica. Twentieth Century Fox felt that the new show was veering too closely to the Star Wars universe, and filed suit for copyright infringement. Universal moved for summary judgment on the ground that works were simply so dissimilar that no reasonable jury could find infringement. The Central District of California agreed and granted summary judgment, reasoning that the works were only similar on the most general level of intellectual abstraction, i.e., both were "a struggle between good and evil in space." But the Ninth Circuit did not agree and held that there were many similarities between the works that "do in fact raise genuine issues of material fact as to whether only the Star Wars idea or the expression of that idea was copied." Among the similarities cited by the Ninth Circuit were:

A war between "the galaxy's democratic and totalitarian forces," which are depicted in alternating sequences between the two camps, and which culminate in an air attack on the totalitarian headquarters, followed by an awards ceremony;

A friendly robot who is severely injured or destroyed by the totalitarian forces;

A "romance between the hero's friend (the cynical fighter pilot) and the daughter of one of the leaders of the democratic forces;"

The destruction of "an entire planet, central to the existence of the democratic forces;"

A scene in a cantina or casino "in which musical entertainment is offered by bizarre, non-human creatures;" and

"Space vehicles, although futuristic, are made to look used and old, contrary to the stereotypical sleek, new appearance of space age equipment."

The case was remanded and then reportedly settled before further proceedings took place. By that time, Battlestar Galactica had already been canceled. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. v. MCA Inc., 715 F.2d 1327 (9th Cir. 1983).
Star Wars v. Star Trek
In 1980, Clarks of England, makers of TREK shoes, obtained the license to produce STAR WARS-branded sneakers for children. Around the same time, the Glen Shoe Company announced its own line of licensed STAR TREK-branded shoes for children. This was doubly troubling to Clarks: not only was Glen Shoe competing in the sci-fi footwear space, but it was incorporating the word "trek" to do it. Clarks brought suit in the Southern District of New York and sought to enjoin the sale of STAR TREK shoes. The Court denied the motion, holding that Clark's TREK shoes (which were made for adults) and Glen Shoe's STAR TREK shoes (made for kids and sold in association with images of Mr. Spock and the Starship Enterprise) did not compete with each other, and therefore there was no likelihood of confusion. Clarks of England, Inc. v. Glen Shoe Co., 485 F.Supp. 375 (S.D.N.Y. 1980).
Imperial Walkers v. Garthian Striders
In 1983, artist Lee Seiler came forward and claimed that the Imperial Walkers from the 1980 film, Empire Strikes Back, were copied from his own 1976 drawings of "Garthian Striders." Seiler claimed that his original drawings had been destroyed in a flood just before the movie came out, so he created a "reconstruction" in order to register the work with the Copyright Office and bring a copyright infringement lawsuit. Lucasfilm protested that the 1980 film could not possibly infringe a drawing that was not created until 1981. Seiler argued in response that whether the "reconstruction" was sufficient secondary evidence of the content of his destroyed originals was a jury question. The Court sided with Lucasfilm, and excluded the reconstruction pursuant to the " best evidence" rule. That rule requires that, when an original document is lost and secondary evidence is offered in its place, the original must not have been lost or destroyed in bad faith. The Court found that in this case, the opposite was true: Seiler had purposely destroyed the original, and his flood story was "inherently unbelievable and disturbingly contradictory" (you know you're in trouble when the judge puts quotation marks around the word "facts" when discussing your testimony). The exclusion of the evidence was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari. Seiler v. Lucasfilm, Ltd., 613 F.Supp. 1253 (N.D. Cal. 1984).
Star Wars v. Star Wars
By 1985, George Lucas was sick and tired of everyone referring to President Reagan's controversial Strategic Defense Initiative (or "SDI") as "Star Wars." Lucasfilm filed suit in the District of Columbia against lobbying groups on both sides of the SDI controversy, alleging that they were infringing the STAR WARS mark by their use of the term in political advertisements, and seeking an injunction against further such use. The Court refused to grant an injunction, finding that the lobbying groups had not affixed the mark to any product, and that the plaintiff and defendants were not in competition with each other. The Court held that it "obviously cannot regulate the type of descriptive, non-trade use involved here without becoming the monitor[] of the spoken or written English language." Lucasfilm, Ltd. v. High Frontier, 622 F.Supp. 931 (D.D.C. 1985).
Star Wars v. Starballz
In 2001, Lucasfilm alleged copyright and trademark infringement against the makers of Starballz, a pornographic hentai-style animation based on Star Wars, replete with anatomically correct spaceships, jack-booted "Sperm Troopers" and a confusing cameo by Mulder and Scully. Oh, and you don't want to know where Princess Leia hides the " Help me Obi Wan" message. Lucasfilm sought an injunction against the release of the allegedly offending work, but the Northern District of California denied the request. The Court held that the work was a parody, that it was rarely sold in the same marketing channels as Star Wars, and that "the Star Wars films are so famous that it is extremely unlikely that consumers would believe that Starballz is associated with Star Wars or Lucasfilm." The matter was voluntarily dismissed a few weeks later. Lucasfilm Ltd. v. Media Market Group, Ltd., 182 F.Supp.2d 897 (N.D. Cal. 2002). Expurgated versions of Starballz are available on YouTube. It's offensive, unintelligible and only slightly more entertaining than The Phantom Menace.
David Kluft works in Foley Hoag LLP's Litigation Department. Read more here.

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A History of 'Star Wars' Legal Wars: 'Battlestar Galactica,' 'Star Trek' and Ronald Reagan

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Haven't seen the new movie yet? The pop culture zeitgeist recommends that you binge-watch all six of the prior Star Wars movies before going to see Episode VII, The Force Awakens and, according to the Washington Post , there is some controversy about the proper binge-watching order.

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May the f ourth has turned into "May the Force" Day for Star Wars fans around the globe.

With that in mind, on "Star Wars Day," we'll look at some of the most notable cases involving this film series that's earned more than 42 billion dollars!

W hen you have a film series that's earned more than 42 billion dollars, you're likely to vigorously protect those intellectual property (IP) rights. Film rights are rights under copyright law to produce a film as a derivative work of a n item of intellectual property. There are also music rights, digital rights, TV rights, theatrical rights, distribution rights, licensing, royalties, profit sharing, and much more.

owns federally-registered trademarks and copyrights in several characters from the Star Wars films, including the "Stormtrooper," "Darth Vader," "Darth Maul," "Chewbacca," "Luke Skywalker," "Princess Leia," "Han Solo," "Obi-Wan Kenobi," and "Yoda" characters.

So, if you're an IP attorney for George Lucas - or now - you have a full-time job. Here are some of the legal entanglements that have come up around this iconic series.

The Star Wars case collection

Some people collect Star Wars action figures and some collect Star Wars . There are Star Wars games, Star Wars books, Star Wars costumes-you can even buy the carbonite slab in which Han Solo was frozen. Plus, much more.

A quick search of caselaw will produce a " collection " of more than 350 decisions mentioning " Star Wars. " Many of these concern copyright and trademark issues involving the Star Wars franchise . Let's look at some of the more notable decisions in the Jedi universe.

Science fiction films are "chancy"

Prior to the release of the first Star Wars film ("Episode IV"), the Ideal Toy company say s "no thanks" to creating officially licensed Star Wars products. Ideal had no interest in the product and said that "science fiction films were chancy." Further, the movie Star Wars was "a rather ordinary property, and all the elements of Star Wars had been done before..." There was a complete lack of interest on Ideal's part.

But their feelings changed after the film broke box office records . Yes, Ideal "reexamine [ d ] its opinion" and decided that "it was necessary to capitalize on the space toy fad as quickly as possible." Ideal produced a line of STAR TEAM-branded action figures, including the evil "Knight of Darkness" and the android duo of "Zem-21 and Zeroid . "

Kenner Products, the official licensee for Star Wars-branded toy figurines, sought a preliminary injunction against Ideal, alleging both copyright and trademark infringement. Ideal acknowledged it was capitalizing on the popularity of the Star Wars phenomenon. The Southern District of New York denied the motion for a preliminary injunction on grounds that Kenner failed to meet its burden of proof.

The court held that there was no likelihood of probable success on the copyright infringement claims because there was no substantial similarity between the toys and the Star Wars characters and because there was objective evidence of independent creation. Ideal Toy Corp. v. Kenner Products , 443 F.Supp. 291 (S.D.N.Y. 1977).

Twentieth Century Fox held the copyright for the motion picture "Star Wars" and for a "Star Wars" book. They sued, for copyright infringement by MCA , the creators of " Battlestar Galactica." BG was released to again capitalize on the Star Wars craze.

MCA didn't argue the validity of Twentieth Century Fox's copyright and admitted having access to its works. The district court granted MCA partial summary judgment on the copyright claims. The only issue on appeal was whether MCA's production was so dissimilar to Twentieth Century Fox's , as to both ideas and expression, that no material fact remained on the question of substantial similarity.

Twentieth Century Fox argued that a comparison of the two works discloses at least 34 similarities , including the fact that "[t] he leader of the democratic forces is an older man, displaying great wisdom, and symbolizing goodness and leadership, with a mysterious mystical ability to dominate a leader of the totalitarian forces ;" "[t] here is a scene in a cantina (Star Wars) or casino (Battlestar), in which musical entertainment is offered by bizarre, non-human creatures ;" and "[t] here is a romance between the hero's friend (the cynical fighter pilot) and the daughter of one of the leaders of the democratic forces. "

The Ninth Circuit said that summary judgment was usually disfavored in copyright actions because substantial similarity was often an extremely close factual question. The Court watched the films (no word if there was popcorn or Jujyfruits ). After, the show, t hey reversed and remanded the matter for trial, finding a number of substantial similarities between the parties' ideas and expressions. " At a minimum, " the Court said, " it is a close enough question that it should be resolved by way of a trial. " Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. v. MCA, Inc. , 715 F.2d 1327, 1328 (9 th Cir. 1983).

The prop designer who made the original Stormtrooper helmets won his copyright battle with Lucas over his right to sell replicas. Lucas f ilm sued Andrew Ainsworth for $20m in 2004, claiming that he didn't hold the intellectual property rights and had no right to sell them.

The Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeals finding that the helmets weren't sculptures, and thus, weren't artistic works. Lucas was successful in US court-but the judgment couldn't be enforced because Ainsworth had no U.S. assets. As a result, Lucas took the battle to the UK and lost. Lucasfilm Limited, et. al v, Ainsworth, [2011] UKSC 39, [2012] 1 AC 208 (2011).

A n ew Star Wars sequel means new litigation to protect the brand.

A rtist Lee Seiler said that the Imperial Walkers from "The Empire Strikes Back" were taken from his 1976 drawings of "Garthian Striders." The artist argued in federal court that his original drawings had been destroyed in a flood right before the movie 's release , so he created a "reconstruction" to register the work with the Copyright Office and bring a copyright infringement lawsuit. Lucasfilm said that their 1980 film could n' t have infringe d on a drawing n ot created until 1981. Seiler respon d e d that whether his "reconstruction" was sufficient secondary evidence of his destroyed originals was a question for the jury.

The district court held for Lucasfilm and excluded the reconstruction based on the " best evidence rule . " Fed. R. Evid. 1004(1) provides that secondary evidence of the contents of a writing, recording, or photograph is admissible unless the proponent of the evidence lost or destroyed the originals in bad faith. Judge William H. Orrick wrote that the majority of these bizarre "facts" (the judge probably would've used air quotes if he was reading his opinion out loud) were not corroborated by any neutral or independent third party.

The district judge found that Seiler had purposely destroyed the original . Orrick held that Seiler failed to meet his burden on the preliminary issue of loss or destruction without bad faith. Seiler v. Lucasfilm , Ltd., 613 F.Supp. 1253 (N.D. Cal. 1984).

The * WARS trademark

As the judge wrote in Lucasfilm, Ltd. v. High Frontier 622 F.Supp. 931 (D.D.C. 1985), "Not so long ago, in a studio far, far away from the policymakers in Washington, D.C., George Lucas conceived of an imaginary galaxy where fantastic creatures and courageous knights battled an evil empire with spaceships, "blaster" guns and light sabers."

With the popularity of the Star Wars movies, everyone was using its title - including the president. In 1985, President Reagan called his Strategic Defense Initiative (or "SDI") "Star Wars." George Lucas really didn't like that and filed suit against D.C. lobbying groups, alleging that they were infr inging the STAR WARS mark by their use of the term in political advertisements . He sought an injunction against such use.

The district court denied the injunction, holding that the lobbying groups had n't affixed any trademark to any goods or services for sale. Indeed, Judge Gerhard Gesell wrote, "they are not engaged in selling anything but ideas." The lobbyists weren't in competition with the filmmaker, so there was no infringement.

Lucas f ilm had no property right in the use of words commonly found in the English language , the judge went on to opine. " Since Jonathan Swift's time, creators of fictional worlds have seen their vocabulary for fantasy appropriated to describe reality. "

Even the adult film industry tried to cash in on the Star Wars craze. George Lucas and his company sued a maker of animated pornographic motion pictures, claiming its copyright and trademark were being infringed, diluted, and tarnished by the porno pic. While Lucas didn't quote Jabba the Hut and cry, " Ya koon tacha poonoo nee sah, gee (" Your powers will not work on me boy "), he did file a motion.

But t he court denied Lucas f ilm's motion for an inju n ction. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken found that Lucasfilm's trademark infringement claim was weak because there was little likelihood of confusion between "Star Wars" and "Star B allz." As far as the copyright claim, the judge held that parody can be a defense to copyright infringement to the extent that it constitutes fair use. Judge Wilken said that "Starballz" rarely would be sold in the same marketing channels as "Star Wars" Lucasfilm Ltd. v. Media Market Group, Ltd. , 182 F.Supp.2d 897 (N.D. Cal. 2002).

As Ninth Circuit Judge Andrew D. Hurwitz opined, "Star Wars is still Star Wars, even without Princess Leia's bikini scene." Disney Enters. v. VidAngel, Inc. , 869 F.3d 848, 861 (9 th Cir. 2017) . So, we're clear on that.

Takeaway

We can't cover all 364 (at last count) other cases dealing with Luke, Leia, and Darth, but here a few more: 485 F.Supp. 375 (S.D.N.Y. 1980) (injunction concerning the sale of STAR TREK shoes) ; and Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC v. Ren Ventures Ltd., 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97238 (N.D. Cal. April 24, 2018) (copyright and trademark infringement in connection with a Lando Calrissian Video Game).

Enjoy May Fourth, and in the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi , "The Force will be with you. Always."

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May the 4th of law be with you | One Legal

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May the f ourth has turned into "May the Force" Day for Star Wars fans around the globe. With that in mind, on "Star Wars Day," we'll look at some of the most notable cases involving this film series that's earned more than 42 billion dollars!

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Blizzard and Valve revealed this afternoon that they've resolved their legal spat over the DOTA trademark. As part of their agreement, Valve will be able to keep the title DOTA 2 for their upcoming strategy game.

"DOTA" is an abbreviation of "Defense of the Ancients," a set of fan-made custom maps that originated with WarCraft III. In these maps, teams of players control hero units and attempt to eliminate the enemy team's base. The map type proved so popular that it's spawned entirely new games, including League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth. DOTA 2 is Valve's first foray into that genre.

After Valve tried to trademark the term DOTA, Blizzard filed a notice of opposition. Their position was that Valve was essentially stealing a brand name that had been established by Blizzard's product. They further alleged that Valve's use of the term in DOTA 2 would cause gamers to think that Blizzard somehow supported the product. Blizzard then tried to make their own claim on the name by announcing a new strategy game called Blizzard DOTA.

Today's agreement between the companies confirms Valve's right to use the DOTA name for commercial purposes moving forward. Blizzard, however, will be able to use the term with regards to the fan-made WC3 and StarCraft II maps.

"Both Blizzard and Valve recognize that, at the end of the day, players just want to be able to play the games they're looking forward to, so we're happy to come to an agreement that helps both of us stay focused on that," said Rob Pardo, executive vice president of game design at Blizzard Entertainment. "As part of this agreement, we're going to be changing the name of Blizzard DOTA to Blizzard All-Stars, which ultimately better reflects the design of our game. We look forward to going into more detail on that at a later date."

This legal dispute is, at its heart, a fight between two companies over a term that neither of them is directly responsible for creating in the first place. At the end of the day, I doubt many gamers cared what DOTA 2 or Blizzard All-Stars was called. I'm glad Blizzard and Valve managed to resolve their issues without either of their games being scrapped.

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Blizzard and Valve revealed this afternoon that they've resolved their legal spat over the DOTA trademark. As part of their agreement, Valve will be able to keep the title DOTA 2 for their upcoming strategy game. "DOTA" is an abbreviation of "Defense of the Ancients," a set of fan-made custom maps that originated with WarCraft III.

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A film-maker who sued Stars Wars producers Lucasfilm for blocking plans to make a film about Darth Vader has won almost £39,500 in damages.

Marc John, 46, of Buckinghamshire, claimed he was stopped from beaming a live interview with actor David Prowse to 1,200 cinemas.

He claims the film would have made about £3m, with his share worth £1.35m.

A High Court judge ruled Mr John could have made the film but for Lucasfilm's interference.

Mr John, of Thornley Close, Aylesbury, claimed the Darth Vader interview and other scenes from the "For the Love of the Force" Star Wars convention in Manchester would have netted him a seven-figure sum.

It would have been broadcast in December 2015, just prior to the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, when anticipation and hype for the franchise was "sky high", his legal team said.

Shane Sibbel, for Mr John, told the High Court Lucasfilm's lawyers contacted the organisers of the convention and threatened to sue them unless they backed out of an agreement to let Mr John film there.

Mr John accused California-based Lucasfilm Ltd LLC and Lucasfilm Entertainment Company LLC of "unlawfully inducing a breach a contract" when they shut down his plan.

Lucasfilm denied any wrongdoing and criticised Mr John's claim as "extraordinarily speculative."

Far from making millions, he would have been lucky to turn a profit, the company insisted.

Judge Veronique Buerhlen QC ruled: "I have come to the conclusion, on the balance of probabilities, that Mr John would have made a film of the convention but for Lucasfilm's interference."

There was a real prospect that Mr John's film would have been shown on 150 screens and, but for Lucasfilm's interference, he would have made "a small profit."

The judge ordered Lucasfilm to pay Mr John a total of £39,504 in damages.

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Star Wars firm to pay Vader film damages

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A film-maker who sued Stars Wars producers Lucasfilm for blocking plans to make a film about Darth Vader has won almost £39,500 in damages. Marc John, 46, of Buckinghamshire, claimed he was stopped from beaming a live interview with actor David Prowse to 1,200 cinemas.

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The next Auto Chess or DOTA probably isn't going to happen in Warcraft 3: Reforged. And if it does, Activision Blizzard is automatically going to own it. The publisher just launched the updated version of its real-time-strategy classic yesterday, January 28. As part of that release, the company published a new policy that gives it total and immediate copyright claims over all custom games.

Here's an excerpt of Blizzard's custom game acceptable-use policy (as PC Gamer first spotted):

"Custom Games are and shall remain the sole and exclusive property of Blizzard. Without limiting the foregoing, you hereby assign to Blizzard all of your rights, title, and interest in and to all Custom Games, including but not limited to any copyrights in the content of any Custom Games. If for any reason you are prevented or restricted from assigning any rights in the Custom Games to Blizzard, you grant to Blizzard an exclusive, perpetual, worldwide, unconditional, royalty free, irrevocable license enabling Blizzard to fully exploit the Custom Games (or any component thereof) for any purpose and in any manner whatsoever. You further agree that should Blizzard decide that it is necessary, you will execute any future assignments and/or related documents promptly upon receiving such a request from Blizzard in order to effectuate the intent of this paragraph."

Put simply, Activision Blizzard doesn't want a repeat of Dota 2. That Valve Software megahit is a quasi-sequel to the Warcraft 3 custom game Defense of the Ancients. But, as you can probably tell, Valve and Activision Blizzard are two different companies.

Blizzard sued Valve over the use of Dota 2, but the two companies eventually settled. And as part of that agreement, Valve kept the Dota name. With this new policy, Blizzard would have a lot more legal control in a similar situation.

This could hurt Warcraft 3's custom-game ecosystem

It makes sense that Activision Blizzard would want to maintain control over what it likely views as derivative works. And even if it does get copyright over custom games, that's not going to stop external developers from making clones.

Copyright doesn't cover ideas. That includes gameplay mechanics. So if someone makes Defense of the Ancients in Warcraft 3, someone else can make the similar League of Legends without much worry about copyright. But a company like Valve would have a much more difficult time making a claim that it could own the name "Dota 2" if Blizzard owned a copyright on Defense of the Ancients.

And if you are a corporate lawyer at Activision Blizzard with any memory of how DOTA went down, you would probably want to make sure it couldn't happen again.

But while it might make sense for an attorney, the policy feels out of touch with the spirit of custom games. The idea is that the community can help a game stay fresh by regularly releasing new ways to play. But the work that a developer does should belong to them to some extent.

We've also seen this play out again since DOTA with Auto Chess. That is a megapopular custom game for Dota 2 on Steam, and it already has a number of clones. The original creators of the mod still own the name Auto Chess, though. And they are making their own standalone version with Epic Games and not Valve.

And if I'm a community creator, I get where Blizzard is coming from. But I wouldn't put any real effort toward a custom game for Warcraft 3. Epic, Riot Games, and Valve all have policies that permit them to build on community content. But they also acknowledge that the original is still your intellectual property and copyright. And that is an important enough distinction that I'd probably skip Blizzard with my funky new custom-game idea.

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Blizzard owns your Warcraft 3: Reforged custom games

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The next Auto Chess or DOTA probably isn't going to happen in Warcraft 3: Reforged. And if it does, Activision Blizzard is automatically going to own it. The publisher just launched the updated version of its real-time-strategy classic yesterday, January 28.

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Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. was a case heard by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by Judge Robert W. Sweet. In their complaint, Universal Studios alleged that Nintendo's video game Donkey Kong was a trademark infringement of , the plot and characters of which Universal claimed as their own. Nintendo argued that Universal had themselves proven that King Kong's plot and characters were in the public domain in Universal City Studios, Inc. v. RKO General, Inc.

Sweet ruled that Universal had acted in bad faith by threatening Nintendo's licensees and that it had no right over the name King Kong or the characters and story. He further held that there was no possibility for consumers to confuse Nintendo's game and characters with the King Kong films and their characters. Universal appealed the case, but the verdict was upheld. The case was a victory for Nintendo, which was still a newcomer to the U.S. market. The case established Nintendo as a major player in the industry and arguably gave the company the confidence that it could compete with the giants of American media.

In 1982, Sid Sheinberg, the president of MCA and Universal City Studios and a seasoned attorney, was trying to find a way to get his company into the booming video game market. In April, he learned of the success of Nintendo's Donkey Kong video game and sent Robert Hadl, vice president of legislative matters, to investigate. Hadl's analysis was that Donkey Kong's storyline was based on that of King Kong and was thus an infringement of Universal's rights to that film's characters and scenario.

Sheinberg also learned of a licensing agreement between Nintendo and Coleco, a producer of home video game consoles. Sheinberg scheduled a meeting with Coleco president Arnold Greenberg on April 27, 1982, ostensibly to discuss possible investment in Coleco. Instead, Universal admonished Greenberg for copyright infringement and threatened to sue if the ColecoVision shipped with Donkey Kong as planned. The next day, Universal telexed Coleco and Nintendo giving them 48 hours to cease marketing Donkey Kong, to dispose of all Donkey Kong inventory, and to hand over all records of profits made from the game. On May 5, Greenberg agreed to pay Universal royalties of 3% of Donkey Kong's net sale price, amounting to six million units and worth about $4.6 million. A week later, he signed an agreement that stated that Universal would not sue Coleco as long as Coleco paid royalties.

Meanwhile, Hadl learned that Tiger Electronics had licensed King Kong for a handheld game. He decided that Universal's earnings from it were too low and that the license's granting of exclusive rights to Tiger would impede the agreement with Coleco. On May 4, Sheinberg sent Tiger a mailgram demanding that they send their game in for further approval. Universal reviewed it and decided that King Kong was too similar to Donkey Kong. On May 8, Sheinberg revoked Tiger's license, but Tiger president O. R. Rissman refused to give in and challenged Universal's claim that it owned the King Kong name.

Nintendo's attorney (and future board member) Howard Lincoln was at first inclined to settle for $5-7 million. Eventually, however, he decided to fight, reassuring the head of the company's U.S. division, Minoru Arakawa, that this was a sign that Nintendo had made it big. On May 6, Arakawa and Lincoln met with Coleco and Universal in Los Angeles. Hadl reiterated his stance that Donkey Kong infringed Universal's rights to King Kong. Lincoln countered that Nintendo had discovered many unlicensed uses of King Kong's name and characters and that Universal's trademark on these was less than 10 years old. In private, Greenberg tried to persuade Nintendo to sign a licensing agreement; he had not told them that he had already done so. By the end of the meeting, Hadl agreed to send a chain of title to Nintendo regarding Universal's ownership of the King Kong name. When this failed to materialize in the next few weeks, Lincoln prodded Universal again. They responded with more demands for royalties.

Lincoln researched the merits of Universal's claims to King Kong and deemed them untenable. Nintendo called for another meeting, which was set up for May 21. Believing that Nintendo was finally caving, Sheinberg intimated that Nintendo might expect future business from Universal if they agreed to settle the matter. Lincoln only repeated Nintendo's position that Universal had no legal basis to make any threats. He recalled later,

Mr. Arakawa and I decided that we would go down and simply tell him [Sheinberg] that we've come to tell you to your face that we would pay you if we thought we were liable, but we had done our homework and we were not prepared to pay anything because we hadn't done anything wrong. We just wanted to essentially look him in the face and tell him that. It seemed the honorable thing to do. As it turned out, maybe Hadl had led him to believe that we had come down to reach some sort of monetary settlement with him. And it was really funny because it was not what he was expecting and his reaction was shock.

Knowing that a court battle lay ahead, Hadl contacted Rissman, the errant Tiger licensee, to compromise on the handheld King Kong game. Hadl wanted to remove the exclusivity provision of the license and to distinguish the handheld game from Donkey Kong so as to weaken any potential counterclaims that one of Universal's licensees had violated Nintendo's intellectual property rights. Rissman complied, giving the hero a fireman hat, replacing barrel graphics with bombs, and making the game platforms straight instead of crooked. This design was approved in early June.

On June 29, 1982, Universal officially sued Nintendo. The company also announced that it had agreed to license the rights to King Kong to Coleco. On January 3, 1983, Universal then sent cease-and-desist letters to Nintendo's licensees offering three options: stop using Donkey Kong characters, obtain a license from Universal, or be sued. Six licensees caved, but Milton Bradley refused to do so. When Ralston Purina's offer of $5,000 for the use of Donkey Kong characters on breakfast cereal was turned down, they also refused to settle.

Lincoln hired John Kirby to represent Nintendo in court. Kirby had won other big cases for the likes of PepsiCo., General Foods, and Warner-Lambert. Kirby researched the game's development, taking depositions from designer Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi in Japan. Miyamoto claimed that he had in fact called his ape character King Kong at first, as that was a generic term in Japan for any large ape.

Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo, Co., Ltd. was heard at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by Judge Robert W. Sweet. The trial lasted seven days, during which Universal, represented by the New York firm Townley & Updike, argued that the name Donkey Kong could be confused with King Kong and that the plot of the game was an infringement on that of the film. Kirby showed key differences between Donkey Kong and King Kong. He also alleged that Universal had no rights to the King Kong characters and that they had in fact successfully sued RKO Pictures in 1975 in Universal City Studios, Inc. v. RKO General, Inc., wherein they proved that the plot of King Kong was in the public domain and thus opened the way for Dino De Laurentiis's remake.

Judge Sweet ruled against Universal and chastised the company:

Throughout this litigation, Universal knew, as a result of the RKO litigation, that it had no rights to any visual image of King Kong from the classic movie or its remake. Nonetheless, Universal, when it seemed beneficial, made sweeping assertions of rights, attempting to extract license agreements from companies incapable of or unwilling to confront Universal's "profit center."

He ruled that Universal did not own King Kong, but even if King Kong was Universal's property, the possibility that anyone would confuse Donkey Kong and King Kong was unlikely. In his opinion, Donkey Kong was "comical" and the ape character "farcical, childlike and nonsexual." The King Kong character, on the other hand, was "a ferocious gorilla in quest of a beautiful woman." Sweet declared that "At best, Donkey Kong is a parody of King Kong." Furthermore, Sweet said, the cease-and-desist letters that Universal had sent to Nintendo's licensees gave the game company the right to seek damages. Finally, Sweet ruled that Tiger's King Kong was an infringement of Donkey Kong:

Donkey Kong's particular expression of a gorilla villain and a carpenter hero (with or without a fire hat) who must dodge various obstacles (whether bombs or fireballs) while climbing up ladders (whether complete or broken) and picking up prizes (umbrellas or purses) to rescue a fair-haired (whether knotted or pigtailed) hostage from the gorilla is protractible against Universal and its licensees.

Nintendo was given the option to either take Universal's licensing profits for their game or accept statutory damages. Nintendo opted for the former, receiving $56,689.41. Nintendo also received damages and attorney's fees.

Universal appealed the verdict to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Nintendo and Universal argued the appeals case on May 23, 1984. As evidence of consumer confusion, Universal presented the results of a telephone survey of 150 managers and owners of arcades, bowling alleys, and pizza restaurants who owned or leased Donkey Kong machines. To the question "To the best of your knowledge, was the Donkey Kong game made with the approval or under the authority of the people who produce the King Kong movies?", 18% of those surveyed answered in the affirmative. However, to the question "As far as you know, who makes Donkey Kong?", no one named Universal. Universal argued that this was enough evidence to show that consumers were confused about the distinction between the two names.

They also provided six examples from print media of more cases of confusion between Donkey Kong and King Kong. The October 1982 issue of Videogaming Illustrated, for example, was shown to read "our Donkey Kong presentation continues as we look at other gorillas who have had a fondness for women. Prominent among them is King Kong, who has much in common with the video villain." Another example was Craig Kubey's 1982 The Winner's Book of Video Games, which states that "Donkey Kong [is] a video version of the film classic King Kong."

In its decision on October 4, 1984, the court upheld the previous verdict. They declared that "The two properties have nothing in common but a gorilla, a captive woman, a male rescuer, and a building scenario." Further, the court ruled that "The 'Kong' and 'King Kong' names are widely used by the general public and are associated with apes and other objects of enormous proportions." As for Universal's survey, the court found it unconvincing, as Universal did not own the "image . . . of King Kong climbing the Empire State Building/ World Trade Center with Fay Wray/ Jessica Lange in his paw" and that by only soliciting opinions from people who already had Donkey Kong games, the survey failed to establish confusion from potential customers. Finally, the survey asked "an obvious leading question in that it suggested its own answer."

Regarding Universal's printed examples, the court found that

The statements cited by Universal recognize that the Donkey Kong theme loosely evokes the King Kong films. However, none of the statements remotely suggests that the authors were under the impression that Donkey Kong was connected with the company holding the King Kong trademark.

The court agreed that some consumers were confused about the two marks. "However, the fact that there may be a few confused consumers does not create a sufficiently disputed issue of fact regarding the likelihood of confusion so as to make summary judgment improper."

When Nintendo filed its counterclaims on May 20, 1985, Sweet ruled that Universal would pay Nintendo $1.8 million for "legal fees, photocopying expenses, costs incurred creating graphs and charts, and lost revenues." He ruled against Nintendo's claims to damages from Universal establishing licenses with Nintendo's licensees in those cases where the licensees continued to pay Nintendo. Nintendo's licensees, Coleco among them, filed their own counterclaims. Universal paid Coleco by buying stock in the company.

Universal and Nintendo both appealed the counterclaims suit. The case was argued on June 16, 1986.

In the decision, rendered on July 15, the court upheld the previous verdicts. They ruled that,

First, Universal knew that it did not have trademark rights to King Kong, yet it proceeded to broadly assert such rights anyway. This amounted to a wanton and reckless disregard of Nintendo's rights.

Second, Universal did not stop after it asserted its rights to Nintendo. It embarked on a deliberate, systematic campaign to coerce all of Nintendo's third party licensees to either stop marketing Donkey Kong products or pay Universal royalties.

Finally, Universal's conduct amounted to an abuse of judicial process, and in that sense caused a longer harm to the public as a whole. Depending on the commercial results, Universal alternatively argued to the courts, first, that King Kong was a part of the public domain, and then second, that King Kong was not part of the public domain, and that Universal possessed exclusive trademark rights in it. Universal's assertions in court were based not on any good faith belief in their truth, but on the mistaken belief that it could use the courts to turn a profit.

Nintendo thanked John Kirby with a $30,000 sailboat christened the Donkey Kong along with "exclusive worldwide rights to use the name for sailboats." The character in Nintendo's series of video games was named after John Kirby, in honor of his services in the Donkey Kong case. It is rumored that a copy of the game was eventually sent to John Kirby who was humored and flattered.

The case was listed on GameSpy's list of the "25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming".

Kent, Steven L. (2001). The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokémon and Beyond- The Story behind the Craze that Touched Our Lives and Changed the World. Roseville, California: Prima Publishing. ISBN 0-7615-3643-4.

Sheff, David (1999). Game Over: Press Start to Continue: The Maturing of Mario. Wilton, Connecticut: GamePress.

"Smash Profile: Kirby". IGN. 2001-06-22.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit (October 4, 1984). Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit (July 15, 1986). Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.

"Universal Goes Ape". The 25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming. GameSpy. June 2003. Archived from the original on 2007-06-10.

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Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. - Wikipedia

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Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. was a case heard by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by Judge Robert W. Sweet. In their complaint, Universal Studios alleged that Nintendo's video game Donkey Kong was a trademark infringement of , the plot and characters of which Universal claimed as their own.

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Reports from the US suggest that American Rapper Dr Dre is being sued by George Lucas's Lucasfilm in one of the first cases of copyright infringement of a sound.

The rap superstar is accused of using a sound called 'THX Deep Note', a sound Lucasfilm has trademarked - he claims the first sound ever to be trademarked - without the company's permission. The sound, described as a rumbling explosion, is used to accompany the THX logo before film screenings in cinemas with THX sound systems.

The sound is used over the opening of the Dr Dre 2001 album. MTV reports that Dre's lawyer claims not have received the suit, while a spokesperson for Interscope, Dre's record label would not comment.
Topics

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Reports from the US suggest that American Rapper Dr Dre is being sued by George Lucas's Lucasfilm in one of the first cases of copyright infringement of a sound. The rap superstar is accused of using a sound called 'THX Deep Note', a sound Lucasfilm has trademarked - he claims the first sound ever to be trademarked - without the company's permission.

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Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. was a case heard by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by Judge Robert W. Sweet. In their complaint, Universal Studios alleged that Nintendo's video game Donkey Kong was a trademark infringement of , the plot and characters of which Universal claimed as their own. Nintendo argued that Universal had themselves proven that King Kong's plot and characters were in the public domain in Universal City Studios, Inc. v. RKO General, Inc.

Sweet ruled that Universal had acted in bad faith by threatening Nintendo's licensees and that it had no right over the name King Kong or the characters and story. He further held that there was no possibility for consumers to confuse Nintendo's game and characters with the King Kong films and their characters. Universal appealed the case, but the verdict was upheld. The case was a victory for Nintendo, which was still a newcomer to the U.S. market. The case established Nintendo as a major player in the industry and arguably gave the company the confidence that it could compete with the giants of American media.

In 1982, Sid Sheinberg, the president of MCA and Universal City Studios and a seasoned attorney, was trying to find a way to get his company into the booming video game market. In April, he learned of the success of Nintendo's Donkey Kong video game and sent Robert Hadl, vice president of legislative matters, to investigate. Hadl's analysis was that Donkey Kong's storyline was based on that of King Kong and was thus an infringement of Universal's rights to that film's characters and scenario.

Sheinberg also learned of a licensing agreement between Nintendo and Coleco, a producer of home video game consoles. Sheinberg scheduled a meeting with Coleco president Arnold Greenberg on April 27, 1982, ostensibly to discuss possible investment in Coleco. Instead, Universal admonished Greenberg for copyright infringement and threatened to sue if the ColecoVision shipped with Donkey Kong as planned. The next day, Universal telexed Coleco and Nintendo giving them 48 hours to cease marketing Donkey Kong, to dispose of all Donkey Kong inventory, and to hand over all records of profits made from the game. On May 5, Greenberg agreed to pay Universal royalties of 3% of Donkey Kong's net sale price, amounting to six million units and worth about $4.6 million. A week later, he signed an agreement that stated that Universal would not sue Coleco as long as Coleco paid royalties.

Meanwhile, Hadl learned that Tiger Electronics had licensed King Kong for a handheld game. He decided that Universal's earnings from it were too low and that the license's granting of exclusive rights to Tiger would impede the agreement with Coleco. On May 4, Sheinberg sent Tiger a mailgram demanding that they send their game in for further approval. Universal reviewed it and decided that King Kong was too similar to Donkey Kong. On May 8, Sheinberg revoked Tiger's license, but Tiger president O. R. Rissman refused to give in and challenged Universal's claim that it owned the King Kong name.

Nintendo's attorney (and future board member) Howard Lincoln was at first inclined to settle for $5-7 million. Eventually, however, he decided to fight, reassuring the head of the company's U.S. division, Minoru Arakawa, that this was a sign that Nintendo had made it big. On May 6, Arakawa and Lincoln met with Coleco and Universal in Los Angeles. Hadl reiterated his stance that Donkey Kong infringed Universal's rights to King Kong. Lincoln countered that Nintendo had discovered many unlicensed uses of King Kong's name and characters and that Universal's trademark on these was less than 10 years old. In private, Greenberg tried to persuade Nintendo to sign a licensing agreement; he had not told them that he had already done so. By the end of the meeting, Hadl agreed to send a chain of title to Nintendo regarding Universal's ownership of the King Kong name. When this failed to materialize in the next few weeks, Lincoln prodded Universal again. They responded with more demands for royalties.

Lincoln researched the merits of Universal's claims to King Kong and deemed them untenable. Nintendo called for another meeting, which was set up for May 21. Believing that Nintendo was finally caving, Sheinberg intimated that Nintendo might expect future business from Universal if they agreed to settle the matter. Lincoln only repeated Nintendo's position that Universal had no legal basis to make any threats. He recalled later,

Mr. Arakawa and I decided that we would go down and simply tell him [Sheinberg] that we've come to tell you to your face that we would pay you if we thought we were liable, but we had done our homework and we were not prepared to pay anything because we hadn't done anything wrong. We just wanted to essentially look him in the face and tell him that. It seemed the honorable thing to do. As it turned out, maybe Hadl had led him to believe that we had come down to reach some sort of monetary settlement with him. And it was really funny because it was not what he was expecting and his reaction was shock.

Knowing that a court battle lay ahead, Hadl contacted Rissman, the errant Tiger licensee, to compromise on the handheld King Kong game. Hadl wanted to remove the exclusivity provision of the license and to distinguish the handheld game from Donkey Kong so as to weaken any potential counterclaims that one of Universal's licensees had violated Nintendo's intellectual property rights. Rissman complied, giving the hero a fireman hat, replacing barrel graphics with bombs, and making the game platforms straight instead of crooked. This design was approved in early June.

On June 29, 1982, Universal officially sued Nintendo. The company also announced that it had agreed to license the rights to King Kong to Coleco. On January 3, 1983, Universal then sent cease-and-desist letters to Nintendo's licensees offering three options: stop using Donkey Kong characters, obtain a license from Universal, or be sued. Six licensees caved, but Milton Bradley refused to do so. When Ralston Purina's offer of $5,000 for the use of Donkey Kong characters on breakfast cereal was turned down, they also refused to settle.

Lincoln hired John Kirby to represent Nintendo in court. Kirby had won other big cases for the likes of PepsiCo., General Foods, and Warner-Lambert. Kirby researched the game's development, taking depositions from designer Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi in Japan. Miyamoto claimed that he had in fact called his ape character King Kong at first, as that was a generic term in Japan for any large ape.

Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo, Co., Ltd. was heard at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by Judge Robert W. Sweet. The trial lasted seven days, during which Universal, represented by the New York firm Townley & Updike, argued that the name Donkey Kong could be confused with King Kong and that the plot of the game was an infringement on that of the film. Kirby showed key differences between Donkey Kong and King Kong. He also alleged that Universal had no rights to the King Kong characters and that they had in fact successfully sued RKO Pictures in 1975 in Universal City Studios, Inc. v. RKO General, Inc., wherein they proved that the plot of King Kong was in the public domain and thus opened the way for Dino De Laurentiis's remake.

Judge Sweet ruled against Universal and chastised the company:

Throughout this litigation, Universal knew, as a result of the RKO litigation, that it had no rights to any visual image of King Kong from the classic movie or its remake. Nonetheless, Universal, when it seemed beneficial, made sweeping assertions of rights, attempting to extract license agreements from companies incapable of or unwilling to confront Universal's "profit center."

He ruled that Universal did not own King Kong, but even if King Kong was Universal's property, the possibility that anyone would confuse Donkey Kong and King Kong was unlikely. In his opinion, Donkey Kong was "comical" and the ape character "farcical, childlike and nonsexual." The King Kong character, on the other hand, was "a ferocious gorilla in quest of a beautiful woman." Sweet declared that "At best, Donkey Kong is a parody of King Kong." Furthermore, Sweet said, the cease-and-desist letters that Universal had sent to Nintendo's licensees gave the game company the right to seek damages. Finally, Sweet ruled that Tiger's King Kong was an infringement of Donkey Kong:

Donkey Kong's particular expression of a gorilla villain and a carpenter hero (with or without a fire hat) who must dodge various obstacles (whether bombs or fireballs) while climbing up ladders (whether complete or broken) and picking up prizes (umbrellas or purses) to rescue a fair-haired (whether knotted or pigtailed) hostage from the gorilla is protractible against Universal and its licensees.

Nintendo was given the option to either take Universal's licensing profits for their game or accept statutory damages. Nintendo opted for the former, receiving $56,689.41. Nintendo also received damages and attorney's fees.

Universal appealed the verdict to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Nintendo and Universal argued the appeals case on May 23, 1984. As evidence of consumer confusion, Universal presented the results of a telephone survey of 150 managers and owners of arcades, bowling alleys, and pizza restaurants who owned or leased Donkey Kong machines. To the question "To the best of your knowledge, was the Donkey Kong game made with the approval or under the authority of the people who produce the King Kong movies?", 18% of those surveyed answered in the affirmative. However, to the question "As far as you know, who makes Donkey Kong?", no one named Universal. Universal argued that this was enough evidence to show that consumers were confused about the distinction between the two names.

They also provided six examples from print media of more cases of confusion between Donkey Kong and King Kong. The October 1982 issue of Videogaming Illustrated, for example, was shown to read "our Donkey Kong presentation continues as we look at other gorillas who have had a fondness for women. Prominent among them is King Kong, who has much in common with the video villain." Another example was Craig Kubey's 1982 The Winner's Book of Video Games, which states that "Donkey Kong [is] a video version of the film classic King Kong."

In its decision on October 4, 1984, the court upheld the previous verdict. They declared that "The two properties have nothing in common but a gorilla, a captive woman, a male rescuer, and a building scenario." Further, the court ruled that "The 'Kong' and 'King Kong' names are widely used by the general public and are associated with apes and other objects of enormous proportions." As for Universal's survey, the court found it unconvincing, as Universal did not own the "image . . . of King Kong climbing the Empire State Building/ World Trade Center with Fay Wray/ Jessica Lange in his paw" and that by only soliciting opinions from people who already had Donkey Kong games, the survey failed to establish confusion from potential customers. Finally, the survey asked "an obvious leading question in that it suggested its own answer."

Regarding Universal's printed examples, the court found that

The statements cited by Universal recognize that the Donkey Kong theme loosely evokes the King Kong films. However, none of the statements remotely suggests that the authors were under the impression that Donkey Kong was connected with the company holding the King Kong trademark.

The court agreed that some consumers were confused about the two marks. "However, the fact that there may be a few confused consumers does not create a sufficiently disputed issue of fact regarding the likelihood of confusion so as to make summary judgment improper."

When Nintendo filed its counterclaims on May 20, 1985, Sweet ruled that Universal would pay Nintendo $1.8 million for "legal fees, photocopying expenses, costs incurred creating graphs and charts, and lost revenues." He ruled against Nintendo's claims to damages from Universal establishing licenses with Nintendo's licensees in those cases where the licensees continued to pay Nintendo. Nintendo's licensees, Coleco among them, filed their own counterclaims. Universal paid Coleco by buying stock in the company.

Universal and Nintendo both appealed the counterclaims suit. The case was argued on June 16, 1986.

In the decision, rendered on July 15, the court upheld the previous verdicts. They ruled that,

First, Universal knew that it did not have trademark rights to King Kong, yet it proceeded to broadly assert such rights anyway. This amounted to a wanton and reckless disregard of Nintendo's rights.

Second, Universal did not stop after it asserted its rights to Nintendo. It embarked on a deliberate, systematic campaign to coerce all of Nintendo's third party licensees to either stop marketing Donkey Kong products or pay Universal royalties.

Finally, Universal's conduct amounted to an abuse of judicial process, and in that sense caused a longer harm to the public as a whole. Depending on the commercial results, Universal alternatively argued to the courts, first, that King Kong was a part of the public domain, and then second, that King Kong was not part of the public domain, and that Universal possessed exclusive trademark rights in it. Universal's assertions in court were based not on any good faith belief in their truth, but on the mistaken belief that it could use the courts to turn a profit.

Nintendo thanked John Kirby with a $30,000 sailboat christened the Donkey Kong along with "exclusive worldwide rights to use the name for sailboats." The character in Nintendo's series of video games was named after John Kirby, in honor of his services in the Donkey Kong case. It is rumored that a copy of the game was eventually sent to John Kirby who was humored and flattered.

The case was listed on GameSpy's list of the "25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming".

Kent, Steven L. (2001). The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokémon and Beyond- The Story behind the Craze that Touched Our Lives and Changed the World. Roseville, California: Prima Publishing. ISBN 0-7615-3643-4.

Sheff, David (1999). Game Over: Press Start to Continue: The Maturing of Mario. Wilton, Connecticut: GamePress.

"Smash Profile: Kirby". IGN. 2001-06-22.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit (October 4, 1984). Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit (July 15, 1986). Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.

"Universal Goes Ape". The 25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming. GameSpy. June 2003. Archived from the original on 2007-06-10.

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Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. - Wikipedia

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Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. was a case heard by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by Judge Robert W. Sweet. In their complaint, Universal Studios alleged that Nintendo's video game Donkey Kong was a trademark infringement of , the plot and characters of which Universal claimed as their own.

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In Disney's Magic Kingdom there is Tomorrowland, Fantasyland and Frontierland, but the theme park may want to think about adding "Legal Land" to its attractions.

The Walt Disney Company is facing two major lawsuits from workers -- one involving gender-based pay discrimination toward female employees and a second suit on pay equity at Disneyland.

On Wednesday following Disney's request to block the class-action lawsuit concerning unequal pay practices in Los Angeles Superior Court, the entertainment giant's "demurrer" (a written response to a complaint filed in a lawsuit that pleads for dismissal even if the facts alleged in the complaint were true, contending there is no legal basis for a lawsuit) was rejected.
DISNEY CAN BE SUED BY BILL NYE 'THE SCIENCE GUY' JUDGE RULES
This move paves the way for "discovery" (pretrial procedure where each party can obtain evidence from the other party), which could lead to the approval of a class-action suit. Walt Disney Studios employees LaRonda Rasmussen and Karen Moore began the legal action on April 3 in an attempt to gain back pay, lost benefits and other compensation.
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If the class action were granted under California's Equal Pay Act, it could involve thousands of women given that Disney employs 32,000 people at its park in Anaheim and nearly as many at its studio operations and headquarters in Burbank.

A Walt Disney spokesperson tells FOX Business;

"Today's ruling merely deferred to a later point the decision whether plaintiffs' individual claims are suitable for class action treatment. We look forward to making our case that they are not at that time."
- Walt Disney Spokesperson

On Tuesday, a group of Disneyland workers filed a class-action lawsuit claiming the Anaheim resort is violating a 2018 city ballot measure by failing to pay its workers a living wage. The group claims Disneyland has violated the requirements of "Measure L," which mandates that any hospitality business located in Anaheim's resort district and benefiting from a city subsidy must pay workers a minimum of $15 an hour.
DISNEY TAKES OVER HULU FROM COMCAST AS STREAM WARS HEAT UP
Disney did agree with some union workers in 2018 to increase its minimum wage to $15. But the workers who filed suit say either through that agreement or through "Measure L" the raise for them has not occurred. "We kept looking at our paystub every week for the first month or two," Tom Bray, a bellman at the Disneyland Hotel, told LAist. "Eventually we figured, OK, they're not going to pay us."

The "Measure L" minimum wage rule applies to employers that receive publicly funded subsidies, such as tax rebates, from the City of Anaheim. Disney spokesperson Liz Jaeger told LAist, "The union coalition is well aware that the City Attorney has previously looked at this issue and clearly stated that Measure L does not apply to the Disneyland Resort."

Also on the legal docket for Disney is a long-running legal battle with Bill Nye "The Science Guy," which last week gained approval to proceed to trial.
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Disney fighting off 2 potential class-action lawsuits in California

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In Disney's Magic Kingdom there is Tomorrowland, Fantasyland and Frontierland, but the theme park may want to think about adding "Legal Land" to its attractions. The Walt Disney Company is facing two major lawsuits from workers -- one involving gender-based pay discrimination toward female employees and a second suit on pay equity at Disneyland.

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Things have been tough for Blizzard recently. The company's banning of a pro-Hong Kong Hearthstone player has led to much criticism and has made them the butt of many jokes in the gaming community, and then there's the plummeting Blizzard game sales for the company overall. On top of all that, the company also had to deal with a Chinese game company copying and stealing elements from Overwatch.

Fortunately for Activision Blizzard and its Chinese partner NetEase, they won the copyright lawsuit. The Pudong New Area People's Court ruled that the Chinese game developer 4399 Network was guilty of copyright infringement for taking elements from the popular first-person hero shooter and adding them to two of their games, those being the mobile game Clash of Fighters and an online game called Gunplay Battlefront.
RELATED: Everything You Need To Know Before Playing Diablo 4
These two games have been accused of stealing quite a bit from Overwatch, from its general gameplay to the character designs and even the playable maps. 4399 Network argued that Blizzard didn't own the elements it claimed to have rights to, and in fact claimed that Blizzard had stolen these aspects that were present in previous games. 4399 Network also claimed that despite the similarities to Overwatch, their games were all original developments. Because of these reasons, the Chinese company believed that they could not be accused of copyright infringement.

Blizzard hasn't been found guilty of stealing elements from any other game when making Overwatch, though, so the Chinese court threw out that claim and ruled in favor of Blizzard. As a result, Blizzard and NetEase have been awarded 4 million Yuan, which is roughly equivalent to $569,000 USD. When broken down, that's 3 million Yuan for the Overwatch elements used in Clash of Fighters and 500,000 Yuan for Gunplay Battlefront. The reason why they received so much less for the online game is because it has been unavailable since the summer of 2017. 4399 Network must also pay for Blizzard and NetEase's legal fees, which equates to about 470,000 Yuan.

These aren't the only Chinese knock-offs Blizzard has had to deal with. About two weeks ago, Blizzard had already won a lawsuit against 4399 Network over another one of their Overwatch clones called Heroes of Warfare. And back in August, Blizzard sued Chinese company Sina Games for intellectual property infringement, calling their game Glorious Saga a "blatant Warcraft knock-off".

Overall, Blizzard must be glad to get this whole copyright mess cleaned up before the release of Overwatch 2, which was announced at BlizzCon 2019 earlier this month. The sequel seems to work more like an expansion, though, as original Overwatch players will get all the same maps that Overwatch 2 will have, and progression and cosmetics will carry over to the next game. Overwatch 2 director Jeff Kaplan also teased that the long-awaited story mode will be a decently long experience.

MORE: Overwatch 2 Story 'Leak' Isn't What It Seems

Source: Happy Gamer

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Things have been tough for Blizzard recently. The company's banning of a pro-Hong Kong Hearthstone player has led to much criticism and has made them the butt of many jokes in the gaming community, and then there's the plummeting Blizzard game sales for the company overall.

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Media giant Disney is being sued for using the phrase "Trust Your Journey" as part of its "Frozen 2" release. A Nevada-based company that shares inspirational stories for those facing breast cancer says it used the phrase first.

According to a report in TMZ, the company - also called Trust Your Journey and headed up by a cancer survivor and a young widowed mother - has used that name and slogan since 2007. They claim Disney is using it illegally on "Frozen 2" merchandise.

In the lawsuit, the company said the trademarked phrase can be found on Disney T-shirts, posters and jewelry despite Trust Your Journey already sporting it on its own goods.

Some of the Disney products with the slogan can be found through third-party sellers.

Neither Disney nor Trust Your Journey immediately responded to a request for comment from FOX Business, but the suit could have big monetary implications for both.

Disney brought in nearly $60 billion in U.S. revenue last year. And "Frozen 2," which was released Nov. 22, has already brought in a whopping $340 million in U.S. ticket sales.
PEACOCK WILL GET $2 BILLION TOWARD STREAMING CONTENT
This latest suit comes on the heels of another $28 million lawsuit against the company, filed by TV host Bill Nye the Science Guy, claiming Disney under-reported or withheld his share of profits from the 1990s syndicated series, "Bill Nye, the Science Guy."
CLICK HERE TO GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO
Disney's stock is up 31 percent on the year.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS

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Disney sued for using these three words on 'Frozen 2' merch

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Media giant Disney is being sued for using the phrase "Trust Your Journey" as part of its "Frozen 2" release. A Nevada-based company that shares inspirational stories for those facing breast cancer says it used the phrase first.

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One of the great litigation curses in recent times in the corporate litigation arena has been the rise of merger objection litigation. These kinds of lawsuits, which these days arise in connection with almost every M&A transaction, often are settled for nothing more than an agreement to make additional disclosures and to pay the plaintiffs' attorneys fees. However, from time to time, there are merger objection lawsuits that settle on more substantial terms.

Within the past few days, two merger objection settlements - one involving Activision Blizzard, Inc. and the other involving Freeport-McMoRan, Inc. - have been announced involving massive cash payments, much of it reportedly to be paid by D&O insurers. The Activision settlement may represent the largest cash settlement payment ever in a shareholder derivative lawsuit.

The Activision Settlement: On November 19, 2014, Activision, which is the maker of the popular videogames "Call of Duty" and "Worlds of Warcraft," announced ( here) the $275 million settlement of the shareholder derivative lawsuit that had been filed in Delaware Chancery Court. The lawsuit had been filed in connection with the transaction announced in July 2013 whereby Activision and an entity controlled by Activision's two senior officers acquired over 50% of Activision's outstanding shares from Vivendi S.A., its controlling stockholder, for approximately $8 billion in cash.

After the transaction was announced, several Activision shareholders filed lawsuits challenging the stock purchase. The defendants in the litigation included members of the Activision board (including six members of Activision board that had been designated by Vivendi); the senior Activision officers that were participating in the transaction and the corporate vehicles through which they were purchasing the Activision shares from Vivendi; and Vivendi itself. Among other things, the shareholders contended that the transaction should be put to a vote of the Activision shareholders.

The Delaware Chancery Court had put the transaction on hold pending a shareholder vote, but the Delaware Supreme Court, in an interlocutory appeal, reversed the ruling, allowing the transaction to go forward. The lawsuit, seeking damages, went foward. The November 15, 2013 Delaware Supreme Court opinion addressing the interlocutory appeal - and that describes the transaction and the lawsuit in greater detail - can be found here.

In its press release, Activision said that the $275 million settlement amount was to be paid to Activision itself by "multiple insurance companies, along with various defendants." Ashby Jones's November 19, 2014 Wall Street Journal article describing the settlement ( here) states that Vivendi is among the parties that will be contributing to the settlement payment.

The Activision press release also states that as part of the settlement two unaffiliated directors would be added to the company board; the plaintiffs' attorneys would be paid their "reasonable and customary fees and costs"; and there would be an adjustment made to voting rights. The deal must be approved by Delaware Chancellor Travis Laster.

According to the November 19, 2014 Reuters article by Tom Hals ( here), the Activision settlement is "the largest of a shareholder derivative lawsuit," exceeding last year's $139 million News Corp. settlement.

The Freeport-McMorRan Settlement: According to Liz Hoffman's December 1, 2014 Wall Street Journal article ( here), Freeport-McMoRan is nearing a settlement of more than $130 million to resolve a 2013 shareholder derivative lawsuit that had been filed in connection with the company's purchase of two oil-and-gas companies.

The settlement would resolve allegations by Freeport's shareholders that the company overpaid when it bought McMoRan Exploration and Plains Exploration & Production companies for a combined $9 billion. The shareholders had alleged that the Freeport board had conflicts of interest while negotiating the company's summer 2013 purchase of McMoran and Plains.

According to the Journal article, the shareholders alleged that the deals had been an effort by Freeport management to rescue struggling McMoRan, in which Freeport, its board members, and key executives owned shares. The shareholder plaintiffs alleged that Freeport had agreed to acquire McMoRan at too high a price as a way to bail out a struggling company. The two companies shared six directors including each company's CEO. Nine Freeport directors owned about 6% of McMoRan stock between them. The overlap between the two companies was a relic of the companies' past, as McMoRan had split from Freeport in the 1990s. Plains owned 31% of McMorRan and had the ability to block the sale of the company.

The Journal article reports that under the settlement agreement, which is subject to court approval, much of the more than $130 million to be paid in the settlement would be paid to the Freeport shareholders in the form of a special dividend. The total amount of the dividend is likely to exceed $100 million.

According to the Journal article, "most of the cost of the settlement would be paid for using a special type of insurance policy that covers directors and executives, according to some of the people. Freeport would pay the rest."

According to a December 1, 2014 WSJ MoneyBeat blog post about the settlement ( here), this type of settlement providing for a dividend payment to shareholders is the "first example" of this type of settlement payout.
Discussion
One of the main criticisms of the recent wave of merger objection litigation is that the lawsuits often accomplish little except the transfer of cash to the plaintiffs' lawyers that file the suits. Indeed, until recently, settlements of shareholders' derivative lawsuits of all kinds rarely involved the payment of significant amounts of cash. However, as I noted at the time of the $139 million News Corp. settlement ( here), in more recent times there have been a number of derivative lawsuit settlements that have involved very significant cash payments.

These two recent settlements described above show that at least under certain circumstances, even the settlement of shareholder lawsuits involving merger objections can involve the payment of significant cash amounts.

The common feature of these two cases that may account for the magnitude of the cash payments seems to be the conflicts of interest that were alleged to be part of the challenged transactions. In the Activision case, two senior Activision officials allegedly were active participants in the acquisition of the company's shares from Vivendi. In the Freeport-McMoRan case, Freeport's acquisition of McMoRan and Plains allegedly involved the company's supposed overpayment for companies in which senior company officials had financial interests and with which the Freeport board had overlapping memberships.

Another common element with respect to these two settlements is that at least according to press reports the settlements will involve significant cash contributions by D&O insurers. I have not yet been able to get my hands on the settlement documents for either of these settlements so I have been unable to determine how much of either of these settlements was to be paid by D&O insurers.

An interesting question about the D&O insurers' contribution is - exactly whose D&O Insurance will be making the contribution? In the Activision case, the defendants involved included both Activision and its board but also Vivendi. The Journal article describing the settlement said that Vivendi was contributing to the settlement; it isn't clear whether or to what extent Vivendi's D&O insurer might be contributing. The Activision press release about the settlement didn't say whether the insurers that were contributing were Activision's insurers or Vivendi's insurers (or some combination).

The information in the Journal about the Freeport-McMoRan settlement doesn't say whether the D&O insurers that would be making the payment were Freeport's or if the insurers for one of the target companies are also contributing.

The fact that the $275 million cash in the Activision settlement will be paid to Activision itself raises the question whether the D&O insurers' contribution to the shareholder derivative settlement would be a Side A payment (and, if it is a Side A payment, whether Activision's Side A/DIC insurers might have been called upon to contribute to the settlement). To the extent Vivendi's insurers contributed to the settlement, Vivendi's insurers' contribution would not likely be a Side A contribution.

The fact that most of the settlement cash in the Freeport case will be paid to the Freeport shareholders in the form of a special dividend raises an interesting question about the role of the D&O insurance. I can see that many D&O Insurers would be very uncomfortable with the idea that one of their insured companies might want to finance a special dividend to its shareholders with the proceeds of the D&O insurance policies. Even if the dividend is to be paid in the settlement of a D&O lawsuit, the use of insurance to finance a dividend is a notion that arguably does not sit comfortably with the usual purposes and role of liability insurance. I would be very interested in others' thoughts about this aspect of the Freeport-McMoRan settlement.

In any event, as I said at the time of the $139 million News Corp. settlement, shareholders derivative litigation is becoming a severity risk for companies and their directors and officers - and for their D&O insurers. The News Corp. settlement was funded entirely by D&O insurers and the Activision and Freeport McMoRan settlement were funded at least in part by D&O insurance. There was a time when the severity exposure for D&O insurers did not involved derivative litigation, but those days seem to be gone now. The rise of jumbo shareholder derivative lawsuit settlements has a number of implications. Among other things, it is a topic that will have to be taken into account as D&O insurance buyers consider how much insurance they will need to ensure that their interests are adequately protected.

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Two Recent Massive Merger Objection Lawsuit Settlements Include Significant D&O Insurer Contributions | The D&O Diary

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One of the great litigation curses in recent times in the corporate litigation arena has been the rise of merger objection litigation. These kinds of lawsuits, which these days arise in connection with almost every M&A transaction, often are settled for nothing more than an agreement to make additional disclosures and to pay the plaintiffs' attorneys fees.

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An artist named Sweet Cecily Daniher on Monday sued Disney, Pixar and Onward producer Kori Rae for allegedly conspiring to secretly create an animated doppelganger of her one-of-a-kind van without permission.

She calls it the "Vanicorn," and, according to her lawsuit, it's the result of her lifelong love of the mythical beasts.

"At the risk of belaboring the point, the Plaintiff has had a real thing for unicorns, for a very long time, and they have been a central theme and subject matter of her artistic work, throughout the entirety of her career," states the complaint, which is posted in full below.

Daniher has spent the better part of the past two decades taking pictures of common things that look like unicorns. In 2014, she published a book of her photographs called I See Unicorns. For the the past six years she's owned a "tremendously cool, dark blue and/or purple 1972 Chevrolet G10 van, with red shag carpeting, red velour walls and seating, and a white shag carpet roof" and a unicorn mural on the side, which she regularly posts photos of on Instagram.

It has drawn "considerable press attention," according to Daniher, who says a San Francisco Magazine piece sparked Pixar's attention and the company reached out about renting her vehicle for a special event in September 2018. She says she was told "the Vanicorn would be used for an event limited to 'a one day music festival/activity day for Pixar employees and families' and that the Vanicorn 'would just be a show piece and not used in any way other than a visual prop.'"

On May 31, 2019, Daniher discovered Pixar was producing Onward, a tale of two blue elves trying to reunite with their dead father who travel around in a vehicle that looks suspiciously like the Vanicorn. She posted the two vans on Instagram and wrote, "WOW! Sooo, do y'all think Pixar Disney stole the Vanicorn for their movie #onward ????"

On June 3, she posted the image again with this caption: "Well, SHIT! The producer of 'Onward' just called me. She wanted to know HOW I'M FEELING...(?!) and to apologize.... she also wanted to tell me that they rented my van without disclosing their full intentions, or plans, and she's sorry for that too."

In the complaint, Daniher says Rae apologized and admitted they intentionally didn't inform her that they intended to use the Vanicorn as a character in Onward because, at the time, the film didn't have a title and without a title they couldn't have her sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Daniher's lawyers, Jared Weinstock and J. Conor Corcoran, argue the contract for the van rental explicitly prohibits any photos, video or visual representations of the Vanicorn for any purpose other than that event.

"[T]hey have altered this Plaintiff's highly personal and public transubstantiation of her lifelong artistic interest in unicorns into the Vanicorn (a uniquely San Franciscan work of public, mobile, automotive art, and a redemptive and validating act of recovery from toxic masculinity and a former marriage) and which has, instead, been pilfered by the Defendants as a commercial and corporate conduit for the aspirations of a pair of blue boy elves looking for their father in a mass marketed Disney film, and was accomplished by the Defendants under wickedly misleading pretenses," states the complaint.

Daniher is suing for copyright infringement, violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, violation of the Visual Artists Rights Act and violation of the California Artists Protection Act. In addition to seeking damages, Daniher is asking the court for an injunction barring defendants from distributing, marketing or selling infringing advertisements, merchandise and the film itself and she wants a declaration that defendants' related copyrights are invalid.

Disney has not yet responded to a request for comment on the complaint.

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Artist Sues Disney, Pixar Over Unicorn-Adorned Van in 'Onward'

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An artist named Sweet Cecily Daniher on Monday sued Disney, Pixar and Onward producer Kori Rae for allegedly conspiring to secretly create an animated doppelganger of her one-of-a-kind van without permission. She calls it the "Vanicorn," and, according to her lawsuit, it's the result of her lifelong love of the mythical beasts.

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All the latest news about Cliff Richard privacy case from the BBC

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Professional wrestler Booker T. Huffman is suing games publisher Activision for allegedly putting his comic book character "G.I. Bro" in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Huffman filed a copyright complaint today based on similarities between G.I. Bro and the Black Ops character David "Prophet" Wilkes. "They could have drawn him any way they wanted. But they chose to steal Booker T's 'G. I. Bro,'" the complaint reads.

Huffman's lawsuit seems based essentially on visual similarities between G.I. Bro and Prophet. (That's G.I. Bro as depicted in Huffman's comic book G.I. Bro and the Dragon of Death, as opposed to his 1990s "G.I. Bro" wrestling persona, and Prophet as depicted in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, as opposed to an older version of the character in Black Ops III.) Specifically, it compares a picture of Huffman's character with a promotional image of Prophet, stating that "there is no doubt that [Activision] copied 'G.I. Bro.'"

The complaint describes Huffman's character, which is based on his old alter ego, as "a retired special operations soldier, fighting an old enemy he thought he had finished off years before, with the support of his old military friends." Prophet, a multiplayer "specialist" character in Black Ops 4, is a cybernetically enhanced soldier who eventually replaces most of his body parts with mechanical upgrades. While the two men sound almost nothing alike, at least a couple of Redditors have commented that Prophet looked like Booker T.

Huffman isn't the first celebrity to sue over having their alleged likeness in a video game. Lindsay Lohan famously sued Rockstar Games over a Grand Theft Auto character she claimed had been based on her, but a court shot down the complaint. Actor Alfonso Ribiero, among other internet celebrities and musicians, has sued Epic Games over Fortnite - in Ribiero's case, for basing a Fortnite emote on a dance he'd invented for Carlton Banks, his character on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Ribiero has argued that "the Carlton" is a distinctive mannerism associated with his likeness - although that's a dicey claim.

Activision didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Wrestler Booker T is suing Activision for allegedly putting his alter ego in Black Ops 4

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Professional wrestler Booker T. Huffman is suing games publisher Activision for allegedly putting his comic book character "G.I. Bro" in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Huffman filed a copyright complaint today based on similarities between G.I. Bro and the Black Ops character David "Prophet" Wilkes.

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At the moment, this case seems to be in the earliest phases of development, so there's a possibility that Disney might even be able to settle out of court, or agree to some sort of solution so as to avoid a trial altogether. For now, all we can do is watch, and wait.

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Walt Disney Studios Sued For Pay Inequality

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At the moment, this case seems to be in the earliest phases of development, so there's a possibility that Disney might even be able to settle out of court, or agree to some sort of solution so as to avoid a trial altogether. For now, all we can do is watch, and wait.

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Back in 2017 AM General, the manufacturer of the iconic Humvee, sued Activision over the military vehicle's inclusion in the Call of Duty series. That case is still rumbling on, but Activision is now trying to have it dismissed as "nothing less than a direct attack on the First Amendment."

As The Hollywood Reporter , Activision's filing last week begins with:

This case is nothing less than a direct attack on the First Amendment right to produce creative works that realistically depict contemporary warfare. AM General LLC ("AMG"), a government contractor that manufactured military "HMMWV" (or "Humvee") vehicles for the U.S. military, seeks to use trademark law to control the mere depiction of those vehicles in Defendants' fictional Call of Duty video games. The use of purported trademark rights to restrict the content of expressive works is dangerous under any circumstance. But the claims in this case are particularly egregious because they involve a U.S. military vehicle paid for by American taxpayers and deployed in every significant military conflict for the past three decades.

As such, Humvees are a fixture of the modern U.S. military and are a logical part of any attempt to tell an authentic story about modern war. Humvees also have cultural and historical significance that has absolutely nothing to do with AMG or its manufacturing process. To allow AMG to pursue its claims would run directly contrary to the First Amendment and give AMG a stranglehold on virtually any expressive depiction of 21st Century U.S. military history.

AM's response, submitted on the same day (May 31), meanwhile opens:

Defendants Activision Blizzard, Inc., Activision Publishing, Inc., and Major League Gaming Corp. (collectively, "Activision" or "Defendants") have made billions of dollars by using AM General's iconic HUMVEE® military vehicle and its distinctive trade dress (the "HUMVEE® Trade Dress") in eight Call of Duty video games, numerous ads, two toys, and several strategy guides. Activision neither sought nor obtained permission from AM General to do so. Activision's conduct constitutes, among other things, trademark and trade dress infringement under the Lanham Act.

It's an interesting case, the outcome of which could have big ramifications not just for video games, but TV and film as well.

I've mainly just shared it here though because "a direct attack on the First Amendment right to produce creative works that realistically depict contemporary warfare" is the most video game legal jargon imaginable.

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Activision Says A Call Of Duty Lawsuit Is "A Direct Attack On The First Amendment"

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Back in 2017 AM General, the manufacturer of the iconic Humvee, sued Activision over the military vehicle's inclusion in the Call of Duty series. That case is still rumbling on, but Activision is now trying to have it dismissed as "nothing less than a direct attack on the First Amendment."

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Activision shareholders are being encouraged to join a class action suit that accuses the publisher of making "materially false and/or misleading statements" when the publisher terminated its partnership with Destiny developer, Bungie.

Bungie split with Activision Blizzard in January, eight years into a ten-year partnership. The separation saw Bungie assume "full publishing rights and responsibilities for the Destiny franchise", while Activision "will increase its focus on owned IP and other projects". A recent SEC filing covering the 12 month period up to and including December 31, 2018, intimated the company earned $164 million as a result in the "mutually agreed" separation from Bungie.

Kuznicki Law PLLC is now encouraging investors who had purchased shares between August 2nd, 2018 and January 10th, 2019 to submit their claim to the Central District Court of California.

"The filed complaint alleges that defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) the termination of Activision Blizzard and Bungie's partnership, giving Bungie full publishing rights and responsibilities for the Destiny franchise, was imminent; (ii) the termination of the two companies' relationship would foreseeably have a significant negative impact on Activision Blizzard's revenues; and (iii) as a result, Activision Blizzard's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times," the filing stated (thanks, GI.biz).

In an earnings call last November, Activision COO Coddy Johnson explained that Activision's MAU were "up sequentially from Q2" thanks to the good performance of Destiny 2's expansion Forsaken, launched on September 4th, although Forsaken actually performed below the firm's expectations. Johnson added: "Now while Forsaken is a high-quality expansion with strong engagement and new modes of play, it did not achieve our commercial expectations, and there's still work to do to fully re-engage the core Destiny fan base."

The then-CFO Spencer Neumann further revealed that Activision's Q3 revenue reached $397m (£305m), with the "key contributors [being] Call of Duty digital in-game revenue and Destiny 2: Forsaken, although the latter underperformed [their] expectations".

Destiny 2 director, Luke Smith then responded to reports that its latest expansion, Forsaken, "did not achieve [Activision's] commercial expectations", stating that the development team at Bungie is "not disappointed" in the latest instalment. "We are not disappointed with Forsaken," Smith asserted via a tweet. "We set out to build a game that Destiny players would love, and at Bungie, we love it too. Building Destiny for players who love it is and will remain our focus going forward."

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Lawsuit claims Activision made 'materially false and/or misleading statements' in lead up to Bungie split | MCV/DEVELOP

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Activision shareholders are being encouraged to join a class action suit that accuses the publisher of making "materially false and/or misleading statements" when the publisher terminated its partnership with Destiny developer, Bungie. Bungie split with Activision Blizzard in January, eight years into a ten-year partnership.

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An audit by the UK Gambling Commission says that pushing players to buy chance-based items in video games has lead to a startling spike in gambling addiction among children.

The alarming audit shows (scaling the survey results to UK population figures) some 55,000 children between the ages of 11-16 showcase telltale signs of gambling addiction, including obsessional thoughts about gambling, lying to their parents about it and even stealing money to continue testing their luck. It also shows that as many as 450,000 kids gamble " regularly ", with 70,000 at risk of developing an acute addiction.

Among the many ways children are exposed to gambling, one of the hardest to counter is video games: especially, their relatively new tendency to include "loot box" systems, which have players spend real-life money (in addition to what they may have already paid to buy the actual game) for a chance to win various types of virtual rewards. The rewards are usually random with the house setting the odds, tempting players to buy box after box in the hopes of winning rare items. According to the audit, nearly a million children were exposed to gambling by playing games which featured loot boxes, some of which are sold in games age rated for kids as young as 8.

Loot box systems are widely used throughout the multi-billion dollar video game industry, and are featured in several of the most popular games in the world including Overwatch, League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Activision Blizzard's yearly earnings records show the that company made nearly $4bn solely through in game purchases last year.

Whereas there are compelling arguments to be made in favor of loot box systems, their negative effect on children coupled with their pervasiveness has played a significant role in creating an epidemic of addiction.

In a statement, the Gambling Commission's executive director, Tim Miller, said it's hard to keep up with new and unconventional games of chance: " The most common activities that children gamble on are not licensed casinos, bingo providers or bookies. Instead we found children preferred to gamble in informal environments, out of sight of regulation. "

As major game companies develop ever more sophisticated trappings to push users to pay to play on a daily basis, regulators have been left scrambling to close Pandora's loot box. The practice is not without its critics, however, with 2017 seeing several big name game releases scrapping plans for loot box systems citing user complaints. Earlier this year, Belgium declared loot boxes to be a form of gambling and banned the practice entirely.
If you like this story, share it with a friend!

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Video game loot boxes are creating underage gambling addicts - UK audit

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An audit by the UK Gambling Commission says that pushing players to buy chance-based items in video games has lead to a startling spike in gambling addiction among children.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The maker of Humvee military vehicles filed a lawsuit accusing Activision Blizzard Inc of reaping billions of dollars of revenue by incorporating its trademarks without permission in its flagship "Call of Duty" video game franchise.

In a complaint filed on Tuesday night in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, AM General LLC accused Activision of taking advantage of its goodwill and reputation in the "Humvee" and "HMMWV" marks by featuring them prominently in "Call of Duty," and licensing related content for use in toys and books.

"Humvee" and "HMMWV" are short for High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles. AM General said it has made more than 278,000 Humvees.

Mary Osako, a spokeswoman for Activision, said on Wednesday that the company does not discuss pending litigation.

Activision has said "Call of Duty" last year was the world's largest video game console franchise, and North America's largest for the eighth straight year.

The franchise was launched in 2003, and sales had by 2016 topped 250 million units, with revenue exceeding $15 billion, according to the Santa Monica, California-based company.

But AM General said that success came "only at the expense of AM General and consumers who are deceived into believing that AM General licenses the games or is somehow connected with or involved in the creation of the games."

AM General is owned by MacAndrews & Forbes Inc and Renco Group Inc, which are holding companies for the billionaires Ronald Perelman and Ira Rennert, respectively.

The South Bend, Indiana-based company said it wants compensatory, punitive and triple damages from Activision, after more than a year of communication failed to end the dispute.

Humvee-branded vehicles have been used for more than three decades by the U.S. military and in more than 50 countries, AM General said.

In recent months, they have been used in armed conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to provide relief to victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas.

AM General has also produced a civilian vehicle, the Hummer.

The case is AM General LLC v Activision Blizzard Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 17-08644.

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intellectual property / copyright / counterfeiting

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Humvee maker sues Activision over 'Call of Duty'

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The maker of Humvee military vehicles filed a lawsuit accusing Activision Blizzard Inc of reaping billions of dollars of revenue by incorporating its trademarks without permission in its flagship "Call of Duty" video game franchise. In a complaint filed on Tuesday night in U.S.

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Five years after an infamous ABC News report describing "pink slime" in ground beef created a national uproar, the network's corporate parent Walt Disney ( DIS) has settled a defamation case brought by the food company that created the product for more than $177 million, the most ever in a corporate legal case of its kind.

Meat processor Beef Products Inc. filed suit in 2012 charging that ABC's coverage of its product -- officially called " finely textured beef" -- misled consumers into thinking it wasn't safe to eat. After the reports aired, some grocery chains said they would no longer carry ground beef containing what ABC dubbed "." As a result, sales plummeted from about 5 million pounds per week to less than 2 million pounds.

T he South Dakota-based company, whose product was used in about 70 percent of the nation's ground beef, had originally sought as much as $1.9 billion in damages, an amount that could have been tripled to $5.7 billion under South Dakota's Agricultural Food Product Disparagement Act, which the company alleged ABC had violated.

Executives from the Burbank, Calif.-based media conglomerate, whose properties include ESPN and Walt Disney World resorts, settled the case with BPI in June. Disney disclosed the legal costs associated with the litigation when it reported earnings Thursday. Terms of the settlement, though, were confidential.

Lawsuit accuses Disney of collecting kids' info on game apps

"ABC was hemorrhaging legal costs," said Charles Glasser, a media lawyer and a Media Law and Ethics Professor at NYU's Graduate School of Journalism, adding that a trial alone could have cost ABC "a million dollars or more."

"We forget that these news organizations are corporations -- they have a fiduciary duty to stockholders," he said.

BPI's case was unusual for several reasons. About 80 percent of libel and defamation cases get thrown out of court on procedural grounds before they reach a jury. Media companies that make what most experts would deem "honest mistakes" are typically protected by the First Amendment. However, when the case survives the initial challenges, the odds tilt in favor of the plaintiff against the media companies -- particularly those seen as having deep pockets.

"They had to do a risk calculation about what if this thing goes to trial," Glasser said.

The Hulk Hogan litigation against the now-defunct Gawker website might have served as a cautionary tale for ABC News.

Gawker CEO Nick Denton on feud with Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan verdict

Gawker Media filed for bankruptcy protection last year after losing the case the former professional wrestler brought against it for publishing a sex tape featuring him. A Florida jury awarded $140 million in damages to Hogan, who ultimately settled for $31 million through federal bankruptcy court. Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, whom Gawker had outed as a gay man in earlier coverage, had bankrolled the Hogan case.

Whether the BPI and Gawker cases will have a "chilling effect" on newsrooms is hard to say.

"Yes, there is much more public hostility to the media in general," Glasser said, adding that there is a "sad tendency to say the sky is falling every time a media entity loses a case."

For his part, Glasser doesn't share that pessimism, noting that huge jury verdicts against the media aren't new and that the protections afforded by the First Amendment remain robust.

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Disney "pink slime" lawsuit settled for whopping $177 million

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Five years after an infamous ABC News report describing "pink slime" in ground beef created a national uproar, the network's corporate parent Walt Disney ( DIS) has settled a defamation case brought by the food company that created the product for more than $177 million, the most ever in a corporate legal case of its kind.

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Lucasfilm Limited v Ainsworth was a 2011 court ruling by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The case concerned an intellectual property dispute over the production of Lucasfilm's Stormtrooper costumes by model maker Andrew Ainsworth. Mr Ainsworth argued that the helmets, which he continues to manufacture and sell, were functional props covered only by design right legislation, as opposed to Lucasfilm's assertion that they were sculptures or art which fall under copyright law. Design right protection is retained for 15 or 10 years, copyright protection can last considerably longer.

The Stormtrooper character first appeared in the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. The character was conceived by George Lucas, designed by artist Ralph McQuarrie, sculpted by from Liz Moore and Brian Muir, and finally molded from the existing designs by Andrew Ainsworth. Before the case came to court, Ainsworth had sold replica Stormtrooper outfits online for many years causing Lucasfilm to sue for infringement of copyright. Ainsworth did not defend the 2006 case in the US courts, and the United States District Court for the Central District of California gave summary judgement in favour of Lucasfilm, awarding a USD $20 million compensation.

In the English courts, Lucasfilm was represented by Michael Bloch QC and Jonathan Sumption QC.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Stormtrooper helmets could not be considered a sculpture for the purposes of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. On the issue of the justiciability of a foreign copyright claim, the court ruled that providing that there is in personam jurisdiction over a defendant, an English court does have jurisdiction in this area. On this point, the case was distinguished from British South Africa v Companhia de Mocambique, that expressed the general principle that English courts have no jurisdiction to entertain an action to determine title, where claims applied to foreign intellectual property rights.

As part of their conclusions on the justiciability question, Lord Walker and Lord Collins stated:

"

We have come to the firm conclusion that, in the case of a claim for infringement of copyright of the present kind, the claim is one over which the English court has jurisdiction, provided that there is a basis for in personam jurisdiction over the defendant, or, to put it differently, the claim is justiciable. It is clear that much of the underpinning of the Moçambique rule and the decision in Potter v Broken Hill Pty Co Ltd has been eroded. All that is left of the Moçambique rule (except to the extent that it is modified by the Brussels I Regulation) is that there is no jurisdiction in proceedings for infringement of rights in foreign land where the proceedings are "principally concerned with a question of the title, or the right to possession, of that property".

"

They went on further to state:

"

The basis for what remains of the rule was said by the House of Lords in the Moçambique case to be that controversies should be decided in the country of the situs of the property because the right of granting it was vested in "the ruler of the country" and in the Hesperides case to be the maintenance of comity and the avoidance of conflict with foreign jurisdictions. It is possible to see how the rationale of the Moçambique rule can be applied to patents, at any rate where questions of validity are involved.

"

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Lucasfilm Limited v Ainsworth was a 2011 court ruling by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The case concerned an intellectual property dispute over the production of Lucasfilm's Stormtrooper costumes by model maker Andrew Ainsworth.

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Can you find examples of legal cases against your chosen media companies?

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A few months back, my colleague Lou Lumenick proposed that "Gone With the Wind" go the way of the Confederate flag. It's with a heavy heart that I wonder whether we should retire "Sixteen Candles," since it seems to celebrate both racism and date rape.

Reviewing the instantly forgettable "Jem and the Holograms" this fall reminded me of my lifelong love of 1980s movie queen Molly Ringwald, who played Jem's mom. "Sixteen Candles" (1984), Ringwald's first movie with director John Hughes, was one of my favorites. But rewatching it now, I felt about as repulsed as Ringwald's character Samantha did when she first saw the Geek (Anthony Michael Hall):

The racism and sexism in Hughes' movie is so over the top, I have to hope any teens watching it today would view it as a shocking, old-timey artifact. Perhaps most glaringly, there's Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe), the Chinese foreign exchange student whose every mention is accompanied by the sound of a gong.

Besides the nonstop "Chinaman" jokes, there's also this offhanded exchange between Samantha and her friend Randy (Liane Curtis) about finding the perfect boy.

Samantha: "You do it on a cloud without getting pregnant or herpes."
Randy: "I don't need the cloud. Just a pink Trans Am and the guy."
Samantha: "A black one."
Randy: "A black guy??"
Samantha: "A black Trans Am. A pink guy!"

Even more pervasive than the racism, if that's possible, is the sexism. In 2015, this movie plays out like Date Rape 101 - and both of its male leads, supposedly the heroes, are actually terrible, terrible people.

Let's review: Jake (Michael Schoeffling) - the supposed Perfect Guy - has a prom-queen girlfriend named Caroline (Haviland Morris), who gets so drunk at his party that she passes out. "I could violate her 10 different ways if I wanted to," says Mr. Right. The Geek's response: "What are you waiting for?"

Jake proceeds to put his girlfriend in the car with the Geek, telling him to drive her home and "have fun."

The Geek gets the girl even drunker, takes her to his friends' house and takes pictures of himself with her.

The Geek and Caroline wake up in the car the next morning and have the following conversation.

Geek: "Did we, uh . . ."
Caroline: "Yeah. I'm pretty sure."
Geek: "Um, do you know . . . um, did I enjoy it? Am I nuts? Of course I enjoyed it. What I meant was, uh . . . did you?"
Caroline: "You know, I have this weird feeling I did."

Game over, John Hughes. I'll forgive you the wrongheaded ending of "Pretty in Pink" - obviously, our heroine should have picked Duckie - and the misguided makeover of Ally Sheedy's goth in "The Breakfast Club." But "Sixteen Candles" should now be filed under Cautionary Tales of '80s Cinema: Gather round, kiddies, and check out how rape and racism used to be hilarious punch lines.

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'Sixteen Candles' is racist and sexist - and needs to be retired

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A few months back, my colleague Lou Lumenick proposed that "Gone With the Wind" go the way of the Confederate flag. It's with a heavy heart that I wonder whether we should retire "Sixteen Candles," since it seems to celebrate both racism and date rape.

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The show was criticized as being homophobic for featuring a Superman who was turned gay - and then displayed a series of homosexual stereotypes.

Bill and Ted's Halloween adventure is over.

Universal Studios Hollywood announced it was shelving its Bill & Ted Halloween Horror Nights show, which critics had charged with being homophobic.

The show featured Superman, who was "turned gay" by being sprinkled with "fairy dust," according to reports. The Superman character then displayed a series of gay stereotypes meant to be played for laughs.

"After thoughtful consideration, Universal Studios Hollywood has made the decision to discontinue production of the Halloween Horror Nights' 'Bill & Ted' show for the remainder of its limited run," Universal Studios Hollywood said in a statement.
PHOTOS: 25 of Fall's Most Anticipated Movies
GLAAD expressed concerns to NBCUniversal about the show Tuesday and referred to it as "anti-gay" in a story on its website. The organization praised the decision to pull the show.

"NBCUniversal has taken quick and strong action regarding this matter and also started a productive dialogue around future 'Bill & Ted' programming to ensure that all park visitors can have an enjoyable experience," GLAAD spokesperson Wilson Cruz said. "This decision falls in line with NBCUniversal's history of including groundbreaking and positive depictions of LGBT people across its brands."

Universal Studios Hollywood's Halloween Horror Nights features other Hollywood-based attractions, including a maze and terror tram inspired by AMC's The Walking Dead.

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Universal Studios Hollywood Pulls 'Anti-Gay' 'Bill and Ted' Halloween Show

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Bill and Ted's Halloween adventure is over. Universal Studios Hollywood announced it was shelving its Bill & Ted Halloween Horror Nights show, which critics had charged with being homophobic. The show featured Superman, who was "turned gay" by being sprinkled with "fairy dust," according to reports.

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Hollywood films usually have a splashy, star-studded premiere in the days before they open in theaters. The bigger the movie, the bigger the festivities tend to be. Then there's A Dog's Purpose: After devastating eyewitness footage was released by TMZ, which showed that a dog was forced into churning water on set despite his frantic attempts to resist, the immediate and widespread outrage was hard to ignore. The impact of the footage was so profound-even the film's director and the actor who voiced the main character expressed shock and sadness-that the companies behind the film (Universal Pictures and Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment) canceled the planned premiere and media junket.

As the disturbing video spread around the world, an equally vast wave of anger and disappointment rose on social media.

Hollywood, music, reality, and internet stars alike took to Twitter and shared their outrage over an animal's suffering for the sake of entertainment, and many called for a boycott of the film:

I cannot BELIEVE what I just saw.. "A Dog's Purpose" should be ashamed of themselves...

- Savannah Outen (@therealsavannah) January 19, 2017

https://twitter.com/KateDrummond_/status/821877404633206784

https://twitter.com/eTYMrak/status/821936810943098881

You know it's bad when a media consultant chimes in with calls for a boycott:

Holy Crap! What were they thinking? I usually think @peta is just nuts, but agree -BOYCOTT "Purpose of a Dog" https://t.co/rNNUttQSq1 #CRUEL

- (((B.L. Ochman))) (@whatsnext) January 19, 2017

https://twitter.com/KianLawley/status/822176711177441280

Abhorrent behavior
Hollywood. No excuse. #ADogsPurpose

- Crystal Reed (@CrystalmReed) January 19, 2017

Smh I was really looking forward to watching a Dogs Purpose smh

- Alfredo Flores (@AlfredoFlores) January 19, 2017

The clip of the German Shepard during filming for #ADogsPurpose is breaking my heart. Is it really from on set?! #PETA @peta

- Lucie Jones (@luciejones1) January 19, 2017

Seriously, though-anyone with a heart had a reaction:

https://twitter.com/RoryAlbanese/status/822207470647050241

https://twitter.com/Jason/status/821974242036051968

Hey, fuck A Dogs Purpose. That video is awful. Don't go see it, k bye.

- Chris Mintz-Plasse (@MintzPlasse) January 19, 2017

https://twitter.com/raymamrak/status/822096185548800000

https://twitter.com/DashWilderWWE/status/822215735917379584

https://twitter.com/oscar_guerra21/status/821985637972574209

then do not support the film. No press. No interviews. No screenings. Put your money where your mouth is.

- Luke Tyler (@ThatLukeTyler) January 19, 2017

https://twitter.com/MissCallyJane/status/821839843667968004

If you're going to make a movie celebrating the glory of #dogs,best not to abuse them in the process.#ADogsPurpose #ADogsPurposeIsNotAbuse https://t.co/WswYKdigFo

- Jonathan Slavin (@slavin_jonathan) January 19, 2017

Unfortunately, mistreatment of animal "actors" is not uncommon:

https://twitter.com/abiphillipsuk/status/822013091881906176

Why the hell did I watch the video from A Dog's Purpose that angered PETA? Everything is a metaphor these days. Pls send GIFs of happy pups.

- Maris Kreizman (@mariskreizman) January 19, 2017

#ADogsPurpose has canceled its premiere AND press junket! Way to go, @peta! https://t.co/K2C6oLlO4C

- Perez Hilton (@PerezHilton) January 20, 2017

Phora sums it up perfectly:

This terrible incident and video may come as a gut-wrenching surprise to well-meaning moviegoers who care about dogs. But those who are aware of the chronic neglect uncovered at a facility operated by Birds & Animals Unlimited (BAU)-the company that, according to a facility manager, supplied the dogs used in the film-know that this incident is, unfortunately, just one example of a widespread problem.

BAU, operated by Hollywood animal trainer Gary Gero, provides animals for use in film, television, and advertisements. It has rented out animals to hundreds of other productions, including The Hangover, Marley & Me, Game of Thrones, and Pirates of the Caribbean. An eyewitness who worked at BAU documented chronic neglect: Sick and injured animals were denied adequate veterinary care, the enclosures were filthy, and animals were denied food so that they would be hungry while trained to do tricks.

Sadly, such abuse appears to be the norm, not the exception, in the entertainment industry, where animal suffering is just "business as usual" for humans trying to make a buck.

Pledge to avoid contributing to this cruel practice by not buying tickets to A Dog's Purpose or any other movies that use live animals.

Show everyone why they should #BoycottADogsPurpose! Tag @peta in a post of your dog & their special purpose ❤️ https://t.co/2yRgPkfFFQ pic.twitter.com/97F19RMaO2

- PETA (@peta) January 19, 2017

Share this video with your family and friends who care about dogs-and all animals. Let them know that animals aren't "actors" and that they often suffer both on and off camera when used for entertainment.

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Celebrities Calls to Boycott Universal Pictures' 'A Dog's Purpose'

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Hollywood films usually have a splashy, star-studded premiere in the days before they open in theaters. The bigger the movie, the bigger the festivities tend to be. Then there's A Dog's Purpose: After devastating eyewitness footage was released by TMZ, which showed that a dog was forced into churning water on set despite his frantic attempts to resist, the immediate and widespread outrage was hard to ignore.

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When it comes to controversies, Nintendo's usually not a company too badly affected by them. After all, games with Italian plumbers and heroes in fantasy kingdoms tend not to draw as much controversy as more 'realistic' ones tackling real world issues do, and Nintendo tends to avoid pushing the boundaries too much when it comes to the kind of content they get into their games.

None the less, even Ninty has been affected by controversy. So here's our list of controversies caused by Nintendo games, as well as their effects on the company and its future.
5. WarioWare Character Claimed to Have Satanic Hidden Message
Starting the list, we have a controversy that affected Nintendo back in the DS era.

So what was it? A subliminal, satanic message supposedly hidden in Ashley's Theme. Kind of like the type of 'backmasking' some overly paranoid religious nuts claimed was being sneaked into heavy metal music. Here's the song in question:

It's a pretty simple, almost parodic song with lyrics like She knows the darkest spells and she brews the meanest potions and I'm the cruelest girl you'll ever meet. But as per is the internet and its quest for insanity, someone found that if you speed it up...

You can hear what sounds like a 'satanic' message, with the character seemingly saying 'I granted kids to hell'. Add the generally creepy design of the character in question, and you can sort of see why some people would assume it was deliberate:

But it wasn't deliberate. The message wasn't hidden in there intentionally, it was merely heard due to a couple of words blending together when the song was sped up to a ridiculously over the top speed. And while the Japanese version of the song did have a hidden message, it was the much simpler (and less controversial) 'WarioWare is awesome' one.

Either way, Nintendo apologised for it in Nintendo Power, stating that it was an accident caused by words blending together at high speeds and saying that the only actual words involved were merely the following:

Eye of newt I cast a hex on you!

Grandma's wig, this will make you big!
Kitten spit, soo n your pants won't fit!

Pan talones giganticus! Oh no, not again.

So for that minor controversy (so minor in fact that no one outside the gaming media ever heard of it), the 'satanic message' in WarioWare Touched enters our Nintendo controversies list at number 5!
4. The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time Gets Flack for Islamic Chanting/Symbols
Next on the list, a fairly famous example of controversial content in a Nintendo game everyone's played.

So what caused the controversy here? What made Nintendo rerelease the game with various things edited out and changed? Well put simply, certain content in the game was seen as potentially offensive to Muslims due to its awkward depictions of Islamic elements. Like the original Fire Temple song:

That chanting in the background is an Islamic prayer, which has apparently been deciphered as saying the following:
May God grant peace and honor him (Muhammad) and his family
With other parts saying The Lord of Majesty and Generosity and In the name of God, the Most Gracious, Most Merciful. It's not particularly appropriate for a Zelda temple song (especially in the random way its used here), and was removed from the later releases of the title.

They also came into trouble with the original Gerudo symbol, for rather obvious reasons:

It's a crescent moon and star symbol, which is the same symbol used as both a general symbol of Islam as a religion and the Turkish flag.

Fortunately for Nintendo (and pretty much all of the gaming world), they removed these things from Ocarina of Time the minute they realised the huge amounts of controversy they could cause. Also fortunately, the game just happened to be released at a time where the media didn't go insane over every little thing in a video game, so Nintendo didn't get death threats from half the internet (and the populations of certain countries) for it.

Either way, for being controversial enough to get the game edited on rereleases and potentially causing a huge amount of bad publicity for Nintendo, the Fire Temple chanting and old Gerudo Symbol in Ocarina of Time appear on the list at number 4.
3. Tomodachi Life and No Same Sex Marriage
You know the story by now. If not, read this article and then come back here a bit later, because it sums up what this whole deal is about and why Nintendo's not evil incarnate for not being beholden to the Tumblr crowd:
https://gamingreinvented.com/nintendo3dsnews/tomodachi-life-nintendo-and-same-sex-marriage
Either way, it undoubtably caused a lot of controversy, and so deserves to be on this list for obvious reasons. Moving on...
2. Mario Party 8 Gets Recalled for Using word 'Spastic'
Yes really. In an oversight missed during the game's localisation, a single quote from Kamek in Mario Party 8 caused the entire game to end up recalled across the UK. What was it? This:

Basically, while in the US the word 'spastic' is seen as a mostly harmless way to refer to those with certain psychological issues, it's seen in the UK as a highly offensive word used as a offensive perjorative used against said individuals. Indeed, the negative connotations of the word are so strong, some TV shows using it have it bleeped out like the F bomb or such like.

The result of it being included in Mario Party 8 via translator oversight? A media frenzy from both the gaming and non gaming press...
http://metro.co.uk/2007/07/17/spastic-video-game-is-recalled-534130/
The game outright being banned in the UK for a while and all copies of the game released before a certain point were recalled from shop shelves. But while this by itself is pretty bad for a Nintendo game, the number 1 item on the list manages to put it (and pretty much everything else that's happened to Nintendo) to shame...
1. Mario Party's Rotation Minigames Prompt a Lawsuit
It's not what you expected, is it? The number one controversy on the list, is about those control stick rotating minigames in Mario Party 1.
Above: These two minigames have destroyed more people's health than anything else in the gaming world...
But hang on you, you might say. How can a gameplay mechanic be more controversial than any content? How can a gameplay gimmick have caused more grief for Nintendo than anything involve gay rights or religion? Well, there's a good answer to that.

Basically, it caused Nintendo to get sued hard, and a whole game to basically get written out of history.

But let's start from the beginning here. Mario Party 1 had a few minigames that involved players trying to rotate the control stick as fast as possible. These were Pedal Power, Tug O War, Paddle Battle and the Mecha Fly Guy challenge. They pretty quickly gained a reputation for being absolute hell, to the point no one wanted to play them and everyone groaned in despair when they were chosen by the random roulette thing.

Then, some soul realised you could beat them easier by using your palm to rotate the stick instead of your thumb. This worked, with one nasty side effect...

It could rip the skin right off someone's hands, and cause pain lasting for hours. Either way, the technique spread through the gaming media, and it then all went wrong for Nintendo. Parents complained, complaints were lodged with police and government organisations and then, Nintendo got hit with a class action lawsuit due to the injuries from it.

They agreed to a settlement, which included providing gloves to people who hurt their hands from the game and paying the states $75,000 legal fees. The costs? Estimated as up to 80 million dollars due to the costs of providing gloves to those hurt via these minigames.
Nintendo to Hand Out Gaming Gloves - BBC News
And just like that, the controversy and injury issues pretty much made Mario Party 1 impossible to ever release again. Nintendo stopped using those types of minigames (until the 3DS game due to the touch screen being used instead of a stick/pad), and Mario Party 1 has since never have been released on Virtual Console and most likely never will be. The minigames involved basically make the game a health and safety hazard, so it's now going to forever be impossible for anyone else to ever experience the rest of the game.
Above: Ever wonder why Mario Party 2 got released on VC but not the first game? Here's why.
So for managing to complete bury Mario Party 1 forever more, as well as causing Nintendo millions in legal costs plus various trips to the hospital for fans, Mario Party 1 tops our list of Nintendo controversies.

Which concludes the list. But what do you think? Are there any gaming controversies worse for Nintendo than the Mario Party 1 incidents? Is any game being seen as 'offensive' worse than something that actually caused people physical pain and basically got retroactively recalled? Post your thoughts on the list, and Nintendo controversies in general, in the comments below or at Nintendo 3DS Community.com today!

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Controversy and Nintendo; Five Controversies Caused by Nintendo Games | Gaming Reinvented

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When it comes to controversies, Nintendo's usually not a company too badly affected by them. After all, games with Italian plumbers and heroes in fantasy kingdoms tend not to draw as much controversy as more 'realistic' ones tackling real world issues do, and Nintendo tends to avoid pushing the boundaries too much when it comes to the kind of content they get into their games.

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By the time Logan Paul arrived at Aokigahara forest, colloquially known as Japan's "suicide forest," the YouTube star had already confused Mount Fuji with the country Fiji. His over 15 million (mostly underage) subscribers like this sort of comedic aloofness-it serves to make Paul more relatable.

After hiking only a couple hundred yards into Aokigahara-where over 247 people attempted to take their own lives in 2010 alone, according to police statistics cited in The Japan Times-Paul encountered a suicide victim's body hanging from a tree. Instead of turning the camera off, he continued filming, and later uploaded close-up shots of the corpse, with the person's face blurred out.

"Did we just find a dead person in the suicide forest?" Paul said to the camera. "This was supposed to be a fun vlog." He went on to make several jokes about the victim, while wearing a large, fluffy green hat.

Within a day, over 6.5 million people had viewed the footage, and Twitter flooded with outrage. Even though the video violated YouTube's community standards, it was Paul in the end who deleted it.

"I should have never posted the video, I should have put the cameras down," Paul said in a video posted Tuesday, which followed an earlier written apology. "I've made a huge mistake, I don't expect to be forgiven." He didn't respond to two follow-up requests for comment.

YouTube, which failed to do anything about Paul's video, has now found itself wrapped in another controversy over how and when it should police offensive and disturbing content on its platform-and as importantly, the culture it foments that led to it. YouTube encourages stars like Paul to garner views by any means necessary, while largely deciding how and when to censor their videos behind closed doors.
On January 10, over a week after Paul uploaded the video, YouTube announced it had removed the star from Google Preferred, its top-tier advertising program that allows creators to have access to revenue from premium advertisers. The platform is also delaying projects Paul was a part of for its subscription streaming service YouTube Red. ¹
Before uploading the video, which was titled "We found a dead body in the Japanese Suicide Forest..." Paul halfheartedly attempted to censor himself for his mostly tween viewers. He issued a warning at the beginning of the video, blurred the victim's face, and included the number of several suicide hotlines, including one in Japan. He also chose to demonetize the video, meaning he wouldn't make money from it. His efforts weren't enough.

"The mechanisms that Logan Paul came up with fell flat," says Jessa Lingel, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, where she studies digital culture. "Despite them, you see a video that nonetheless is very disturbing. You have to ask yourself: Are those efforts really enough to frame this content in a way that's not just hollowly or superficially aware of damage, but that is meaningfully aware of damage?"

The video still included shots of a corpse, including the victim's blue-turned hands. At one point, Paul referred to the victim as "it." One of the first things he said to the camera after the encounter was, "This is a first for me," turning the conversation back to himself.

'Of course YouTube is absolutely complicit in these kinds of things.'

Sarah T. Roberts, UCLA

There's no excuse for what Paul did. His video was disturbing and offensive to the victim, their family, and to those who have struggled with mental illness. But blaming the YouTube star alone seems insufficient. Both he, and his equally famous brother Jake Paul, earn their living from YouTube, a platform that rewards creators for being outrageous, and often fails to adequately police its own content.

"I think that any analysis that continues to focus on these incidents at the level of the content creator is only really covering part of the structural issues at play," says Sarah T. Roberts, an assistant professor of information studies at UCLA and an expert in internet culture and content moderation. "Of course YouTube is absolutely complicit in these kinds of things, in the sense that their entire economic model, their entire model for revenue creation is created fundamentally on people like Logan Paul."

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The Logan Paul "Suicide Forest" Video Should Be a Reckoning For YouTube

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By the time Logan Paul arrived at Aokigahara forest, colloquially known as Japan's "suicide forest," the YouTube star had already confused Mount Fuji with the country Fiji. His over 15 million (mostly underage) subscribers like this sort of comedic aloofness-it serves to make Paul more relatable.

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I watched the first episode of this series of The Secret Life of Four-and Five-Year-Olds on Channel 4 in early November and since seeing it have become increasingly disturbed.

The programme claimed from its title that it was revealing the "secret life" of children. In fact, it was a series of experiments on the children, in which situations were set up, sometimes putting the children in conflict with each other and on one occasion creating a situation in which it was likely that some of the children would be scared. This has to be wrong.

I teach students studying Children's Literature at Goldsmiths, and when they conduct research with children they have to fill in a rigorous ethics form as laid down in Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research (2011) published by the British Educational Research Association.

These require researchers to "desist immediately" from actions which distress participants; not use sweets as incentives to children; not design experiments that "advantage one group of participants over others".

The contests in this programme are presented to the children as fixed according to the rules set by the adults. Remember - the claim being made here is that these contests showed the "secret life" of these children. In fact, it showed the children responding purely in order to show that one or more children would be distressed by losing.

What is a TV programme doing telling children that if you come first in a race, you win chocolates? Or worse, if you come second, you don't get chocolates! In the aftermath of the contest, the child in question cried and seemed to be uncomforted for a while. Then we watched while the experts discussed why and how the child was distressed without any commentary on the fact that the whole situation had been engineered - unethically - by the researchers.

Later, they set up an experiment that caused the same child distress. They showed that the boy knew a lot about dinosaurs. They asked him if he was scared of dinosaurs. No, he wasn't. Then a man dressed as a "keeper" brought in, on a leash, a 6-7-foot tall tyrannosaurus rex (with someone inside). The boy was clearly scared. This was presented to us as revealing that in some way or another the boy was dishonest about his real state of fear. This again was clearly unethical and at the same time absurd.

What was all this for? All it did was assert the right of adults to limit the choices of children, and set up situations in which it could be predicted that children would be distressed.

This was done for our entertainment, showing us what precisely? That grown-up researchers know how to make four-year-olds cry?

There are programmes that can be made about the "secret life" of young children. You can set up situations in which children discuss things, make things, play with things, plan things.

To be fair to the programme, we did see scenes where children played in the home corner a couple of times, but these seemed to be interludes between the real "knowledge" of the programme in these adult-led experiments, with predictable outcomes of conflict and distress.

I think the children were treated as if they were fodder for experiments, with no volition, sanctity of the person, no sense of their potential, no sense that an experiment could give us new educational insights. In fact, the value of the dinosaur experiment was precisely the opposite: it was educational rubbish from several perspectives at the same time.
Do you think the Secret Life... series is unethical? The Secret Life of 5 Year Olds is on 8pm this Tuesday 28th November on C4. Michael Rosen is a writer, poet and broadcaster, and Professor of Children's Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London

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Michael Rosen: The Secret Life of Five-Year-Olds is unethical and absurd

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I watched the first episode of this series of The Secret Life of Four-and Five-Year-Olds on Channel 4 in early November and since seeing it have become increasingly disturbed. The programme claimed from its title that it was revealing the "secret life" of children.

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BBC Question Time has been criticised for 'normalising racism' after sharing an anti-immigration rant from an audience member on its social media pages.

A woman asked the BBC's flagship political show's panel at what point the UK "should completely close the borders" to immigrants and complained about the number of people "flooding in" to the country and using public services.

Following the airing of the episode, the BBC shared the clip of the rant on Question Time's social media pages with a caption that did not challenge the audience member's argument, which was described by many as "misinformed" and "factually inaccurate".

READ MORE: Why audience manipulation on BBC Question Time is an assault on truth and journalism

The clip was shared on social media by official BBC accounts racking up more than four million times on Twitter alone in just 24 hours.

Ofcom has confirmed the comments made are the subject of at least one complaint from a viewer.

The full clip of the audience member's tirade being reshared by the BBC on social media by Question Time prompted a backlash from users pointing out that the claims in the video were inaccurate and offensive.

Video posts on the programme's social media pages do not contain fact-checking or context for the comments expressed in them.

Panellists on Thursday night's show, broadcast from Weymouth, were discussing the potential of the government's new immigration proposals.

The woman began her rant stating: "Sixty-eight million people now live in England - going up, according to UN estimates. At what stage does the panel and people think that this country has had enough? That we should close the borders, completely close the borders."

She continued: "Because it's got to the stage now ... there's no education, infrastructure ... we're sinking, surely someone's got to see common sense and say enough is enough. You've got people flooding into this country who can't speak English."

She went on to question the cost of interpreters and signs in different languages in NHS facilities, while not acknowledging the contribution of immigrant workers in the health service.

The woman, from London, added: "What sort of country is allowing this tourism to come in? You arrive on a plane, get free service, can have your babies. You can carry on having it all for free."

READ MORE: Question Time audience bursts into laughter over panellists' Boris Johnson comment

Panellist Ash Sarkar, a journalist and lecturer at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, countered the claims. She pointed out immigrants contribute more in tax than other citizens. Indeed, a 2018 Oxford Economics study found immigrants who arrived in the UK in 2016 were expected to make a net lifetime contribution of £26.9 billion to public finances.

A Question Time spokesperson insisted the social media output was justified. "Last night's Question Time included a debate about immigration which featured a broad range of views from the audience members and panellists.

"We posted five clips of people expressing their different views on the issue, including a panellist responding directly to the views of an audience member."

Nasar Meer, professor of race, identity and citizenship at the University of Edinburgh, described the statement from the audience member as an "incitement to racial hatred".

He told The National: "It seems profoundly inappropriate that that is shared as a window into a programme. The BBC shouldn't be a vehicle for this. It should be, at best, arbitrating competing views, but not promoting views that are known to be untrue."

"We should completely close the borders ... enough is enough"

This audience member says the number of people 'flooding in' to the UK is costing public services too much.#bbcqt pic.twitter.com/T5EshhWqQu
- BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) February 20, 2020

He warned that broadcast media was "intimately related" to the experience of black and ethnic minorities and hate crime, adding: "So when you've got a broadcaster promoting racist and hateful views, then it's inevitable that that will have an impact on the lives of people on the street, in the workplace and in school."

He called for Question Time not only to apologise, but to put forward a strategy to ensure a repeat of this incident "never happens again".

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BBC Question Time in racism row after sharing anti-migrant rant

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BBC Question Time has been criticised for 'normalising racism' after sharing an anti-immigration rant from an audience member on its social media pages. A woman asked the BBC's flagship political show's panel at what point the UK "should completely close the borders" to immigrants and complained about the number of people "flooding in" to the country and using public services.

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Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi is now out in theaters and is set to become one of (if not the most) highest grossing films of all time. This should come as no surprise; every single movie has come close to shattering the records set by the previous installments in the series upon release. The story, the action, the drama, and the truly immersive world George Lucas has created all feed into our love for Star Wars. But perhaps above all, it's our love of the great characters that keeps us coming back to the franchise.

Even the worst films in the franchise are able to draw us in with their awesome characters; for example, Darth Maul and Qui-Gon Jinn are still hailed as fan favorites even though The Phantom Menace is looked upon negatively by most. Likewise, many fans love Jabba the Hutt and the Clone Troopers even though they appeared in weaker entries of the series.

That said, not all characters introduced in the Star Wars lore are gold. In retrospect, some of these guys are so offensive and controversial that Disney would never even consider putting them in the future movies! Here are the 15 Most Offensive Star Wars Characters Who Could Never Be In The Movies Today.

15 Elan Sleazebaggano

Yes, that is the guy's real name. When you're creating a character that only has two or three lines of dialogue in the entire film, why wouldn't you give him an insanely on-the-nose name like Elan Sleazebaggano? Elan famously asked Obi-Wan Kenobi if he wanted to buy any Death Sticks and the Jedi responded by using the Force to make him go home and rethink his life.

In Legends, Elan has an elaborate backstory where he falls in with the wrong crowd and starts selling Death Sticks. He eventually becomes addicted to his own product and throughout the rest of his appearances is seen to be struggling with hopping off and on the bandwagon of the drug in a never-ending cycle.

There is a reason Disney retconned his entire character: the cycles of drug abuse are just a little too heavy for a family-friendly franchise.

14 14. Jar Jar Binks

Ask anyone who's ever watched a Star Wars movie who the worst character in the entire saga is, and chances are they will tell you it's Jar Jar Binks. Allegedly, George Lucas had a huge story arc planned out for the Gungan, but the negative backlash he received from The Phantom Menace caused him to give Jar Jar a minor role in the rest of the prequels. It's not just Jar Jar's annoying personality that makes him offensive, though.

Even when Episode I came out in 1999, people accused Jar Jar of being an offensive stereotype. They claimed that he spoke like a typical inhabitant of the Caribbean and played into all the stereotypes of a lazy, buffoonish caricature some have about the people of the Caribbean. Some even took it a step further and said Jar Jar was a racist portrayal of all black people. Yikes.

13 Young Anakin

When the prequels were announced, everyone was excited to see the story of how Anakin Skywalker became the villainous Darth Vader. When Episode I hit the scene, however, they were shocked to see that the future Sith Lord was just a small child. People have hated child Anakin so much that Jake Lloyd (the actor who played him) has sworn off Star Wars forever and claims that fans' harassment has driven him to having mental problems.

When we say "offensive," we don't just mean racist or sexist or non-PC. Young Anakin was offensive to the Star Wars fandom because it took the greatest cinematic villain ever made and turned him into a little boy who yelled " yippee!" and brought down the entire Trad Federation fleet at the age of 10.

Throw in the touchy subjects of child slavery and virgin birth, and there's no way young Anakin would fly nowadays.

12 Tusken Raiders (AKA "The Sand People")

The Tusken Raiders were a tribe of migratory aliens who traveled around the desert world of Tatooine, pillaging and destroying everything they came across. The race is characterized by the hilarious grunting sounds they make along with their mummy-like masks, blaster staffs, and pet Banthas. They have appeared in three Star Wars films to date as well as multiple entries in the comic book and TV show lore.

Here's the thing... Tusken Raiders have also been known to go by another name: The "Sand People." Back in 1977 this term was harmless enough (though it still had somewhat of a negative connotation), but today this particular phrase has a very bad message behind its use. Especially in today's political climate, they would have at least had a different name.

11 Oola

One of the things that people remember most about Return of the Jedi is the epic opening act involving the heroes' plot to save Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt. After Leia gets caught, Jabba turns her into one of his "Slave Girls" and makes her don a metal bikini and keeps her close by with a chain around her neck. Though she escapes, Leia was just one of many of these Slave Girls.

Do we even need to go further on this one? Maybe it flies over the heads of the little ones, adults know what kind of connotation comes with these "slaves," and it's something that seems a little too dark for Star Wars. Not to mention, human trafficking is a huge issue in modern-day society. Disney realizes this, and has gone out of its way to try and quietly stop the production of any "Slave Leia" merchandise.

10 Sebulba

Say what you will about The Phantom Menace, but it did give us a couple awesome characters and some great action scenes! One of the set pieces in question was the legendary pod race in which a young Anakin Skywalker shows off his great piloting skills. His main rival both inside and outside the track is Sebulba, a member of the Dug race who is known for his ruthless and cheating racing techniques.

Here's the thing about Sebulba: he's portrayed as somewhat of a Latino stereotype. He's got a deep, raspy voice, and rocks a 'stache-like appendage that would make Danny Trejo jealous. Then there's the fact that his name sounds awfully familiar to Xibalba, the Mayan underworld that you could only avoid by dying a violent death. If that's not enough, his species is infamous for clearing the forest of their homeworld so that they can mine it for resources. Yeah...

9 Yarna d'al Gargan

We've already talked at length about why Jabba's slave girls wouldn't fly today, but now let's talk about one in particular: Yarna d'al Gargan. This character was the daughter of a fierce Askajian chief whose family was captured and sold into slavery. Yarna can be seen in Return of the Jedi dancing slowly in the background of Jabba's palace.

But that's not what makes her character offensive. In the current canon, Yarna was forced by Jabba to eat massive amounts of food to gain weight and was required to wear makeup so that she'd look more like Jabba's mother. That's right, Jabba the Hutt apparently had some sort of creepy Oedipus Complex. Couple that with subtle fat-shaming, and you've got a character that would never fly with today's audiences.

8 Sheev Palpatine

Now wait a minute! Emperor Palpatine is one of the greatest villains to ever grace the silver screen, and his portrayal in the Prequels by Ian McDiarmid is legendary for its subtly manipulative nature and hilariously hammy villainy. So why, you might ask, is Sheev Palpatine on this list?

If the Prequels were made today, we doubt Palpatine would play the same role as he does in the movies we got. The last few years have been horrifically touchy when it comes to the subject of politics. Would a character who is elected democratically and then uses a crisis to steal power and become a murderous dictator would work today? Of course! But it would also hit too close to reality for some and could cause major backlash in that many current political figures could be projected onto Sheev's character. It probably wouldn't be worth the risk to the studio.

7 Ziro the Hutt

Even though Jabba is the only one we had seen on screen, everyone knew that he was just one of many in a large family of Hutt gangsters. In the highly-panned animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars, we finally got to meet a few other members of the family in the form of Ziro the Hutt (Jabba's Uncle) and Rotta (his son). Ziro would once again make an appearance on the Clone Wars TV show.

Though the controversy was later cleared up by the TV show, there was massive speculation that Ziro was Star Wars' first gay character back in 2008. Although many fans thought it was an interesting concept, the fact that the Hutt was a ridiculous stereotype completely turned them off of the idea; one reviewer even went as far as claiming that Ziro's stereotypical flamboyancy made Jar Jar look subtle by comparison. Ouch.

6 Watto

Watto was Shmi and Anakin Skywalker's owner in The Phantom Menace. An avid gambler, the junkyard owner would often sponsor and bet against young Skywalker during his podraces. After losing the boy in a bet with Qui-Gon Jinn, he sold Shmi to the Lars family and was never heard from again after Attack of the Clones.

You've probably heard a million times over why Watto is so offensive to people. He worships money. He has a hooked nose. He wears a small circular hat in Episode II. His accent comes across as a cross between Yiddish and Arabic; lots of people believe Watto is a caricature of a Jewish person.

Disney recognized the backlash, and has tried to keep Watto out of the picture. On rare occasions he has appeared, his accent is downplayed and his headpiece has been changed to resemble more of pilgrim hat.

5 Ponda Baba

Believe it or not, this guy did have a name. Fans have theorized about the strange-looking character ever since his brief cameo in A New Hope; you will likely remember him as the alien who gets his arm chopped off by Obi-Wan in the Mos Eisley cantina. Ponda Baba actually has a semi-thought-out backstory in which he had saved his partner from a bounty hunter and had gone into business smuggling for Jabba the Hutt.

Now you might be saying, "Couldn't appear in the movies today? He was in Rogue One!" Well, that's because he's an established character. As kids, most of us knew Baba as "the guy with a butt on his face" (or many other derogatory names we can't say here); there's no way that Ponda's design would get past the initial idea in today's internet culture filled with memes and immaturity.

4 Jek Porkins

Jek Tono Porkins was a pilot and trader from the planet Bestine who grew angry with the Empire when they took over his homeworld. Porkins joined the Rebellion, becoming part of their X-Wing squadron and taking on the call sign of Red Six; he took part in both the Battle of Scariff and the Battle of Yavin. Porkins was killed when his fighter took heavy damage during the Rebel's final assault on the Death Star.

This poor actor. The character was based purely on his outward appearance: he's an overweight dude whose last name is "Porkins" for crying out loud! To make things worse, people in the Rebellion would sometimes call him by his nickname, "Piggy." This sort cruel, topical, depreciating humor would cause a huge ruckus today and would never be allowed in newer Star Wars movies.

3 The Ring Master

Maybe it's unfair to include the Star Wars Holiday Special on this list considering that the entire movie was offensive to Star Wars fans. Most of the special focused on Chewbacca's family as they awaited his return for Life Day. While waiting, they used their space TV to watch a bunch of skits set in the Star Wars universe.

One of the skits included a strange man called "The Ringmaster" who led an intergalactic circus in hologram form. This character would be a no-go today for multiple reasons. For starters, just look at him. He has highly exaggerated, almost caricature-like oriental features. Then there's the fact that the circus itself is controversial nowadays due to questions of animal cruelty. The Ringmaster definitely wouldn't make the cut.

2 Itchy

Like we said, the Holiday Special is offensive, so why wouldn't its characters be? Attichitcuk ("Itchy" for short) is the father of Chewbacca and the former leader of the Wookiee nation on Kashyyyk. As a young warrior he led his people to victory in multiple conflicts, including a few in the Clone Wars. Though he has yet to appear in the new canon, his grandson Lumpy has. Chewy has to have a father: is it still Itchy?

The main reason he has been written out was because of his portrayal in the Holiday Special. During the show, he was supposed to be watching Lumpy and Chewy's wife while his son was away. Instead, he watches some VR performance of scantily-clad women who talk seductively to him and sing him a song that's " for your eyes only." Yeah, we probably wouldn't see a pervy old grandpa character in Star Wars today!

1 Nute Gunray

When Episode I was first teased, fans went crazy of the prospect of Darth Maul; who was he? How did he fit into the story of Darth Vader? Was he Palpatine's master? Unfortunately, we got no answers for years. In fact, Maul wasn't even the main villain of The Phantom Menace. Instead, we got the Trade Federation led by Nute Gunray. Oh, joy.

Where do you even start with this guy? There is no ifs, ands, or buts about Gunray being an Asian stereotype. His species talks like a character straight out of a propaganda piece from the "Yellow Peril" days of pop culture. He even wears elaborate oriental-style robes and head pieces. But perhaps the most terribly offensive part of Gunray's design are his eyes; they're slits, for crying out loud! Of all the offensive characters in the Star Wars universe, this one is by far the worst.

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Were you offended by any of these Star Wars characters? Let us know in the comments!

About The Author

More About Austin Carroll Baker

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15 Most Offensive Star Wars Characters Who Couldn't Be In The Movies Today

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Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi is now out in theaters and is set to become one of (if not the most) highest grossing films of all time. This should come as no surprise; every single movie has come close to shattering the records set by the previous installments in the series upon release.

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Studio Ghibli is one of the most beloved animation studios in the world, crafting beautiful films with powerful messages about growing up, the environment, war, love, loss and much more.

The studio was founded in June 1985 by directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, as well as producer Toshio Suzuki and publisher Yasuyoshi Tokuma.

Although Suzuki and Takahata both play a huge role in Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki is responsible for a majority of the studio's output. Famous for his incredible work ethic, Miyazaki writes, draws and directs most of his films. He is rightly considered a genius in his native Japan and increasingly in the Western world too.

Studio Ghibli's films are some of the most beautiful in existence. The majority of them are animated entirely by hand, with CGI added to enhance rather than create. Ghibli has won a lot of praise for their mature yet accessible take on animation too, balancing heavy themes with family friendly entertainment (for the most part). It's no surprise that Pixar are hugely influenced by the films of Ghibli.

Here are five Studio Ghibli films to get you started, although we'd recommend watching them all!

Spirited Away

Spirited Away is widely considered the best Studio Ghibli movie of them all, with director Hayao Miyazaki operating at the top of his game.

The film follows 10 year old Chihiro, who is moving home with her parents. On the way, they're transported into a mysterious world populated by spirits and gods. Her parents are transformed into pigs and Chihiro is forced to work in a bathhouse, where she tries to figure out how to escape the spirit world.

It's a fairytale about growing up, a coming of age story told through a fantasy adventure. Like a lot of Studio Ghibli films, there is a strong environmental theme running throughout too.

Spirited Away was released to huge critical acclaim, becoming the highest grossing movie in Japan ever. It was also widely praised in the West, becoming the first anime to win an Academy Award.
Buy Spirited Away on DVD
Howl's Moving Castle

Adapted from a novel by British writer Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle is a tale about an unconfident young girl who is transformed into a 90 year old woman by a witch. She sets off to find a wizard named Howl, who could cure her (and who saves her from some soldiers). At the same time, her country is being routinely bombed by an oppressive force.

Howl's Moving Castle is a story about finding yourself, acceptance and love, with a strong female protagonist (another common Studio Ghibli trait). It's also an anti-war movie, a sentiment apparently sparked by Miyazaki's opposition to the Iraq War.

Howl's Moving Castle was nominated for an Academy Award and remains a favourite among critics despite not winning. You might notice a few familiar voices on the English dub too: Christian Bale voices Howl, while Emily Mortimer voices Sophie.
Buy Howl's Moving Castle on DVD
My Neighbor Totoro

One of the earliest Studio Ghibli films, My Neighbor Totoro is the story of two young girls who move to a new home when their mother becomes ill. Once there, they meet a race of fuzzy forest creatures called Totoros, who take them on adventures and help them understand life.

Although it's a children's movie, My Neighbor Totoro is surprisingly deep, with loss a particularly big theme. It's uplifting too though, and the two sisters are among the best Ghibli characters around.

And then there's Totoro. He's become one of the most popular animated characters in Japan, a Ghibli equivalent of Mickey Mouse. He's even on their logo!
Buy My Neighbor Totoro on DVD Buy My Neighbor Totoro on Blu-Ray
Kiki's Delivery Service

Kiki's Delivery Service is a more light-hearted Ghibli movie in which an apprentice witch travels to a European seaside town and starts a parcel delivery service. Unfortunately, things don't go that well.

Like most of Miyazaki's movies, Kiki's Delivery Service is a lot more profound than it sounds. It explores how people find their calling in life, and how to pursue your passions and find your purpose. It's a moving, positive tale that most kids (and grown ups, to be honest) will love.
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Princess Mononoke

Despite the name, Princess Mononoke is one of Studio Ghibli's more mature movies. It's set during a war between forest gods and humans who use up nature's resources.

That sounds like a set up for a tired lecture on environmentalism, but Miyazaki handles it wonderfully. He doesn't present either side as right or wrong; there are no 'bad guys' or 'heroes'. It's a complex take on a complex issue, which just happens to double up as a hugely entertaining movie too.

The main plot follows a prince who is cursed by demon and travels into the forest to find a cure. If you're a fan of big fantasy adventure movies like Lord of the Rings, you'll find plenty to love here.

Like most of Studio Ghibli's work, Princess Mononoke received a lot of praise from critics. It was the first animated movie to win Picture of the Year at the Japanese Academy Awards, and also went on to become the highest grossing movie of all time in Japan (it was later beaten by Titanic, which in turn was beaten by Spirited Away).
Buy Princess Mononoke on DVD Buy Princess Mononoke on Blu-Ray
Ready to start your Studio Ghibli adventure? Click below to check out our Studio Ghibli collection on the musicMagpie Store, which features all of the movies in this post and much, much more - including Porco Rosso, Ponyo and Arrietty.

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Discover the beautiful films of Studio Ghibli with the musicMagpie Store

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Studio Ghibli is one of the most beloved animation studios in the world, crafting beautiful films with powerful messages about growing up, the environment, war, love, loss and much more. The studio was founded in June 1985 by directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, as well as producer Toshio

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The new Star Wars trilogy - The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker - has garnered quite a bit of fan attention, both ebullient, negative, and everything in between. But we can all agree on one thing about the new series of films, and the other pieces in the expanded Star Wars-verse like Rogue One and The Mandalorian: It's incredible to see the galaxy populated by different faces and types. Representation matters in the media, and the new Star Wars properties have done a great job of giving underrepresented communities heroes to look up to. Per Variety, at the 2020 Upfront Summit, Force Awakens/ Rise of Skywalker writer/director J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot co-CEO Katie McGrath spoke to a room full of influential people about why they focused so much on representation - and why we all need to do the same.

As Abrams and McGrath began putting together the building blocks that would become The Force Awakens, McGrath explained that they "thought about building this story with the female protagonist, a set of four main characters: One of whom was Latinx, one of whom was a Nigerian Londoner, one of whom was a woman - a white woman - and one of whom was a white guy. How can we find a way to have every kid who's going to go see that movie see a version of themselves, in a way that isn't often considered at scale?" McGrath also explained that the ability to make a Star Wars film is a form of privilege. "If we have this moment, this privilege, what do we want to do with it? And not from a place of being preachy or feeding people spinach, just from a place of - any time you have a privilege, you have an obligation, period. That's just how we try to live our lives."

Abrams spoke about how he and McGrath have implemented a "Bad Robot Rule," a method of ensuring the folks who make decisions represent the populations they serve. By McGrath's methodologies, half of everyone interviewed for any job should be women, with at least 40% of those figures people of color. And Bad Robot walks the walk, too: Their staff is 55% women and nearly half people of color. Abrams finds this makeup to be exceptional:

It makes me emotional, actually, to be in meetings and to look around and see people who are never on a usual suspects list, they are never normally people you would think would normally have this job. But they were the best people, and they were there because we made sure they had a shot... I can't tell you how much it's benefited our business.

For more on representation in show business, here's an optimistic study on women directors in Hollywood. And for more on Star Wars, here's what we think the future may hold.

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J.J. Abrams and Katie McGrath on the Importance of Representation in 'Star Wars'

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The new Star Wars trilogy - The Force Awakens , The Last Jedi , and The Rise of Skywalker - has garnered quite a bit of fan attention, both ebullient, negative, and everything in between.

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Please don't see my film, says anime hit Your Name's director

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Brilliantly plotted supernatural love story is a massive hit in Japan and across Asia, and winning fans the world over, but its director says that's 'not healthy' and rejects his label as 'new Hayao Miyazaki'

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Most archeologists bristle at the mention of Indiana Jones, and for good reason. In this piece, originally featured at Last Word On Nothing , journalist takes a close look at the questionable professional ethics of Henry Walton Jones, Jr. and arrives at an unsettling conclusion: The man is a looter.

The jungles of the Peten are hot and sweaty. Most of the best places for archeology are. Field seasons are especially hot, since they are always during the driest time of year so that the site doesn't get flooded. Howler monkeys boom from the parched trees, which barely twitch during the windless days. Meanwhile, pasty grad students toil away in the hot sun, quietly picking away at a stucco relief or the markings on a stone pillar.

In this heat, it's good to wear a hat, preferably something sturdy with a wide brim. Every archeology site in the world is littered with rugged people in wide-brimmed hats talking about long dead civilizations. Tulane archeologist Marcello Canuto, for instance, prefers the khaki, floppy variety. Walking back to camp with after a long day at one Northern Guatemalan site, I can't help but make the obvious comparison.

"Oh God," he groans, "Don't even go there. Indiana Jones is not an archeologist."

It's not surprising that academics - hell bent on taking the fun out of everything - would hate our beloved and iconic movie version of them. But Canuto is no killjoy. His ironic tone and acerbic wit seem honed by long boring days in the sun. So I bite. I quickly learn that there's a good reason why most every archeologist on Earth hates Indy. And that they might have a point. Because Jones isn't an archeologist at all.

"That first scene, where he's in the temple and he's replacing that statue with a bag of sand - that's what looters do," Canuto says, grinning. "[The temple builders] are using these amazing mechanisms of engineering and all he wants to do is steal the stupid gold statue."

Think about it. Here's Indy, in some ancient tropical temple whose booby traps have miraculously not turned to dust with age and humidity. All the ropes, wooden blocks, gears, whatever - they still function. This is a treasure trove of information for an archeologist. How did their technology work? How did they get that giant rock to the top of that ramp? What powered their poison darts?

But no, he goes for the least interesting but most economically valuable thing in the temple - a golden statue. A real archeologist would have taken a photo of it, told the Nazis they could have the stupid thing, and spent the next 10 years studying the temple's booby traps.

Or what about the part where he slips into a dig site in Egypt and tries to steal the Ark of the Covenant?

"True, the Nazis were trying to find the Ark of the Covenant so they could destroy the world," Canuto says. "But methodologically and legally they were in the right."

Whatever you may think of evil archeologists bent on world domination, they presumably had permits to be there. And while the early days of Egyptian archeology were corrupt and exploitative, it was far better than just allowing foreign looters to run wild. Looters like Indiana Jones.

"If someone was to come into my camp and dig up the site with some knowledge I didn't have, and I was to catch them in the middle of the night, yeah, I might throw him in a snake pit too," Canuto laughs.

Archeology is rife with tales of looters and researchers over stolen artifacts whose proliferation is among the largest illegal markets in the world (behind, but often connected to, drugs and guns). People don't talk much about it, but antiquity looting is a major source of cash for global criminals.

Above: Hollywood looter

I know what you are going to say - Indy was just trying to put things in museums. When exactly did he ever actually succeed? And whose museums? Certainly not those of the countries where he was looting. He never documents or publishes his finds - meanwhile his collaborators are mostly monkeys and showgirls. In fact, we now know that Indy's style of looting actually damages our understanding of culture and robs us of our history.

Above: Real life looters

Last month I wrote a story for National Geographic about the history of looting in the Maya region that barely scratches the surface of the problem. The real life Indiana Joneses of the world are not wise-cracking professors with bullwhips. They are poor farmers and hooligans pushed by desperation and warfare to the fringes of society where they eke out an existence, destroying our only opportunities to understand ancient cultures.

Just like Indy, most looters are so consumed with getting something they can sell, they destroy the parts of a site that might actually inform scientists. Temples become craters in the ground and bones containing crucial genetic information are chucked aside. But worst of all, we lose the context of the artifact - where it was found and what that might mean. And just like Indy, they are happy to shoot anyone who gets in their way.

All of this, just so a wealthy foreign collector can put a stone panel on his wall or have a cool bowl to hold his keys at night.

"Their point of view is that it is my right to destroy your country, your past, to decorate my house," says Karen Olsen Bruhns, an archaeologist at San Francisco State University.

In this way - and please don't hate me for saying it - Lara Croft is more honest than Indiana Jones. She doesn't pretend to be an academic or make speeches about what belongs in a museum. She's a wealthy, corrupt tomb raider and she doesn't hide it.

This is not to say all collectors are bad - most are just ignorant of what was destroyed or who was killed to get their precious knick knack. A few I talk to for the story are genuinely trying to atone. But it still seems a silly reason to rob a people of their history.

Thankfully, Central American looting today is on the decline and, as Bruhns points out with delicious irony, most available Maya artifacts are fakes (including Jones's crystal skulls). But looting in other places, like the conflict-ridden Middle East and North Africa is exploding.

Meanwhile, rumor has it, a fifth Indiana Jones movie is now in the works. Keep in mind that the last one was so bad, it coined a just to describe similarly awful movies.

In the end, despite being a terrible archeologist, Indiana Jones still holds a special place in the hearts of people like Canuto. He was twelve when he saw Raiders of the Lost Ark and discovered an enduring love of exotic adventure and wide-brimmed hats. And like most of us, he can overlook a few criminal acts as long as the movies are still good. Which, frankly, is why Jones might want to think about hanging up his whip.
Photo Credits: Paul E. Amaroli, Marcello A. Canuto, and Paramount Pictures.
This post originally appeared at Last Word On Nothing. It has been republished with permission.

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Most archeologists bristle at the mention of Indiana Jones, and for good reason. In this piece, originally featured at Last Word On Nothing, journalist Erik Vance takes a close look at the questionable professional ethics of Henry Walton Jones, Jr. and arrives at an unsettling conclusion: The man is a looter.

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World of Warcraft prize pool controversy threatens to overshadow BlizzCon

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BlizzCon is just two days away and Blizzard may find themselves in another PR disaster as pro players are left raging over the World of Warcraft prize pool.

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Marvel supremo Kevin Feige never seems to get landed with this sort of headache - that was my immediate reaction to the latest Star Wars Twitterstorm.

In case you'd missed it, John Boyega, who plays Finn, made a crude joke on Instagram about the sex life of Rey, played by Daisy Ridley, in response to a fan who'd suggested that the death of his rival for Rey's heart, baddie Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), left the way clear for him (or rather, his character). "It's not about who she kisses but who eventually lays the pipe. You are a genius," he wrote.

Yes, pretty crass. But I imagine Rey, were she so minded, could deal with it; perhaps with a lightsabre applied somewhere uncomfortable.

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I say Rey, because some people seem to have got the impression that Boyega was talking about Ridley. He insisted he wasn't, referencing the distinction between fictional character and real person. "Daisy knows she isn't the character," he responded on Instagram. "Lol so tbh she doesn't give AF".

But we have a full-blown Star Wars controversy on our hands all the same. Is that Dark Vader I hear chuckling?

It happened last time around too, when Rian Johnson tried to do something different with The Last Jedi and got strafed for his trouble, particularly from, shall we say, right leaning fans.

Feige seems to have dealt with far less controversy with the (much bigger) Marvel Comic Universe (MCU). There've been bits and pieces; this is Hollywood, after all. But for the most part the films come out, the critics offer polite applause, and the fans cheer rapturously.

Star Wars? Au contraire. As soon as anyone connected with it opens their mouths it's light the blue touch paper and stand well back.

Maybe all the sound and fury is a function of the franchise's age, and the age of those of us who grew up with it.

The MCU has been around for, what, eleven years? Star Wars is over forty. That's plenty of time to establish firm ideas a few, dare I say it, prejudices and a crotchety temper.

We gen X-ers rather seem to have forgotten how to enjoy the ride along the way. Lucas's poor prequels didn't help.

Could it be that we're forgetting something here? The franchise's creator George Lucas always said that the Star Wars films were intended as kids' films (before going on to patronise them with the dismal Jar-Jar Binks).

When I was a kid and A New Hope was the most exciting thing imaginable, romance was filed under "icky", an unnecessary distraction from the action. Leia and Han? If you must, but get a room, for goodness' sake.

Things have moved on since then, mostly in a good way. Many felt Kylo's death was irrelevant to Finn's chances of finding love. Oscar Isaac, for example, thought Finn should end up with his character, Poe Dameron. Luke Skywalker - sorry, Mark Hamill - vocally agreed.

"Luke never met either Finn or Poe. So what they do behind closed doors I guess I'll never know...But I would like to also note that love is love.Whatever floats your boat. #LGBTeriffic," he tweeted.

Gay or straight, doesn't matter. The Ren-Rey-Finn-Poe love, erm, quadrilateral elicited a similar reaction from my 12-year-old, who gave The Rise of Skywalker, JJ Abrams' conclusion to the Skywalker saga, only seven out of ten because of "too much romance".

Ridley and Boyega now face a very real challenge. They have to find a way to separate themselves from their characters, something that didn't prove easy for the first generation of Star Wars actors (with the exception of Harrison Ford), and may not for them, either, especially given they are relative unknowns.

The confusing of character with star that's contributed to the latest fuss won't help them there.

As for the final trilogy? I'd rate Johnson's offering above either of Abrams'. Five, four, three, two, one...bring it on, Twitter.

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James Moore: Like all Star Wars controversies, John Boyega's blunder is overblown

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Marvel supremo Kevin Feige never seems to get landed with this sort of headache - that was my immediate reaction to the latest Star Wars Twitterstorm.

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Mutter the phrase "slave Leia" and unless you've been living under a rock since 1983, you'll probably get a mental image of Carrie Fisher in a golden bikini chained to a giant slug.

It's one of the most memorable, weird, gross and resonant moments from The Return of the Jedi, and from Star Wars in general - and Disney is working to disavow it. The company is rumored to be retiring their slave Leia figurine - a move which has prompted commenters on social media to declare "good riddance". Writer Mariah Heuhner tweeted: "Even before I knew what sexual objectification was, the Leia/bikini thing made me really uncomfortable as a kid." Carrie Fisher herself criticized the outfit, warning new Star Wars actor Daisy Ridley: "Don't be a slave like I was ... You keep fighting against that slave outfit."
Luke Skywalker still missing from latest Star Wars: The Force Awakens posters
It's easy to see why Fisher isn't fond of the get-up. The sequence with the giant bloated Jabba the Hut is a not-even-concealed Orientalist harem fantasy, complete with desert, chuckling dissipated bloated pasha and hapless princess decked out in fetishwear and chains. The sequence is a bit of soft-core porn dropped in the middle of a kids' adventure story. Through the rest of the series (with the possible exception of A New Hope's torture sequence) Leia is irascible, tough, empowered and, notably, completely covered. Then, all of a sudden, she's a vulnerable, objectified sex toy. The dissonance is startling and stomach-churning.

Obviously, a good part of the motivation for the slave Leia costume had to have been fan-service. The outfit caters both to hormonal pubescents, for whom Princess Leia was already a sex symbol, and to Lucas's love affair with all those old adventure serials, with Leia playing Dale Arden, and Jabba as Ming the Merciless.

But the slave sequence also fits oddly, but definitively, into Leia's character arc. Remember that at the end of the Empire Strikes Back, before he's placed in cold storage, Leia kisses Han and says, "I love you." To which Harrison Ford famously ad libs, "I know."

This is the moment when, as Tricia Barr writes, Leia changes "from devoted champion of the Rebellion, to a woman on a mission to save her man". But it's also, and not coincidentally, the moment when Leia acknowledges her own sexuality and her own desires - desires which were visible to that worldly-wise, not-nice Han, but not to her.

But Star Wars isn't a romance, and true love leads not to marriage but to a manically gendered mess

In a romance, the declaration of love would lead directly to bliss and the conclusion of the narrative. But Star Wars isn't a romance, and true love leads not to marriage and happily ever after, but to a manically gendered mess. At the beginning of Return of the Jedi, Leia, who up to this point has mostly been dressed in utilitarian but recognizably female attire, suddenly starts switching wardrobes. First she disguises herself as the male bounty hunter Boushh. Then she switches to the sexed-up slave bikini.

According to the narrative, Leia dresses as a man to fool Jabba and rescue Han, and then dresses in the bikini because she's forced to by Jabba. But you could also see the story as a sublimated reaction to Leia's emotional and sexual awakening. Having suddenly discovered her own desires, she has to fit them into her own conception of her own gender.

And so she tries on different outfits. To love Han, should she be a man like Han: brave, dashing, reckless? Or should she be a gratuitous, over-the-top male fantasy? Does Han want a comrade? Does he want a slave? She knew who she was before she loved him, but who she is now is less clear. Leia may want to be the person Han knows, whoever that is, but she may also want to be someone else.

Leia rejects the slave identity emphatically; as critic Vom Marlowe puts it, she "strangles Jabba the Hutt with the literal chains of the patriarchy". Those patriarchal chains aren't just patriarchal chains, though; they're also a BDSM fever dream. The specter of adult relationships and adult sexuality causes Lucas, and his film, to freak out, erupting in a cacophony of fetishes: bondage, submission, Orientalism, tentacle sex and rape fantasy. Leia is objectified - but as the woman seeking to free her man, and as the fascinating protagonist running through different outfits and different identities, she's also the driving subject of the narrative, in a way she almost never is for the rest of the Han-and-Luke focused series.

Slave Leia fascinates the fandom because of sex. But I don't think it's just sex. Luke may be leaping around with his lightsaber in the foreground, but the backdrop of the Jabba arc is the Han and Leia romance. What would you do for love? What do you want to do, and who do you want to be, for love? The slave-Leia approach to these issues is clumsy and sexist, but the questions themselves are neither of those things. Almost by accident, Star Wars stumbled briefly into material with some consequence. Which is perhaps why Disney has decided to back away.
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The 'slave Leia' controversy is about more than objectification

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Mutter the phrase "slave Leia" and unless you've been living under a rock since 1983, you'll probably get a mental image of Carrie Fisher in a golden bikini chained to a giant slug. It's one of the most memorable, weird, gross and resonant moments from The Return of the Jedi, and from Star Wars in general - and Disney is working to disavow it.

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When producer Yoshiaki Nishimura first talked to director Hiromasa Yonebayashi about the project that would become the animated feature Mary and the Witch's Flower, Yonebayashi had reservations. "I hesitated a little bit," he tells The Verge,"because I thought it might be compared to Kiki's Delivery Service, directed by Hayao Miyazaki, which was also about a young witch."

It's a valid concern. The film's protagonist, Mary, is a forceful redhead who's fairly different from the polite, dark-haired Kiki in Miyazaki's film. But both movies are animated children's fantasies about broom-riding little girls with black cat familiars. And Mary and the Witch's Flower, based on Mary Stewart's The Little Broomstick, looks and feels exactly like a project from Studio Ghibli, the famed Japanese animation studio Miyazaki and his partner Isao Takahata founded in 1985.

But that's no accident, and Nishimura and Yonebayashi come by that heritage honestly. They're both longtime Ghibli veterans who broke out on their own when Takahata and Miyazaki announced their retirement, and the studio moved away from feature animation. Nishimura and Yonebayashi brought the Ghibli house visual style and storytelling sensibility into their new venture, Studio Ponoc, which launched with Mary and the Witch's Flower. For Ghibli fans, it's a tremendous relief to see the studio's sensibility and talent continuing, with many of its creators moving over to Ponoc to continue their work.

But there were a lot of financial and artistic risks involved in starting over. Yonebayashi compares their journey to the arc faced by the new film's protagonist, a young girl who gains and then loses magical powers, and decides to soldier on with her human talents instead. "This felt similar to what we were facing in leaving the magical world of Studio Ghibli, and starting out as individuals to make a new film at Studio Ponoc," he says. "I thought this was very meaningful as the first film we would make." Through a translator, I recently spoke with both men about the studio's founding, what makes them similar to and different from Studio Ghibli, and the theme that connects all of Yonebayashi's films.

What was the process like of bringing Studio Ponoc together?

Yoshiaki Nishimura: This was a very difficult, tough three years for us. We were at Studio Ghibli until the end of 2014. And then two and a half years later, we had to complete a feature film, starting from zero, basically. And the two main difficulties were that we didn't have the Studio Ghibli brand name, because our new studio was not known, and so trying to collect the financing was difficult. We had to work with a rather low budget. And at Studio Ghibli, there were 150 to 200 creators with the wonderful environment, with hardware, software, computers, servers all set up in the production studio itself. Whereas we had to start from zero, and build up that environment and equipment for our production.

We started with two to three people. But by the end, we were 450 creative people working on the film. Within these limitations, we had to aim for the quality and meaningful content similar to films Studio Ghibli had made. That was a very tough bar for us to accomplish.
Why this particular story? What was the draw?
YN: In order to make this first film for the studio, we thought it would be best to make a film that was quite the opposite from When Marnie Was There, the last film director Yonebayashi made at Studio Ghibli. When Marnie Was There is about a quiet girl in interior struggle. It's a very calm movie. But the special talent director Yonebayashi has, that he gained from director Hayao Miyazaki at Studio Ghibli, is drawing dynamic action as an animator. So the idea was to have a very energetic girl moving around in a very fantastic way in a fantasy world. So the topic we chose was a witch.

I read many children's books and young adult books to search for projects to film. Many of those - when a witch character faces difficulty - they use magic to solve the problem. The Little Broomstick was the only story I saw where the heroine rejects magic at a crucial point, at the most difficult point. The quote from the book is something like, "I'm not going to use magic to open this door. I'm going to use my own powers. However long it may take, I'm going to do it on my own." I thought that would be wonderful for the first concept of the film, because we have left the magic umbrella of Studio Ghibli, and now we have to walk with our own strength and power. So this fits the situation that director Yonebayashi and I as producer and other former Studio Ghibli creators faced as well.

What kind of opportunities did you get from starting over, in term of structuring your company, or bringing in new animation technologies or methods?
YN: There were certain things we could and could not do at Studio Ghibli. Basically, all the projects were decided on by the two founding directors, Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki. They developed projects, then assigned them to the staff. I wasn't dissatisfied with that, or with working at the studio. But now that we are on our own, we have to start projects from zero, from the start. It gives us a chance to really work on things from the ground level.

In terms of the kinds of stories that were being made at Studio Ghibli toward the end - the two directors were already getting along in years. Miyazaki has turned 76, and Takahata just turned 82. So there, a lot of the stories toward the end were stories of parting. Tale of the Princess Kaguya and The Wind Rises reflected the directors' stage in life, dealing with issues of life and death. Those stories resolve in parting. When they were younger, in their 30s and 40s, they handled different types of topics - lively encounters of people meeting.

So with this picture, director Yonebayashi and I wanted to veer away from these themes of parting, which I handled as a producer for The Tale of the Princess Kaguya and Marnie,and he had directed with The Secret World of Ariettyand When Marnie Was There. We're at the same age when Miyazaki and Takahata first started off, and now that we are parents of small children, we want to have that kind of active starting-off, people-meeting-up kind of story.

Are you taking this as a chance to try new animation techniques?
Hiromasa Yonebayashi: I think it depends on what we want to convey through the film, the kind of methods we use, and the kinds of technologies we use. There are different methods of expression. My basic thought is that hand-drawn animation is very good at expressing characters' emotions and movements. But I've also added 3D and CG effects to enhance the experience for the viewer. This is what I learned, being an animator for 20 years at Studio Ghibli.

In Mary and the Witch's Flower, I wanted Mary to be able to be very active in her movements, and show that on-screen, and I thought the hand-drawn method worked well for that. There are many animation works that use CG, but we had many staff members who were very talented at hand-drawn animation, and I wanted to feature their strengths in the film. If I try a different type of subject matter, I might use some other technique in the future.
There are many visual elements in Mary and the Witch's Flower that feel like references to Ghibli films like One of the things that most distinguishes this from a Studio Ghibli film is the villains. Ghibli villains usually transform into friendly figures, but this movie has people with authentically bad intentions, who do terrible things. How did you think differently about the antagonists here than you would have in your past films? Kiki's Delivery Service, Howl's Moving Castle, and You've directed three films at this point, all based on fantasy novels by Western women. Is there a particular connection there? Spirited Away What's next for Studio Ponoc? Are you are you planning on making more films that look and feel like Studio Ghibli? Does the studio want to branch out further? . Were you and your animators making deliberate homages? Is it more because you're working with the same artists?
HY: It's not that we consciously were thinking of creating an homage to those previous films. At Studio Ghibli, I learned how to make things move in a certain sort of way, a way of thinking about animation and characters, working under director Miyazaki. So I'm sort of steeped in that background. Many of the creators who worked on this film also were people who had worked at the studio. So we all are sort of infused with the spirit of Studio Ghibli. Maybe that was coming out.
What is the release plan for those four shorts?

New York-based animation distributor GKIDS is planning an Academy Awards qualifying run for Mary and the Witch's Flower in late 2017, so expect a limited theatrical engagement in the next few months.
HY: In my mind, they aren't necessarily purely evil. They have their own goals in mind, and they're very focused on them. Mary wants to transform herself, wants to change herself from the girl who lacks confidence and is dissatisfied with herself, into something stronger. The antagonists want to change and transform others, which they think will lead to happiness. I think that relates to the kinds of things we have around us in our present day, where people are trying to change other people.

For example, in schools we might be teaching or forcing students to think in a certain way, rather than allowing freedom of expression. As parents, we try to force certain things onto our children, telling them something that they did was not good, and they should behave in this other way. So I think transforming others is ultimately something we shouldn't be doing. We should be encouraging people to transform themselves. Mary and Peter in this story want to change themselves for the better, and they eventually come to be able to do that. And that becomes a very confrontational moment. I think the audience perhaps can get to that idea, and root for the people who want to transform themselves.

HY: I hadn't realized that all of these authors were women, so it must be a coincidence. But all three stories feature a young heroine who is able to make the next step in her life. So my interest is that instant where young people are able to not make a huge, major transformation, but take a small step to grow a little bit more, to become a little bit more confident, to make the next step in their lives. For other people, from others' point of view, it may not seem like that big a step. But for them, it's a very big thing to be able to do this. I like to deal with that instant where characters are making that change. And I think when viewers who are struggling with their own lives see this kind of story, that helps them get some courage, and it has meaning for them.

YN: One thing I learned from director Takahata is that the content decides what kind of expression to use. If you only have one form of an expression, it just becomes a style, rather than a fit with the content. So it depends on what kind of material we're dealing with, as to what kind of expression and style we end up showing. Our heritage from Studio Ghibli makes us very strong believers in 2D animation. But it's not that we reject 3D animation. There may be some content that would be good for a kind of fusing of 2D and 3D animation.

At Studio Ponoc, we are working on four short films right now. One is being directed by director Yonebayashi, and there are three other directors working on the other shorts. But we also are determined to continue making feature-length film. And for us, the heroes and heroines are the children we are making the films for. We want to continue to make films that both children and adults can enjoy watching together. That is our mission, and that's what we have brought forward from our experiences.

YN: Right now, what we're going to do with those four shorts is still undisclosed. When we are ready to announce that, of course we'll let you know at The Verge as well!

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How Studio Ponoc made the break from Studio Ghibli

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When producer Yoshiaki Nishimura first talked to director Hiromasa Yonebayashi about the project that would become the animated feature Mary and the Witch's Flower, Yonebayashi had reservations. "I hesitated a little bit," he tells The Verge,"because I thought it might be compared to Kiki's Delivery Service, directed by Hayao Miyazaki, which was also about a young witch."

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It's hard to imagine that a novel serialised in the pages of Marie Claire Japan would have the axis-spinning effect that Paprika had on the world of anime, cinema and beyond. Paired with the soulful, intricate eye of Japanese animator Satoshi Kon, Paprika was the 2006 psychological thriller-slash-technological fantasy pushing the envelope of what anime could be and do, navigating the soft dreamy world of Studio Ghibli and skirting the metallic edges of Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell.

The film, based on sci-fi writer Yasutaka Tsutsui's novel of the same name, stares straight into the dark enclaves of our vast dreamscapes, pinpointing the disturbing near-reality where technology collides with the human mind. Psychologist Atsuki Chiba uses the DC Mini - an invention that allows people to enter others' dreams - to get to the bottom of clients' issues, taking on her 'dream detective' alter-ego Paprika in the subconscious. When the device is stolen and harnessed by evil to create a living nightmare populated by freaky toys and animated appliances, from which people cannot escape, she must find and defeat the 'dream terrorist'.

10 years after its original release, we dissect Kon's nightmarish tale that decimated and rebuilt the notions of fantasy and reality.

IT WAS THE CLIMAX OF KON'S CINEMATIC OEUVRE

It's been six years since the loss of Satoshi Kon to pancreatic cancer. Once an apprentice to Akira director Katsuhiro Otomo, Kon's small but mighty collection of works probe the concept of what reality actually is, getting bigger and more innovative with every instalment. His major mind-bending thriller was Perfect Blue, a 1997 piece that saw a Japanese girlband member lose hold of her own mind as she dodged the threat of a stalker and delved disturbingly deep into her first acting role, while commenting on Japan's obsession with pop megastars. Millennium Actress (2001) recounts the tale of an elderly former moviestar for two filmmakers, where memories and embellished fantasy swirl together to offer a new perspective on cinema itself. Tokyo Godfathers (2003) was his third time directing: inspired by a western film called 3 Godfathers, Kon transposes the disturbing yet touching Christmas story to Shinjuku, where three homeless friends find a baby abandoned in a dump. In one scene, theatre posters of Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress can be spotted at a bus stop.

Paprika, his final feature, was an amalgamation of Kon's exploration of the mind. It picks up where Perfect Blue left off with themes of identity. Where Perfect Blue sees legions of fans and a threatening stalker - or possibly snippets of her past self - gaze upon and consume Mima Kirigoe as she moves from music to acting, Paprika zones in on who we are in the depths of our mind's eye. As Dr Chiba moves from reality to dreamworld, she works to get to the core of patients who can't figure out the message of their own nightmares. Kon takes the careful psychology of his previous films and blasts it into the stratosphere with the DC Mini.

PAPRIKA RODE THE WAVE OF ADULT ANIME

Kon was one of the major players leading the charge that thrust anime above the western perception of Japanese animation, which was heavily characterised by the soft - but nevertheless strong - features of the legendary Studio Ghibli and the effervescent girl power of Sailor Moon. Paprika, in exploring more adult themes, was very much at home in a particular strain of anime, and held a pretty complex, detailed narrative. Akira was the cyberpunk thriller set in a Neo-Tokyo, where youth morph and rebel against an imposing authority and mainstream establishment pressure, directly questioning the contemporary post-war Japan bolder than most animes before it. Masterful productions like End of Evangelion and Ghost in the Shell made up the animated contingent of films that explored human nature within sci-fi, as Paprika does this in making sense of dream logic.

While still maintaining elements of playfulness with the array of dream scenes that cast Paprika in a circus, as a centaur and butterfly - and not forgetting the very creepy toy procession - Kon takes on unsettling sexual violence and issues of the male gaze. Like many more 'adult' animes, there's a fixation with smooth female bodies. In reality, Chiba finds her intelligence and skill ignored at times for her body. In the dreamscape, as Paprika, male clients show outward attraction to the young and innocent dream detective. There's a jarring attempted rape by a nemesis, trying to assert dominance over the woman who moves so freely between worlds and into the minds of men.

IT HARNESSED 'PHOTOREALISM'

Much of what happens in Paprika, with its swooping shots of huge cityscapes and in-depth conversations between characters, seems like it would play out effectively as a live-action film. In fact, Kon's style of editing is as swift and detailed as that of big blockbuster movies, if not more so given that animators are in complete control of light and movement. Video essayist Tony Zhou explores this in detail in his clip "Satoshi Kon - Editing Space & Time", dissecting the filmmaker's strength in quick transitions. He's not afraid to rewind shots and use black frames, or use other objects to completely wipe a scene into the next. This is most prevalent in Paprika 's vibrant, seamless 4-minute opening sequence and the parade scenes, populated by technicolour robots, dolls, a Godzilla creature and bopping Buddha. As Zhou relates, Kon "felt that we each experience space, time, reality and fantasy at the same time as individuals and as a collective society". For him, this elastic editing style gave the opportunity to create a hyperreal, immersive world that somehow felt totally plausible - even if a man becomes a monstrous whale or a giant robot, or a person becomes consumed by butterflies.

UNDERSTANDING OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH TECHNOLOGY

"Things like imagination and one's willingness to believe in the abnormal have all but been eliminated from our daily lives" Kon once said. "The end result is a soberingly bland reality, which is pretty much what we live in today. In the film, Paprika is the entity that lets you experience the utterly fantastic and absurd elements of life. I think that type of story is becoming increasingly rare." Though Kon asks us to fully immerse ourselves in a landscape that's somehow tangible and otherworldly, there's also caution. Technology has advanced drastically in this near-future, and the planes between the human mind and inanimate technology are bridged by the sophisticated DC Mini, used secretly by Chiba as the machine awaits its final trialing. She uses the device to help detective Tohimi Konakawa, who's dealing with a recurring dream, but it's then misused by others to the point it decimates the walls between dreams and real life. Jumping over a railing becomes a skyscraper ledge, and another parade sees a procession of girls with mobile phones for heads - technology can consume and assimilate as us. Kon shows us that tech can be attractive and world-expanding, but also ominous and violent.

A KILLER SOUNDTRACK

The soundtrack was composed by Susumu Hirasawa - a perfectly topsy-turvy, dreamy aural parallel to Kon's visuals. Hirasawa also collaborated with Kon on his works Millennium Actress and Paranoia Agent, and the Paprika soundtrack was the first to ever use Vocaloid, a 'singing voice synthesizer', with parts of the vocals to create interesting, otherworldly layers to speakers. As Paprika spans a vast narrative and pace, so does the music. It joyously smashes in with the soaring "A Drop Filled with Memories" for a blinding opening sequence, lays us gently down with "The Tree in the Dark", announces the terrifying parade with "Welcome to the Circus" and invites goosebumps with the ominous "The Blind Spot in a Corridor".

PAPRIKA GENRE-HOPPED BEYOND ANIME

Paprika isn't afraid of experimenting outside of the usual cartoon narrative, as we already know. As playful as it is psychologically thrilling, and at times completely nonsensical, the film flies between the surreal and absurd - the courtship of mobile-phone headed couples, Paprika as a butterfly, and a person pumped up like a hot air balloon - to the comedy of the genius but child-like Tokita and his monstrous eating habits. Detective Konakawa, a tall, greyish character, pulls us into the realms of noir and melodrama, particularly with his dream scuffle on a moving train, before jumping into a Tarzan-like dream sequence. Chiba is a serious heroine, and Paprika is seemingly the spritely manga archetype, who meets elements of horror when her skin is peeled off to reveal Chiba underneath. It's a brave, flexible form of storytelling.

A GALAXY-BENDING LEGACY

Paprika has, ashamedly, not been credited in the way that it absolutely deserves to have been. Films like Christopher Nolan's Inception owe a lot to its major themes that existentially meld the darkness and light across our different consciousness together. Both have visually powerful, busy scenes, and share the concept of technology being misused to manipulate human nature. As Alex Denney wrote in his tribute to Kon, without his filmic oeuvre, everything from the Matrix to Requiem for a Dream would have suffered without the Japanese filmmaker's important stylistic cuts and influential skills. Susan J. Napier, a professor of Japanese studies at Tufts University, wrote in Kon's obituary that he "combined characteristic social and ethical concerns - including sympathy for outsiders and a belief in the redemptive power of love - with a mischievous and wildly inventive visual style". Once slated for a live-action remake, we're unsure it would ever do Kon justice. Paprika is a laser-eyed, yet playful stare into the human psyche.

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The nightmarish technological fantasy that made anime adult

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It's hard to imagine that a novel serialised in the pages of Marie Claire Japan would have the axis-spinning effect that Paprika had on the world of anime, cinema and beyond.

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With the release of the final chapter of the Skywalker saga, "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" on the horizon, we, the nerds of the Los Angeles Times, set out to make something comprehensive about the eight movies in the Skywalker saga released so far.

We considered a few ideas, but ultimately our team was drawn to Rey, the first female protagonist in a series that had been largely focused on men. In her role as a scavenger-turned-Jedi, Rey seemed like a revolution. We asked ourselves: How far does the representation of women go? How wide was the gender gap in "Star Wars" to begin with? Have Rey and other women actually brought balance to the series? To find out, we had to give the entire series a hard look.

The results of our study, which required over 100 hours re-watching all eight Star Wars movies, were published today.

Here's why we did it.
What was the process like?
The process was surprisingly time-consuming. While we were able to find fan-made scripts for each of the movies, they varied significantly from the latest editions you can stream online.

So we needed to transcribe our own script for each of the eight movies, which have an average 8,500 words of dialogue. Each script would then need to be converted into a spreadsheet recording each line's speaker, word count and to whom the line was addressed.

We signed up for Disney+ the day it came out, and the three of us each had a movie marathon.

During this process, we had to wrestle with some difficult decisions:

If Kylo Ren is speaking to a destroyed helmet, is he really communicating with Darth Vader? (We say, "Nope.")

If Luke speaks with a Force ghost of Obi-Wan, does it count as words exchanged between the two? (We say, "Yep.")

When is it Darth Vader speaking and when is it Anakin Skywalker speaking? Does the difference matter? (We opted to split them up.)

Who is "important" enough to include? We decided to focus on the top 15 characters listed in the credits, plus a few of our personal favorites.

After many lengthy conversations and some spreadsheet magic, we were able to create a list of all lines of dialogue for the entire series.

We also drew illustrations depicting about 50 characters from Darth Vader to BB-8, and even Jar Jar Binks.
Why did you do this?
Hollywood has been roiled in recent years by a controversy over the limited role that women and minorities have in the industry.

Production companies like Disney have responded by diversifying their offerings at the box office. Few examples are more prominent than the introduction of Daisy Ridley in the role of Rey in the newly rebooted Star Wars franchise.

Our study sought to take a quantitative approach to more closely analyzing one aspect of this change: the scripts.
Did your analysis look at other factors that influence a character's role in a movie, such as screen time?
No. While our study does not take into account how long characters are on the screen regardless of whether they're speaking, we believe it captures an important relationship between the characters themselves as well as between the characters and the audience.
What did you find most interesting in your research and why?
Despite being big "Star Wars" fans who have seen the movies many times, once we started carefully counting we were surprised at how much some of the menwere speaking. You might expect Luke Skywalker to dominate the script in the original trilogy, but it was actually Han Solo. The difference wasn't much, but it was there in the data. To our surprise, Poe Dameron was the top speaker in "The Last Jedi."

Finn, considered by some a supporting character, spoke the most in "The Force Awakens," making him the first person of color to speak the most in a "Star Wars" film.

We were so fascinated by the final tally that we made a whole other page for it.

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We spent over 100 hours studying Star Wars' female characters. Here's why we did it

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With the release of the final chapter of the Skywalker saga, "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" on the horizon, we, the nerds of the Los Angeles Times, set out to make something comprehensive about the eight movies in the Skywalker saga released so far.

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Once again Disney has attempted to represent the LGBTQ community with a quick blink-and-you-miss-it moment. This time the culprit is Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

In the last few minutes of The Rise of Skywalker, the Resistance returns after defeating the Final Order. The victors rush around looking for friends and loved ones who survived the battle. As the camera quickly pans over the crowd, audiences (if they are looking closely enough) will see two women Resistance fighters share a kiss before the camera quickly moves away. Poe's (Oscar Isaac) longing look at Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell) lasted longer. It's also important to note that neither of the women were characters with substantial plotlines or backstories.

While the moment is technically history-making, is it on the right side of history?

Director J.J. Abrams teased the moment prior to the film's release as representation for the LGBTQ community. "In the case of the LGBTQ community, it was important to me that people who go to see this movie feel that they're being represented in the film," Abrams told during the press tour. But is a two-second scene between minor characters really a form of proper representation?

Disney has a long history of queerbaiting that has ramped up significantly in recent years. For those unfamiliar with the term, queerbaiting is the tactic of teasing or touting queer representation in a project to get the LGBTQ community interested and talking about it, then under-delivering on the promise. The Rise of Skywalker, sadly, is not the first time that Disney has teased LGBTQ representation in one of its blockbusters, only to yield disappointing results.

Earlier this year, Avengers: Endgame featured Marvel's first openly gay character. "Representation is really important for us in these movies and I think the thing we are happiest most about Marvel moving forward is it's becoming incredibly diverse," co-director Joe Russo said. "We've done four of these films and it was incredibly important to us to have a gay character represented somewhere in one of these four movies."

But he was referring to another blink-and-you-miss-it moment with a man (played by Russo) in a support group talking about going on a date with a man. The scene, unsurprisingly, stirred up backlash amongst fans, who were hoping for more representation than a remark in passing.

In 2017, Disney made waves with its first-ever LGBTQ character, LeFou, in the live-action Beauty and Tthe Beast. Again, the moment was highly touted by director Bill Condon, who called it an "exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie." It was another blink-and-you-miss-it moment at the end when Josh Gad's LeFou dances with another man. And yes, that tiny scene still led to boycotts and refusals to screen the film. Touting these few moments as groundbreaking perpetuates the idea that small amounts of representation is sufficient, when in reality it isn't.

It seemed the Star Wars universe might introduce its first gay characters in 2016's Rogue One with Chirrut (Donnie Yen) and Baze (Jiang Wen); however, their relationship was kept platonic.

On the heels of Hallmark Channel's controversy last weekend - when the network removed ads featuring two lesbians kissing at their wedding, only to reinstate them a day later after facing severe backlash - it raises the question, is Disney that much better than Hallmark?

Appealing to the broadest possible audience seems to be more important than holding up a mirror to society and depicting all orientations. Much like Hallmark, Disney's brand is built on being family friendly; however, if it doesn't show all types of families, is it really doing justice to that branding? Over the years, diversity has been incorporated more and more into the Disney brand (hello, Black Panther, Mulan, Moana, The Princess and the Frog, and many more).However, when it comes to LGBTQ representation, Disney still misses the mark.

Ironically, Disney's biggest franchises (Marvel and Star Wars) are deeply ingrained in the sci-fi genre, which is where LGBTQ representation on TV has made it greatest strides. From Buffy the Vampire Slayer airing a kiss between Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara (Amber Benson) in 2001 to Ruby Rose as the first out lesbian to play a lesbian lead in the superhero show Batwoman, genre TV has made monumental strides in LGBTQ representation. So, why is it so hard for some of the most-watched movies in the world to do the same?

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker had a great setup for an LGBTQ romance as many fans, and even the stars themselves, wanted Finn (John Boyega) and Poe (Isaac) to be an item. Star Wars, and especially the new trilogy, is not overly romantic. But that did not stop the final chapter from featuring a kiss between Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Yet, the inclusion that was teased by Abrams was nothing more than a one-off pandering moment of "LGBTQ representation."

Marvel's The Eternals is said to have a gay character and Thor: Ragnarok's Tessa Thompson has said she pitched and played her character as bisexual, as she is in the comics; however, none of her appearances in Marvel films thus far have portrayed her this way. Could that change with Taika Waititi's ' hor: Love and Thunder?

There is also hope for more LGBTQ representation in a big-budget superhero flick thanks to Warner Bros.' Wonder Woman 1984. There is speculation that the sequel could contain a queer romance, because in later versions of the Wonder Woman comics, Diana Prince is confirmed as being bisexual and Barbara Ann Minerva (aka The Cheetah), one of the villains in the upcoming sequel, is depicted as a lesbian. Whether it will be explicitly stated in the film is yet to be seen, but until then...Patty Jenkins, perhaps you are the LGBTQ community's only hope.

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Why That 'Star Wars' Kiss Is a Step Back for LGBTQ Representation

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Once again Disney has attempted to represent the LGBTQ community with a quick blink-and-you-miss-it moment. This time the culprit is Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. In the last few minutes of The Rise of Skywalker, the Resistance returns after defeating the Final Order.

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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there were lots of Nazis. But no Jews.

The Empire in the "Star Wars" franchise, the totalitarian regime which serves as the antagonist throughout the series, is modeled on the Nazis both visually and throughout the films' narratives. References to fascist totalitarianism give the genocidal Empire much of its evil oomph: You know the bad guys are bad because Nazis are evil, and the villains here look like Nazis.

Yet while Nazi-inspired aesthetics and plots provide "Star Wars" with a convenient shorthand for "evil," the ideological core of Nazism's evil is missing. The Empire showcases a version of Nazism motivated neither by anti-Semitism or prejudice against the marginalized. "Let the hate flow through you!" the Emperor tells conflicted hero Luke Skywalker, in "Return of the Jedi" (1983). But it's a generalized, non-specific hate. It's not directed at anyone in particular - and certainly not at Jews.

The Empire's evil army of Stormtroopers is a direct reference to Nazi Stormtroopers, while the streamlined Imperial military uniforms reference German Nazi dress. According to costume designer John Mollo, Lucas wanted the Empire soldiers to look "efficient, totalitarian, fascist." The Death Star, with its ability to carry out mechanized, instantaneous genocide, is able to execute a pulpy, futuristic kind of Holocaust. Obi Wan Kenobi's famous exclamation in "Star Wars: A New Hope" (1977) following the destruction of the planet Alderaan, "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced," resonates in part because of our knowledge of the twentieth century's mass killings, the Holocaust foremost among them.

The Nazis and the Holocaust continue to be touchstones through later "Star Wars" films as well. In "Attack of the Clones" (2002), a eugenically perfected clone army marches in square formations that recall Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda film "Triumph of the Will." In "Rogue One" (2017), Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) of the Rebellion tries to justify lying to Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), with whom he fights in the rebellion. "I had orders! Orders that I disobeyed," he snaps. "Orders? You might as well be a Stormtrooper!" Jyn responds. Nazi officials tried to argue at the Nuremberg Trials that they were "just following orders." Given that Jyn mentions Stormtroopers at the same time she criticizes Cassian's explanation, the evocation of Nuremberg is almost certainly deliberate.

The opening sequence of "Rogue One," in which Jyn's farming family is visited by a dandyish Imperial official and his brutal thugs, strongly recalls the opening of Quentin Tarantino's "Inglorious Basterds," in which a farming family hiding Jews is visited by a dandyish Nazi official and his imperial thugs. Jyn hides herself in a hole in the ground, just as the Jews in "Inglorious Basterds" were hidden beneath the floorboards. The echoes are the clear result of both films nodding to a long history of Holocaust film representations of Stormtroopers searching for Jews in hiding.

Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that, in "Attack of the Clones," Anakin Skywalker's vicious murder of a group of sand people, including bystanders, women, and children, replicates the logic and some of the rhetoric of genocide. Anakin (Hayden Christensen) and others refer to the sand people as "animals." For humans, the sand people are subhuman murderers, which is also how Nazis framed Jews. The anti-Semitic "Nosferatu," (1922) for example, presented a Jew as a caricatured vampire who preys on Christian women.

The sand people's slaughter is supposed to serve as an important moment in Anakin's plot arc as he transforms from a "good guy" to an evil tool of the Nazi-like Empire. Yet "Attack of the Clones" evades the moral issues at stake. Princess Padme is mildly disturbed that Anakin is a mass murderer, but she mutters something about how anger is natural and unfortunate, and then the plot lumbers on. Sure, the film posits, dehumanization of other sentient creatures and genocide may have something to do with evil - but let's not think about it too hard.

At times, the "Star Wars" films disconnect Nazism from evil altogether. Lucas famously lifted the heroic Rebellion's awards ceremony, at the end of "A New Hope" from "Triumph of the Will." One could argue that Lucas is complicating the morality of the movie by suggesting that the Rebellion is tainted with evil as well. But there's nothing in the narrative that supports that reading. Instead, "Triumph of the Will" is alluded to simply because its visuals are grand and impressive. Nazis are used to make the Empire more evil, and they're used to make the Rebellion look cool.

The "Star Wars" franchise isn't alone in separating Nazi ideas and tropes from the specifics of the Holocaust. The villain Khan in the "Star Trek" series preaches eugenics. Given the wide association of Nazis with eugenics, the ideological origins of Khan's character are made implicitly clear. The Marvel Cinematic Universe's Hydra was invented in Marvel comics as a super-secret organization that could act as a stand in for the Nazis, with the catchphrase "Hail Hydra!" substituted for "Heil Hitler." The recent movie "Wonder Woman," starts out with Captain Steve Trevor getting shot down on Paradise Island by Germans. The original Wonder Woman comics were set in World War II; filmgoers familiar with them won't immediately realize that in the film, the soldiers pursuing Trevor are World War I soldiers rather than Nazis. The film blurs the moral landscapes of World War I and II; its antagonist, Dr. Poison, is an evil German scientist, and one scene shows innocent victims being locked in a room and killed by poison gas, referencing the Nazi's concentration camps.

In many action films, the villains linked to Nazis aren't explicitly racist or anti-Semitic. They commit violence by blowing things up in exciting ways, rather than by specifically targeting marginalized people. You never see the slog of daily violence that the Nazis in fact employed. The Empire in "Star Wars" uses the Nazis, but it doesn't really think about the Nazis. That perhaps helps explain why, despite Nazis serving as the benchmark for evil on Cineplex screen after Cineplex screen, we have so much difficulty identifying them in real life.

'Star Wars' Nazi Influence Is Complicated In A Bad Way

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'Star Wars' Is Influenced By The Nazis - And It Fails To Hold Them Accountable

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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there were lots of Nazis. But no Jews. The Empire in the "Star Wars" franchise, the totalitarian regime which serves as the antagonist throughout the series, is modeled on the Nazis both visually and throughout the films' narratives.

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Parents outraged after 'Gru' poses with OK sign | USA TODAY

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The World War II biopic sparks an animated debate

Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises is a lot of things. It's the final feature-length film from one of the all-time greats of Japanese animation. It's a gorgeous, Oscar-nominated work that brings prewar Japan to life in ways that have never been seen before. It's Miyazaki's most pointedly adult movie, with a slow-burning tragedy replacing the magical realism and cute characters that have made Studio Ghibli's films appeal across generations. And it's the most controversial animated movie in recent memory.

That's because The Wind Rises is a sympathetic biography of a man whose work contributed to Japan's brutal campaign of imperialist aggression during World War II. Jiro Horikoshi designed the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter plane that Japan used in Pearl Harbor and countless other assaults; the Zero was feared for the unparalleled range and maneuverability bestowed by Horikoshi's considerable engineering skills. Although its subject matter is linked to a violent past, The Wind Rises follows in the tradition of Japanese works that eulogize artisanal passion and dedication to one's craft - it could almost have been called Jiro Dreams of Fighter Planes.

Unsurprisingly, the film's arrival on US shores is not without controversy. Village Voice critic Inkoo Kang blasted The Wind Rises as "morally repugnant" at the Boston Society of Film Critics' annual awards, arguing that the film is "wholly symptomatic of Japan's postwar attitude toward its history, which is an acknowledgement of the terribleness of war and a willful refusal to acknowledge its country's role in that terribleness." Kang notes that Japanese textbooks omit or downplay many of the atrocities committed by the nation during wartime. "The beauty of Miyazaki's film is obscured by its moral irresponsibility," she finished, before expanding on her thoughts in a follow-up piece for the Village Voice. The Wind Rises ultimately won the Boston critics' award for best animated film.

Why would Miyazaki choose to end his career on such a contentious note? He told a magazine in 2011 that he was drawn to Horikoshi's alleged statement that "All I wanted to do was to make something beautiful." The aircraft designer "also embodies many of Miyazaki's own contradictions," says Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica, who has interviewed the director. "[Miyazaki is] a pacifist whose father earned his income during the war working for a fighter plane parts manufacturer, and a committed artist who also tried to appreciate the realities of life, including a family he feels he often neglected. At times, Jiro seems inured to the suffering, corruption, and the needs of those around him as he pursues the realization of his dream. The results, of course, make for a great tragic drama."

Miyazaki, for his part, is one of the most prominent Japanese public figures to speak out against the country's imperialist past. He has been branded a "traitor" by Japanese nationalists for arguing against reforming the country's constitutionally enshrined pacifism - currently being pushed by right-wing prime minister Shinzo Abe - and saying that reparations should be paid to wartime sex slaves from Korea and China, euphemistically referred to as "comfort women." These issues, along with a series of territorial disputes, continue to be a source of tension between Japan and its Far Eastern neighbors.

"Including myself, a generation of Japanese men who grew up during a certain period have very complex feelings about World War II, and the Zero symbolizes our collective psyche," said Miyazaki in an interview with the Asahi Shimbun. "Japan went to war out of foolish arrogance, caused trouble throughout the entire East Asia, and ultimately brought destruction upon itself... but for all this humiliating history, the Zero represented one of the few things that we Japanese could be proud of." Despite the Zero's status as a fearsome war machine, Miyazaki was more concerned with the inspired mind behind its design. "It was the extraordinary genius of Jiro Horikoshi, the Zero's designer, that made it the finest state-of-the-art fighter plane of the time... Horikoshi intuitively understood the mystery of aerodynamics that nobody could explain in words."

"Horikoshi intuitively understood the mystery of aerodynamics that nobody could explain in words."

Miyazaki's feelings for Horikoshi make more sense when you look at the director's filmography, which is filled with fantastical depictions of the magic of human flight. Movies such as Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and Kiki's Delivery Service see characters take to the skies with such joy and beauty that they could only have come from the mind of an artist so enamored with the concept. But those movies were set in fantasy worlds, with little to no historical context in the minds of the audience. The Wind Rises is different, bestowing the same sense of bewitchment and wonder on notorious war machines without spelling out what they were designed for. Given the setting, did Miyazaki have a responsibility to address Japan's wartime exploits more explicitly?

"The point is that the film still accommodates Japanese society's willful amnesia about World War II," Kang tells The Verge. "My problem is the 'pussyfooting' around war crimes I refer to in my piece. It's possible to make great, moral art out of problematic subjects." Kang notes that "no Japanese pilot is ever seen shooting at an enemy" in The Wind Rises, while the film's allusions to war see Chinese fighters and Japan's shaky alliance with Nazi Germany contributing to a creeping sense of dread.

Kelts, on the other hand, finds "the mini-brouhaha" around The Wind Rises "specious and self-serving," arguing that Miyazaki has no obligation to preach about the past. "If the film were about a pilot or general or army grunt, references to Japan's brutal colonization of Asia might be apt. But Jiro is working on the home front, designing what he believes will be a thing of beauty." And even if the movie touches a nerve among some viewers, it's clear that the director intended quite the opposite. "Miyazaki the man is open about his disgust at any hint of militarism in Japan and his abhorrence of politicians who ignorantly stoke its embers today," says Kelts. "Critics who focus their understandable anger over Japan's disposition 70-plus years ago on an artist whose every fibre agrees with them are wasting their words."

Moreover, the absence of bloody, consequential violence arguably supports the anti-war message that Miyazaki meant to send. At its core, The Wind Rises is about what happens when people forsake what really matters when pursuing their goals. "Jiro dreams of flight, and his dreams are often dragged to the ground by the corruption of real life," says Kelts. "It's as if Miyazaki wants to drive home the harsh difference between the two; the tragic near-impossibility of combining dreams and reality, and of living in both. If you choose one, you sacrifice the other." Jiro appears to sweep the ugly reality of his work into the far-off corners of his mind, concentrating on the nuts and bolts of aircraft design at the tragic expense of his partner, Naoko. This can be read as Miyazaki's indictment of the powers that turned Japan to brutality in its quest for global significance.

Whatever your take on The Wind Rises, there's nothing quite like it. "A film about a complex personal and national past that [Miyazaki] has long reflected upon, a meditation upon the joys and demands of art and craftsmanship, and a heartbreaking love story," summarizes Kelts. And even if some take issue with the way Miyazaki has handled its themes, the movie is an undeniable tour de force of animation - its rendering of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake in particular must be seen to be believed. "Just aesthetically speaking, I thought it was a beautiful film with some severe pacing issues," says Kang. American audiences will no doubt have a multitude of reactions when The Wind Rises sees wide release next month, but they shouldn't miss it. Hayao Miyazaki's final film is a provocative, wondrous work of art that won't soon be forgotten.

The Wind Rises will be in US theaters on February 21st.

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'The Wind Rises': the beauty and controversy of Miyazaki's final film

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The World War II biopic sparks an animated debate Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises is a lot of things. It's the final feature-length film from one of the all-time greats of Japanese animation. It's a gorgeous, Oscar-nominated work that brings prewar Japan to life in ways that have never been seen before.

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When Hayao Miyazaki announced his retirement from Japan's greatest animation studio in 2013, his young protege Hiromasa Yonebayashi wasn't worried. The master had already retired five times before. "He was always saying, 'Oh this could be the last film.'" Yonebayashi shrugs. "He's still in the office."

You get the feeling that's not entirely a comfort. Miyazaki is not the only director at Studio Ghibli, the animation company he co-founded in 1985, but he is behind the three most successful Japanese anime of all time. Princess Mononoke was Japan's highest grossing film until Titanic - bested four years later by Spirited Away, the first non-western film to win the animation Oscar. Miyazaki's career has been built on drawing the mutual awe between humankind and nature: no wonder he inspires David Attenborough levels of devotion in Japan.

Ostensibly, his mantle has now been passed to the man perched on a London hotel sofa before me, a slightly awkward 42-year-old in a flat cap with two directorial credits to his name. Even the studio seem faintly concerned that Yonebayashi, despite having landed an Oscar nomination for When Marnie Was There, doesn't stand quite as tall as Miyazaki: he is accompanied by producer Yoshiaki Nishimura, to flex a bit of corporate Ghibli muscle.

In true studio tradition, When Marnie Was There boasts a young female protagonist, Anna, who isn't trying to win over a boy and isn't even particularly nice. A reclusive girl with an undiscovered talent for drawing, she is sent by her harried single mother to live with her aunt and uncle in the countryside. There, she discovers an abandoned manor house that springs to life to reveal the beautiful, princess-like Marnie, Anna's spirit guide to a more glamorous existence.

Neither Marnie nor Anna are saints (though Marnie may be a ghost), but part of the film's appeal is how it generates sympathy for the unsympathetic. "That was actually the most difficult part," says Yonebayashi. "But you can see Anna grows up a little bit - at the beginning she can't see eye to eye with anybody, but by the end she can see and talk to another person."

Like 2010's Arrietty, which took inspiration from The Borrowers, When Marnie Was There is adapted from a British children's book, its characters transplanted from Norfolk to Sapporo but Marnie, crucially, is kept as a westerner. "One is Japanese and one is a blonde foreign girl," he says, "but in the end I thought that added another dimension."

Made in the wake of the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the film is full of references to a conservative ideal of Japan: a traditional festival, an idyllic countryside, and a secret that connects Anna to her ancestors, through which she learns to accept herself. "So many people lost their lives and so many others lost loved ones," Yonebayashi says. "Anna loses her relatives as well."

So is Anna Japan? Yonebayashi cocks his head and gives the longest and quietest of many pauses. "Could be. Anna is a lonely girl. At the moment, so many Japanese people feel lonely even though they're connected by technology. I'm not sure if Anna and Japan itself are the same, but people in Japan should be able to understand her."

He describes Anna as "an androgynous character, in the transition between child to adulthood, a very sensitive age" but offers up an intriguing reason for choosing another female-led story : "I'm male myself, and if I had a central character who was male, I'd probably put too much emotion into it, and that would lead to difficulty in telling the story."

Will Ghibli ever employ a female director? Nishimura fields this question. "It depends on what kind of a film it would be. Unlike live action, with animation we have to simplify the real world. Women tend to be more realistic and manage day-to-day lives very well. Men on the other hand tend to be more idealistic - and fantasy films need that idealistic approach. I don't think it's a coincidence men are picked."

It may be a moot question if Studio Ghibli's financial struggles continue. The company was groundbreaking in the 1980s for hiring full-time staff rather than drafting in contractors: an expensive production model that allowed Ghibli to train the next generation of brilliant animators, including Yonebayashi himself.

Now Ghibli is facing the hard industry truth: hand-drawn animation is ever more expensive and risky to make, especially not outsourced to cheaper countries. Even Miyazaki has tacitly admitted as much - a short film made for the Ghibli museum in Tokyo will be his first in full CGI. The studio's next feature is a collaboration with Europe's Wild Bunch studio directed by Dutch film-maker Michaël Dudok de Wit.

"The slim-down process has begun," says Nishimura. "There is no in-house production at the moment. As for the shadow of Miyazaki, we must feel his presence, as well as that of Takahata-san, the two maestros who established Ghibli and gave not just Japan but the whole world courage. It's not just the technique of animation - it's the storytelling, what we tell, who we tell, and the aspiration of that film-making. That's what we have to carry on."

For now, Miyazaki's Oscar stands alone on the shelf: Yonebayashi lost at last year's awards to Disney Pixar. But tellingly, Inside Out was an honest story about a young girl. Miyazaki has already trained the next generation, in more ways than one.

When Marnie Was There is released in the UK on 10 June.

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'Women are realistic, men idealistic': Studio Ghibli on why a director's gender matters

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When Hayao Miyazaki announced his retirement from Japan's greatest animation studio in 2013, his young protege Hiromasa Yonebayashi wasn't worried. The master had already retired five times before. "He was always saying, 'Oh this could be the last film.'" Yonebayashi shrugs. "He's still in the office."

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Blizzard screwed up. What should've been a celebration of a beloved strategy game has somehow become the lowest user-rated game on Metacritic. If you haven't been following Warcraft 3 Reforged closely, the backlash may be confusing. As Fraser wrote in his review, "the core of Warcraft 3 is as gripping as it's always been," and some of the graphical changes, like the new high resolution models for units and buildings, look quite nice. Isn't this more or less what a remaster should be?

Well, it's not quite that simple. Due to poor communication by Blizzard and plans that changed over the course of development-some, ironically, due to fan feedback-Reforged is not the remaster many people expected. Blizzard even upset the diehard players who still compete in the 2002 original, by updating that version to Reforged's new client, which is strangely missing some key features.

Here's how it all went so wrong.

The pitch: Warcraft 3: Reforged's announcement at BlizzCon 2018 called for major changes

Blizzard announced Warcraft 3: Reforged at BlizzCon in November 2018, showing off a cinematic trailer before talking about the plans for the remaster on stage. A gameplay trailer also listed several of the features coming in the new remaster:

"Fully remodeled characters and animations"

"Remastered maps and campaigns"

An "upgraded UI and world editor"

"Reforged in 4K resolution"

After this unveiling, Blizzard talked about Reforged in more detail during a panel. At that time, one of the big plans for Reforged was to make it better align with WoW. Here are some quotes from the development team:

Lead designer Matt Morris: "One of the things we want to do with our campaign is level it up to what people know from World of Warcraft. ... Looking back at the campaign now, we want the locations that you remember or know from World of Warcraft to match what you see in Reforged, and we want to go through some of the stories and tie the two franchises together in a tighter way."

Producer Pete Stilwell: "It's incredibly important to us to first get it right for the existing community, and then we want to do things to appeal to more people. ... But in so doing, we need to make sure that you guys who are in this room, that core audience that's never left this game and love it to death, and don't want to see us change it so drastically that you don't recognize it anymore. That's our first mission, to make sure that you guys give us a thumbs up when it ships."

Blizzard also showed off the new hero models, talked about making changes to maps, and how Reforged would coexist with the original within the same client.

Producer Rob Bridenbecker: "The version of Warcraft 3 players have have for the past 16 years, that needs to continue to be able to be played with this new version. We don't want to break the community. We don't want to break the game. We want to allow for players to continue to coalesce together. That has some hang-ups. Like the fact that you cannot go hog wild with animations means that you have to actually make it look as high fidelity as possible while at the same time adhering to some of those original time constraints."

This was the grand unveiling of Warcraft 3: Reforged, and it's understandably what a lot of fans expected from the game when they booted it up last week. But that's not what they got.

(Image credit: Blizzard)

The reality: Warcraft 3: Reforged shipped with much more conservative changes that were labeled a "downgrade"

Reforged only delivers on some of the promises made in its initial trailer. It does have remodeled characters, some remastered maps and campaigns (though 'remastered' is vague enough here to mean anything), and a new custom game editor. It supports 4K. But there are asterisks here.

Bridenbecker did mention in the 2018 panel that there were limitations to animation changes they could make while keeping the new version of Warcraft 3 compatible with the old one. And sure enough, those were obvious in Reforged. As Fraser wrote in his review: "What really makes the units look a bit odd is their low frame rate. Yes, you can enjoy Warcraft 3 at 200fps, but if you're looking at your army, it looks more like stop-motion."

The "remastered" maps and campaigns, meanwhile, turned out to be much closer to the how they looked in 2002 than in the 2018 demo. This video blew up after comparing the planned cinematic cutscenes from 2018 with the new release version. The simplification is obvious.

And it wasn't just that scene: Major changes were notably missing from the rest of the game, too. Two more points from our review: "There are a few exceptions, but most cutscenes lack the emotion or cinematic flair of what we saw just over a year ago. ... Blizzard's also played it a bit safe with the maps. Some locations, like Dalaran and Strathholme have seen a more dramatic update, but for the most part they stick very close to the originals. Their design largely remains excellent, whether they have been built with story and pace in mind, or just a big free-for-all online fight. Veteran players will notice some tweaks, like camps, mines and other things being moved around, but meaningful changes are few and far between. Aesthetically, though, they are pretty unappealing. Despite the higher quality textures, it feels like playing WoW Classic with modern character models. The juxtaposition just makes the maps look more dated."

After BlizzCon 2018, the Reforged developers actually decided to change how dramatically these cutscenes would be altered from the original game's. But unless you were following closely, you likely had no idea. Blizzard talked about this very decision at BlizzCon 2019, but not loudly enough.

Blizzcon 2018 didn't properly set expectations for exactly what Reforged's campaign remaster would entail

At a deep dive panel in November 2019, Blizzard did say that Reforged's new, reworked UI would come later-an odd delay, considering it was one of the original pitched features for the remaster.

Blizzard also talked about making less dramatic cutscene changes in the campaign. Said producer Pete Stillwell:

"Last year as you saw with The Culling we were really aggressive on some changes, I think, and telling the story from a different perspective. We got fairly divisive feedback from the camp of 'don't change my game' vs. 'oh, this is cool, it will welcome a new audience.' Then we went back to the shop and as we were iterating, we weren't happy with where we were going with that 'Culling treatment' as it became talked about in the office. We decided to dial it back a bit."

Stillwell did add, though, that "all the cameras have been reworked. All of the models are new. There's tons of new animations and gestures, things that make them seem more real." So Reforged has been significantly reworked, but in much subtler ways than most fans expected after the 2018 reveal.

In interviews done in late January, the developers continued to attribute Reforged's light touch (on both gameplay and campaign changes) to player feedback. "Trying to keep it pure," designer Matt Morris told US Gamer. Production director Kaeo Milker said "part of the genesis of this project was focusing in on what should Reforged be... I think where we landed was really agreeing that while we did touch every single campaign mission, every single cutscene in every campaign mission, and we did everything we could to really show off all this great art to its fullest capabilities, we also used the original storyline, we used the original dialogue."

Interviews published just before release and a panel at BlizzCon weren't enough to inform players that the 2018 vision was no longer the plan. Worse, the official website still has this video from 2018 embedded in it. The "work in progress" disclaimer isn't enough to make this video feel like anything other than false advertising if it's still being used to represent the game post-release.

This is the most common complaint about Warcraft 3: Reforged: That Blizzard sold players on the expectation of a game that doesn't exist. And it's not just Reforged players who are mad. Those who have stuck with the original version of Warcraft 3 are being affected, too.

Warcraft 3: Reforged has retroactively removed features from the original version

As players noted on the Warcraft 3 subreddit, the original game-which shares a client with Reforged to allow players to compete against one another across both versions-suddenly lost features that have existed for nearly 20 years. Those include clans, automated tournaments, LAN and offline play, ranked ladder play, and more. Many players also say that custom campaigns no longer work, either, and Blizzard has said it's working on it. Other players have pointed out there is a workaround-you can launch custom campaigns through the editor-but to the average player, it's a crucial feature that's simply vanished from a game they already own.

In trying to make Reforged and classic Warcraft 3 compatible with one another, Blizzard has made the old game notably worse. If players upgrade their clients, they lose features they've had for years, regardless of whether they bought Reforged. This might be a short-term problem-Blizzard plans to re-launch competitive ladder, and will likely fix major issues like custom campaigns in the next few months-but it seems unlikely that players will get everything back, as Warcraft 3 is updated to this new infrastructure. from Blizzard confirms that a couple features, like tournaments, were rarely used and won't be restored. The rollout seems to completely fail producer Rob Bridenbecker's goal of not "breaking" the community or the original game.

Especially when you factor in the new EULA.

(Image credit: Blizzard)

Warcraft 3: Reforged's new custom games EULA gives Blizzard ownership over everything you make

This is the can of fuel that turned the smoldering anger into a full conflagration. Players dug through Reforged's new art tools EULA and found that any Warcraft 3 maps you make are the "sole and exclusive property of Blizzard." We did some digging, and determined that many other big publishers like Bethesda and CD Projekt don't claim ownership over mods, though they do claim the right to license or use them.

It's convoluted legalese, but it's hard not to immediately draw a line between this policy and DOTA, the popular Warcraft 3 mod that eventually led to League of Legends, Dota 2, and a lawsuit between Blizzard and Valve. That mod spawned a multibillion-dollar genre, and apparently Blizzard wants to make sure it doesn't miss out on owning the next mod that catches fire.

Even if the EULA doesn't affect how the vast majority of people play custom games, it's a blatant reminder that Blizzard is a company first and foremost, with legalese that puts profits before players.

After the Activision merger and Blitzchung controversy, Blizzard's mistakes are harder to forgive

Warcraft 3 players have plenty of reasons to be disappointed. Reforged's 0.5 user score on Metacritic is, of course, ridiculous-even with missing features, it's a strong strategy game that remains fun to play and looks much better on modern PCs. But rating a game a zero is an age-old move in the internet outrage handbook, one of the most direct ways game fans feel like they can voice their anger. Those reviews and comments on the subreddit often call Reforged a cash grab or point the finger at Activision.

"Daddy Activision killed this company some time ago."

"False advertising of a broken game that killed a classic. Warcraft 3 Refunded is the latest embarrassment from ACTIVISION blizzard."

"Another disappointment from Blizzard, Activision has definitely ruined them."

This sentiment didn't start with Warcraft 3: Reforged. It's been building over the past several years, as major figures at Blizzard like Chris Metzen and Mike Morhaime have departed the company. Activision Blizzard looked especially bad when it laid off employees after record revenues. But nothing hurt the company's image more than last year's banning of Hearthstone pro Blitzchung, after he made a statement in support of Hong Kong's democracy movement on-stream.

These issues haven't stopped the Blizzard faithful from playing their games or showing up at BlizzCon in droves. They most likely won't stop Diablo 4 from selling tens of millions of copies. But they have tarnished Blizzard's image as the golden child of PC gaming, the do-no-wrong developer that makes fans into family. It's a lot easier to be cynical about Blizzard these days, and even if Warcraft 3: Reforged's issues are patched up in the next few months, its launch will be another piece of evidence used to show that Blizzard has changed for the worse.

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The outrage over Warcraft 3: Reforged, explained

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Blizzard screwed up. What should've been a celebration of a beloved strategy game has somehow become the lowest user-rated game on Metacritic. If you haven't been following Warcraft 3 Reforged closely, the backlash may be confusing.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 upped the ante in myriad ways, but the scene that stuck with many players (and certainly got its fair share of media coverage) was the controversial No Russian mission. In the stage, players control undercover CIA agent Joseph Allen on a mission to infiltrate a Russian terrorist cell. Unfortunately, part of that requires him to do the unthinkable: shoot up an airport full of innocent civilians. The scene is difficult to play through, and critics and fans alike have questioned whether the sequence is truly necessary to get the point across.

While speaking with Infinity Ward, the team let us know that the division over that scene was not limited to outsiders. "No Russian polarized this studio," art lead Joel Emslie says. "There was a side of the studio that felt that it should be played from the perspective of a security guard that got caught up in it, then there was the other side that liked the way it was going. I remember doing all the civilians for No Russian, and I just wouldn't ... there was a point in time where we were discussing how gory we would get with the people who were getting hit. I pulled back, and I said, 'You don't need it. People are getting tagged and their squibs are going off; it's all good.'"

Emslie eventually made the civilian kills feature more gore after showing it to his wife, who was adamant it was needed. "My wife looked at it and she's all like, 'Where's all the blood and guts?' and I'm like, 'We didn't need to do it,'" he says. "She called me out. She calls me on my bulls---. It's pretty funny. She looks at things in a different lens. She's a lawyer. She doesn't mess around, but she's a good gut check on stuff."

Other members of Infinity Ward also looked at ways to make it feel less awful for players. In a 2012 interview, former Infinity Ward designer Mohammad Alavi said the massacre originally ended after the player killed the group just outside of the elevator at the beginning of the mission before jumping forward to a firefight, but it felt too gimmicky with the sequence flirting with doing something raw and uncomfortable, then shying away.

Based on what we've seen and learned about the campaign in 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, it's almost a certainty we'll have some intense and potentially controversial scenes to play through. However, the campaign directors don't seem to think it'll be one or two particular scenes that will stick out over the rest of the pack.

"People ask us that internally over and over. They're like, 'Where's your blankety blank scene?'," campaign gameplay director Jacob Minkoff says. "There are so many of those at this point that people have stopped asking that question."

"The answer is it's the whole game," studio narrative director Taylor Kurosaki says. "I could come up with a list of like eight different things that it could be. Who knows what it will be."

"I suspect there will be a number of different moments and people will call out their different favorite moments," Minkoff says. "In the same way that in Modern Warfare 1, people called out the nuke and the aftermath sequence where you crawl out of the helicopter, or they called out the AC-130, or Crew Expendable, or All Ghillied Up. There were a bunch of those, and I feel very confident that we have a bunch of those."

We'll find out if what Minkoff and Kurosaki believe about the intense scenes scattered throughout the campaign holds up when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare launches on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on October 25.
To learn even more about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, click on the banner below and check out our full month of coverage.

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Infinity Ward Was Divided Over Modern Warfare 2's Infamous 'No Russian' Mission

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 upped the ante in myriad ways, but the scene that stuck with many players (and certainly got its fair share of media coverage) was the controversial No Russian mission. In the stage, players control undercover CIA agent Joseph Allen on a mission to infiltrate a Russian terrorist cell.

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Disney's "Dumbo" - Song of the Roustabouts

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Blizzard has issued a year-long ban to a Hearthstone player who expressed support for the Hong Kong protestors during a competition live stream. The US-based game developer and publisher is also withholding any prize money he would have earned from competing in the tournament.

The incident occurred on Sunday, when Ng "Blitzchung" Wai Chung was being interviewed after a Grandmasters match. At the end of the interview, InvenGlobal reports that Blitzchung pulled down his Hong Kong protester-style mask to yell, "Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age!" The stream then quickly cuts to a commercial break.

Seemingly worried at the potential repercussions for its Chinese business interests, Blizzard responded to the incident by banning Blitzchung from competing in Hearthstone tournaments for one year, effective from October 5th. He will also no longer be able to take part in the Grandmasters tournament, and will lose any prize money earned during Grandmasters Season 2. In its statement, Blizzard cited a competition rule which states that players aren't allowed to do anything that "brings [them] into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages [Blizzard's] image."

"While we stand by one's right to express individual thoughts and opinions, players and other participants that elect to participate in our esports competitions must abide by the official competition rules," Blizzard said in its statement.

Blizzard is the latest US organization to have attempted to limit support of the Hong Kong protests, which recently entered their sixth month. Earlier this week, Houston Rockets general managed Daryl Morey deleted and issued an apology over a tweet that supported the protesters. The NBA later issued a statement describing the tweet, which read "Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong," as "regrettable." However, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver later appeared to backtrack from this position, saying in a statement that he did not want to put the NBA in a position where it has to regulate what its owners, players, or employees say about global issues.

Prior to the ban being issued, Blitzchung issued a statement to InvenGlobalto explain his actions. "As you know there are serious protests in my country now," he explained, "I put so much effort in that social movement in the past few months, that I sometimes couldn't focus on preparing my Grandmaster match. I know what my action on stream means. It could cause me lot of trouble, even my personal safety in real life."

"But I think it's my duty to say something about the issue," he added.

As well as punishing Blitzchung, Blizzard says it has also terminated its contract with the two casters who were interviewing the competitor. Although they appeared to hide their faces as he expressed his support, one Twitter user claimed that the two had egged Blitzchung on, encouraging him to "Say the eight words, then we'll end the interview immediately."

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Hearthstone player banned for supporting Hong Kong protesters during live stream

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Blizzard has issued a year-long ban to a Hearthstone player who expressed support for the Hong Kong protestors during a competition live stream. The US-based game developer and publisher is also withholding any prize money he would have earned from competing in the tournament.

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When Peter Cushing's Grand Moff Tarkin appeared in the latest Star Wars movie Rogue One, the main topic of discussion was whether his CGI recreation was any good or if he looked like a melted potato. Now that the excitement of another film from a galaxy far, far away has faded somewhat, people are asking another question; was it morally right for Disney and Lucasfilm to bring Cushing back from the dead to star in a movie?

Afterall, they basically had him appearing in a new film without his consent and if you've seen Rogue One you know we're not talking about some minor cameo here. He was a significant part of the supporting cast and, having died in 1994, was unable to give his permission/sign a contract/be paid for the role, or indeed have any say in how he appeared at all. Legally speaking, Disney and Lucasfilm crossed no lines. They had permission from Peter Cushing's estate to use his image and the dead basically have no rights anyway, but that hasn't stopped some fans from saying it's unethical.

It's not the first time we've seen controversy like this. When Audrey Hepburn was recreated to advertise Galaxy chocolate bars a few years ago, half the world was impressed with the admittedly fantastic CGI, while the other half was appalled that the '50s icon was being used to sell candy. Again, Hepburn's estate (her two sons Sean Ferrer and Luca Dotti) had given their permission for her image to be used and received a fee for their trouble.

Even before then, Fred Astaire danced with the Dirt Devil vacuum cleaner a decade after his death thanks to his widow giving her permission, but his daughter said she was "saddened that after his wonderful career he was sold to the devil". The list goes on and on, and as technology only becomes more able to bring back long since lost stars, it will only be getting longer.

Admittedly, there's a big difference between a former actor's image being used to sell something (which in all possibility they would never have agreed to) and them reprising a role they were happy to sign on for when they'd been alive. When Paul Walker tragically died halfway through shooting Furious 7, no one blinked an eye that Universial used his brothers and CGI to complete his role. Walker had obviously already given his consent to appear in the movie so it wasn't much of stretch to say that he would have wanted it completed, CGI-him and all.

Given that there's 39 years between the original Star Wars, which saw Peter Cushing first take on the iconic role of Tarkin, and his CGI recreation in Rogue One, it's a little harder to say for sure that he would have absolutely agreed to it. However, Rogue One's VFX head John Knoll feels confident that it would have been the case. "We weren't doing anything that I think Peter Cushing would've objected to." He told The Guardian. "I think this work was done with a great deal of affection and care. We know that Peter Cushing was very proud of his involvement in Star Wars and had said as much, and that he regretted that he never got a chance to be in another Star Wars film because George [Lucas] had killed off his character." He added that "it was done in consultation and cooperation with his estate. So we wouldn't do this if the estate had objected or didn't feel comfortable with this idea."

It's a discussion that has gained more attention in light of Carrier Fisher's death, who also appeared in CGI form in Rogue One. In Fisher's case, she gave permission for the VFX team to recreate her younger self for a Princess Leia cameo while she was still alive. When news of her sudden and tragic death on December 27, 2016 (a fortnight after Rogue One was released) spread, it was naturally assumed by most that the same CGI skill would be used to complete her role in Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars 9. In fact, some outlets reported that representatives had spared no time in negotiating with her estate for the rights to do so.

Since then, Disney/Lucasfilm have confirmed that they will not be using CGI to recreate Carrie Fisher for either of the sequels, stating on the official Star Wars website: "We want to assure our fans that Lucasfilm has no plans to digitally recreate Carrie Fisher's performance as Princess or General Leia Organa." Is this because they couldn't get the rights from her estate to do so? We just don't know. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy revealed to Knoll that Fisher approved of her part in Rogue One ("Kathy [Kennedy] called me right after she showed it to [Fisher] and said how fantastic she thought it was. So she was very much in favour of it."), so it's perfectly feasible that it's actually because her role in Star Wars 8 already reaches some kind of conclusion.

No matter what, the question still remains whether it's ethical to profit off a dead actor's digital resurrection. After all, despite the joy movies bring us, they're still made to make money and it seems no-one (Disney included) minds who they have to bring back to do so. Ultimately, I think it's safe to say that Peter Cushing would have wanted to have been a part of Rogue One. Maybe he would have played the role differently... maybe he would have had suggestions for director Gareth Edwards... we'll never know. But fans were certainly pleased to see the iconic baddie on the big screen again (even if he did look a bit like a melted potato), and as long as his family are happy with him reprising his role, who am I to say otherwise?

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Is it morally right to bring actors back from the dead?

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When Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin appeared in the latest Star Wars movie Rogue One, the main topic of discussion was whether his CGI recreation was any good or if he looked like a melted potato.

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Offensive Disney Movie Moments They Don't Want You To See