Nintendo Alerted After DHS Uses Pokémon to Promote ICE Raids

(thedailybeast.com)

39 points | by 01-_- 14 hours ago ago

21 comments

  • ronsor 14 hours ago

    The cards are clearly parody (fair use), assuming they would even infringe copyright at all. I'm not sure what Nintendo is supposed to do, but I assume if they do anything at all, it would result in more tariffs (bad for their revenue) anyway.

    • CharlesW 13 hours ago

      It's brand-damaging for the government to, for example, represent sexual predators of underage people (speaking here of accusations against Nery Garcia Linares, not the U.S. President) represented as Pokémon, especially with children as Pokémon's primary audience. Nintendo has successfully won several cases in similar scenarios by invoking brand tarnishment.

    • DengistKhan 2 hours ago

      I haven't watched the video, but if it's "funny video featuring Pokémon" and not "Direct parody of Pokémon", then fair use/parody might be a losing defense. I assume in this case it's not a direct parody of Pokémon, but instead a promotional video or propaganda video that features Pokémon with humorous intent.

    • dfxm12 13 hours ago

      You're right, but Nintendo has a reputation for taking legal action against "clearly" fair use, including fan made stuff posted on social media.

      This combined with WB having Trump's Dark Knight video pulled is probably why people bring it up...

  • crtasm 12 hours ago

    I hope the people who took a children's game and put images of abusive and violent adults onto it will one day feel some shame for their decision.

    Think of the children?

  • busterarm 14 hours ago

    Calls for Nintendo to step in and do what exactly? This would almost certainly meet copyright challenges on fair use grounds.

    • HeavyStorm 14 hours ago

      This could be viewed as smearing, which would be abuse. It's relating Pokémon to a politically charged subject at a minimum. I would also argue that it's a violent video. Nintendo could ask for a takedown on those grounds.

      • itsdrewmiller 11 hours ago

        Relating to politics is one of the most common uses of parody and one worth protecting even if this specific use isn’t one I agree with.

  • HeavyStorm 14 hours ago

    Another controversial post marked as "dead". HN must take a look about this systematic effort to erase out this kind of post from here.

    • nebula8804 13 hours ago

      We need some mechanism to display all the flagged posts, maybe a flag to show flagged posts? Of if HN is unable to update the codebase, maybe a scraper to show the flagged posts in an easy to use format. Right now I am stuck having to google for political topics (using site: filter) and looking for the posts that are buried.

    • asacrowflies 14 hours ago

      It's kinda insane how political this place is under the false guise of "neutrality". A real right wing echo chamber

      • HeavyStorm 13 hours ago

        Wouldn't go _that_ far, but surely there are people working to get rid of this kind of post, which is certainly a problem. And it should be easy to find out what accounts are abusing the "dead" flag and punish those.

        • docdeek 13 hours ago

          HN guidelines state that if it is a story that will be found easily on a mainstream news site, it is probably not a good submission for HN. I flag political posts fairly regularly because there are plenty of other places to have those conversations besides HN.

        • itsdrewmiller 11 hours ago

          Why do you think it is a problem that some HN users flag posts they don’t think belong on HN?

      • kulahan 13 hours ago

        HN is literally the only actually-balanced community I've seen on the internet.

        • asacrowflies 13 hours ago

          "balanced" as in the the constant ratchet effect of moving the reasonable overtone window more and more to the right under the false guise of "neutrality and civility"

          This forum has a high proportion of unscientific nonsense that would have been viciously mocked by "hackers" at this forums founding. (Climate change and covid denial. Basic security fails from big corpos. Plaintext passwords etc)

          This place is "balanced" the same way 4chan is . One of the last places these people feel secure in their insanity .

          • kulahan 11 hours ago

            Nope, balanced as in people are allowed to have a balanced viewpoint of things. And don't worry - even back in the founding days, there were still flat earthers and climate deniers and vaccine skeptics. These people are still downvoted to hell here.

            I don't know if it ever came back up, but you should go spend a little time on /b/ - you seem to have forgotten how bad that site is.

  • incone123 13 hours ago

    When I was growing up, it was extremely common for left wing artists to rework and subvert corporate art. It is sad to see activists now so limited in their imagination that their strategy is to run to tell the corporate lawyers. If you wish for more corporate control of intellectual property, well I'm sure the Republicans and the Democrats will both be happy to oblige.

    • rimunroe 12 hours ago

      > When I was growing up, it was extremely common for left wing artists to rework and subvert corporate art.

      For as long as there has been corporate art there have been artists and activists subverting it. Before corporate art, the same thing happened with religious art.

      > It is sad to see activists now so limited in their imagination that their strategy is to run to tell the corporate lawyers.

      This isn't a case of people tattling to Nintendo because some random person drew a comic they didn't like. This is people wielding what little power they have against the State.

      > If you wish for more corporate control of intellectual property, well I'm sure the Republicans and the Democrats will both be happy to oblige.

      I don't see how this cedes more power to corporations either. This doesn't involve or require Nintendo to flex some power they haven't used many, many times before.