Final Fantasy XIV is one of the most popular multiplayer RPG’s on Earth. So popular, in fact, that it seems that everyone wants to get the word out. But are billboards advertising a risque community get together going, perhaps, too far?
We like to make sure things are “above board”…in Virtual Legality.
#ffxiv #copyright #billboard
***
WANT TO SUPPORT THE CHANNEL?
UTREON – https://utreon.com/c/hoeglaw/
PATREON – https://www.patreon.com/VirtualLegality
STORE – https://teespring.com/stores/hoeg-law-store
BITCAST (Sundays 11AM Eastern) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgHBXONMT06nX_8RZ5r32UA
***
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
2:40 Copyright Fundamentals
7:00 Trademark Fundamentals
11:37 Square Enix Account Agreement
21:02 User Agreement and Software License
31:56 Materials Usage Agreement
43:08 Conclusion
***
Discussed in this episode:
TWEETS
https://twitter.com/Mrhappy1227/status/1544401751586918400
https://twitter.com/Julia_CaSsian/status/1544391962610089988
LAW AND LEGAL ANALYSIS
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106
https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107
https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/what-trademark
https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/trademark-patent-copyright
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1114
SQUARE ENIX AGREEMENTS
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/c4aeca0b14ab2c96fe48fcf83cca93e6cb552c29
https://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=496&la=1&tag=sqexaccount
https://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=5382&la=1&tag=users_en
https://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=5382&la=1&tag=software_en
https://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=5382&la=1&tag=authc
***
“Virtual Legality” is a continuing series discussing the law, video games, software, and everything digital, hosted by Richard Hoeg, of the Hoeg Law Business Law Firm (Hoeg Law).
CHECK OUT THE REST OF VIRTUAL LEGALITY HERE:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1zDCgJzZUy9YAU61GoW-00K0TJOGnPCo
DISCUSSION IS PROVIDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS LEGAL ADVICE. INDIVIDUALS INTERESTED IN THE LEGAL TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS VIDEO SHOULD CONSULT WITH THEIR OWN COUNSEL.
***
Twitter: @hoeglaw
Web: hoeglaw.com
***
DESIGN WORK
Joe Ellis (Logo Design)
Chris Leroux (Motion Graphics)
For more information: contact Chris at @Chrisleroux on Twitter.
PODCAST VERSIONS ALSO AVAILABLE
source
We like to make sure things are "above board"…in Virtual Legality.
I’m curious about what counts as nsfw. Because as someone whose gone to events like this in game, the event itself is safe for work. NSFW stuff is not allowed in public because it will get you banned. That said, there will be people with a certain tag over their head that indicates that are open to a private erotic role play session (you would then approach them in private tells). So would that still constitute the event as nsfw, since nothing is public. I’m genuinely curious.
Also apparently the discord server liked to had pr0n on it. Could square enix say the discord server was representing them and that be enough to get them in trouble? Or is it obvious that it’s a separate entity?
And this is the kind of video game legal content I come here for. Thanks Hoeg!!! Also, considering it's FF14, the community is much more likely to be annoyed at these guys for datamining the game (we really, really, really hate potential spoilers!), than any of the NSFW stuff or trademarks.
Is it a TOS violation to buy commissioned art of your character D: ?
Loved the short! :- )
I always enjoying learning things from the fallout of ridiculousness. Thank you for making this video 🙂
A youtuber i've been watching for some years tried to cover this. They did the best they could. But the whole time i got the feeling they were a little of in their interpretations. Either way get the feeling SE's documents will soon be updated as a result of all this. thanks as always for taking the time to cover this.
Take Care.
Well, this might be the first time I’ve actually read through my TOS and licensing docs, so thanks for that lol! And actually I did learn a lot; the materials license is surprisingly user-friendly (for now).
It
isthe Eorzea address.A lot seems to ride on the billboard being purchased, that is used in commerce – though they later seem to write themselves out of this one…
Would this still apply if the billboard spot was donated / pro-bono by the owner, perhaps owned by a member of friend of the free company?
What if a free-company member had painted it in a similar manner on the broadside of their publicly visible house?
This isn't the case here, as someone associated to the event tweeted that the billboard was paid for, but more a curiosity on my part.
Thanks, very enlightening.
I feel my brain expand every time I hear "NSFW" said out loud because it never sounds right even though it is.
I was hoping I'd see a legal break down of this hot mess! You rock!
Great video! A bit off topic, but it really seems like the design of the billboard is not great. At highway speeds, you're only seeing the sign for a few seconds, and you can't expect people to be able to write anything down. I'd say replace all of the "stuff" below the words "SUMMER BASH" with the exit number and VERY brief instructions of how to get to the building. Have a flyer with full details placed somewhere on the building itself. People who are interested can go to the building and take notes.
I think a lot of the hate comes from people just getting sick and tired of "ERP nightclubs" and their extremely frequent advertisement, on top of "possibly ruining modding for everyone else". The way they responded to criticism just adds to why people hate those club runners more. And because of all that, people wished they would get sued, or all kinds of bad comments towards them. On top of a very recent statement from the devs that they were already unhappy with the community's usage of 3rd party tools.
Great analysis, though. Maybe that's why these venue runners are confident enough that they won't get any form of backlash because legally, they still have some ground, as much as many people refuse to believe.
This seems like a pretty obvious oopsie by the fan club… 🤷🏻♀️ def not the brightest folks in Eorzea. They should have known better… but, yeah/no🤦🏻♀️~some people like taking “everyone’s grudge” to the proverbial foot! 🗡 🩸
A great analysis ! The only thing, and I'm not sure if this changes anything with what you said – Is that the Viera/Female character on the left of the billboard is also Modded. That hairstyle is not available to regular users as well 😡 Amazing video tho, ty so much for covering this topic !
Good grief this is gonna be talked about for ages 😭 Thank you for actually educating people on the legality of this when the owners believe they're fine.
Have been a follower since the Depp v Heard trial streams and as an ffxiv player, ty for this vid!
Thank you for actually taking a look at the actual policy instead of the blind freak out a lot of people are doing. I noticed a lot of misinformation about them specifically getting in trouble because of the logo which is silly because the logo is included in the kinds of assets that are okay to use as long as you have the proper disclaimers.
Illegal or not, it's cringe.
How is it that lawyers don't guarantee success when a bunch of lawyers were hired to draft, not one but four, overlapping legal user agreement documents to b!tchslap anyone that they deem worthy of doing so, if said person even thinks of crossing Square Enix (in this instance)??? Seriously, these licences, which I am sure no one read prior to installing the game, are written with the soul intent to screw the user… What a wonderful world we live in.
Hey so question. At 23:40, it's talking about how players don't own their characters. How it's a violation of license agreement to "reproduce any character … for any commercial purpose." So if I say, use a screenshot of my character in the game as a reference for an artist that I've commissioned to draw that character, and I give that artist money for that commission, is that a violation of the license agreement?
This is one of those things where the game company didn't think of this scenario and never thought this would occur, and where now there will be an addition to the term of service due to this rare occurance.
Alright, here's the deal.
Using a billboard is perfectly fine to promote community content. It's a great idea, because it gets a lot of traction and publicity online.
There is only 1 fuck-up with this billboard, the use of unreleased content that was datamined. If they stuck to regular screenshots of the characters they would have been fine.
As explained in the video, the use of Square Enix logos is the right thing, it complies with the Material Use Guidelines provided by Square Enix. All they had to do was not use the modded hair and datamined shirt.
And yes, G-Pose screenshots would be fine as well, theres always the plausible deniability that the shading was done in photoshop afterwards.
The games washed out, bland regular art style is perfect for photo editing. It's such a great canvas to then do color edits afterwards.
Love to know your opinion on the Luke Ross vr mods takedowns.As far as I can gather nothing is being done wrong but take two are insisting he removes his mods off patreon.I understand he is charging but he's not using there code just modding it to play in vr and also everyone has to purchase a copy to mod the game.All I can think is take two have some future psvr2 plans for gta5 and rdr2
This is probably the most any XIV player has experience with the user agreement 8D.
These idiots basically broadcasting their use of MODs to SE and told them exactly where to find them lol. You mean no one in their community was smart enough to know this wasnt a good idea? They're basically forcing SE to take action when they generally turn a blind eye to MODs and ERP. Sucks for everyone now if they end up tightening their TOS even more.
Didn’t have Hoeg mentioning Balmung out loud in my 2022 bingo card
✌️💕
I would not mind them ban or they facing some repercussions >:D
God, I don't care about what Square's reaction is going to be, buying a billboard to advertise your FFXIV ERP Nightclub event is such a chad move.
RIP all my mods, but holy shit it is incredible that they did this.
The “Hey Legal Eagle” part cracked me up.
there is 2 major problems 1 the characters there using is modded that is in breach of FFXIV tos using mods is a nono 2 the top she has was from data mining and has not been shown to us player's yet that also is in breach of tos 3rd but not so big problem is there a erp fc (clan) 4th they way they have acted on discord abusing people calling them C*** is toxic we as a good player base do not allow that 99% of us are not like them we do not erp we are nice there is going to be tos changes that will affect us streamers thanks to them
found you through rekieta but this is a very cool video topic, thanks for the video
The shirt being data mined is bad. But as a player I can tell where the background in the game the billboard takes place, the characters are modded, and that the outfit the girl is currently being used are not currently in the game.
The FF14 team asks for people to respect their work. Especially if there is anything used for data mined. The modding community got in trouble for including the Final Fantasy watermark and tagging it as such. Because people thought the mods were part of base game.
I don't think they will let this slide. They are vary serious about keeping a good reputation. And anyone who isn't as familiar with FF14 would mistake this as part of the game.
Do they also run into IP infringement for discord and twitch? They have the logos plastered on the billboard as well along with their link