To Riot: About Community Concepts and FanFiction

Slushi Simcambi·3/21/2015, 2:55:44 PM·13 votes·1,677 views

In a couple Red Posts it seems that the Narritive Team is spurning the notion of drawing from the community for story ideas due to copyright issues.

This doesn't make any sense.

Anything that is posted on the forums is at the mercy of Riot. it says so in the guidelines of the forums. The League of Legends Brand belongs to Riot.

So why is the Narrative team using this as an excuse? From a legal standpoint, if I post an AniviaXAzir romantic fanfic on here Riot has complete and total freedom to do what they will with it.

17 Comments

SEKAI3/21/2015, 3:09:35 PM11 votes

As far as what I have heard, Lulu x Veigar originally started as fan fiction which was adopted due to their recognition (I think Ez x Lux started that way too but don't quote me on this).

Battle Bunny Riven was a fan requested skin.

Leona the entire champ was also a direct response to the community request of desiring a female tank character.

There's probably more I haven't mentioned.

And they say they shouldn't and won't take in fan-fic or community champ concept etc.

Yeah.

Embertine3/21/2015, 5:57:55 PM7 votes

Riot is contradictory as hell when it comes to skins, champions, and lore. The only thing they haven't stated they wont take is map ideas and game mode ideas. They've only stated that they wont take champion ideas, skin ideas, and lore ideas, which we all know they've already accepted both champion and skin concepts.

ActuallyArrow3/22/2015, 8:12:51 PM4 votes

Anyone who posts any fan-fic/skin/champ concept is practically asking for Riot to use their content. That in-itself removes the CopyRight issues, as the original creator is giving them the rights to use their concept. Not that it was needed, since Riot owns the LoL brand, and any fan-made content is just that. FAN-made.

Tesla Effect3/23/2015, 10:01:10 AM2 votes

They source the community all the time for skin ideas so their excuse is not justified.

Overlord Forte3/22/2015, 7:37:31 PM2 votes

Previous company actions only really belong in the previous company environment.

That is, champions and notions arising from fan concepts years ago may no longer be prudent today. Be it legal reasons or otherwise, they've decided now that they won't source the community for ideas. Legal reasons is a good one, frankly copyright claims of any kind just puts a kink into their operations. Even a disingenuous claim can be enough to eat up money and work hours, far beyond whatever profit they may get from the idea. It's not solely about what players offer up: someone may generate an idea that is disturbingly close to another company's intellectual property. If one of those slips in and the company takes action, it'll just get ugly.

Keep in mind there's a distinction to be made between talking about 'fan creations we like' versus 'fan creations we'll incorporate to our IP'.

Creations we like: Hey, the community wants a female tank (Leona), we'll take some general ideas about heavy armored women and recreate it in our style.

Creations we'll incorporate: Hey, Veigar is actually a pile of furby-like creatures, not a yordle (as done by Artist X), we'll make that canon. (Artist X demands recompense for having their idea implemented, Riot argues its their IP and all fan work belongs to them by default, etc).

American copyright is a hellborn war zone of 'he/she said, they said', with major companies trying to squeeze out people making fan work of their property. The Disney Corporation is notorious for this, and perhaps one of the most visible examples of big money squeezing copyright laws around. The second you start involving yourself with other peoples' ideas you don't have under a legal ownership, you can expose your company and property to all sorts of legal problems.

Hence, the question is always: Is this one idea worth all the legal risk?

Some sub-variations: Is the person who made this idea cool with it? Will they cause problems if we sanction their work? Will their work reflect badly on our company if they use it as validation? etc.

We haven't even touched on the subject of accidental empowerment and the drama that can create inside a community.

So, in the end, there's a lot of land mines to consider as a company member when you touch community generated ideas. No one wants law suits, or to be the one that causes a rift by making Person Y really popular.

Solideus3/22/2015, 11:18:55 AM1 votes

General ideas aren't that dangerous, but written-out stories are. I'm pretty sure literary copyright protection is thicker than, say, protection for visual designs; in art the ideas and the expressions are more easily separated. Also, the their terms of use might not be 100% waterproof protection.

TerraRising3/23/2015, 3:11:41 AM1 votes

The consternation from Narrative concerning this stems from two comments.

First was from Ant in Oz, who said:

Please don’t offer up specific story ideas – legally, we just can’t use them (the same reason I don’t read fan-fic – it’s a can of worms from a legal POV).

Then, there's Jaredan's statement in another thread:

There are just certain things we can respond to and other things we can't. It's not as much the topic as it is the way we engage about it. *** I know Ant in Oz riled some folks when saying that we can't read fan-fiction. I can understand how that might appear, but it's just a truth of being a professional writer. It's partly due to the legality of it, but also because using other people's ideas, even accidentally, is stomach churning to a creative writer.*** Talking about already created stories and characters, talking about the essences of people and places of Runeterra, it's all good. Pitching an idea for a story you want us to tell? Not so much.

In essence, whatever we may think of their legal reasoning, there is a point of pride that this specific Narrative team has towards their own work. That should be respected. There's also the guidelines in the side of the boards that says "DO NOT post fan-fiction or roleplaying discussions."

That's all we know now and all we will know until Jaredan and the rest of the team decide to outline exactly what we can discuss with them.

Tesla Effect3/24/2015, 3:01:40 PM1 votes

Frankentibbers Annie (Frankenstien), Chosen Master Yi (Star Wars), Heartseeker Annie (Carebear), Dreadknight Garen and Nasus (Warcraft III), Nosferatu Vladimir (Nosferatu), Greybear Veigar (Lord of the Rings), Full Metal Jayce (Metroid), Billion Shen and Akali colored skins (Mortal Kombat)....The list goes on and on, so saying they are trying to be original is bull. Nobody is original, they always take influences from somewhere, ether form media or fans.

IcyPepper3/22/2015, 8:16:05 PM1 votes

That's not quite how copyright laws work.

Even if Riot has guidelines, they cannot violate the law. They can't just take fanfiction ideas for their own, that's illegal. And in some cases, fanfiction is illegal (but most people, even companies, really don't care).

Alljoy3/21/2015, 4:16:18 PM1 votes