Clarification on copyright on two pecualiar cases of Nintendo-made content

Mister Wu

Mister Wu

King Bowser
Wiki Administrator
MarioWiki
Mister Wu
I'm making this thread to have some clarification about copyright issues on peculiar Nintendo-made content and whether said content should be uploaded to the Wiki or not.

There are two cases bugging me in particular:

1)Nintendo-made content hosted on other sites.

Examples:
http://www.pressthebuttons.com/2014/12/mario-kirby-and-samus-aran-shine-in-the-nintendo-character-manual.html
https://www.flickr.com/photos/65846913@N02/6906878747/in/photostream/
This is Nintendo-made content, however it is not found in sites hosted by Nintendo. I think the copyright should still belong to Nintendo, but does this allow such material to be treated and eventually uploaded to the Wiki like other Nintendo-made content?

2)Nintendo-made content that constitutes large part of a Nintendo-made product

Examples:
Artwork on the cards of Mario Hanafuda
Artwork on the cards part of the Mario Trump series

There are cards that contain artwork that could be interesting for the Wiki, however, the artwork itself constitues a great part of the product itself (this is especially true in the case of the Mario Hanafuda cards, that could be potentially replicated in full using only the artwork on them). Are scans of said artwork acceptable for inclusion in the Wiki or would this create legal issues for the Wiki itself?
 
I'm not quite an expert on copyright but these are my two cents:

Nintendo-made content hosted on other sites still belongs to Nintendo and the copyright belongs to Nintendo as well. It should be treated as any other content by Nintendo but the source should be mentioned in {{aboutfile}}

Artwork on said cards would be able to be scanned and uploaded without problem as the use we'll give it on the wiki doesn't replicate the actual use or substitute the actual product. Books and other printed media whose main purpose is to be read would probably not be acceptable.

However, as I said, I'm no legal expert and these opinions are based on a couple of intellectual property courses.
 
This is most likely copyright Nintendo because it's still Nintendo's property as long as it is official. Either way, this should be allowed as per MarioWiki:Canoncity, where we're supposed to cover all official or officially-recognized media (which includes knock-offs where Nintendo officially got involved in). We should also be allowed to upload samples in the wiki, but we can always make character bios and cite them. For the most part, adding this sort of information should be a nonissue just as long as you aren't replicating it page-by-page. It is definitely okay to upload the artwork in the cards, though, especially if the artwork is unique (like completely different artwork, not a stylized recolor or something).
 
Yeah, as long the 3rd-party-hosted stuff's officially recognized and properly cited when we upload it, it's fine.

As for the cards, it's definitely a legit concern about whether uploading all the artwork could be crossing the line from sampling a product to replicating it and thus, acting as an alternative to buying the product... So the question is whether the primary purpose of the cards is to just look at the images, or use them to play card games, since us having all the art wouldn't replicate the playing experience, but would cut out the middle man (i.e. Nintendo) for potential customers who just want the art.

I'd say it'd probably be okay. If Bulbapedia can get away with scans of every Pokemon card, we'd probably be safe to have a few decks of playing cards. Or, worst case scenario, we just keep doing what's been done on Mario Trump so far, using preexisting images to show what's on the cards, and save any new scans for the unique art only. But for consistency, having the actual cards for all of them would look way better.
 
Ok, just two further points:

1)regarding the first, the only last aspect I would like clarification on is the fact that it has been scanned by the hosting third parties. This is the second link in my first example, as this is another layer that sometimes can get added with third party's hosted material. Of course, scanning doesn't change the copyright, that it's still owned by Nintendo, but makes the third party's effort no longer just an hosting one (in the first example, the scanning, as far as we know, hasn't been done by the hosting site).

2)regarding cards containing artwork, the most problematic are the Hanafuda ones. We can somewhat isolate the artwork from the Mario Trump cards, which is actually the interesting part of the cards and is also what I will likely do, so that the artwork can be used in other context, but this cannot be done in the case of the Hanafuda cards. To clarify the issue, here's a link to the Mario hanafuda decks so that we have a better understanding:
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/n09/mariohanafuda/index.html
The artwork cover the whole cards, so isolating it is no longer possible. Of course, the content of the whole product also includes an instruction manual, a list of the cards, the plastic box and the inner box that contains them, so the whole product wouldn't be featured.
 
1) Should be fine to reupload to the wiki.
2) The main purpose of the cards is to play (or at least it originally was), so we should be fine uploading the cards. This copyright template (Template:Character-artwork) would probably be the appropriate one and it establishes low-quality artwork falls under Fair Use.
 
It doesn't matter how the other sites got the images. if they scnned it from something and that original source it known, in the "source" input of the aboutfile, just say something along the lines of "[link website name]- scanned from X".

Even for the trump cards, I'd say just scan the whole cards. If we're only isolating images, then most of the decks are just duplicates of images we already have at full resolution (NAP-01,02,03 and 05), so all we'd need to do is scan the few oddballs, but like I said before, that'd look inconsistent for the card page. Even for using the artwork for the subjects, I feel like showing the full cards would be better than just taking the art without the context - if someone only wants the art, they can take it from the card, but can't go the other way around, and this way, we could have consistent card sections on gallery pages and whatnot.

Also, a scan of the backs of the trump cards would be good too (one per deck, of course).
 
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