At station B, Capcom's "Devil May Cry" and "Reverse Referee" series are called "big wards" and "small wards" respectively because the fan base is good at making some "sick" second creations that make outsiders scratch their heads but can make players who have played the game smile.
The small toys that appear in the following video can very well reflect why these second creations are enough to be called "sick":
The toy that appears in this video called "Fencing" was originally made by UP master "Touei", and the two toys are put together to vividly restore the scene of Wright and Edgeworth facing off in court in the game, and it has received 860,000 views on Station B alone.
Subsequently, the two small toys were mass-produced by the UP master of Station B, "Magician's Apprentice's Toys" (hereinafter referred to as the apprentice), and the promotional video he shot for his own toys was uploaded to the Internet - an English blogger who regularly promotes the second creation of "Reverse Referee" (in fact, there were only double-digit fans before) shared this video, and mentioned in the introduction that "my friend said he would give me this as a birthday gift".
This time, the number of views of the video reached 7.269 million, making it one of the hottest fan creations about "Reverse Referee" around the world recently.
After learning that the toys he produced had received nearly 10 million broadcasts on the Internet, the apprentice obviously wanted to take the opportunity to take over the traffic, and he made a video to confide in fans about his dilemma in the past six months.
According to the apprentice's self-report, he is a college student who just graduated this year, and he can't get a graduation certificate because he didn't complete his credits, and after leaving the campus, he can only rely on his family's background to make a living by selling toys. He also wanted to live a life of being a security guard during the day and delivering food at night, and today's small success has given him some hope of "earning money with his hobby".
It's just that he wants to make a living from these "two small toys", and it also puts a more realistic thing on the table - the "same person" field has always been a vague area between copyright and commerce, and it comes from the tacit understanding between fans and manufacturers, and if you want to make money from the two creations of the same people, is it really possible?
1
The "fencing" toy of "Reversal Referee" is not the only work of the apprentice, flipping through the past submission videos of this UP master, you can easily see works such as "white plastic chair full of throwing tiles" and "shrimp head pillow dedicated to Taidao Man", each of which is under the banner of "mass-produced", and you can directly click on the link to buy it at station B, which can be said to be no less wool from Capcom.
Among them, in addition to the aforementioned "Big Ward", "Devil May Cry" and "Small Ward" and "Reversal Judge", the recent "Silly Cat" and "Shrimp Head" emojis from the "Monster Hunter" series also have the momentum of becoming a "Medium Ward", after all, it just happens to be the well-known character "Small, Medium and Large" in "Reversal Referee".
The good mental state of fans is not unrelated to the official corporate culture of loving to live, and Capcom's games always have a bit of humorous elements that are different from other manufacturers, not to mention anything else, just talking about their "Reversal Referee", there is no shortage of linkage content that looks like it is also "sick".
The apprentice made the products of everyone's illness into toys that could be seen and touched, and it was indeed a financial road that few merchants had set foot in before, and these works could indeed be classified as the second creation of Capcom lovers.
It's a pity that the QA given by Capcom's official website is very clear, and this company strictly prohibits the "profit of fanworks".
Of course, Capcom is certainly not that rigid, and the QA clearly mentions that if you just draw a few illustrations of Capcom's game characters, or write a few articles with the names of those characters, and only spread your work among certain groups, you don't have to worry about them coming to you - provided that the scope of this "specific group" does not exceed a few dozen people.
From this point of view, the apprentice's "mass-produced" in the title of the video can be described as a provocation to Capcom - his toy uses the official standing art of "Reverse Judge", and it has gone viral in some player communities, and Capcom must be sure to make a move.
However, such cases are usually personal accusations, and Capcom is unlikely to bother to stop this behavior through transnational lawsuits for a while.
The problem still lies in the attitude of domestic fans - since the epidemic has passed, the development of domestic two-dimensional peripheral industries has also ushered in a new peak, and the "millet shops" that have sprung up like mushrooms in various places are an example.
The peripheral goods in the current market can also be called a mixture, from overseas imports, overseas shopping and other channels from the official peripherals, domestic manufacturers have obtained partial authorization of copyright peripherals, players self-made unlicensed second creation peripherals, enough to dazzle.
In this case, the community's attitude towards the kind of merchandise produced by apprentices may really have an impact on the development of the industry ecology.
2
At present, domestic homo creators like apprentices,A common phenomenon embodied in the body is that everyone has a sense of copyright.,But this kind of copyright awareness is quite flexible.,Or in other words,It's a bit of a "double standard.。
In the eyes of some fans, what happened to the apprentice was an inspirational story of "where there is a will, there is a way", and he found his own way out by relying on his technical skills, love and understanding of his works.
And in the eyes of some fans, these second-generation toys belong to "helping the original work promotion", and Capcom shouldn't come to trouble if he knows each other.
But at the same time, including the apprentice himself, he is also very clear that he is walking on a road of infringement, and his attitude is "if you want to pay a fine, just pay a little", everything is for the fans.
The apprentice's fencing toy is priced at 35.9 yuan each, which is undoubtedly close to the people compared to the common premium around the official periphery, but it obviously also allows for profit margins.
The apprentice also reached out to the blogger who had retweeted the video in an attempt to sell the toy overseas.
He also said in the comment area of his video that he had contacted local friends in Japan to see if he could put these small toys in a Japanese grain store to sell.
In short, the apprentice's business is not small.
It is important to note that not all of these toys were designed by the apprentices themselves. Just like "fencing" comes from the aforementioned original authorization of the UP main sheath painting, the badge doll that will emit the sound of "objection" also comes from the "squatting" of the user of station B...... The apprentices will apply for authorization from these domestic users in order to "justify" mass production, but they don't care much about the idea of the copyright owner Capcom.
The apprentice will even directly copy the official merchandise, for example, recently he found that there is a Guan Gu called the Edgeworth Tissue Box is expensive and ugly, so he decided to make a copycat version to push the price down to 32 yuan.
And as mentioned above, the domestic fandom, at least the fandom community that revolves around apprentices, is quite useful for such flexible "copyright rules".
The official periphery is expensive and ugly, so everyone is keen to buy pirated copies, which is to some extent the norm in the valley circle, and I believe that many players can also understand that behind this industrial chain that wanders on the edge of the law, there are the sad tears of countless creators.
Therefore, most of the time, manufacturers and ordinary consumers are basically in a state of turning a blind eye, ignoring this kind of infringement, after all, no one knows how to manage it.
The question is,When these second-creation products are mass-produced and blatantly sold on e-commerce platforms,Will it break the middle ground that the fandom originally relied on "power generation with love"?
Mobile phone cases and small toys are among the hardest hit areas of infringement
In fact, the reason why apprentices can achieve the "mass production" of small toys like this is somewhat inseparable from the family background of "opening a toy factory at home".
3
At the beginning of this year, the controversial survival and construction game "Phantom Beast Palu" sold excellent results that no one expected. During this period, there was also an infringement case that was highly consistent with the theme of this article:
The thing is that there is a painter named Jiu Doping Zero, who usually likes to draw the whirling weasel emoji of "Phantom Beast Palu", and later there is a toy factory called Youqu Youpin, which uses the pictures he draws to make whirlwind toys without the artist's permission, and even applied for the copyright first.
After some negotiation, the artist chose to reconcile with Youqu Youpin, and the two sides worked together to happily gather the wool of "Phantom Beast Palu". They must have known that the copyright owner of Whirlwind is the official of "Phantom Beast Palu", but since the official is not squeaky, it is better to make a fortune by muffling.
It is worth mentioning that Youqu has a deep cooperative relationship with the apprentice mentioned above, because the apprentice recently made it clear that his uncle is actually the boss of Youqu.
In addition, if we rewind the time to 20 days ago, the apprentice had also rightfully sued another peer for infringement. Judging from the evidence submitted by the apprentice, the infringer is indeed suspected of stealing the apprentice's creativity, but in the final analysis, where did the copyright of the products such as "shrimp head pillow" and "white plastic chair" come from, if you really want to divide it into black and white, toys such as "lawyer's badge", the copyright should also be in Karp's empty hands.
"Infringers are always being invaded", and it is not surprising that the world line has reached a closure here. This is also why the status quo of the fandom in China may be worth some worry about - after all, without basic rules and tacit understanding, whether you are a creator or a consumer, I am afraid it is difficult to ensure that you will always be on the side of the advantage.
epilogue
Some time ago, the author of the hybrid version of "Plants vs. Zombies" "Submarine Weiwei Fan" was officially recognized, and the hybrid version was included in the original game, so that he was able to make legitimate profits through his own creation after insisting on "generating electricity for love" for seven years, which can be regarded as a good story.
Behind this, the domestic PVZ community has long adhered to the unspoken rule formed by copyright norms, that is, "it is not allowed to make profits directly through acts that infringe on the rights and interests of the original work such as selling revisions", including Wei Wei fans themselves. In such an atmosphere, the purity and legitimacy of this circle have been maintained for a long time, and more fanfic creators are willing to devote themselves to it.
Nowadays,More and more manufacturers are also realizing,"Homo creation is powerful",In many cases, the publicity effect achieved is indeed no worse than the official,It can also be a good supplement to those who are not suitable for creating in an official capacity、It may cause misunderstanding to the original work、But there is a good promotion effect of the content,Capcom's these too "sick" second creation is a typical example。
It's certainly a good thing that officials and fans can complement each other in terms of content, but where the boundaries are, and whether the freer the better, for fans - these are obviously questions that need to be rethought in the new environment.
*This article was also contributed by Lushark