Portal: Revolution is a free to play mod for Portal 2. This fully featured original campaign plays before Portal 2 in the dead and decaying Enrichment Center...
I made a fan art of some Pokemon that was popular then made a poster of it and started selling it as an “Official Poster” of that fan art. I was the artist of the art on the poster and made the poster itself. However the term “official” strictly means it is properly licensed under the Pokemon brand and that The Pokemon Company themselves cleared the product to be used under the brand of Pokemon. Otherwise they can straight up sue me and take the profits, and they would be legally in the right because ‘official’ is a term that has protection under trademark law.
In your example where literally every detail has been changed, including the type of product being produced, that makes sense.
The video says, “Portal Revolution Official Trailer.” What that says to me is “This is the official trailer” presumably released by the creator of Portal Revolution (which is a community mod).
Even in the worst possible way I can try to interpret that, calling it “manipulative” seems like a huge stretch.
If Valve somehow thinks it’s the same thing as your Pokemon example, I’m sure we’ll see some action taken.
I mean, you had to specify “which is a community mod”. Without that information, it would be reasonable to assume it was made by Valve. No?
I did edit my comment saying it was likely not intentional. But in the case that it was intentionally using the word ‘official’ to mislead people to even just click on the video, is still misleading and manipulating people into doing something they may not have done otherwise.
But yeah, it’s most likely that the dev did not realize the implications of using that word.
I am curious why you think the example is too different. Because it outlines the exact same scenario besides selling the product. A company owns an IP. A person uses that IP to create a product. That product is then labeled ‘official’ though the owner of the IP had not authorized the use of their IP.
Imagine it under a different context.
I made a fan art of some Pokemon that was popular then made a poster of it and started selling it as an “Official Poster” of that fan art. I was the artist of the art on the poster and made the poster itself. However the term “official” strictly means it is properly licensed under the Pokemon brand and that The Pokemon Company themselves cleared the product to be used under the brand of Pokemon. Otherwise they can straight up sue me and take the profits, and they would be legally in the right because ‘official’ is a term that has protection under trademark law.
In your example where literally every detail has been changed, including the type of product being produced, that makes sense.
The video says, “Portal Revolution Official Trailer.” What that says to me is “This is the official trailer” presumably released by the creator of Portal Revolution (which is a community mod).
Even in the worst possible way I can try to interpret that, calling it “manipulative” seems like a huge stretch.
If Valve somehow thinks it’s the same thing as your Pokemon example, I’m sure we’ll see some action taken.
I mean, you had to specify “which is a community mod”. Without that information, it would be reasonable to assume it was made by Valve. No?
I did edit my comment saying it was likely not intentional. But in the case that it was intentionally using the word ‘official’ to mislead people to even just click on the video, is still misleading and manipulating people into doing something they may not have done otherwise.
But yeah, it’s most likely that the dev did not realize the implications of using that word.
I am curious why you think the example is too different. Because it outlines the exact same scenario besides selling the product. A company owns an IP. A person uses that IP to create a product. That product is then labeled ‘official’ though the owner of the IP had not authorized the use of their IP.