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Screwed by the Lawyers: Difference between revisions
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* The ''Zelda'' fan-movie ''The Hero of Time'' was prevented distribution by [[Nintendo]] via cease-and-desist letter.
** However, Nintendo was nice enough to let the creators keep the movie up for about half a month in the holiday spirit at the end of 2009, which is a hell of a lot better than most companies do.
* The ''[[Warhammer
** ''[[Turn Signals on a Land Raider]]'', a ''Warhammer 40K'' webcomic, stopped because it was becoming too time-consuming and expensive to do. The reason the lawyers got involved is that the only way to really give it a chance to make enough money to continue was to make it into a book. But Games Workshop refused to grant permission. Despite that refusal being of questionable legality (it probably would be legal under fair use or parody), it wouldn't be worth the hassle if the guy got sued.
* A Youtube user by the name of [http://www.youtube.com/user/DisneyNAW DisneyNAW] spent nearly an entire year working on a fan-film called ''The Grand Adventure'' which was pretty much a [[Mega Crossover]] of everything Disney starring Mickey, Donald and Goofy as they try to take down Chernabog. Halfway through the editing, he got a letter from Disney telling him not to post it online. Not for copyright law or anything, though that could be considered a major factor, but because of how certain characters are portrayed. First was Mickey, who was portrayed as mischievous. While they thought he perfectly captured his character, they wanted to bring Mickey's mischievous character their own way. And the second was Chernabog being portrayed as an [[Expy]] of [[The Devil]], which collides with another reason why they C&D'd it: It felt a little too dark and edgy to them. Despite these reasons, they enjoyed watching the movie and gave DisneyNAW compliments on making the film.
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* Many people believe ''[[The Day the Clown Cried]]'' was never released due to poor taste but it was actually due to copyright issues over the script. In fact, Jerry Lewis was technically not supposed to finish it but he did, resulting in the movie being completed but rarely seen.
* ''Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story'' was a [[Dead Baby Comedy|sardonic]] biopic by [[Todd Haynes]] about [[The Carpenters|Karen Carpenter's]] rise and bulimia-related death, with the additional gimmick that the Carpenters were represented by [[Barbie]] dolls. Due to the angry lawsuits from Karen Carpenter's estate and Mattel, the movie will probably never be screened legally again.
* The [[Marvel Cinematic Universe]] is a victim of this, being a [[The Verse|shared universe]] for a handful of cinematic characters adapted from a [[Marvel Universe|shared universe]] for literally ''hundreds'' of comic book characters. [[Thor]], [[Iron Man]], [[The Incredible Hulk]], [[Captain America (comics)]], [[Hawkeye]], [[Black Widow]] and [[Nick Fury]] can freely interact with each other in the movies just like they do in the comics, but the [[X-Men]], and the [[Fantastic Four]] continue to exist in their own stand-alone universes because their movie rights are owned by various competitors of Marvel Studios. As awesome as it would be, it's unlikely that we'll ever see an ''[[The Avengers (film)|Avengers]]''-style crossover featuring the Fantastic Four or the X-Men, even though these are very common in the comics. (Given that we've seen Spider-Man rolled back into the MCU in 2016 with ''[[Captain America: Civil War (film)| Civil War]]'', and Daredevil with his [[Netflix]] series, though, don't count anything out. The common wisdom is that as soon as the remaining Marvel properties licensed to other studios stop making money for those studios, the rights will either revert or get sold back to Marvel, and like Spidey and DD, they'll be added back in.)
** In a very oddball case, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch exist in ''both'' the MCU and in Fox's ''X-Men'' franchise, thanks to some complicated legal wrangling. However, the ''X-Men'' versions can't mention the Avengers, and the MCU versions can't mention mutants. (Marvel is alleged to be engaging in a subtle campaign to pressure Fox to sell the X-Men and Fantastic Four back to them; in the meantime, the MCU is using the Inhumans as a replacement for mutants.)
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* The owners of the ''[[Legend of the Five Rings]]'' card game were forced to change the art on the card backs...because, apparently, it was too similar to the design of the Olympic rings. At least, according to the International Olympic Committee. (For a [[Trading Card Game]], changing the card backs is pretty much a death sentence for the value of any cards made pre-change.)
* An popular game from Cheapass Games was "Before I Kill You, Mister Bond". (The premise was that villains don't just shoot the captured agent because he's worth more points if he's taunted a few times first.) It was pulled off the market after a cease-and-desist from MGM, and reissued as "Before I Kill You, Mister ''Spy''". MGM didn't like that one either. Cheapass later re-released the game as "James Ernest's Totally Renamed Spy Game", and so far seems to have not garnered any attention from MGM again.
* In the 1970's, Tactical Studies Rules Inc. narrowly avoided a lawsuit from Chaosium when they tried to incorporate the [[Cthulhu Mythos]] into the nascent [[Dungeons
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** ''Mino'' was pulled in mid-2012 after The Tetris Company ''won'' in court. Turns out the "original" parts are the field dimensions and the seven tetrominoes.
** ''Lockjaw'' and ''LJ65'' were pulled after the news of what happened to ''Mino'' hit [[Slashdot]].
* ''[[In
* This trope is commonly theorised to be the reason that [[MOTHER 1|the]] ''[[
* The fangame ''[[Streets of Rage]] Remake'' was yanked off of its' website days after completion due to Sega wanting to protect their IP, despite the fact that Sega themselves haven't made any more games in the series for over 10 years. Some theorized that it was because of the recent mobile phone port of Streets of Rage 2.
** This came not only after the project had been in development for eight years, but also after Sega had (supposedly) given their blessing for the project as long as it was not sold for profit. Regardless, [[Keep Circulating the Tapes|the finished game still proliferates on file-sharing websites]], although any hope of a patch to fix bugs and unresolved issues with the game is probably kaput.
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