Make one for your own use, and you can theme it anything you want to. Make it with the intention of selling it and it has someone else’s IP on it? You’ve got legal problems.

Edits: I need to stop using voice to text. Lol.

First, it's "copyright", not "copywrite". Those are actually two very different things.

You most likely won't see any problems for a personal project, unless you promote it in a way where it could be construed as an official or real product.

As soon as you turn it into a product that can be sold or given to others, yes. Will a copyright owner come after you? It depends on how worthwhile they think it is to pay their lawyers to come after you. Most of the time, they have bigger fish to fry, but you never know.

Considering that the theme wasn't properly licensed from the copyright holder, it was certainly a problem. That's part of the reason why Kevin/Skit-B imploded and went bankrupt.

In short, trying to make money using someone else's intellectual property and copyrighted materials *without* properly obtaining a license agreement is a risky proposition.

Possibly, but by no means guaranteed. That would depend upon if a company would be interested in the layout and/or theme, and what the state of the licensing is and who with. For example, if you put together a star wars game and try to take it to spooky or JJP, they will most likely have to decline because Stern holds that particular license.

Each pinball company has personnel dedicated to licensing and market studies. So just picking a theme off the wall isn't going to do much.

Each company is probably approached by random people with various ideas just about every week, so you would need to really do something extraordinary to rise above not only that flood of people, but also what their own internal designers can do.

Archer (and subsequently Iron Maiden) and TNA succeeded because they were ultimately passion projects that an incredible amount of creativity and new ideas went into, and went above and beyond what some of the internal company designers were working on. Plus there was some luck involved due to visibility and timing.

Like in music, there's always a chance to make a hit, but don't be too disappointed if it doesn't happen.

Make the game that you want to make and would enjoy making (and playing), and not necessarily something intended to be shopped around. You will likely be spending an untold number of hours on it, so banking on a reward that probably won't be coming likely isn't the best plan.

You can make anything you want for yourself people do it all the time. Just think about a Comic Con convention... how many people make exact duplicate costumes of say Predator and walk around. Even haunted houses buy licensed Mike Myers masks and use them to scare people inside a haunted house and nothing happens. Does anyone honestly think they go around trying to find every single person who's creating their own fan version of something... nope!

In fact many of the movies you see are based on PUBLIC DOMAIN works, meaning even you could make your own version.

Disney has made BILLIONS on public domain works like Snow White, Cinderella, Peter Pan and more.

I wouldn't worry about a HOME PIN ... things would change drastically if you started a company selling licensed products.

Look at pinball shows people make unauthorized artwork from movies and sell limited copies... that is flat out illegal but no movie studio is going to try and track down someone selling home prints. Not saying its right just under the radar so making a home pin no way anyone ever knocks on your door.

Even with the case of Predator, 20th Century Fox lawyers had to literally be BADGERED into doing something about it by the "Anonymous Group" that wanted to confirm and out Kevin Kulek's lies.

The lawyers didn't even do anything or take any action, other than possibly a Cease & Desist letter. The end of the Predator road came when Pinball News ran their article and the house of cards came crashing down and there was a run on the bank for refunds. And even in Pinball News' case, all the evidence he had was he was given an audio recording of the "Anonymous Group" speaking to the Fox lawyer confirming there was no pinball license.

I suspect had Kevin just made 4 prototype games, not announced them for sale and quietly sold them to collectors, nothing would have happened.

Predator is now owned by the biggest licensing machine on planet earth DISNEY!

Still they got bigger fish to fry. I'd bet you anything disney would license that for a pinball in two seconds. Question is would anyone really want it... its had just semi successful movie.

The rest of tanked.

Bring on Planet of the Apes, or a new version of Aliens.

Never underestimate Disney greed.

https://www.berkeleyside.com/2020/01/31/disney-tells-berkeley-parents-they-owe-250-for-screening-the-lion-king

I was super pissed about this too- but digging into it, It was basically the same as the Predator thing - they got turned in by someone who saw it (the school or PTA advertised it on Eventbrite AND charged money for it)

I know a number of elementary school teachers and it is well-known among them that showing any Disney movie or other Disney content in the classroom is not allowed. Unless of course you pay. And they will find you.

That story has been updated:

https://deadline.com/2020/02/bob-iger-apologizes-to-elementary-school-for-lion-king-fundraiser-screening-fee-1202853166/

It's fair that artists and creators be paid for their work though. But sometimes you don't need to bring the hammer down when instructions on how to do it the proper way next time would suffice.

Even Kullek was only sent a cease & desist.

So you would say, if i would have this Translite in my SW it would not be a problem?
When i would sell SW i would change back to the original Translite and all is good?
But when i would have this Translite and would sell SW with this Translite it would be a problem?

Thanks for the answers.

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How times have changed.

"Foxed" in gaming circles once meant someones lawyers crawled up your backside about something game related and money wasn't even going to change hands.

Alien Quake conversion, 1994.

The Alien Quake project has been discontinued by 20th Century Fox. I received an email on April 11th, 1997, from a 20th Century Fox representative that ordered us to cease all activity. The Alien Quake project was using copyrighted material without permission and this makes Alien Quake an unauthorized and illegal production. Therefore, you are hereby ordered to remove all your Alien Quake files from your computer storage. You must also remove all references to Alien Quake from any WWW pages or internet sites you keep or maintain. All distribution of Alien Quake is illegal and you should know that the Alien Quake team are under obligation to report the name and URL of any distributor to 20th Century Fox. Please let us know if you know the URL of a distributor or potential distributor.

This was something being done for free by some students.

It leaked out and is actually pretty good for its time.