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foxed

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For the paper discoloration term, see foxing

Being foxed describes a situation where legal action is threatened or taken by an original copyright owner against a project on the basis that it is infringing on the original owner's copyrighted material.

Origin[edit]

The term foxed or foxing originates from October 1996 when 20th Century Fox sent warning letters to the owners of various fansites of the Fox television shows The Simpsons and Millennium who had posted images from the shows on their websites. In the face of protests, Fox later relaxed its position somewhat. [1]

Another famous incident occurred when Fox ordered the UAC Team to cancel their Aliens-based total conversion project of Quake. Fox's justification was that they had violated their franchise copyright, and they felt the mod would be unfairly competitive with their own upcoming officially licensed Aliens Online game. [2]

Foxing can occur when a developer has made a project that contains or is based on other copyrighted material. The use of the term foxed differs from explicitly fraudulent copyright infringement because this term can refer to media which might not be developed for profit. In cases where no profit is made, the entity which has allegedly infringed copyright will usually attempt to settle the dispute out of court, being unable to afford significant legal costs, as a chilling effect.

In the case of a large corporation pursuing non-profit authors, there can be fine lines between copyright infringement versus fair use on the one hand, and reasonable protection of copyright versus corporate bullying on the other.

What can be Foxed[edit]

Anything that contains original copyrighted material or that is based on such material can be foxed by the copyright holder. Traditionally, the most common things to be foxed are video games and video game modifications as well as fansites. Less commonly, artwork and other video game add-ons such as skins have also been foxed.

Reasons for Foxing[edit]

Projects based upon companies' works can be taken as an official representation of their work. This misrepresentation has the ability to, or can be claimed to negatively affect their name and/or cut into their profits. Most of the time the skill of the developer will determine the chances of a project being foxed. Poorly made projects or projects that make the original company look bad can be targets for foxing, just as much as a successful product which might be infringing on the original product's market.

Actions of Foxing[edit]

Companies which fox look-alike video games take different levels of action towards copyright protection. 20th Century Fox for example has been known, on first contact with the look-alike product's developers, to demand that production cease, that the related website be removed, that all files from the project be placed in Fox's ownership with all other copies destroyed, and that the real-life names and addresses of all developers be sent to 20th Century Fox. Fox will request all of this without surrendering the right to prosecute the developers. However, other companies like id Software, will not threaten to resort to legal action as long as the situation is settled promptly.

Results of Foxing[edit]

Foxing can result in an author prematurely surrendering the rights to their work to avoid costly litigation and allowing aggressively litigious companies to use this work as their own. If this material is legally surrendered to the company claiming copyright ownership, it can be quite hurtful because the author loses all of their previous work and allows the claimant company to use their work, even for profit.

However in the case of video games, those which infringe or which are alleged to infringe copyright can be easily salvaged if foxed, since if the underlying code is an original work then the only copyrighted materials used are the names, graphics, and sounds.

Other uses[edit]

The term foxed is also used by librarians to describe a book in poor physical condition.

External links[edit]

This article contains content from Wikipedia. Current versions of the GNU FDL article Foxed on WP may contain information useful to the improvement of this article WP