In response to the planet fucking discussion I would like to bring up the Kendrick Lamar line "I pray my dick get as big as the Eiffel Tower so I can fuck the world for 72 hours"
Pokémon Red/Blue were a big factory for rumours, because the truth was sometimes even more insane. Sure, people talked shit about Mewthree, or Bill's Secret Garden, but at the same time a ton of shit that sounds like BS ended up being true. "Go talk to this old man in Viridian City, go through his tutorial, then fly to Cinnabar Island and surf on the coast until you meet a glitched up Pokémon that gives you 128 of the sixth item in your bag." The method that actually works to get Mew is even more insane.
Copyright does not expire because you failed to protect it. It's damn near impossible in the US to get copyright to expire, thanks to Disney's attempts to keep Mickey Mouse. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act) You CAN lose trademarks by having them become generic terms, and Wikipedia has a list of cases where that happened.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks) I'm not sure how the trademark issue applies to media but I would like to point out that SEGA doesn't take down sonic the hedgehog fangames and is even working with people in that community on Sonic Mania and that's still a SEGA property.
@andheez: Titanfall wasn't complicated by any means, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. People grasped it super easy, they just got bored.
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