Lawyers Attack, Ness is Knocked Out
Reidman, the gentleman and scholar that runs Starmen.net and pretty much the entire online Mother community, is a man used to disappointment. He doesn’t get excited easily. However, even after years of being neglected, it would have been hard not to get excited after hearing that EarthBound would make it to the Virtual Console. Of course, the usual skepticism applied, but the July 2007 date seemed solid. The unnamed source actually seemed to be someone in the know at Nintendo.
Then that date passed. The source changed their projection to a December release. As we know, that date passed as well, but hope was not lost. Sure, the American version of Smash Bros. Brawl shipped without the Earthbound demo that was in the Japanese version, but the ESRB swept in to save the day. They gave a virtual console listing of EarthBound an “E” rating. Then, everything went quiet.
What happened? Reidman did a little bit of detective work and uncovered what actually seems like a plausible explanation. It turns out that the death knell for EarthBound’s Virtual Console release was Nintendo’s own legal team. Fearing possible copyright repercussions (especially over the soundtrack, which borrows liberally from bands like The Beatles), they demanded changes to the game from the Japanese side of Nintendo. To put it mildly, they weren’t interested in making those changes.
End result? We aren’t getting a Virtual Console release of EarthBound. It’s another sad note in the tragedy that is the history of the Mother series, but at least it is something more substantial than “Nintendo is harboring a grudge.”
Gregory Gay - February 17th, 2009 - 
Kaspian on February 17, 2009 at 1:24 am
I’ve pretty much taken a hope for the best but expect the worst approach to Earthbound ever hitting these shores again, so I’m not going to cry myself to sleep over this news. It still kinda sucks though.
Nin10dude on February 17, 2009 at 1:43 am
Uh-oh. He capitalized reidman.
TakaM on February 17, 2009 at 2:23 am
earthbound is cursed.
Matt L. on February 17, 2009 at 3:40 am
They accidentally the whole intellectual property. D:
The Maverickk on February 17, 2009 at 4:12 am
Honest to God, with the way people sue today over things it’s no wonder Nintendo is a draw over this issue.
As an artist I know all about copyright laws and such and all I can ever say is if only pop culture wasn’t so touchy on the whole appropriation of some material.
Pop artists make use of a lot of iconic figures and turn these things into their own work. To me despite Earthbounds use of pop culture references, it is a game all of it’s own and there isn’t anything quite like it.
It’s a piece of art of it’s own and it’s sad that it can’t be released as is. Viewing it as a piece of art too makes it very evident why Earthbounds creators aren’t budging to the legal team… it’s as if Andy Warhol was told he had to replace the Campbells soup can with a generic icon-less canned item (to make an obvious example).
It makes the game lose it’s entire atmosphere and meaning. In essence it wouldn’t be the same game anymore and lets face it no one does that, and it would be a disservice to all the fans.
My final piece of advice is for the legal team to take a chill pill. They didn’t get sued back in the 90’s over the games original release why would it get sued now.
Tony on February 17, 2009 at 10:09 am
I guess I’m just not understanding what is in this game that is a problem. I’d say things in it are more “inspired by” than actually outright copied.
raindog469 on February 17, 2009 at 12:07 pm
I look forward to the homebrew community adapting a GBA emulator just to play the fan-translated version of Earthbound.
Joe on February 17, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I guess I’ll never get to play this game. It’s a bit likr Daria not being allowed out onto DVD because they can’t get permission for all the songs they had on in the background.
narF on February 17, 2009 at 5:46 pm
For some examples of song ripping in the game, read (and listen) to this::
http://earthboundcentral.com/2009/02/earthbound-music-similarities/