Square Enix forbade the artist to sell printed 3D-figures of characters of Final Fantasy VII

The other day in the media there was news about the next incident with copyright infringement, which is not very similar to all other situations with copyright. Usually we are talking about "pirates" who download or download something, or distribute illegal software on media, something like that. The current case is already beyond our usual boundaries. In general, to the point. There is an artist, Joaquin Baldwin, who loves the Final Fantasy series, including Final Fantasy VII. This artist decided to combine business with pleasure, and open a shop selling figures of heroes of Final Fantasy VII (he prints figures on a 3D printer).

For work, the artist used the platform Shapeways . Everything went well, the figures were actively sold, but after a while Shapeways lawyers received a notice from Square Enix, demanding to stop printing the figures, and close the sales. Of course, the notification was backed up with the appropriate official documents, and the company had to do everything Square Square needed.
')
Of course, according to the law Square Enix has every reason to make such demands, especially since the textures of the main characters were obtained by Joaquin directly from the PC version of the game. Also, Joaquin did not apply to Square Enix for a license to print figures. But somehow it is doubtful that such activities can damage the financial condition of the company, or damage its reputation.

Perhaps nothing of the kind would have happened, but Square Enix is ​​very actively protecting its own rights, especially those relating to the Final Fantasy series. So, this year the same publisher closed the campaign on Kickstarter, the purpose of which was to raise money to create an unofficial version of FFVII. Last year, another Kickstarter campaign was closed, related to the same game.

In general, a rather bad precedent has been created that could affect the market for fan products of games / films and other fans in the near future.

theverge