What's Black and White and Wank all over?
No, not bad furry skunk art. Pokémon.
For those not in the loop or really not caring to be, Pokémon Black and White launched in Japan on the 18th. Naturally, fandom being what it is these days, the major sites are working their damnest to be the newest with all the 'Mon and such as. Pokébeach and Serebii were two of many sites getting their stuff up with a quickness, with tons of screenshots and images of the new games and characters and such. Anyways, at some point Pokébeach go on and admit on the front page that they are using a ROM to get all their images, and Serebii has gotten their images from Pokébeach.
Can you tell where this is going? Both sites are hit with a C&D notice telling them to take the images down.
Both sites do as they are told. Pokebeach, of course, takes this very maturely like a person should....
Since us posting images of Black and White "has the potential to cause substantial damage to Nintendo," we have obviously complied with their wishes. All recent images of the games have been replaced by Ditto, a Pokemon from 1996 who we feel will best represent Pokemon's current image. We've also taken the liberty to change the name of this site to "PokerBeach" since we figured using "Poké" also has the chance of causing substantial damage to Nintendo's property. We hope that all English-speakers will remove images of Black and White from their websites, forums, blogs, YouTubes, Facebooks, instant messages, e-mails, homes, and minds since under law Nintendo has the right to declare any media they want, on any website they want, illegal and out of the domain of fair use [luckily criticism isn't]. We hope everyone will comply with their wishes or Pokemon may end up in the gutter, since covering and advertising new games for free is obviously counter-productive to Nintendo's sales. I mean, images of the games will obviously cost more damage than minor Isshus like this. Why go after the big guys when you can waste your lawyers' time on small fan sites that only help your franchise?
....or maybe not.
Meanwhile, the fandom reacts up in arms. ElJay Com; Bulbapedia Forums; Pokebeach Forums.
And for those who don't care about the wank, there's 156 of the little buggers* this round. I'm a fan of the deer, the candle, the water otter, and the fire piggy.
*Image shows all 649 (!) of em.
ETA: Having been linked in the comment: Kotaku; IGN.
ETA 2: Pokebeach backpedals, WPM claims he didn't have ROMs (even though front page said so). only used ROMs for plot for a little while and so it doesn't count. Nintendo are Big Bad Bullyfolk kicking people in head. Shows maturity of Target Pokémon audience of 8-12 year old.