No fighter share option in EA Sports UFC due to fear of copyright infringement on YouTube

EA Sports UFC will be coming to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 later this year; exactly when is still unknown. MMA Junkie recently posted an interview with EA Sports UFC creative director Brian Hayes and lead producer Nate McDonald, and it was quite enlightening.

They covered a ton of topics, including roster size (around 100), how they distribute ratings, venues, commentary and so much more. But the one question that a lot of people found interesting was about the fighter share feature made popular by EA Sports MMA. The question posed to the devs was, "Going off of that, a major feature people enjoyed in "EA Sports MMA" was the ability to create a fighter and share them online. Will the fighter share option be brought back for this upcoming title?"

The response was:

That's something we loved as well, but we can't do it anymore for a number of reasons. One of the big things people did on a game like "Fight Night" is making Rocky Balboa, or Floyd Mayweather or whatever. But nowadays when people can make YouTube clips and share them, there's this whole grey area where if our game allows users to make a Rocky character that's the intellectual property of somebody else, it causes a ton of problems. There is a "Create-A-Fighter" and you could create your own Rocky, but when we are facilitating the sharing of content, it gets very difficult.

I got a C+ in the Intellectual Property course I took during my college days at Florida Atlantic University (salute the hoot), so my understanding in laws and copyright concerning intellectual property is very average… as indicated by my grade. That said, we've seen plenty of problems brought on by YouTube's shoddy copyright claiming system. So while you'll still be able to make any fictional or real fighter you want and play as him/her, you just won't be able to share that fighter with the rest of the players.

Still, there are share functions and you can stream your gameplay from the PS4 and Xbox One, so everyone will be able to see the fighter you created from someone else's IP. Soo… I don't understand. Hence the C+. If you have a much better understanding than I do with Intellectual Property laws, please comment below and help me sort through this mess.

As for the rest of the interview, you can read it at MMA Junkie.

MMA Junkie via Operation Sports