Good explanation, thank you. It looks like fair use is a lot more limited than I had thought. And obviously not worth the risk for the average person to try and use as a defense.

Ah, thank you for that context, I didn’t see any mention of Patreon in the article.

Not that this would save the average person from litigation hell, but does Nintendo actually have a legal leg to stand on? What would make a (free) mod any different from any other artistic expression?

Also assuming the mod creator didn’t do anything crazy like rip assets from an existing Pokémon game.