https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2OxO-4YLRk&t=353s&ab_channel=GameDevelopersConference

Tim Cain, the guy who made the game engine and is credited as the creator of Fallout, has been saying similar things for years.

The game’s page has the “Uses Kernel Level Anti-Cheat Easy Anti-Cheat” badge of shame in the sidebar, so you don’t even need to make it down to the bad reviews before you decide to avoid the game.

How about am open source gay bear beat 'em up?

Can’t find it on itch.io anymore, but it’s on the dev’s website.

https://www.greatestbear.com/strangeflesh/

It’s about proving who was the original creator/user of the IP, instead of who is the first to file to have that IP protected.

The flipside of this would be having random holding companies just mass filing for ownership of everything posted online, said, written-down, or created, in the hopes that they get approved first so they can sue others, even the creators, for using it.

Look at the “very demure, very mindful” woman, Jools Lebron. Someone else (Jefferson Bates) file to trademark the saying because the original creator didn’t think to until after it was viral. Because the laws are ultimately about proving who was the creator, and not who filed first in the USA, it’s likely that Jools will get ownership, eventually.

Can you explain further, or give an example?

The (Dixie) Chicks.

From your post:

laptop he uses for university. He’s not a tinkerer and wants something that just works.

Mint:

Linux Mint is known for being very user-friendly and stable. Also easy to get help online.

Fedora:

have to install media codecs via terminal

university wifi eduroam doesn’t work on Fedora

less help on the web for Fedora than Mint.

Unless you’re sure that screen stuttering is going to be a major annoyance, you know what I am going to suggest.