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That's trademark (identity), not copyright (content). Nobody is suggesting that trademark be abolished.
Wouldn't forked content necessarily have identity similar enough that it is easily confused?
The trademark is the name of the work, not the plot and the characters. Just call your fork Legends of Crystalia, and mention on the same page that it's a fork of Legends of Gemlands not endorsed by the original creator, in order to avoid any confusion. (Though if the characters are trademarked separately—e. g., using a specific gemstone character that figures prominently in the plot as the logo for Legends of Gemlands—then you will have problems.)
For a real-world example, see the recent controversy between Notepad++ (trademarked) and a fork that dared to call itself Notepad++ for Mac without authorization.
I think the overall result, though, is not a proliferation of independent creators protected from corporate overreach, its just an inevitable centralization of all the media to the eternal corporate entities, who then shut down anyone else who might want to spin off the works in question... including the original creator.
The ONLY reason Calvin and Hobbes hasn't burned up its Dragon's hoard of goodwill is because the creator has simply refused to be bought and has become a recluse, the sole holdout of his generation of artists.
But it is certain that once he dies, it too will be sucked up into the corporate vaults and exploited to the max.
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