As a mere lay person, if someone tells me they just acquired the right to sell, distribute, market and promote a set of products that contain my copyrighted IP that I had a licensing agreement and I believe that that agreement has expired, my response would be “No, you can’t distribute it, that license agreement expired” and not “How much did you pay for it [because we might be interested in buying those rights]?”
I don’t see words to that effect. Are you offering your opinion that this is why they may have asked or is there something that I am missing in the documents where they actually make some kind of offer?
It’s part of exhibit E (and other correspondence).
The point is, obviously, we acted in good faith.
If they can show that the license has expired then the games will come down. They sell only a few hundred units a quarter I think.
What Stardock was looking to acquire was the trademark for Star Control (and any of Atari’s remaining rights to Master of Magic but that’s a different topic). Which Stardock received, was transferred to Stardock by Atari, has been renewed and has been in continual use and is active and on file.
At no time were we under the impression we were getting ownership of the classic characters. We went to great pains not to include them in the new Star Control.
Given how excited you seemed, much earlier in this thread, at the prospect Paul and Fred might do something as a follow-up to the original IP, it’s a shame where this has gone.
Yes. My dream was that they would announce it as Ur-Quan Masters II and continue their story. And if they had wanted to “clear the deck” and take down the old DOS games for sale anywhere, we would have supported that.
FWIW, I completely agree with Linoleum on the discussion above. There seems to be some serious confusion over rights associated with trademarks and copyright in posts above.
To make it simple: trademark is just a name/design, while everything else associated with a game is subject to copyright (the code itself, the content within the game, etc) .
Nice pictures Brad, but those pictures remind me of a game I want. I know this is a Star Control thread, but maybe you can take this idea and stick it in your box of game ideas.
I would like a space game, where you can land on a worlds like the ones you have pictured, and build bases (Mining, farming, manufacturing, defense, etc…) in some mode like mine craft.
You wold use these bases to build giant fleets of various kinds of ships, including your own special ship.
Then you would fight AI players doing the same thing in a mode like Mount and Blade Warband.
Ok, you got me, this part is what made it different (bolded):
You could do those other things, but the mode was nothing like minecraft, it was more like a 2D Civilization 2 type interface. And even though overall it might have been similar, a minecraft interface would make it quite a bit different than a Civ2-like interface.
Lets not forget about the mount and blade like fleet battles too. Of course you would need a varied amount of space terrain to fight in to keep it interesting.
Fred & Paul have posted their 2011 discussion with GOG and Atari in which Atari admitted they didn’t have the right to put SC1+2+3 up for sale on GOG without F&P’s permission, and terms were negotiated to keep them up with royalties for both sides.
There is a lot of misunderstanding of what all this is about even though, even in this thread, we’ve discussed specifically what Stardock acquired: The Star Control trademarks. That was the primary purpose.
I read their latest post, which, should be noted, they’ve not sent to us, and forwarded on to legal. We appreciate that they recognize our trademark rights.
The distribution of the old DOS games I’ve asked legal to review based on that email exchange.
It’s not the good news they seem to think it is. Remember, Stardock’s suit is focuses on the trademark which they just confirmed they understood they needed permission to use back then.
Now, that said, like Scharmers points out, if it turns out Atari didn’t have those distribution rights, even if they’re not that valuable, it is pretty bad form to have represented to us that they did have those rights. Not enough to bother taking action about but still, not a good thing.
