The Third Doctrinal War -- Stardock, Reiche/Ford, and Star Control

This is allegedly Stardock’s CEO in the private discord channel threatening to “eliminate” fan communities.

From: http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=7396.0

Not sure what they think they can do to the uqm project. Certainly the domain mentioned could go, but pretty sure they have no say about anything else in that project (for the same reason they said they would need a license to do anything with the sc1/2 ip).

If true, I have a hard time understanding why anyone would purchase another Stardock game ever. Imagine if such a threat were levied at this community over this thread. Disgusting.

If they start slapping it with lawsuits who is going to pay to defend against them? To even get to a demurrer can cost quite a few billable hours.

EFF or FSF?

Oh you sweet summer child.

But seriously, one can only hope. The legal system here in the US can be used effectively to bully people. There is SLAPP but to counter a suit still costs a lot of money up front in most cases.

As an aside, all you US QT3ers who can afford it get umbrella coverage. I’ve had to use mine and it was worth every penny I’ve ever paid in premiums to have the insurance company swat away a frivolous lawsuit.

Edit: I meant that as just general advice, not that I think any of us are going to get sued.

Oh, Americans.

The forums is hosted in the Netherlands and IIRC by xs4ll. Good luck with sending takedown notices… they will just print them and wipe their butts with them.

Stardock has filed trademarks on all the classic aliens.They’re also claiming to be the rightful owners of all the copyrights, as their current line of defense is that Reiche and Ford were just Accolade contractors and the 1988 contract was invalid from the start.

So it’s certainly plausible that they’d use that to DMCA the UQM project’s source code hosting on Sourceforge (it’s unfortunate that the project id there is “sc2”). They should have no case against things like forums, bug trackers and wikis. But not having a case is unlikely to stop Brad. It looks like all of that is hosted under sub-domains of a university student union. Might be easy to bully, might be basically impossible, depending on if the university itself has their back.

Bullying universities in the Netherlands is very unlikely to work.

Universities, fully agreed. But are the student unions technically independent or are they affiliated with the university to a large enough degree that they could count on least some minimal legal aid? The way that’s structured seems to vary a lot between European countries. You’d presumably know :)

Anyway, hosting all of that data on another domain would be trivial. The only thing that would get lost is 15 years of built up bookmarks, links, and search engine reputation.

Actually, I’m not sure, and I think it depends on the organizations in question. They are generally independent (the one that I helped found was), but they do get support from universities (office space, mail boxes, e-mail accounts, etc.). But I don’t think any US-based company would want to sue EU students: that’s a can of worms best left unopened, I’d say.

That Discord screenshot has finally pushed me over the edge. Some of the things Brad has done in this thread have made me angry, but this is too much. Threatening to eliminate long existing Star Control community websites and forums?

I will never purchase another Stardock product. I wish i could go back in time and cancel my preorder of Star Control: Origins.

The project id is probably easy enough for them to fix, and the domain name. They should move to github anyways. :) One would hope if they are able to get any legal representation they would be able to get a stay on the rest pending the outcome of the other lawsuits, because obviously though Stardock want to claim those things it isn’t settled.

This is all nonsense. But, let’s go…

You mean aside from the fact that I’ve been following and tweeting about this on social media since the case was filed, and that I knew about the furor before it was even public?

I entered this thread when someone pinged (I deliberately don’t engage in other threads here as I used to because discussions tend to be in bad faith, littered with dick waving bs, and some participants tend to be unapologetic assholes) me because they knew that I had been following this since the very beginning. Though not as fervently as my Star Citizen campaign.

I refrained from engaging in this very thread and openly declared that I couldn’t be trusted to be unbiased because of my decades long relationship with Brad; and because unlike most, I don’t hide behind a facade. But yet still, I’ve tried my best to see this farce from both sides - and I still think P&F don’t stand a chance. But IP law is weird, so it can go either way.

Not to mention the fact that because the general consensus toward Brad makes any reasonable discussions here related to him, devolve into the usual bs.

While you continue to completely ignore the facts and contexts of my post, even as you argue in bad faith, you and your ilk are the reason that discussions like this head South. Despite the consistency of what I’ve posted, your incessant need to disregard and ignore my comments, while pulling on the thread that binds your socks, is precisely what bad faith is about. It’s almost as if you really think that most posters here are complete morons who can’t put 2+2 together and understand what I’ve written (I tend to be verbose for a reason).

I mean, here is an example:

What exact “claims which weren’t previously known” are you talking about here? Everyone, including Brad, agreed from the start that Reiche and Ford owned the copyrights and that Stardock could not use the SC2 lore without a license.

After everything I’ve written, you actually wrote that. This despite the fact that - right there in my previous post - I gave a timeline (2013 - 2017) which clearly (I thought) explains my statements. You completely ignored it because you picked a tenuous position that’s devoid of any/all merit, and refuse to correct it despite an abundance of facts.

Let’s try this again, let me know if you want me to grab a box of crayons and draw you an illustration. I’m an artist, so that’s probably easier than words.

If Brad knew in 2017 - four years later - the rights that he had, why do you think he bothered to reach out to P&L back in 2013 about specific rights that he knew he didn’t have? That being the case, why then does a lawsuit exist if not to assert those rights (which, btw have nothing to do with the rights he already knew P&F own fair and square). Why do you think those 2013 - 2017 emails are key pieces of evidence in the case?

Your harping on “You claimed repeatedly that Brad didn’t understand what Stardock had actually bought, and only found out about it much later” is a deflective tactic that you’re trying to use to detract from the fact that you’re absolutely incorrect in claiming that’s not the case. But instead of accepting it as my opinion, even as you try to shove yours, you’re still trying to offer your opinion as fact even though the public evidence completely contradicts them.

Brad’s email to P&F from 2013 was pretty clear and straightforward in what he was asking. At NO time in those early exchanges did he ever bring up the rights he was later asserting. He did that in 2017, which is FOUR years later. That you think someone would wait four years to assert their ownership rights, especially for a property that was already in active development and most likely to result in litigation, is the height of hilarity.

Once again, my OPINION is that back in 2013, Brad couldn’t have known the extent of what he actually bought and owned - or that the purchase would lead to litigation questioning what he bought. His 2013 correspondence (assuming they give the full picture) are proof of this. His emails in 2017 in which he - for the first time - explains and indicated he would assert those rights - is further proof that along the way, he must have (through research, attorneys etc) figured out that he had owned more than he thought he did, and that the ownership of some of those assets was now in doubt. I wrote all this before, as clearly as I could, but you chose to ignore them because your penchant for arguing in bad faith prevents you from giving any leeway, let alone come to the conclusion that your reading of my comment is flawed - and incorrect.

As to the “phantom” claims, having taken the time to read your other posts in the thread regarding this, I can see now why you’re harping on what I wrote. It completely unravels your months of unfounded drivel which are devoid of any/all merit. You and others have been consistent in the opinion that 4 years later, having been unable to get anything from P&F, that Brad suddenly decided to make shit up and sue. But be that as it may, yes, it’s bad optics for Brad - and I actually previously wrote MANY words in support of that notion. You should probably read them. Slowly.

The analogy that I can come up with is that I bought a painting at the flea market, thinking it was a copy. Then years later, when I tried to sell it, I come to find out that it was in fact an original master. I couldn’t have come to that later conclusion without research or getting an expert opinion.

At the end of the day, whether Brad is lying or not is irrelevant. The only relevant thing is whether or not he owns the rights being asserted in the lawsuit. The correspondence in 2013 are completely and utterly immaterial to the case because at the end of the day, the defense is simple: “I didn’t know at the time what I later came to find out”. I am certain that it’s probably lost on you that the back and forth with P&F is probably what prompted him to go back and take a closer look at the purchase materials, paper trail etc - all leading to the 2017 showdown. I mean, a critical piece of email from Brad explains all of this - in detail.

Whether he lied, came up with “phantom claims” etc is completely immaterial because at the end of the day, only the paper trail proving ownership will prevail in a court of law. It’s almost as if you live in world where you’ve never seen lawsuits whereby everyone thinks they have all the facts and evidence, then at some point (usually at a pivotal moment) some previously unknown piece of evidence or witness pops up out of nowhere.

TIP: Jesse, you know very well that owning an IP doesn’t mean you own the licensing rights to it. Which is precisely the primary point of contention here. Brad isn’t claiming that P&F aren’t the IP owners. He’s asserting that, like Accolade and Atari before him, he has the licensing (among others) rights to the IP. It’s no different from Stan Lee and Marvel. And they had a similar battle for years on end. This sort of thing isn’t new - at all.

Not true. The EU is even stricter when it comes to things like this - unlike here in the US.

Yeah, I saw that when it was first posted. It’s very disturbing to say the least; and I think Brad is going off the deep end now. I guess he’s just pissed that the game having released is mired in controversy. And for all intent and purposes, appears to have flopped on release. At least according to Steam stats.

No, I still do not understand your position or exactly what these “claims which weren’t previously known” were. You just wrote more than 900 words on everything except that.

The EU is strict, but it also doesn’t favour corporations as much as in the US, I’d say. But I have little experience in these matters, and I doubt it will come to a DMCA from Stardock. There’s nothing to be gained there but even more animosity.

Yeah, it slipped down the “Top sellers” list precipitously.

Star Control: Origins now occupies the #52 slot at present on Steam, below stuff like Farming Simulator 19, Divinity: Original Sin 2 (out for a while now), Frostpunk (ditto), and Subnautica (same). The reviews are also slipping: now “mostly positive”. I assume that this will temper Stardock’s will to continue to fight against P&F any longer than is strictly necessary? Seems like it’s probably not worth it.

Here I was thinking that everyone in this thread - including you - were already aware (from the lawsuit and attachments) of what rights Brad and P&F were asserting between 2013 - 2017, as well as what’s in the lawsuit filings. Aside from the fact that I have provided links to items related to them, I’m not sure if you really expected me to copy and paste materials as well. Not going to do that.

So you were indeed just making up those alleged claims that surfaced years later and tainted the project. Thanks, that’s all I needed to know.