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

Accolade was acquired by Infogrames in 1999, which then changed its name to Atari in 2003 after buying the previous company of that name. Atari eventually went bankrupt in 2013, and Stardock bought some Star Control assets at its bankruptcy auction, under a “no warranties” sale contract.

To correct something I said earlier, it looks like Atari wasn’t entirely liquidated; a remnant of it apparently exited bankruptcy in 2014 as a small business with about 10 employees.

Look, this is going to bite Stardock in more than one way. I backed (?) SC:O as a founder ages ago, inspired by the mostly positive experience with doing so for OTC.

Let’s say that I am not very happy to see the Arilou and Chenjesu popping up in the game like, hold my drink here, “Day 0 DLC”. I guess that is a strategy just in case the court orders to strike them out from SC:O a few months down the track… as it seems pretty common sense to me that Stardock’s grounds for including them are bogus and they are probably infringing Paul R. copyright.

Yet common sense and court rulings can be two different things, and in this case looks like money can trump rights. No wonder people have been so emotional on this thread.

This doesn’t mean that next thing I going to do is to chip in on a Gofundme campaign set up by guys that look like they can totally afford this fight. That is just not right.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Good to know.

Ah ha. So if I’m not mistaken, P&F’s original claim partially argued this point and asserted that basically all rights reverted to them once payment wasn’t made and/or the publisher went bankrupt. You’re saying that’s not how the termination of the contract would be handled. Did I misunderstand P&F’s claim, or are they just overreaching with this assertion? (Also, I didn’t get a chance to read through the whole amended claim… is this still in there?)

That language is in Addendum 3 §4.1, but the definition it refers to in §1.5 specifically excludes trademarks.

Thanks @Elestan for the link.

Clause 7 of that contract explains why Paul R was requesting access to SC:O code, art etc. Which leads me to think that somehow Paul R was under the impression that Stardock was playing the part of the “publisher”. At least for a time.

Stardock denial of that access sounds like a breaching the clause too.

The youtube lawyer guy released part 2 of his video going over the amended complaints.

Here’s the link for Part 1 again for those interested.

Part 2

It looks like someone is pledging a match for all donations to P&F’s defense fund between now and Saturday, so if you’re so inclined, this would seem to be the right time to donate (and spread the word).

Assuming a Youtube lawyer knows what he is talking about, those were two pretty interesting and informative videos. I’ll be interested in seeing the third one, not sure that Stardock has a leg to stand with respect to using stuff from the original two games on given what he’s shown so far. The omissions from Stardocks’ complaint were surprising - seemed to be a lot assumed there - incorrectly it would seem to me.

Greetings all, Stardock community manager here. I thought I’d join this conversation if any of you don’t mind.

Here is Stardock’s second amended complaint along with the exhibits. Court Listener for some reason does not have them. Some interesting things are Exhibit S, invoices sent to Accolade from Paul for art, and Exhibit T, communications between one of P&F’s lawyers and the US copyright office regarding copyrighting SC2.

On the UQM forums you argued that UQM does not cover trademarks:

Besides their original announcement of GotP, they also emailed a correction to a news site that referred to their game as an “unofficial sequel”. P&F did not correct the site that called it Star Control: Ghosts of the Precursors, but the one that called it an unofficial sequel.

You’d think that after 25 years they’d at least have a design doc. Or a forum to discuss their project, at least something better than a cheap blog.

Actually Paul and Fred made their announcement on 9th October, Star Control II was released in November 1992. By the way does anyone know the exact date SC2 was released?

All Stardock wanted from P&F, before the lawsuit, was to stop using the Star Control trademark to promote their game and leave them alone to make Origins. At the time they had no interest to use the old aliens in Origins.

However their refusal to stop using the Star Control name and P&F’s claim that their alleged copyright gave them rights to the Star Control name forced Stardock’s hand.
%23103
Keep in mind they have also made this argument before the lawsuit too. Also I have no idea were they are getting that Star Control is a police force.

They have also made demands to remove the ship editor, among other things (item #100). And more recently they are claiming to own space exploration and resource collecting. (items #105 & #106)

I would have linked more stuff to support my post, but there are limits on new accounts. Well that’s enough Internet lawyering for now, I’m off to test the adventure portion of Star Control: Origins.

I wish Derek Smart would switch from watching Star Citizen happenings to watching Star Control.

[edit]

@dsmart Have you been keeping on top of the Stardock/RF predicament?

Not sure this qualifies as a Stardock community that needs to be managed? Also not sure why someone associated with Stardock feels the need to come in and pop off a few passive-aggressive comments? I mean, what does it matter that P&F have a “cheap blog”?

Smooth.

It’s a conversation, their employer is involved, and they weren’t rude imho.

As far as I’m concerned I welcome their input.

For better or worse it’s a perspective from.someone closer to the goings on, less a spectator like us.

With an agenda.

Since Brad decided to bow out that doesn’t mean he can’t send in his employees to try to change the narrative.

Who knows no more than we do. It is not like their “community manager” is sitting in the discussions with their attorney. While I try to be welcoming of people to the community I am not thrilled about someone coming here to give a one-sided, half-arsed retort while taking potshots at P&F and doing so as a passive aggressive prat.

If Rhonin wants to come to Qt3 to contribute that is wonderful but I would suggest that they stay out of this thread. They have no credibility here given both their vested interest on the topic and the distinct possibility that they are probably here at Brad’s behest.

Thank you and co-signed.

It’s another perspective. Apply your bias filters as you would for anyone.

I didn’t say take the person’s word as gospel, I just said it’s interesting, for me, to have that perspective.

And ofcourse it’s one sided, they said as much, when they introduced themselves as being from Stardock.

Yes, this thread is clearly the only outlet to get Stardock’s perspective on this matter. Stardock and its owner/founder are well-known shrinking violets who rarely manage to get their side of matters into the public eye.

As long as the Stardock employee clearly identifies themself, I don’t see a problem with them contributing (unless Tom’s request to Brad carries over to all employees, which it might). I’d have a much bigger problem if someone was an employee of either side and failed to identify themself.

I’d rather read a thread with both sides perspectives’ than just one side.

Yeah the hostility is unnecessary eventhough I agree the cheap blog remark was also unnecessary cheap shot.