As I’ve been trying to avoid getting any specific images in my head about Trump’s sexual proclivities, for the last few days I’ve dedicated the time I’d normally read the day’s news to seek out where else this issue is being discussed. While most of it has only really served to exercise the eye rolling and mouse scrolling muscles I did come across a glimmer of light that maybe can lead to an end to this dark tunnel.
From the UQM forums:
http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=7015.msg77225#msg77225
A summary of Stardock’s position from that post:
"1. Prevent any chance of this nonsense from ever happening again. We don’t want, 3 years from now, to be dealing with Dogar posts complaining that the Tywom Juggernaut is too similar to some ship they made or demanding that we take features out of our games. If Star Control: Origins becomes a sensation, we don’t want to be getting threatening letters demanding that we better pay up because they think they have some right to some element of our games.
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Recognize the damage they have caused and the confusion they have caused and compensate us for that. We’ve lost months of marketing time and good will because of the confusion they created in the market (you yourself saw that guy’s Reddit post, and yea, that’s devastating to their case). And I’m not even getting into the public circus of the lawsuit itself. It will take market experts to determine how much in sales this has caused but I would guess probably around 5% at least.
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Recognize that we own the Star Control trademark and that means that yes, we will be associating it with the classic games. Star Control: Origins is just as much of a Star Control game as any other Star Control game.
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Cease associating any future games with Star Control. That means no calling their game a sequel to it and it also means they need to come up with a different game title because Ghosts is already too associated with it. I don’t think think many people would object to them picking a different title.
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Do not attempt any action that tries to block us from supporting the Ur-Quan Masters communities or any other well established Star Control related communities."
There’s obviously room to work between the two parties. Their goals are fairly aligned and they really just need to work out the borders of what each can do. (This would be a great situation for non-binding arbitration in order to work out a settlement, which can be done under an agreement of confidentially from both parties to address that concern).
I’d assume the damages thing is going to be a sticking point. All I can say there is my hope and opinion on what’s proper is a well defined “status quo ante bellum” situation that wouldn’t involve damages on either side.
Everything else in there is fairly reasonable and aligned with P&F’s offer. It’s mainly a question of defining boundaries.
Starting with the easiest one:
“5. Do not attempt any action that tries to block us from supporting the Ur-Quan Masters communities or any other well established Star Control related communities.”
Since P&F want to give all the source to the community that one should be easy. From their offer, statements, and the claims Stardock has made about their demands it seems the only place where P&F would object to something that could fall under this terminology is not allowing user made carbon copies of ships or anything from SC1&2 to be distributed. P&F’s right in this respect can be defined and clearly limited in this area. If there is any sort of publishing of ship designs to a community they can request ships that are clear copies to be removed. The obligation would not in any way be on Stardock to “police” things, but if P&F notice things that are clear violations they can request them to be taken down. If Stardock feels the system is being abused and requests are being made to take down things that aren’t obvious copies there can be a binding arbitration clause to settle disputes.
This feeds into the first statement, that P&F don’t interfere with any SC:O or any future games made under the trademark. Stardock is concerned that if their copyright isn’t clearly defined P&F could object to anything remotely similar to a design or story element from SC2. P&F are undoubtedly concerned that if the specification is too tight Stardock could just create the same aliens or ships with different names or some other obvious rip off of elements of the universe they created. A clear definition like Stardock can’t use the names, races, ships, and backstory from SC1&2 in the games or on their website should be doable.
For the third statement, that Stardock can associate with the prior games; For marketing purposes they could of course mention the prior games in marketing materials and hopefully P&F would not object to use of a specifically limited set of things like images of the box covers from SC 1&2. To address any concern about their IP P&F could have a clause saying Stardock can’t claim their games are a continuation of the story or include aliens, races, etc. (I am assuming “associate” here isn’t a desire to mention the prior story in the game, or do things like have models of the ships from the original games in Stardock’s marketing materials.)
To address the “P&F cease marketing under Star Control” part they’d of course agree to never use the star control name in any of their games. If Stardock really wants them never to utter the words “Star Control” in any way shape or form, give them “The Ur-Quan Masters” so they can say it’s a continuation of that story. If it’s felt “Ghosts of the Precursors” is now a problem because of things like the direct association this story has established in search engines between that exact name and SC:O they can settle on P&F not using that exact name and Stardock not objecting when they name it “The Precursor Legacy” or something. Or at worst they could argue about and settle on a specific name agreeable to all parties as part of settlement negotiation.
There was also a question of music rights in another discussion I saw. That seems pretty easily solvable. At most P&F could possibly demand that the literal music from SC1&2 not be used and IMHO the best scenario would be that the copyright to the music could go to the composer who works now for Stardock.
I assume and hope the true desires of each party are:
Stardock: Be totally free to make games in the “Star control” style/genre with new unrelated stories, using the name “Star Control” and reference to SC1&2 to signal to the audience the type of game it is, and that nobody else uses the name “Star Control”.
P&F: Be totally free to make games (or anything really) that are a direct continuation of the story of SC2, and make sure nobody else makes stories that are a continuation or reboot or any other copy of that story using the universe they crafted without their consent.
Forgive the long ramble. It’s so sad to see good faith so broken down. I can totally understand both side’s perspective, and from those perspectives their reasons for lacking faith in the other. Each sides fears that the other will use any wiggle room to try and screw them. I don’t think either one really would go out of their way to do so if the situation were resolved amicably. I am of course on record in this thread as thinking Brad’s demands are overboard and vindictive but I think that stems from overreaction, not that his concerns aren’t valid ones to have.
