You are reversing things. 2K has the rights to X-COM, my point is that Phoenix Point is so similar from a look and feel standpoint that they could be sued by 2K. I wasn’t questioning anything about X-Com.
Just for a reality check, with Brad and the rest of the Stardock team mostly refraining from posts on forums they don’t moderate, I do think that we need to be careful not to fall into an echo chamber of our own.
So for those of you who still favor Stardock…keep challenging assumptions, please. It’s valuable.
I can name one: I was in c.s.i.p.g.s. in the '90s. :-)
Finally…why the heck is Brad @-ing in Paul and Fred to his tweets? Does he really think they want to read everything he says, or is he just trying to annoy them?
That’s how you Twitter. I’m really not trying to be a Brad/Stardock apologist here, but that’s pretty accepted usage on Twitter if you’re talking about someone. The opposite is considered rude (“subtweeting”).
If a company gets truly disastrous legal advice, can they be held liable in such fashion that Stardock wouldn’t have to pay them? Though that would probably take yet another lawsuit.
You can sue a lawyer for malpractice. It would be a separate action so it wouldn’t affect any judgement against Stardock in this suit. It’s a pretty high bar to win a suit for attorney malpractice. At the least there has to be some demonstration of negligence.
I really doubt this was grossly bad legal advice, unless he was getting it form his friend Chuck from back in high school. You can give all the advice you want, but I imagine if the client demands you take a certain approach you do it or you quit.
Let me expand on this a little. Just advice that turned out badly, like the lawyer thinking they had a strong case and recommending some action based on that opinion which later proved wrong, would not qualify as malpractice. They have to do something like explaining the law wrong because they neglected to research things properly before giving advice, or make verifiable misrepresentations about the law.
If there were an email that said something like “Trademark gives you ownership of any and all products that were published under that trademark” that was flat out wrong and obviously would have a massive effect on the decision to sue and strategy during the suit, that might qualify as malpractice.
Though this was meant as a joke, if Chuck from high school did give a friend (who is not a current client) bad legal advice he would not be liable. There has to be an attorney-client relationship. So, for example, the lawyer friend who has made videos about the case and been supporting Stardock on twitter wouldn’t be liable if he gave bad advice.