I was giving some benefit of the doubt to Stardock to try and avoid bias from my distaste of Brad’s politics, but this is just way too sociopathic to accept.
I hope this will be a pyrrhic victory, but I know it won’t.
But see, you missed the last line in that post:
“It is our hope that eventually Paul and Fred will be free to work on a new game in their universe and we’ll be there for them.”
They want to be “there for them” clearly as in having control of the project. So see, no contradiction. In fact, not long after P&F announced their intent to make a sequel, Stardock was right “there for them” and they’ve been coming for them ever since.
I actually didn’t know they’ve been showing off artwork with SC2 aliens! I could be wrong, but it seems likely that they’ve had these assets underway for awhile, even before the disputes heated up. Early on they probably assumed that they would be able to convince or cajole P&F into giving them permission, then when things really crossed the rubicon on legal action, they made their trademark land grab to support the work they knew would be in their game. Alternately, maybe they think it will strengthen their legal case to be able to show this IP being used in their game?
But imagine being a jury or judge, looking at the records of Brad’s emails to P&F repeatedly asking them to license him the IP and them politely saying no, and then being shown these recent screenshots and posts.
Both sides have “evolved” their understanding of the copyright/trademark situation since things hit the fan: Stardock clearly felt that P&F owned the SC2 story and aliens (it’s pretty much clear as day in the contracts), and now they believe they have perpetual rights to use them without paying licensing fees. Paul & Fred treated Stardock as the owner of the name Star Control; their legal filings now claim that once Accolade failed to pay licensing fees, even the name reverted to them, meaning Stardock bought nothing because Atari had nothing to sell (this seems to me to be ambiguous in the contracts).
Here’s what’s not ambiguous: Stardock will say whatever they want at different times to support their case, no matter how contradictory.
“Paul & Fred own the universe of SC2, and Stardock would never use anything from it without their permission!”
“In fact, we wouldn’t want to use it anyway–the games are so old, most of our audience doesn’t know anything about it!”
“Oh, actually, the fans have been saying it’s not Star Control without those aliens they fondly remember, so we have to use them!”
If the jury rules in P&F’s favor, it now looks like the content of SC:O will be hollowed out. I don’t know how many old aliens they’re using, but if you count the trademarks they filed for on alien names, it’s more than just a couple. My ideal resolution has always been that Stardock be able to carry on and release an SC:O that plays like an updated SC2, with their own entertaining stories and aliens. They’re playing with fire by crossing this IP line.
Thanks for posting that by the way. I don’t recall seeing it before. That’s just an amazing quote given the current dispute and total change of position.
You left off where it begins:
“BTW, we keep Paul and Fred (the creators of Star Control) updated on the game’s progress. They have been very supportive.”
He literally calls them the creators, the very thing that when they said it required suing for damages.
It’s mind boggling how they’ve gone from that to “they aren’t the creators, we have complete and exclusive rights to the lore”.
Adding the classic aliens can only make the game so much worse. They will be pale comparisons, and unless they really were planning it all along they will have to be shorehorned in late in development. It’s like they are now actively trying to make another SC3 style disaster rather than make a cool but separate game with similar mechanics.
It’s such a boneheaded move (IMHO). Even if it helps with the IP grab, why sacrifice the game itself for it? There’s no way the fandom and gaming press will not directly compare it to SC3 if the original aliens are in there. It will be the same exact thing, a game using the characters but not authored by the creators.
It sucks that before and separate from my interest in the whole legal drama I was super excited for SC:O and hoping it would be great. Now I can’t help but think it will turn out MoM:Elemental::SCII:SCO. Just based on the sheer amount of work hours the CEO seems to be putting into arguing and trolling on the internet rather than spending every working second making sure the game rocks it’s hard to have faith it will turn out well. I know it’s not like he’s coding it, but when the guy at the top is distracted during a critical phase of a major project things often go south.
Having worked in the past for a CEO who was distracted with petty crap all the time creating a leadership void that hurt everything, I present this poor MS paint job on a classic xkcd
Wow, in that Reddit thread that @Shuma posted, Brad posted this six days ago when someone said that he thought Stardock couldn’t use the original aliens:
I’m afraid you are mistaken. It was through legal counsel it was determined that Stardock needed to begin fully exploiting its IP rights in Star Control which included incorporating the Star Control aliens into the new games and perfecting its rights on them.
I thought it was worth ripping the quote from that thread and posting it here. This ties in with the trademarks they’ve been filing lately.
Same here. This might be some kind of legal tactic (rather than a symptom of sociopathic behaviour), but this is beyond words. I’m not giving Stardock any more of my money.
Damning, but true.
This is why I am interested in this case, as to me it seems it is playing fast and loose with the difference between Trademarks and Intellectual property, and it actually has landmark potential if it is decided Stardock can do whatever they want.
I thought he had received legal advice which he was following not to talk about this case. The reddit post history shows that he is not following that advice anymore.
He’s very Trump in that way.
So, wait, you’re saying we’ve found the next US president!? To the political futures market!
…I hear there are some people in need of a $2 million windfall…
See, that makes perfect sense to me and supports what I’ve been thinking, that all the escalation had everything to do with the lawyers/the case. I think at some point, Stardock was convinced by counsel that if they didn’t vehemently defend the Star Control trademark from every angle that they ran the risk of losing the trademark and possibly the work they had put into Origins.
That seems to include using the property they claim to hold an exclusive license to use. Perhaps the lawyers said that if they didn’t use the content of the license (e.g. the alien races) that P&F could make a stronger claim. Ianal, so not certain of the legal basis.
That could go a long way into explaining some of the shifting positions we have witnessed.
Stardock’s been pretty consistent from the start that believed they had a right to use the universe/aliens with licensing fees specified by one of the old contracts. (I personally don’t see how such a reading of the old contracts possibly works, but at least there’s some basis).
Have they really now switched their interpretation to “without paying license fees”? That seems like an incredibly dangerous move for Stardock, since it’d likely be deemed willful infringement.
Blaming the lawyers is a cop out. A lawyer advises you based on your goals. In this case, the goal is to lay claim to the original lore by trademarking all the names of the alien races. Trademarks that Accolade never had in any way. So yes, to support this aggressive IP grab their lawyers undoubtedly told them to trademark something you actually need to use it in some way. But the intent to make this aggressive IP grab is all on Stardock.
Starting aggressive legal proceedings against someone and then blaming the lawyers for the continued aggressive tactics is like hiring a hit man and saying “Well, he recommended murder as the best and proper course of action, so really, what choice did I have?”
Worse, their position is that if P&F want to use the original lore they need to get a license from Stardock.
Is it also the fault of Stardock that Paul and Fred never trademarked all these things?
Trademarks don’t really apply to things like the alien names in the first place. Stardock’s efforts to do so are a bit of a stretch. Trademarks are meant to identify the source of a product (e.g. these shoes were made by Nike). Also trademarks only exist while they are being used in commerce. There was no “Orz” brand under which games were being sold. For years there weren’t even any games being actively sold with a race called the “Orz” in them as Star Control was abandonware for many years.
However what Paul and Fred did do is make sure their contract with Accolade laid out in black and white terms that Paul owned the copyrights, owned the characters, ships, etc. I believe there’s a link to it in the summary at the top of the thread in one of the addendum to the original agreements.
By creation of the work they had an implicit copyright. They went out of their way to negotiate in the contract that they owned all of those things and the terms of the license that Accolade could use them under. They did what they and their lawyers believed to be adequate to protect their rights. While there are some things that can be said in hindsight “why didn’t they do this”, trademarking the alien names themselves isn’t one of them.
And yet you castigate Stardock for doing so, supported by the fact that Accolade never did so.
Here’s the bit:
“Reiche Intellectual Property” means the copyright and other intellectual property
rights (excluding trademarks) owned by Reiche, as set forth in the Agreement and
Addenda Nos. 1 and 2 to the Agreement, in and to (a) Star Control I for PC, Amiga
and Sega, (b) Star Control II for PC and 3DO, © any accompanying
documentation, and (d) the Star Control II cluebook. The Reiche Intellectual
Property shall include proprietary rights in and to any source code, names (of
starships and alien races), characters, plot lines, setting, terminology unique to the
Star Control products, and music in and to (a) – (d) above.
Note that the trademark mentioned that they didn’t own is just the “Star Control” name. Accolade didn’t own any other trademarks.
I have no idea what you are trying to say here.
If I castigate Stardock in general it is for going back on their word and in regards to the new trademark filings for trying to acquire the marks because it is a blatant IP grab. They are trying to claim rights to P&F lore, which they literally said they would never do. They are going after things that the contract clearly says belongs to Paul.
What you see as an IP grab I see as a defense. We may not have a record of it, but I think that somewhere P&F made a threat to put a stop to Origins, or that Stardock’s lawyers convinced them that was a possibility. Is it an overzealous defense? Maybe.
At any rate, the real shame of all this is that P&F ever signed a licensing agreement that was so unrestricted. Even if they’d just made it non-transferable, none of this would have happened. Of course, we wouldn’t be getting Origins either.