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

Fair enough. You’ve read far more than I have.

I don’t think it is necessarily that clear right now.

A very simple viewpoint reading of the bankruptcy sale says the bought the Star Control trademark and the Star Control III (and III only) copyright. However, P&F claim several issues with this.

They claim:

  1. The SC trademark and SC III copyrights were not actually listed as bankruptcy assets and that is an issue with the sale (I won’t pretend to know what this exactly means, just noting that it is contended)
  2. The SC trademark was improperly re-registered with the 4 day flash “game” so it is invalid or dormant or something (again, not a lawyer)
  3. The SC trademark was not even Atari’s to begin with because it reverted due to the lack of royalty payments.
  4. Their initial agreements don’t allow the rights to be transferred through bankruptcy.

Stardock has an evolving view of what they have bought. They used to agree that they don’t any ownership of the the SC 1&2 aliens but now they seem to feel like they own the names for some reason. They have filed trademarks for all the classic SC1&2 alien names.

I don’t know how legitimate either side’s claims are, but I don’t think anyone actually agrees on who owns what at this point.

I don;t think this is an accurate similarity. I have looked over several contracts for games made in the 80’s 90’s (and purchased the rights for a couple) and what PF did seems standard for that time. Publishers were only interested in the Marketing/Distribution of the product. Not the ownership. The agreements were usually made letting the development shop (a separate business) own the code and assets. the smarter devs made sure they had this in writing. Publishers did not care.

Sometimes it gets muddy with sequels and such, as publishers were lending assets (people and cash) to help the devs along to make a the sequel. This is where things get convoluted if the devs are not careful.

In this case, what I am seeing is PF definitely trying to maintain control of the game over the years. So the work for hire assertions are probably really rocking them, and I think may be hard to prove.

Edit: I will also say I have seen cases where the publisher did not own the rights, but sold them anyway to a buyer when going out of business. This also muddies the waters.

They’ve trademarked them, because that’s how you go about scorched earth IP lawyering: you just carpet bomb everything you can in whatever IP protection you can find. A trademark on an alien name is probably absolutely worthless - I could write a book about aliens with that name, and as long as I didn’t try to sell the book under or using that name (as it’s trademarked - and even then I might be okay because it’s a different market and customers are unlikely to be confused) or make my fiction a derivative creative work (as someone holds that copyright, though people seem to disagree on who that is) I would be entirely in the clear.

It’s not a claim of ownership of copyright.

But it keeps the lawyers busy.

I don’t think that happened until after the lawsuit from Stardock

Well, it’s hard to know what discussions were behind the scenes. But as outsiders we first saw it after the Stardock lawsuit in the P&F responses and counter claims.

Sure, I meant I don’t know what documents or whatever they are using as an excuse. But agreed.

I don’t think you need an excuse. You can just trademark things whenever you want. Though it might be tricky to maintain if you never use it.

Trademarks have to be defended - if they’re not, they’re effectively relinquished. This probably at least partly explains the Stardock scorched-earth approach to this.

What is clear from all the correspondence that Stardock has posted is that the original intent was to have P&F work under Stardock to make a sequel. The conventional wisdom about a SC sequel being that P&F couldn’t do one because they didn’t have the name, if Stardock could get the name and offer to work with P&F surely they’d come. What is also clear from the correspondence is that P&F did not want to work with or for Stardock or have them use the lore.

Brad has posted emails between the two parties in order to support his claim that P&F really wanted to work with him, but they show clearly that they did not and they constantly gave polite but stern refusals. Brad kept asking for years like a teenager with a crush who gets a polite “yeah, sorry, I can’t on Friday as I have to wash my hair, and I am not in a place right now where I really want a boyfriend” and interprets that to mean that the girl really does want to go out with him and he just need to keep asking until it is the right time. Their announcement was like seeing the girl out on a date with someone else. I mean, she said she wasn’t ready for a boyfriend. Now she’s out with someone!

The whole thing gives off a “Syndrome” vibe. The ultimate fanboy who felt wronged by his hero.

And the only one who might say it happened earlier in the talks before the lawsuit is Brad who has already lied about all this.

Absolutely. It’s like letting squatters remain in your home. Put people keep screaming about how Stardock are Evil.

No, you can waste $500 trying to trademark them. In the end you have to prove the sale of the thing your are trademarking based on categories. I don’t think the alien names and “super melee” count, as they are not a marketable good, not “the thing” being sold.

They could sell action figures and the like. What category did the use for the alien names?

The other thing I’ve wondered about recently is dlc. You could sell dlc for the various races. Would that be sufficient to qualify for use?

Not the trademark, the licensing agreements. Two main things, the rights to publish the original games, and the license to use the lore in derivative works.

I believe Stardock has at times asserted the original contract is still in force and that gives them the exclusive right to publish the original games and to make derivative works. P&F claim that the contract clearly says the rights weren’t permanent and the license would end if certain conditions (like not getting royalties for a year) were met.

Here’s the SuperMelee trademark application - It just got “published for opposition” two weeks ago

http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4810:m7nrvy.3.4

they are listing it as a Good& Sevice: G & S: Computer game software, and user manuals supplied as a unit therewith

Edit: Here is a list of all of the trademarks Stardock has applied for (51 - one on the second page)

http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4807%3Auuv4kt.1.1&p_search=searchss&p_L=50&BackReference=&p_plural=yes&p_s_PARA1=&p_tagrepl~%3A=PARA1%24LD&expr=PARA1+AND+PARA2&p_s_PARA2=Stardock&p_tagrepl~%3A=PARA2%24OW&p_op_ALL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query&a_search=Submit+Query

You are right, I misread an Ars article on this. It’s a good summary:

that’s an interesting thought. I would say it could qualify (in my mind) as that is a package.

To continue your analogy, the squatters left as soon as they were asked. P&F changed the announcement. They did not “remain”.

The fact that they squatted briefly doesn’t really justify the attempt to grab all the original lore and claim that P&F did not create it and may have really have little to do with it.

Lastly, do we really need the silly hyperbole like accusing people who disagree with you about this as claiming that Stardock is “evil”. If someone literally says that, please, address that person’s silliness. You are trying to discredit one side of a debate by portraying them as being driven by hate instead of simply having formed opinions based on the information they have. It is a discredit to the discussion and to you.

I think the argument over the “Creators of Star Control” assertion is interesting. I suspect it is possible they could win a “Fair use” for that. As people have noted, the owner of the mark made the same reference.

They should have stayed away from the Box Cover.

I think the damages in this regard are minimal, as are the re-tweets.

The meat of the sandwich is the Atari contract. This could be problematic for either side depending on how it falls. the rest is just noise I think.

No, I’m not trying to discredit one side. Apologies if it seems that way. What I’m TRYING to do is view things impartially and without assuming one side is lying through their teeth. I see the repeated assertions that Brad is a liar the way you saw the “evil” remark. Maybe he is. I don’t know. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, admittedly at times more than they deserve.