What if it was John Madden’s Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel?
I don’t see why that matters. Brad gave his interpretation of what was bought, and Reiche did not correct him despite obviously knowing otherwise. This should make it totally clear that “if only they’d contacted Reiche and Ford before making the purchase, none of this would have happened” theory doesn’t work.
I assume that you meant Gog instead of Stardock there? Otherwise I have no idea of what this would be referring to.
The Gog deal was not “publishing rights”. It was a one-off revenue split deal. Also it was referred to specifically as “Accolade’s publishing rights”, not Atari’s. Also, it explicitly listed the rights: “sell, distribute, market and promote”. There is no wiggle room here; Brad makes clear what he thought they bought, Reiche lets Brad continue believing it.
I don’t think that’s what they’re claiming. But maybe I’ve missed some document. Could you please link to it?
As I mentioned, it’s not my example. I thought it interesting enough from the podcast to mention it. Sorry.
I think under the circumstances, I understand the tactics of Stardock’s counsel.
Your client is about to release a game, questions about its rights are being raised by P&F, but they do not want to take out an injunction; maybe they only want to sue Stardock if the game does well. So either Stardock launches the game and then get mired a huge legal battle afterwards where the stakes are high and the game is already out of development, or you push to resolve everything in a winner takes all lawsuit to force P&F into court. Even if Stardock loses the case, at least now Stardock can decide whether to reskin/re-label all of the assets. I can see where counsel would advise Stardock to just go nuclear.
[quote=“jsnell, post:591, topic:134515”]
I don’t see why that matters. Brad gave his interpretation of what was bought, and Reiche did not correct him despite obviously knowing otherwise. [/quote]
There was nothing to correct. They acknowledged the trademark was theirs. There was a publishing deal between GOG, Atari and P&F. So when Stardock said publishing rights the new publishing agreement would have been what Paul thought Brad was talking about. Why would they think, when there was a recent agreement specifically with Atari, that Brad meant that he had perpetual and exclusive rights to publish without license from or royalties to P&F based on the 1988 agreement (which is above and beyond what the 1988 agreement give Accolade)? For Paul to have corrected Brad would have required that Paul could read Brad’s mind and realize he wasn’t talking about the most obvious and current thing that would fall under publishing rights and that he was actually talking about rights that even Accolade never had.
Not arguing with you, but where are you getting that Stardock hasn’t been paying royalties? I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that it’s not obvious to me from the first post and I think I remember Brad claiming they have been paying royalties. I’m probably remembering incorrectly, but my Google abilities are falling me in finding the answer one way or the other.
They may have started paying afterward, but from what I’ve read when the games first went up on steam they were not a party to the arrangement. That’s why they requested the games be taken down and then filed the DCMA notice.
I believe I’ve seen Stardock say that the sales were minor and wouldn’t have a problem paying royalties, but I haven’t seen anything to indicate they did, or anything that claims they did from the start as if it were under one of the prior agreements.
Hmmm. Brad Wardell stated quite categorically that the first take down was for the Gog version and later included the Steam version. Was it a misrepresentation on his part? I cannot recall the timeline with certainty there.
I do remember something along the line that it was taken down (Gog) and put up again (Gog+ Steam) and then taken down again (Gog+Steam)
As far as I know it was Atari that put them up on GOG originally, then P&F contacted GOG and Atari about it (I don’t believe there was a DCMA in this instance, just an email). The games were taken down temporarily until an agreement was worked out and then put back up.
I don’t know if it’s been mentioned anywhere specifically what happened to that agreement after the bankruptcy sale but it seems to have continued on until the dispute heated up late last year. Having taken over for Atari I imagine GOG would have continued to pay out P&F their slice and paid Stardock Atari’s slice of the sales.
Separate from that Stardock last year put them up on steam without any new agreement from P&F. Which prompted the request and then the DMCA to take them down. The Stardock Q&A says it was for both GOG and Steam. It doesn’t say that one or the other was first, so I assume they were at the same time.
Regarding the earlier question about royalties. The Stardock Q&A also claims that prior to their acquisition of the IP the games were on continuous sale and that P&F received an uninterrupted stream of royalties. There isn’t any back up for the assertion. Unless they somehow got Accolade’s and Atari’s books or cancelled checks I’m not sure how they can prove that. While their Q&A makes claims about royalties from before Stardock acquired the IP, it never claims that Stardock paid them royalties on the Steam sales. That’s a pretty good indication they weren’t since if they did there’s no way they wouldn’t mention it.
Maybe this has been addressed, but the Atari/P+F/GOG agreement seems to me to hurt both parties’ cases. If the licencing agreement was still the perpetual one Stardock is now claiming, then the GOG agreement was unnecessary. Atari seems to have started out under that assumption when they put them up for sale without asking P+F but then backed off. On the other hand, if the licencing had reverted due to lack of royalties, as P+F claim, the GOG agreement was unnecessary and I don’t see why they agreed to a 25%/25% split with Atari. They could have claimed all 50%.
I’d guess the real answer for why they agreed to the spilt is that the money earned from GOG just wasn’t worth arguing over. I think the precedent hurts both sides in the current dispute, though.
There’s still the separate trademark which Atari held. P&F can’t sell the original games by themselves either. Both the trademark holder and copyright holder need to enter into an agreement for the original games to be sold.
Due to three reasons, which I listed in my post and you chose to ignore. To repeat:
- Brad specifically referred to Accolade’s rights, not Atari’s.
- Brad enumerated exsmples of what fell under publishing rights. It was not just an isolated term that could be interpreted in absolutely any way.
- Nobody would ever refer to the Gog deal as publishing rights. It gave Atari no rights to do anything except get a wire transfer once per quarter. And it really did not grant any of the more specific rights that were listed in that email, but you’re pretending weren’t there.
So I specifically asked you for a reference to the “no royalties” part since I hadn’t heard of it. Rather than link to some evidence, you’ve chosen to just repeat the claim. At this point it feels like you’re just making shit up.
And the “without license” part makes no sense. That’s what publishing rights are!
Oh, ok. So just based on the absence of evidence in either direction, you seem to have decided that Stardock was selling the games without royalties, and are now trying to back-fill the earlier e-mails to match that interpretation.
That’s absurd. It’s obvious why Stardock would have thought they still had the publishing rights to the classic games based on the old contracts. On the other hand there is no plausible legal theory that would justify them selling the classic games under other terms. The old contracts are also what Stardock are using as the basis for having publishing rights in the later, more detailed emails.
Absent some more evidence, it seems totally unreasonable to interpret this as Stardock selling the classic games with no royalties.
What I’m taking away from this is that you think Brad’s word is evidence, but P+F’s isn’t.
That is not a fair interpretation. He’s saying that we should not state things as fact if it’s deductions or postulates from lack of evidence.
Cool, sounds like there’s a statement from Reiche/Ford about how Stardock is selling the classic games unlicensed and with no royalties, rather than under the old contracts and old terms. Thanks for finding it, that’s exactly the kind of thing I was asking for!
There’s just one little problem, it looks like you forgot to link to it.
My mistake, you are correct in that in the email he did say Accolade’s publishing rights.
Yes, I am making an assumption that they did not pay royalties based on the fact that Stardock has not claimed they have paid royalties and they have put forth every little bit of information that can help their case. I’m not sure how one is supposed to prove they received no royalties. if Stardock made the claim (and they haven’t as far as I have seen) would have to prove they did not the other way around.
If you think I am making shit up you don’t need to take my word for anything. Please do question what I say. I’m not an authority, I’m just a guy who has read too much about this and has an opinion that I’m willing to share and discuss.
Well, that’s the rub, is Stardock says the agreement is still valid. PF say it is not due to terms of the contract not being fulfilled. If Stardock is right, then they have a case, if PF are correct, then I think the whole thing falls apart for Stardock.
So PF claim the did not receive the payments, and the whole agreement was terminated by the beginning of Q2, 2001. (Would have been nice if they had sent a notification letter from their perspective). This needs to be proven either way…
So if the Accolade agreement is determined invalid, what is the potential impact to Stardock’s claims?
For example in post #16 of this thread Brad says they are paying royalties.
If e.g. Reiche and Ford were to say they didn’t receive royalties for the Steam sales, that’d at least meant there’s a discussion to be had there. We’re not going to get the physical proof at this point, but at least it’d be an issue that’s being contested rather than one side claiming something, and the other side not refuting it :)
It doesn’t say they paid them but that they could claim them and that they receive them. This may imply that steam is paying them but its ambiguous.
Still given the effort Stardock has put into their PR over this if they were paying you’d think it would get prominent mention.