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

To be fair, there is some ambiguity, as what Stardock seems to be claiming is that the copyright to the work of other contributors to the game, like writers and artists, were not formally sewn up by Paul at the time, but just assumed to be part of the copyrights he owned as the developer, per that agreement with Accolade.

Now, my non-legal perspective on that claim is that 1) Paul undoubtedly edited and approved those pieces of work, 2) some of those contributors have stated publicly that Paul was the creative force behind the game, 3) Accolade pretty clearly didn’t assume that they owned those rights, as they negotiated to license them from Paul several times. I don’t know how much those facts mean in the courtroom, but from a common sense view, I think the argument is bogus. From a legalistic view, maybe it’s not. That seems like a certain kind of ambiguity.

That clause doesn’t even need to hold up, since Accolade was never granted any rights in that IP, other than the limited, non-transferable license to use that IP for Star Control 3.

I don’t think Stardock ever thought it bought anything other than the Star Control name, so I don’t think its lawyer’s screwed up - the limited rights were widely discussed at the time of the Atari auction. Stardock hoped to use the name to either get P&F to work on a new game with them, or make a new game inspired by the originals but using original content, and Stardock was willing to just hand over the Star Control name for the cost it paid for it.

It’s only subsequently that Stardock’s position changed - and naturally once it sunk cash into the new game, it felt the need to solidify (and ideally expand) its rights related to Star Control.

Yes. They were saying that for twenty-five years. But it just so happened that after all that time, they just decided they were going to make a new one right as Stardock as getting set to release theirs that they had been working on for the past 4 years. Purely coincidental and poor timing, I’m sure. :)

Again, I don’t blame them for protecting what they believe to be theirs. If I had someone come in to to try steal my creation, I’d pull out all the stops. From Stardock’s point of view, you’ve been working on a massive project for years and right as you gear up for release, here comes P&F. I don’t necessarily blame legal for going for total war in the filings either.

Not to say I think Stardock are the good guys here. I think Brad wanted to push P&F into working for him or signing over the rights and is hardly playing nice when they pushed back.

Ultimately, a lot of how I feel about this comes down to the facts and the court decision. Because as much as I can put myself in P&F’s shoes, if I’m in Stardock’s shoes I wouldn’t be playing footsie with them either. You fuck with a project that I poured that much time, effort, and money into and you’re in the wrong? I’m not going to leave you in a position where you’d ever be able to mess with my project again.

As I said I don’t think it’s totally coincidental. I think Stardock’s actions pushed them into finally arranging time off from Activision/TfB to start the project. I don’t think it was to ride on marketing coattails, but as you mentioned a protective reaction when it became apparent Stardock was trying to grab everything and if they didn’t act now they would not be able to later.

Bearing in mind that Luke Skywalker was trademarker because LucasCorp wanted to sell Luke Skywalker Toys, Luke Skywalker-Os brand breakfast cereal, Luke Skywalker brand Lightsabers, etc etc etc.

We’re not seeing Spathi-O’s, and with good reason (nobody would eat Spathi-Os when they can eat Chocolate Frosted Flakes instead).

With the timing, I don’t know how it couldn’t be leveraging their marketing. Look at all the stuff they were retweeting:

These are not the actions of someone not to hitching a ride. To me, those are some seriously blatant and aggressive trademark violations (disclaimer that I’m not a lawyer). They went through and retweeted everything they could find calling it “The direct sequel to Star Control 2”. That’s exactly the type of shit that Trademarks are to avoid.

So they went after Stardock’s trademark like Stardock was going after their IP. As I’ve said before, neither party is looking very good to me. They all seem like a bunch of asshole manchildren that couldn’t work out a scenario where they both could make a game for fans to enjoy.

Interesting that the trademark for “Luke Skywalker” for toys was allowed to lapse. It shows expired.

You attempted to pass yourself off as something more than a rando commenting on IP law, when in fact you are objectively bad at it.

Since we’re passing off any old thing as “expertise on IP law”, I wrote a 30-something page senior paper for my economics degree on the intersection of still settling IP Law, the internet, and domain name disputes and I’m still on the level of “some rando commenting on IP law”. And yet if forced to chose between me and you in a battle of MORTAL KOMBAT for @Thrag’s soul over IP law I’m taking me every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

That’s because now all the kids want these days are Kylo & Hux travelling buddy action figures. And who can blame them!

I was talking about the intent behind the timing. Also I thought we were talking about latching on to the marketing of SC:O, but you seem to be linking those to show they used the SC2 name. As I’ve said many times their use of the SC2 name is the basis of the real legal question here, whether that use infringed or was normative use. Generally an author is allowed to say “the author of x” even if “x” is a trademark owned by someone else. That author can’t use X in their title of their new book, but they can point to and name their prior works.

Yes, P&F’s announcement likely benefited in exposure due to SC:O being marketed and the buzz surrounding it. At the same time Stardock’s marketing benefited from the buzz surrounding their announcement (Stardock for a while was literally using P&F’s announcement and the showing how their game would fit into Stardock’s multiverse in their marketing). That’s one of the sad things about this suit, it was done under the assumption that the announcement that in a few years we might have GotP would cause people not to buy SC:O where in reality the buzz surrounding games that could be considered competing lifts both up. If the game were set to be released around the same time they would likely be in competition but that was never going to be the case here.

Yes, but I mean in relation to Stardock’s theory of why they own all those trademarks. Obviously Star Wars is still a thing and Luke Skywalker is a character in it, yet it was not deemed necessary to continue the trademark to protect the name “Luke Skywalker” and it’s use in content under the “Star Wars” trademark in the way that Stardock now says a trademark on, for example “Frungy”, is necessary to protect the “Star Control” trademark.

Joke’s on you both. I have no soul.

I’m not an ambi-turner. I too know what it means to suffer.

So let me get this straight for future reference. Unless you hold a degree in an area we are not allowed to voice strong opinions?

I have relevant experience having gone through the process and being explained exactly what the lawyer was charging me $350 for. And then drafting and approving a ridulous (but legally required) cease and desist order and have THAT explained to me for more money. By an actual IP attorney in an actual room and with me having a page of questions before I got there and three pages of notes when I left.

But let’s say I didn’t have that experience. Are we not allowed to voice strong opinions on subjects not in our area of expertise?

This is my opinion, maaaaaaaaan. Just like my opinion of some game in the games forum.

Yeah, I agree, guys. Your ability to poke holes in Guap’s opinions is not going to win Paul & Fred the case or something. Can we focus on clarifying for each other the issues at hand and sharing our opinions openly instead of impugning each other?

I wrote the timeline up above, and I can’t always keep the facts straight, so if someone isn’t up on the latest, that’s understandable.

I’m going to give it to you straight even though I actually like to avoid conflict. I hope you don’t take it the wrong way I’m just trying to answer you.

It was the fact that you clearly have no idea what was happening, clearly did not read any other posts or discussion in this thread, and came in here to give a completely stupid take on this. Your whole “I’m just a man on the street giving my opinion” rings hollow because you’re a member of this forum and you didn’t even read the OP. And the OP is really good and would have educated you a lot.

I’m not trying to attack you, I’m just attacking “your opinion, man.” Hope that carries through. I hate posts like this one I’m writing right now.

Also a heavy dose of this:

Fair enough, if that’s what you saw. I have, in fact, read this whole thread and have been keeping up with this. The timeline, intent, and all that stuff is under discussion. I think I’ve even commented in this one. I don’t generally do drive by posting unless it’s a hot news flash thing.

Buying something in good faith does not make for a good case against another party.

That’s not happening. First of all they knew exactly what they were buying. The trademark. The only thing they thought they bought but probably didn’t were the publishing rights for SC1/2, but the publishing rights aren’t particularly valuable. Second, the contact has a clause saying that Stardock is a sophisticated purchaser who has done all the due diligence on this, so no takesie-backsies. Third, they bought these assets from a bankruptcy estate five years ago. Who do you think they’re going to sue?

That’s not how courts work.

First off, Thrag, let me just say if my posts are a little scattershot and if they wander, I apologize. I’m typing them out piecemeal while working on something at work, so any wandering isn’t meant as any sort of obfuscation or moving goalposts on my part. :)

To me, there’s a clear and obvious distinction between “The creators of Star Control 2 bring us Stellar Doody Adventures!” to “The creators of Star Control 2 bring us a direct sequel to Star Control 2”. The latter to my IANAL eyes is a clear and obvious violation of trademark. I can’t say I’m making a direct sequel to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, even if I wrote the script or directed it. I can say “from the director of The Last Crusade” though.

As for timing, the timing of P&F’s announcement came one week after Stardock’s October 2017 update announced they were opening up the beta. That was around the time (I just mean in my mind, from my perspective) that Stardock really started their marketing ramp-up. So Stardock starts sending out press and then P&F follow right behind with “the direct sequel to Star Control 2” (except it’s not, since they don’t own the name). We can agree to disagree, but that’s clearly trying to hitch onto their marketing from my perspective.

What if you have the rights to all of the characters, places, story, etc from Indiana Jones? Can you still not say that?

Do you have to say, “I’m making a sequel to a movie which will go unnamed, which has Indiana Jones in it”? It’s called Indiana Jones and the Bobbleheads, and follows my work from the Indiana Jones franchise?

I’m seriously wondering how you “say it without saying it” which seems weird when you have all of these rights.