If you want to arrange a public engagement with Paul and Fred and myself asking each other questions I’m happy to participate.
But I’m not inclined to restate what has been discussed countless times simply because you can’t be bothered to read a forum post (which has over 600 comments of back and forth discussing).
Apologies, but in order to not end up with extremely large posts I will separate my replies by users. This may result in double posting.
There is a gag order in place by the court on settlement offers. So I can not discuss any of the various settlement offers that have been made during the lawsuit. This includes the one posted by P&F on their blog.
When Paul and Fred attempted to invalidate the Star Control trademark, Stardock had to fallow every legal avenue to protect its IP.
This is what part 11.5 of the Agreement has to state about trademarks. And this survives termination of the agreement, as the last line lays out.
Part 1.5 of Addendum 3 specifically excludes trademarks, and the argument could be made that for it to be in effect the entirety of Addendum 3 would still have be valid.
During a trial there is a discovery period where the parties involved must disclose information requested to each other, so far nothing has turned up that any work was done on Ghosts of the Precursors when it was announced. And the argument can be made that they only announced it then to interfere with the marketing of Star Control: Origins.
To the best of my recollection, all statements made by Stardock was that they owned the copyright. Which Stardock in not using. Nothing was ever stated about trademarks. In fact some of the statements by Brad said that while Stardock can have the old aliens appear in Origins, they will not due so out of respect for Paul and Fred.
That is incorrect, they did not have assignments from the other people that worked on Star Control II. They have gotten those assignments in April of this year. And as part 9.2 of the Agreement states “no rights of ownership have been assigned or transferred to any third party”.
There is a difference between trademark and copyright.
No, before Stardock thought that Paul and Fred did the majority of the work, now it was found out that others did it, especially when it comes to the dialog.
So you can come in here to cast aspersions on other posters, but you refuse to answer even basic questions.
Do you really wonder why so many people do not see Stardock in a positive light here?
Here are the exact words:
And this is what a worker of the copyright office has to say:
I did not mean releasing a product, but writing in a notebook, sketching designs, etc.
If they did not want to work with Stardock on Origins or anything else, there was no problem. Just don’t market your product with someone else’s trademark.
This is a bit of a dodge to my question. I am not talking at all about the “Star Control” trademarks. Specifically the newly registers ones for things like “Frungy”, “Orz”, etc. Accolade never held those as trademarks. In the bankruptcy auction there was one trademark “Star Control”. As I pointed out already the original agreements literally say that Paul owns the alien names.
Actually I don’t wonder and know it has nothing to do with Stardock and everything to do with how they feel about me due to 15+ years of political debates and various drama that is inherent in a tight-knit community and am glad it is only a handful of people who cannot look past their personal biases.
That said, “other posters” you mean Elestan who, as I pointed out, created an account 3 weeks ago to continue his Paul and Fred advocacy in this thread and no other thread as he does elsewhere. And that was in response to Trigger who had concerned about Rhonin for much the same thing but from the other point of view.
I’m not sure what I’ve done to offend you but I apologize for it.
Yes, those are the actual words. Again you are avoiding my actual question. I was talking about the context of those words. You claim that those words mean that P&F are somehow claiming an exclusive right to those gameplay elements, as if they were patented or something. That’s not the context of those words. Those words are a list of elements that demonstrate substantially similarity.
Again you avoid my question and instead just push a PR line. Granted, that is your job.
They may have not done any work, and may not be starting until this is resolved. Using that as a point against them when it is the result of the lawsuit your company filed is hypocritical.
[quote=“Rhonin, post:837, topic:134515”]
I realize the public line is “they didn’t have the copyrights” but this ignores the fact that when they needed to they have indeed gotten all the paperwork together to show they have the copyrights (remember a copyright exists at the moment of creation, not registration).
That is incorrect, they did not have assignments from the other people that worked on Star Control II. They have gotten those assignments in April of this year. And as part 9.2 of the Agreement states “no rights of ownership have been assigned or transferred to any third party”.[/quote]
That’s exactly what I said. Now that they are being sued and they need to prove everything they have gotten the paperwork together.
I’m not sure why you are quoting that line with the “assignments to” other than perhaps to obfuscate things. That means that Paul and Fred haven’t assigned anything to anyone else. As in nobody else has a claim on the things Accolade is getting out of the agreement.
“Any trademarks adopted and used by the Publisher in the marketing of the Work, Derivative Works, and Derivative Products are the sole property of the Publisher.”
And here is the part you keep referring to.
It excludes trademarks, which are the only IP that covers names.
It can be argued that it is longer in affect since StarCon4 was never made.
And if Addendum 3 were still valid than Stardock could use the old aliens, copyright and all.
Alright, then. Explain their argument that the owners of Star Control trademark can’t have an organization called Star Control in their video game. What copyright would allow them to claim that?
You sued the original creators of Star Control 2, a game I love and would love to see the original creators follow up on the story of. You are trying to bully them into giving you all their IP. You are trying to prevent them from making a game that isn’t under your control in some way and you are being dishonest about that intent. The fact that is what I am displeased about should have been really really obvious.
Don’t apologize. Withdraw the IP grab trademarks. Make the game you first announced that didn’t try to wedge in the classic aliens. Settle amicably.
The Agreement doesn’t say that Paul is the holder of copyrights, but that he has to be only one that held any copyright in the product delivered to Accolade.
I know your job prevents you from not just repeating the PR line, but you are again intentionally avoiding the point that that list is not elements that P&F claim sole right to, but a list of elements that all together demonstrate substantial similarly.
The owners of the Star Control mark are free to create a game names Star Control with a organization named Star Control as part of it’s story. That combined with other things like including the name unique alien races demonstrates substantial similarly.
Yes, and the one trademark adopted and used by the publisher was “Star Control”. Not “Ur-Quan Masters”. Not “Orz”.
They made the demand to remove the name of the Star Control organization before the lawsuit ever started.
Would Star Control: Origins not fall under “Derivative Works and Derivative Products”?
Also The Ur-Quan Masters was the subtitle of Star Control II.
They haven’t removed this. Brad referred to it like that because he thought he could reach an agreement with P&F to either stop using the Star Control trademark to promote their game or for them to license the trademark from Stardock.
It escalated when they refused to cease promoting their game as a sequel to Star Control.
It would, if Stardock was Accolade and it was the 90s. The publishers rights to make derivative works ended ages ago.
I’m glad you point out and acknowledge if it contains all those elements Star Control: Origins is indeed a derivative work, but in your position I wouldn’t be making Paul and Fred’s case for them like that.
Yes, “The Ur-Quan Masters” was indeed the subtitle to SC2. That doesn’t change the fact that Accolade nor Atari ever filed a trademark for it and so such trademark was lasted as what was sold in the bankruptcy auction. P&F were able to use it as the title when they released the code to the open source project of the same name with no complaint from Atari.
Hello Brad. As I mentioned in my last post, I have no problem engaging in discussions with Rhonin here.
I wasn’t aware of a categorical obligation for unaffiliated parties to state their opinions up front.
Just to be open about it, though, I entered the broader debate several months ago on a fairly neutral footing. But starting out neutral doesn’t mean that I committed to never forming an opinion about it, as evidence accumulated. Since that time, I’ve moved to a pro-P&F stance because I felt that Stardock’s arguments were contorted, its public statements (including its ostensibly lawyer-certified Q&A) were often misleading, and its legal actions were injurious to a community that I care about.
If you have no knowledge of it, then it would really be better not to say so in such a leading way. I have no more relationship with P&F than any other long-time UQM community member who supports them in this fight.
Actually no, that FAQ was founded by ‘Pat’, who is not me (though I supported them in the effort). And at this point, it’s maintained by the community; anyone can edit it. As to a slant, that may be, but not for lack of trying; you may recall that I vigorously solicited Stardock advocates’ participation in it, while you discouraged them from doing so. If you have a genuine desire for there to be an honest reference for newcomers, wouldn’t it be better to work on it together? Perhaps Rhonin would like to help; if his efforts in this thread are typical, he’s very good with the research.
I’m not sure how I should feel about that…P&F’s litigation opponent is designating me their principle [sic] public advocate. Flattered, I guess?
I thought you bowed out of the thread because Tom said:
