Excellent, and I hope I made it clear why I find your disingenuous attempts to derail conversations with lies to peddle your games offensive and insulting.
The whole point is they do not intend to use your IP since your does not cover their aliens and characters. You can keep pressing the “confusion” argument to claim every part of a product once sold under the mark, but I’m sure you can see few are buying it.
As I’ve said many times there is indeed a case to be made about the potential infringement of their announcement. However you clearly stated things like the aliens were theirs and now you are claiming them.
You were allegedly at that GDC presentation. During that presentation Paul states very clearly that Stardock only owns the name and that Paul owns the aliens and other elements (as similarly outlined in the contracts). You watched them give credit so many other people, but somehow only later you realized that other people helped a lot? This stuff strains credibility.
I know you have convinced yourself of the things you push, but I’m going to have to point out again how pushing these things is in many cases not helping you. You can consider it unpleasant, but it’s a plain and evident truth to anyone outside the bubble of your PR. Even if that PR is working in other places, why keep just repeating it in cases where it is clearly counterproductive and making you look dishonest?
Pearl clutching over mild sarcasm now? Mild sarcasm is not the type of bad faith that was being discussed.
Oh god! The beauty of this after the “fragile” swipe earlier.
Stardock owns the trademarks. Paul and Fred own whatever copyrights they own. There is a dispute over what those rights entail. The rest of it is just drama.
Trademark. Singular. “Star Control”.
You have applied for other trademarks in a move that has justifiably upset a lot of the old fan base, but you do not own them.
There are registered trademarks and common law trademarks. By your argument, Paul and Fred own no copyrights either.
At one time, we are on the same page. Trademarks. They have always been referred to as plural because it was understood by all parties what this meant.
Once there became a dispute, both sides began to work to perfect their side’s IP claims by registering their IP (Stardock with trademarks and Paul and Fred with copyrights).
We get your reasoning. It’s not necessary to repeat it. There may be people for whom this argument about the transitive property of trademarks to common law trademarks for anything that appeared in a product is convincing. It obviously isn’t to many people here. It’s been explained to you why making this argument makes you seem dishonest especially in light of your prior statements. You can persist in reinforcing that feeling at your leisure.
I mean, it’s not like you have anything more important to do on a work day.
You use these terms as if your perspective is shared by vast numbers of people. It’s not. There’s a whole wide world out there.
Most people, and I’d even suspect most people on QT3 who work in our industry, have enough understanding of IP to know that companies that have invested millions into an IP can’t just allow third parties to capitalize on that IP without some sort of understanding.
It doesn’t matter how many copyrights Paul and Fred may or may not have (or anyone else for that matter), you cannot simply go out and use other people’s trademarks. You wanting things to work differently is noted but it is that system that lets us have the nice things we have today.
I’m playing a video game. Very serious stuff. ;)
Yes. They were wrong to describe their game as “Star Control” anything, or as a “sequel” to Star Control. That was infringing on your mark and may create confusion over the source.
The “common law trademark” in, say, Arilou, would only (if a court finds it has merit) stop P+F selling a game called “Arilou”, or featuring the mark prominently in their marketing. It wouldn’t stop them including Arilou in the game. That’s not how trademarks work.
However, the Arilou artwork on the Steam sale page is clearly derivative of the original Star Control Arilou. Even if you are correct and P+F do not hold the copyright in that IP, you would still be infringing the copyright of the original creator. Since Stardock is clearly doing this knowingly, based on your public statements (even if you have later changed your mind), the holder of the copyright can sue you for both revenues resulting from your use of their IP and punitive damages. That is how copyrights work.
You are, indeed, “simply going out and using other people’s copyright”.
The very generous interpretation is that your lawyer has been spinning you a line to get Stardock to pay him a lot of money. You need to wise up and settle, because if this goes to court it is going to cost you a lot of money and any minor relief you might win on the trademarks is going to be vastly outweighed by your losses on the copyright.
I can’t argue with your opinion. But I don’t agree. For one thing, the artist who made the SCO Arilou wasn’t even shown the Arilou from SC2. They were told to make a green grey-alien style with a gem on his forehead.
In any event, this is something for the courts to decide. Not us.
It may be reasonable, but it sounds like it would be unacceptable to both parties. Reiche and Ford don’t appear to want Wardell to put anything of theirs in his game, period, and I doubt Wardell spent $400k for the ability to release a single game and then transfer everything to R&F.
If both parties aren’t intent on supplying shiny new Ferraris to their lawyers, here’s the settlement I’d propose…
First, the copyrights to SC1&2 are fairly well established as belonging to R&F (Wardell as much said so before his obvious legal manoeuvring,) and the trademark to the Star Control name is not really contested (as Ford’s email Wardell just quoted implies, and as the equitable estoppal argument the YouTube lawyer mentioned would tend to rule.) Right?
If so…
- Both parties agree to distribute/publish/sell SC 1, 2, and 3 as per the R&F/Atari agreement on Steam, GOG, and whatever similar future platforms as may appear. Don’t hurt the fans of the game.
- R&F get the copyright to everything that is theirs that is copyrightable (i.e. not gameplay/theme/etc…) Wardell agrees to not use their alien names (which he agreed not to do without R&F’s permission on multiple occasions) even if they appear in SC3 and to let R&F use the Ghosts of the Precursors name.
- Wardell gets the “Star Control” trademark. R&F agree to not call their game a sequel to SC2, even though we all know it is (similar to how we all know Dragon Wars is Bard’s Tale 4.) Wardell agrees to let the creators/developers/team behind SC2 (i.e. R&F) to call themselves the creators/developers/team behind SC2, because they fucking are.
Although I’m obviously IANAL, from what that YouTube Lawyer guy and Leonard French have said and what little I do know about US law, I think that’s about where the US legal system would split this baby. Better to do it at a lavish resort over settlement talks than watch as opposing council discuss which options to get on their Ferraris during court breaks.
Even if this were true (if the artist did not research the name online he’s not doing his job) just attaching green grey-alien style with the name Arilou is enough to create copyright infrigement.
I can’t create, for example, “small bears with capes and spear” called Ewoks and include them in a work set in a moon of a giant gas planet without infringing Dysney’s copyright (I probably can’t even set the setting in NY, fwiw), even if the artist has nothing to go on except the description I just provided.
I admire the dedication to legal maneuvering and technicalities but this is just hilarious.
Yeah, agree this would be a sensible settlement. I simply don’t understand Brad’s insistence on the legally risky move of including the SC aliens. Maybe that IP is more valuable than I realise in terms of selling the game.
I’m afraid you are mistaken. This is a well understood area of IP law. That argument wouldn’t even make it pass a summary judgement.
You wouldn’t be able to call them Ewoks because it would create a likelihood of confusion that your product was related to Star Wars.
You would be safe on the copyright side. And in fact, such things are done routinely in cartoons and comic books all the time.
Next time you watch TV, start picking out all the things they do where the only thing they did was change the name but otherwise it is identical.
There’s a ton of copyright cases out there you can look at. Many of them are pretty fascinating on what is and isn’t considered copyright infringement.
Emphasis added so you understand your mistake.
But ok, I’ll bite: please provide an example of somebody using a character of the exact same name and visual appearance in a similar universe without holding the original copyright (and without being satire).
Brad, you forgot to change the name.
There’s also the Stardock earth cruiser, which is derivative of the SC2 earth cruiser down to the level of tiny details. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I would love to be a fly on the wall in that deposition. “No, we believe that our earth cruiser was an oblong ship with a front saucer-shaped section and four nacelles arranged in a specific pattern completely by coincidence.”
What mistake are you seeing? I am pointing out that the trademark is what protects the IP, not the copyright. You can’t copyright a name.