You can copyright a character. Which is a name and an appearance (among other things). Try placing the Mission Impossible main character in a spy movie and see what happens.
The protection can be more tenuous but it’s there. Movie studios have clearance offices for a reason.
Again, no. You really can’t copyright a word.
It would be the trademark, not the copyright, that would prevent you from putting a Mission Impossible character in a Spy movie.
Arguments about consumer confusion (which is in essence what you’re suggesting) are trademark issues.
You are mistaken, Brad. You can certainly copyright a character (not the name only, but that’s not what we are talking about here even though you keep ignoring it)
What is copyrighted is expression. A word standing alone isn’t copyrighted, but is absolutely part of the expression of a creative work, and would of course be weighed when deciding whether a potentially infringing work infringed or not. Brad’s argument is equivalent to arguing that because you can’t copyright the color “green”, the fact that Stardock’s copy of the Arilou alien is green can’t be considered when deciding if it is infringing.
I didn’t say you couldn’t copyright a character. You absolutely can copyright a character and there are examples of that. But it’s not the name that does it.
If you created a Super Spy that relies on gadgets, is a Womanizer, is British, etc. but called him Max Power, you could be sued for a copyright violation.
Brad, your lawyer is lying to you (or just wrong).
If you had an alien in SC:O that looked kind like the Arilou, in a ship that looked kinda like the Arilou ship, but it wasn’t called the Arilou, your lawsnake could show a bunch of images of other things that looked like the Arilou (grey-style aliens are a widespread thing) and say that you haven’t copied the Arilou, that you’ve simply recombined common sci-fi tropes into an original work.
If you did this with multiple different aliens from the same setting, then it would be easier to make a case that this was a derivative work, but I think you would still be able to put up a good fight.
But by giving them the same name you’ve created a clear link which suggests your work is inspired by the other previous work. And then if you’ve done that with multiple aliens, and ships…
Here we mostly agree. However, since Arilou is associated with Star Control and Stardock has the Star Control trademark it changes the calculation somewhat. Stardock owns the Star Control alien names. Paul and Fred might be able to argue they own a particular expression of the Arilou but they cannot argue that they own the Arilou. But in any event, it is something we are willing to test in court if it comes to it because we are having to defend our trademarks.
If you want to share your contact information to your IP attorney credentials I’m happy to discuss your rates.
Having been in several IP lawsuits over my career, including a few copyrights and trademark cases I have both my own experience and that of our IP counsel to rely on. The Arilou species in Star Control: Origins looks different, acts different, has a different ship, etc. Like I said, it is an issue that we are willing to have tested in court if necessary.
My comment is “I sure hope you convince them to settle out of court, because if this actually goes to court you’re going to get annihilated.”
It wouldn’t be the first time that people on QT3 expressed their arm-chair lawyer certainty with me even as they were later proven completely wrong.
Ok champ, have fun.
No problem, slick.
Oh please. Brad has been demonized repeatedly in this thread, called a liar repeatedly, etc. I may be mistaken, but I don’t recall you defending him.
I may be mistaken but I believe he has been dishing out as much as he has been getting nor has anyone been “demonized”. I am sure he appreciates the free pro bono work though.
Oh there’s no doubt of that (him dishing out…and I haven’t gotten to the end of the thread). I merely meant that I though Josh’s response was one-sided. If we are going to admonish one person for making swipes, it should be the same for others.
Yeah, well put. This is also what I’ve been struggling to understand the whole time. I think it has to do with the claim by P and F that the were publishing the “true sequel” (that may be the wrong words, but whatever it was) to SC2. And I suppose I get where that is problematic, but it seems like this should have been a relatively simple thing to resolve.
I am the one saying that I feel like I have been lied to in a calculated way with the things that I wanted to hear about the project (e.g. Stardock was supportive of P&F making a ‘cannon sequel’). I have provided a great deal of quotes and information as to why I consider that to have been a lie. I am curious why you are calling it demonizing. I am not saying he is a bad person or evil or whatever. I am saying that he was pushing a narrative that he knew to be untrue to bolster support for his business.
I think it is missing the point to consider this a personal attack instead of an honest critique of the situation and Stardock’s handling of it, in particular how they chose to promote a specific narrative of the situation before P&F’s objections (regardless of the merit of said objectives) that clearly was a fan’s-rose-colored-dream-narrative instead of the truth of the situation. It built good will to me that they were ‘real’ fans who were doing their best to avoid the MOO3 situation and it’s clear that a lot of the reason these things were being said was calculated to get those results. They surely would have worked as harmless lies if P&F had been less interested in the situation and wouldn’t have objected to the situation.
As a fan I loved the message of how Stardock was going their own way and leaving open a ‘cannon sequel’ to SC2 that they not only would support happening, but as fellow fans were literally begging to have happen. It doesn’t seem to be true at all. Likewise the comments about how P&F were consulted and supposedly supportive of the overall plan which clearly has been proven to not be the case at all.
The primary issue is that they are trying to promote their game as being related to Star Control without permission. The Q&A thread over at Stardock that Thragg thinks is propaganda (but has lots of comments and debate on and has many posts by myself and others from Stardock) gets into the meat of things.
You can take that statement in two ways. It can be interpreted that they were drawing a distinction between the canonical storyline of SC2 separate from SC3. After all they said SC2 specifically, not “the star control series”.
Or it can be taken as a swipe at SC:O implying that it’s a cheap knock off. If one is the kind of person who assumes the worst in others this is the easy interpretation to fall info.
Viewing the statement in the first light without malice would have likely led to a simple solution like a change of language and clarifying statements. Viewing it in the second light, well that evidently leads to things like a scorched earth campaign against those now perceived as enemies.
sorry for any confusion. I wasn’t referring to you when I said that (I hadn’t gotten to that post yet). Not trying to call you out specifically (or anyone else for that matter).