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

Games
1468

First off, thank you all for your input. It’s nice to have rational minds to bounce thoughts off of.

In regards to:

I think Stardock/brad did/is claiming ownership of the copyright.
Stardock-Legal-Complaint-2635-000-P-2017-12-08-1

Page 5

  1. Also, pursuant to the 1988 Agreement, Accolade was the owner of the title,
    packaging concept, and packaging design in and to the Classic Star Control Games and any trademarks and other intellectual property rights adopted and used by Accolade in the marketing
    thereof, including but not limited to the STAR CONTROL Mark (collectively the “Accolade
    Star Control IP”).
  1. In 2013, the 1988 Agreement, along with certain other assets, including the STAR CONTROL Mark, certain copyrights in and to the Classic Star Control Games, including but not limited to the Star Control Copyrights, as well as publishing rights to the Classic Star Control Games (collectively, the “Atari Star Control Assets”) were assigned to Stardock via an asset purchase agreement and associated intellectual property assignment between Stardock and Atari dated July 18, 2013 (hereinafter “Asset Purchase Agreement”).

I suppose that could be legalese to try to confuse the reader into thinking that the trademark and the ip used for marketing is the ip of the game collectively. But also:

Page 19:

  1. Stardock is the owner of the Star Control Copyrights, which is protected under U.S. Copyright Registration No. PA 799-000.

in addition to:

Page 12

  1. Upon information and belief, and contrary to the common public understanding and
    what they have portrayed to the public, Reiche and Ford may not have created any of the artwork,
    animation or characters incorporated in the games, or otherwise substantially contributed to the
    authorship of Star Control I and Star Control II.
  1. Reiche and Ford’s advertising themselves as being the “creators” of the Classic Star Control Games is false and misleading, and has been made in an attempt to dishonestly benefit from the goodwill and reputation associated with the STAR CONTROL Mark to which they have never had rights.

For me, this is what says brad is going after the IP:
Settlement document from Stardocks to P&F:
Page 4, Section 3

…that Defendants hereby (i) assign to Stardock, pursuant to the Assignment set forth in Exhibit C hereto, any and all right, title and interests that they have in and to any and all intellectional property they own relative to the Classic Star Control Games (the “Assigned IP”)

Not having played any of Stardock’s games (I was thinking about trying out Star Control: Origins until I heard about this.), I’m definitely not going to try/buy any of their games. I’ve tried to find some humanity from Stardock/brad on this situation, but if they knew what they were buying and they are going after the IP by way of the trademark, I can’t personally find the humanity in any of this. Well, enough of my personal feelings.

Lastly, does Stardock even legitimately own the trademark? Reading through these documents reminded me that I did read the original agreement that P&F had with Accolade that if the trademark was not used for x period of time, it reverts back to P&F. Not only did that happen, but it was acknowledged by Atari back in April 25, 2011 (referring to the emails P&F posted in this post:
https://www.dogarandkazon.com/blog/2018/2/27/report-from-planet-surface). This someone thinks the email was fake, it’s easy enough to confirm. Just ask
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelseymusgrave/
or GOG themselves.

I mean, it sucks that Stardock bought a trademark for something from someone where the seller didn’t own (which, I guess goes back to @mok’s comment about the people believed to have done the research needing to be sacked and the people that sacked them needing to be sacked. Nice Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference btw. ^^b ), but to take it out P&F is no way to act. That’s like being fooled on buying the Brooklyn bridge. When, finding out that you were fooled, you demand the bridge from the city. I suppose if he didn’t do this there was a possibility P&F could have sued. But if GOG and P&F AND Atari worked out an agreement, I imagine Stardocks could have too without paying a lot or a lot up front. (I believe the agreement with Atari and GOG was that 25% goes to P&F and 25% went to Atari) I mean, he did approach them, stating he was a fan of the game and their works (which is contradictory to him then saying in a claim that they didn’t draw or write the games at all.), he could have just said “Hey, so I got this trademark, I don’t think it’s 100% legit and I only found out after the fact. Can we work something out?”

Now that I’m laying all this out, I’m wondering why this case is still being considered. It’s pretty obvious logistically who’s lying, who has malicious intent and who the owners of the trademark and IP are.

sigh maybe I’ll just go play UQM again.

BTW, isn’t putting “Crimson Corporation” on a game whose copyrights you don’t own a direct copyright/IP infringement?

1469

You need to read carefully to see through the sneaky word games Stardock’s lawyers are playing. If you look at ¶20 of their Second Amended Complaint, they redefine the phrase “Star Control Copyrights” (for purposes of their legal brief) to consist solely of any copyrights that were owned by the Publisher, excluding any copyrights owned by Paul, Fred, or anyone else. As near as I can tell, this includes the games’ packaging, and the parts of Star Control 3 that weren’t based on Star Control II. They also try to claim some of the artwork in the manual, but I’m skeptical of the argument they use for that.

That was actually in Amendment 3, and trademarks were specifically excluded from that clause.

Not necessarily. I could go make a game and have a “Crimson Corporation” in it, and be perfectly fine. But the closer my setting gets to the setting of Star Control II, and the closer my “Crimson Corporation” gets to the one from SCII, the more likely it is that a jury would decide that I’m illegally copying from them.

1470

Latest blog post by Brad:

Why does Brad continuously emphasize how unknown the original games are, while other times he keeps emphasizing how important the old games are as regards the value of the trademark? Choice quote:

Given the number of comments we’ve seen on Facebook that can be summarized as “Oh this is inspired by Mass Effect!” or “This is just No Man’s Sky with a story!” it’s clear that most people have no idea about the amazing DOS games that came so long ago.

As far as I know, the designer behind Mass Effect cited Starflight as a key influence, not Star Control. But anyway.

Then we get this:

Two different histories (three if you treat Star Control III as having a different history). How do you reconcile that? Our solution: the multiverse. We refer to the universe expressed in Star Control II as the “Ur-Quan universe” and treat it as being owned by Paul Reiche, the designer of Star Control II with the numerical designation of 6014.

Emphasis mine. Say what now?

1471

I mean, it is absolutely on its face ludicrous. The only reason to buy the Star Control name is if it is recognized by people and has value as a brand. If people have no idea what it is why would you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the name? There’s a reason this isn’t Galactic Civilizations Adventures or whatever.

1473

Probably because he’s making contradictory arguments, but doesn’t want to acknowledge it. On the one hand, he’s claiming that P&F are trying to ride Stardock’s coat tails, so he has to assert that the original games (or at least P&F’s roles in making them) were unknowns before Stardock started marketing SC:O. On the other hand, he has to claim that the “Star Control” trademark’s connection to the old games is incredibly valuable in order to justify spending 6-7 figure legal fees to fight over it instead of paying developers and artists to make their game better.

If the old games under the SC brand are relatively unknown, aren’t generating any appreciable revenue, and (due to the absence of P&F’s copyrights) aren’t contributing any good will to the brand name anyway, then why is that connection worth fighting over? He could just let the old trademark go, and sell SC:O as the first in a new franchise of the same name. All he’d lose is the ability to make claims on the old properties.

When I consider this, along with the fact that Brad has made a big deal of the SC2 copyrights at several points relating to the litigation:

  • He repeatedly asked P&F to license them to him from 2013-2016.
  • He finally insisted he already controlled them in the 2017 email exchange that triggered the hostilities.
  • He demanded that P&F surrender them in his settlement proposal.
  • He asks the court to void them in the final version of Stardock’s complaint.

…it makes me suspect that gaining control over the SC2 copyrights is more important to Brad than he is admitting.

Well, he clearly hasn’t given up on claiming that his multiverse is a framework in which other peoples’ copyrighted IP can be contained. Legally, this doesn’t seem any different than claiming that someone else’s fantasy setting is a part of your own fantasy world, but is just “across the ocean where it can’t be reached”.

I also wonder if he realizes that by explaining his universe in terms of the SC2 elements it doesn’t have:

No nuclear wars. No peace vaults. No clones.

…he is basically inviting people to think of the Origins universe as “the SC2 universe except that X and Y happened instead of A and B”, which, it seems to me, would make it easier to claim that it is a derivative work, and therefore infringing.

Also, I wonder how Cedric6014 feels about part of his handle being co-opted that way.

1474

I read a comment elsewhere that makes these kind of statements and the constant arguing with anyone, anywhere on the internet that the lawsuit comes up make some sense. He’s not doing it to convince the audience. He’s doing it to convince himself.

1475

I’m very confused about this strategy. The ‘alternative universe’ thing is basically admitting your work is a derivative one.

1476

This is even more tortured language than we’ve seen in past blog posts. I feel like the last couple posts, including this one, have gotten subtly conciliatory as far as claims about IP ownership of SC2. It’s like reading signs in the rustling of leaves in the wind, but it feels like something has changed on the legal front, probably good for P&F. It’s still a little gross that these blog posts that should just be promoting the game have been encoded to reflect whatever legal strategy Stardock has at the moment (like the weird way they described how the Arilou art was created).

I know we’re all probably hyper-attuned to any language that might reveal what’s going on in the case itself. But I can’t think of any other explanation for some of the stuff in these blog posts, honestly.

I guess if Brad is indeed playing a little more nicely with P&F that’s undoubtedly a good thing!

1477

My prediction: this new kinder, gentler era of not pushing the envelope on P&F’s copyrighted content is a strictly temporary move designed to mitigate risk around the launch of SC: Origins. Once we’re out of the launch window, the (in my opinion) infringements and unreasonable legal claims will resume.

Hope I’m wrong!

1478

Apparently, review copies are being sent out on Monday. I imagine Stardock won’t like it if every review includes the phrase “Stardock, who are currently suing the original creators of Star Control…” I imagine that could be one reason for why it seems a bit quieter right now.

1479

There was a big PR push this weekend in other places. Sadly from what I read today Stardock’s position really hasn’t softened. The new stance and excuse for their actions is the belief that Paul and Fred are insanely jealous and vindictive people will do anything to prevent anyone else from making a new Star Control game. Seems kind of a strange position to take when Stardock is the one who sued P&F, not the other way around.

1480

It looks like Stardock is still selling the Arilou and Chenjesu DLC through its own website. So, it seems Stardock isn’t really backing down from selling altered versions of the aliens…they just somehow reduced their visibility on Steam.

1481

That’s all rather disappointing, if not surprising.

1482

New court filings yesterday shed some light on the temporary disappearance of Stardock’s properties from Steam last month. It was indeed due to a DMCA notice from P&F, which was then counter-noticed. Stardock is now requesting a temporary restraining order against P&F to prevent them from filing further DMCAs. The wiki page had been updated with the new filings.

1483

Seems like a logical action on the part of P&F – Stardock were wilfully infringing upon their copyright with those two DLC packs.

From the email exchange, it seems that P&F (or their lawyers) are going to be reviewing a copy of Origins to see if (and possibly to what extent) the new game infringes upon their copyright. With the impending release of Origins, I expect there to be some news on this front soon, especially if Stardock has to scramble to modify parts of the game.

Edit: this email from one of P&F’s lawyers, clearly summarizes why Stardock is in the wrong here and has no claim on the Arilou, etc.

1484

So the DLC take-down was related to the case. It looks like P&F requested that Origins itself be taken off Steam, but only the two DLC packs were removed. Does Valve make a judgment call when they get a DMCA notice, and so they decided only some of the material would be removed? Or was there more correspondence we haven’t seen, I wonder?

1485

Wait I thought Stardock could publish anything they liked with the name star control?

And the issue was that PF could claim to be the creators of the original Star control but couldn’t publish any game with the star control name.

But PF could make a game with the aliens of Star Control but just couldn’t call it SC?

That dmca linked above says Stardock can’t publish anything called Star Control, if I read it right?

Edit: and that email! Wow.

1486

I don’t think so. There’s no provision I’m aware of for the hosting company to exercise its own judgement on the matter. My understanding is that SC:O went down as well, but it got put back up, whereas the DLC did not (Stardock eventually started self-hosting it). I’m not sure whether SC:O went back up before or after Stardock modified it to remove the Arilou and Melnorme.

I think a more accurate wording would be “Stardock can name anything they can publish ‘Star Control’”. If the thing they’re publishing infringes P&F’s copyrights, the trademark doesn’t let them ignore it just by calling it “Star Control”.

That seems about right.

No; it’s saying that P&F have the copyrights to two games called “Star Control 1 & 2”, but it doesn’t assert any rights to that name. Their complaint is that the content of SC:O and the DLC is derived from the earlier games, not that it’s called “Star Control”.

1487

Is that a thing Stardock claims to have done?

1488

Not to my knowledge; that information is second-hand, but I saw no reason to doubt it. If anyone who has seen a recent version of the game knows differently, please say so.

EDIT: Reportedly, Stardock has changed the name of the Melnorme in the game to “Maelnum”. But since the Mael-num are an SC2 race (the forerunners of the Melnorme), I’m not sure that actually helps.