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General discussionEarly warning: Star Control Origins removal (probably right away)(72 posts)(72 posts)
(72 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted January 02, 2019
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Ancient-Red-Dragon: snip
Bullshit! The posts deleted were F&P fans spouting nonsense and calling Brad and Stardock names. The fact that you somehow thinks this has anything at all to do with the "quality" of the case, says a lot about your naivete.

As to the DMCA, I think most people see the point Stardock is making, that DMCA takedowns are highly abused and that to use a DMCA takedown to punish Stardock and hurt their profits while legal proceedings are in progress as highly questionable.

The fact you call this ridiculous, tells me that you are being ridiculous. Yes, it's a legal process, that part is poorly worded, but it doesn't change the fact that to use a DMCA takedown right now is rather dubious if not a crap move. F&P are clearly being jerks about it.

Yet, in your "infinite wisdom" it's somehow only Stardock that are wrong or engaging in shenanigans? C'mon, get real.
Posted January 02, 2019
Games still up for sale on gog (Star control origins.)

I can see some of you are quite passionate about this, but I think it is best to leave things to the court. I have heard both sides of the case and am keeping an open mind and dare say there is plenty I am not knowledgeable about. It does ask some questions about new games and older games in general and how hard it can often be buying rights and republishing old games. I assume gog is keeping the title up because they have limited staff at the moment but who knows.
Posted January 02, 2019
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SirPrimalform: Do you ever stop being a dick?
GoG and Steam were added to the lawsuit in November. This isn't about the DMCA. Maybe you should get your facts straight before you display your stupidity.

And do YOU ever stop being a dick?
Posted January 02, 2019
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RWarehall: GoG and Steam were added to the lawsuit in November. This isn't about the DMCA. Maybe you should get your facts straight before you display your stupidity.

And do YOU ever stop being a dick?
Yeah, I haven't heard any news since the summer at least. I don't remember any of the threads here getting bumped with news that GOG was added to the lawsuit.

Other than calling you a dick for being a dick, what exactly did I do that was "being a dick"? When I called you a dick I was referring to your angry abrasive nature.
Posted January 02, 2019
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SirPrimalform: snip
Funny. You seem to be the one who resorted to name-calling when you called me a "dick". But people like you somehow think you have a right to namecall all you want. What a effing hypocrite. All you do these days is go around insulting people, trying to derail threads with your "offendatron" buddies and try to get threads closed you don't like. You people have been ruining these forums for years.
And look, the forum loser brigade downvoting all my posts, because these uninformed idiots can't make a good argument so downvoting is their only recourse. Hey losers! You are the ones destroying the forums with your partisanship.
Post edited January 02, 2019 by RWarehall
Posted January 02, 2019
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tremere110: It's right there in the DMCA posted by the OP. Being sued means having legal proceedings initiated against you to get you to do something (or not do something) through a court order. In this case the DMCA stated P&F are seeking a restraining order against both Stardock and GoG. The court order in this case could force GoG to remove the game from accounts as the DMCA suggests.

[EDIT] I don't know if there are further legal proceedings initiated against GoG for P&F, like suing for monetary damages and such.
I missed the bit at the bottom where they mention GOG being co-defendants in the case, I thought it was just a standard DMCA which is just a notice really and not legal action in and of itself.
Posted January 02, 2019
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David9855: Games still up for sale on gog (Star control origins.)

I can see some of you are quite passionate about this, but I think it is best to leave things to the court. I have heard both sides of the case and am keeping an open mind and dare say there is plenty I am not knowledgeable about. It does ask some questions about new games and older games in general and how hard it can often be buying rights and republishing old games. I assume gog is keeping the title up because they have limited staff at the moment but who knows.
I'm sure GoG is pulling the title tomorrow. This hit in the middle of the holidays and as such action isn't going to occur until the regular staff gets in the office.

As to the case, it's basically just been filed. This is the part of a case where its decided whether a case has any merit.
Any semi-reasonable case gets this far and goes to the next step. What happens here gives no indication how the case is actually going. The standard used is whether the complaint makes legal sense, not whether the evidence supports it or not.

They are going through some motions and addendums, but it's not even to the discovery phase yet. No one should be pretending we can tell anything definitive at this point. This is just the tip of the iceberg. It's also why the judge didn't have a problem throwing out the last 7 or so documents because everything contained within can just be introduced in the discovery stage.
Posted January 02, 2019
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Darvond: The DMCA is invalid; and the wrong way to go about this in the first place. An injunction would be needed.
Three claims, three wrong. Easy to correct, though.

DMCA is not invalid. You may not like it (I certainly don't) but it's the law of the land. Especially here, since it's all US corporations involved (the music may not be US based but it's not part of the considerations in the SC argument)

DMCA is exactly the right way to go about handling claims about abuse of this specific type of IP rights (copyright violation)

Injunctions aren't needed at all for this outcome, and that's covered in the court order allowing the DMCA notice to go forward. See, an injunction would be much broader - it would say, "Stardock is not allowed to sell SC:O" and would give reasons and a timeframe. But a DMCA notice just lets game storefronts know that "you are selling a game that is currently under litigation for copyright violations." It only stops certain storefronts from selling the game. Stardock is still allowed to sell SC:O on their own site; Steam and GOG have just been told that if they don't disable access unless/until a counterclaim is made, they may be at some legal risk. Finally, Stardock hasn't even remotely defended its own request for an injunction, which was to prevent DMCA claims from P&F. All in all, there's no legal grounds for preventing the IP rights holders from protecting their owned IP.

EDIT: I see Leonard French has just put up a video covering it all in detail. It's a long video, though, so you might want to play it at double speed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ieb1ajwwUFo
Post edited January 02, 2019 by OneFiercePuppy
Posted January 02, 2019
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OneFiercePuppy: DMCA is exactly the right way to go about handling claims about abuse of this specific type of IP rights (copyright violation)
But is it really the "exactly right way to go about handling claims" when one is already in the midst of litigation? Especially when the two companies you are serving notice are already part of the lawsuit? This is on an ethical level, not a legal one.

The court not issuing an injunction prior to the fact is obvious. Most courts are not going to place a limit on unspecific future legal actions. Especially with this case being so early in the process. 1 year is meaningless, this case is at the very beginning stages. And forget about how well Stardock defended the claim, this case is purely about money and monetary losses as such does not constitute "irreparable harm". It can be "repaired" through an award of damages.
Posted January 02, 2019
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OneFiercePuppy: DMCA is exactly the right way to go about handling claims about abuse of this specific type of IP rights (copyright violation)
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RWarehall: But is it really the "exactly right way to go about handling claims" when one is already in the midst of litigation? Especially when the two companies you are serving notice are already part of the lawsuit? This is on an ethical level, not a legal one.

The court not issuing an injunction prior to the fact is obvious. Most courts are not going to place a limit on unspecific future legal actions. Especially with this case being so early in the process. 1 year is meaningless, this case is at the very beginning stages. And forget about how well Stardock defended the claim, this case is purely about money and monetary losses as such does not constitute "irreparable harm". It can be "repaired" through an award of damages.
you can't repair a negative view of a company with the public. You cannot repair the damage done by this DCMA to a possible console port which may never happen (ie Sony not wanting to have the game on their consoles because of the legal issues). You cannot repair the fact that the company may close the games division.
Posted January 02, 2019
Hm, found some post on the issue with a link to a relevant Youtube video.

I've been a long time fan of Star Control. I've been watching things for a while. If you check out YouTuber Law on YouTube, you can get a really good take. Not a lawyer, so my layperson's understanding:

The creators sold the rights for Star Control's trade mark, marketing and distribution rights on the condition that if the game fails to generate $1,000 in revenue then all rights revert to them. The distributing company eventually stopped selling the game. The creators presumed the rights reverted to them, but never got a declaratory judgement to legally cover that they did. The defunct rights were eventually sold through companies until it wound up with Atari, who sold the trade mark rights to Stardock. Stardock believes that the contract for the copywrite is still in effect; thus, they own the franchise.

Stardock wanted to make a game and began doing so. It's he said/she said at this point: Creators says they were in discussions with Stardock who wanted to by rights to the copywrite to make a game, but ultimately the creators said, "No, we want to make a sequel." Stardock says they told the creators they have the rights to make the game and wanted their blessings/input. There appears to be evidence that Stardock's version of events have changed over time and misrepresents events.

Whatever the case, Stardock decided to go ahead with the idea that the most the creators could own is the original characters, artwork and music. So, they made a game with the core idea but with alternate versions of the characters, art and music. The DMCA takedown was issued because it appears that Stardock then decided to use some original characters in the game, to which the original creators claim copywrite.

The most recent court ruling was less than stellar for Stardock, who used very poor legal arguments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ieb1ajwwUFo
There is also a response which includes what Sabin_Stargem mentioned above.

Good summary! One small correction/amplification:

> Stardock wanted to make a game and began doing so. It's he said/she said at this point

The filing in the Leonard French video indicates that the court has access to correspondence between Wardell and Reiche/Ford from this period, in which Wardell explicitly acknowledges Reiche/Ford's claims to the SC1/2 IP and says that he accepts those claims as valid and would not incorporate such IP into his new game without a license from them. (Which Reiche/Ford refused to grant.)

Much later on, Stardock released DLC content packs for Star Control: Origins that incorporated some of those very IP elements Wardell acknowledged Reiche/Ford's rights to into that game. Example:

- Star Control: Origins Arilou Content Pack: https://steamdb.info/app/899550/

- The Arilou alien race from Star Control and Star Control 2: http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Arilou_Lalee%27lay

So if Wardell is saying now that he has never accepted Reiche and Ford's claimed rights to the SC1/2 IP, and the court has written evidence that at one point in the past he absolutely did acknowledge those rights, that would put the dispute outside the "he said/she said" zone.
Posted January 02, 2019
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Lucumo: copywrite
Anybody who uses that term in a case of COPYRIGHT has no idea of what they are talking about.

Its usually people who deal in COPYWRITING.

These are different things entirely.
Posted January 02, 2019
Its's already removed from steam. Its $39.99 right now on gog. If it was on sale for like 75% off or something I might jump on it but not for full price.
Posted January 02, 2019
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jrich3500: Its's already removed from steam. Its $39.99 right now on gog. If it was on sale for like 75% off or something I might jump on it but not for full price.
It was discounted on Steam when it was taken down. Nowhere near 75% off though, the game only came out 4 months ago.

I'm rather surprised how fast Steam took it down.
Posted January 02, 2019
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Lucumo: copywrite
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Sachys: Anybody who uses that term in a case of COPYRIGHT has no idea of what they are talking about.

Its usually people who deal in COPYWRITING.

These are different things entirely.
Pretty sure he just misspelt it. Not that it really changes any of the content.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionEarly warning: Star Control Origins removal (probably right away)(72 posts)(72 posts)
(72 posts)