Villains & Vigilantes Creators Sue Publisher 71
rcade writes "Jeff Dee and Jack Herman, the creators of the super-hero roleplaying game Villains & Vigilantes, have filed a federal copyright lawsuit against the game's longtime publisher Scott Bizar of Fantasy Games Unlimited. They allege that Bizar has no rights to publish the game because his corporation was dissolved in 1991, reverting the rights to them. Dee and Herman revived the old-school RPG last year and have been battling Bizar ever since. Sadly, this suit will not be resolved by muscle-bound men in tights."
How About ... (Score:1)
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So only children file lawsuits now?
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Beware, hordes of Mactards will descend and burn your house down.
They'll try, but the iPhone lighter app isn't as hot as it looks.
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Wow, you just defined an expansion for Game Dev Story 2 [droidgamers.com]
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RTFA?
Brent Rose, the Tampa attorney representing Dee and Herman, told me in email that the suit was filed after other means of resolving the dispute were attempted. "There were cease and desist letters issued by both sides," he said. "We requested arbitration or mediation or even just a teleconference to just try and work things out before filing our federal lawsuit, but our written requests were either ignored or refused."
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Please, not another discussion of D&D 3.x.
Re:How About ... (Score:5, Funny)
Please, not another discussion of D&D 3.x.
Okay, how about D&D 4? I've started gold farming with my tank.
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Anything after AD&D ain't worth the time invested.
It's just simply no RPG anymore. It's just "hack monster, cash in loot, equip loot, become more powerful, rinse, repeat". Seriously. If I wanted to play WoW, I'd play WoW. I play D&D because WoW cannot give me what D&D gives me: A GM that gives me interesting, funny, exciting adventures with nonscripted quests where I may decide when, if and how I solve them.
And most of all, a new dungeon every time I play. Not "heck no, not again this one, it ta
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I could've sworn that all the 3E campaigns I was in had a GM, perhaps I failed my roll to disbelieve.
Re:How About ... roll the dice and... thats it (Score:2)
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ha where did you get that chunk of fantasy
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A roll playing games? What has Mon Santo been putting into the wheat?!?!
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You are giving him crap about using a word that sounds exactly the same, then you type a company's name incorrectly?
http://www.monsanto.com/Pages/default.aspx [monsanto.com]
The name is one word, not two, but at least you used all the letters in the correct order. :)
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Retroactive excuse: Their stock is MON. I'll claim that I just forgot the link and put in the space to separate the ticker from the continuation of their name.
Grammatical return fire: You're capitalizing god in your signature as if it were a proper noun...
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Wait, do you want something where everyone acts like adults and business people?
Or do you want something where everyone resolves their differences without suing everyone and invoking copyrights, trademarks, and patents?
Because, in the real world, "adults and business people" actually are usually the ones using lawsui
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That's quite a generalization you have going there.
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How about we try a new roll playing game where everyone acts like adults and business people and resolve their differences without suing everyone and invoking copyrights, trademarks and patents?
High fantasy isn't for everyone.
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"How about we try a new roll playing game where everyone acts like adults and business people and resolve their differences without suing everyone and invoking copyrights, trademarks and patents?"
I'm sure there is a GURPS book for that.
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I'm reminded of the joke illustration in the 1st edition AD&D DMG, where a group of fantasy characters are sitting around a table playing "Papers and Paychecks".
Ahhh.. FGU.. the old days.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember our interpretation of their acronym:
Fscking Game's Unplayable
Played this (Score:3)
Wow, I'd forgotten about this game. I played V&V back in 1987-ish with buddies back in junior high. We had the Marvel Super Heroes game too, for when we wanted to play "legit" super-heroes. Good times...
FYI, here's a review of it (not mine): http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9439.phtml [rpg.net]
V&V was a hell of a system - for its time (Score:1)
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I have often wondered how does a book based on pure fantasy become "outdated"
Re:V&V was a hell of a system - for its time (Score:5, Funny)
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Please do not disrespect the holy book sir.
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The _system_ is outdated. It was published in 1982. Just to give you an example of another outdated system, early D&D had you roll high for some things (attack rolls) and low for others (saving throws). In some cases, low scores were good (Armor Class), but high scores were good for others (hit points). One of the nice things D&D 3E did was to toss all that out the window and say "rolling high is good, high scores are good" across the board.
In this case, one of the dated elements in V&V is
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Games, including RPGs, aren't based on pure fantasy. Sure, the setting and story are based on fantasy, but game system designs draws from an evolving palette of tools to achieve the desired ends.
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Most games from that era actually look quite similar to D&D, and in some ways V&V was no exception. For instance, I believe normal stats were 3-18 (not that they couldn't be boosted or reduced - I remember insect powers reduced my character's intelligence to zero, but then I got power armor with intelligence 22...). Also there could be a massive disparate power balance - I think I had something like 11 powers when all was said and done, but two other heroes had only two. The GM went out of his way
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Mechanics.
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Sadly, that title sounds about right. There will be lawyers on one side and losers on the other.
In any RPG lawyers would have been hit with the nerf bat by now so hard...
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Ahhhh, the ancient problem.
How do I unsubscribe?
Hell yeah! (Score:1)
Confused about Bizar's rights. (Score:3)
FTA:
Our contract was with Fantasy Games Unlimited, Inc. -- which, we recently discovered, was "dissolved by proclamation" by the state of NY in 1991 for failure to pay state taxes. It no longer exists. And the contract clearly stated that if FGU, Inc., ever ceased to exist, then the publication rights reverted back to us.
If this is accurate, then how does this Bizar guy even have a leg to stand on to fight this? How can he claim anything at all? It seems like any litigation would reach the point where that bombshell is dropped and the judge would place judgement against Bizar for whatever these guys are asking for.
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Well I do understand that much, but the thing is, this Bizar guy seemingly has no claim to the game anymore. It's either in the hands of the government or the hands of the original author (which was the stipulation in their contract).
I'm not sure why this Bizar guy thinks he has any claim to sell the game anymore.
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I know this contradicts the Slashdot Libertarian streak where you should be able to
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...Again, that's not what I'm talking about.
First of all, I'm not sure where you're getting all this "the courts will rule the contract as signed was invalid" stuff. As far as I know, no one has even seen the contract to be able to make such a claim, and the idea of the ownership rights being given back in the event the company ceases to exist certainly isn't "invalid" - granted there are certain situations where that could not be upheld (like in the event of bankruptcy).
My whole point was I can't see where
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My whole point was I can't see where Bizar gets the idea he has any claim to the game once his company was dismantled. Either the people who obtained his assets have the game or the original creators do. I don't really care which one has them. I care that Bizar doesn't, since it would make no sense that he could.
I just gave likely legal issues that would prove you wrong. What I talked about directly addresses the question of claim to the game. He claims that there was at least one clause that resulted in the rights reverting to him in the even of some legal actions. I pointed out that such reversion may not be valid, depending on the legal actions that trigger them. You haven't disagreed with anything I've said, other than to state that you have the opinion that my premise is not sufficiently founded. I assert
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You're also completely ignoring the point, which is Bizar didn't hold the rights, his company did. His company was dissolved by order of the state, for failing to pay state taxes. At that point the publishing rights are an asset of the company and, as far as I know, it becomes the duty of receivers to dispose of them in whatever manner they see fit, in order to repay any creditors.
It's possible, of course, that Bizar personally bought those rights back from the receivers, but I suspect it's not likely. I
What I imagine Bizar's argument to be (Score:2)
Corporations that are dissolved by the state do not cease to exist, but once dissoved only have the legal capacity to pay off outstanding debts and disburse assets to shareholders.
The chief shareholder and/or chief creditor of FGU was Bizar.
Consequently, most assets including (but not limited to) the right to publish V&V were assigned to Bizar.
Bizar then formed a sole proprietorship with the name FGU which, as a sole proprietorship run by him, has the right publish whatever he has the right to publish.
I
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OK, that would actually make sense, assuming the facts as stated are correct.
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I'm not certain that bankruptcy laws matter in this case.
TFA stated that the corporation was dissolved due to nonpayment of taxes. That's not the same thing as bankruptcy.
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No, your original point does not stand. In most cases a company has to actively file for bankruptcy to be dissolved for reasons of being bankrupt.
If a company is making money and not paying taxes, dissolving the company in order to render it incapable of legally transacting business other than paying off creditors and disbusing remaining assets to shareholders is a very good way to recover tax moneys as the government tends to be first in the line of creditors.
When faced with such a situation, most companie
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Two different issues there:
1. Failure to pay taxes. This means the corporation didn't even file.
2. Failure to pay taxes owed. This means that the corporation owed taxes and didn't pay regardless of whether or not they filed.
In most states, the first of these can mean the end of the corporation if the coporation didn't owe any taxes. Imagine a corporation operating at a loss. They owe few, if any, taxes.
The second of these frequently overlaps with the first. But it doesn't have to. It is what gives the state
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Or the hands of anyone who bought Bizars assets.
V&V was a fun game. (Score:4, Insightful)
Once upon a time, I owned a game shop, I enjoyed playing V&V myself because it was a break from DMing. We had a super fun cheesy time, bellowing battle cries while we tossed dice to see if we fell flat on our face or landed a deadly blow. We had a GM for V&V nicked named Dizzy, and he put on a great game. Thinking back there are just some things that don't translate well into computer gaming. The social aspect of it being the number one thing that comes to mind. Gone are the late nights, the delivered pizza boxes stacked up, piles of empty soda cans and playing hard until everyone is goofy tired, played out and ready to crawl home and sleep late. We smoked too, a thick haze choked the pastiest of geeks, so we had a fan blowing it out. It was a place to go for so many people. Kids used to tell us that they would much rather be gaming at the shop than out at a party.
I still remember my cheesy character I named "The Black Mask", who wore a black mask...real brilliant, huh? But it I played it up until it would slay the lactose intolerant.
back? (Score:2)
I didn't even know it was back. Wow.
Does it still feature the "you, the player, are your superheroes secret identity" gimmick? I'd buy a copy just for that. It was an unbelievably cool idea.
Wait. (Score:2)
The creators of something have to sue a distributer to retain ownership? What a perfect representation of ownership in the 21st century.
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If you give some else complete rights to the material you created, what do you expect?
Was an "easement" created? (Score:1)
The fact that this went on for so long and the plaintiff didn't have any problems until recently would seem like an "easement" of sorts has been created, at least with respect to copies made in the past.
Yes, I know easements are for real estate but the concept is portable: If you knowingly let people use your property (real, physical, or otherwise) over an extended period of time and don't at least say "woah, ask permission first next time, please" you may lose exclusive control over it.