'Star Control: Origins' Pulled From Steam And GOG Following DMCA Claim (polygon.com) 185
PC gaming stores Steam and GOG have took down the video game Star Control: Origins following DMCA takedown notices issued by two designers of the original Star Control games, Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III. Star Control: Origins, a spiritual successor to the old games, is a strategy game about exploring space in an alternate galaxy. From a report: According to Stardock CEO Brad Wardell, those who have already purchased Origins can continue playing it. He added that the DMCA claim will cause his company "to lay off some of the men and women who are assigned to the game." The legal battle over the future of the Star Control franchise dates back to 2013 when Stardock purchased rights to Star Control intellectual property from Atari during a bankruptcy auction. Three years later, in 2016, Stardock revealed that it was developing Star Control: Origins. At the time, Stardock said it was working under the assumption that it had "acquired the rights to Star Control 1/2/3." Court documents reveal that may not be the case, and that Ford and Reiche may instead have conflicting rights to the IP.
Re: Gotta say it (Score:2)
Name Change (Score:1)
What they need is a name change. Instead of Star Control Origins, SCO!
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A chance to personally beat SCO? I'd buy that!
They knew they didn't buy the rights (Score:2)
they knew they didn't buy the rights to the alien designs etc all of the content. thats why they tried to license it from toys for bob guys who actually made the stuff.
then they tried to just approriate all of it despite that once the license negotiations came to halt and wanted to add the legacy ships into the game etc. it was really bizarre business move that could only end up in failure as there was precedent that the guys who they bought the name from had to previously license the stuff from the tfb guy
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No.
Going by the filed court documents (from both sides) they paid for:
1) The Star Control Trademark (ie 'the name', not the copyright on the universe/characters/ships/backstory etc.)
2) The CODE for SC3
3) Possibly (but possibly not, its fuzzy) small parts of the SC3 IP that were original to that game and weren't directly derived from the SC1/2 material such as some artwork and story dialog. The quantity of this likely to be minimal and mostly useless when detached from the bulk of the SC IP.
It is also clear
They don't own SC3 IP, they co-own at best. (Score:2)
you see, the sc3 ip was based on sc2 IP and was time limit licensed to accolade/atari. it had an extension possibility, but even that passed like 15 years ago.
Point being they DO NOT HAVE the rights to even sell copies of star control 3.
so they do not own sc3 ip, they own the parts of it that accolade made, which can't be sold without a license from tfb guys. and that such licenses existed should quite clearly explain/prove that stardock didn't buy(or even think they bought, main point!) the rights they no
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Yeah no kidding. This from a company like Stardock, which basically made a Master of Orion clone without infringing on the basic IP. Could they have not created their own IP? No, instead they had to license a well known trademark.
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Star Control 3 AFAIK does not use the same source code as either SC1 or 2. It is a wholly different game and much crappier too. It is loosely based on Star Control 2 plot elements and was made under license. The original authors own the copyrights to both the datafiles (story, art) and the source code of the games they made. They only sold the trademark to Accolade, which was later bought by Infogrames and later Hasbro. Or was it the other way around? Then sold the trademark to Stardock.
So no Stardock canno
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And what makes this really sad and petty is that if they can't come to an agreement, NO ONE will make money.
Why can't they just agree on a 50/50 deal and move on?
Re:A Difficult Situation For Both Sides (Score:5, Informative)
Why should the company that made the new game pay 50 percent to past contributors?
They aren't Disney ;)
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Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III, repeatedly stardock that it owned the SC1/2 copyrights, and would not license them because they wanted to make another game in that universe.
Re:A Difficult Situation For Both Sides (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the ownership of the content beyond the brand is fuzzy.
Star Control was owned by Accolade, and didn't go with Paul and Fred. Accolade was able to release Star Control 3 using a different development team as an example of this seeming to be the case, using the brand and the characters. Stardock paid $400k for this.
It's worth reading both https://www.stardock.com/games... [stardock.com] and https://www.dogarandkazon.com/ [dogarandkazon.com] to see both sides.
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Ultimately tho the use of the character/story/universe/artwork IP for 1&2 belong to Paul and Fred, 3 was developed under a specific licence from Paul and Fred which not only was for one game only (as part of a three game publishing licence), it expired when as per a clause in the contract royalties stopped which is accepted fact in court filings by both sides. Leaving Accolade/Atari/Stardock owning a specific trademark registration and the code for 3 but with no right to use the characters. Also Stard
Re: A Difficult Situation For Both Sides (Score:2)
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Stardock never claimed to own the IP. They claimed to own the name.
Think of it like this: "You can make a 'Star Wars' game, but you CANNOT use Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, or any other character, or vehicle, shown in any of the movies, nor can you use the Empire, the Rebellion, or any other named character."
So what do you do? You make Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
StarDock is trying to make Star Control: The Old Republic.
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Stardock never claimed to own the IP. They claimed to own the name.
No, Stardock clearly is claiming they own the Star Control IP. [stardock.com] They are not claiming that they own certain things.
They did this despite knowing Stardock had acquired the Star Control IP in 2013 and knowing before hand our announcement schedule. Their actions created confusion in the market as to the origin of Star Control games which is why we have trademark laws.
Think of it like this: "You can make a 'Star Wars' game, but you CANNOT use Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, or any other character, or vehicle, shown in any of the movies, nor can you use the Empire, the Rebellion, or any other named character."
I don't understand your point. If you make a Star Wars game, you need permission from the copyright holder. Currently that owned is Disney as they purchased the IP from Lucas Arts. Any game and material including characters is subject to what the IP holder (Disney) will allow. If they allow you to create a Star Wars game but no Han that is within their rights.
So what do you do? You make Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Er what? BioWare worked out a licens
Re: A Difficult Situation For Both Sides (Score:2)
Because the past contributors (Score:2)
These guys _aren't_ Disney. They're they guys who make Star Control. There's a paper trail where Stardock said they wouldn't be using Star Control assets in their games several years ago. They also repeatedly tried to buy the rights for Star Control from the creators and were told no, we want to make our own game.
There's a good reading of it here [youtube.com]. I'm not 100% sure if the original creators are in the right (IANAL), but it looks like they are.
Re: A Difficult Situation For Both Sides (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: A Difficult Situation For Both Sides (Score:2)
Re: A Difficult Situation For Both Sides (Score:2)
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> Why can't they just agree on a 50/50 deal and move on?
Ego & Greed.
They are a cancer that destroys everything and why we can't have nice things.
I guess they would rather have 100% of nothing instead of 50% of something.
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Because Ford and Reiche want creative control over the franchise and plan to release thier own game based on the original copyrights.
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From what I understand, StarDock bought the rights to the name 'Star Control' and 'Star Control II' in one of those asset liquidation sales of the old Accolade IP. Accolade was the publisher of the original Star Control, and had ownership rights to the name. Toys for Bob (the company that Paul & Fred founded), retained all the other rights - which is how the Ur-Quan Masters re-release of Star Control 2 came about. Stardock appears to have believed (incorrectly, IMHO) that name "Star Control" meant th
Re:A Difficult Situation For Both Sides (Score:4, Informative)
Paul and Fred's side: https://www.dogarandkazon.com/ [dogarandkazon.com]
Stardock's side:
https://www.stardock.com/games... [stardock.com]
Basically, Stardock wanted to do Star Control and paid $400k for what they believed would enable to do it legally from Atari, and reached out to Paul and Fred to get them onboard, but Activision blocked that. Paul and Fred asked they not use the species and such verbatim, though at the time the legal picture is fuzzy (Atari probably sold *all* rights to Star Control 3, which would seem to include most of the species and ships, even if SC1/SC2 picture is fuzzier), so Stardock agreed.
When Paul and Fred *could* do something, things went sour quickly, with Stardock going crazy that they would be *competing* with Paul and Fred rather than cooperating with them.
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Not a difficult situation for customers:
DMCA takedowns as for owned IP. As the ownership of the IP is in question why was the DMCA acted upon? It's up to the courts not up to Steam to make the ruling, and it's up to the courts to determine damages as a result of infringement / ban sale.
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When they got wind that TfB was making a sequel to UQM, they sued.
This is literally the opposite of what happened. Stardock reached out to Paul & Fred regarding buying the IP and wanted them to collab on it. They declined. Years later, when Stardock was about to release their Star Control, they again spoke with Paul & Fred. Paul & Fred stated they ALSO had a game they planned to make, to which Stardock said "awesome, let's cross-promote! Here's our intended announcement date" which P&F used to pre-empt Stardock's announcement with their own.
P&F initia
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And what makes this really sad and petty is that if they can't come to an agreement, NO ONE will make money.
Honestly I won't pay money for any Star Control that isn't developed by Ford/Reiche, so I'm not really sure that this is a good use of Stardock's time or money. I do not know what they were thinking when they bought the rights, but if they had actually PLAYED star control 3, they'd realize this was damaged goods and that fans of star control 2 are probably very wary of any sequel. There are quite a
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Also that it started out very respectful and amicable.
The summary is that Stardock really wanted to make a Star Control game with Fred and Paul, and acquired the legal rights to Star Control. They reached out to Fred and Paul.
Fred and Paul wanted to work with them, but were barred by their obligations to be able to commit, and asked for Stardock to at *least* not use the aliens and such verbatim, and Stardock did that.
The tricky part comes when Paul and Fred actually freed up and could actually start workin
What a mess but... Stardock is to blame here (Score:5, Interesting)
I like Stardock games, and I've read good things about star control: origins, although I haven't purchased it (yet). I was a big fan of the originals, and planned on buying the one from the authors too... (Ghosts of the Precursors) when it comes out.
TFA has a pretty good summary though, of why stardock is to blame here, in the judges own words:
âoeThe harm Plaintiff [Stardock] complains of is indeed of its own making,â writes Armstrong. âoePlaintiff had knowledge of Defendantsâ(TM) [Ford and Reicheâ(TM)s] copyright claims from the outset. Despite that knowledge, it developed potentially infringing material without resolution of the IP ownership issues, and then publicized the release of that material during the pendency of this action. It now claims that its investment in Origins and reputation are on the line. Given that Plaintiff largely created the foregoing predicament, the Court is disinclined to extricate Plaintiff from a peril of its own making.â
It was beyond foolish to produce the game without resolving the IP conflicts which were a known issue from day zero. It's not like this copyright action came out of nowhere.
The exception that proves the rule (Score:2)
It was beyond foolish to produce the game without resolving the IP conflicts which were a known issue from day zero.
I guess sometimes it *is* better to ask for permission rather than beg for forgiveness!
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I really don't think Stardock is that much to blame.
The situation started because "Ford and Reiche" sold the rights to the Star Control trademark(name). And after they had sold that, they announced that that they were creating a successor to Star Control. And they are obviously not allowed to do that.
The ip situation is odd. Star Dock agree that they don't own the ip itself, but they claim they don't use it(And thus don't need it), because Star Control: Origin contains their own ip, set in the Star Control
Re:What a mess but... Stardock is to blame here (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, the IP situation is odd, but they clearly knew it was odd AND contentious BEFORE they started writing code so they should have worked it out ahead of time.
The situation started because "Ford and Reiche" sold the rights to the Star Control trademark(name). And after they had sold that, they announced that that they were creating a successor to Star Control. And they are obviously not allowed to do that.
Actually they absolutely can. They sold the trademark. Trademarks are funny things, they don't come with any of the copyrights. They are JUST the name. As long as the sequel doesn't use the $NAME, they can use everything else.
but they claim they don't use it(And thus don't need it), because Star Control: Origin contains their own ip, set in the Star Control universe.
They could have made a star control style game like starcontrol 3's relationship to starcontrol 1/2, and called it star control because they DO own the name... but they apparently reference the Arilou, and apparently had DLC with the Melnorme in it etc... so they very likely crossed the line into using IP they don't own.
"Somehow unrelated: Star Dock had the right to sell the old Star Control games."
In much the same way buying (non-exclusive!!) rights to distribute the Ghostbusters movie doesn't give you copyright on the movie, or any of its songs, or rights to the future of the franchise etc. You have a right to make copies of that one thing and to sell those copies. That's it.
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The tricky part is that Star Control 3 is in the mix, and they seem to have acquired Copyright of *that*, which did not have copyright from Paul and Fred at all.
So either Star Control 3 was illegally produced and Stardock inherited that situation or Star Control 3 is legal and Stardock can get in that way.
The real problem started when Stardock went to try to block Paul and Fred, which was just bad form. They didn't relish the thought of competing with the recognized creative force behind the franchise and
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StarControl 3 ... first have you played it?
It's very much exactly what stardock would have been allowed to create... its a 'star control' style game, with exploration and planets and top down battles, and its called star control (because they had the trademark), but its not really connected to the previous games at all in any way. I think maybe there's a one sentence in the manual like ... Welcome to starcontrol 3, which takes place 1000 years later in another corner of another galaxy..." and that pretty mu
Re:What a mess but... Stardock is to blame here (Score:5, Interesting)
No Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III. entered into contract with Accolade, a game company to develop Start control, wherin the creative content of the game would be copyrighted by Ford and Reiche, and accolade would get exclusive rights as long as a minimum royalty was paid. Accolade also recieved rights to the trademark and and marketing materials created for the game. Atari later bought accolade, but did not pay the minimum royalty from 2001-2011, so the publishing rights also reverted to Ford and Reiche. Later F+R, Atarti, and GOG entered a three way agreement to publish SC1/2, which did pass to Startdock for a while.
Ford and Reiche didn't sell the mark (and never owned it), but trademarks do have fair use exceptions, one of which is the nominative use. For example saying software is compatible with Windows does not violate Microsoft trademark. I don't think the simple truthful description that a game contains material from or is in the same universe as a different game is unfair use of trademarks.
Re: What a mess but... Stardock is to blame here (Score:5, Insightful)
Also Stardock should have paid attention to the situation. Ford and Reiche had a 1988 licensing agreement with Accolade with Accolade owning certain things like the trademark but Ford and Reiche owning other things. Stardock believed it purchased all necessary IP when it bought out Atari's assets (who had purchased Accolade) when Atari when bankrupt. However two things should have alerted Stardock that this claim was tenuous. First was the 2002 open source version of SC2 called The Urquan Masters which was initially released by Ford and Reiche and not opposed by Atari. Second was the 2011 inclusion of Star Control 1 and 2 on the GOG store. As soon as it went on sale, Ford and Reiche objected and contacted Atari who worked out a new licensing agreement with Ford and Reiche.
The Urquan Masters port is telling because it does not use the Star Control name (trademarked by Accolade) but is essentially the same game as SC2. If Ford and Reiche didn't have IP rights they could not have open sourced it. During the incident with the sale on GOG, Atari all but admitted that it did not own the rights to SC1 or SC2. Thus when Stardock bought Atari's assets later, Stardock could not have bought the Star Control rights.
Re: What a mess but... Stardock is to blame here (Score:4, Interesting)
It's likely a "speak no evil, hear no evil" situation. They didn't ask and when someone brought it up, Stardock likely replied that they didn't want to know.
Stardock wanted the brand that was it.
Maybe it's time we started to look at forcibly retiring trademarked brands when the original company goes under or is bought under duress. All this seems to do is to turn brands into trading cards to be traded among companies. That's not good for anyone other than the wealthy who try to hide behind them.
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I thought Star Control: Origins ditched all the aliens and ships though, so even less related to the assets than Star Control 3?
Stardock did create the mess by trying to block Paul and Fred, but Paul and Fred might be going a bit overboard in their 'counterattack' here.
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On the other hand, they did pay $400,000 for... something...
If they can't do *anything* with that $400,000 purchase, it would seem that they were screwed too.
Re: What a mess but... Stardock is to blame here (Score:2)
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Yup. Agreed. But it appears they were screwed by their own lawyers, and/or the people who sold them what they bought.
But they weren't buying from the original authors; they bought what they bought from the bankrupt shell of a company that owned the trademark and some distribution rights from the original authors, or something along that line.
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"It's an original work not using any of the original assets. Copyright covers a particular work (i.e. the original)."
Then why can't i publish all my Harry Potter fanfiction about different wizardly students?
Copyright has long held to cover particular fictional 'settings'. We can all publish books that take place in Chicago or New York, but good luck publishing your novel about some villains in Gotham City, especially if you keep making references to Wayne Enterprises and Arkham Asylum... even if you don't
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If Ford and Reiche didn't have IP rights they could not have open sourced it.
I think your post uses the phrase "IP rights" too vaguely, given that a crisp characterization is the CRUX of the disagreement between the parties. What IP rights are there? ...
* Copyright in the source code and artwork and music of SC1, SC2
* Copyright in the source code and artwork of SC3, excepting those bits already copyrighted in SC1/SC2
* Trademark in the name "Source Control"
* Any other ad-hoc license agreements
Copyright prevents other people from publishing copies or derivative works of your copyright
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Accolade/Atari owned:
This is entirely down to the details of the licensing agreement between FordReiche and Accolade. I've found it impossible to know what this was. It doesn't give us information to know who owns copyright, nor who owns trademark.
If Ford and Reiche can object to the sale of SC1 and SC2 on GOG then they have at the minimum distribution rights; however, they derive their distribution rights from owning the c
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Except if you read the full announcement history from Stardock they initially stated that Origins didn't have the original IP, then later claimed it did, and apparently included a reasonable portion of the SC1/2 universe back story which they have admitted (in court filings)that they didn't have rights to.
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in the judges own words:
The judge went on to write things that seemed questionable to me...
Would Stardock suffer financial harm from a DMCA notice by Ford+Reiche? The judge said this claim "depends upon the unsupported assumption that GOG and Valve will remove Origins upon receipt of a DMCA notice". But it's a very well supported assumption, that did indeed turn out true, and the judge earlier had indeed explained that GOG and Valve would have to take it down because that's how the DMCA works.
The judge also says that economic harm
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Generally I'm with you BUT, there doesn't need to be a provision in the DMCA for damages, they can simply sue for damages, and show that they were actually harmed. Although that will likely need to wait until they are exonerated ... assuming they are exonerated, which is dubious.
"and overall the industry seems extremely slow to act on counter-notifications"
True... but i don't think the actions of the RIAA/MPAA on Youtube and Facebook or whatever are representative of what a DMCA takedown notice for a game o
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I hate out copyright laws, but honestly it looks like stardock is not doing wrong.
It looks like they tried to involve those two early on(2013), kept them informed, and it wasn't until 2017 when Paul back stabed them, and trying to do as much harm as possible with Stardock(brad) trying to find a way to make things work.
It was Paul who in 2017 revealed that he was undermining Stardock by releasing the real sequel to StarControl 2. It wasn't until then that Paul tried claiming stardock didnt own the trademark
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I don't call it a back stab, more of a 'tit-for-tat' situation. Can you back your claims up with cites?
Paul didn't surprise anyone when he informed Stardock he was going to be releasing a sequel. That was an open discussion ALL along. The only area of possible debate there is the timing... that Paul may have timed his announcement to leverage the existing publicity of Origins being near launch, and that was a bit of a dick move, that both sides could have handled more graciously.
And remember, Paul didn't s
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Funny, modded down...I can't really blame that..
One of the better sources...
https://forums.starcontrol.com... [starcontrol.com]
Stardock does own trademark and more is debatable, until proven in court. Stardock tried working with, and encouraging them to be part of things even then they kept them in loop for years. (now I fully realize Stardock could be doing this because they don't have full ownership of all trademark/IP)
Stardock also didn't include IP from first two games. So no IP clash in Starcontrol Orgins yet DMCA.
Paul
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"Stardock also didn't include IP from first two games. "
They are splitting a hair their. I mean they have their 'own' Arilou, and their 'own' Melnorme... like writing "Star Wars" fan fiction in an alternate Star Wars universe where Wookies were shorter and Gungans had 4 arms. So totally not infringement of any IP right? That's definitely lawyer territory if you ask me. :)
"Paul/Fred had claimed they couldn't do it because of employment and to busy, but after Stardock had a release date they magically had started something"
Seeing someone else start a project you've always had a passion for is often motivation to finally do it yourself. I agree this could hav
Such bullshit. (Score:2)
It was announced, as of January 3, 2014, that Stardock has started a Star Control reboot, but has no estimation of a release date.[13] The Star Control website and forums have also been relaunched.[14]
It seems to me that if there is a public announcement that you are developing a game that specifically mentions your "IP" and you fail to raise any objections for 4 years then you have failed to enforce your copyright. Only raising objections three months after release is such bullshit.
I don't care if the owners are technically entitled under the law, this is still bullshit.
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Re: Such bullshit. (Score:2)
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Stardock constantly assured them that the game they were developing would not.
This is prime example of why you should get things in writing.
Thanks for the info, their claims seem far more legitimate now.
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The first court filing was actually December 2017, over a year ago, and according to those filings there had been ongoing communication around potential infringement between the parties for years before without resolution. It seems that the final straw for F&P was the announcement of the DLC that by its very nature can't not infringe as it is based on the original games.
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The term for that is "laches".
Laches is slightly different. For example, you could file a copyright infringement lawsuit against someone 20 years after they release a movie, game, etc. that infringes your copyright, and you're still legally entitled to stop them from selling it anymore. Laches limits the monetary damages that you can get to the time period before you found out about the infringing product (plus some reasonable amount of time to fill out all the paperwork to file the lawsuit). The point of laches is to prevent someone f
You can still purchase directly from Stardock (Score:2)
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I just purchased the game.
I would never have known about it except for this controversy, thanks!
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Update: The key worked just fine in Steam to download and install the game. Also, the game is $10 cheaper than advertised ($20 not $30).
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The article is incorrect. (Score:4, Interesting)
It is quite apparent that at no point did Stardock believe it had purchased Star Control 1&2 but what they may have thought was that by releasing the Star Control 2 source code as "The Ur-Quan Masters" under GPL that Paul Reiche and Robert Ford had given up any commercial interest and thus the entire game was free to redistribute as they saw fit when in reality the actual graphics, text and audio were all released under Creative Commons Noncommercial Sharealike and the copyrights and trademarks other than the "Star Control" name itself are still held quite tightly by Paul and Robert.
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The "Facts" as stated in that article are at odds with the various court filings from both sides and statements made since by Stardock.
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Its also kind of interesting that the stardock employee goes by the name of "deepspacenine", which I'm sure they don't have permission to use in relation to a space game from whoever the current holders of the DS9 trademarks are (CBS/Paramount?)...
Idiots (Score:1)
Who do they really expect to buy a reboot of some shitty DOS game? Who. Cares. Get over yourselves.
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Who do they really expect to buy a reboot of some shitty DOS game? Who. Cares. Get over yourselves.
Sequel. Reboot implies starting over. I'm definitely buying the one with the proper sequel content over the one with the official sounding name.
Of course, I'm more than above-average in my SC fanaticism. Been a big fan since Archon and StarCon.
Brad comments... (Score:2)
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There is no way this was a surprise, Brad wanted a legal fight and lined events to win it.
Must they refund you? and charge back = ban? (Score:2)
Must they refund you? and if not and you do an charge back can that = an full ban of all paided for games?
Re: Must they refund you? and charge back = ban? (Score:2)
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and if a judge orders it removed?? with some poorly worded thing that = must be fully purged?
GOG should be fine other then maybe no re downloading.
But if steam DRM will it keep working or if any change in there DRM system changes and the game stop working will they be able to fix it?
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and if a judge orders it removed?? with some poorly worded thing that = must be fully purged?
The removal means no new sales. Anyone who had previously purchased it can probably still download it and play it.
Yay! (Score:2)
GOG (Score:2)
GOG is like a distribution program or something by the way.
Origins: what a joke of a game (Score:2)
Steam and GOG are the judges? (Score:2)
The cases on IP have been ongoing for quite a while and are still being battled in the courts. Why is it then that Steam and GOG responded to the DMCA takedown requests if the ownership of the IP itself is in question?
Earlier this year the DMCA was used to block promotional material. Stardock issued a counter notice but the promotional material was not put back up. This is a clear indication that Steam and GOG are arbitrarily deciding who owns IP despite an ongoing court case about it.
Would this open Steam
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So they tooked it down?
We can all rest easily in our hice knowing that.
Re:TAKEN... They've TAKEN in down (Score:4, Funny)
No, wrong! wrong! wrong!
The past participle of the infinitive verb 'to take' is 'tooked'.
Gawd, everybody knows you add a 'd' at the end of a verb
to build its (I bet you thought I was gonna use "it's" there, didn't u)
past participle. It's usually used with an auxiliary verb such as "done" --
I done tooked your bike, MF'er.
Taken is the name of a 2009 movie staring Liam Neeson. Everybody knows that!
CAP === 'fixation'
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There was a house fire in my area over the holidays. Apparently quite a bad fire, although the people made it out fine.
So one of those people was a former student at a local high school, and well-liked even after she graduated. The school decided to do a fundraiser event and donate clothes and other items the family lost in the fire. The student, in tears, got up in front of the assembled school and the media (it was on TV which is how I saw it) and the former student, an actual graduate says (ahem) "