Their subsequent actions. You may have missed their PR and attempts to delegitimization our relationship with Star Control.  Remember this? https://www.dogarandkazon.com/blog/2017/12/1/there-were-many-great-battles-and-some-of-them-involved-lawyers 

We were not okay with them using our trademarks without authorization any more than they were not okay with what they believed to be us selling the DOS games on Steam without their authorization. But our public responses to our private displeasure were quite different.

Once they made it public that they they didn’t consider the Orz, Spathi, etc. to be part of the Star Control universe we became very concerned. Once they filed a suit to try to cancel our trademark it forced us to take a much firmer position with regards to Star Control and its related IP.

So what more would they need to do now? They’d need to license the Star Control IP they want to use (which we’d do for free), transfer Ghosts of the Precursors to us (just the name) as its notoriety is entirely based on having used the Star Control mark and go make their game.  They could even call it Ur-Quan Masters II (i,e, we’d transfer the mark to them). 

This seems promising. Has the settlement talks been fruitful?

Were they receptive to obtaining a license from Stardock to move forward with UQM2 considering you'd grant it for free? What are the specific elements of the SC IP they need to license? Is it the mark? Aliens?

It really isn't valid to spin this as them forcing your hand, since you were the one who decided to use that trademark to sue them.  Their response of trying to cancel the trademark was entirely expected once your suit was filed - there's no way their lawyer could have recommended differently. 

If you hadn't wanted the situation to escalate, you could have just sent a DMCA counter-notice, instead of a lawsuit.  If anything, you were the one forcing their hand.

Come on Elestan, do you know this personally? Do you have inside information and consult them for responses here on the forum. 

Me? Personally? >> I would hope that F&P are crushed like the parasites that they are. My hope is they are unable to continue in any form of SC development and have to beg Stardock to allow them to be 'part of the team'.

They had 20 years...20 years to come out and scream {WE ARE DOING a SEQUEL}

Instead they chose the exact day that SD announced their Fleet battles to announce their 'sequel'. That alone in my book qualifies them as scumbags and I hope they lose everything. 

/rant off.

Trademarks have been expanded to include things like unique motions, audio, and other elements that are used to unique identity the origin of a product.  But... The key thing that is evident with the many examples from the USPTO: Trademarks are used ON the product.  Not in, but ON the product.  Trademarks are NOT directly tied to the actual product itself NOR are elements within the product directly indicative of a trademark.  The developers behind PUBG have tried that with the frying pan in the game and "Winner winner chicken dinner", and have not been remotely successful.

Klingon is actually a trademark registered by Paramount specifically for Computer Games and Toys spaceships and model kits for building spaceships, because the term is used as labeling ON the products being sold.  Not because of what a Klingon is within the lore of Star Trek.  That actually copyright territory.  The major thing with trademarks is that they are ON products and they don't tie directly into individual components of the product.  Trademark protection (evidenced by the recovery sections of the Lanham act) are for when a trademark is used to represent the origin of goods and services by placing a confusing mark upon a similar product.  It is when goods and services have confusing labels ON them that issues crop up that the Lanham Act protects against.

Race names have been trademarked by Games Workshop, but they use those race names ON miniatures and toy products to label their origin coming from Games Workshop.  And the race name comes from their lore, but they use copyright to smack down anyone duplicating or creating anything similar to the actual products themselves.  They use trademark when people try to misrepresent the origin of a product using the race name ON the labeling of a product.  Games Workshop went after a book author because their TITLE on the book had Space Marine in it.  (Games Workshop lost that case, by the way.)

Moderator hat on: enough with the pretend Internet lawyer schtick. You have a question, ask it, but stop trying to try the case here. 

Playing Internet lawyer might be fun for you but it’s obnoxious to those who have to sift through it to find actual germane questions.

I do have a legitimate question. Yesterday there was a hearing is that correct?

I will assume because of a lack of information regarding it, that the information discussed will not (yet) be available to public? 

For years? I thought that the final court decision was going to be made in just over a year from now. Or is it going to be just the first court date out of many?

As for "a lot less personal animosity", that sounds reassuring, if it is true. In February and March at least, you sounded extremely angry with Fred and Paul, and naturally I was expecting you to want F&P to suffer - something akin to what Larsenex was suggesting a few posts above, if not worse. What I ultimately want, though, is that GotP gets made, by Fred and Paul (and whatever other developers they recruit). If I'm to believe what you're saying, though, whether GotP gets made or not depends entirely on F&P, so I hope they make the right decision.

There was a settlement conference yesterday but no movement. 

It’ll be a year before it could possibly reach a court. Then you have years of appeals after that.

As for being angry. Yes, I am angry at being called a “thief” and at having our reputation unfairly slagged. It’s particularly galling considering the other party are the ones who willfully exploited our IP that we had spent millions of dollars investing in, had worked hard to bring back into the public’s eye, just so they could cheaply gain publicity for their new game and timed it to upstage our big day that they knew we were planning for a long time. And as upsetting as that upstaging was, I did my best to publicly support them. 

But that’s nothing compared to some of the hate I’ve seen spewed by so-called fans towards other fans. And that’s really unfortunate.  

You're just debating adjectives there. Sure, offshore nuclear testing in international waters isn't the same thing as a full-fledged global nuclear purge strike, but it is neither the less crossing the line into participating in a nuclear arms race.

But ignoring the colourful analogy we basically agree they crossed the line from polite discourse to direct legal action. 

DMCA abuse has been a hot topic in creative communities since it was introduced and the general consensus is it is incredibly poor form to pull the trigger on a DMCA without attempting to deal with the parties in question first. Financially speaking it's a dumb move unless it's causing you immediate damages because it limits your potential remuneration should the issue be resolved in your favour in court (they weren't selling anything yet, so...). Or the other big reason to do it is to cause a disruption to a competitor, which is certainly an abuse of the system and why it has such a negative reception.

As for my comment on the illegal claim, I'm referring to their filing for a takedown of Star Control 3, a game they had nothing to do with. Or at least so I've been lead to believe. If correct then that's categorised as a fake DCMA claim and the penalties for similar cases where they were found not to have a legal copyright claim so far have been around $125,000. The DMCA's for Star Control 1 and 2 might well stand depending on how this legal action all plays out. But I've not seen anything that suggests they even have any kind of copyright claim for SC3. :-/

I could be wrong and that's fine. I'm just going by the information we've been given. Doesn't make it any less an industry faux pas to handle things how they did. If the courts do rule against them, no one I know in the industry is going to work alongside them in the future. What they did is real loose cannon behaviour and despite people wanting to believe otherwise, it is absolutely a shot across the bow. Maybe they didn't understand this. But it's not like they've been inactive in the industry. They must have picked up something about industry etiquette while working at Activision... Then again... No, I'll leave the obvious dig at Activision out. Low hanging fruit.

Now, I'm not saying Stardock has handled themselves spotlessly either. The CEO Brad has a short temper and big mouth (sorry Brad, you know it's true. You're lawyers must hate you for it but at least you wear your heart on your sleeve I guess). But I'm not going to stand up for P&F on any action they took I don't agree with either. There is no point playing favourites. If you have to omit or colour the truth to defend your preference they don't deserve the pedestal in my opinion. 

Honestly, though far from untarnished my general opinion of Stardock is rather positive. They do screw up. The number of hours I've wasted in galactic civ releases during launch months because of save ending bugs... I preordered the deluxe edition of elemental, I don't think I need to elaborate on that. I've had more than one disagreement with things Brad has said in his fits of fury on twitter. I'm kinda bitter about the whole selling of impulse to gamestop thing too. So even ignoring this current debacle with P&F when it comes to Stardock I have plenty to complain about...

But intent matters.

I know what I'm getting with Stardock and while the ride is rough sometimes I know there are good intentions backing things up. Broken products will get polished. Dissatisfied customers get reimbursed. They take their windfalls and they lift other studios up and generally promote growth and creativity in the industry. They examine themselves and try to understand where they've gone wrong and try to improve. So in spite of not having a stellar record, I respect them and frankly although I don't agree 100% with their actions here, they are about in line with what I anticipate. Of course, if you are one of those people who is all "If you aren't 100% with me you're 100% against me" then we just aren't going to get along. We like the idea of goodies and baddies, black and white clear-cut heroes and villains. But it's not realistic, and my 2 cents is Stardock if nothing else at least aspires to be one of the lighter shades of grey. The fact it is a shade of grey and not pure white is just the truth of the matter and seems pointless to deny. 

On the other hand, speaking of dark grey clouds looming on the horizon... I have lost a tremendous amount of respect for P&F in the last few short months. I mean I still give them props for what they created but damn, my opinion of them is just not what it was. There is a lesson in there somewhere about harbouring false idols I'm sure. I still totally hope they get to make Star Control Ghosts regardless. But I'm not going to defend them on their breaches of professional courtesy and I'm perfectly happy to let seasoned lawyers decide if they are legally in the right or wrong in court so I don't see the point in debating that.

If that leads you to think I'm siding purely with Stardock in this case, let me assure you I'm perfectly happy to talk about the controversial things Stardock has said and call them out on it. 

In fact, I have done so. But it's just got buried is so much pseudo-legal bullshit from fanbois trying to absolve P&F of absolutely everything and paint them purest white even though it takes two to tango. Think about that... We can't have a discussion about the things that Stardock has done which we disagree with because it's buried under the noise of fanatics trying to argue you can't disagree with anything P&F have done. That's the mentality of a fandom I want nothing to do with frankly.

So I don't know what to tell you. I want to see P&F continue on as creatives, building new stories and worlds too. But the more people I see avidly trying to convince me their shit doesn't stink, the more suspicious I become... 

Correct. They could end this tomorrow and be able to make their game. Understanding that there cannot be any further confusion on what Star Control represents and who owns it (noting that Stardock continues to make no claims on the in game copyrights of sc 1/2).

Ok Frogboy... I've got a few questions..

Why do you post 99% of your stuff as Frogboy but occasionally post as Draginol? 

Ok, and now for the actual real question...

Given StarDock is a Publisher...    Why does it seem that Paul and Fred are so resistant to publishing their game as "Star Control: Ghosts of the Precursors"  with i donno.... Stardock as the publisher?     Wouldn't that be the best of both worlds?   you get to control your Trademark, and they can develop their game and then license the IP/Copyrights to you...  

I know you initially offered the game engine from SC:O to them and they declined...   Can you provide any insight as to why this was not worked on as a better path so all sides can get what they want? 

Frogboy is my main forum handle but I go by Draginol sometimes just based on how I'm posting (I still use Live Writer for some of my posts).

Now, I obviously can't speak for PF but my belief is that they want to do their game without any interference from anyone.  And until October, that would have been possible.   Now with all this confusion, they're fortifying all copyrights they can and we are fortifying our trademark rights.

Ideally, the parties would just set up licensing agreements. But that requires the parties to agree on what they need to license.

I have no idea what Live Writer is, but that makes sense.  I just thought that perhaps the Draginol was for more official company posts but it does not seem consistent in that manor...   perhaps that's what was intended but who has time to switch usernames eh?

I donno... I can see why they would not want to use the engine from SC:O as then they would be dependent on two outside developers (Stardock and Oxide)    But perhaps I don't fully understand the roll publishers often take in the development cycle of games.. I know SD pulled the plug on Servo because it seemed the development was not happening at a pace you all wanted...

But One would think that with Paul and Fred and how much you seemed to idolize them, something could have been worked out where  they agreed to join press releases and published the end product through StarDock ...   they get to publish using all the "free" good will and publicity that you created by reviving the game...    You get the boost that having them making a game you publish would bring to cross sell SC:O...

I just don't understand why this was not the path taken... and it really makes me think that the only reason it wasn't was due to some misplaced pride or ego...    probably and possibly on both sides of the equasion and that really makes me disappointed.

Did you read my last post, where I linked the box text for SC3, which said "...based upon characters created and used under license from Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford"?  That means that Accolade believed that it needed a copyright license from Paul and Fred in order to publish Star Control III, and that's why they felt that they had a copyright claim and could issue a DMCA for it.

Stardock does dispute their copyright, claiming variously that either the original license is still valid, or that they can't prove that they had a copyright to anything in SC3.  P&F responded by showing the original contract with its expiration clauses, and the addendum showing that Accolade paid them for a copyright license for SC3.  All of these are still to be argued in court.

Brad, I think it is clear that you should just concede defeat and shutter Stardock.

Clearly your counsel, who has spent his entire career practicing in this field, has either 1) cow-tailed to your clearly erroneous litigation wishes or 2) is completely incompetent and has committed serious malpractice. Indeed, if desk-jockey attorneys can know without a doubt that your legal positions are untenable, you truly have no chance in this litigation.

Elestan, Lakstoties, and the rest of the P&F lackeys have proven, with their deft googling and Wikipedia reading skills, that you have no legal standing against the righteousness of their lords Paul and Fred. I seriously snorted out my coffee when I read Lakstoties state he questioned your understanding of trademark law. No doubt Lakstoties knows more about these topics than a CEO of a company that has been involved in several prior IP law suits and the company's legal counsel.

Who needs actual attorneys specializing in the field when one can just read general summaries of broad legal topics that aren't even applicable to the issues in dispute and apply only the facts that support preconceived notions of who is the aggrieved party? 

I think we're all disappointed in how it turned out; perhaps the only truly unifying sentiment in this.

In my opinion, this dispute is about two sideshows, and one major sticking point.  The sideshows are about whether P&F's announcement post last Fall infringed Stardock's trademark by calling GotP a sequel to "Star Control", and whether Stardock infringed P&F's copyright by putting the games on Steam.  If that was the extent of it, it would just be about money.  They could go to court, or arbitration, figure out what lines were crossed and who needs to pay whom, write a check, and be done with this whole sordid affair.  Maybe there would be another fight first as they each try different arguments to negate the other's IP rights.

But the major sticking point comes in because there is a basic disagreement over exactly what is controlled by copyright, and what is controlled by trademark.

Paul and Fred (and the UQM community) had the understanding that the trademark only covered the title used to publish and market the game ("Star Control"), while the copyright covered the game itself and everything in it, particularly including the alien races.  Consequently, the assumption for the last 15-20 years has been that the trademark was basically irrelevant to the creation of any new game in the UQM universe, as long as it wasn't called "Star Control".

Stardock, however, is advancing an argument that their trademark gives them control not just over the title, but also over the game's universe, particularly the alien race names, which are fairly essential to continuing the story from SC2.

So to answer your question, I don't think working together was possible once this difference emerged, because both sides are insisting that they own the game universe.  Paul and Fred say that they've had control over it via copyright ever since Accolade's license expired around 2001, whereas Stardock says that control of it rests in the trademark, so Paul and Fred never had control of it at all.

I don't think Paul and Fred can compromise on this point, because it would mean that they couldn't return to the UQM universe without Stardock's permission, and they view that universe as their baby.  IMHO, Stardock could still make plenty of great games without using the SC2 races, so it could yield this point if it wanted to.  But since it doesn't seem likely to do so, this question will probably need an actual court ruling in order to be resolved.

It'd really be best left to Frogboy to "answer questions".  He's in a position to actually 'know', not merely 'interpret'.

I think eride in #343 got it exactly right. [though it took me a moment to see the tongue was firmly in cheek]...;p

I think you are being disingenuous with statements like the above.

The only party to this dispute with real skin in the game is Stardock. Stardock actually has invested in this series over the last 25 years, to the tune of multiple millions of dollars. Stardock possess a real product that Paul and Fred can harm via their actions (e.g. DMC takedowns, law suits, hiring of public relations companies to seed the media with negative coverage/review bombing, etc.). Even more important, Paul and Fred have already done the above harmful actions and threatened to continue!  Why would Stardock, the only party with real money invested, take a chance that the other party, with no real skin in the game, won't "shiv" them in the back next chance they get?

Arguably Paul and Fred have no reason to act reasonably/rationally here because their only interest in this series is the belief that they "own" it and everything related to it. Their behavior is reminiscent of a young child unwilling to share *their* toy. They have no commercial or otherwise monetary investment. The only thing they've done with the series in 25 years is announce vaporware on the exact day Stardock was announcing a beta for a real, actual, existing game. They have nothing "real" to lose by Stardock's future actions if the lawsuit is settled (they obviously do have a lot to lose if the litigation ends in Stardock's favor). 

Everything you post is slanted towards Paul and Fred. You should reconsider your view on which party is at fault here. I think we are eventually going to see a lot of posts on the topic of either 1) Stardock strong arming Paul and Fred into a settlement or 2) the court is in error. Some people just cannot fathom the possibility that Paul and Fred are bad actors here.

Why the blazes should Stardock yield? The IP is theirs, they paid for it. If P&F had wanted it, they should have taken Brad up on his offer. The moment P&F tried to pursue legal action against Stardock, the gloves come off and the lawyers take over. You are emotionally invested in getting some product of P&F and have that as the predominant driver for any decision you think Stardock should take from a legal perspective. Stardock is not obliged in the least to share that same drive. If that doesn't sit well with you enough for you to actively lobby for it and keep trying to paint Stardock as the unreasonable ones, then congrats, you've turned into an example Stardock can use to demonstrate the loss of goodwill they've incurred as a result of P&F's PR campaign, which I'm sure will come in very handy come settlement ruling time.

Elestan,  I for one am glad you continue to post.   I'm glad you have such passion.    I'm glad you care.   I think your loyalties are highly misplaced, but you are loyal.

So here's the real question for you or the other folks who seem he** bent to cast Stardock as being the evil corp and Paul and Fred as simple victims.   What have Paul and Fred done for you lately?  what have their actions shown that has you so loyal?

What have Stardock's actions been that you are so willing to fall on your sword to champion Paul and Fred?

I'm genuinely curious. 

Brad tried to work with them, P&F didn't think they needed to due to what they thought they owned and also wanted to do it their own way. So while your suggestion makes a lot of sense, it's not the path P&F desired to take. I don't know if there was pride or ego involved on their end or if it was just wanting to have the creative freedom to do what they wanted without anyone dictating or telling them what to do. I'm actually not sure if they even gave Brad a heads up that they were going to announce their title (I doubt they did given the timing) - but given the circumstances, it does make you wonder if they were just being spiteful on that point. They knew Stardock's plans and being game developers knew the implications of what they did.

From all the emails that P&F have posted that have corroborated what Brad has said here, it suggests that all the issues related to "why can't we all just get along" were on their side. It seems quite clear that Brad was willing to work with them in any way that made sense. Hindsight is 20/20 though, you do have to wonder if at this point they wish they had gone another route. Either way, I would consider their announced title 100% vaporware, irrespective of the outcome of the legal proceedings. I believe that announcement was a strategic ploy by them with no real intention of creating a game, which sucks for us fans.

My post was probably more just verbal speculation...  Anything Brad could post, he already has.  I suspect he has some very keen thoughts on this that he cannot share during the on going litigation.

Given what both sides have posted I think Brad really tried to work things out with them.  I posed earlier that it would not shock me if Brad tried to offer them jobs as contractor developers or anything that could get them on board when they started SC:O  

The initial posts and the start of all of this was definitively one sided.   

Also.. I have published work so I have some grasp on Copyright IP etc.

Paul and Fred can claim the Races and lore and story they have developed...  but they cannot use it without the associated Trademarks...    The best and clearest case on that is if you look at Stan Lee and his career for both Marvel and DC...  he created MULTIPLE characters that are part of the DC universe....  yet he also was the primary driver for Marvel...       Guess who cannot touch the stuff he created for DC while under contract with DC?     Guess who cannot touch the X-men or Deadpool even though he helped create them...... on the flip-side.. guess who gets royalties anytime any of these things get used?. Stan Lee.

Without the Trademark, the best Paul and Fred can hope for is the royalties for the use of their copyright....    I just don't grasp why their fans don't understand this.

not sure how to fix it so my post doesn't show up in the quote box, but to make it more clear: