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FreeCraft Cease and Desisted by Blizzard

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the calling-it-quits dept.

mandreiana writes "As of June 20th, FreeCraft is shut down. The development team received a cease and desist order due to the name 'FreeCraft' causing possible confusion with the names StarCraft and WarCraft, and also some of the ideas within the engine were too similar to WarCraft 2. There will be no more updates to this game, and it is no longer available for download." Way to go, Blizzard, now the only competitors to worry about are the ones who can afford lawyers and actually hold competing market share. Of course, not using a *Craft for a game project might have kept it under the radar a while longer.

3 of 808 comments (clear)

  1. RIAA/MPAA vs Open Source by HanzoSan · · Score: 5, Insightful



    Vivendi Universal is the owner of Blizzard. Vivendi Universal hates the free software movement, why? Because its assosiated with the Mp3/FileSharing movement.

    I think people need to consider certsain media companies to be a threat to open source, and a threat to our personal fair use rights, Vivendi Universal is one of these companies.

    Microsoft takes alot of heat, but I think even more heat should be given to companies like Vivendi Universal who sue anyone and everyone who is a threat to their monopoly power and business.

    They sue file sharing companies who create new ways of distributing music, they sue open source companies who create new ways to play games, they will sue you and I if we use these networks, even if they dont know why we are using them.

    Its not about piracy anymore, its about competition, if they cant own all the code, and all the distribution companies, they sue.

    --
    If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
  2. Oh PLEASE by geckofiend · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Only an idiot would start a project to produce a RTS with a name that's only a few letters away from an established line of RTS games.

    I have ZERO sympathy for these people. It takes about 30 seconds to realize that maybe the name + genre was a bad idea. But hey we get folks starting projects all the time based on TV shows without permission. Then they come and cry months into the dev cycle when they get a C&D.

    Coyboy Neal & Co, how would you feel if YOU were Blizzard and someone was trying to ride on the coattails of the brand you worked your ass off to build?

  3. Will You All Remember This? by suntse · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Will you all remember this when the next big blizzard game comes out? Or will you all just run to the store to buy it, just like Warcraft 3?