'Star Control: Origins' Pulled From Steam And GOG Following DMCA Claim (polygon.com)

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.

Comments

Re:A Difficult Situation For Both Sides

[JackieBrown]

Why should the company that made the new game pay 50 percent to past contributors?

They aren't Disney ;)

Re:A Difficult Situation For Both Sides

[Junta]

Paul and Fred's side: https://www.dogarandkazon.com/
Stardock's side:
https://www.stardock.com/games...

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.