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'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.
If you believed you owned 100% of something why would you give away half?
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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.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.