'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

What a mess but... Stardock is to blame here

[vux984]

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.

Re: What a mess but... Stardock is to blame here

[UnknowingFool]

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

[WorBlux]

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: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

[UnknowingFool]

If you believed you owned 100% of something why would you give away half?

Re:TAKEN... They've TAKEN in down

[Anonymous Coward]

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'