Elestan

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="521" id="3717906"]I can't see how anyone could argue that Stardock could do anything differently than it did. [...] So no, I don't believe you were even [ever?] open-minded Elestan.[/quote] You're certainly entitled to your opinion. But your post is essentially asserting that anyone who comes to favor P&F in this dispute could not possibly be open-minded. I would suggest that this would need to come from a more neutral source to be persuasiv

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="520" id="3717905"] Quoting Elestan, reply 510 But the way I personally see it, Paul and his group made the game, which was then published with a prominent copyright attribution to Paul and Fred. All of the other people involved surely were aware of this, and none of them raised a voice in disagr

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="517" id="3717900"]Just be aware that Elestan is very much in the pro-PF / anti-Stardock camp. The reason he gets a hostile reception is that he tries to appear objective while being quite obviously not once you start to look into it.[/quote] Actually, I started in the pro-UQM (fan project) camp, but neutral (or even slightly pro-Stardock) on the P&F vs. Stardock spectrum. You could find early posts from me calling out Paul for some hostile t

[quote who="BionicDance" reply="514" id="3717897"]I might have to give that postmortem a lookie. Thanks. [e digicons]:)[/e] [/quote] No problem. :-) If you prefer videos, there's a YouTube IP lawyer who did a pair of them about the lawsuit with a Melnorme accent (which I'm pretty sure was unintentional).

[quote who="BionicDance" reply="512" id="3717892"]My reason for resisting stands: social media overload.[/quote] Can't blame you for that. For what it's worth, the main venues for discussion are here (where there is a pro-Stardock slant), Reddit (where there is an anti-Stardock slant), and the UQM forums , (where there is a pro-P&F slant). It's unfortunate that there doesn't seem to b

[quote who="BionicDance" reply="504" id="3717882"]See, that's just strange to me...that a game developer would have a signed agreement with all content creators that what was made for the game would be owned by the company is something I'd have expected in all cases.[/quote] Stardock's argument in this regard seems to be "Paul's friends helped him make the game, and the records are muddled after 25 years, so we can't tell what parts he did personally, and therefore would have the copy

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="503" id="3717881"]The only question that would be asked of a jury would be that if a game was released and it had aliens with the names Arilou, Spathi, Pkunk, etc. would you think it originated in Star Control?[/quote] No offense, but that's a legal assertion that I'd have to hear from a qualified neutral source before accepting. For one thing, even if that question is correct, what's the audience? Only a tiny fraction of the public will remembe

[quote who="eride" reply="494" id="3717832"]I find the UQM community arguments amusing because the parallel argument would be that anyone can 100% copy every element that is associated with a trademarked good and it is perfectly acceptable as long as you don't label the good with the mark. What value would trademarks have if this was accurate?[/quote] The value of a trademark is that it protects elements associated with the source of the good, not with the

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="467" id="3714907"]Anyone who has ever had to try to find a song on iTunes know how often song titles match. Why is that? Because copyrights don't cover words or short phrases. And yet, some of you are trying to seriously argue the equivalent of someone composing a song titled "Loved by the Sun" somehow could, via their copyright, prevent anyone else from having a song called "Loved by the Sun".[/quote] I don't believe I've argued that copyright could

[quote who="bleybourne" reply="464" id="3714884"] Quoting Elestan, reply 437 I also like to use the example of generic medication. When the patent expires, such that the only thing protecting a drug is the trademark on it, generic manufacturers can enter that market and sell the exact same product under a different brand name.</

[quote who="zwabbit" reply="461" id="3714804"]a name of a character is not the same as the name of a fictional species[/quote] The example in the regs was actually "The Littles", which is a fictional family, but I agree that there is a distinction there that might (or might not) be legally relevant. [quote]If the name is used in a more expansionary way such that the name itself becomes an identifier for a brand or product, a name can simultaneously be used for a character but

[quote who="zwabbit" reply="453" id="3714690"]Elestan, you are misreading the USPTO document. That document is only with respect to whether the name of a character can itself be directly trademarked.[/quote] Thank you; that was genuinely useful, and led me to read more deeply into the distinctions between trademark and trade dress . Which led me to wonder: Which of those two constructs is Stardock using to cla

[quote who="zwabbit" reply="447" id="3714648"]And here is the problem with your position. You keep referring to "its legal assertions" as if Stardock's answers are somehow its own interpretation of the law, when most of the questions you keep asking are actually receiving what amounts to dictionary definitions of what the law is.[/quote] I don't see that in the last few pages of discussion (though I don't have time to search everything). There are statements of law about things

[quote who="Astrobia" reply="445" id="3714645"]Once again in case you missed it... "Because lawyers".[/quote] So, if I understand your argument, you are essentially saying that when Stardock makes public assertions about how some law works, our only option is to unquestioningly accept those assertions at face value, because asking about or trying to discuss the underlying basis for them would be an inappropriate query into Stardock's legal strategy. If so, I disagree. In

My understanding essentially follows the lines Lak described. I also like to use the example of generic medication. When the patent expires, such that the only thing protecting a drug is the trademark on it, generic manufacturers can enter that market and sell the exact same product under a different brand name. We could certainly still be wrong on this. There could be case law that's more applicable, or facts specific to this case that would dictate a diffe

[quote who="Pyro411" reply="432" id="3714484"]Do try to remember the analogy about stories and a 3 sided sword, there's The side of the Plaintiff, the side of the Defendant, and the Truth.[/quote] That's very true. It bothers me that the fans have segregated into different camps that aren't talking well to each other, because neither camp can hope to get to the truth without the other. That's why I'm engaging in discussions here, where I get more pushback on my statements.

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="428" id="3714341"]I'm not going to be giving legitimacy to what is, in essence, propaganda.[/quote] I don't deny that there may be bias there, just as there is bias in the Q&A at the top of this thread. But I disagree on your wording, because 'propaganda' implies that there is an intent to be biased. The wiki Q&A's charter is explicitly to be fact-based, so there is a desire by everyone involved to make it a neutral reference.&n

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="424" id="3714317"]Elestan, the “fan created” page is a Paul and Fred fan created page and is filled with Internet lawyering and lay person legal conclusions. I looked through it and it could be summed up as a tremendous amount of noise about very tiny issues. I’ve covered the legalities in post 259. https://forums.starcontrol.com/487690/page/11/#3713501

[quote who="admiralWillyWilber" reply="421" id="3714291"]Ok what are you guys reading it is not what i'm reading. to recap[...][/quote] I'm sorry to say that this is pretty inaccurate - not only does it not match Paul's version of events, but it doesn't match Stardock's, either. 1. I think this starts too late in the timeline. If you really want to understand the case, you need to go back to 1988, to understand the timeline for the production and release of the ori

[quote who="Taslios" reply="417" id="3714275"]This is the original 1988 agreement. One of the things that has never been posted but might exist is a subsequent agreement or refiling when SC3 was produced Any agreement that modifies the original that was signed by both parties would supersede the original.[/quote] Actually, there were three addenda to the original agreement, and they were all posted as Exhibits with P&F's counterclaim: <a href="http

[quote who="tingkagol" reply="416" id="3714274"]Paul's e-mail was certainly confusing. The lay person would assume it was confirmation, but in my mind given the context it seems Paul was deliberately keeping Stardock in the dark.[/quote] I completely get where you're coming from here, because I was the first person to publicly call attention to how unhelpfully vague Paul's

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="410" id="3714213"]How is the onus on me to explain why given this conversation[/quote] My apologies; I mis-spoke on the date. I was thinking of the October 2017 emails between yourself and Fred, where relations broke down while discussing the 1988 agreement. As a partial response to Taslios' earlier question, I'll say that one of the things that made me shift my views away from Stardock is the way this conversation ended up going, so I'd love to

[quote who="Jafo" reply="407" id="3714191"]Brad has no cause to 'adequately explain why' to anyone on this [or any other] forum.[/quote] Agreed, but I was talking about Brad's 2013 2017 email conversation with Paul, not any discussion on this forum.

[quote who="tingkagol" reply="405" id="3714186"] Hmm... I've been wondering myself how this dispute could have been avoided. My recap: P&F announce GotP as the direct sequel to SC2. Stardock supports the announcement. Stardock's refusal to withdraw the classic games from Steam angers P&F. (Stardock believes the 1988 agreement is still active.) The appropriate step should have been to NOT go rogue on the internet, and most

[quote who="Taslios" reply="374" id="3714062"]I guess this goes out to Laks and Elestan as well; Given the timeline of events that both sides have posted. What in your minds Should Stardock have done? and why?[/quote] So, I haven't forgotten your question from yesterday, but I'm pushing this one ahead of it because it should be "shorter". First, I do have to give a bit of background. When Stardock bought the trademark, Brad jumped on the UQM