UPDATE: Make sure you read the official statement from Stardock regarding newer events.
Re: November's blog post by Paul and Fred claiming Stardock's objection to their new game being promoted as a "true sequel" constitutes Stardock preventing them from doing a new game.
We are disappointed that Paul and Fred, two people we have a great deal of respect and admiration for, have chosen to imply that we are somehow preventing them from working on their new game.
Stardock has been nothing but supportive of their new project and wish them the best. I personally made the post here on StarControl.com in support of it.
With regards to their contentions:
First, as many people know, the classic Star Control games have been available for sale long before Stardock acquired the rights from Atari four years ago. For the entirety of the time we have held the rights, they have been getting paid for those sales. If they had an objection to the games being sold this is something that could and should have been addressed before we were ever involved.
Second, we have stated, repeatedly and consistently for over four years that we are not using any of the aliens from the classic series. As we have stated, our position is that, to the best of our knowledge, the classic alien IP is owned by them.
We have also discussed, at length, why it wasn't commercially viable for us to attempt to continue or retell the Ur-Quan story. 25 years is just too long of a gap. This is one of the reasons why we have been so excited about Paul and Fred's project. Their game frees us to introduce new characters and a new story into the new Star Control while allowing fans of the classic series a way to continue the classic story. This strikes us as a win-win situation.
Lastly, when we acquired Star Control from Atari in 2013, many assets were transferred to us including the various publishing agreements to the Star Control franchise. The short version is that the classic IP is messy. We understand that this makes them "really really angry" but we weren't a party to that agreement. All we can do is try to put something together that releases them from the restrictions placed on their IP that they agreed to and transfer any and all rights and responsibilities to them. We want them to make Ghosts but we don't want any liability or association with it.
Given the disturbing and unanticipated post by Paul and Fred, we are persuaded more than ever that a clear and irrefutable document that makes it clear that we are not associated or involved with their new game is needed.
We have nothing but respect and admiration for Paul and Fred and wish them well in their new project.
Update 12/4/2017:
Paul and Fred continue to make unsubstantiated claims regarding the DOS-based Star Control games. If they have any documentation to provide evidence to their assertions, we have yet to see them.
Stardock, by contrast, possesses a perpetual, exclusive, worldwide licensing and sales agreement that was explicitly transferred to us by Atari who in turn acquired it from Accolade that has Paul Reiche's signature along with a signed distribution agreement between Atari and GOG for the DOS Accolade Star Control games.
The tone of their blog posts is similar to the kind of correspondence they had with us since the announcement of their Ur-Quan Masters successor, vague, full of demands and without any documentation.
With all due respect to Paul and Fred, they really should talk to competent legal counsel instead of making blog posts.
Update 12/5/2017:
Dealing with the sales and distribution of 20+ year old DOS games is an unusual way to spend a Tuesday afternoon. Nevertheless...
Atari had transferred to Stardock a signed agreement between Atari's President and GOG that we assumed was the agreement. Paul and Fred claimed they were the ones who had set up the agreement and upon verification with GOG, we instructed them to terminate this agreement which they have which we appreciate.
The games are now correctly transferred to Stardock and we will continue to ensue that Fred and Paul receive royalty payments for the games per the publishing agreement. We apologize if anyone was inconvenienced.
Old IP can be messy to deal with. The best way to deal with that is to have the parties talk to each other (as opposed to making public Internet posts) and work something out. We remain committed to dealing with this situation with as much restraint and gentleness as possible.
Update 2/27/2018
Added link to https://www.starcontrol.com/article/487690/qa-regarding-star-control-and-paul-and-fred to address Paul and Fred's latest complaints.
At this stage, the parties are seeking to resolve their disagreements in court. Stardock wishes this could have been resolved otherwise.
For the record, if Paul and Fred had simply announced their game as a sequel to Ur-Quan Masters and requested Stardock to remove the DOS games from distribution, Stardock would have complied out of respect, even if we would have been unhappy that they chose now, after 25 years, to jump back in the middle of Stardock's efforts to bring Star Control back.
However, by promoting their new game as a "direct-sequel" to Star Control (and in other places as the "true" sequel) while using the Star Control box art (which is owned by Stardock) a great deal of consumer confusion has been created requiring Stardock to protect its IP rights.
Other links:
The short answer: Yes. They are shooting themselves in the foot.
That’s the key phrase is t it? Assuming it is true. If it were true, I can only imagine the enforcement. Special electric shocks if they say Star Control? As for who is keeping this gong, that would be Paul and Fred. They are the ones who keep posting defamatory, misleading public statements.
Interesting that you use the word "misleading" rather than "false." If your trademark applications go through, do you plan on shutting down the open-source UQM, too?
No. Stardock's games have many fan communities and we support what they do. After this is over, we plan to release Star Control 3 source code to the fan community as well as work with them on what we are calling the Open Universe project.
Stardock even hosts its competitors fan communities in the software arena:
https://www.wincustomize.com/
https://www.dogarandkazon.com/blog/2018/3/24/nope-and-nope
P&F's latest "potshot".
According to them this was rejected by Stardock. Does that mean all the points were rejected or just some?
Reading through those just looks dirty on Stardock. I'd express further thoughts but they would probably be used as evidence.
I don't understand how that shet flies with them? The concise version of settlement doesn't match settlement on most important points at all?... Do FaP think their fans are so ignorant that they can't put 2 and 2 together? I mean what fair use of "Star Control" tm they could possibly come up with while working on Ghosts?...
Except Stardock's agreement says that F&P can't use Ghosts of the Precursors at all. (pg3, sec 4).
Compared to Stardock's proposal F&P look reasonable. Which is the point I'm sure.
Except Stardock's agreement says that F&P can't use Ghosts of the Precursors at all. (pg3, sec 4). Compared to Stardock's proposal F&P look reasonable. Which is the point I'm sure.
If you read the Q&A: https://www.starcontrol.com/article/487690/qa-regarding-star-control-and-paul-and-fred
You will see that their *summary* (though not actual document) is similar to what we proposed and they rejected back in October before the lawyers were involved. They rejected that.
I have no doubt as time goes on, they will want to be able to go back in time and accept the original proposal. That time has passed. No settlement is going to happen that ignores the damage they've caused and allows them to ever do a repeat of the past few months.
If you read the Q&A: https://www.starcontrol.com/article/487690/qa-regarding-star-control-and-paul-and-fredYou will see that their *summary* (though not actual document) is similar to what we proposed and they rejected back in October before the lawyers were involved. They rejected that.I have no doubt as time goes on, they will want to be able to go back in time and accept the original proposal. That time has passed. No settlement is going to happen that ignores the damage they've caused and allows them to ever do a repeat of the past few months.
You are doing just as much damage as they are at this point. Both sides come off as vindictive and petty. At this point I've little interest in the games that either of you may or may not produce, now or in the future.
That pains me, my friend. Anyone who's been here for 10 years has an opinion I'm inclined to respect highly.
Hm. It is my understanding that if you do not protect your IP, you lose it. So from where I sit, I understand that this is the way it just is. No matter what you do, you'll lose customers. People are fickle creatures.. To those that leave, we give our hope that their journey prove fruitful. To those that remain.. mind the storms, and march onward. If my two cents are worth anything.
So you have reached an agreement after all... why not accept it, even if coming a bit late?
At this point, Stardock is just looking like a vindictive company that cannot work things out like adults.
If P&F's settlement offer is in line with your initial one, why not shut the whole thing down, save some money on stupid legal fees and spend the rest of your time (and money) just producing a great game.
Let bygones be bygones.
You wanting to avoid any surprises in the near future is understandable, but honestly, did they do that much damage? Seriously? Any more than you are going to do if you pursue this any further?
Right now, the only ones damaging the brand (that you own, by the way) are yourselves.
At this stage, we have reached peak drama. I think it best to let the courts resolve it.
And no, their settlement offer is not what we had proposed. I said their Summary was similar.
Case in point:
I think it's pretty clear that they want to kill Star Control: Origins. Star Control: Origins is a Star Control game and plays as such.
The music composer from Star Control II is also the music composer on Star Control: Origins. Paul and Fred, if they had their way, would strip out his work from the new game despite having no legal right to do so. Paul was the one who hooked us up with Riku in the first place btw.
The only reason you even know there is a dispute in the first place is because Paul and Fred decided to litigate in the court of public opinion with carefully selected and often misleading representations of facts (their summary vs. their actual settlement offer being a case in point).
It seems some of Stardock's wrath should be directed towards Atari which sold them an IP that still had a lien on it.
When you buy a car you make sure the title is clear.
I'm not sure where this mythology has sprung from. Stardock owns the trademark. It was transferred to Stardock. Same for the copyright. One can look this up on the federal registry.
So you have reached an agreement after all... why not accept it, even if coming a bit late?At this point, Stardock is just looking like a vindictive company that cannot work things out like adults.
What Brad just said (quite clearly) is that they make out in their SUMMARY that they are being reasonable and almost meeting Stardock's suggested agreement, but that they are LYING in the summary about what their actual documents say. They are hoping that armchair lawyers will only read the summary and then angrily shout "Well why didn't Stardock agree to that" and not actually read the actual proposed document which is quite different from the lies in the summary.
You know, *exactly* what you just did.
Not really. I read both documents in full because I am interested in the details of this dispute, as much as I hate it.
What I don't agree with is that there's a terrible intent from F&P in the way they simplified their agreement proposal.
If you look at it, Stardock did exactly the same, making it look like a sensible proposal when in fact they were asking for something borderline offensive.
F&P are no saints, but I still feel their agreement proposal summary is much closer to the original document than Stardock's.
Both parties are at fault here. As I said before, wouldn't it be better for everyone to get along and just reach a damn agreement that does not try to screw the other party?
Thank you.
"Understanding is a three edged sword. Your side, their side, and the truth." - Kosh
We are all Kosh;-)
I agree. Stardock agrees that the summary is very close to Stardock's original proposal.
But that's the summary. The actual details are a lot darker. You could say (as you did) I'm sure P&F have no bad intentions, but the simple matter is that the proposal (not the summary) would actually give them the power to kill SCO entirely. Read it again, you'll see it. You can't allow someone else to have that power over a project that people have spent 4 years and however many millions working on, even if you think their intentions are pure.
And I don't think their intentions are pure. I think they hate that Stardock is going to get out a new Starcon game before they do, and I think they're worried that theirs wont be as good (on top of coming out 4-5 years later)
I am no legal expert, and I know that I don't post here that often, but I have been keeping tabs on this and following the discussions both on your side of things and P&F's side of things. When I heard that Stardock acquired Star Control and was going to be making a new game I was giddy with excitement because I viewed your company as one of the best qualified to make the game due to having loved many of their outstanding space games in the past.
Having said that...right now and in this very post I'm now quoting from, it at least comes across to me that you're doing the exact same thing that you are accusing them of doing. Maybe that is not the case, but that is how it comes across to me personally.
You yourself said that the two proposed settlements are "similar" to what Stardock originally wanted. Which, as was pointed out, is a good thing. It means that you've managed to pull them substantially closer to what Stardock originally wanted in the first place. Not 100% over as you pointed out by highlighting some things in the counter settlement proposal that Stardock is unhappy with, but pretty close.
To me, that would mean that the correct course of action would not to be to proclaim that P&F are going to wish they had a time machine so they could go back in time to accept the original offer because they won't get anything close to that anymore while calling them out for being "petty and vindictive", it would be to talk through the remaining small points of disagreement between the two "Similar" proposals.
Instead you're now insisting that you're going to get more from them than you originally wanted and asked for. How does that make Stardock look like the reasonable side in the discussion?
For what it's worth, I read through the email discussions that took place between P&F and GoG after their games were taken off of GoG, and neither side came across as unreasonable. They reached an amicable agreement that both sides ended up being able to be happy about and live with. This makes it hard for me to accept the vision of them as being unreasonable tyrants in this instance.
Something similar should be the goal here if both sides want to help the brand and come out looking good in these discussions, not maximizing what you can win in court by insisting that the originally proposed Stardock settlement is now something that P&F won't ever get offered again.
As I said, I'm no lawyer so I'm not even going to try and decide which side of this dispute has a stronger case in court. I'm speaking purely from the standpoint of Stardock taking the original proposal off the table comes across as being...well, petty and vindictive.
Talonius,
As soon as F&P tried to cancel the trademark that Stardock owns they stepped up the entire aggressiveness. At that point the gloves are off and now we 'stick em with the pointy' end. Go for everything.
Sure, if you don't care about damaging that trademark I guess going scorched earth is one approach.
However, unless an amicable agreement is reached, you're risking basically breaking the Star Control base. The most loyal Stardock fans are the ones here on this forum right now and they're convinced that Stardock is completely in the right. I understand that. However, they may not necessarily represent the prevailing statement outside of the forum.
There's a very real possibility that Stardock could "win" in court and lose outside of it if something like half of the Star Control fanbase basically declares that Star Control Origins is not a "real" Star Control game. (And future ones aren't either.) That doesn't exactly help the trademark either.
I get that the "devil is in the details" as some posters have said. In which case, if the two proposals are similar, why not at least use that as a starting point for proposals back and forth on specific pieces of language that are troubling to each side? Like the music thing. Surely there are actual email records that could be sent to P&F reminding them of the point that using a specific resource to create the music was their original suggestion and therefore ask that part be taken out of P&F's proposal?
Would this approach guarantee a good outcome? No. Would Stardock look substantially more reasonable taking that approach than going for the throat? I'd argue that they would.
Talonius, I'm no lawyer either.. but in the broadest terms: they have since announced a game that claims to be a sequel to our trademarked IP, gone on a public offensive against us and our motives for months, and interfered with our ability to market the new game and creating confusion. After that, there's no real way to go back in time and pretend that no harm has been done. All that said, we absolutely wish this was not being litigated. That is never pleasant for any party involved. We bought the IP in order to make another great Star Control game. All we want to do is actually make, market and enjoy another great Star Control game (that we've already spent years and millions of dollars on.) You can read the rest of the story above.
Kevin Stardock
I understand Kevin. I really do.
I also thank you for taking the time to respond to me and present Stardock's viewpoint. As I said previously, while I don't post often here I do read fairly often and one of the things I've always appreciated about this forum is how active Stardock is on it interacting with their community.
I do think it is important though to note that what you have presented is indeed your side of the story, and there typically are two sides to each story. You are correct that there's no way to go back and time and fix things that happened previously. I imagine P&F would have a very different description of the events in the past and would likewise be arguing about the damage that was done, only making that same argument in the other direction.
I'm casting no judgments on the rightness or wrongness of the particular past actions of either side here. I view that as, well, basically a sunk cost at this point rather than something that can be gotten back. Let's say for the sake of argument that you're correct about absolutely everything. 100% and totally correct.
I'd still wonder whether the approach being taken is the correct one moving forward given the very real potential for splitting the Star Control fanbase. In other words, I wonder if the proposed "cure" might be worse than the disease. For a lot of people the back-and-forth twists of this have gotten so murky that they're a bit hard to follow.
"Stardock takes beloved Star Control franchise founders to court to force them to give up everything" is a bit easier to understand to a casual observer and would do substantial damage to the brand and the marketing of the game going forward. (As opposed to what has happened in the past)
That's why I make the argument that unless both sides calm down, come back to the table, and de-escalate the situation they'll end up with a result that will make neither one happy.
Thank you again for your time and considering my views.
>> However, unless an amicable agreement is reached, you're risking basically breaking the Star Control base.
Hey Talonious. First off, I do wish that things didn't get to where they are now, and instead (in a perfect world scenario) both parties were working, maybe even in cooperation, on new game(s).
But, with that said... How and why would not reaching an amicable agreement break the Star Control base? Any publicity is good publicity....
So far Origins looks fantastic, and if things go he way they've been going, a whole lot more people will know about this game than otherwise.
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