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:
I am not a lawyer and have no idea what the legal standing of any of this is. I just found this comment from Fred super interesting:
Question: Theoretically speaking, if you and Paul wanted to do another Star Control game independant of Accolade, would Accolade have any legal groud to prevent you from doing it? (I really hope NOT!)
Fred: I'm afraid the answer is, "Yes they would." We were slowly losing the Mexican standoff with Accolade. They were making sequels we didn't much support and at the same time changing what people thought when they heard the name "Star Control." So Paul and I decided to sell them our half of the rights and when (not if) we were ready to do another epic adventure game, we would just have to start from scratch.
I mean, Fred says right there that they have no legal basis to make another Star Control game at all because they sold all their rights to Accolade and that Accolade could stop them doing it if they wanted to. Aren't those the same rights that Stardock bought from Accolade?
(this is from : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ctQwV1-G2QnVhDM0p9ZCwfKTZ9Kv17Yu3sgtn9YrvLU/edit)
Read Fred and Paul's counterclaim. The addendum handing Accolade rights to Star Control was signed in 1998 and clearly stipulated the rights would revert back if Accolade didn't do anything with them after three years. Which Accolade of course did not. Most other rights given in the original 1988 contract terminated if they stopped receiving at least $1000/year in royalties, which happened around 2000.
Yes they did, they made that awful shitty "was programmed over a weekend" flash game called Star Control. Which they did specifically to maintain those rights and stop them reverting to Paul and Fred.
http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=4870.0
[deleted by poster]
And no, it wasn't most other rights. It was specifically just the characters and settings from SC1/2 (which Fred acknowledged and which Stardock is not disputing). Yes, Paul and Fred own the rigfhts to SC1/2 aliens and settings. However Stardock have a perpetual license to USE them if they want to (which they have declined to do).
Again, I am not a lawyer.
And no, it wasn't most other rights. It was specifically just the characters and settings from SC1/2 (which Fred acknowledged and which Stardock is not disputing). Yes, Paul and Fred own the rigfhts to SC1/2 aliens and settings. However Stardock have a perpetual license to USE them if they want to (which they have declined to do).Again, I am not a lawyer.
First of all, not a lawyer either. There has never been a time when they did not own the IP of SC1/2 - it didn't revert to them because they always had it. It is true that Accolade was given an exclusive license, but the case that it's expired seems pretty strong.
2.2 of the 1988 contract says that if the developers stop receiving $1000/year in royalties, Accolade loses its right to sell or license their products. Reiche and Ford say that happened around 2000 - I doubt Stardock has somehow found Accolade/Infogrames/Atari accounting records proving otherwise. So what about making new content? The 1998 addendum gave Accolade the license to make sequels with their IP, but had a three-year reversion clause giving those rights to Reiche if nothing was made. So if those expired, that just leaves the trademark and portions of SC3.
Also according to their complaint, Atari agreed that the license to distribute Star Control had expired. We haven't seen the e-mails but I don't think it would be in a legal document if they couldn't back it up.
Furthermore, 7.1 of the contract says that if the publisher goes bankrupt for at least 90 days, "all rights to work or derivative work shall revert to developer." I don't think Accolade's merger with Infogrames involved bankruptcy...but even if the license hadn't already expired on other grounds, it certainly seems to apply to Atari.
If they had this document and provided it, Stardock would have taken the games down. This is the document Stardock repeatedly requested.
Thanks for the nice thoughts and appreciation expressed about Starflight. I am still friends with Rod and I'm hoping to find a way to get something off the ground, but this crazy game dev biz is always a juggling act, and I need to get clear of my current TJ&E project first. We'll see... still, knowing there are old skool gamers who remember it and would want it makes a difference, so thanks - you just pushed the probability needle a bit.
And thanks too for offering such positive thoughts to Brad/Stardock and Paul and Fred. I think that's the best thing we can do at this point, is let Brad and Paul and Fred know that we hope for the best for all of them, and would be thrilled to buy both games regardless of what they are called, or which alien races they use. Also I think having them know that we are sympathetic to the difficult situation they have found themselves in might help diffuse tensions a bit and allow them to talk and arrive at a solution. This can't be easy for any of them. I'll suggest to Paul and Fred that they check out these comments too.
Best of luck to all - hopefully they will be able to turn their energies to making us more games soon!
According to Fred himself:
> Do you know what Accolade is doing in relation to StarControl? If
> anything?
They owe us another payment for our portion of the property. They have told
us they are going to default on this payment which means we are back to owning the characters and settings. They still own the trademark/name and continue to look for someone to buy it from them. [snip]
Fred
Oh man oh man oh man. Don't play with my emotions, Greg...
I'm not going to hold you to anything, obviously, but now I'm super excited. When (hopefully not if) the time comes, if you're looking for backers...
It's an internet forum post. If it were the only statement we had on this, it might carry some weight. But if the contracts (and likely other communication they quote in their complaint, assuming they have documentation of it) say otherwise, it's more likely that Fred was just speaking informally and not distinguishing between ownership and exclusive license. Ownership without the right to do anything with it doesn't mean much outside of royalties after all, so for a quick post Fred did not fully break it down. We all speak imprecisely on message boards or social media at times.
The legal documents are available to the public now, and to my layman's judgment they look pretty clear: Fred and Paul have IP ownership, Accolade has a license to it which is renegotiated three times (for the 3DO version, SC3, and then for possible future SC games), the license expires under certain conditions that have been met. Wardell also said at least once and probably more before 2017 that he did not have rights to the universe.
Also, by your interpretation, Ur-quan Masters was illegal.
Seems to me Accolade was the villain here. The Stardock Star Control ship editor and melee look amazing! Not even sure I'll play the main game as I don't have much free time, but I'll buy it just for the melee and ship editor.
I hope Stardock and Paul/Fred don't spend too much time in law suit troubles and can focus on their art.
What if Paul and Fred gave Stardock full license to use their IP in exchange for Stardock giving Paul & Fred full rights to their game engine? Everyone wins!
I remember reading somewhere that the rights revert pack to Paul and Fred under certain conditions, one being that Accolade stops existing, which it did in late 90s. But as Greg said, this all depends on the contract P&F had with Accolade, which none of us have seen, so our guessing leads nowhere. The lawyers will sort it out eventually I suppose. In any case this is just about the Star Control trademark/name, not the SC universe itself.
The Accolade agreement is Exhibit A (pg. 30) in P&F's counter claim.
That's quite debatable. Having read both complaints and the original contract, Fred and Paul's contention that the Accolade license is long-expired and Stardock has no rights to SC1/2 or anything within them is pretty strong.
If I understood correctly, the SC1/2 universe etc. weren't even part of the Accolade agreement. Even when it was still in place, they owned the things they designed for the games.
I just want to thank Greg Johnson for saying what I was unable to, that F&P were not Accolade employees and that they owned the copyright of the two games they developed.
The definition of "creator" is being misinterpreted here. Were they involved in the creation of the game? Yes. However, technically, when you work for a company and create something, they own the IP. In every company I've worked for, if you actually read the employment contract you sign, it will have a stipulation around any invention you create while at the company is owned by the company. Therefore, the company is technically the "creator" and that's what Stardock means. Why is that important? If the company is the creator, they thus retained the rights and those rights were transferred to Atari and then subsequently sold to Stardock. This is the very heart of the legal battle going on. Are the lawyers going to imply that P&F didn't actually create any of the assets (i.e. they were the designers and directed others to create the assets) and therefore weren't that involved to bolster their case? Sure. That's how you fight legal battles unfortunately.
Now you see what I was trying to tell you. Unfortunately I was unable to reply due to anti-spam measures put on new accounts.
Quoting GregJohnson1, reply 158Thanks for the nice thoughts and appreciation expressed about Starflight. I am still friends with Rod and I'm hoping to find a way to get something off the ground, but this crazy game dev biz is always a juggling act, and I need to get clear of my current TJ&E project first. We'll see... still, knowing there are old skool gamers who remember it and would want it makes a difference, so thanks - you just pushed the probability needle a bit. Well I hope I help to push the needle even more. I played the game when I was a kid, and it was by and far my favorite game. My last post on this forum was 3 years ago. This is the first time I felt I had no choice but to reply. I sincerely hope you can get a new SF game at some point. I'd put money down on it sight unseen.
Well I hope I help to push the needle even more. I played the game when I was a kid, and it was by and far my favorite game. My last post on this forum was 3 years ago. This is the first time I felt I had no choice but to reply. I sincerely hope you can get a new SF game at some point. I'd put money down on it sight unseen.
There isn't nearly as much disagreement as these suits seem to imply.
Ditto and hear hear!
I really hope so. I would love if this was cleared up sooner rather than later.
Did you see the emails that F&P posted on their blog today? I don't understand how Atari could concede they didn't have publishing rights and then for you to apparently buy publishing rights from them a couple of years later.
Given that they overestimated their rights initially with GOG (and had apparently already done so with Steam), is it possible they "forgot" again by the time you bought the properties?
I really hope so. I would love if this was cleared up sooner rather than later.Did you see the emails that F&P posted on their blog today? I don't understand how Atari could concede they didn't have publishing rights and then for you to apparently buy publishing rights from them a couple of years later.Given that they overestimated their rights initially with GOG (and had apparently already done so with Steam), is it possible they "forgot" again by the time you bought the properties?
This is covered in the update here: https://www.starcontrol.com/article/487690/qa-regarding-star-control-and-paul-and-fred
That doesn't seem to cover the publishing rights issue though. I get that you are unhappy with what you see as trademark infringement in their promotion of Ghosts being a sequel to and from the creators of Star Control II, but they are unhappy with what they see as copyright infringement in your publishing of the classic games on Steam without their agreement (and taking over them on GOG).
The continuing sale of the classic games on GOG was by joint agreement between Atari and F&P. Having inherited Atari's rights perhaps doesn't give you the right to publish the games without their cooperation.
Does this mean there's a good chance of a settlement?
Could be just a f-up on Atari's part. Easy to imagine that for them SC is just a product to sell among others, and sales staff can change etc. Could be just negligence. Could of course be something else entirely too.
Anyway, the e-mails are an interesting read for sure. Because at that point in time (after the e-mails and the resolved GOG issue), it seems like the whole thing was just a fixable misunderstanding. Even if it turns out there were major f-ups involved (something like Atari selling rights they didn't actually have) – even then the situation seems like something that could be worked out peacefully, and SC:O and Ghosts could coexist just fine. All parties seem quite willing to cooperate at that point.But then somehow things went terribly downhill after that. Lawsuits and all. And now it's getting some completely crazy dimensions like Stardock (lawyers?) saying P&F didn't actually make Star Control. How is that not a gigantic insult? That's not trying to reach an agreement anymore, that's just hostility. Like, hold why do you do this thing...I worry that the atmosphere is now too toxic for a friendly agreement and peaceful developing of the two games. How do you get back from here to when everyone wanted to cooperate? Rewind time maybe?
Yes, it's certainly worrying for any fan of the series. The best thing we can do is try not to be polarised, show F&P and Stardock that we would love to see everything work out for both parties.
Perhaps as a part of a settlement over the trademark issue, Ghosts could be promoted as "From the creators of Star Control" rather than as the sequel (even though everyone knows it is). Fred and Paul are the creators both morally and (I believe) legally (as the legal entity that developed the game was not a studio but the two of them as a duo). Saying "From the creators of Star Control" is a statement of fact regardless of the trademark ownership. It would be petty for Stardock to not even allow that even if they are entitled to deny that.
I just spent an hour reading through both parties' formal complaints/counter-claims, and one thing stuck out to me.
Stardock's complaint had a huge gap between 1999 and 2013:
Stardock basically says no expiry ever happened, and that they own everything from the Starcontrol trademark to the copyrights of the classic games. This knowledge gap between 1999 to 2013 is understandable since all events that transpired during that period had nothing to do with Stardock, which puts them at risk because Atari might have actually sold them the Starcontrol rights they no longer own.
This is where P&F's counterclaim fills in the gap. It states in detail the expiry clause in the 1988 agreement with Accolade and the events that led to P&F's re-acquisition of the IP rights of the classic games in April 2001 (but not the trademark (which is confusing)). It also states Accolade's effort to transfer the trademark rights back to P&F in mid 2002 but having not reached an agreement, Accolade then "fraudulently" sold the Starcontrol trademark to Infogrames (later Atari) in November 2002- alleging that Atari's (and subsequently Stardock's) ownership of the Starcontrol trademark is bogus and that P&F had acquired the trademark rights back in April 2001 after all. This is on page 7-11 on their counterclaim: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4385486-2635-000-P-2018-02-22-17-Counterclaim.html . This is sketchy and rife with inconsistencies since they would ignorantly acknowledge that they didn't own the trademark rights when they released the open source Ur-Quan Masters in August 2002 (named specifically to avoid trademark disputes) as well as stating explicitly they did not own the trademark in the published emails between them, GoG, and Atari.
The way I see it, this legal battle will be won based on:
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