Quote: Original post by necreia
More to the 'they were retards, not creative' part... there are very few companies, if any, with 100% original assets.

True. But these companies make sure they are legally on the safe side. And, most important, that they can manage the termination clauses in the case they licensed third party IP.

Just to make this crystal clear: I don't think anybody is saying that these TSL guys are incompetent. Whether or not they are creative is open to discussions.

However, they knew that by signing this agreement they would essentially give up the rights to their invested time. They put all their future work at the whim of a corporate entity they have absolutely no control over. This agreement gave all power to the IP holder, with them just being temporarily tolerated. The fact that they started a year long project, and invested so much effort into something from which they knew could be terminated and buried at any time, without them having any possibility of legal recourse, remedies or damages for termination - that is more than naive, and with all due respect, retarded.

You just don't sign contracts like that. Period.

Quote: Original post by Yann L

Quote: Original post by necreia
More to the 'they were retards, not creative' part... there are very few companies, if any, with 100% original assets.

True. But these companies make sure they are legally on the safe side. And, most important, that they can manage the termination clauses in the case they licensed third party IP.

Just to make this crystal clear: I don't think anybody is saying that these TSL guys are incompetent. Whether or not they are creative is open to discussions.

However, they knew that by signing this agreement they would essentially give up the rights to their invested time. They put all their future work at the whim of a corporate entity they have absolutely no control over. This agreement gave all power to the IP holder, with them just being temporarily tolerated. The fact that they started a year long project, and invested so much effort into something from which they knew could be terminated and buried at any time, without them having any possibility of legal recourse, remedies or damages for termination - that is more than naive, and with all due respect, retarded.

You just don't sign contracts like that. Period.

If they didn't sign that contract which contract would they sign? They don't have any bargaining power as far as I can tell, there was no way they were going to get better terms out of Vivendi. If I was in their shoes I might agree to the same terms, knowing that it was the difference between continuing a legally sanctioned effort towards something I was passionate about and throwing it all away. Let's not pretend they were in any position to dictate terms to Vivendi; instead they had something that most don't get out of corporate entities, the right to use their IP.

The travesty here, if you can call it that, is that Activision comes swoops in and takes all that away. Whatever justification Activision can claim is undermined by the fact that Vivendi already thought it wasn't a bad idea and signed off on it. I suspect that's probably what angers people the most.

If I was them I'd thumb my nose at Activision and add enough parody to the game to be able to release it. I'm sure Bernard Kotick, the Activision board and Activision legal all have comedic potential.

Quote: Original post by outRider
If they didn't sign that contract which contract would they sign?

None at all. The moment they realized they didn't have any way to negotiate a contract with better protection for them, they should've dropped the use of the KQ IP altogether, and created their own IP, rather than investing energy and time into a project that they knew would've been taken away from them without compensation at some time or another.

Quote: Original post by outRider
instead they had something that most don't get out of corporate entities, the right to use their IP.

They got nothing. The only thing they managed to get was a promise to not get sued for an indeterminate time, a time they had no control over. They were barely tolerated by Vivendi. Essentially they took 100% of the risk, Vivendi took 0%. That's not really a contract I would've been very proud of. In fact, I wouldn't have touched that agreement with a ten feet pole, had I been in their shoes.

Quote: Original post by outRider
The travesty here, if you can call it that, is that Activision comes swoops in and takes all that away. Whatever justification Activision can claim is undermined by the fact that Vivendi already thought it wasn't a bad idea and signed off on it. I suspect that's probably what angers people the most.

But the TSL guys agreed to this ! They basically said, "OK, you can take it all away whenever you please without justification, that's cool with us" when they signed the agreement ! There is no ground for complaining now that the IP holder did it.

Quote: Original post by outRider
If I was them I'd thumb my nose at Activision and add enough parody to the game to be able to release it. I'm sure Bernard Kotick, the Activision board and Activision legal all have comedic potential.

That is an unimaginably huge risk.

It is blatantly declaring "I am using your IP even though the owners told me to stop." The defense is then relying on a judge to determine that they are actually a parody acting in good faith.

That kind of affirmative defense would be very difficult to pull off. It would be doubly-hard because they had a license to use the content for several years.

And if the defense failed --- which is likely --- the project would be completely shut down (rather than open to re-branding) and they would be out a *LOT* of money.



The only two sane options are the same ones they had when they first got in trouble: Either negotiate a new IP license (as fan art or as a salable product), or abandon the brand for another.

Quote: Original post by Obscure

Quote: Original post by ChaosEngine
I don't know the legality of it.....

When discussing what the law actually is, it is helpful to actually know what the law is. Saying what you think the court will do, based only on a lack of knowledge, is only going to cause confusion.

Eh? I was making a point for discussion. I clearly stated I didn't know the answer in the hope that someone more knowledgeable would enlighten me. I then made a stab at what I thought might be the answer having clearly qualified it as an amateur guess.

For the record, my opinion is that if I create an IP I should have control over it. I personally might allow "fan projects", but the decision is mine to make.

Quote: Original post by ChaosEngine

Quote: Original post by Obscure

Quote: Original post by ChaosEngine
I don't know the legality of it.....

When discussing what the law actually is, it is helpful to actually know what the law is. Saying what you think the court will do, based only on a lack of knowledge, is only going to cause confusion.

Eh? I was making a point for discussion. I clearly stated I didn't know the answer in the hope that someone more knowledgeable would enlighten me. I then made a stab at what I thought might be the answer having clearly qualified it as an amateur guess.

For the record, my opinion is that if I create an IP I should have control over it. I personally might allow "fan projects", but the decision is mine to make.

and you do, if someone isn't paying you to come up with an IP... and then you can allow whatever you want.

i dont get what you are trying to say

Quote: Original post by kryat

Quote: Original post by ChaosEngine
For the record, my opinion is that if I create an IP I should have control over it. I personally might allow "fan projects", but the decision is mine to make.

and you do, if someone isn't paying you to come up with an IP... and then you can allow whatever you want.

i dont get what you are trying to say

I'm sorry, but your response is pretty badly worded. I'm having difficulty understanding what you mean.

To clarify:

If I create/own an IP (either by writing it myself or paying someone do write it for my company) that IP is under my control. Now, if someone comes up with a good fan-project, I personally might decide to let it go ahead (See Valve and Black Mesa Source), or I might not. The decision is mine. Regardless of the merits of that individual decision (i.e. whether it was a good idea or not), no-one can argue that the decision is mine to make.