Peter Spear Novel?

[Yonkey]

I guess you guys can't publish though right? Not with the KQ name attached, unless of course it was just "The Silver Lining Companion" amd never once referenced the originals it might be okay. Either way I'd definately buy it.

Actually, there is no KQ name attached to our game any more.   Still though, Vivendi would need to grant Peter permission since part of our game is Sierra IP.

[Baggins]

Which would make for a pretty sticky situation.


First off Vivendi would have to give him an official publishing license as opposed to the fan license. They would be giving him the right to make a profit off of his work. In which case they would want royalties from its publication to protect the characters from their IP.

Sierra doesn't want POS to make a profit off the game in any form by using their IP, so they would not allow POS to receive any royalties.

Since you would certainly wouldn't want Sierra to make money off of any new ideas you made in your fan game. Since they would be receicing royalties without your consent, you would want to somehow get money back from the storyline and characters your team came up with and vivendi was profiting from...

A lawsuit could ensue most likely... and then both sides would have major headaches...

I've heard  with Star Trek fanfics(I.E. stories written by amatuers not proffesionas) that get published by Paramounts consent for anthology collections, that paramount gets the majority of the profits. With the writers either get nothing or paid a lump sum for the story that was submitted. As well as caviote that the original author gave up their rights  to the story when they submitted it.

Sure it isn't the best example, as it has a few differences, but even it has some  sticky law issues to go through.

Also I seem to remember that Lucasfilm claims any fanfic(again something not professionall written and does not have official  liscense, referring to ones on the internet, that uses elements from their IP belongs to them, and they reserve the right to make a lawsuit towards them or even publish them if they feel like it...

Not so sure on their claim has legal merit behind it or not however...

Disney strongly hunts after people that use their IPs even for home use even when used for non-profit reasons by a single person. They are vehemently against fanfiction, or use of characters in artwork, shirts, or other projects.

[Yonkey]

Which would make for a pretty sticky situation.

Actually our lawyer just added two words to our agreement which addressed everything you said above.

[Baggins]

Well if its like standard practice...

Usually that means that fanwork company waive their rights, and step down (i.e. it loses its rights to its product) if the IP holding company if in the future, decides to publish the fanwork by other means. I.E. it becomes the property of the original IP owner.

That is the IP owner reserves the right to do what they want with material based on their IP.

I know there are examples of (shared IP), where both IP owner and the writer that adds to it share copyright on the material, but that is done to allow both parties to get paid fair royalties.

There might be loopholes through that, but I do not know of them.

I don't remember the situation entirely but Sierra published fanmods(which you could dowload for free from the fan sites) for the original Half-Life as "expansion packs" or "add-ins". Thus made a profit from them. I do not know if the original designers of the fanmods  were reimbursed by sierra for their use. ...or if sierra used the lingo of fan companies losing all rights if the company chooses to do something with material created through their copyrighted level designer software.

However, sierra and Valve did hire them later to make official stand alone versions of those games, to be published by sierra/Valve.

Now that Valve has full control, and no longer tied to sierra, they publish fanmods and sell them on their own(however at this point they are making special deals with the designers, IIRC).

Additionally if Sierra decided to publish TSL in a King's Quest collection in the future. POS probably had to give up any rights to making any profit from the collections, and probably have given up any rights to go after sierra for using any material they came up with.

Unless you have found some kind of loophole?

[Yonkey]

No loopholes, but I can't go into details.  Unfortunately, you'll just have to .

[Baggins]

Why is it called a "suffer"? cause it looks like a "laugh". heh heh.

[Yonkey]

It is a "laugh".

[TribeHasSpoken]

But an evil laugh, kind of like the one I always do when Cedric gets taken by the wolf or attacked my the harpies in KQ5