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The Silver Lining - Cease and Desist

Started by Yonkey, February 27, 2010, 08:59:56 PM

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tessspoon

The petition is at http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/savetsl

A sample letter to send to Activision and instructions for sending it can be found at http://www.postudios.com/blog/forum/index.php?topic=8406.0

The Save TSL website (currently a WIP) is at http://savetsl.co.cc/?cat=1

Night O

I'm working on the letter now, already signed the online petition but thanks. Maybe these links could be stickied somewhere or added to the mainsite for better orientation though?
-Night owl

Yonkey

Quote from: Night O on March 03, 2010, 09:51:51 AM
I'm working on the letter now, already signed the online petition but thanks. Maybe these links could be stickied somewhere or added to the mainsite for better orientation though?
-Night owl
I've just updated the first post with a link to the sticky thread which lists all websites discussing the C&D.
"A wish changes nothing. A decision changes everything."

waltzdancing

Atec will update our website as soon as he can. FOr those who don't know our website here is the address:

http://savetsl.co.cc/?cat=1

All the information will be there later on in the day if Atec can manage it. He is a busy person, so give him time.

Nght O

I see. That's great then.
I do hope all of this works.
Regards.

jsali001

#325
Great job everybody. On-line Petition is at 1100 and counting! Keep it up. I emailed a few gaming websites and bloggers to get the word out about this so heres hoping we can make magic happen again like last time.

oberonqa

Quote from: jsali001 on March 03, 2010, 12:27:51 PM
Great job everybody. On-line Petition is at 1100 and counting! Keep it up. I emailed a few gaming websites and bloggers to get the word out about this so here hoping we can make magic happened again like last time.

Great!  Thank you for supporting The Silver Lining and the Save The Silver Lining Movement.  :)
 
Chronicling the history of Sierra through the conversion of it's premiere magazine into an easy-to-use, searchable wiki format.

Longtime Fan

Very sad to hear the news, but surely not as sad as all of you, who have worked so hard on this for so long. Have you had this latest legal twist reviewed by a lawyer? From reviewing the information in the posts it seems Activision's assertions may not be enforceable. The initial "agreement" may not be enforceable as written because they didn't really give anything up (they made a so-called illusory promise), or you may be able to make a claim in equity for the considerable work you've expended in reliance on their earlier representations (i.e. those of Vivendi, their predecessor in interest). These are just some ideas you might consider discussing with a lawyer - only a lawyer can give you legal advice. In any case, thanks for your vision and your dedication to keeping alive what was a wonderful series in adventure gaming.

zavlin

when promoting this story make sure to emphasize this: the team submitted a finished release (be it an episode or not), and thats when activision pulled the plug. That aspect is considerably more likely to garner random support.


:(

zavlin

...and to stress my point:

not a great post headline: "TSL shut down...again"
much better headline: "activision pulls plug on fanmade kq9/tsl after they submit a release for approval."

h

which is why all development should be done in free countries, wikileaks is hosted in sweden, btw, i wonder why? so many people in high places drawing invisible lines on the cake of freedom, sqabbling over crumbs on a melting planet instead of cooperation and exploration. but that's what the cowards in the shadows enjoy, division of humanity.

atec123

Quote from: waltzdancing on March 03, 2010, 09:57:54 AM
Atec will update our website as soon as he can. FOr those who don't know our website here is the address:

http://savetsl.co.cc/?cat=1

All the information will be there later on in the day if Atec can manage it. He is a busy person, so give him time.
*Updated.

Tell me what you think about it.  Now that it's at least done enough to have the necessary info, we should really try to start spreading it around the interwebz.

My printer's not working so I'm gonna have to use the 3rd method too send mine in.  I will do that now.
Official maintainer of TSL in linux via Wine. TSL AppDB page
Maintainer of TSL in OSX via Wine
TSL IRC Chatroom Maintainer
We are the Defenders of Jazz Ballet
People say, when they see us:
Hey, folks! It's the Saviours of Jazz Ballet
Fearless heroes of kick and spin

Haids1987

Looking good, atec!  Very professional.
STATUS:
-Drinking water
-Checking the forum. 

Perpetually. ;D
Erica Reed is Katie Hallahan.
Leader of the "I <3 Doon" Fanclub

threej_lc

So, uhm, why are we all mailing our letters to one person here on the board and not just straight to activision?

waltzdancing

We are mailing or emailing them to me so I can send them all at once and make a large pile on Avtivision's desk. Make him see just how many people care at once. Take an anthill for example, one or two ants at a time you can shake off but if the entire swarm came after you... I think everyone knows where I am going.

I promise I won't do anything to the letter or your name. I won't steal identities, trust me I have enough trouble with the one I have been dealt I don't need another.

threej_lc

Lol, I don't distrust your integrity.

It just seems to me if activision gets one big envelope with all these letters, it would look like just one person wrote a whole bunch of letters and made up names because they were made.  If they get a bunch of letters at different times from different people it seems more authentic.


waltzdancing

It's not going to be one big envelope. My family and I are going print out the address on all the envelopes, stamp them and send them to the mail office. There are three in town so each post office will see me here with a fist full on letters. I want to build a mountain of paper on Bobby Whats-his-face... and make him open each letter one by one. Is it to much to ask for a paper cut here and there?  :P

oberonqa

Hiya all,

I just made an interesting post over at the AGDI forums where we are discussing the C&D and the topic of TSL's impact on indie game development came up.  I wrote this post and then figured I'd share it here, as it strikes a lot of chords at the heart of why this C&D is wrong.

http://www.agdiforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=14582&p=216186#p216186

Very true... but let me ask you this. If Valve had taken the C&D stance regarding modifying Counterstrike way back when it was a mod, how different would the landscape of the game industry be today? Back when Counterstrike was a mod, it was considered highly controversial due to how it modified the Half Life game. Back then, Valve did not have the policy it became known for regarding open-modding of it's game. It was because of Counterstrike's success that Valve adopted that policy.

Or how about the fan artists that put up a comic featuring Street Fighter characters in a grungy Los Angeles and some rather... interesting pairings (Ken and Chun Li in a back alley for example). They ended up being hired by Capcom to produce the Street Fighter OV anime.

Or how about the hundreds of artists that put up artwork on DeviantArt based on characters in videogames and movies? What is to stop any of them from getting a C&D from an IP owner? It's called freedom of expression and as long as you are not making money off of someone else's work and you give credit to that persons work, it's not a breach of copyright or IP law.

And in the end, that's what TSL is. An interactive fanfic. The only difference between TSL and the hundreds of fanfics about <fill in the blank popular culture IP such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Final Fantasy VII) is it's got a C&D. Actually, FFVII brings up a very good point. Have you ever stopped to wonder why Square Enix never went after the guy who made a Famicon/NES version of Final Fantasy VII? I mean... if there was ever a case of C&D-bait, it would surely be that wouldn't it? But yet... Square Enix has never gone after this guy.

Why?

Because all the game assets in that cartridge/ROM is hand made. The guy didn't rip anything from the official game. Not one character model, background image, sound effect, or music track. The guy hand-drew every single sprite and every single background. He used public-domain MIDI conversions (provided by Square I might add) to make the soundtrack. In short, he made a new game that told the same story as FFVII on the PSX. But yet... he's never gotten a C&D. You could go to Tokyo today and run into him on a street corner and he'd happily give you a boxed copy of the game. And he does it free and clear.

What is so different between that and TSL? No art assets were taken from the KQ games. As you are all aware, every art asset in TSL had to be hand-made due to the conversion to 3D. No music was taken from the game. The story is even original. The only thing that Activision owns that is used by TSL are the names of characters, locations, and references to events of other games. You can't even say the character model of King Graham is copyright infringement because the Graham in TSL is older than he was in KQ6 and there are subtle differences in his outfit (the infamous adventurer's hat is a different shade of blue than the sprite that has quantified the hat in the 2D games).

And that is why the TSL C&D is of concern to the indie development community as a whole. Activision is laying claim to an entire work because they say it's copyright infringement when in reality... only 30% of the game could even be considered possible copyright infringement and only by the loosest definition of the word (especially considering the copyright infringement in question is in regards to an IP that has been inactive for 12 years and has seen sporadic surges in sales on Amazon Marketplace for one reason or another). What is to stop Activision from shutting down an indie game that bears a resemblence to Guitar Hero, but has 7 tracks instead of 5 tracks and is called Octopus Villian? The game would bear a striking resemblence to Guitar Hero... but as we all know Guitar Hero is based around 5 tracks at the hardest difficulty. Basing a game around 7 tracks would make it an entirely new game. But what Activision is saying is that resemblence is enough to shut it down.

That is wrong. It's also hypocracy at it's finest given Kotick's remarks at DICE. Any and all indie developers are at risk from Activision because Activisions games span a wide range of types and demographics. God help the poor group that makes a World War 2 first person shooter to submit for the indie competition... because Activision might consider that to be enough of a resemblence to Call of Duty to shut it down.

I'll close with this one last thought. You cannot copyright an idea. You can only copyright an implementation. A person can copyright a schematic for a toaster. A person cannot copyright the idea for a toaster. Think on that and then apply that reasoning to indie game development and see where it leads you.
 
Chronicling the history of Sierra through the conversion of it's premiere magazine into an easy-to-use, searchable wiki format.

Erpy

QuoteVery true... but let me ask you this. If Valve had taken the C&D stance regarding modifying Counterstrike way back when it was a mod, how different would the landscape of the game industry be today? Back when Counterstrike was a mod, it was considered highly controversial due to how it modified the Half Life game. Back then, Valve did not have the policy it became known for regarding open-modding of it's game. It was because of Counterstrike's success that Valve adopted that policy.

Or how about the fan artists that put up a comic featuring Street Fighter characters in a grungy Los Angeles and some rather... interesting pairings (Ken and Chun Li in a back alley for example). They ended up being hired by Capcom to produce the Street Fighter OV anime.

Or how about the hundreds of artists that put up artwork on DeviantArt based on characters in videogames and movies? What is to stop any of them from getting a C&D from an IP owner? It's called freedom of expression and as long as you are not making money off of someone else's work and you give credit to that persons work, it's not a breach of copyright or IP law.

I agree with you on the impact of fan-made work. I believe the HD version of Super Street Fighter II even used music made on OC-remix. Fan-made work can add a lot to a franchise. However, your last statement that something is only copyright infringement if you make money off of it is simply factually incorrect.

QuoteAnd in the end, that's what TSL is. An interactive fanfic. The only difference between TSL and the hundreds of fanfics about <fill in the blank popular culture IP such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Final Fantasy VII) is it's got a C&D. Actually, FFVII brings up a very good point. Have you ever stopped to wonder why Square Enix never went after the guy who made a Famicon/NES version of Final Fantasy VII? I mean... if there was ever a case of C&D-bait, it would surely be that wouldn't it? But yet... Square Enix has never gone after this guy.

Why?

Because all the game assets in that cartridge/ROM is hand made. The guy didn't rip anything from the official game. Not one character model, background image, sound effect, or music track. The guy hand-drew every single sprite and every single background. He used public-domain MIDI conversions (provided by Square I might add) to make the soundtrack. In short, he made a new game that told the same story as FFVII on the PSX. But yet... he's never gotten a C&D. You could go to Tokyo today and run into him on a street corner and he'd happily give you a boxed copy of the game. And he does it free and clear.


What is so different between that and TSL? No art assets were taken from the KQ games. As you are all aware, every art asset in TSL had to be hand-made due to the conversion to 3D. No music was taken from the game. The story is even original. The only thing that Activision owns that is used by TSL are the names of characters, locations, and references to events of other games. You can't even say the character model of King Graham is copyright infringement because the Graham in TSL is older than he was in KQ6 and there are subtle differences in his outfit (the infamous adventurer's hat is a different shade of blue than the sprite that has quantified the hat in the 2D games).

The other difference is that it's a competing project while non-interactive fanfiction is not. And while Square Enix did not go after the guy who made a NES version of FF7, it did mercilessly stomp out this project which also went out of its way to create everything from scratch rather than straight ripping. (which according to your argument makes a difference, but in reality it doesn't)

QuoteAnd that is why the TSL C&D is of concern to the indie development community as a whole. Activision is laying claim to an entire work because they say it's copyright infringement when in reality... only 30% of the game could even be considered possible copyright infringement and only by the loosest definition of the word (especially considering the copyright infringement in question is in regards to an IP that has been inactive for 12 years and has seen sporadic surges in sales on Amazon Marketplace for one reason or another). What is to stop Activision from shutting down an indie game that bears a resemblence to Guitar Hero, but has 7 tracks instead of 5 tracks and is called Octopus Villian? The game would bear a striking resemblence to Guitar Hero... but as we all know Guitar Hero is based around 5 tracks at the hardest difficulty. Basing a game around 7 tracks would make it an entirely new game. But what Activision is saying is that resemblence is enough to shut it down.

You're omitting the fact that the 30% that could be considered copyright infringment (30% is actually quite a lot) happens to be the most important 30%. You can argue until you're blue in the face about how TSL could have used more KQ elements than it already did, but the fact remains that the game does use all the elements that define a game as a KQ game and removing those elements would make the game fall apart. Also, Activision isn't shutting down TSL because of copyright infringement...due to their license it wasn't infringement anymore. A more accurate analogy would be the all-too-common practice of a publisher funding a third party studio's game's up to the pre-release stage and then decides to cancel it because they didn't feel it was a good idea releasing it. For all intents and purposes, TSL was cancelled.

QuoteThat is wrong. It's also hypocracy at it's finest given Kotick's remarks at DICE. Any and all indie developers are at risk from Activision because Activisions games span a wide range of types and demographics. God help the poor group that makes a World War 2 first person shooter to submit for the indie competition... because Activision might consider that to be enough of a resemblence to Call of Duty to shut it down.

Yeah, Kotick's remarks ARE ironic and more than a bit hypocritical since Activision's rigid stance on IP was already well-known before.

QuoteI'll close with this one last thought. You cannot copyright an idea. You can only copyright an implementation. A person can copyright a schematic for a toaster. A person cannot copyright the idea for a toaster. Think on that and then apply that reasoning to indie game development and see where it leads you.

It leads me to think that King Graham, Prince Alexander and the land of the Green Isles stopped being ideas and started being implementations the moment they were implemented into games that were later released by Sierra.

I admire your passion and share your opinion that Activision was being prickish about this, but factually a lot of your statements are incorrect.


oberonqa

You might want to re-examine that Chrono project there Erpy.  Square stamped that project out because the team was hexxing the original Chrono Trigger ROM and hacking together their own story using pre-existing tilesets.

There was a leaked proof-of-concept from them a while back ago that ran on SNES9X and ZSNES and it was literally Chrono Trigger with a different arrangement of tiles.

As for your implementation argument, that would only apply if Alexander was portrayed exactly as he was in KQ6... which he isn't.  He's older and taken on the mantle of rulership, which has changed him.  Even his outfit is different.  Copyright requires 10 changes, be they minor or major, in order to be considered a different implementation.

Case in point:

Donkey Kong on the Tandy TRS-80.  It looked exactly like Donkey Kong.  It played exactly like Donkey Kong.  It wasn't made by Nintendo.  And Nintendo couldn't touch it.  Why?  Because copyrighting software requires copyrighting the code.  The person who made the TRS-80 cartridge made the same game, but coded it differently (especially in the game loop and logic sub-routines) which made it vastly different from Nintendo's official implimentation. 

Another case in point would be:

WordPerfect

Word processor... boring stuff... but what makes WordPerfect so different from Word?  The user interface and the document format used to save files.  Both Word and WordPerfect do the exact same thing... so which one is infringing on the other's rights?  Neither.  Because both are implemented differently.  They both do the same thing, but the implementation is different.

And you can't say TSL is competing with Activision.  In order for it to compete, TSL would have to be called King's Quest IX (which it no longer is).  That and it'd be a kind of one-sided competition since Activision isn't working on a project of their own (there's articles a plenty floating around about Activisions stance on old properties and their refusal to make new games based on old properties). 

Your argument about fiction versus interactive fiction is also moot.  Dungeons and Dragons has a lot of similarities to Lord of the Rings (halflings anyone???) but I've never seen the Tolkein Estate file a copyright lawsuit against TSR.  The difference?  Lord of the rings is fiction.  Dungeons and Dragons is interactive fiction.

And 30% copyright infringement does not equal guilty in a court of law.  One of the members on the Facebook Group mentioned that Fair Use might apply to the situation.  And the member is correct.  Fair Use might actually apply here.  Unless your going to tell me Activision has the right to say that because TSL takes place on The Land of the Green Isles (which is different from what was in KQ6 I might add) and you play as a much older and slightly different looking Graham, Activision has the right to claim copyright infringement.  Enough changes were made to differentiate TSL from it's licensed counterparts.  Copyright law would not empower Activision here.

And TSL was not cancelled.  Negotiations on a new non-commercial fan license (ala Vivendi) fell through and Activision responded with a C&D.  Your analogy is flawed.


QuoteI admire your passion and share your opinion that Activision was being prickish about this, but factually a lot of your statements are incorrect.

^^  :suffer:
 
Chronicling the history of Sierra through the conversion of it's premiere magazine into an easy-to-use, searchable wiki format.