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The Silver Lining - Cease and Desist

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

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KatieHal

Damn. Yeah, we might want to after that streak especially, wow.

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

atec123

tis alright.  Once the C&D is resolved, we can disable guest accounts.  For now, its good.  It gets more people talking here when they might not want to register.  youknow?

whoa.
I just went through 5 ``ẁhile you were typing, a new reply was posted`` things.
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

atec123

 this is crazy. never seen so much freakin spam in my life!  or at least not all at the same time like this.
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

Yonkey

Due to abuse, I've now deleted the spam and revoked Guest access.  If people want to post in this thread, they're just going to have to register. :P
"A wish changes nothing. A decision changes everything."

waltzdancing

That was probably a good idea, Yonkey. I have unfortunately become some what of a ghost because of all the spam

Petra Rocks

Quote from: Erpy on April 25, 2010, 11:28:57 PM


The reason for the C&D would be a mixture of laziness and unwillingness to deal with fangames. It's like the interview with the team says...the legal dept had to finish a couple of legal procedures to make the game's release possible and couldn't be bothered to put manhours into something they did not support to begin with.


My gut figured it would be something like that, which I why I suspect the only way would be convince them that it will help their bottom line enough to be worth it. Of course that requires getting the ear of a very busy person in the upper hierarchy, which isn't always easy unless you have contacts, and I assume they have already tried that. 

Or if a few lawyers fees are really the only barrier could you just offer to have an independent set of lawyers do the process? Raising money to buy the IP is probably unrealistic and bribery would be both impossible and wrong, but that much might be within the realm of possibility. 

dew7

I am really saddened that this project is not being taken seriously by Activision.  I have tried writing them a letter and signed the on-line petition.  I wonder how we can convince them that allowing this project to continue would be in their best interest because of revived interest in King's Quest then another King's Quest may become possible and people may want to buy the old King's Quest games that are offered on-line for sale now.

<Guest Dan -- Lurker for a while after the hacking of the website back in the day -- Yonkey remembers>
Carpe Diem  Trying to help all of us including myself understand the merry-go-round of life.

liggy002

The first thing I would have asked after the C&D is "What is the reason for the C&D?"  Of course, that is provided that you were physically speaking with someone and not receiving a paper communication.  If we know the underlying reason, then perhaps that will give us the information necessary to combat the decision.  i think that there is something that we can do right now- in addition to shooting down ideas we could also suggest ways to make them work or if they can't work provide alternative ideas.  Those of you who are refuting ideas would do well to take such actions, the more ideas we have, the better chance we will have of resolving this matter.  Remember that is ok to fail but it is NOT OK to give up.  Fight for what you believe in and never back down.  At least, thats the way i see things.

RollingStone

You make a good point - I wish we could sit down with the Activision people in some kind of psychotherapy session and ask, rationally and calmly, "What is your PROBLEM?" Maybe it would make a good episode of "Dr. Phil"... :)

Someone mentioned that maybe their problem is that they're unwilling to take the time to do the legal procedures. I'm not sure how much time we're talking about, but I can't imagine that it would be anything compared to the EIGHT FREAKING YEARS they took from the programmers!

Some people have also mentioned that the problem might be money. (Big surprise ;P) There might be lawyers' fees involved. The legal department also might be unwilling to spend time that they won't be paid for. Why a huge multi-million dollar corporation would be worried about things like this, I have no idea, ::) but money does seems to be their weakness.

The price of the IP may not be realistic, but the price of the time and the lawyers might be. Maybe we could find a sympathetic lawyer who would be willing to work for free, or at least at a reduced rate. Any legal experts around who can answer these questions?


gfk27

I can understand not wanting to get sued.. no one wants that, ever.  But the C&D is nothing but an empty threat.  Whether or not you have a legal right to release TSL doesn't matter, what matters is that you have a good case.  No one wants to take a "fair use" copyright case to court because it risks setting a dangerous precedent if they were to lose.  Big companies would be protecting themselves by not pursuing legal action.

There are many instances like this involving video games and music, and no one dares to take it further.  It's not worth losing a case (and in turn 100% control of your IP) to take someone to court over a non profit product.  If you have not already, I suggest you sit down a copyright lawyer and discuss it in depth.  Not just any lawyer will suffice, you will NEED someone who specializes in copyright law.  And for the record, that person is not me.

I don't mean to come off rude here, just offering outside perspective.  I played the demo and loved it, and I was looking forward to playing this since it seemed to be the only quality fan game that would actually be finished.  (FoA2 anyone?)

Erpy

Don't you think it would set an even more dangerous precedent for AV if a fan group (particularly a fan group who gathered a great deal of pre-publicity) could ignore/dismiss a C&D and get away with it?

Yeah, people can ignore C&D's. The guy who made QFG4.5 did it. But then you'll have to go underground, avoid publicity like the plague, move your site and community to some crappy Eastern-European server that has no TOS about not storing illegal content and you'll have to abandon every shred of commercial dreams you ever had.


Enchantermon

Quote from: Erpy on April 30, 2010, 04:56:02 PM
Don't you think it would set an even more dangerous precedent for AV if a fan group (particularly a fan group who gathered a great deal of pre-publicity) could ignore/dismiss a C&D and get away with it?
Yes, it would. Make no mistake, gfk27, Activision will take further legal action if they have to, and if they did, PoS would not win.
So what if I am, huh? Anyways, I work better when I'm drunk. It makes me fearless! If I see a bad guy, I'll just point my sword at him and saaaaaaaaaay, "Hey! Bad guy! You're not s'posed to be here! Go home or I'll stick you with my sword 'til you go, 'Ouch! I'm dead!' Ah-ha-ha!" Ha-ha. *hic* See? Ain't no one gonna be messin' wit' ol', Benny!

Nalas

#772
Hi,

there is a new report regarding your incidents:
http://www.gamestar.de/specials/reports/2314608/lizenzen_zum_toeten.html
http://www.gamestar.de/specials/reports/2314608/lizenzen_zum_toeten_p2.html

I'm very sorry to see this happen to passionate gamers and hobby-developers as you are

Greetings from Germany

Talking

Hi,

I already wanted to write this the first time I heard about the IP incident but forgot somehow and the report mentioned above brought me back.

Wouldn't it be possible to just get rid of all names that somehow relate to King's Quest and release the game as a regular adventure?

I know that it's not easy to give up a project's roots but in the end everyone will know that it is or was supposed to be King's Quest 9.

Greetings

fantome2024

maybe consultant a lawyer... I mean if you change the names and such and dont call it anything to do with Kings Quest I dont see the issue...I'm sad to see this happen I've been following this project for i think 5 or 6 years :(

dew7

What happened to Neil.  I cannot read German.  Dan in US.


Quote from: Nalas on May 01, 2010, 04:23:43 AM
Hi,

there is a new report regarding your incidents:
http://www.gamestar.de/specials/reports/2314608/lizenzen_zum_toeten.html
http://www.gamestar.de/specials/reports/2314608/lizenzen_zum_toeten_p2.html

I'm very sorry to see this happen to passionate gamers and hobby-developers as you are

Greetings from Germany
Carpe Diem  Trying to help all of us including myself understand the merry-go-round of life.

KatieHal

Here's the German article after going through Google translation. It's not perfect, but you can at least get the gist of what's being said!

http://translate.google.com/translate_back?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.gamestar.de/specials/reports/2314608/lizenzen_zum_toeten.html&prev=_t&twu=1

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

atec123

Neil is on hiatus from the team right now.

Don't have time to read the article right now, but hopefully that is what you were asking.
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

liggy002

We have no way of knowing what Activision will do and it doesn't matter at this point since the team will clearly not ignore the C&D.  What matters is what we are going to do now- let them impale us prison style or do something about it.

dew7

Quote from: atec123 on May 01, 2010, 07:06:55 PM
Neil is on hiatus from the team right now.

Don't have time to read the article right now, but hopefully that is what you were asking.


Whew, yeah that is what I needed to know.  I was worried that something happened to him.  Thank you for the information.
Carpe Diem  Trying to help all of us including myself understand the merry-go-round of life.