2 ms·
After watching that video on the court ruling re: DMCA I agree with you that it's pretty clear Stardock are in the wrong here. In my comment above I just wanted
by Benjamin_Dobell 8y ago
After watching that video on the court ruling re: DMCA I agree with you that it's pretty clear Stardock are in the wrong here. In my comment above I just wanted to point out it's possible to own IP and distribution rights a particular media release, without necessarily owning franchise IP and future distribution rights.
However, it seems that while Stardock supposedly thought they bought the Star Control (lore) franchise/IP from Atari/Accolade; that's simply not the case as Atari never owned the franchise, just Star Dock 3 additions to the franchise and the trademark.
- ninjin 8y agoI would have been inclined to give the same charitable interpretation, but then I stumbled upon this Arstechnica article [1] from the time of the sale with a quoted statement from the Stardock CEO Brad Wardell: “We won't be making any changes to the existing Star Control games. And Atari doesn't actually own the copyright on Star Control 1/2 so it's not like one could make a Star Control 2 HD or what have you without a license from Paul Reiche. And even if we did have rights to SC 1/2 I wouldn't touch them without his blessing.” [1]: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/07/stardock-acquires-star-control-rights-in-fire-sale-plans-reboot/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/07/stardock-acquires-sta... I simply do not know how the interpret the above quote in any other way than that Stardock was aware that at least some of the rights were retained by Paul Reiche III at the time of, or immediately following, the purchase from Atari.