57 replies to this topic

[Zerberus]

Adridos, on 08 June 2013 - 04:22 AM, said:

As far as the Japan court goes, they said that it was really Studio Nue (from whom' FASA purchased them) who had the right to sell those designs and not the ones the HG has got the right from.

And that changes what exactly?

The fact of the matter is that anyone can sue anyone else over anything. Whether ot not the suit has merit is irrelevant to the initial filing. If you can`t afford to defend yourself, you automatically lose, regardless of who was right..

Case in point: How many companies have IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Disney, Sony/Universal, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Fender Musical Instruments, Northrop-Grumman (the list goes on and on...) just squashed , simply due to the little guy not having the money to pay for the lawsuit? I`ll give you a hint: the number had 6 digits last year (starting from 1970) and is rapidly approaching 7.

When you live in a society where suing other companies to drain their finances is regarded as a legitimate business tactic, right and wrong have no bearing on the matter anymore

And that is why we will NEVER see unseens in MWO, and probably not the reseens, either. Why take the risk? Use the licenses you have, and make sure you stay away from ones you don`t have.

BTW: this is alyso part of what makes Mech development cost as much as it does (25k /mech was the quote IIRC). When you have to have IP lawyers look at every design, as well as cross-referencing every even remotely related design that you do not have a license for, just to make sure that you are far enough away to guarantee a win in court if it comes to it, that costs money, quite a bit of it. Significantly more than the actual coding and artwork.

Edited by Zerberus, 08 June 2013 - 04:37 AM.

[Nauht]

Sephlock, on 08 June 2013 - 02:59 AM, said:

The first one fits pretty well (although I was really looking forward to the urbamech-in-an-exosuit look) but the second... come on man, no shoulder boxes, no warhammer.

And yes, that means that I reject that travesty of a Battlemech that Nicolai Malthus piloted. No shoulder cylinder = not a Summoner.

Of course they can't make it overly distinguishable to the Rifleman and Warhammer - that's asking to be sued.

Fact is PGI could have made them look more like the original 80's art. They didn't... it's much, much more familiar with the unseen art. That's what I've been saying. Make it any more like them and lawyers will be knocking on their doors.

[AlexEss]

Adridos, on 08 June 2013 - 04:22 AM, said:

As far as the Japan court goes, they said that it was really Studio Nue (from whom' FASA purchased them) who had the right to sell those designs and not the ones the HG has got the right from.

That was what i said... That HG had no claim to stake. That does in no way equal that they are free for use. And as i pointed out it could be a very costly thing to secure the rights to use them in a computer game.

So go on and roll your eyes all you want.

[Adridos]

Zerberus, on 08 June 2013 - 04:31 AM, said:

When you live in a society where suing other companies to drain their finances is regarded as a legitimate business tactic, right and wrong have no bearing on the matter anymore

Do Candaians also have to deal with US's law system that enables such stupidities?

[Empyrus]

Despite loving the original art for Marauder and Warhammer, i wouldn't mind seeing their re-imagined (just like all MWO mechs are re-imagined) versions in MWO. The Project Phoenix versions are not too bad looking, using them as basis for MWO would be all right, IMO.

[Zerberus]

Adridos, on 08 June 2013 - 07:57 AM, said:

Do Candaians also have to deal with US's law system that enables such stupidities?

IIRC the plaintiff chooses the court, so essentially yes in most cases if my understanding is correct.

[Eric darkstar Marr]

Okay I need to add that StJobe is wrong when the dust settled for the law suit in Japan it was found out that FASA had the legal rights however since whatever agreement out of court FASA and HG made may have prevented them from pushing forward. On another note MS has the rights to battletech and they have the lawyers to get the rights correctly but havn't because it may not be in their best interest.

Its all about reading the legal briefs and seeing the BS that is copyright and licensing in the world. Could they get away with doing reseens yes its a new design could they get away with unseens maybe depending on the out of court deal and transfer of the company to MS.

In the end it comes down to just saying no to fans so they don't have to fork out huge court costs in the end.

[Adridos]

Eric darkstar Marr, on 08 June 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

On another note MS has the rights to battletech...

No, they have the rights to Mechwarrior games.

[stjobe]

Eric darkstar Marr, on 08 June 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

Okay I need to add that StJobe is wrong

I'll gladly concede the point; I was trying to simplify a rather convoluted mess. The end result, whether by out-of-court settlement or otherwise, was still that FASA had to make the images Unseen.

[Eric darkstar Marr]

stjobe, on 08 June 2013 - 11:31 AM, said:

I'll gladly concede the point; I was trying to simplify a rather convoluted mess. The end result, whether by out-of-court settlement or otherwise, was still that FASA had to make the images Unseen.

On a huge fun note if you dig deep you will see that they acquired the artistic rights prior to macross ever being made.

[Eric darkstar Marr]

Adridos, on 08 June 2013 - 10:44 AM, said:

No, they have the rights to Mechwarrior games.

You are half right.
You see MS bought FASA as a whole in a hostile takeover in which it acquired all rights to said IPs.
They licensed the rights to Wizkids(WOTC) who was bought by TOPPS who produced MECHWARRIOR.
The names Battletech and Mechwarrior seem to be allowed to be interchanged depending on the medium used.
MS could license a battletech game the same they do mechwarrior.
Just as Wizkids used mechwarrior and continued to when TOPPS used it for the failed projects.
Also note that there have been Battletech video games the same as Mechwarrior so MS could easily license both terms.

[dak irakoz]

What picture? Link?

[Bishop Steiner]

Eric darkstar Marr, on 08 June 2013 - 12:33 PM, said:

You are half right.
You see MS bought FASA as a whole in a hostile takeover in which it acquired all rights to said IPs.
They licensed the rights to Wizkids(WOTC) who was bought by TOPPS who produced MECHWARRIOR.
The names Battletech and Mechwarrior seem to be allowed to be interchanged depending on the medium used.
MS could license a battletech game the same they do mechwarrior.
Just as Wizkids used mechwarrior and continued to when TOPPS used it for the failed projects.
Also note that there have been Battletech video games the same as Mechwarrior so MS could easily license both terms.

Hmmm, you sure? I'm pretty sure (but not 100% by any means, since short of court documents, it's largely hearsay) that Microsoft only owns Digital and Electronic rights (aka Computer games, hence Piranha licensing the rights from Microsoft for MW:O).

Everything I have read have been pretty specific that Wizkids and then TOPPS acquired the rights, which is significantly different in legalese than licensing them. Again, I am not claiming I speak gospel, and if you got some links to the contrary I would love to see them, as I don't want to be spreading inaccurate info myself.
https://en.wikipedia...wiki/BattleTech
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/BattleTech
http://www.catalystg...com/battletech/

Even the CGL website makes no mention of Microsoft, which they would have to by law, much as it lists being licensed from TOPPS at the bottom.

I have read 2-3 hearsay forum posts on other sites claiming the Microsoft hostile takeover, but never actually saw anything remotely official saying the same.

[Adridos]

Eric darkstar Marr, on 08 June 2013 - 12:33 PM, said:

You are half right.
You see MS bought FASA as a whole in a hostile takeover in which it acquired all rights to said IPs.

Not true. Straight from Sarna:

BattleTech was created by FASA, who held the IP rights to the universe up until they withdrew from the market in 2001. They licensed limited rights to a number of third parties (such as Ral Partha to produce miniatures, publishing houses for comics, and later Roc Books for the novels, among others). The rights to produce computer games were with FASA Interactive, which was eventually sold - including the IP rights to computer games - to Microsoft.

In 2001, FASA ceased its active operations and the BattleTech IP (minus the computer games license now held by Microsoft) was transferred to WizKids, a new firm owned by FASA co-founder Jordan Weisman. WizKids split the IP, creating Classic BattleTech and MechWarrior: Dark Age as separate brands.

The Classic BattleTech IP was licensed to FanPro, a German games publisher who had previously produced the German edition of BattleTech, in the summer of 2001. FanPro had created FanPro LLC, a US-based sister company, to continue the original, English-language BattleTech line.

In 2003, WizKids was bought by the Topps company. In the same year, they granted a license to InMediaRes to publish new, canon BattleTech material on the internet, which led to the creation of the BattleCorps site.

In 2007, FanPro's BattleTech license ran out and was not renewed. In their stead, InMediaRes acquired the full license from Topps/WizKids, and created their Catalyst Game Labs subsidiary to continue the classic game line.

Topps terminated WizKids as a brand in 2008 and discontinued the Clix game lines, including MechWarrior: Dark Age. Ever since, Classic BattleTech is marketed simply as BattleTech again. The license remained with InMediaRes.


If Sarna's not good enough for you (as it is just a fan wiki, all things considered), you can commit a simple experiment. First, you cna look at the bottom of this page where it says that Mechwarrior is a M$ trademark. That one we agree on. This page dictates the property rights on Battletech with not a single mention of Microsoft, which would have been against the law if what you were saying was true. Quote: "Topps, Inc. has sole ownership of the names, logo, artwork, photographs, sounds, audio, video and/or any proprietary matierial used in connection with Battletech and Mechwarrior."

To further make you sure, BT3025 is another example of how Microsoft doesn't own the rights to the whole property as EA was creating a competitor to Microsoft's Mechwarrior titles at the time and noone is stupid enough to give somebody the permission to do that.

To complicate the matters even more, you can go to Microsoft's Trademark list and find the Battletech in there as registered trademark, while the same can be said about Topps... which means that either we're under heavy conspiracy, or M$ can't pay someone to keep the thing up to date.

Edited by Adridos, 08 June 2013 - 01:40 PM.

[Adridos]

Well, after some searching it turns out Bishop is right.

Topps owns Battletech in it's universe form (books, TT game, movie, video games).
M$ owns Battletech in it's computer form with programmes and games.

Both also own Mechwarrior rights, with M$'s being video game and Topps' being those RPG and MW:DA setting books,

[Bishop Steiner]

Adridos, on 08 June 2013 - 01:57 PM, said:

Well, after some searching it turns out Bishop is right.

Topps owns Battletech in it's universe form (books, TT game, movie, video games).
M$ owns Battletech in it's computer form with programmes and games.

Both also own Mechwarrior rights, with M$'s being video game and Topps' being those RPG and MW:DA setting books,

that had to be hard for ya to say.......

[Eric darkstar Marr]

Adridos, on 08 June 2013 - 01:57 PM, said:

Well, after some searching it turns out Bishop is right.

Topps owns Battletech in it's universe form (books, TT game, movie, video games).
M$ owns Battletech in it's computer form with programmes and games.

Both also own Mechwarrior rights, with M$'s being video game and Topps' being those RPG and MW:DA setting books,

The yes yes I screwed my legalese up they sold the "material" rights to wizkids.

But man its a ugly ugly world. It seems that both shadowrun battletech and mechwarrior are legally owned and trademarks by TOPPS and MS in different medias only.
http://tess2.uspto.g...4806:q3jei7.2.3

http://tess2.uspto.g...4806:q3jei7.2.6

intersting: http://tess2.uspto.g...4806:q3jei7.2.1 seems TOPPS my have a movie in the works however I question the rights since the media format changes and they may not have complete rights. Again without seeing the papers on the merger and trust me I am digging its just interesting,

Battletech has 6 lives 1 dead whereas mechwarrior has 4 live and 9 dead. Still I will concede though seems MS took over FASA Interactive only while FASA inc still exists to this day for IP holdings mostly and a possible new flagship game soon.



Kinda funny look at the very bottom fine print on this page and we will see:
[color=#999999]MechWarrior® is a registered trade-mark of Microsoft Corporation and is used under license.[/color]

Edited by Eric darkstar Marr, 08 June 2013 - 07:40 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Eric darkstar Marr, on 08 June 2013 - 07:37 PM, said:

The yes yes I screwed my legalese up they sold the "material" rights to wizkids.

But man its a ugly ugly world. It seems that both shadowrun battletech and mechwarrior are legally owned and trademarks by TOPPS and MS in different medias only.
http://tess2.uspto.g...4806:q3jei7.2.3

http://tess2.uspto.g...4806:q3jei7.2.6

intersting: http://tess2.uspto.g...4806:q3jei7.2.1 seems TOPPS my have a movie in the works however I question the rights since the media format changes and they may not have complete rights. Again without seeing the papers on the merger and trust me I am digging its just interesting,

Battletech has 6 lives 1 dead whereas mechwarrior has 4 live and 9 dead. Still I will concede though seems MS took over FASA Interactive only while FASA inc still exists to this day for IP holdings mostly and a possible new flagship game soon.



Kinda funny look at the very bottom fine print on this page and we will see:
[color=#999999]MechWarrior® is a registered trade-mark of Microsoft Corporation and is used under license.[/color]

that is because it's electronic media. But yeah, weird convoluted and just plain NUTS story to Btech. Sad to me, has long been my favorite game, but a more snake-bit IP I can't think of.