198 replies to this topic

[Obelus]

DirePhoenix, on 13 November 2012 - 01:01 AM, said:

Bravo sir...bravo.

I would pay money for that version of the Marauder mech. Just need's a paint job, but otherwise it's perfect.

Developers, steal this man's idea! Quick before he copyrights it!!


Edit: Umm could you do the Warhammer mech next?

Edited by Obelus, 13 November 2012 - 10:57 AM.

[Penance]

Lt muffins, on 05 July 2012 - 03:47 PM, said:

personal favorite marauder image (and it looks different enough from the macross stuff to avoid legal shenanigans, or atleast in my opinion it does)

Looks like a madcat had a baby with a hollander

[Karyudo ds]

BlackSquirrel, on 13 November 2012 - 10:54 AM, said:

******* lawyers!!

Agreed, it's why importing designs is such a terrible idea, and suicidal in this age. Macross ended up being sold off against it's creator's interests and then the different companies that somehow all got licenses went after each other.

Seems being original would have sidestepped that whole issue. Who knows if anyone would have liked original mechs in Battletech though.

[Tickdoff Tank]

Joseph Mallan, on 13 November 2012 - 10:22 AM, said:

You are sorta right sorta wrong,

Fair enough.

[BlackSquirrel]

Sad that it's not even about if they WOULD GET Sued... or are in the wrong... It's more about that someone somewhere could sue them... Even if they dont look the same. Because last I check only the art work/design is TD... Not the actual mech/mech name.

[Fetladral]

The names of the mechs arn't copyrighted by Harmony Gold just the artwork and designs. So someone could redesign the mechs and keep the names. Battletech (whoever currently owns the battletech stuff) owns the names just not the artwork.

[Clay Pigeon]

Fetladral, on 13 November 2012 - 11:29 AM, said:

The names of the mechs arn't copyrighted by Harmony Gold just the artwork and designs. So someone could redesign the mechs and keep the names. Battletech (whoever currently owns the battletech stuff) owns the names just not the artwork.

HG doesn't rightfully hold the artwork or designs either. Those are held by studio nue. HG holds the rights to the original macross anime.

[Volts]

DirePhoenix, on 13 November 2012 - 01:01 AM, said:

*snip*



And there we have it. An "Unseen" that is not using the art in contention. It's there. It's obvious. And it's even more frustrating that we can see how awesome it *could* be in this game when we have these 'mechs with these 'nods', but yet don't actually have these 'mechs themselves.

These 'mechs are important, regardless of what images are being used to represent them. Every single one of the "Unseen" were supposed to be staples of the SLDF, and even after the fall of the Star League, they were most common and abundant 'mechs in the Inner Sphere for hundreds of years, across all the Houses. We need these 'mechs to appear again. FD is more than capable of coming up with new, possibly even cooler art for them. PGI needs to make this happen.

ILU <3

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

All these designs are legal under the "Reseen" artwork.

[Lykaon]

Bodha, on 05 July 2012 - 11:30 AM, said:

you seem to be missing the point. The original artwork was stolen from another franchise. If you steal something you dont simply get to say sorry and keep using it unless the person you stole from is very forgiving.

You are incorrect.The "unseen" were not stolen.These images were purchased by FASA from a Japanese plastic model company (can't recall the name right this instant).FASA used these images in good faith with the belief they were all on the up and up.

The "unseen" images were derived from three animae series.Crusher Joe,Dougram,Fist of the Sun and Macross.

The issue that created the "unseen" is resultant from an out of court settlement between FASA and Harmony Gold USA.(To this day the content of this out of court settlement have never been made public)

Harmony Gold gained the exclusive rights to the Macross series for use in North America.This complicated the prior license agreement FASA had and essentially triggered a bottomless pit of litigatiion based around poorly defined international copyright law.

However,recently published material from Catalyst (current publisher of Battletech) has included some older artwork predating the settlement and including unseen mechs (specificaly the Battlemaster and other unseen from Dougram).

Now if my sources are correct the current owner of the Dougram and Crusher Joe animae series is Bandai.

Bandai has of course (to the best of my knowlege) never issued any legal action against any publisher of any Battletech propterties.

[Tennex]

I, for one, would love to see a Zentraedi command battlepod. Just kidding. I think if Alex does his magic with how he's designing the mechs, we can have the marauder back, just slightly different looking.

I, for one, would love to see a Zentraedi command battlepod. Just kidding. I think if Alex does his magic with how he's designing the mechs, we can have the marauder back, just slightly different looking.

[James The Fox Dixon]

Tickdoff Tank, on 13 November 2012 - 10:05 AM, said:

Centurions, Hunchbacks and Jenners are not rare in our current timeline. Nor are Catapults. I am also pretty sure that the COmmando and Raven saw quite a bit of use.

Centurion-rare outside of FS and FWL
Hunchback-rare outside of FWL and LC
Catapult-rare outside of CC and DC

Mech production is still limited to 100-200 chassis per year for any mech factory as per lore. Yes, they are rare outside of where the factories are located at.

[James The Fox Dixon]

Karyudo ds, on 13 November 2012 - 10:48 AM, said:

Right. So how did Robotech rip off FASA exactly?

Fasa licensed the mechs before HG did. Robotech wasn't created until after Fasa had licensed the designs and HG never had a license from Studio Nue for the designs. Thus, Robotech ripped off Fasa..

[Penance]

correct, they will not be seen. they'll be reseen...meaning, seen again. when? who knows.

I'm gonna herp derp over here now.

Edited by Penance, 13 November 2012 - 12:19 PM.

[DanTheMayTagMan]

They created the phoenix project so that the classic mechs could be brought back. Why cant they do the same in MWO.

[Imagine Dragons]

Mainly because they look terrible.

Or thats the main reason why people don't want them anyway...

[DirePhoenix]

Teralitha, on 13 November 2012 - 10:28 AM, said:

I recall reading somewhere that the issue between MWO and harmony gold was just rumor. Nothing is stopping unseen mechs from being added to MWO. Look at MW4.... unseen mechs everywhere. How will this be any different? Unseen mechs incoming....

The Unseen mechs in MW4 were done by MekTek studios as a free, community-designed, 3rd-party mod to the original game. Activision did not include any of the Unseen in the official releases and expansions of MW4.

Obelus, on 13 November 2012 - 10:54 AM, said:

Bravo sir...bravo.

I would pay money for that version of the Marauder mech. Just need's a paint job, but otherwise it's perfect.

Developers, steal this man's idea! Quick before he copyrights it!!


Edit: Umm could you do the Warhammer mech next?

Thanks, and yes, more work needs to be done on that image. What you see here is a literal cut'n'paste, I didn't even try to unify the color scheme or paint over the orginal logos. Also, I had planned to make more changes to the cockpit so it wasn't all windows like the Catapult. Unfortunately, that was done with PhotoShop, which no longer exists on my machine anymore because when my dual-core processor and mobo fried a few months ago and I upgraded to a 64-bit system, suddenly my... version... of Photoshop no longer works, and my means to reaquire it no longer exists. So, I'm learning GIMP, which is free, but is just different enough from Photoshop to be really frustrating to work with.

As for a Warhammer, in order to make something in a similar manner, eventually maybe I can hack'n'slash a thinner Awesome with a matching gun arm instead of that claw, and a missile launcher and a searchlight in the torsos.

James The Fox Dixon, on 13 November 2012 - 12:17 PM, said:

Fasa licensed the mechs before HG did. Robotech wasn't created until after Fasa had licensed the designs and HG never had a license from Studio Nue for the designs. Thus, Robotech ripped off Fasa..

I don't think this is correct on several counts. Neither Fasa, nor HG "ripped off" each other. Both Fasa and HG licensed those images from Japan. It's a little questionable if they were licensed from the same or affiliated people, but Japan (and most of Asia) in the early-mid '80's didn't really have a concept of "Intellectual Property" anyway (which is probably why the counterfeit market is so huge in that region too).

Basically, if you saw something, and could figure out how to make it cheaper and sell more of them, good for you, go for it. "Selling rights" wan't a huge deal. "You want to pay me some money to sign this paper so you can draw these things too? ...Umm, sure, whatever. Not sure why you can't just draw them on your own, but if you want to pay me, I'll take your money. Oh hey, you want to pay me money to sign your papers so you can make my drawings too? Here you go, have a ball."

The original artist/licensor doesn't care whether or not licensee A, or licensee B gets to make their drawings on whatever corner of the globe they're from. But when we get back here in the 'states, HG suddenly (after 10 years lol) gets all lawyer crazy. Whatever, let them go nuts. We can make new art, we have better artists now anyway. What I don't understand is this irrational fear over even mentioning the names of these 'mechs. The names and the 'mechs themselves were never in contention. Why is having them remade even an issue, when we can just slap a new (and probably better) image on them?

Edited by DirePhoenix, 13 November 2012 - 01:32 PM.

[James The Fox Dixon]

DirePhoenix, on 13 November 2012 - 01:31 PM, said:

I don't think this is correct on several counts. Neither Fasa, nor HG "ripped off" each other. Both Fasa and HG licensed those images from Japan. It's a little questionable if they were licensed from the same or affiliated people, but Japan (and most of Asia) in the early-mid '80's didn't really have a concept of "Intellectual Property" anyway (which is probably why the counterfeit market is so huge in that region too).

Basically, if you saw something, and could figure out how to make it cheaper and sell more of them, good for you, go for it. "Selling rights" wan't a huge deal. "You want to pay me some money to sign this paper so you can draw these things too? ...Umm, sure, whatever. Not sure why you can't just draw them on your own, but if you want to pay me, I'll take your money. Oh hey, you want to pay me money to sign your papers so you can make my drawings too? Here you go, have a ball."

The original artist/licensor doesn't care whether or not licensee A, or licensee B gets to make their drawings on whatever corner of the globe they're from. But when we get back here in the 'states, HG suddenly (after 10 years lol) gets all lawyer crazy. Whatever, let them go nuts. We can make new art, we have better artists now anyway. What I don't understand is this irrational fear over even mentioning the names of these 'mechs. The names and the 'mechs themselves were never in contention. Why is having them remade even an issue, when we can just slap a new (and probably better) image on them?

Actually, it does matter. Fasa licensed them from Studio Nue (the owners of the designs) and HG licensed them from Tatsunoko (the company that didn't own the designs).

Studio Nue cared enough to spend 20 years in Japanese courts to protect their copyrights, so you'd be incorrect on that point as well. Studio Nue never saw a dime from HG from HG's license from Tatsunoko.

[Joseph Mallan]

I'd Pay $20 for this in game! I'd pay it for any of the 4 of them!!! I'd even pay $20 a piece for all of them!