65 replies to this topic

[Damion Sparhawk]

http://robotech.live...l.com/9102.html
further research seems to provide, if not an actual answer, at least a more in depth investigation into the truth XD

[Hunson Abadeer]

Damion Sparhawk, on 13 July 2012 - 05:34 PM, said:

this is the most detailed and in depth answer to this question I have seen to date, and it makes a lot more sense than many other responses, I've done a lot of research on the topic and everything that has been said here is either 100% true to something I've found in one place or another or, alluded to in some article or another, but a lot of the actual debate is shrouded in beaurocratic legalese and kept behind closed doors between FASA and Harmony Gold, I did read a few places that claimed FASA had permission from Studio Nue but have never really found unquestionable evidence (stands to reason if there were any unquestionable sources of this particular bit of evidence that the litigation would be over immediately, HG can hardly go and claim copyright infringement if the original artwork was given with permission that couldn't be contested) I'm not sure why, if true, the people behind Studio Nue wouldn't back up FASA but I wouldn't be surprised if it came down to HG buying the exclusive rights and the studio not bothering to correct it at the time

Studio Nue was the creator of Macross. The problem came in when Tatsunoko Productions entered the scene because they took over the foreign licensing, and they then licensed it to Harmony Gold in the United States. Studio Nue owns the original designs, but they are then licensed to Tatsunoko outside of Japan and thus to Harmony Gold in the United States. Any derivative works would still belong to Studio Nue as they would be considered separate despite being based on the originals, which is how we have the "Reseen" designs. Studio Nue could have backed FASA originally, but it would not have mattered much as Harmony Gold would have just pointed out that it had the license from Tatsunoko, which had the license from Studio Nue. In effect, Studio Nue lost the ability to back FASA when they took Tatsunoko's money, which was only needed to help make Macross better when it became more popular.

The really insane part is that Harmony Gold's lawsuit only occurred in the '90s because FASA had sued PlayMates, which had ripped off BattleTech for ExoSquad. That came right after FASA had approached PlayMates about producing a BattleTech toy line, had provided a lot of source material, &c. PlayMates had clearly stolen ideas from BattleTech, but they also went on to license many of the soon-to-be-Unseen designs from Harmony Gold. PlayMates ultimately got away with their nonsense, and Harmony Gold decided to go after FASA for designs that they had absolutely nothing to do with creating. It was just a giant SNAFU, and it really shows how messed up modern copyright laws are. For anyone wondering whether ExoSquad really was a rip off:

[Hunson Abadeer]

Shalmyan Moonsong, on 13 July 2012 - 05:48 PM, said:

@Hunson Abadeer

Umm the Battlemaster was not from, in or had anything to do with Robotech or Harmony Gold, It came from a Anime Series Called Dougram, which was kinda of pre-coursor to Heavy gear, but the Battlemaster was never EVER in Robotech and Harmony Gold had nothing to do with that mech becoming unseen, but it became unseen when lawsuits started coming in from other companies besides Harmony Gold, that FASA also extended thier use of these desings well after the right of thier contracts.

I'm a huge Battletech fan and a fan of the unseen and thier place in history, the biggiest problem was once FASA's contacts, with Harmony Gold, Dougram,and Crusher Joe were done, they continued to use the images knowingly for years after thier rights to those images had ended, and I want to say the people behind Crusher Joe (who own the images of the Locust, and many areo-space fighters and tanks) issied the first cease and desist order, Then Harmony Gold (Pheinox Hawk, Stinger, Wasp, Archer, Muraduer, Warhammer, Rifleman, Ostol, Longbow, Crusader) and Dougram (Griffin, Battlemaster, Scorpian, Thunderbolt, Wolverine, Goliath, Shadowhawk) fallowed suit. Has Harmony Gold made the biggest stink of it, yes, was FASA in the wrong and knew they were in the wrong and profited greatly from these images, YES, FASA sure as hell was not the victem in these suits, Harmony Gold and Dougram protected thier designs that FASA used for a good 10 years without paying royalties, and then got mad when Harmony Gold came asking for thier money.

and in regards to someone else who posted after I made this post, Harmony gold did not own the designs Studio Nue did, but they gave all US distribution rights to ALL thier designs and properties to Harmony Gold, whom they expected to use those rights, images and products to make money and in the US and send Studio Nue thier cut back to japan, it was Studio Nue's way of being in the US market without ever having to leave japan, and rake in the money from thier work.

It is correct that the BattleMaster was not in Macross, but NONE of the issues really arose until Harmony Gold made a stink. My intention was not to suggest that all of the Unseen were from Macross, but it was the FASA-PlayMates-HG debacle that caused the mess. Dougram belongs to Sunrise, which licenses through Bandai. Bandai then licensed to another company in the US, which then licensed the designs to FASA. FASA settled the issues with Bandai and Studio Nue, but Harmony Gold was not looking to settle anything. HG stimulated the situation, and the result was the loss of a lot of designs even though not all of them had anything to do with Harmony Gold.

Edit: FASA did not have deals with Harmony Gold, so Harmony Gold did not come asking for their money. FASA originally dealt with TCI, which had licenses to figures from a number of different anima shows and games. Harmony Gold claimed that FASA was infringing upon its rights to what was in Macross. Harmony Gold made a stink because it was trying to start its own Robotech RPG, &c., not because FASA had an expired license from HG. In point of fact, Harmony Gold tried to stop FASA's use of the designs in 1985, but FASA ignored them because it had its own licensing setup.

Edited by Hunson Abadeer, 13 July 2012 - 06:19 PM.

[Damion Sparhawk]

Hunson Abadeer, on 13 July 2012 - 06:02 PM, said:

Studio Nue was the creator of Macross. The problem came in when Tatsunoko Productions entered the scene because they took over the foreign licensing, and they then licensed it to Harmony Gold in the United States. Studio Nue owns the original designs, but they are then licensed to Tatsunoko outside of Japan and thus to Harmony Gold in the United States. Any derivative works would still belong to Studio Nue as they would be considered separate despite being based on the originals, which is how we have the "Reseen" designs. Studio Nue could have backed FASA originally, but it would not have mattered much as Harmony Gold would have just pointed out that it had the license from Tatsunoko, which had the license from Studio Nue. In effect, Studio Nue lost the ability to back FASA when they took Tatsunoko's money, which was only needed to help make Macross better when it became more popular.

The really insane part is that Harmony Gold's lawsuit only occurred in the '90s because FASA had sued PlayMates, which had ripped off BattleTech for ExoSquad. That came right after FASA had approached PlayMates about producing a BattleTech toy line, had provided a lot of source material, &c. PlayMates had clearly stolen ideas from BattleTech, but they also went on to license many of the soon-to-be-Unseen designs from Harmony Gold. PlayMates ultimately got away with their nonsense, and Harmony Gold decided to go after FASA for designs that they had absolutely nothing to do with creating. It was just a giant SNAFU, and it really shows how messed up modern copyright laws are. For anyone wondering whether ExoSquad really was a rip off:

if you read the link I posted you'll find out that yes, they 'won' their suit, however the judge apparently decided -not- to award them with legal costs in the suit, so their win ended up costing them 2.5 million XD (which I seriously doubt they made up in sales of the infringing toy)

Edited by Damion Sparhawk, 13 July 2012 - 06:30 PM.

[E_Crow]

Xigunder Blue, on 13 July 2012 - 07:26 AM, said:

However it could also be (perhaps more likely) that these mechs are those which will be offered in the store for micro-transactions since Mechwarrior Online will need future revenue streams to stay in business. I do not know what 'reseen' means unless they are teasers for the store.

Incorrct!
these were designs that were obious ripoffs off the robotech/macross series,
Harmony Gold forced them to discontinue using them since the company they got the rights to use it from went belly up
and so was untrace-able.

[Hunson Abadeer]

As a further point of clarification, FASA did not possess an expired license on the designs it was using from Dougram or anything else. TCI was licensed to distribute figures and art from a variety of television shows and whatnot as long as they did not use the original names. TCI subsequently licensed a variety of those designs to FASA, but TCI was going to provide the figures with BattleTech names (after FASA dropped "droids" from the name due to LucasFilm). By the time that Harmony Gold sued FASA, TCI was no longer in business, which had no bearing on whether or not FASA's licensing was valid, and the HG-FASA case was never ruled on as they settled out of court.

The problem for FASA was that it would have taken a lot of time and money to track down everything from TCI, TCI's licenses from the Japanese companies, and so on. If FASA had the money and pushed the issue, they likely would have won. A similar issue arose in Japan a few years later, and that case went the way of the good guys. FASA was not a bunch of deadbeats mooching off of other people's work with expired licensing agreements. Their licensing was valid, but proving that would have been too expensive. It was cheaper and easier to settle out of court and leave the designs as "Unseen."

[Damion Sparhawk]

Quote

Robotech_Master (robotech_master) wrote in robotech,
2003-02-02 15:14:00

FASA, Playmates, Harmony Gold Lawsuit: a summary
I have recently done some research in Lexis/Nexis, digging up information on the old FASA/Playmates/Harmony Gold lawsuits because they interested me. I found a few things that surprised me, and some that amused me. I realize it's been a few years since it all went down, but since I'd never seen any of this come out before now, I figured that some people might want to know.

I wanted to post the briefs themselves on my webpage, but found that I would need permission from Lexis/Nexis to do so. Thus, in lieu of that, I have summarized and excerpted some of the more interesting portions (as Fair Use allows me to do) and posted them here. This summary necessarily leaves quite a few things out for brevity, including some of the more amusing bits (like the toy company representative who testified that he signed a rights-waiver without actually reading it first). If you want to find those bits, see if your local library has a Lexis/Nexis index and just type "FASA," "Playmates," and/or "Harmony Gold" into the engine.

The facts come from publically-verifiable sources; opinions and guesses (as denoted by words like "seems" or "apparently") are my own.

When BattleTech was first made, in 1985, FASA licensed the images used for its original 26 mechs from a model company called Twentieth Century Imports ("TCI"), which claimed in turn to have acquired them from a Japanese animation (anime) studio in Japan called Tatsunoko. Those images were of mecha, or machinery, featured in various anime that Tatsunoko had made—and for which TCI had at least acquired the rights to make models. TCI's provenance over the mechas' likenesses was, and still is (for reasons explained later), uncertain.

Many of those 26 BattleTech mechs, including the Wasp, Stinger, Phoenix Hawk, Warhammer, Rifleman, and Crusader, came from a TV series called Superdimensional Fortress Macross, which is better-known in America as the first 36 episodes of Robotech. When Harmony Gold made Robotech, they bought all international distribution rights, and the American copyright, for Macross and all the mecha involved in it. In January 1985, Harmony Gold became aware that FASA was using Macross mecha designs, sent a cease and desist letter, and exchanged correspondence with FASA to determine the source of their alleged rights in these designs. However, no legal action was taken at that time.

In late 1991, FASA hired an agent to pitch BattleTech to several toy companies, in the interest of getting one of them to produce a BattleTech toy line. One of these companies was Playmates, who had already been considering adding some kind of power armor/robot based toy line for several months. In 1992, Playmates declined interest in BattleTech, which was subsequently picked up by Tycho (who apparently nearly rejected it when they saw Playmates's similar new ExoSquad line). In December 1994, citing a resemblance between one of the ExoSquad E-frame mecha and the BattleTech Madcat (as well as other, more minor similarities of mecha and setting) and the fact that Playmates had access to BattleTech promotional materials (some of which they never returned), FASA filed suit.

As it happens, at the time that lawsuit was filed, Harmony Gold had just contracted with Playmates to reissue some of the earlier Matchbox figurines and toys based on Robotech as part of the ExoSquad line. It is apparently a standard practice to meet an intellectual property lawsuit with another such lawsuit (witness Amazon.com's claims that it is only applying for obvious patents as part of a "mutual assured destruction" portfolio which it can use as a defense if its competitors decide to sue it); thus, in January 1995, ten years after the C&D letter exchange, Harmony Gold filed suit against FASA for using those Macross designs. Harmony Gold claimed that TCI did not have the right to license them to FASA, and so the license was invalid. After some legal wrangling, the two cases were consolidated into the same courtroom, although they ended up meeting different legal fates.

According to the <a href="http://www.eyrie.org/~robotech/hg-fasa/" rel="nofollow">briefs available via Lexis/Nexis, the FASA vs. Playmates case was decided in favor of Playmates. FASA made some good points, rebutted most of Playmates's challenges, but was not quite able to meet the necessary burden of proof. (For more information on why the case was decided in this way, find a libary with Lexis/Nexis and look up the Findings of Fact.) The case moved on to the penalty phase.

It is apparently a common practice in intellectual property lawsuits that a losing plaintiff pays some or all of the legal fees of the defendant. However, this award is left strictly up to the court's discretion, and Judge Castillo determined that FASA had not litigated in bad faith or unreasonably. Thus, FASA was not ordered to pay any of Playmates's legal fees. Playmates, who claimed to have spent $2.5 million on its defense, appealed, but the appeals court sent it back down for Castillo to clarify his ruling.

In his fourth and final brief, Castillo reaffirmed his decision not to award Playmates its legal fees. He wrote that FASA's case was meritorious, and that FASA had done well enough in responding to most of Playmates's challenges that "if one evaluates the actual results of this lengthy and involved litigation, one does not reach the conclusion that Playmates achieved a true victory."

[indent]Our system of justice does not allow for "hung" bench trial verdicts; the Court's opinion in FASA III hinged a great deal on a failure of proof by the plaintiff in a close case. See, e.g., Soto v. Johansen, 137 F.3d 980, 1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 3638 (7th Cir. 1998) (affirmed bench trial verdict in the classic case of a [**11] tie resulting in a win for the party who did not bear the burden of proof). Since FASA had the ultimate burden of proof, its failure to produce a preponderance in its favor rendered FASA unsuccessful at trial. However, this verdict and the Court's resulting opinion in FASA III show that this case was far from frivolous. n2

(from FASA Corp. v. Playmates Toys, No. 93 C 2445, UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS, EASTERN DIVISION, 1 F. Supp. 2d 859; 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4677)[/indent]

Castillo also noted that an award to Playmates would not serve any useful creative purpose, and that there was no reason to reward them for making a conscious choice to go ahead with a very similar toy line after it had seen FASA's promotional information--behavior that seemed to Castillo to be only barely within the bounds of the law. From reading this opinion, one gets the sense that Castillo did not think very highly of Playmates; the way it seems to have been intentionally delayed so as to be released on April 1st, 1998 is another clue.

However, the Macross mecha case, Harmony Gold vs. FASA, did not reach a verdict. After producing only two briefs (the one in which the case was filed, and a brief addressing documents Harmony Gold had provided FASA as evidence and then sought to retract, claiming they'd been issued by mistake and citing attorney-client privilege), the case was dismissed and settled out of court in June, 1997. Because the terms of the settlement were confidential, we will probably never know the true compromise that was reached—nor will we know for certain whether FASA's license truly was or was not valid. However, even before the settlement, FASA had already phased the disputed mechs out of its game products. They declined even to produce new artwork for those same mechs, "to avoid any confusion among players that could occur if the names or statistics of the discontinued 'Mech designs were used with new design images."

In an interesting footnote, a Japanese court decided in January, 2003 that the rights to the images and mecha designs actually belonged not to Tatsunoko, but to Studio Nue, one of the other studios involved in the production of Macross. However, because Tatsunoko—and thus Harmony Gold—still owns the international distribution rights, FASA (or, rather, WizKids) would still not be able to use the images without satisfying both Harmony Gold and Studio Nue. (NOTE: I am not a lawyer; do not consider this to be legal advice.)

[Hunson Abadeer]

Moral of the story: Harmony Gold needs to let the Marauder return in all of its original glory. I doubt that will hurt the DVD sales for Robotech.

[Bishop Steiner]

Viper69, on 13 July 2012 - 07:20 AM, said:

The unseen mechs are designs that have been litigated over for years. in my opinion I hope they dont touch them and let them go by the wayside. There are hundred of mechs available to design that arent litigated over. There is nothing special about them other than they are old iconic mech we old farts played table Top Battle Tech with.

And that is WHY they are special. Because for most of us actual Battletech players, they were what we learned the game with, they feature prominently in most of the pre-Twilight of the Clans novels, and such. You'd say we were per-emptorilly just cutting out your preferred mech designs, because "there's nothing special about Mech-X". So maybe you should try looking at it from other peoples perspectives.

If they can bring in the old Warhammers, Marauders, and ThunderBolts, even in a modified version... how the heck does that take away from your enjoyment of the game?

Most of the canon ReSeens on the other hand almost everyone agrees are crap, and most could care less if they are in the game. If they make it, fine, if not, oh well.

[Hunson Abadeer]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 July 2012 - 06:53 PM, said:

And that is WHY they are special. Because for most of us actual Battletech players, they were what we learned the game with, they feature prominently in most of the pre-Twilight of the Clans novels, and such. You'd say we were per-emptorilly just cutting out your preferred mech designs, because "there's nothing special about Mech-X". So maybe you should try looking at it from other peoples perspectives.

If they can bring in the old Warhammers, Marauders, and ThunderBolts, even in a modified version... how the heck does that take away from your enjoyment of the game?

Most of the canon ReSeens on the other hand almost everyone agrees are crap, and most could care less if they are in the game. If they make it, fine, if not, oh well.

In total agreement. The Unseen were BattleTech in a very real way. Just look at the 'Mechs that came with the 3rd edition boxed set.

[Belorion]

Even if there are no Macross images, there are still other unseen....

[Rhyshaelkan]

The only reason I would want to see certain 'mechs show up in game. Is if customization excludes certain weights, equipment, etc.

On the other hand some 'mechs are more squat for their weight. More streamlined for their weight. Thus being harder targets. In a simulated game the shape and bulkiness comes into play. Examples are the Timberwolf and Cauldron-born. From the front they present a smaller target. However from the side they have long noses easier to hit. The Catapult and Maurader fall in this category too.

[Shalmyan Moonsong]

Harmony Gold still owns the international disribution rights, and they are still viable in international court.

Look at it like this... Pixar (in this case TCI or Stuido Nue) makes Toy Story, and sells it to Disney (in this case Harmony Gold) to distribue, and gives them all marketing and lienceing rights,and at this stage Pixar needs to do nothing but let the money roll in, do they only make 25% of the film take and toys related to thier film yes,but 25% of 890 million (Box office gross, toy sales and DVD sales of Finding Nemo, is not a bad payday) this way Pixar has do do nothing more then make the product and let someone else handle the aspects of getting it into theaters and marketing, and still gets a huge chuck of change, same damn thing. Studio Nue/TCi gave Harmony Gold these same rights. You are correct we do not know what the out of court Settlement was, but what I think we all know is we will NEVER see the unseen mech ever again in the mechwarrior/battletech world in thier 1980's forms with out someone having to shell out a lot of money to Harmony Gold, and that is just for the Macross designs.

The Crusher Joe or Dougram designs, forget it, let the unseen be dead and gone, no more calling for the Murader, or Warhammer or Battlemaster, or LAMS, or Archer (my personal fav unseen Morgan Kell FTW). FASA/Wizkids has done a great job of giving us new mechs, new designs, and new mecha Artwork to keep Battletech going for long enough, without having to fight a legal battle over a 25 year old peice of Robotech artwork.

[Belorion]

Everybody goes on about the unseen... never any love for the underseen.

[Ravewolf]

Regardless of whose fault all this litigation is, it's a shame that they don't just settle out of court. What was the remaining holder of the Batletech license thinking when that MW trailer came out a while ago...that THIS time nobody would notice that Warhammer in the trailer, unlike every other time over the years? This should have been settled ages ago instead of going on for decades.

Some of the revisions of the look of the Marauder are great, so it's a shame that even the revised version may not be used due to even the possibility of a threat of litigation. I for one would welcome even a heavily altered version of that mech.

[Hunson Abadeer]

Shalmyan Moonsong, on 13 July 2012 - 07:13 PM, said:

no more calling for the Murader, or Warhammer or Battlemaster, or LAMS, or Archer (my personal fav unseen Morgan Kell FTW). FASA/Wizkids has done a great job of giving us new mechs, new designs, and new mecha Artwork to keep Battletech going for long enough, without having to fight a legal battle over a 25 year old peice of Robotech artwork.

I certainly see your point, and it is perfectly reasonable. One can dream though, no? I still have many of the original miniatures. Sadly, too many have been lost over the last couple of decades.

[Belorion]

The problem is that its in the history of the game... I say bring em on.

[Shalmyan Moonsong]

I have all the mini's too, I will bet you that since the unseen mechs have been banned from use, EVERY single mech we claim we love from the unseen has been redone in some variant or load out to the tee, but just put under a diffrent mech, I know it has been done for the Rifleman and Warhammer.

[Hunson Abadeer]

Ravewolf, on 13 July 2012 - 07:16 PM, said:

Regardless of whose fault all this litigation is, it's a shame that they don't just settle out of court. What was the remaining holder of the Batletech license thinking when that MW trailer came out a while ago...that THIS time nobody would notice that Warhammer in the trailer, unlike every other time over the years? This should have been settled ages ago instead of going on for decades.

Some of the revisions of the look of the Marauder are great, so it's a shame that even the revised version may not be used due to even the possibility of a threat of litigation. I for one would welcome even a heavily altered version of that mech.

The "Reseen" are legal as Studio Nue holds all of the rights to works derived from the originals as derivative works do not fall under Macross licensing. In theory, Studio Nue could be contracted to produce more accurate versions, but that comes down to how dissimilar the designs would have to be to simply bypass Harmony Gold. If the reseen Marauder is as close as they could come, then that is pointless. The only other option would be for Harmony Gold to license the designs for use in BattleTech, which could be quite expensive.

I would love to see the originals in MWO, but I doubt we will ever see their return unless Harmony Gold finally goes out of business.

Shalmyan Moonsong, on 13 July 2012 - 07:22 PM, said:

I have all the mini's too, I will bet you that since the unseen mechs have been banned from use, EVERY single mech we claim we love from the unseen has been redone in some variant or load out to the tee, but just put under a diffrent mech, I know it has been done for the Rifleman and Warhammer.

True, but nostalgia is a powerful thing.

[Damion Sparhawk]

Ravewolf, on 13 July 2012 - 07:16 PM, said:

Regardless of whose fault all this litigation is, it's a shame that they don't just settle out of court. What was the remaining holder of the Batletech license thinking when that MW trailer came out a while ago...that THIS time nobody would notice that Warhammer in the trailer, unlike every other time over the years? This should have been settled ages ago instead of going on for decades.

Some of the revisions of the look of the Marauder are great, so it's a shame that even the revised version may not be used due to even the possibility of a threat of litigation. I for one would welcome even a heavily altered version of that mech.

they did in fact, settle out of court, we just don't know what the settlement entailed however we do know that HG continues to file C&D should any of the unseen show their happy faces