1809 replies to this topic

[Kargush]

http://www.catalystg...u-want-them-to/

[Belegor]

[mod]This thread has been merged with the "Harmony Gold At It Again! Hoo Boy!" thread.[/mod]

Edited by Belegor, 26 July 2017 - 01:39 AM.

[slide]

Kargush, on 25 July 2017 - 11:50 PM, said:

Imagine the havoc if people suddenly lose their Warhammers and Archers and whathaveyou.

Actually this bothers me more than perhaps anything else.

If PGI loses they will likely have to hand over all the money made from the sales of these mechs AND in all likely hood have to give the purchasers their money back too. Just changing the mech to some other design is just not going to be acceptable to people who purchased out of nostalgia nor will it be acceptable to be given something that has inferior hitboxes/hardpoints to those people who care about such things. That's a double hit to PGI's coffers that I doubt they can handle. Let's not even mention what this would do to MW5 sales.

I don't think this is a fight that PGI can afford to lose or settle on. If they do lose it might well mean the end of MWO altogether.

[Tarl Cabot]

Kargush, on 26 July 2017 - 01:30 AM, said:

http://www.catalystg...u-want-them-to/

For CGL, of the 12 battletech mentioned, their versions were not MWO reimaged mechs. I believe that is where the post made by CGL post is coming from.

The discussions on the other forums have some interesting discussions also.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 26 July 2017 - 03:32 AM.

[Thorqemada]

HG has no plans to monetize their "rights" (making products for commercvial sale) that are questionable in tiself, imho the old lawsuit came to the wrong conclusion and HG holds no exclusive rights, even if they hold rights they only do it for NA if not only the US afaik so they cant stop you from selling that stuff in all other parts of the wolrd.

They have no legitimate or morale right to open a lawsuit and are nothing that an Artifical-Lawsuit-Creator and should be sued for unrigthful and arbitrary forcing illegitimate workload on the Court System stealing time and wasting effort to spend on real lawsuits.

HG should be destroyed and the Lawyers questioned if they Held up to the working Standards they need to Keep their lawyers licences!

HG id nothing but a tick that sucks the blood of justice!

Edited by Thorqemada, 26 July 2017 - 03:56 AM.

[Kargush]

Tarl Cabot, on 26 July 2017 - 03:20 AM, said:

For CGL, of the 12 battletech mentioned, their versions were not MWO reimaged mechs. I believe that is where the post made by CGL post is coming from.

The discussions on the other forums have some interesting discussions also.

Doesn't much matter if a Warhammer from MWO is similar enough to the Warhammer from the Unseen ranks.

Thorqemada, on 26 July 2017 - 03:55 AM, said:

even if they hold rights they only do it for NA if not only the US afaik so they cant stop you from selling that stuff in all other parts of the wolrd.

Lolno.

Quote

...that the sole and exclusive world-wide right to these images (outside of Japan) would rest with another US company.

[Mechteric]

Kargush, on 26 July 2017 - 03:57 AM, said:

Doesn't much matter if a Warhammer from MWO is similar enough to the Warhammer from the Unseen ranks.

And that's where copyright laws get too crazy. Who exactly determines "similar enough"? What scientific metrics can possibly be used to determine that? Eff that.

[AzureRathalos]

Alexander of Macedon, on 25 July 2017 - 02:15 PM, said:

You don't know what you're talking about. Those HG ******* mangled SDFM and have comprehensively blocked any release of new Macross material in the west. If there's anyone that detests HG more than a Battletech fan, it's a Macross fan.

Oh, the detest can go much further than that. Consider people who are fans of both Macross and Battletech.

[Kargush]

CapperDeluxe, on 26 July 2017 - 04:20 AM, said:

And that's where copyright laws get too crazy. Who exactly determines "similar enough"? What scientific metrics can possibly be used to determine that? Eff that.

As I understand it (and I'll be skipping a whole world of nuance here), you show it to the judge, and if he thinks they're similar enough, that's that.

[Metus regem]

AzureRathalos, on 26 July 2017 - 05:00 AM, said:

Oh, the detest can go much further than that. Consider people who are fans of both Macross and Battletech.

Being one such person, this I can attest to.

[Ryllen Kriel]

By Harmony Gold's logic, Grumman Corporations which designed the F-14 Tomcat should be entitled to some of their money because that is what the Valkyrie fighters in Macross are based off of when in aerospace fighter mode.

[CK16]

Well who owns Grumman no days? (Alot of those aircraft manufacturers have been bought out over the years and like only Boeing and Lockeed Martin are left :/)

[Natred]

Typical copy cats throwing acusations of being copy cats.

[C E Dwyer]

Alexander of Macedon, on 25 July 2017 - 02:15 PM, said:

You don't know what you're talking about. Those HG ******* mangled SDFM and have comprehensively blocked any release of new Macross material in the west. If there's anyone that detests HG more than a Battletech fan, it's a Macross fan.

Then maybe it's time to lobby the owners, and say yo dude look what these *** wipes Harmony Gold are doing to your product.

Then just maybe they won't get an extension, of course that depends on the moral integrity of the I.P owners, but surely it can't be worse than H.G

[Metus regem]

Natred, on 26 July 2017 - 07:33 AM, said:

Typical copy cats throwing acusations of being copy cats.

Not even copy cats, thieves and bullies trying to protect the rights to something they never had the rights too in the first place...

CK16, on 26 July 2017 - 07:21 AM, said:

Well who owns Grumman no days? (Alot of those aircraft manufacturers have been bought out over the years and like only Boeing and Lockeed Martin are left :/)

They've become Northrop Grumman Corporation.

http://www.northropg...es/default.aspx

The list of aircraft they are responsible for include:

A-10 Thunderbolt II
B-2 Spirit
C-2A Greyhound
E-2C Hawkeye 2000
E-2D Hawkeye
E-8C Joint STARS
EA-18G Growler
EA-6B Prowler ICAP III
And a few others I didn't feel like mentioning.

Unmanned List includes:
Fire Scout
X-47B UCAS (woo unmanned bomber.... there is no way this could go wrong... )
As well as several others.

Cathy, on 26 July 2017 - 07:44 AM, said:

Then maybe it's time to lobby the owners, and say yo dude look what these *** wipes Harmony Gold are doing to your product.

Then just maybe they won't get an extension, of course that depends on the moral integrity of the I.P owners, but surely it can't be worse than H.G

Big West and Studio Nu have a long standing feud with HG....

[SmoothCriminal]

From the docket, looks like HG have a pretty strong case - what with PGI asking whether the designs were acceptable, being told no, and then proceeding anyway. That said, more will emerge when HBS and Weisman issue their defence.

[ScrapIron Prime]

SmoothCriminal, on 26 July 2017 - 07:57 AM, said:

From the docket, looks like HG have a pretty strong case - what with PGI asking whether the designs were acceptable, being told no, and then proceeding anyway. That said, more will emerge when HBS and Weisman issue their defence.

If I'm correct, that's because Harmony Gold lost a lawsuit and made an agreement with Jordan Weisman that was sealed. So PGI could not know what was in it, they just knew they could use the "unseen" designs again. To be on the safe side they contacted HG anyway, and HG essentially refused to allow them to make any giant robot at all, whether it looked similar to Robotech or not.

Recall that HG tried (and failed) when they sued Hasbro to say that any giant robot with guns for arms, no matter what it looked like, was copyrighted by HG. Any bot of any kind with guns anywhere on it's arms was an infringement on the Destroid Tomahawk (Warhammer). That's why they got shot down, but this is the sort of thing they're trying to "Defend" this time around too.

Edited by ScrapIron Prime, 26 July 2017 - 08:28 AM.

[Adridos]

SmoothCriminal, on 26 July 2017 - 07:57 AM, said:

From the docket, looks like HG have a pretty strong case - what with PGI asking whether the designs were acceptable, being told no, and then proceeding anyway. That said, more will emerge when HBS and Weisman issue their defence.

The thing is, you'd be lying to say they were not derivative and, sure enough, properly lying in courts is a bit more expensive than being the one in the right. Hopefully, anyway.

However, the real thing here is that Harmony Gold does not and never has owned the designs Alex has made the new reneditions of. Their legal standing perished back in 2002, when Japanese courts resolved some legal shenanigans between the three companies involved with Macross in Japan and ruled that the company that sold stuff to Harmony Gold only ever owned the license to distribute the show.
This being the case, HG is screwed whenever Japanese decide to license Macross to anyone outside of Japan. However, at the same time, even though they don't own jack ..., anyone who would potentially want to bring modern Macross outside of Japanese borders will inevitably have to face HG in court. You can imagine, say a Phillipine company, is not all that happy about the prospects about being thrown into US courts to fight an US company which has infinitely bigger money pool, even if they have every right right in the world to tell them off.

Of course, as long as you don't license Macross yourself, you can't go up against HG over their absolutely inane claims about what they do and not own of it. At least that's my understanding of why hasn't anyone, not even Hasbro in that last court case, brought that ruling in to shut them up for good.

[Karl Streiger]

slide, on 26 July 2017 - 02:36 AM, said:

Actually this bothers me more than perhaps anything else.

If PGI loses they will likely have to hand over all the money made from the sales of these mechs AND in all likely hood have to give the purchasers their money back too. Just changing the mech to some other design is just not going to be acceptable to people who purchased out of nostalgia nor will it be acceptable to be given something that has inferior hitboxes/hardpoints to those people who care about such things. That's a double hit to PGI's coffers that I doubt they can handle. Let's not even mention what this would do to MW5 sales.

I don't think this is a fight that PGI can afford to lose or settle on. If they do lose it might well mean the end of MWO altogether.

Well the Warhammer could become a Hammerhand the RFL a Lancelot the Archer a Bombast and the MAD maybe a champion or Falconer with minimal afford but when they loose what could HG stop to say hey the Lancelot is a Derivate of our Tomahawk...

I really ask myself how can a couple of shite heads at the to of some company do so much damage (not only HG but remember 2008)

[James Argent]

I'd give my Carl Macek autographed Perfect Collection boxed set of Robotech DVDs for Harmony Gold to just Eff Off.

Edited by James Argent, 26 July 2017 - 09:43 AM.