1809 replies to this topic

[kuma8877]

Adridos, on 18 August 2017 - 11:31 AM, said:

*ahem*Thatwasquiteliterallythecasewithallmechpacks*ahem*

Anyway, you can absolutely nail people for advertisements featuring your property and claim damages on it. PGI itself had already backed out of one such thing when the advertising company they hired used Shimmering Sword's art as a basis of MW:O adverts. Once the found out, the adverts were taken down and SS was compensated with all the gold-skinned Clan mechs in the game.

After all, selling my coffee mugs using Disney characters is not going to sit well with anyone.

Slight difference. With the BT/MW license being so jacked up and separated, Shimmering's paintings would have already been paid for and used by another license holder (I'm assuming book cover/interior work or some such for CGL). PGI would have needed to pay out additionally for the use of said art, regardless if it falls under the same universe, as it is owned by another entity.

If I show you the concept art of my teacup with questionably Disney LIKE cartoon animals on them, but then sell actual cups with characters on them that are clearly not actual Disney characters, other than they are the same species of cartoon animal, can Disney sue me based on my concept art for money made on the product I actually sold and my customers took delivery of?

I'm fairly certain, they can't even send me a "cease and desist" over the art in that case.

[kuma8877]

KursedVixen, on 18 August 2017 - 11:43 AM, said:

I'm pretty certain the ATlas is a Battletech orginal.


umm actually concept art for the first clan release were sold ,but that is all I know I have the background images on my computer.

Was it sold as part of a package? And we are talking specific chassis here, not just any of the concept art PGI produces, they are a legal MW license holder after all.

[Adridos]

kuma8877, on 18 August 2017 - 12:07 PM, said:

If I show you the concept art of my teacup with questionably Disney LIKE cartoon animals on them, but then sell actual cups with characters on them that are clearly not actual Disney characters, other than they are the same species of cartoon animal, can Disney sue me based on my concept art for money made on the product I actually sold and my customers took delivery of?

Absolutely.

Here's a random link that was the first thing Google threw up:
http://www.newsmax.c...7/07/id/800500/
Zenimax sued over music used in a Fallout 4 commercial. The music was obviously never present in the final game sold to people. Commercials are just as suspectible to copyright law as anything else.

[Dee Eight]

Revis Volek, on 17 August 2017 - 03:04 PM, said:

they make this thing, called PAPER.



I know weird right, but it works really well at showing people things be it images or words, even just nothing. Another fun fact, it comes from trees. I just love how people cant live without their computers anymore. lol.

Ironically... years ago... (like late 90s), I knew a fellow who managed to get US patents issued, for what were essentially "the wheel" and "fire", and he was considering applying for a patent on "paper". There's also a US patent for a fart powered blowgun, which I used to reference in one of my web forum signatures.

Victor Morson, on 17 August 2017 - 04:13 PM, said:

Despite people saying they changed a lot I think if PGI didn't secure the rights, they're in trouble.



Pretty sure that only one of these qualifies as a redesign and it's not the PGI one.

A key difference.... in the tomahawk/warhammer art...is that the tomahawk has missile bays in those chest pods the same as the Spartan/Archer... with doors that open....its in all the animation. Yet none of the battletech versions have had that.

Edited by Dee Eight, 18 August 2017 - 12:57 PM.

[kuma8877]

Adridos, on 18 August 2017 - 12:26 PM, said:

Absolutely.

Here's a random link that was the first thing Google threw up:
http://www.newsmax.c...7/07/id/800500/
Zenimax sued over music used in a Fallout 4 commercial. The music was obviously never present in the final game sold to people. Commercials are just as suspectible to copyright law as anything else.

I think you missed my "Disney LIKE" remark. In your example, it is much like my description of SS above, Zenimax owns some of the rights to what it has produced for the Fallout series. So of course, if you take something whole clothe, like a piece of music they produced, you're going to get sued. And Zenimax is a recognized legal owner of said work they sued over, HG is not in this case.

I think the easiest way around this whole BS, is to simply promote a different variant/loadout as the prime advertised variant, to change the silhouette of the mech and the art. At least for the chassis' in question. You could maybe then do all the unseen that way.

[Alan Davion]

kuma8877, on 18 August 2017 - 12:52 PM, said:

You could maybe then do all the unseen that way.

Just changing the look or orientation of the weapons probably wouldn't be enough. The only example I can think of is the Warhammer... 7S I want to say? The one with missile pods on both shoulders.

HG is going after the design whole hog, from the overall silhouette down to certain panel lines, so the mechs would have to be either completely and utterly scrapped and redesigned from the ground up, which would take a lot of time and PGI would probably not be able to sell them until such time.

Not to mention CGL would have an even worse time of it, cause they've got all those sourcebooks and everything with the mechs in them, those would have to be completely redone, either by redoing the mechs or by just removing the mechs from the book altogether, which would also necessitate the changing of certain page numbers once that was done.

If HG actually manages to win it means a metric crap ton of lost time, effort and money for PGI, CGL and HBS. Especially on CGLs part cause they do all the stuff for the actual physical table top game, and if they have to recall or whatever on a bunch of books and miniatures, people are gonna be all kinds of pissed, and that could lead to actual physical violence against HG.

[Adridos]

kuma8877, on 18 August 2017 - 12:52 PM, said:

I think you missed my "Disney LIKE" remark. In your example, it is much like my description of SS above, Zenimax owns some of the rights to what it has produced for the Fallout series. So of course, if you take something whole clothe, like a piece of music they produced, you're going to get sued. And Zenimax is a recognized legal owner of said work they sued over, HG is not in this case.

The whole point is deciding what accounts for being too "Disney like". That's what the entire copyright system is about.

kuma8877, on 18 August 2017 - 12:52 PM, said:

I think the easiest way around this whole BS, is to simply promote a different variant/loadout as the prime advertised variant, to change the silhouette of the mech and the art. At least for the chassis' in question. You could maybe then do all the unseen that way.

That's absolute nonsense.
You can not do cross-media copyright. I word it weirdly but what I mean is, there is absolutely no way you could take a picture and then claim copyright violation of said picture by a 3D model replicating that picture. That's impossible.
All of these things are separate copyrights. If you want to claim copyright infringement over a 3D model, you must do so in comparison with your own 3D model you claim is being ripped off.

IIRC you could sue to your heart's content but the change in medium automatically gives you the "different enough to be its own thing" check mark from the court so it's completely and utterly pointless.

Alan Davion, on 18 August 2017 - 01:18 PM, said:

If HG actually manages to win it means a metric crap ton of lost time, effort and money for PGI, CGL and HBS. Especially on CGLs part cause they do all the stuff for the actual physical table top game, and if they have to recall or whatever on a bunch of books and miniatures, people are gonna be all kinds of pissed, and that could lead to actual physical violence against HG.

HG already won the case against CGL. They didn't respond to the accusation so they admitted violation of HG's copyright and have nothing else to do but to remove all of the infringing designs as well as pay whatever it is HG asks of them in damages.

Edited by Adridos, 18 August 2017 - 01:25 PM.

[kuma8877]

Adridos, on 18 August 2017 - 01:20 PM, said:

The whole point is deciding what accounts for being too "Disney like". That's what the entire copyright system is about.



That's absolute nonsense.
You can not do cross-media copyright. I word it weirdly but what I mean is, there is absolutely no way you could take a picture and then claim copyright violation of said picture by a 3D model replicating that picture. That's impossible.
All of these things are separate copyrights. If you want to claim copyright infringement over a 3D model, you must do so in comparison with your own 3D model you claim is being ripped off.

IIRC you could sue to your heart's content but the change in medium automatically gives you the "different enough to be its own thing" check mark from the court so it's completely and utterly pointless.




HG already won the case against CGL. They didn't respond to the accusation so they admitted violation of HG's copyright and have nothing else to do but to remove all of the infringing designs as well as pay whatever it is HG asks of them in damages.

I'm mostly referring to PGI here. I'm not really talking about the model itself (tho it is the easiest/fastest to see the effects of). The iconic versions of the unseen have very specific silhouettes based on the loadouts they supposedly represent in BT/MW, The original designs for Macross and Robotech had no real chassis specific variants and thusly have only one look to each individual kind of Veritech/Destroid for comparison to MW/BT. So, use promo concept art that represents a variant of the unseen that makes it look less the iconic variant because it has a different loadout while the more iconic loadout/look version still makes it into the game.

[Trenchbird]

Adridos, on 18 August 2017 - 01:20 PM, said:

HG already won the case against CGL. They didn't respond to the accusation so they admitted violation of HG's copyright and have nothing else to do but to remove all of the infringing designs as well as pay whatever it is HG asks of them in damages.

Where was this announced? Last I heard, CGL was lawyering up.

[Alan Davion]

So, this just in from a friend of mine.

Harmony Gold is apparently going after Tatsunoko Productions~!

For what though I have no idea.

https://www.open-pub...ia-23006746.htm

This just keeps getting better and better.

Edited by Alan Davion, 18 August 2017 - 09:58 PM.

[The Lighthouse]

Alan Davion, on 18 August 2017 - 09:53 PM, said:

So, this just in from a friend of mine.

Harmony Gold is apparently going after Tatsunoko Productions~!

For what though I have no idea.

https://www.open-pub...ia-23006746.htm

This just keeps getting better and better.

They are going all-out.

[Alan Davion]

The Lighthouse, on 18 August 2017 - 10:05 PM, said:

They are going all-out.

The prevailing theory over on the HBS BT forums is HG is going after Tatsunoko now because of the push back from PGI/CGL/HBS over this first lawsuit which has brought to light the fact they don't actually own the rights to Macross as a whole which they've claimed for so many years, cause they supposedly bought the rights from Tatsunoko in the first place.

Don't know what they expect to get out of this, since they won't get the rights to Macross, and they're likely to lose their "co-copyright" claim in the US Patent office or whatever on Macross that they've had since they created Robotech.

[PheonixStorm]

As I posted on the *other* forums, I think HG is starting to freak out because someone has the stones to take it to trial and not settle on day 1.

As for HG v Tat, this might give a little more info... https://www.pacermon...duction_Co,_Ltd wish someone had PACER access so we could read over some of the docs to see what it is really about...

Now.. on to the fun part.

1. https://en.wikipedia...Derivative_work even if HG does have claim of infringement it does not mean that it can claim copyright on all derivates
2. In regards to HBS there is nothing in HGs claim that would stand up in court and hence nothing that would stall or stop the production of the new BattleTech game. At WORST, the new HBS game will ship w/o the Marauder, Warhammer, Archer, and any other units in this suit. They are licensed from PGI and not owned by HBS. In fact, the only models HBS owns are the vehicles.
3. If you look at it, HG has gone after HBS and Weisman soley to try to force breach of contract on EVERYONE. BUT, it is kinda hard to breach a contract no one knew anything about. To say that PGI and CGL are at fault over this is rather dumb. At the very least PGI and CGL should get to see what that original agreement had in it.
4. If you are going to make claims that HG doesn't have rights to ANY of the anime Robotech is based on then you might want to start providing references. We all know about the court case against Tatsunoko went with Studio Nue being the copyright owner for the art but WTF? Some things need citations people.
5. Hows this for some major blow back for HG hehe back when WB had the movie license for RT Skip to :30 in on how screwed up the rights are just for the movie lol

[Koshirou]

Victor Morson, on 17 August 2017 - 04:13 PM, said:

Despite people saying they changed a lot I think if PGI didn't secure the rights, they're in trouble.



Pretty sure that only one of these qualifies as a redesign and it's not the PGI one.

Arbitrary list of differences is arbitrary.

[Adridos]

Catten Hart, on 18 August 2017 - 02:47 PM, said:

Where was this announced? Last I heard, CGL was lawyering up.

One of the very first things to happen in this case. It's seen in one of those more detailed descriptions of the case someone showed. CGL have already had to defend themselves on their own forums for doing the most stupid thing imaginable.

Alan Davion, on 18 August 2017 - 09:53 PM, said:

Harmony Gold is apparently going after Tatsunoko Productions~!

https://www.open-pub...ia-23006746.htm

Now that is damn interesting. What could they possibly hope to get from Tatsunoko?

[Kin3ticX]

HAHAHAAHAHAHAHA, this is some pretty good comedy gold from Harmony Gold.

After this, Harmony Gold should stick to real-estate and tax fraud

Adridos, on 19 August 2017 - 12:58 AM, said:

Now that is damn interesting. What could they possibly hope to get from Tatsunoko?

I guess the going theory is that they are being challenged on their North America robotech distribution rights which come from Japan.

[Dee Eight]

Adridos, on 19 August 2017 - 12:58 AM, said:

Now that is damn interesting. What could they possibly hope to get from Tatsunoko?

Their money back with interest for what they paid to purchase the supposedly valid international copyright license. They're going to try and argue before a judge that they entered into a contract to purchase something which Tatsunoko represented being able to sell (which we all learned they didn't after the court case between Studio Nue, Big West and Tatsunoko), which is thus fraud.

Of course that will also mean exposing themselves in court to the possibility of Tatsunoko bringing attention to the fact that Harmony Gold have been pursuing copyright claims and unjustly enriching themselves for decades against other companies which they believed were infringing their copyright ownership. Presumably they expect to get more money from Tatsunoko to cover the costs they may have to pay out against the Battletech / Mechwarrior companies.

There's also the possibility of the film studios that have been interested in doing a live-action Robotech movie, which won't actually play well outside of North America and a few other english speaking territories, deciding they'd rather do a live-action Macross instead, which will, if properly scripted, directed and cast...WILL play very well to all the Asian markets, plus North America too. There's at least as many people in N.A. who know what Macross is (outside of the context of Robotech) as knew what Ghost in the Shell was. So at the very least, they'd stand to break even on it. If they go with Robotech...they're going to lose money because Asian markets won't likely care about it at all.

Edited by Dee Eight, 19 August 2017 - 02:35 AM.

[Rakshasa]

Dee Eight, on 18 August 2017 - 12:51 PM, said:

There's also a US patent for a fart powered blowgun, which I used to reference in one of my web forum signatures.

Harmony Gold hasn't sued them as well over unauthorised copying of the LB 2-X AC yet?

[Thorn Hallis]

Could it be that HG is speculating on "winning by default" if noone from that japanese company shows up for the trial (or even responds to it)?

[Tarl Cabot]

Thorn Hallis, on 19 August 2017 - 05:42 AM, said:

Could it be that HG is speculating on "winning by default" if noone from that japanese company shows up for the trial (or even responds to it)?

That is a possible strategy, and a sad and scary one.