49 replies to this topic

[Big Tin Man]

Russ,

It's been an uneasy time lately. Frankly I am fairly unhappy with the current state of feature development (that's for another time), but right now the community will absolutely align with you to fight Harmony Gold in court, to the death.

My wallet has been closed for a while given my other issues, but I will put them aside and I would absolutely buy an item with 100% of the proceeds going to PGI/HBS's legal defense fund. Maybe 3 of them. Or 10.

HG needs to die. Let us back PGI in being their executioner. Make a yellow notepad cockpit item, and a warhorn of a gavel slamming down. Maybe an "I OBJECT!" decal. You will sell thousands in our collective hopes that HG will lose horribly.

The hate for HG is real. We want them to go as much as you do as they are toxic to the franchise. Let us help.

XOXOXO,

The entire Mechwarrior and Battletech Community

[ScrapIron Prime]

How about selling a new item... the Harmonious Golden Horn. It's a war horn that plays a trombone going "Wah wah waaaaaah." =P

[capt hungry]

Just read the compaint - https://docs.google....958a6027f737ce3

HG needs to give it up. I'll support this game, PGI, Harebrained Schemes, BT, whatever it takes to get HG to cease and desist.

If anyone takes time to read the complaint, you'll see the Atlas being compared to an armored valkyrie, Locust compared to the Zentraedi officers pod and a Shadowhawk being compared to the destroid Spartan. They all look nothing alike.

Pathetic.

Edited by capt hungry, 24 July 2017 - 07:01 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

capt hungry, on 24 July 2017 - 06:59 AM, said:

cease and desist. to exist

FTFY

nothing short of killing, humiliation and pissing on their grave (figurative of course) could be accepted

Edited by Karl Streiger, 24 July 2017 - 07:02 AM.

[Big Tin Man]

Warhammer IIC CONCEPT ART LEAKED!!!


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[capt hungry]

Hammer indeed!

[Bud Crue]

I'm tellin ya, the assertions HG is making against PGI are primarily to create the link regarding HBS use of PGI's derivative works. The main thrust of that complaint is the alleged breach of contract that HG is asserting against HBS, based on HBS use of the derivative works provided by PGI. They need not prove any infringement for that, but merely that HBS is in breech of the contract (the previous settlement between HBS and HG) merely by using PGI's derivative works. HG does not expect the silly infringement assertion against PGI to stick. If it does, so much the better for HG, but I doubt that it will go anywhere (proving copyright infringement on visual works aint as easy as you might think). This is about getting HBS to write a check for the alleged breach of contract. Nothing more. HBS may have to do that, but I predict that in the end this won't be any skin off PGI's nose.

Edited by Bud Crue, 24 July 2017 - 07:22 AM.

[Big Tin Man]

I read the brief, but I'm no lawyer. Is the thrust of this that HBS is using the unseen in Battletech and that violates Weismanns agreement? That cuts it down to just the Marauder and Warhammer as actually being in Battletech. Archer and Phoenix Hawk aren't on the roster, and no clan mechs in 3025. All in game that isn't even yet released and they could easily be cut from it before they could claim HBS made a profit from it.

[Dr Hobo]

Big Tin Man, on 24 July 2017 - 07:32 AM, said:

I read the brief, but I'm no lawyer. Is the thrust of this that HBS is using the unseen in Battletech and that violates Weismanns agreement? That cuts it down to just the Marauder and Warhammer as actually being in Battletech. Archer and Phoenix Hawk aren't on the roster, and no clan mechs in 3025. All in game that isn't even yet released and they could easily be cut from it before they could claim HBS made a profit from it.

Harmony Gold has stuck their dirty grubby little sticky fingers into any mecha project. I'm kinda curious what they're gonna do when MW5 comes out(whenever that is)

[Chados]

That's why we need to support PGI. Every dime we spend on MC or mech packs potentially could help them defray litigation costs. PGI may get a lot of things wrong but there is no question that they are FOR the BT/MW community and Harmony Gold has proven time and again that it is not.

[Juodas Varnas]

What's better than Scorpion to represent it?!

One of the innocent victims that got ax'ed despite having nothing to do with HG!

I'd definitely support it.

Edited by Juodas Varnas, 24 July 2017 - 08:43 AM.

[JediPanther]

Pgi has more cash than we know of. They did just recently put out the hero urbie. Remember how they trolled the urbie then gave in? It sold like mad. Then came the k9 with working light bar and police siren. Mcmk2 just came out. Plus these forums are still online.

Their pr and hype and communications with would-be and willing-to-buy players needs a sheet ton of work. The mw5 site is nothing more than a wall of text, a few images, and more text saying look at our twitter and face book because we don't use our actual forums that we spend money on. If any thing it certainly isn't cash pgi needs.

[Kaptain]

So complaint 9, 10 and 11 have similarities but 12 and 13 are rediculous. Am I missing something with 12 and 13?

[Kaptain]

I too would buy a legal defense fund item.

[Snazzy Dragon]

I love this infringement claim

[Karl Streiger]

Snazzy Dragon, on 24 July 2017 - 10:10 AM, said:

I love this infringement claim

They don't have anything else because HBS did not used the Alpha Lance Designs yet.

Hg should sue the Studio that made the war of the worlds because when i saw that movie i thought man those are nice Marauders even with tree legs

Edited by Karl Streiger, 24 July 2017 - 10:21 AM.

[Cat-in-Exile]

Is there ever going to be a more appropriate time to do a Piranha pre-order?

[Formosa The God]

looking at the complaint, without bias, PGI are infringing copyright on several mechs, quite cleary, without knowing more though its hard to tell if they are guilty of the offence, or they actually changed the designs to be covered by parody and fair use laws (UK)

[Sjorpha]

Everyone is making fun of those locust=marauder images but I think that is just some some kind of messup with the document, all the comparisons referring to MWO are accurately showing the corresponding mechs so I doubt that anyone is actually trying to compare a locust to a Marauder and we are wasting our time making fun of a non-existing thing.

Now as much as I think HG is ridiculous the corresponding unseen in MWO are very similar to the originals, except for the MWO Marauder which is quite different. But the Warhammer, Archer, Rifleman and Phoenix Hawk are really close.

I don't know much about US law, but in Sweden copyright infringement hinges a lot on recognisability and intent, not on minor details like the shape of a leg or whatnot.

The fact is that it is hard for PGI to claim they weren't intending their models to be recognisable as derivative of the original Macross designs when it is exactly the recognisability and resemblance of the originals that sells those mechs to the fanbase. Clearly PGI designed those mechs to be recognisable enough for a nostalgic battletech fan, which means there is in some sense clear intent of infringement provided someone else holds the rights, and with a financial interest on top that makes for a pretty clear case of copyright infringement.

So playing devils advocate, let's say there was no question about HB holding these rights, if I were a judge in Sweden I would be very hard pressed to validate their claim of infringement given the history of these models and the obvious intent on PGI:s part to try and make money off of the nostalgia over these old designs.

Things may be entirely different in the US, such as money deciding who wins etc. which isn't the case here to the same degree, but anyways I'm more hopeful that the Japanese precedent of HB not actually having these right they claim to have undercuts the whole thing, so that PGI and HBS doesn't even have to argue the similarities or derivative nature of the designs at all, because on that particular point I actually think they will probably lose.

Edited by Sjorpha, 24 July 2017 - 10:46 AM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

The issue is whether Tatsunoko had the authority to give all those rights to Harmony Gold in the first place. The previous judgement against Harmony Gold found that Tatsunoko had the authority to give them redistribution rights to the videos, but not to other electronic media. Or something close to that.

Separately, Jordan Weisman acquired the copyright to use the images for the Battletech board game. When international copyright laws changed in the early 90's, Harmony Gold pounced. And the "Unseen" were created.

Basically they're copyright trolls and just want a piece of the action from Harebrained and PGI.