As a lighthearted aside, it seems Brad Wardell has claimed the #freestarcontrol hashtag on twitter to be a movement in support of Stardock, when in reality it was first used in a decidedly anti-Stardock sense. Also most of Brad's "movement" is himself.

It would amuse me greatly if Star Control fans here were to reclaim it and drown him out.

EDIT: It has 16 pro-Stardock uses on twitter, 7 of which are Brad himself. It wouldn't take a lot to reclaim the original meaning.

Star Control was owned by Accolade.  It was Accolade's game that contained licensed IP from Paul and Fred.  These are indisputable facts.  They are facts that don't diminish the genius that came from Paul and Fred.

Star Control the trademark, the brand, was owned by Accolade. They never at any point owned the game.

Word is both parties are now working together to arrive at a settlement....








(just kidding)

Cruel!

Elestan's suggestion seems very reasonable. All you need to do is work together (with your respective lawyers) to find the correct legal terminology for it in a way that isn't too vague.

You just ignored the substance of their offer.

But for the sake of argument, let’s say the settlement offer they released that they represent as our entire proposal was true, they could have negotiated it privately rather than escalating their PR war.  If they wanted to actually negotiate something, they could have iterated on both settlements privately.  They chose not to.  

I get that, and I'm not particularly supportive of the public way they've handled this. Be the grown up, keep trying to fix this.

And because they’ve been so disengenuous between what they publicly state and privately demand, we just don’t have any trust that they are capable of actually behaving with any sense of good faith.   We aren’t interested in discussing settlements with them any further. The court is the better venue at this point.  And that is the last I’m saying on that.

Well that is incredibly sad to hear. If it goes to court, I feel that one game or the other is going to get screwed.
If you win I think it will bite you in the ass, perhaps not financially, but you'll burn some bridges with the fans.

@E
Why would anyone want to negotiate with people who have demonstrated that they will twist and misrepresent every discussion and post it to the public?

You keep acting like we have some of requirement to play along with Paul and Fred’s antics.  I can assure you, we do not. And we will not. Any IP attorney can tell you how this case is likely to go.

We are working to make the best new Star Control game we can. We aren’t going to feed the Paul and Fred circus further.

They didn't twist your settlement offer, it really was horrible and while theirs is not perfect, it's an improvement. Why not counter with something based on theirs but with what you see as necessary modifications? You know, iterate, haggle. Get rid of the bits that you think would prevent you releasing Origins. I get that everyone is pissed off with each other, but you (all) need to put that aside.

The true fans want to see both games and I suspect you will alienate a lot of them if you prevent Ghosts being made (even if it's through a justified win in court). I personally wouldn't be at all happy with any "winner takes all" scenario no matter which way it goes.

[assume]

Because as far as we know they've only just started a few months ago. How long into development was it before we saw anything of SC:O?

Well, you don't know much then, do you? The open to founders development started in 2015. I'm sure the pre-production stage started even earlier.
You also assume that Ghosts development started.

Thank you, that was exactly the point I was trying to prove. 2015 is 3 years ago, potentially much less depending on when in the year we're talking. It's also highly unusual to start sharing that early in development (which is cool of Stardock to do). Given that we have no idea when development on GotP started in earnest (it may have been as late as the time of the announcement) and that it's not usual to share the development process, what reason do you have to suggest that the game doesn't and will never exist?

They have no legal rights to the names.  Only the copyrights of things that they created.

Given the dispute, it is has become abundantly clear that we have no alternative but to ensure that all trade-markable items already associated with Star Control are protected to prevent confusion or dilution.

Given that Paul and Fred have already tried to cancel our trademark, we became more motivated than ever to ensure that our considerable investment has as many vectors of protection as possible.

You keep flip-flopping on this. First you weren't going to use original races, then you were ("And yes, given these events, future Star Control games will have the Ur-Quan, Spathi, etc. in them.") then in this thread you again have no intention of using them! Why are you trademarking names you have no intention of using?

" How long into development was it before we saw anything of SC:O?"

  you do not know, you are obviously new.

What has that got to do with anything? I'm asking a question because it's relevant to Hunam_'s point. SC:O has supposedly been in development for four years, when did we start seeing the development of the game?

If you aren't going to answer that question I'm not sure why you're replying to me.

[Second: The license to use the old IP in sequels.]

Second: The license to use the old IP in sequels.

This one is very murky.  It's not relevant since we aren't using any of the IP.   But let's presume that the license agreement has expired.  Ok. We aren't using those characters, setting or lore.  So it's has no effect either way.  

Really? That seems at odds with your stated intentions here. It sounds very much like it is your intention to gain control of the IP and use it in your games, whether SC:O or a future game.
https://forums.stardock.net/487690/page/4/#replies

^ It's cute how you ignored the rest of Brad's points.

Its cute how you defend Brad everywhere.

Why shouldn't I? He paid money to get SC (tm), FaP didn't. He spent million of dollars and 4 years of daily work to continue SC legacy. What FaP have to show for Ghosts?... Wait, I'm preparing the list. Ok, I'm back. - NOTHING.

Because as far as we know they've only just started a few months ago. How long into development was it before we saw anything of SC:O?

Followed Elestan from the Stardock forums - it was pretty clear my days there would be numbered too if I continued to challenge the Stardock narrative. I pretty much agree with Elestan's analysis, Paul could been clearer when he declined to buy 'what Stardock owned'. Still, Stardock's behaviour has been unjustifiably aggressive from pretty early on - P&F aren't the creators of Star Control, even when the copyright notice in the game literally names them?