Update on V:TES state of affairs?

BenPeal wrote:

The goal is to get the game to work the way we know it, only written properly.

Cool.

elotar wrote:

This is the real reason. Even not the reality of such a trial, but unjustified fear of it - as I understand there was only one such case wich get to the court, mentioned "Chapterhouse vs Games Workshop", which failed spectaculary for IP owner - both in direct costs of legal action and as a terrible PR nighmare.

I'm really in doubt that WoC/CCP are going to enter such minefield to fight for a unusefull for them property as a VtES rights.

Off the top of my head, here are some examples of copyright violation that resulted in legal action:

The J.R.R. Tolkien estate vs. TSR, which resulted in changes to Dungeons & Dragons books.

The H.P. Lovecraft estate and Michael Moorcock vs. TSR, which resulted in the removal of Cthulhu mythos material and Elric mythos material from Deities & Demigods.

White Wolf Publishing (!!!) vs. Sony Pictures, which resulted in a confidential settlement over copyright infringment in the movie Underworld.

There's also the case of Battletech's use of licensed material without permission, although the story is a bit murkier there:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BattleTech#Original_game

A quick google search for "history of copyright lawsuits in role playing games" comes up with a bunch of hits, including:

Game Designer's Workshop vs. Edu-Ware Services, resulting in an out-of-court settlement over the latter's violation of Traveller copyrights:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_(role-playing_game)#Lawsuit

Palladium vs. Wizards of the Coast which nearly put Wizards out of business in 1992:

www.rpg.net/columns/briefhistory/briefhistory1.phtml

Copyright law and copyright lawsuits are very real things with very real repercussions, and fear of such lawsuits is not unjustified.

BenPeal wrote:

which resulted in a confidential settlement over copyright infringment

This is nearly universal result of all such trials - no real court desicion, just one (or both) parties cover in fear at sone moment.

For clarity - I'm not arguing, that abuse of copyright laws by big corporations is not the real case, or that it's not working, just that it's mostly scare tactics, not based on real legal cases in the games industry.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_clone#Notable_cloned_games

elotar wrote:

For clarity - I'm not arguing, that abuse of copyright laws by big corporations is not the real case, or that it's not working, just that it's mostly scare tactics, not based on real legal cases in the games industry.

So, are you volunteering to throw yourself under the bus, or just telling us at length about how someone else should throw themself under the bus?

elotar wrote:

BenPeal wrote:

which resulted in a confidential settlement over copyright infringment

This is nearly universal result of all such trials - no real court desicion, just one (or both) parties cover in fear at sone moment.

You say, "cower in fear", I say, "make a rational financial assessment". Out-of-court settlements are a common end result of such legal cases because they make financial sense for both sides. The "losing" side makes the assessment that paying the settlement is cheaper than the penalty for losing a trial. The "winning" side makes the assessment that the continued time, legal fees, and effort is not worth the amount gained from the award for winning the trial.

For clarity - I'm not arguing, that abuse of copyright laws by big corporations is not the real case, or that it's not working, just that it's mostly scare tactics, not based on real legal cases in the games industry.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_clone#Notable_cloned_games

Except that we have over 40 years of copyright cases in the games industry. Some have had merit, some have not. Take the example you gave, of Chapterhouse vs. Games Workshop. It's hard to say that either side won that trial. Games Workshop won on 1/3 of the claims they made, but the award of $25,000 was a lot less than the $400,000 they sought. As you mentioned, GW also took a significant PR hit for the trial. Chapterhouse, however, still had to pay $25,000, plus all their time and legal fees, which is a big hit for a guy working out of his garage. In addition, the legal battle between the two continues, with Games Workshop managing to have Chapterhouse's assets frozen for several months last year into this year. These aren't merely scare tactics, though I agree that it's a component intended to send a message to other would-be copycats. However, these tactics are also very much about Games Workshop being very aggressive and diligent about protecting its intellectual property for fear of losing ownership of it.

BenPeal wrote:

$25,000

I'm not deep into the question, but as I understand, legal cost for GW of this trial was like million of dollars.

Legal costs for chapterhouse was - $0.

They lose 25k and was frothen for a mounth, but got reverse of GW PR result - they and their product are now widely known around wargaming community.

And it was sort of strong case - CH was produsing clones of GW flagship game models. For VtES, which is now not prodused and not sold by IP owners, it'll be much harder to justify any financial damage.