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Well... Looks like the producers of TRIBBLE have some serious explaining to do

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  • jonsillsjonsills Member Posts: 10,354 Arc User
    I got my fill of arguments over copyright and trademark law (and the difference between them) in the CO forums, with folks who can't understand why they're not allowed to play Superman and Wolverine in CO. Not interested in getting into the details of the law here.

    Suffice it to say that you're incorrect in your assessment, and the examples you've chosen are not precedent in this case. It's not a question of "artwork", it's a question of the use of imagined capabilities of a real-world creature. (The person who wrote the code for the Steam game, which hasn't even been finished, merely greenlit, didn't invent tardigrades; he merely noted their existence, and the remarkable circumstances of their being, and extrapolated, much as did the writers of ST:D. His extrapolation wasn't even in the same direction, other than "space travel".

    Were copyright law so broad as you contend, Lucas himself wouldn't be able to file any suits. It's not like he invented one-man spaceships, after all - Niven's asteroid miners were flitting about the Belt in singleships for a decade before George produced his little flick. Should Niven be suing because Lucas "stole" his idea? It's about the same degree of similarity, after all...
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  • evilmark444evilmark444 Member Posts: 6,950 Arc User
    The legal arguments aside, if this story were to get enough publicity to get people in an uproar about it there's a decent chance CBS would offer some kind of settlement just to make the problem go away.
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  • evilmark444evilmark444 Member Posts: 6,950 Arc User
    valoreah wrote: »
    The legal arguments aside, if this story were to get enough publicity to get people in an uproar about it there's a decent chance CBS would offer some kind of settlement just to make the problem go away.

    Why would they do that? They didn't do anything wrong.

    Wether they did anything legally wrong or not (I'm not going to commit either way), it certainly appears like they did, and even if it is legal it's still morally wrong. It has the potential to generate a lot of bad publicity for CBS, which could potentially cost them more money than a settlement check would, and in the end it's all about the money. If they did offer a settlement I can guarantee they would put in writing that it is not an admission of guilt, and the developer of this game would also sign an NDA.
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  • mirrorchaosmirrorchaos Member Posts: 9,844 Arc User
    valoreah wrote: »
    The legal arguments aside, if this story were to get enough publicity to get people in an uproar about it there's a decent chance CBS would offer some kind of settlement just to make the problem go away.

    Why would they do that? They didn't do anything wrong.

    Wether they did anything legally wrong or not (I'm not going to commit either way), it certainly appears like they did, and even if it is legal it's still morally wrong. It has the potential to generate a lot of bad publicity for CBS, which could potentially cost them more money than a settlement check would, and in the end it's all about the money. If they did offer a settlement I can guarantee they would put in writing that it is not an admission of guilt, and the developer of this game would also sign an NDA.

    If CBS has done nothing wrong how can they be held accountable to the idea that they acted in a bad way when there was no such case to begin with?

    By just settling it would be an admission of guilt no matter how it was signed, it would show that CBS had intent from the start and by defending such actions it further reinforced such a point that at some point they crossed a line that bought them to this point, no matter what happens with any potential settlement it would be seen as a bad thing.
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  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    I'm with Jon. To make the case stick you'd need to demonstrate that your idea was original and new. If you can't demonstrate that your idea was the only possible source of inspiration you have no case.
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  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    Personally I don't think he HAS a case and that this whole thing is a "nuisance tort".
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  • thay8472thay8472 Member Posts: 6,100 Arc User
    heh, isn't the tardigrade I find weird, it's those three characters and how they closely resemble the discovery crew ... especially the couple (the two guys)
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  • lordrezeonlordrezeon Member Posts: 399 Arc User
    The developer of this game doesn't really have any realistic options here. CBS can flex its financial muscle and grind the developer beneath its heel.

    This reminds me of a few years ago when the Japanese tv studio that makes Super Sentai (the source material for Power Rangers) sued an indie developer who was making a generic sentai game. The studio didn't actually have the copyrights for the sentai concept, but they had the financial muscle to grind the indie developer into dust.

    A great many entertainment companies are also notorious for abusing lawsuits in order to destroy fledgling rivals...
  • f9thretxcf9thretxc Member Posts: 505 Arc User
    I honestly thought they grabbed it from Dune.

    My mother always told me to walk away from a fight, The Marines taught me how.
  • starkaosstarkaos Member Posts: 11,556 Arc User
    f9thretxc wrote: »
    I honestly thought they grabbed it from Dune.

    Hideous organic supercomputers that perform complex operations required for navigation for an instantaneous drive. Sounds about right. Only differences is that Navigators use spice and prescience while the Tardigrade uses spores and more conventional methods.
  • jonsillsjonsills Member Posts: 10,354 Arc User
    Is there no end to the fields in which you're a renowned expert, Patrick? Herpetology, quantum physics, mycology, xenobiology, and now law?
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  • redvengeredvenge Member Posts: 1,425 Arc User
    jonsills wrote: »
    Now, there's a pretty doggone huge difference between using one as a sort of organic supercomputer to tie into an interstellar network of quantum-entangled mycelial threads, and having one envelop you as a sort of biological spacesuit before engaging in transgalactic teleportation under its own power (and why intergalactic travel? Wouldn't interstellar be more than sufficient?). It's simply not reasonable, in my opinion, to claim that the not-fully-produced Steam game Tardigrades inspired in any meaningful way the spore drive in ST:D.
    "The game is about a civilization that lived on Earth 20,000 years ago. They are on the verge of intergalactic travel using giant Tardigrades to travel anywhere in the universe. The main character, Carter, is a botanist whom will discover later in the game the connection between the super tough creature and instantaneous space travel."

    From the developer's game updates on the forum. The developer has released multiple YouTube videos and posted updates to the game, but has not revealed significant portion of the story (it is an adventure game, after all). At a glance, the core concept of 'super tartigrades' being able to teleport around the universe using "a galaxy-spanning, inter-connected organic web" seems a little suspicious. However, since the full mechanics of the system in 'Tartigrades' was never made public, it's impossible to compare the SporeDrive(tm) with the "galaxy-spanning, inter-connected organic web". For instance, the 'organic web' could be a manufactured phenomenon, where as the omni-present spores are natural (at least, they are for now). Also, it is implied the 'super tartigrades' are intelligent, where the tartigrade in Star Trek:Discovery is not.

    As for Star Trek: Discovery stealing characters, that seems highly unlikely. The developer has also gone into great detail about the characters in the game and there only seems to be superficial similarities there. The issue is with so much of his content mirroring Star Trek: Discovery, he may have to re-write several characters and story elements to avoid claims of plagiarism.
  • redvengeredvenge Member Posts: 1,425 Arc User
    patrickngo wrote: »
    I don't have to be an "Expert" to be right. a couple of minutes looking up and reading copyright cases (well, really hours) and you'd be 'just as expert' as I, or anyone else with access to Google am.
    As a side note, it's really frustrating when the forums won't post your comment because you put links in it. "Waiting for approval" or some such nonsense. I've given up responding a couple of times when this happened, because I could not post the source of my rebuttal.
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