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IP Law/Harmony Gold rambling
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This discussion was created from comments split from: The woes of Star Trek 4 (or 14 if you prefer) and the Kelvinverse's future..
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Which explains why so much mainstream media and entertainment, to me, has been TRIBBLE for sooooooo many years.
This is as bad as Harmony Gold and Robotech. >_>;;
Some of the stupidity from Harmony Gold... they tried to say some Battlemechs looked like things in Robotech... when it was rather obvious they looked nothing alike besides "Two arms and Two legs".
While I do admit the old Unseen Mechs, like the original design Warhammer and Marauder, were blatant ripoffs of Robotech stuff... nothing is now. Yet Harmony Gold keeps trying to KILL anything Battletech/Mechwarrior. And this is over 20 years AFTER the whole Unseen fiasco.
it is easier to sue companies that have a minor similarity to an IP that you owe than it is to create a new product. IP laws should have a mandatory clause that requires something to be created involving the IP of a sufficient level of quality every 5 or 10 years or the IP is lost and becomes part of the public domain.
And I think Harmony Gold may be on their way to losing that license anyways. Word on the grapevine is they actually filed a lawsuit against a Japanese company, which could have connections to the original IP Owners.
And yea... Harmony Gold has really produced NOTHING since I guess The Shadow Chronicles came out. There was talk of a live action movie, but I guess that fell through. And yea... they get lawsuit happy to make money rather than actually DOING THEIR JOB.
Before I watched some Robotech, me slapping an RDF symbol on the side of a MadCat was a one finger salute to Robotech. After I watched a few episodes I thought it was alright. Then I hear more about Harmony Gold's antics and... guess what guys! RDF Symbol on a MadCat is no longer a one finger salute to Robotech, it is a one finger salute to Harmony Gold!
BEGONE EDIT MONSTER!
> rattler2 wrote: »
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> Don't get me started on Harmony Gold. Until recently we haven't had a good Battletech game available BECAUSE Harmony Gold feels they own the rights to ANYTHING remotely resembling Robotech. Hell I'm surprised they didn't try and sue Legendary when they came out with Pacific Rim because "OH LOOK! Giant mech with two arms and two legs! LAWSUIT!"
>
> Some of the stupidity from Harmony Gold... they tried to say some Battlemechs looked like things in Robotech... when it was rather obvious they looked nothing alike besides "Two arms and Two legs".
>
> While I do admit the old Unseen Mechs, like the original design Warhammer and Marauder, were blatant ripoffs of Robotech stuff... nothing is now. Yet Harmony Gold keeps trying to KILL anything Battletech/Mechwarrior. And this is over 20 years AFTER the whole Unseen fiasco.
>
>
>
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> it is easier to sue companies that have a minor similarity to an IP that you owe than it is to create a new product. IP laws should have a mandatory clause that requires something to be created involving the IP of a sufficient level of quality every 5 or 10 years or the IP is lost and becomes part of the public domain.
I love that idea.
From what I understand HG tried to sue Hasbro's Transformers line for licensing Macross designs, but Hasbro being a much bigger company was able to fight back and win.
Distribution Rights for Robotech does NOT equal copyright of character and mech designs. Because that would imply they CREATED them rather than adapted them for North American consumers.
Wait a second... are you saying that the original Marauder... was actually LEGAL despite being an exact copy of an Officer's Pod because the ORIGINAL IP Owners licensed the design to FASA for Battletech?
This was actually legal, and Harmony Gold went after it?!
I think 5 - 10 years is a bit too short. Big corporations could keep it up, but what about individual authors or small IP holders? It took 12 years to write Lord of the Rings. And how do you judge if something is of "sufficient quality?" That's very up-to-interpretation, and my understanding is that such things don't work well in legal settings.
I think the answer to questions like Harmony Gold (of which all I know is what's been written here) is better laws surrounding the use of litigation, though I couldn't tell you how to do that.
I do think that copyright durations need to be shortened, at least for corporate IPs. Life + 70 years has a certain logic to it, giving the author the ability to potentially provide for his descendants for a while. But 95 years is too long for corporate copyright to be held, and it's probably going to be extended as we get closer to 2024, the year Mickey Mouse will enter public domain. 50 years of corporate copyright is plenty IMO.
With software, it's a whole other ballgame because of changing platforms and rapid studio creation/failure. A 10 - 20 year copyright there would be more appropriate for this field.
From my research on this issue it is complicated... There were three companies involved in the creation of Macross, with each one holding a certain amount of ownership over the end product. Harmony Gold's distribution license was with one of those companies, the owners of BattleTech got a license from one of the other involved companies. It is further complicated by some of these arrangements being verbal business agreements and now decades later none of the involved parties is on the same page on what really happened or when.
At this point it is hard to say exactly who has what contractual rights, the only thing we know for sure is that HG doesn't have documented proof of its claims of exclusive ownership of character/mech designs.
Just because something has been created doesn't mean it is ready for release to the public. For game development, there is pre-production, alpha, beta, and release and each step is a creation. The 5 to 10 years is to prevent those evil companies that hold onto IP just so that they can sue companies not for some independent developer that takes years to get their project done. As long as they have a product of sufficient quality that they can show to others to prove that they are working on a new commercial product, then they are safe.
Ah, I see. That wasn't clear from you're previous post. It makes more sense, but I can foresee problems. What about a small IP holder with multiple IPs, but who only has the resources to pour into one major project at a time? Or a single author who thinks he's concluded his series and gives it no further thought, but winds up eventually deciding to return to it 15 years later? Or someone who starts a project as a teenager, gives up halfway through, then comes back to it 20 years later now that he's learned enough to do it properly? And again, how do you decide what constitutes "sufficient quality?"
I still think that the problem you're describing would be better served by changing how the courts work rather than changing copyright law. As it stands, taking something to court is very expensive and as such the advantage in a non-criminal court case tends to go to the side that has the most money to spend, rather than the side that's in the right. If being dragged into court wasn't a punishment in and of itself, I think the problem of suppressing similar products wouldn't be as bad.
And again, it's not corporations like Harmony Gold that would be hurt by such a law. They just need to hire a couple conceptual designers to be simmering ideas and turning out concepts in the background at the minimum rate required. It's individuals and small IP holders who would feel the burden.
*ahem* the thor, viking, hellbat and goliath all say 'hi'...probably the only reason HG never went after blizzard is that no one is stupid enough to sue blizzard
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
This too?
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
> *ahem* the thor, viking, hellbat and goliath all say 'hi'...probably the only reason HG never went after blizzard is that no one is stupid enough to sue blizzard
Out of curiosity, why is that?
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
about the only company who might have a chance against them is disney...and since disney has no IPs with mechs in it, they would have no reason to file suit against blizzard
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
My character Tsin'xing
Toy Galaxy on Youtube did a multipart video on this
Harmony Gold's infantile behavior, since day one, can be summarized like this:
Shadow...
The AT-AT would like to have a word with you.
Also...
Surprised EA and the former people at Westwood weren't targeted either.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
This has no arms and is still considered a mech.
And this basically says the AT-STs are Mechs as those can be considered arms despite not having elbows.
So for all intents and purposes... a Mech is any vechicle that uses legs for movement. Powered Armor is a different animal because it is generally only suit size.
So technically speaking, Star Wars does have mechs. And so does the Tiberium universe of C&C. It is just not applied like most Japanese style Mecha.
My character Tsin'xing
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Maybe, if Harmony Gold finally has no rights and contracts to rely on, we can get a Battletech movie or TV series? Wouldn't that be great? The setting is so big it would be easy to tell a new story or retell any novel you'd like.
My character Tsin'xing
After a quick Google Search...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotech_(role-playing_game)
Palladium's no longer holding the license to either the RPG or the miniature game.
Link fixed. -- StarSword-C