Wait a minute...he’s an ethnic doctor on a space ship with tardegrades!
If the game developer can sue CBS over similar characters shouldnt CBS be able to sue The Orville?
> @starkaos said: > If anyone has the right to sue CBS over Tardigrades, it is Neil deGrasse Tyson due to a Cosmos episode introducing the idea of Tardigrades as being able to live in space to public perception.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
> @smokebailey said:
> (Quote)
>
> Don't give another corporation any more ideas, please.
Maybe if you lay off the wacky baccy for a bit, you'll notice I was being sarcastic. His cr@ppy point-and-click game has about as many similarities to Dune and Stargate as it does to Discovery.
You are entitled to not like the series, but it's getting a third season. Get over it.
And, like the first 2 seasons, not gonna see it, nor support it. I'll stick to Orville, thank you. *curtsies*
So... by that logic he should sue ANYONE who fits that broad description of people, and no one can use that particular set of features together.
Too vague and too broad a stroke.
It was explained in DETAIL how certain things cannot be protected, and how other things were just too vague. Just let it go already!
I also like how he said CBS must have greased the judges hand. We have majorily crossed the neutral zone and into Tin Foil hat terrority here
Riiiight, judges, politicians and other authority figures are so honest and the prime examples of integrity?
No.
But judges are generally considered to have a pretty high integrity in the court room, because if they don't, they fail to do their job. If you think they are always corrupt, why bother going to court in the first place? You could just scream out the unfairness of this dark world out loudly and not do anything at all, because it's obviously all completely pointless.
Have you read the reasoning of the verdict? Did you understand it?
---
A redhead, a black woman and a tardigrade walk into a bar.
"Your orders?"
"Two Coffees and a mushroom shake for the blue guy"
"Your blue friend here better doesn't teleport out of here, I don't want another Adbin lawyer incident."
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Oh sweet Kahless....
You can’t trademark “ethnic doctor”.
You can’t trademark “his TRIBBLE blonde boyfriend.”
You can’t trademark “frizzy haired ginger”
You can’t trademark “black lady inmate”
You can’t trademark “tardegrades”
Are they similar? Sure but I’m also pretty sure that any one or three of those descriptions are also characters on any tv drama currently on tv.
You can’t sue for coincidence. You can’t sue for similarities. If you could the Flintstones people could have sued for any show with “fat dumb husband and attractive smart wife”...though they could have been sued by the Honeymooners people.
The other major point is they couldn’t prove that CBS got the idea from the game.
And when you take out all the stuff that isn't protected under IP laws, the case comes down to proving CBS knew about his game and copied it. He failed to prove they knew it existed prior to him filing his lawsuit.
....you cannot trademark characters unless the characters is unique. This is why Family Guy and The Simpsons aren’t sued by The Flintstones over dumb, fat patriarch with smarter attractive wife.
If the rules were that stringent The Orville wouldn’t have made it past the first episode(having been sued by CBS).
Anybody who says that the developer didn't have a leg to stand on are either in need of a trip to VisionWorks for new glasses, haven't bothered to follow the case/find out the relevant information, or is a rabid Discovery fanboi. There was more to the lawsuit than somebody trying to "copyright tardigrades". In fact, there were too many similarities to be mere coincidental, in my view. As someone who has a background in law, and looking at the evidence, Abdin did have a legitimate complaint against CBS. The judge just didn't think it was similar enough to find in his favor.
Abdin's game itself also has a lot of similarities to Stargate and Dune. Does that mean he plagiarized them? Should MGM and the Herbert estate look into him? That would be funny.
There is a big difference between coincidental similarities and universal science fiction concepts, and enough similarities that are damn near dead ringers to raise some suspicions. This isn't a case like that of Games Workshop trying to copyright "Space Marines" and "Imperial Guard", both generic science fiction concepts that have existed nearly a half-century before Games Workshop released Rogue Trader in 1987. Or the accusations that Bungee stole all of their HALO ideas from James Cameron's Aliens (which was so generic in terms of horror, action films, and military sci-fi it ain't funny and all had been done before).
Neither Stargate or the Dune saga were anything groundbreaking or unique. And what I've seen of the game, it isn't a blow for blow copy of some of the core concepts or characters for either. The alleged items that the developer was disputing in his lawsuit, taken as a whole on the other hand, was enough for a legitimate complaint against CBS.
I don't think they got a case, as you have to very deliberately and selectively pick on things that might resemble DSC, the trailer meant to showcase the game has little resemblance to the show.
It was also released July, 2017; the same month CBS debuted the extended Discovery trailer which included scenes involving the Tardigrade.
Also, if you look at the development thread for the game, this trailer has little to do with most of what's been shown for said game (I did a little research when this came up in the main Age of Discovery thread.) It should be noted that:
The game has yet to be released or publicly tested. Development started a few years ago (under the name "Epoch") with infrequent updates marking progress. What we have are individual frames, test animations, and vague trailers on youtube (of disconnected tone and content.) Only one item (the July 2017 trailer) includes a Tardigrade as more than just a logo. Prior: the dev was posting Egyptian architecture, market stalls, nude cave diving, a questionable shower scene, a bit with an old man in a brown robe (venerable monk?), abstract wormhole FX (including what appears to be another plane of reality) generic sci-fi interiors, and some verdant green exteriors. If replication had been attempted during DSC's production, it would have been impractical to anticipate where the game would go with its July trailer (nothing I've found foreshadowed the presence of large Tardigrades or their direct involvement with FTL travel, the focus was on sci-fi ancient Egypt and generic space settings.)
The "Stamets" is a Kirk-style lead who happens to be a botanist (his background may be providing context but it doesn't appear core to his actions or interactions. There is very little dialog available.) Early descriptions state that he has a girlfriend and some trailers show him interacting with a cat in space (which we can presume is his.)
The "Burnham" is the communications officer, a la Uhura, and doesn't appear to have much involvement beyond that role.
The "Culver"...this is an ergregious comparison with Discovery. He's a white guy with a brown beard (filling in what appears to be a Bones-esque friendship with the lead), it's a very select piece of "shadowy" animation (posted after Cruz was cast) that's being used in the comparison videos.
The "Tilly," a member of another team. She has red hair and its very difficult to say whether she only appears in one scene (where she's piloting a two-seat space fighter) or adopts a much larger role in the game (one can infer a rival team dynamic with frequent contact but I don't think that's been established yet.)
There are many other characters showcased in the game of equal or greater prominence, each primarily distinguished by hair color (for the sake of the main game's rendering capabilities.) It's worth noting because the game is casting a wide net, making incidental similarities more likely.
The setting is Egypt 20,000 BC, following the Stargate mold of imagining that to be the product of an ancient space-faring culture.
The sci-fi interiors also seem inspired by the Daedalus, circa Stargate SG-1 (though "generic modern sci-fi" including Aliens, the Expanse, Starship Troopers, and Halo would also do.)
The "spores" segment is a wormhole scene posted Aug 2015, sans Tardigrade. It does, however, resemble a Stargate portal (rendered as a sphere of moving dots to resemble the ripple effect at a glance.)
The plot seems to be a re-imagined Dune prequel, including the formation of deserts in the title locations and Tardigrades standing in (apparently) for both Guild Navigator and Sandworm (blue also matching the deep blue of spice saturated eyes). The connection between works is very directly established with the dev lifting the intro from the 1984 Dune movie for one of his trailers.
Now to do all this as an indie project is a technical accomplishment (though it remains to be seen whether the dev is building a coherent narrative, realizing characters, and coupling that to a complimentary tone; there's been very little dialog posted) but there's still no getting around the fact that this is derivative work. In detail, it doesn't resemble Discovery and any vague similarities either follow from convergent evolution (placing Tardigrades as a pop-science stand-in for alien life [following notable NASA experiments and evangelization by Tyson in Cosmos 2.0), because look at the thing) or genre trends and archetypes (with the Tardigrades game sticking to them and Discovery [in the case of characters] subverting them].)
I don't blame the dev in this, because from comments I've seen he's been surrounded by an echo chamber that's bought into the "CBS stole your work" narrative (without checking the precise dates) and that's a very unusual place to find yourself in while working on a project like this. I do blame those who publicized the issue without doing due diligence in research, they've "taken the side" of an indie dev and tacitly encouraged a lawsuit without appreciating, in full, what that is objectively up against simply to fulfill a dramatic narrative. Win or lose, they're entertained.
And I disagree with part of what he come up with in his posted opinion. Some of what he posted is reaching, others is pretty spot on (although it misses the point).
> @smokebailey said:
> (Quote)
>
> Don't give another corporation any more ideas, please.
Maybe if you lay off the wacky baccy for a bit, you'll notice I was being sarcastic. His cr@ppy point-and-click game has about as many similarities to Dune and Stargate as it does to Discovery.
You are entitled to not like the series, but it's getting a third season. Get over it.
And, like the first 2 seasons, not gonna see it, nor support it. I'll stick to Orville, thank you. *curtsies*
So... by that logic he should sue ANYONE who fits that broad description of people, and no one can use that particular set of features together.
Too vague and too broad a stroke.
It was explained in DETAIL how certain things cannot be protected, and how other things were just too vague. Just let it go already!
I also like how he said CBS must have greased the judges hand. We have majorily crossed the neutral zone and into Tin Foil hat terrority here
Riiiight, judges, politicians and other authority figures are so honest and the prime examples of integrity?
No.
But judges are generally considered to have a pretty high integrity in the court room, because if they don't, they fail to do their job. If you think they are always corrupt, why bother going to court in the first place? You could just scream out the unfairness of this dark world out loudly and not do anything at all, because it's obviously all completely pointless.
Have you read the reasoning of the verdict? Did you understand it?
---
A redhead, a black woman and a tardigrade walk into a bar.
"Your orders?"
"Two Coffees and a mushroom shake for the blue guy"
"Your blue friend here better doesn't teleport out of here, I don't want another Adbin lawyer incident."
I know what was in the verdict. And I disagree with much of the judge's rationale in his verdict.
Judges are not infallible. They have a bad habit making craptastic rulings, especially in IP or copyright lawsuits (science fiction in particular). And those judges were often once lawyers that specialized in copyright and IP issues.
One just has to look at the case of FASA Corporation vs. Playmates, Harmony Gold U.S.A. et al 1996 to see a prime (and famous in nerdom) example of this phenomena. But in any case and no matter what, the dev lost. CBS won. Right or wrong, there is nothing anybody can do about it. Besides, Star Trek: Discovery appears to have moved beyond those plot devices.
I don’t see how you consider “space marines” a generic Sci Fi concept but “ethnic doctor” is specific enough to sue?
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Neither Stargate or the Dune saga were anything groundbreaking or unique.
Okay, that right there means we can disregard your statements. Dune wasn't "groundbreaking" or "unique"? You definitely don't know anything about the history of science fiction.
> @jonsills said: > (Quote) > Okay, that right there means we can disregard your statements. Dune wasn't "groundbreaking" or "unique"? You definitely don't know anything about the history of science fiction.
That too
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,577Community Moderator
> @smokebailey said:
> (Quote)
>
> Don't give another corporation any more ideas, please.
Maybe if you lay off the wacky baccy for a bit, you'll notice I was being sarcastic. His cr@ppy point-and-click game has about as many similarities to Dune and Stargate as it does to Discovery.
You are entitled to not like the series, but it's getting a third season. Get over it.
And, like the first 2 seasons, not gonna see it, nor support it. I'll stick to Orville, thank you. *curtsies*
So... by that logic he should sue ANYONE who fits that broad description of people, and no one can use that particular set of features together.
Too vague and too broad a stroke.
It was explained in DETAIL how certain things cannot be protected, and how other things were just too vague. Just let it go already!
I also like how he said CBS must have greased the judges hand. We have majorily crossed the neutral zone and into Tin Foil hat terrority here
Riiiight, judges, politicians and other authority figures are so honest and the prime examples of integrity?
No one is saying there are no corrupt judges, politicians, and other authority figures. I like to think the best of those in those positions until they are exposed for not being honest or having integrity. Are there events in your life that have caused you to think this way on these subjects?
also, the dev did NOT lose - lose would imply that his game was found to be in violation of CBS copyright or trademarks and if he wanted to continue developing it, he would either have to pay licensing fees or cease developing the game entirely
since the ruling was parallel development or whatever the term is, he does not have to do either of those things
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!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
also, the dev did NOT lose - lose would imply that his game was found to be in violation of CBS copyright or trademarks and if he wanted to continue developing it, he would either have to pay licensing fees or cease developing the game entirely
since the ruling was parallel development or whatever the term is, he does not have to do either of those things
That would have been true if CBS had sued him, but they didn't. He sued, he lost, means he doesn't get his way and CBS doesn't have to write him a very large check he didn't earn (which, let's be frank, is all he was really after anyway). CBS hasn't countersued, because there's absolutely no danger that this game, if it ever even gets made (a matter in some question just at the moment), could possibly be confused for DSC, even by the dimmest of people (much less the hypothetical "reasonable person" usually used as a yardstick in such judgements).
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,577Community Moderator
Harmony Gold are scum, FASA should have disappeared long before it did and Exosquad was superior to Battletech in every way.
I actually like the Battletech universe. The core issue with Harmony Gold seems to be from some early confusion over sharing a few designs, then turned into "I don't care if it doesn't look like our stuff, we'll claim it does, get money, and basically monopolize mecha in the US." It was either a miracle or them actually being smart that they didn't try to go after Pacific Rim too.
Also Harmony Gold only had DISTRIBUTION rights for Robotech. They don't actually own the IP. That still rests with the original Macross owners. And Harmony Gold lost HARDCORE in their lawsuit against the developers of the Battletech video game. Dismissed WITH PREJUDICE.
There is a big difference between coincidental similarities and universal science fiction concepts, and enough similarities that are damn near dead ringers to raise some suspicions.
Which aspects? 'cause most of what he talks about isn't unique enough to count for IP protection.
You also show your ignorance of Discovery. None of the disputed elements have been removed. Not one. Tardigrades are still around, so is Michael, so is both the "ethnic doctor and his blond husband" etc.
Tardigrades haven't been seen in Discovery since Stamets turned into Discovery's spore drive pilot which was in episode 5 of Discovery. So even if Tardigrades are still around, then they haven't been a part of Discovery for at least 1.5 seasons. I seriously doubt that this lawsuit had anything to do with Tardigrades not being present in later episodes since they only seemed like a method to give Discovery a workable Spore Drive and then lost their purpose to the story.
Tardigrades can also be seen on the Moon, but you'll need an electron microscope.
Tardigrades can't be copyrighted or trademarked - they're a real thing. Some folks seem to have lost sight of this.
Well, "space-traveling human-scale tardigrade" could potentially be specific enough for trademark, but that still leaves the fact that the burden of proof is on the accuser to show that the idea was plagiarized from an earlier work. In this case, Abdin couldn't prove that anybody at CBS even knew his game existed, forget copying anything from it.
That's quite apart from the fact that DSC only uses the tardigrade in about three episodes, and then only as a navigation system: the actual transit is because of the mycelial network, which is nothing like anything in Abdin's game.
EDIT: typo
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
No one is saying there are no corrupt judges, politicians, and other authority figures. I like to think the best of those in those positions until they are exposed for not being honest or having integrity. Are there events in your life that have caused you to think this way on these subjects?
It's only "corrupt" because the verdict wasn't what they wanted. The real corruption is wherever this mentality is being taught.
That would be "cable news pundits" IMHO.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
No one is saying there are no corrupt judges, politicians, and other authority figures. I like to think the best of those in those positions until they are exposed for not being honest or having integrity. Are there events in your life that have caused you to think this way on these subjects?
It's only "corrupt" because the verdict wasn't what they wanted. The real corruption is wherever this mentality is being taught.
No one is saying there are no corrupt judges, politicians, and other authority figures. I like to think the best of those in those positions until they are exposed for not being honest or having integrity. Are there events in your life that have caused you to think this way on these subjects?
It's only "corrupt" because the verdict wasn't what they wanted. The real corruption is wherever this mentality is being taught.
It's only "corrupt" because the verdict wasn't what they wanted. The real corruption is wherever this mentality is being taught.
I kinda found it funny in a "guilty-pleasure" way (she didn't get what she wanted, and tried the tear-jerking-speech-thing but what she says sounds like dialogue written for a bad soap-opera-scene). Nobody was actually attacked or harmed as far as I'm aware.
What she wants, jackhole, is for world leaders to listen to scientists on matters of the sciences. She's "tear-filled" because she's angry - and she's angry because it's necessary for her to sail across the Atlantic Ocean (because she won't fly) to appear before the UN to tell them this.
Perhaps if you took a moment to learn what's happening, you might not make such a donkey out of yourself.
Comments
If the game developer can sue CBS over similar characters shouldnt CBS be able to sue The Orville?
> @starkaos said:
> If anyone has the right to sue CBS over Tardigrades, it is Neil deGrasse Tyson due to a Cosmos episode introducing the idea of Tardigrades as being able to live in space to public perception.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
But judges are generally considered to have a pretty high integrity in the court room, because if they don't, they fail to do their job. If you think they are always corrupt, why bother going to court in the first place? You could just scream out the unfairness of this dark world out loudly and not do anything at all, because it's obviously all completely pointless.
Have you read the reasoning of the verdict? Did you understand it?
---
A redhead, a black woman and a tardigrade walk into a bar.
"Your orders?"
"Two Coffees and a mushroom shake for the blue guy"
"Your blue friend here better doesn't teleport out of here, I don't want another Adbin lawyer incident."
My character Tsin'xing
There is a big difference between coincidental similarities and universal science fiction concepts, and enough similarities that are damn near dead ringers to raise some suspicions. This isn't a case like that of Games Workshop trying to copyright "Space Marines" and "Imperial Guard", both generic science fiction concepts that have existed nearly a half-century before Games Workshop released Rogue Trader in 1987. Or the accusations that Bungee stole all of their HALO ideas from James Cameron's Aliens (which was so generic in terms of horror, action films, and military sci-fi it ain't funny and all had been done before).
Neither Stargate or the Dune saga were anything groundbreaking or unique. And what I've seen of the game, it isn't a blow for blow copy of some of the core concepts or characters for either. The alleged items that the developer was disputing in his lawsuit, taken as a whole on the other hand, was enough for a legitimate complaint against CBS.
And I disagree with part of what he come up with in his posted opinion. Some of what he posted is reaching, others is pretty spot on (although it misses the point).
I know what was in the verdict. And I disagree with much of the judge's rationale in his verdict.
Judges are not infallible. They have a bad habit making craptastic rulings, especially in IP or copyright lawsuits (science fiction in particular). And those judges were often once lawyers that specialized in copyright and IP issues.
One just has to look at the case of FASA Corporation vs. Playmates, Harmony Gold U.S.A. et al 1996 to see a prime (and famous in nerdom) example of this phenomena. But in any case and no matter what, the dev lost. CBS won. Right or wrong, there is nothing anybody can do about it. Besides, Star Trek: Discovery appears to have moved beyond those plot devices.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
> (Quote)
> Okay, that right there means we can disregard your statements. Dune wasn't "groundbreaking" or "unique"? You definitely don't know anything about the history of science fiction.
That too
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Don't get me started on Harmony Gold.
No one is saying there are no corrupt judges, politicians, and other authority figures. I like to think the best of those in those positions until they are exposed for not being honest or having integrity. Are there events in your life that have caused you to think this way on these subjects?
since the ruling was parallel development or whatever the term is, he does not have to do either of those things
#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!"
I actually like the Battletech universe. The core issue with Harmony Gold seems to be from some early confusion over sharing a few designs, then turned into "I don't care if it doesn't look like our stuff, we'll claim it does, get money, and basically monopolize mecha in the US." It was either a miracle or them actually being smart that they didn't try to go after Pacific Rim too.
Also Harmony Gold only had DISTRIBUTION rights for Robotech. They don't actually own the IP. That still rests with the original Macross owners. And Harmony Gold lost HARDCORE in their lawsuit against the developers of the Battletech video game. Dismissed WITH PREJUDICE.
[/soapbox]
My character Tsin'xing
Tardigrades haven't been seen in Discovery since Stamets turned into Discovery's spore drive pilot which was in episode 5 of Discovery. So even if Tardigrades are still around, then they haven't been a part of Discovery for at least 1.5 seasons. I seriously doubt that this lawsuit had anything to do with Tardigrades not being present in later episodes since they only seemed like a method to give Discovery a workable Spore Drive and then lost their purpose to the story.
Tardigrades can't be copyrighted or trademarked - they're a real thing. Some folks seem to have lost sight of this.
Well, "space-traveling human-scale tardigrade" could potentially be specific enough for trademark, but that still leaves the fact that the burden of proof is on the accuser to show that the idea was plagiarized from an earlier work. In this case, Abdin couldn't prove that anybody at CBS even knew his game existed, forget copying anything from it.
That's quite apart from the fact that DSC only uses the tardigrade in about three episodes, and then only as a navigation system: the actual transit is because of the mycelial network, which is nothing like anything in Abdin's game.
EDIT: typo
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
That would be "cable news pundits" IMHO.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
which reminds me of
Wow, jackass much?
In context with
I kinda found it funny in a "guilty-pleasure" way (she didn't get what she wanted, and tried the tear-jerking-speech-thing but what she says sounds like dialogue written for a bad soap-opera-scene). Nobody was actually attacked or harmed as far as I'm aware.
Perhaps if you took a moment to learn what's happening, you might not make such a donkey out of yourself.