KQIX Project Shut Down

[Corsair5]

Let me sum up this entire topic in one sentence.

Hero6 safe, KQIX Dead.

[Swift]

Corsair, don't be rude.

[Corsair5]

I'm not rude, I'm just to the point, I don't beat around the bush, good grief.

[Swift]

It was pretty blunt and offensive. Please use some tact for future posts.

[Corsair5]

Tact is overrated. In fact, all tact is is a thin veil to cover the truth. It's a conspiracy, I tell you.

[Jigen]

As for the other alleged similarities, the "same basic premise" and interface happens to be something that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, for like three more paragraphs or so.

I know it's not particularly popular to quote John Romero these days, but 'Dude what are they going to sue you for, all you have is that sh1tty couch there.' I think the same applies to the Hero6 team, say they take us to court and we don't even bother to spring for an attorney or even turn up on the day, what can they take from us? Really?

[Corsair5]

A dead squirrel could represent Hero6 and win the case, my friend.

[Swift]

Alright, enough. Let's get back on topic please.

[Brassfire]

A C&D letter is a threat of legal action, it is not a court date summons. If hero6 was to mistakenly receive one of these we would just have to write back and let them know that they are mistaken and that hero6 contains no proprietary materials of theirs, since it does not. If they still wish to take us to court they would have no case.

We are pleased that you are concerned about the fate of hero6, however we have made sure at this point that there is no copyright infringement whatsoever. Therefore, there are no grounds for a case against us and a C&D letter cannot be sent out if their lawyers are on the ball.

It's interesting that LucasArts has relaxed their former rules about fan works. I hope that Vivendi will do the same at some future date as fan works can be allowed in such a way as to keep the intellectual property rights where they belong. If Vivendi's lawyers would concentrate on that rather than on shutting down fanprojects it would be a better result for projects such as KQ9 and for Vivendi itself.

[Corsair5]

VU has all the intelligence of a hippo with a lobotomy. This C&D doesn't get them or lose them any profits, it just makes people hate them even more.

[Silverbolt]

Now it would be really amusing if VU would sue Corsair for slander.

No offence, pal.  

Ok, now I see that they shut down KQ9. It used copyrighted material. Title, characters and so on.

However, Hero 6 has nothing like that.

It would be like someone who made a Morrowind mod getting sued.

[Gronagor]

Ok, everybody. I don't know why Hero6 have been brought up as possibly receiving a C&D.

From behind the curtain I'll tell you this. A year or two ago a few projects were closed down. From VU themselves we learned that 'Hero6 is walking a thin line'. Since then we've done everything in our power to change anything related to Sierra's products. Please ignore the demo. Those were nothing more than engin tests which we decided to share with the visitors.

Although we have certain similarities, it is like Swift and Phattie said: they are generic to all adventure and RPG games.

If it does come to the point where we're contacted we'll have a long nice discussion with them. Possibly even show them our newest alpha while sharing a nice cup of coffee.

[PHattiE]

Polagro:  I understood what Storm was saying, and I apologize for addressing it harshly.  I did not mean to sound cruel in my response, tho I am slightly annoyed at the "fear mongoring" that is going around now that KQ9 is going down.  

My response geniunely was out of curiosity of whether my understanding of the legal system is correct.  Storm did seem to be convinced that we were in danger in one way or another, and I was curious how qualified (s)he was at lecturing us.  If I came off rude, I apologize.  Perhaps I should have responded more closely to the way Brassfire or Gron did.  It's just my personality I guess *shrugs*.  Had it not have been over the internet, you would see from body language and tone that I was not trying to be rude.

BTW- I beleive that lawyers will even take defensive cases where they will not receive pay until after the verdict has been given.  

Corsair:  

[Jafar]

Now it would be really amusing if VU would sue Corsair for slander.
 

I might be able to forgive them if that happened.  

[Storm]

As for the other alleged similarities, the "same basic premise" and interface happens to be something that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, for like three more paragraphs or so.

If that’s your lame attempt at flaming me, at least get your quotes straight… that’s Swift talking there.

Under whose experience are you citing?   You sound like you know what you're talking about.

Gee, thanks! The fact is, I don’t really know what I’m talking about, nor citing anyone’s experience. I’m just speaking my own mind & common sense here.

How would VU file appropriate court forms when no infringement can be found anywhere?  Would they just put: "we think that hero6.com is violating our copyright, but we aren't sure; nor can we specify where said violations have occurred ?

I bet their legal department can whip up something better than *that*, but basically when they file the suit, they don’t really need to go into specifics, only claim a violation exists. They can say something general along the lines of “contains unauthorized use of copyrighted material, including, but not limited to, similar and/or same characters and/or themes and/or game interface”.

Failing to prove that another party has not violated copyright infringement means that all legal fees accrued would fall back on the plaintiff. Given this fact, how would hero6 be financially screwed if VU chose to pursue us?  Hero6 could even get our own legal representative and have VU pay such expenses when they loose disastrously in court.

Polagro pretty much answered this one. Win or loose, fighting off a lawsuit is a usually a lengthy & costly business, and much more devastating for the poor individual than for the rich corporation with the legal department and lawyers on retainer.
Another thing worth mentioning is, that copyright issues aren’t always clear-cut. What seems legit to you and the rest of the QFG fans might look like a violation to a judge. And here I do have a citation – the case of Mutant X vs. X-Men. Although the circumstances are completely different, it’s still a good example for one side crying “violation” while the other maintains it’s only a similar theme:

"You have this group in the comic book and this group on the TV show and they all have super powers. You could argue they're identical and you can argue that they're completely different," notes former Mutant X comic book editor Frank Pittarese.

Since hero6 isn't owned by any single person, and since hero6's volunteers exist world wide, how would VU justify the expenses of filing a very costly federal lawsuit?  Don't you think they'd realize that putting $45,000+ into a lawsuit based on unfounded claims toward volunteers who can barely pay their monthly bills is pretty damn stupid?

Vivendi isn’t out to make money off suing impoverished volunteers; if their goal is to shut down the project, they don’t need to hunt down every member out there. Hero6 is an internet-based project, all they need do is shut down its site. And for that purpose, it’s enough they sue the site owner – a guy named Joe who lives in Utah, unless I’m mistaken.

Hero6 has nothing to worry about; anyone who says otherwise is just trying to stir things up.  Design/interface issues within hero6 or other similarities between us and QFG are completely frivolous.

Ok, once again, for those who didn’t get it the first couple of times: I’m not saying Hero6 infringes on copyrighted material, nor am I saying its likely to be closed by Vivendi. All I’m saying is, that fan projects (and yes, even Hero6) don’t stand much of a chance in case a large corporation does decide to bully them.
If you find this opinion demoralizing – such is not my intent. I enjoy fan games as much as anyone here, and had certain fan developers not started their projects for fear of a C&D letter, all of us would have missed on some of the best of them