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Old 10-08-2005, 02:24 PM   #81
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Holy s***. I had no idea this game was being made. When I found out about its cancellation I took a look at the KQIX site, thinking how good could it possibly be? And I'm floored by the quality of the screenshots. It's truly very sad that it got cancelled because of VU's greed.
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Old 10-08-2005, 04:33 PM   #82
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I've been trying to go around to different forums and let them know where to send emails of protest to Vivendi. This is the email I was told to use. PLEASE send those emails and show them your support for the continuation of KQ IX:

[email protected]

I don't know if they will listen, but the more people complaining, maybe the better our chances.

Oh...and *waves* to Jeysie!
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Old 10-08-2005, 04:53 PM   #83
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Quote:
Originally Posted by koko
I've been trying to go around to different forums and let them know where to send emails of protest to Vivendi. This is the email I was told to use. PLEASE send those emails and show them your support for the continuation of KQ IX:

[email protected]

I don't know if they will listen, but the more people complaining, maybe the better our chances.

Oh...and *waves* to Jeysie!

Oh cool a Protest at Vivendi I hope they allow us to get it done because I love to see a other king quest game.
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Old 10-08-2005, 05:06 PM   #84
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Oh yeah...you can also show the team your support Here
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Old 10-08-2005, 05:13 PM   #85
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirk
No need to be snippy.
Didn't mean to be "snippy". Just wondering why the thread seems to center around why this company, Vivendi, is chastised for doing what it had every right, and responsibility, to do. I.e., protect its Brand.

It's hard not to pick up a newspaper and see what most would consider a frivolous civil lawsuit by a major corporation against a small shop owner using a similar name.

The reason these companies do so is because failure to do so might result in the loss of their exclusive rights to their Brand. Sometimes it seems to border on insanity, but, in the protect it or lose it arena, insanity prevails.

The point I was trying to make is that Vivendi had every right to do what it did in order to protect its Brand. Whether anyone likes what they did is immaterial.

I do not know anything about the "arbitrary" nature of their "Cease and Desist" orders. My guess is that, if they are seen as arbitrary, it will bite them in the ass in the long term. But that has nothing whatsoever to do with the situation at hand.
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Old 10-08-2005, 05:16 PM   #86
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Originally Posted by austin2359
Venvedi is basically following the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law, because nobody is selling it and Venvedi won't make their own.
Not material to any legal question
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Old 10-08-2005, 06:41 PM   #87
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RT: I think the question of whether or not Vivendi's decision is arbitrary *is* relevant to the situation at hand. If Vivendi is being inconsistent in protecting its brand, I see no reason why we shouldn't be upset on the behalf of people who ended up on the wrong side of a seemingly arbitrary decision.

And, I dunno, if I were a company, I'd be kind of worried if I handled something in a manner that pissed off my customers when I had more than enough opportunity to handle it before now in a much less-inflammatory way. Judging by the current state of most company-customer relations, I guess that's just me, though.

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Old 10-08-2005, 07:00 PM   #88
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Originally Posted by Jeysie
RT: I think the question of whether or not Vivendi's decision is arbitrary *is* relevant to the situation at hand. Peace & Luv, Liz
Only if it comes up in another venue. It has no meaning here.

The quesion of "arbitrarinous" will be decided by a court if anyone choses to litigate. There is nothing "arbitrary" in the current decision. Vivendi said "Stop", and that is fairly clear cut.
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Old 10-08-2005, 07:11 PM   #89
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeysie
So, yes, I personally feel that the original creator of a work has the right to say how it's used and I would respect that with no grumblings. But why should I care overmuch about a company that has no creative involvement with the work whatsoever?
If you feel the original creator has the right to say how his property is used (including forbidding people from making fangames), then you must think it acceptable for the creator to sell their property to a third party, if that is indeed the use he has chosen, correct? So if it is acceptable for a creator to transfer his rights, the right to say how his property is used should also be transfered to the third party, meaning that by the moral code you have decided upon, Vivendi does in fact have every right to do what you are condemning them for.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rtrooney
Didn't mean to be "snippy". Just wondering why the thread seems to center around why this company, Vivendi, is chastised for doing what it had every right, and responsibility, to do. I.e., protect its Brand.
It's because it is trendy to hate large companies. It is also because the massive amount of freedom we have has spoiled us into believing we should have even more freedom than we are entitled to. Thus anyone who is an authority figure or tries to tell someone what they can't or shouldn't do becomes vilified.
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Old 10-08-2005, 07:13 PM   #90
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Writing petitions didn't save Sam & Max 2 (at least not the LucasArts version...), and that petition received tens of thousands of signatures. I somehow doubt Vivendi will listen to 100 underground-game fans
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Old 10-08-2005, 07:21 PM   #91
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Scoville
So if it is acceptable for a creator to transfer his rights, the right to say how his property is used should also be transfered to the third party, meaning that by the moral code you have decided upon, Vivendi does in fact have every right to do what you are condemning them for.
That's a fair enough point. I guess I just find it distasteful that a company that didn't create an idea can buy it and then sit on it and do nothing with it when other people want to do something with it. Seeing as how the intent of copyright is to entice creators to make ideas to benefit society by enabling them to profit from it, this sort of legal idea burying seems against the spirit of it. After all, nobody's benefiting *or* profiting from it right now!

My real gripe, however, is the point below.

RT: Vivendi said stop when they haven't said stop in similar circumstances. So I think in this case KQIX has the right to ask why the seeming change in policy, and we have the right to support them.

I will say I still find the attitude of some people against fangames to be a little odd, though, seeing as how creating things like fanfiction and fanart has been a time-honored activity in fandoms of creative works for decades. I don't really see how fangames are all that different.

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Last edited by Jeysie; 10-08-2005 at 07:37 PM.
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Old 10-08-2005, 08:48 PM   #92
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It's trendy to complain about the actions of media super giants when they come down against creativity? It seems really strange to me to say that people complain because they have too much freedom. They're complaining because they have too much of everything? That doesn't make any sense to me at all.

People will complain if there isn't any way to get what they want. Some people want to see more King's Quest games. At this point, Vivendi has the copyright and isn't making them, hence the complaining and the disappointment.

Personally, I'm not really going to expend time and energy defending huge media conglomerates. They have plenty of highly paid lawyers and their own huge bank accounts to defend their right to spend the least amount of energy creating something that they can sell at a maximum profit. That's their right since they're looking out for their own best interests. But why is it being trendy to say, hey, I'm looking out for my own best interests, and my interests don't include not having a great looking game to play so that Vivendi can make more money?
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Old 10-08-2005, 09:08 PM   #93
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I'm glad to see you are entertained by the potential destruction of a great work of art. Really classy.
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Old 10-08-2005, 09:15 PM   #94
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Not material to any legal question
But it will be material in the fiscal question where Venvedi suffers. It was really not only a mean move but a stupid move on their part. You are right about the legal part, and that was the point of my post.

Look, there is more than life than the law. People will find ways around the law. If Venvedi wants to break the unwritten law and play cheap, then the creators of KQIX can just rename characters and change things around and play cheap that way. The issue here isn't the law, that can be circumvented. It is the character and morality of Venvedi, which will always show through, and there is no circumventing that...and when it comes time to cash in dollars it will show.

My advice to the creators is to lower themselves to the level of Venvedi and follow only the law, not the spirit of the law, play cheap, because that's no worse than what their opponents are doing. Once your opponents have decided to play cheap you don't have to uphold chivalry and knighthood, just freaking rename the characters and tell them to go to h*ll.
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Old 10-08-2005, 09:24 PM   #95
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I wonder if maybe Vivendi closed this down - and not the other fan games based off Sierra brands - because this one, simply, was starting to look too professional. This may also explain the apparent lateness of this C&D order. I mean, you look at most other fan games today, and it is clear from their - by today's standards - poor 2D VGA graphics what they are: fan made games. But this game, to someone new to the amateur development scene, could've been mistaken as a "legitimate" King's Quest 9. Because really, this game clearly is technically superior to King's Quest 8, so it is not hard to imagine that someone could've thought that this was a "real" sequel. And maybe Vivendi realized this just recently – perhaps partly due to the trailer - and maybe that is why this game has gotten the red light and the other ones mentioned have not.

Regardless of any of this, or any of the legal or moral shit, I'm still pissed; I was really looking forward to this game. I really hope the development team finds some way for all the content they've worked on to not go to waste.
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Old 10-08-2005, 09:26 PM   #96
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RLacey
I'm still at a loss to understand this moral right thing. I honestly, genuinely can't see how it can be morally justifiable to infringe copyright, and I honestly, genuinely can't see how it can be immoral to protect that same copyright. Unfair given the fortunes of others, perhaps. Disappointing, yes. But not morally inexcusable.
Let's take an analogy. Say you're the owner of vast estates, immense expanses of land. One of your remote properties lies unused. A group of people decide to build a hospital there, for the health of the poor people who live in the area. For four years they work on the construction of the hospital, giving of their time and contributing building materials. You say nothing. Then, just as the doors to the hospital are about to open, you send a message to your distant domain: "Sorry, this is my land. You're trespassing. You'll have to tear the hospital down."

Sure, you're within your legal rights, but is it a moral thing to do?

Quote:
Originally Posted by rtrooney
The reason these companies do so is because failure to do so might result in the loss of their exclusive rights to their Brand. Sometimes it seems to border on insanity, but, in the protect it or lose it arena, insanity prevails.
This is only true of trademarks, not of copyright. So Vivendi might hypothetically lose control over the name "King's Quest," but they would still retain the copyright over the actual contents of the game.

Simply renaming the game would get around this problem, if that was really the only reason for Vivendi's cease-and-desist notice. For example, Star Control II was renamed The Ur-Quan Masters when it was released as freeware.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Scoville
If you feel the original creator has the right to say how his property is used (including forbidding people from making fangames), then you must think it acceptable for the creator to sell their property to a third party, if that is indeed the use he has chosen, correct? So if it is acceptable for a creator to transfer his rights, the right to say how his property is used should also be transfered to the third party, meaning that by the moral code you have decided upon, Vivendi does in fact have every right to do what you are condemning them for.
European law makes a distinction between the copyright and the moral rights of an author. The moral rights (like the right to be identified as the author of the work, the right to not have the work destroyed against your will, and the right to not have the work altered) can not (in most European countries) be reassigned to anyone else, unlike copyright.

Moral rights are not seen as distinct from copyright in the American legal tradition, though appeals to moral rights have earned some authors concessions from the copyright holders (notably comic book work-for-hire creators such as Shuster and Siegel).

So even if we consider just the legal aspects, it's not unambiguous that Vivendi would be afforded the same status as the actual creators of the work. Morally, I think it's obvious that they should not. If Warner Bros. bought all the rights to Harry Potter from JK Rowling and hired other writers to produce more books in the series, do you think they would have the legitimacy of the originals?
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Old 10-08-2005, 09:44 PM   #97
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I'm making a metaphysical statement here; The idealistic attitude is more important than the law because the law can always be dodged and circumvented...and abused. So respect for the standards of morality is far more important than respect for the law (of course you have to technically "follow it" but you can be cheap) and Vivendi did not show this respect for what matters most in life.

PS. That's was the problem with Communism. It thought that the law was more important than the idealistic attitude, unlike conservatism, the viewpoint I identify with.
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Old 10-08-2005, 09:47 PM   #98
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"Venvedi"?
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Old 10-08-2005, 09:48 PM   #99
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I can't see why they don't just finish it and distribute it anonymously.

Or at least just rename it and do whatever other changes are necessary, it looks like they've done lots of work.
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Old 10-08-2005, 09:50 PM   #100
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Quote:
"Venvedi"?
Aren't you glad I made the correction just before you made that post?
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