Messages

1

Site Updates / Re: Cease & Desist Letter

« on: May 10, 2009, 06:37:35 pm »

oh and as for the Kings Quest 9, they didn't get shut down. Tehy just changed names and sprites around a bit so they wouldn't use IP, but anyone playing it knows its Kings Quest 9. 

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Site Updates / Re: Cease & Desist Letter

« on: May 10, 2009, 06:16:50 pm »

Whelp I scourged AGDI's forums and looks like the legal battle thread was one of the ancient threads they deleted (remember, this was back in like 04 or 05, so we're talking four to five years ago..... gods I'm old), but I read thru a few of the more recent ones. The reason they didn't get shut down on KGI and KGII was they had an agreement with Vivendi before they even started. However, despite this agreement, it did not extend to the Quest for Glory IP, and when they rightlfully thought it did and started on it, they got a C&D. However, they immediately mailed them back and got into bout a week-long back-n-forth negotiating, until they finally got a go ahead, with the stipulation that it was Non-Profit and that Vivendi would review the final product before it was released for any errs to their IP. It doesn't help you guys that the Kings Quest and QFG remakes were built on another gaming platform entirely, although it definately does help that they were using copywrited material (including the AGS versions of sprites from old Sierra games). Due note also that they recieved this C&D a year after Sierra was disolved, thus it wasn't the original party but the owners of the original property. It should help you guys out that if you're using the SNES chrono trigger, that game and its engine is moved into the Obsolete Technology clause of copywrite laws (in that the technology is over 10, if not 15, years old, and thus the engine itself is no longer considered copywritten but a free-to-the-public property). While Square-Enix may still have some copywrite on the Chrono Trigger property itself, the rom falls under Obsolete laws.

hope that gives some hope to you guys. I'd love to see CE or something like it come back from the dead!

3

Site Updates / Re: Cease & Desist Letter

« on: May 10, 2009, 06:02:51 pm »

Hard does not mean impossible, Snorlax. Vivendi is pretty much Sierra, and they're as huge as Square-Enix, or used to be anyhow. If a fan group like AGDI can succeed, I'm sure you guys can. CT has just as huge a fanbase, if not more, than the old Sierra games did.

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Site Updates / Re: Cease & Desist Letter

« on: May 10, 2009, 05:53:24 pm »

Oops, it wasn't in this thread actually. Can't remember offhand where it was. Anyway, I was talking about this game:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silver_Lining_(game)

Is Quest for Glory II another case?

Yep it was. Vivendi sent them a C&D about two months before they released the remake, just like what happened to you guys. However, the AGDI guys never gave up, and actually contacted and got thru to Vivendi in responce to this C&D. I'm scouring their forums right now for the post about their legal battle, but it never got to the courts. They just managed to talk them into a compromise.

And I really hope not all the material was destroyed..... Not before it was fought!

5

Site Updates / Re: Cease & Desist Letter

« on: May 10, 2009, 05:43:32 pm »

Sad thing is it's not just them either. I wonder, is there ANY company that'd allow for stuff anymore? Sega's all I know of(namely Sonic Team, but c'mon, Sonic's in the corner).

As said earlier in this thread, Vivendi Games allowed a team to make a King's Quest fan sequel after initially sending them a C&D letter. The team and their fans had somehow managed to negociate a "fan licence".

It wasn't Kings Quest, because they had already released them. It was for Quest for Glory II, and the team's name was ADGInteractive. They got sent a C&D, and managed to negotiate with Vivendi the release of QfGII, in part of the negotiations was that Vivendi was to get a pre-release copy and play through it, in order to confirm that ADGI was not going to defame or slander or otherwise ruin their intellectual property. AGDI fought it and won, without any lawyers or lawsuits or the like. I know, I was at their forums for 4 years waiting on the project. Go to their website and the QFGII forums and look through the history for their battle with Vivendi's C&D. Heck, they got the original developers for QFGII in on it and they loved the remake, and eventually helped campaign them against Vivendi. The mighty did not fall that day.

Maybe you guys can do something similar? Write SE back and try to make a compromise, just like AGDI did? AGDI and Zophar both prove that you can fight the big guys and win. I have hope!!!