See: https://www.dogarandkazon.com
Also of note — they’re requesting $2m in gofundme donations to fight it, but have only gotten 40k in 6 months. My hopes of ever seeing a proper sc3 is vanishing.
https://www.gofundme.com/help-fred-amp-paul-save-the-univers...
A slightly better armchair take can be found at the UQM wiki [1] with actual lawyer commentary [2]
Not taking any real sides here, I feel everyone involved is greater than I regardless of outcome, but do hope folks keep an open mind.
[1] http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Stardock_Systems_Inc._v._Paul_Reich...
[2] http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Stardock_Systems_Inc._v._Paul_Reich...
That's a pretty wild claim to repeat. Not a single person on the original team agrees with it, and they've filed the copyright registration in court[1]. There's basically no evidence at all for that conclusion, except that Stardock made the claim (not supported it, not provided evidence of it, merely made the claim)
Even if you do believe it, it's legally irrelevant as the team has signed the copyright over to them[2], and they released The Ur-Quan Masters back in 2003 using that copyright.
I was a member of the community back in the lat 90s/early 00s and this was common knowledge even back then.
[1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6239751/71/6/stardock-s...
[2] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6239751/64/5/stardock-s...
1. They attempted to trick the UQM project leadership into signing a document that said Stardock owned the rights to everything in Star Control II. Stardock would then "generously" license rights back to the UQM project as "protection". In reality it would put the free game under Stardock's thumb[1]
2. There are leaked conversations of the owner of Stardock labeling the UQM forum and star-control.com as hostile to his company and how he is going to shut them down
3. There are two subreddits for Star Control. The fan owned /r/starcontrol and the Stardock owned /r/StarControlOfficial. An unknown reddit account took over /r/starcontrol under strange circumstances and sowed havoc for a couple of days before reddit intervened and removed the new mod. There are theories that Stardock was behind it.
It's worth noting these registrations are dated 2017/2018, after the mud-flinging began. I wouldn't be shocked to hear they're invalid.
There's also a ton of evidence supporting this copyright: The game CDs, manual, and box art all also say copyright Fred & Paul; there's email threads with Accolade discussing the possibility of merging the copyright and trademark; the fact that they published the game with no change other than removal of the "Star Control" trademark; and basically the entire team signing off on this.
If someone else was claiming to have written it, I could see a credible conflict, but literally everyone involved in the actual creation of the game says that, yes, it was created by Fred & Paul.
But I haven’t taken a look at the lawyer commentary. (I don’t know that I care enough to). But outside of the lawyers and stardock’s ceo commentary, I haven’t seem anything to imply they weren’t in charge of the whole thing.
But anyways, I didn’t care for the stardock’s game, so it doesn’t matter what the truth is for me. I just want a proper sc3 (though I’m expecting they’ll still try to “modernize” itand toss out all the fun with it, as most decade-apart sequels go; but a man can dream, can’t he?)
[0] http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Stardock_Systems_Inc._v._Paul_Reich...