I'm going to have to comment on that one. FASA was *not* at fault in the
"Battletech/Macross/Harmony Gold mess." To my understanding, FASA needed some 'mech
designs, so they went to the creaters of macross and asked them if they could use
their 'mech designs. The japanese said "sure, go ahead." Some time AFTER this, Harmony
Gold comes along, wants to make Robotech. They ask the japanese, they say "sure".
Years later, battletech figures get made. I believe harmony gold then sued FASA over
it (or someone sued FASA) over the mech designs taken from macross. It is my
understanding that the designs were taken from the japanese legally by both parties.
In the end, fasa lost cause they couldn't handle the lawyer expenses. Later on,
Playmates starts making exosquad figures, one of the figures looks suspicously like a
mad cat (or a timber wolf, as it's called in the clans) Battlemech. Now this isn't a
case of going to the originator of the design and asking them if you can use it, it's!
!
outright thievery (on playmates part). So FASA (rightfully) sued. The judge ruled
something like 'mech designs were too prevalent across the industry to be copyrighted.
This is all, of course, from what i recall from an article i read years ago. (On a
btech fan site) so it should be taken with a grain of salt. Anyone who knows better,
please jump in and correct me (i'd like to know if i'm wrong) or give more info.
-TM the DM
--
On Wed, 19 Apr 2000 11:49:57 Russ Taylor wrote:
>On 4/19/00 10:04 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote
>
>> I can actually cite a real world case from the Game industry.
>>
>> What Ryan describes is essentially what happened with the FASA/Playmates
>>lawsuit. FASA was able to prove the validity of their copyright on a number
>>of 'Mech designs, but Playmates was then able to 'prove' that they weren't
>>infringing on FASA's copyrights.
>
>Rather amusing that FASA would sue anyone for copyright infringement,
>after the whole Battletech/Macross/Harmony Gold mess (basically, the
>original version of Battletech, before it was called BT, "borrowed" mech
>designs from three anime series. Those "borrowed" mechs were kept in
>later editions of Battletech, until FASA finally got sued over them).
>Unfortunately, that particular settlement is buried under a gag clause :)
> It is telling that the infringing mech art has been dropped from the
>game, however, including some of the all-time favorites (Marauders,
>Warhammers, Riflemen, Archers, Shadowhawks...)
>
>--
>Russ Taylor (http://www.cmc.net/~rtaylor/)
>CMC Tech Support Manager
>
>"To you, Baldrick, the Renaissance is just something that happened to
>other people, isn't it?"
>
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>
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