Big time lawsuits brewing between Valve and Vivendi

[Homer]

And there are groups out there that would have LOVED to own the rights the the entire genre.

 

[Homer]

It already is possible. I remember the developer Running with Scissors wanted to publish the game themselves over the internet from their office and put it on the mail themselves because they couldn't find a publisher for their game Postal 2, they did find one in the end however, a small starting publisher.

I do remember that, but postal 2 was a sequel using a licensed engine that couldnt find a publisher because of its content. its not exactly what I'm talking about.

 

[The Mullinator]

You cannot register/protect/own rights to an idea. You CAN however, own rights to a product based on your idea.

An idea: First Person Shooter
The product: Wolf3D

If idSoftware was allowed to own rights to their idea of the FPS genre, idSoftware would be the ONLY company allowed to publish games within that genre.

I think he means the story of the Half-Life series, you can register and protect, and own the rights to a story (books) so why not the story in a game?

 

[Wiegje]

And there are groups out there that would have LOVED to own the rights the the entire genre.

Of course, but international law states that this is not possible.

Another example: Tetris! Many clones were made, but none were called Tetris. The only thing registered was the name Tetris.

 

[DrPowers]

Publishers are there solely to convert the IP to the game package. thats it.... If developers had the resources to publish their own games they wouldnt need or want a publisher cause then they would get all the profit. (aka steam) They usually dont have a say in what the game will consist of other than they wont put their money behind a game that they dont think will sell.

From what I understand is that Valve and VU are having some problems with who gets what and wether steam is a legal addition to the distribution of the game. It all depends on the contracts they signed. since there is now law governing the publisher - developer relationship.

Valve sued Vivendi for copyright infringement back in 2002 over their unauthorized distribution of our products to cyber cafes," Lombardi told GameSpot last Friday. "We later had to add breach of contract claims for, among other things, refusing to pay us royalties owed and delaying Condition Zero out of the holiday season."

This shows that their legal agreement was that the game itself belonged to Valve and not to the publisher. It seems as if sierra and Vivendi didnt pay royalties to Valve and bypassed them completely. Valve will def. win this one if it doesnt say anywhere that the property will be signed over to VU which I doubt it does.

The countersuit is for the steam dispersal software since that bypasses the publishers agreement of sole publishing and dispersement. This of course is prob going to boil down to a technicality i.e. "no other publisher may disperse or publish said software" or something thereof. Since both VU and valve signed off they were prob both able to disperse the software since VU has publishing rights and Valve has ownership rights.

Ownership rights being that you can do whatever you want with the product.

Since valve is the moderator behind steam and not some other company they have every right to use steam as a dispersal of the game.

This is my take on the issue and it looks as if it will fall in valves favor. Rest assured if steam bodes a success VU wont be publishing any of Valve's software anytime soon

 

[Wiegje]

I think he means the story of the Half-Life series, you can register and protect, and own the rights to a story (books) so why not the story in a game?

Oh right, well if you put it that way then yes you can own rights to a story, because the story is in fact a product of the creator/company.

 

[Quixote]

I would just like to take this opportunity to point out, I called this last year.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

What, the lawsuit?

 

[Homer]

Can you imagine if developers really could release their own games? I bet we would see a hell of a lot more gothic 2s and a hell of a lot fewer army men games. God I hope valve wins this.

 

[CoolFunkMan]

Uh-oh, I just thought of a small hint that Gabe dropped in an early statement - "We'll release this game in 2005 if we have to!"

Whilst that isn't a direct quote, that was bassicaly what he meant. Do you think it could be a possible hint towards this? If so, then no HL2 till March 2005

 

[The Mullinator]

Uh-oh, I just thought of a small hint that Gabe dropped in an early statement - "We'll release this game in 2005 if we have to!"

Whilst that isn't a direct quote, that was bassicaly what he meant. Do you think it could be a possible hint towards this? If so, then no HL2 till March 2005

He said that back in 2003, and that was him giving a statement incase of a hypothetical scenerio. He just meant that if the game wasn't ready they would not release it even if they miss their deadline.

 

[OCybrManO]

Sierra/VUG's claim for declaratory relief regarding its right to reversion of the Half-Life intellectual property based on Valve's failure to continuously develop the Valve games."

I love that line. They want the rights to the IP basically because they think "Well, Valve isn't doing anything with it (or just not fast enough)." If that argument works, they might as well claim to own the IP of all games ever made... unless a sequel is in development (or if the sequel is getting delayed).

 

[Parasite]

Unless there is a patent on the technique to remove the blindfold you have over your eyes, I suggest you do it.

"Intellectual property" is a "good" created by "man" to "regulate" the "ownership" of "creativity"

"and" "the" "thing" "is" "the" "nature" "of" "creativity" "can't" "be" "regulated" "like" "some" "people" "with" "too" "much" "power" "would" "like" "it" "to" "be" --> "some" "things" "are" "not" "ment" "to" "be" "owned"

Y o U CANnOT C on T rol CR e a TI v ITy

yoo kant poot rooles onn creeaiteeveetee

it's "eitherhere" or it's "eitherisn't"

money has nothing to do with it, and if not for money, what else are all these laws for? why not just have a record of who invented what first? we could and should elaborate beyond that.

But things have got out of hand today, you have to admit it.

You do have some points, parasite. But what am I supposed to do with them when you look at the results of these laws? I'm just supposed to nodd and smile? I know there's a difference between copyrights, licensing, intellectual property, trademarks, patents, etc... but lets keep it simple, mkay?

Valve make game -> no game because valve is maybe not owner or maybe is first find out only then we get game and maybe lies everywhere and nobody understand anymore what gives ???

There's something wrong with this picture, can you find it? Or are you still trying to find out wether there's a patent on the technique to remove the blindfold from your eyes?

This is capitalism, you can go create the hell out of whatever you want, there are no rules restricting you. Share it, give it away, do what you like, but remember...this is capitalism, the minute you try and sell it, all your bs goes out the window.

You have a pretty skewed view of things. IP is not "ownership of creativity" as you try to put it. It is the ownership of a product of creativity. Once the item of your imagination becomes a viable product for the marketplace, there are rules and regulations just like for any other product that can be bought and sold.

Specifically when were talking about creativity designed soley to be put on the market. IE Half Life 2. Stop pretending like its some unrestricted artform meant to benifit the souls of all humanity. Its a commercial product designed to gain profits for the creators, and at best, a enjoyable form of entertainment.

BTW that last line sould almost be funny exept that you keep painting a picture of this imaginary world, where art is art and never a product and then pretending like the people who live in the real world are blind. Deal with it, art can be a product, there are no "rools" on creativity, there are rules on products.

BTW, you are not a philosopher by any stretch of the word, and all that bs you say at the top of your post goes alot further in your mind that it would here in the real world. I mean seriously "Intellectual property" is a "good" created by "man" sounds like recycled hippie garbage, and certianly doesnt have the thought provoking impact you seem to think. I remember doing a bit of contemplation when I was like 15. By the time I was 17 I realized it was time to start dealing with the world I actually live in, instead of spending all my time dreaming about what it should be.

 

[ViolenceJack]

well the big idea of steam is to get rid of publishers wether they deny that or not.

Would be nice to not have publishes. Look at what happened to the last tomb raider game, that was bugged to hell and back because Eidos gave Core Design a completely unrealistic dead line for them to finish the game. They said they could do it by, dunno, this year but they wanted it done by 2002 i think. Pretty much everyone quit Core Design which was owned by Eidos because of it and formed there own company which they will probably learn from there mistakes and not get tied down by a publisher. They lost the tomb raider game because of it after they put so much work into the franchise and Eidos handed over to Crystal Dynamics. Bastards. Although i like Crystal Dynamics but id prefer that Eidos kept them dedicated on the Legacy of Kain series. Well id prefer that they werent such dick heads in the first place.

 

[Parasite]

They go to publishers to publish games. Hence the word 'publisher'. If they didnt need distrobution to be payed for by someone else then they wouldnt need a publisher, all they would need is a decent sized wad of cash to float through development. and even if they didnt have that, the publishers stake in the game would be much less important if more aspects of the game were handled independantly of them.

Dude, dont take the word "Publisher" at face value. "Publishers" pay for development, they pay for advertising, they pay for retail production, "publishing" and more. If more aspects were handled indepenndently from a single entity (ie the publisher) things would be a nightmare, there would be more people fighting over the limited profits and rights, and ultimatly it would just make thing harder and more costly for developers. Not to mention that games cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to make, thats one hell of a "decent sized wad of cash".

 

[[[LuCkY]]]

Why is everyone making it sound like Valve is the victim here? The publisher is. Valve was/is clearly trying to cut out funds from Vivendi.

I dislike Valve even more now.

 

[Adidajs]

contracts are a sticky thing. some years back a mon in texas came up with a idea for porting old databases over to new ones. This idea was entirley in his head, but upon mentioning it to his boss his boss oderd him to reveal it so his company could use it. apparently there was a clause in his contract that stated that anything he invented in the time he worked there belonged to the company. He refused of course, and was fired then sued by the company for the rights to a IDEA that only existed within his own mind. He lost the lawsuit, but never told them his idea, he swore to keep it untill he died. Theres a nice example of intellectual property for ya.

i thought about this several pages back, but damn 14 pages and someone is bound to mention this. I work at a research lab. If i worked at a biotech company and i created, for instance, a new delivery method to transfect cells (like using carbon nanotubes), and i patented this, the company i worked for would probably own the patent since i created this while working for the company (if that was in the contract). Like Homer's example, even if i came up with the idea working at the company and DIDN"T EVEN MENTION IT, but it related somehow to my work, the company, EVEN AFTER I LEFT, could reasonably own a possible patent to that too. yeah sucks.

If Valve delayed this game because of this lawsuit, my faith in their company has certainly diminished.
I bet Valve did screw over VUG in their contract and it's coming back to bite them. To me it seems like Steam could be given to other developers like id and such so they too could bypass the publisher, and then Valve would become like a publisher. Ironic eh? seems to me like VUG should have seen this coming as a possibility with the speed of the internet now, digital distribution of music as stated earlier,etc. Steam is the obvious next step for distribution.

 

[Homer]

Dude, dont take the word "Publisher" at face value. "Publishers" pay for development, they pay for advertising, they pay for retail production, "publishing" and more. If more aspects were handled indepenndently from a single entity (ie the publisher) things would be a nightmare, there would be more people fighting over the limited profits and rights, and ultimatly it would just make thing harder and more costly for developers. Not to mention that games cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to make, thats one hell of a "decent sized wad of cash".

First off, Hundreds of thousands of dollars is NOT a decent wad of cash. there are independed investors all over the place who could put millions into a pet project.

Second off, I'm talking about there being LESS PEOPLE INVOLVED. The publisher is nothing but a middle man. If the developer could release the game online independently of anyone else it would be a great thing. There would not be people fighting over the profits because the only one involved would be the damn DEVELOPER.

 

[Adidajs]

even if Valve does lose this round i.e. they have to pay for the steam copies sold, in the future this would still be a cashcow for Valve. VUG is fighting a losing struggle. it's a pyrrhic victory for VU, they win the battle but lose the war [nice to use my liberal education sometimes]

 

[greymann]

Somebody please just wake me up when it's released. I got a fee copy with my 9800 pro and the card is almost outdated.

 

[Homer]

I'll end my tirade of posts here with this: the advent of broadband could bring about a time when a developer could scrape together 500,000 bucks(something more plausable than you might think) go make the best game ever over a 7 year period, and then release it online. Now if a developer with no publisher wanted to make a game they would have to find a publisher, who would never let a first time developer take 7 years to make a game. Thus we would never see this great game, and we get waves of sequels to Army men: Sarg's war instead.

 

[ButtHoleMcGee]

This has to be the greatest soap opera in the universe.

 

[Sporky]

Something I think people are keen to forget is that I'm pretty sure any legal agreement will mean that Vivendi get the last word on whether the game is ready to release.

If they were feeling particularly difficult and wanted to pile the pressure on they could legitimately keep bouncing the RC back towards Valve for pretty much as long as they wanted to and there would be not a lot that Valve could do about it.

There can be little doubt Newell and Lombardi deliberately misled Vivendi/Sierra, it's pretty consistent with what we've seen of their practices over the last year or so.

 

[Quixote]

Yeah, I speculated that there might be some legal ranglings in the works over steam. The biggest tip off was when CS:CZ had gone "gold" and then was delayed for so long. It didn't logically make sense unless VU was holding off CSCZ for either tax purposes or to punish Valve for steam.

 

[Parasite]

agreed Sporky, although I think Vivendi want to release the game regardless of the lawsuit and start making a profit and Valve seems quite content with sitting on it just to piss of VU. If the first RC doesnt go gold, I expect weeks and weeks before Valve finishes up a second.

 

[Lanthanide]

I'll end my tirade of posts here with this: the advent of broadband could bring about a time when a developer could scrape together 500,000 bucks(something more plausable than you might think) go make the best game ever over a 7 year period, and then release it online. Now if a developer with no publisher wanted to make a game they would have to find a publisher, who would never let a first time developer take 7 years to make a game. Thus we would never see this great game, and we get waves of sequels to Army men: Sarg's war instead.

I don't know how you're going to live on 500,000 over 7 years. That's an income of $71,428 per year for 1 person. Not too shabby. Throw in another coder, an artist, a musician and tester and you're at 5 people earning $14,285 each per year. That's not really enough to live on.

If you're trying to make an amazing kick-ass game, you're probably going to need considerably more full-time staff than that, around 10-15 (Valve, for example) so you're going to need a lot more than $500,000.

 

[Bait]

I don't know how you're going to live on 500,000 over 7 years. That's an income of $71,428 per year for 1 person. Not too shabby. Throw in another coder, an artist, a musician and tester and you're at 5 people earning $14,285 each per year. That's not really enough to live on.

If you're trying to make an amazing kick-ass game, you're probably going to need considerably more full-time staff than that, around 10-15 (Valve, for example) so you're going to need a lot more than $500,000.

Hmm...how much DID HL manage to bring in I wonder? Anyone have any numbers?

 

[RobertPBham]

Interestingly enough, I was just on VU games' site to see if they had any info on Half Life 2 and on VU's site, it says this at the bottom along with some VU stuff:

© 2004 Valve Corporation. All rights reserved. Valve, the Valve logo, Half-Life, the Half-Life logo, and the Lambda logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Valve Corporation.

Surely this means that VU acknowledge that Half Life etc is Valve's property - how can you take someone to court and ask for the rights to a program when on your own site you admit it isn't yours in the first place???

 

[Marijn]

man, if hl2 is finnished but put on delay just because of some stupid lawsuit maybe someone should give the m y g 0 t guys a call and make them arrange demo

 

[-TaNaKa-]

I can almost see it coming, " Half-Life 2 will not be released and cancelled as a project " or something. Who knows....

 

[Lanthanide]

Interestingly enough, I was just on VU games' site to see if they had any info on Half Life 2 and on VU's site, it says this at the bottom along with some VU stuff:

© 2004 Valve Corporation. All rights reserved. Valve, the Valve logo, Half-Life, the Half-Life logo, and the Lambda logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Valve Corporation.

Surely this means that VU acknowledge that Half Life etc is Valve's property - how can you take someone to court and ask for the rights to a program when on your own site you admit it isn't yours in the first place???

Not neccesarily. If you make statements about such and such belonging to you, and there's a court case and you lose, then it's conceivable that the other party could sue you for false claims or whatever.

Not that I know anything about contract law etc, but I'd assume there'd probably be some legal action they could take in most cases. Better to be safe than sorry, after all.

 

[Element Alpha]

This is capitalism, you can go create the hell out of whatever you want, there are no rules restricting you. Share it, give it away, do what you like, but remember...this is capitalism, the minute you try and sell it, all your bs goes out the window.

True. But laws change everyday, and it's time to do something about things like these. And lets not invade everyones privacy and make life impossible for everyone by doing so, shall we?

You have a pretty skewed view of things. IP is not "ownership of creativity" as you try to put it. It is the ownership of a product of creativity. Once the item of your imagination becomes a viable product for the marketplace, there are rules and regulations just like for any other product that can be bought and sold.

Exactly. I just don't like the rules right now. I think they are old and not capable to handle the enormous flow of new technologies like computers, portable devices, the internet, phones, pda's, etc... They are restricting the very intend all these devices have: to share information at low cost without superficial overhead.

Specifically when were talking about creativity designed soley to be put on the market. IE Half Life 2. Stop pretending like its some unrestricted artform meant to benifit the souls of all humanity. Its a commercial product designed to gain profits for the creators, and at best, a enjoyable form of entertainment.

At best, an enjoyable form of entertainment, huh? You don't think there's more to it than that? Maybe all this interactivity is the start of something bigger than just entertainment? What'll it be when games start to look like their movie counterparts? What'll it be when artist that would never get past 1st audition will get world-wide attention without having to sign a soul-outselling contract? Will it still just be entertainment? If you think so, fine, the world won't stop turning because you disagree, nor will it stop turning for the ways I view things.

BTW that last line sould almost be funny exept that you keep painting a picture of this imaginary world, where art is art and never a product and then pretending like the people who live in the real world are blind. Deal with it, art can be a product, there are no "rools" on creativity, there are rules on products.

You are speaking of the real world like you know it so well. So tell me, those rules you speak of, they just appeared one day, and everyone agreed to enforce them, while holding hands and singing happy songs? No, they were carefully crafted by respectable lawmen. In the 19th century. They have been ammended every now and then, but right now, they need a face lift, lipo-suction, hair-inplants, lots of new organs, a complete facial job, and silicone pretty much everywhere. That's how old this copyright girl is.

BTW, you are not a philosopher by any stretch of the word, and all that bs you say at the top of your post goes alot further in your mind that it would here in the real world. I mean seriously "Intellectual property" is a "good" created by "man" sounds like recycled hippie garbage, and certianly doesnt have the thought provoking impact you seem to think. I remember doing a bit of contemplation when I was like 15. By the time I was 17 I realized it was time to start dealing with the world I actually live in, instead of spending all my time dreaming about what it should be.

Don't worry for me, I know very well how the world is. It's yourself I'd be looking after. Contemplation at 15 and made your mind up at 17 huh? I must admit, at 17, I still expected to learn a lot of things, I was still looking for a lot of answers. Since then I made my mind up about some things, others I leave open for questionning. But saying it's time to start dealing with the world you live in, instead of spending all my time dreaming about what it should be, isn't how I see things. You do your thing, I'll do mine. The world if full of opposites, for example, some are leaders, some are followers. Some people argue, some people act. Some people doubt, some people use their head. You just worry about dealing with the world like it is. I believe it's indeed necessary to do that, but it's not forbidden to try and come up with good ideas to make life more enjoyable (like trying to change things, even small ones).
Telling someone that trying to change things is bad is a sign of being scared of change. Are you scared of change? Is that it? Wouldn't you even give the benefit of the doubt to a better system for artist retribution? Why? Because it's the way it is?
You should talk to my friend the neanderthaler. He still lives in a cave and collects wood to make fire for a living. He eats raw meat and likes to draw magic animals on his cavern walls. He doesn't like change either.

Oh yeah, I didn't check for typos, will you accept my apologies for my terrible spelling and grammar? I barely use my english. I don't mean to sound strange all the time, but I guess my weird phrases make me sound strange anyway. Just ignore the general tone or something.

edit: and I wanted to say "hi" to all the half-life fans out there. Don't worry, it'll be out soon, I'm sure both parties know it has to be released, or there'd be nothing to argue about after a while, and like I said, they both know it.

 

[bi0_gauss]

Oh yeah, I didn't check for typos, will you accept my apologies for my terrible spelling and grammar? I barely use my english. I don't mean to sound strange all the time, but I guess my weird phrases make me sound strange anyway. Just ignore the general tone or something.

no...fine job tbh ^

 

[scaryberry]

I would be very surprised if the case does *not* delay the release significantly. You all need to remember, all our collective angst about the release = zippo in a court of law. Right now, it's just another piece of property to be tussled over. And if the judge feels that that releasing the property immediately will irrevocably harm either party's case, he won't allow it. I can easily see legitimate arguments for VU asking to block a Steam release, even Valve asking for a block of a Retail release.

Here's the bottom line:

Who is suffering more from the lack of the release, and who will feel the most pain as time goes on? VU - struggling, but with several other properties to keep it going - the HL2 release is a very minor cog in their overall lineup. Is it Valve, self-financed, but with revenues from HL1 and CS and CZ still trickling in?

My guess is Valve. Unless theres a judgement quickly, I would expect them to cave first.

 

[glimmerman]

ROFLMAO

I love it.
Lombardi's theme tune should be "Caught with my pants down".

What a pity lying to your distributor and the public isn't a criminal offence eh?


<sits back with the popcorn>

 

[TMPer Tantrum]

Big time lawsuits made baby jesus cry...

This has obviously been going on for sometime, so it is not as if there would be any surprises to Valve or VUG.

Valve, at last words before info of this case came to light, were still saying that the game will be here soon (although this is also remembering the 'coming soon' of September 03), and that would have been with knowledge of the related legal shenanigans.

I don't think (or at least ferverantly hope) that this will have any significant effect on the release.

Sorry if someone has posted something like this already but I didn't want to go through the previous 230-odd posts

 

[Mr Neutron]

The judge need not find it necessary to delay release. The argument is ultimately over money, and the reveneues from retail and Steam sales can be kept track of. It's in both parties interest that the game make as much money as possible. Who gets to keep the money from which sales can be decided afterwards.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

[...]

Okay, we get the point already. Go make your own thread with a poll that says "Should we eliminate intellectual property rights?" if you want to see how many people like your idea.

In any case, leave this thread alone. You're barely on-topic.

 

[vicefredav444]

Telling someone that trying to change things is bad is a sign of being scared of change. Are you scared of change? Is that it?

I did allot of research on the history of modern technology, trying to see what people thought of them in the early 1800s and 1900s. I noticed that almost everyone who broke the golden "rules", who tried something bold and new were the ones who brought about the most change in the world. You always had scientists with their theories, corporations with their rules bashing something new back then. Everything from electricity to the telephone, radio, planes, computers. It was hilarious, people are always so sure about everything. One WB executives quote was "movies with sound, are you crazy???"

Now, you can be on the side of the ****ers trying to stop valve, just so they can make more money or on the side of Valve who is trying something new to bring about change. I’m with Valve.

I hate publishers anyway. Whenever you hear about a game, u only hear about the publisher. I mean, the developer goes thru all the hell, all the work, all the pain and suffering. The publisher just distributes it and gets all the credit, **** that. Vivendi is like a 30 year old man still living with his mom. I want valve to slap them in the face and tell them to go feed on other games. Why do they deserve the rights anyway, vivendi didn’t do shit except sit on their asses. Valve put in everything they had for this. 50 million dollars, 6 years of hardwork. They deserve it. Gabe used his own personal checking account for Half-Life, almost going bankrupt. I would fight to the death, ****in bruce lee mode.

 

[ImJacksAmygdala]

Someone should write a book detailing the troubled development of Halflife2, I'm sure it would be a best seller atleast for gamers and professionals developing games or attemting to distribute digital content online.

The timeline of events, mistakes, leaks, the deal with ATI, hacked forums logins, lawsuits, half-truths, and half-lies from all parties involved. It seems to me that everyone is at fault for the troubled past and future of this game. The Publisher, the Developer, hell even the Gamers can share fault in the repeated misinformation and delays for HL2. I can think of no other game in history that has ever had such an interesting (and long) development cycle. Valve should start writing a book about it now.....

O and BTW FragMaster was right....