maryliddon

Been having a go at mixing again. Making some mistakes but actually enjoying the process now

3 hours ago, SeanR said:

add “prolific” to the list... 

Where does 'Legendary' land on the @SeanR scale of disdain?

The (c) for the Psion is also on the title screen of the Psion 3. I -think- it's wrong

I've talked to the guy behind Proteus a while back (he was co-author of Warhawk on the C64 years ago). Will try him again about Horace stuff

1 hour ago, peteprodge said:

 

 

To bring this back on the subject - which my opponents are reluctant to do - there is still no sign of Paul Andrews owning the Horace IP in the IPO database.

Just to be clear even if Horace does turn in that database it only proves Andrews UK registered the mark not that he has any claim on Horace rights

Beyond checking that the forms are correct filled in the IPO does not check or ask if you're able to register the mark.

The application is published in the UK Trade Marks Journal and if no one objects the mark is granted.

It's a lower level of 'proof' of ownership the mark's underlying IP than suspicious Wikipedia updates making the same claim.

Yeah they have. I talked to the head of Piko on the Atari Age forum.

He said they had helped Andrews UK in purchasing IP and, interestingly, emphasised it wasn't Piko's responsibility to validate any purchases they'd helped others to make

Quote

Yes we (as many other companies) have acquired lots of IP from Infogrames (Atari SA), Including Beam/Melbourne stuff. However We do not own Horace games.

 

We only own 9 titles from Beam's catalog, which only one resulted in us needing to get other partial rights from other company (ASC for Power Punch II).

 

We did help acquire Subvert Ltd Some IP, but our involvement is just up to there. Every company does their due diligence in terms of the IP, and our involvement is as-is where-is.

 

We have help other companies acquire IP in other instances, after everything is finalized, we are not responsible.

 

It is unfortunate what it is currently happening, but we wish to not be involved in this. And we hope all parties can resolve their differences amicably.

18 minutes ago, gone fishin' said:

Are we surprised that Atari are willing to sell any old shit after the VCS fiasco, even if they don't actually own it? 

 

"Can I buy the rights to the Horace games?"

 

"Sure, give €500 and you can have whatever you want". Turns to colleague and says "who is Horace?"

Not at all. I think I said earlier that they’d likely sell the rights without any guarantee they own them.

It’d be the buyers responsibility to do due diligence before issuing copyright strikes on YT streamers.

One interpretation of the tweet below is that no due diligence was done beyond writing Atari a cheque.

Well! I’m pretty sure I’ve never messaged or mentioned Paul Andrews on twitter but he blocked me today.

He also posted this:

Next

There's nothing wrong in taking an interest in something and I do think it's rude to question someone's motives for doing so

BLANK LOOK

More basic question:

Would you prefer that an old IP like Horace was free to use throughout the retro community or controlled by a company strongly policing that IP?

Might as well use this as the dumping ground for my half arsed retro inspired Columboing.

Sent this to Andres on the 23rd of October and got a read receipt. I'm trying to understand his claim to a number of trademarks.

No answer as yet.

Quote

Hi Paul, Hope you’re well.

I had some questions for you. You’re well within your rights to ignore these messages and before I ask any it’s only fair to say that this isn’t a private conversation.

Before starting I wanted to make it clear that this isn’t an attempt to harass or cause distress. It’s a series of questions about a subject I feel strongly about that I’m asking you in your role of MD of Andrews UK Ltd.

Here we go.

I’m confused by some of your trademarks and the extent of the rights you’re claiming for those trademarks.

I’ve carefully read the descriptions of the brands you own here:

https://retrotrader.com/brands/

They seem to fall into two two categories. There are brands where the site is very specific about the rights Subvert controls or owns and the chain of provenance for those rights. The various Automata marks, Sam Coupe, Dragon Computers, Epyx and others all fall into that grouping.

The second category are brands is where the extent of rights owned of controlled by Subvert isn’t isn’t clear nor is the the connection Subvert has to that brand beyond registering a trademark.

For example the ZX80 page in the section covering brands that Subvert owns says:
 

Quote

 

ZX80 – Was a home computer released in 1980. It was one in a line of home computers released by Sinclair Research. It featured black and white graphics!

 

 

 

There’s an acknowledgement that this brand is dertived from the Sinclair ZX-80 home computer but no description of what rights Subvert owns in relation to the brand.

In comparison the Sam Coupe brand is very clear about the rights that Subvert owns

 

 

Quote

 

Launched at the peak of the legendary 1980’s microcomputer rivalry, the Jupiter ACE was the most intriguing machine of them all. Created by the vexed designers of the iconic Sinclair

Spectrum home computer. The ACE was a significant machine running inspired software, but it struggled to compete in a marketplace increasingly dominated by home users wanting to play games with colour and sound. Find out more at [www.jupiterace.co.uk](http://www.jupiterace.co.uk/) we are the official master licensor for this brand.

 

 

 

There’s a similar vagueness with the Oric, ZX 80, ZX 81, Jet Set Willy, Manic Miner, and Ant Attack brands.

Are these trademarks you have registered without a commercial agreement with the owners of the IP the trademark was inspired by?

What rights do you own or control in regards to the following products:

* The Sinclair ZX-80 home computer
* The Sinclair ZX-81 home computer
* The Oric series of home computers
* The video game Jet Set Willy
* The video game Manic Miner
* The video game Ant Attack

And specifically with the Sinclair related trademarks, how would you describe your relationship with Sinclair Research Ltd when you applied for these trademarks?

Horace isn’t on the list of brands. Why not? Is that an accidental or intentional omission?

What rights do you own or control for the series of Horace games?

Who did you gain control of those rights from?

Which, of your many, companies purchased / licenced the Horace rights?

Which, of your many, companies currently own / control the Horace rights?

You have said that the rights for Horace persisted from Melbourne House through to Infogrames / Atari and now you have them.

When were the rights you hold bought from Inforgrames / Atari, by whom and what iteration of that company? (There’s been a few)

Did you buy all of Beam / Melbourne House’s IP or just Horace?

Phew! There’s a lot there.

Feel free to answer what you feel comfortable with, ignore this message or ask me any questions you want to.

Cheers

Gaz

15 minutes ago, RetroLee said:

 

@maryliddon Okay, no worries and I respect your comments and appreciate you taking the time to converse.  This isn't my usual thing as like to so many I have social media anxieties and don't like to engage.  Really happy though that people are being respectful to me, that makes my time on line more comfortable.   

May I then ask, if your interest is outside of this incident; what part of it adds value to what you're looking at and indeed, what are you looking at?  Call me nosy but your dedication is fascinating.

I think that's self evident if you read the thread but my wider interest rights transference of old, possibly orphanned IP, was sparked by this incident.

Question for you: do you think this is worth looking into if there's a chance these rights are being wrongly asserted?

1 minute ago, RetroLee said:

 

Sorry, no offense or implication intended.  If you successfully track down the proof you seek and the claimant is proved to own the IP, will you then accept this, possibly even apologize for the prolonging of this episode?  All said and done, if you discover the claimant owns the property and going forward, any other IP owner who asserts their ownership,  will you accept that they have the right to monitor, protect and license their property as they see fit?

I've said I'll share whatever the outcome is, that'd only be fair, and have consistently said he may well own the rights. I'd be surprised if anyone Andrews UK really wants or needs an apology for a few posts on here though.

3 minutes ago, RetroLee said:

Nonsense slating youtubers

You're entitled to your opinion mate.

3 minutes ago, RetroLee said:

You're titamatised!

There's probably some of that going around but as I said my interest is outside of this specific incident.

That said you could argue that if this hadn't been handled so ineptly the stink wouldn't be so bad

15 hours ago, The Evener said:

 

Has anyone here tried to reach out to Alfred Milgrom to see if he can recall the arrangement with Melbourne House titles? EDIT: I see now that you did, maryliddon - what did he recall? And anything further with Atari?

 

 

I've been busy this week but will be back on it next week.

I think I have a clear idea of where the IP if owned, would have changed hands.

For each change of ownership, there would be a legal agreement showing the terms of that change.

To make a watertight case that you own the IP of an old game like this you would need copies of each those agreements.

Horace's IP has changed several times. The changes and accompanying agreements needed would be:

• William Tang creates Horace. Employment contract assigns rights to Beam
• Beam sold to Infogrames, purchase contract lists Horace as an IP
• Beam's sale to Krome, purchase contract showing that Beam IP stayed with Atari
• Atari's bankruptcy (2013), settlement showing the sale of IP to new Atari
• Sale to Andrews from new Atari, contract of sale of IP

It'd be highly unusual to have that level of proof for such an old game.

Sometimes the sale price can reflect the lack of provenance for what's sold. Sometimes the sale contract will say it's a case of buyer beware and there is no indemnification for the buyer if it turns out the IP didn't belong to the seller.

In terms of Horace? I'm pretty sure that William Tang's was working under an employment contract assigned anything he made to his employer Beam.

When I asked Alfred about the IP sold to Infogrames when they bought Beam, he said he doesn't remember Horace, or any of the older Beam games, being mentioned in the contract. I asked him if there may have been a catch-all in the contract saying all Beam IP was part of the sale. He said there might have been, but he can't clearly remember. It's possible someone may have that sale contract. I will dig.

Krome bought Beam from Infogrames. I know they said on Twitter that they don't own Horace, but I would love to see the purchase agreement to be sure that was the case. I need to talk to someone at Krome.

The Southern District of NY court handled Atari's bankruptcy. I have registered for a PACER account that means I'll be able to look at the documentation about Atari's bankruptcy. That account will be approved soon. During the bankruptcy, there was an IP auction, and I have seen a few lists of the IP on sale. I didn't know any Beam titles on those lists, but these are hardly definitive.

I have not seen Andrews IP purchase agreement. He won't share it or any details about what he owns and what documentation he has verifying a chain of ownership. I would like to see that contract

I did talk to Atari, and they said this IP does not belong to them and I should speak to William Tang. It is entirely possible they did own the IP, sold it to Andrews, but the person I was talking to wasn't aware of it.

So that's the framework I'm working within. As I said earlier it may well mean proving Andrews UK owns this stuff.

What is annoying me is these things are not proof of ownership:

• Andrews UK claim that they own the IP
• Youtube accepting a copyright strike
• Recent edits of Wikipedia articles claiming Andrews UK ownership

Yet that is all we currently have.

That doesn't warrant the level of aggressive certainty some are showing about Andrews UK ownership.

I'm not saying he doesn't own the IP I would like to see the strength of evidence available that makes the case he does.

And if it's weak, it's challengable in several ways.

19 minutes ago, Bluejam said:

Darren Branagh isn’t a mod / admin of that group 

Well I know that now. He collarred me on Facebook with a screengrab from here and said I should GROW A PAIR and ask him any questions I may have of him to his face.

So I did.

Refused to answer any of them.

You're getting really confused between 'couldn't' and 'shouldn't' here

He absolutely can issue DMCA takedowns that either don't reflect the rights he holds or oversteps the legal protection those rights provide.

47 minutes ago, Bluejam said:

And there was me thinking it was all dying down and we can all get back to saying the Speccy rules.

 

why tweet that? That was the agreement they made (rightly or wrongly) so to tweet it seems a bit ‘hmmm, the #FreeHorace hashtag has gone quiet, let me add some fuel on the fire to get everyone arguing again’

 

 

 

 

 

it is ludicrous. I have no idea why Andrews insisted on it

Oh dear, banned from the ZX Vega Support group by Darren Branagh. Anyone know who he is? Claims to have brokered the resolution of horacegate between Andrews and Octav1us. Also a fervent arguer for Andrews Horace rights all the way back in August.

Does he work for Andrews or just an associate?

I got really drunk and was trying to buy a some vintage Atari centipede kids costume. My mate, who's a bit shorter than me, was going to run around the show being a human centipede (not that kind). Seemed like a good idea at the time but the guy at the stall told me to fuck off.

ha, I was there too

1 hour ago, gone fishin' said:

 

I was going to write a long reply, but using Lee Fogarty as evidence just pretty much sums up your responses. Trying to find any reason to have a dig at Paul Andrews or George Cropper in this thread, like a broken record, because yes... you really don't like them.. .even if it's now long gone past having anything to do with the Octavius Kitten video takedown issue.

 

Sinking to the depths of using someone who helped with the whole Vega+ scam/shit show and was shown to consistently lie during the Vega+ campaign?

 

Wow. 

Lee's been messaging me on Facebook with info but I've steered clear of looking into it because conclusions I come to on the basis of Lee's word would get torn to shreds.

Now.

That whole Vega scam.

Something that's always concerned me from when the company's bank statements were leaked is that the company seemed to be insolvement BEFORE the Vega+ money was pledged. There's some lengthy discussion in the various emails about the debts they owe from tthe original Vega.

If the money from from the Vega+ kickstarter had to cover the debts left by the Vega production there's an argument that if Andrews had stayed and RCL's money hadn't been frittered away, they may not have had the resources needed to fulfill the pledges made for the Vega+. That'd be a ponzi shceme.

We'll never know, because you can't rerun history. But IF we assume the financial details leaked are true Levy, Paul and the other directors built a company that looked very shakey and was dependent on using a large part of the Vega+ funding to baile themselves out.

To be clear, that wouldn't pardon what subsequently happened after their departure. That looks like a definite itentent to scam rather than every day ineptitude

To be clear I'm not saying this is what happened, just that the financial records and emails that were leaked and painted a terrible picture of Martin and Levy also raise a number of questions how RCL was run prior to Andrews and Smith's departure.

It'd also mean whoever is doing a LOT of Wikipedia editing claiming Andrews ownership of this IP would have something to cite.

Right now they keep getting reverted

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Ch.Davis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/213.48.245.74?fbclid=IwAR0bTep_bbi5hWk0zUQA_WNk5oOT_Q7R2s9TrCH8m6wnQ_NCLzAramThSnI