Copyright strikes on Retro game Youtube vids - Paul Andrews?

[Ste Pickford]

I thought the Octav1us Horace videos were genuinely very good, really funny, proper original creative works.   They weren't simply using someone else's IP for profit.

 

I'd imagine they fell well within the realms of fair use / fair dealing / satire / parody, etc.

 

The very mild 'sexualistion' seems ridiculous to complain about, and merely suggests that this supposed IP owner is a bit prudish, rather than being a legal basis for complaint.

They were exactly the type of thing you'd get on a TV satire / comedy show, if any such shows existed and dealt with video games.  I'd be glad to have one of my characters appear in this kind video. It's the sort of thing that would generate interest in what was, let's face it, a pretty much completely forgotten video game character.

[Kryptonian]

12 minutes ago, Bluejam said:

Happy to remove. Just thought it was worth posting for a different view.

 

appreciate that his videos are marmite.

 

sorry if anyone was offended

No worries, I just wasn’t sure what it was all about

[Peter St John]

 

[ulala]

How can they reach an agreement if he is not the ip holder?

 

 

[amc]

If you're referring to something the Youtube creator has said she, from what I've read anyway, said she didn't know whether he was or wasn't the IP holder but that he hadn't provided documents proving that he indeed was, thus not showing having the right to issue a strike.

 

Which is fair enough no?

[ulala]

11 minutes ago, amc said:

If you're referring to something the Youtube creator has said she, from what I've read anyway, said she didn't know whether he was or wasn't the IP holder but that he hadn't provided documents proving that he indeed was, thus not showing having the right to issue a strike.

 

Which is fair enough no?

its interesting, a narrative has been throughout, that Andrews doesn’t have the ip and he is bluffing, just trying to bully and extort.

 

however, if you are negotiating the rights to use a character, surely there can be no doubt that Andrews IS the holder and he has an interest in making sure his ip is used correctly ( whatever that may be). And that both parties have now reached hopefully an amicable agreement.

 

what I’m saying is, can the attacks on him now stop?

[Ste Pickford]

23 minutes ago, ulala said:

How can they reach an agreement if he is not the ip holder?

 

 

 

Somebody can claim to be the IP holder.

[ulala]

13 minutes ago, Ste Pickford said:

 

Somebody can claim to be the IP holder.

if you don’t think they are, you can’t negotiate with them.

 

[Anne Summers]

Andrews is the IP holder. No one who actually knows anything about the situation is disputing that. 

[Rex Grossman]

Having followed this over the past day it’s come across like neither side is being totally honest about the situation. With some sort of agreement now in place I doubt we’ll ever know the exact story.

[redballoon]

To get an idea of how things are, check out the list of trademarks Submersive have been hoovering up. 
 

https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmowner/page/search?id=1289048&domain=1

 

Now, obv Andrews own the Manic Miner (and Jet Set Willy) IP and have done since August last year. Up until fairly recently, Steve Wilcox of Elite thought he owned it and even sent out lawyers letters to a couple people demanding money. Course, his latest failed Kickstarter of Manic Miner/JSW playing cards was cancelled due to copyright claims. Then, Play Expo Manchester comes along in Easter this year and there’s Matthew Smith making appearance and there’s talk of him possibly making another Miner Willy game as he now claims to own it again. 
 

Anyway, the Horace thing is thankfully all over and sorted, the Spectrum community again brought back from the edge (®️™️©️ Tim Langdell).

[The Evener]

1 hour ago, Anne Summers said:

Andrews is the IP holder. No one who actually knows anything about the situation is disputing that. 

 

As a new member, would it be possible for you to share more details about how Andrews acquired the IP for Horace? My understanding is that this circa 1980s IP resides with the creator (William Tang, maybe Alfred Milgrom for the Horace design, or Beam Software, I think) for 70 years after death. I noticed that other members are searching the UK IP Office, but I'm not clear if a trademark search would necessarily reflect newly acquired IP ownership. To my untrained ears, this discussion about ownership has echoes of the Coleco trademark dispute involving River West Brands and the latter's assertion of ownership within the Coleco retro community. Interestingly, that whole situation burst into public view with a similar trajectory - copyright strikes against YouTube videos featuring the Coleco name, which River West asserted was necessary because of the portrayal of 8-bit games beside the Coleco name with sexualized content.

[Peter St John]

Like @Protocol Penguin, I'm quite curious about Kim making her Manic Miner video private - preventative or due to a strike?

 

 

[Bluejam]

Apparently there is a joint statement due anytime now from Octavius and Paul Andrews

[Fry Crayola]

16 hours ago, Ste Pickford said:

I'd be glad to have one of my characters appear in this kind video

 

Plok keeps touching me from across the room!

[K]

I’m always really suspicious of people who use donations to charity in this way, as it seems engineered to deliberately put people in a situation where they look bad for refusing to comply with your demands. Like, you can aggressively enforce some IP rights that you bought off someone else (ie not for your own creative endeavours), and get people to take down their own work that uses that IP in whatever context, and if they push back then they’re in the wrong, because you see, all I’m asking for is a donation to charity. Are you not a charitable person? Do the beneficiaries of the charity not deserve your help? Oh dear. Your choice, I guess. 

[Dig Dug]

It reminds me of when Gamergate groups tried to make donations to women's charities to try and deflect criticism. It's easy to weaponise a charity when the charity aren't aware of their existence being used as such. Thankfully the ones who Gamegate groups donated to were aware and refused the money.

[Anne Summers]

14 hours ago, The Evener said:

 

As a new member, would it be possible for you to share more details about how Andrews acquired the IP for Horace? My understanding is that this circa 1980s IP resides with the creator (William Tang, maybe Alfred Milgrom for the Horace design, or Beam Software, I think) for 70 years after death. I noticed that other members are searching the UK IP Office, but I'm not clear if a trademark search would necessarily reflect newly acquired IP ownership. To my untrained ears, this discussion about ownership has echoes of the Coleco trademark dispute involving River West Brands and the latter's assertion of ownership within the Coleco retro community. Interestingly, that whole situation burst into public view with a similar trajectory - copyright strikes against YouTube videos featuring the Coleco name, which River West asserted was necessary because of the portrayal of 8-bit games beside the Coleco name with sexualized content.

The thing is, there's all these internet detectives going online to try and find evidence of ownership. They don't find anything and declare "there's no proof!"

Which completely ignores the fact that there isn't some sort of great big centralised directory of who owns what. 

The only way to know for sure would be to examine all of the contracts involved and get confirmation from all of the involved parties. It just isn't worth anyone's time and effort, just to satisfy the demands of the internet detective brigade. 

[Tony]

I usually see it as them basically saying that you're probably not making enough money using our IP to make it worthwhile chasing you for money so we insist that you donate to charity instead. They need to be seen to be doing something to protect their IP otherwise it becomes harder in the court room. I imagine saying if you donate to charity it is a lot less time consuming than chasing after a few pounds every couple of months.

[K]

6 minutes ago, Tony said:

I usually see it as them basically saying that you're probably not making enough money using our IP to make it worthwhile chasing you for money so we insist that you donate to charity instead. Otherwise if they let people off for free then it becomes harder for them to argue against bigger players if they have to take legal action in the court room.

 

Surely chasing someone for money and chasing someone for a donation to charity involves the same amount of work on your part?

[Tony]

5 minutes ago, K said:

 

Surely chasing someone for money and chasing someone for a donation to charity involves the same amount of work on your part?

 

I'd have thought you'd get them to sign a contract saying they are going to donate x amount to charity per a unit sold and that's the end of it. Bascially you trust that they are upholding their end of the bargain. But if you want to get the money from them - there is a lot more work involved making sure they are actually sending you the amount you owe.

[K]

1 minute ago, Tony said:

 

I'd have thought you'd get them to sign a piece of paper saying they are going to donate x amount to charity per a unit sold and that's the end of it. Bascially you trust that they are upholding their end of the bargain. But if you want to get the money from them - there is a lot more work involved making sure they are actually sending you the amount you owe.

 

Not really. The important thing is to be seen to be defending "your" IP, and to remove anything you think infringes on it. It doesn't matter whether someone wants money paid to them or to some charity - I would imagine that there is almost no money whatsoever at stake in a situation where you're talking about infringing the intellectual property associated with Horace Goes Skiing by someone using Horace in a niche Youtube video.

[Tony]

That's the point I'm trying to make though. There is no real money to be made but they need to be seen doing something. A quick agreement to promise to donate money to charity is a lot easier than getting them to send you tiny bits of money every few months. Making your legal or accounts team chase up after a few pounds a month probably isn't worth your time when you can draw up an agreement based on trust that you can then bring up in court that you enforce your rights to your IP when a much bigger player infringes your rights.

 

I don't think insisting on a donation to charity is trying to shame someone. It's just trying to be seen as doing something which they need to do. To my untrained eye I'd imagine it's a lot less paperwork unless they resist and you have to go down the legal route.

 

Whether there's an actual need to go after those people is another question. I just don't see asking for a donation as trying to shame them in the way you suggested.

[Ste Pickford]

I think invoking a charity is used by companies as a kind of magic spell to deflect any criticism of their actions. That's the only reason, really, and why I become immediately skeptical when a donation to a charity is suggested in cases like this.

[Lorfarius]

Charitable donations were also involved in the Vega+.. except they never happened.

[ulala]

8 minutes ago, Ste Pickford said:

I think invoking a charity is used by companies as a kind of magic spell to deflect any criticism of their actions. That's the only reason, really, and why I become immediately skeptical when a donation to a charity is suggested in cases like this.

 

 

im sure you are an IP holder yourself, how do you feel about others using them?

[maryliddon]

40 minutes ago, Anne Summers said:

The thing is, there's all these internet detectives going online to try and find evidence of ownership. They don't find anything and declare "there's no proof!"

Which completely ignores the fact that there isn't some sort of great big centralised directory of who owns what. 

The only way to know for sure would be to examine all of the contracts involved and get confirmation from all of the involved parties. It just isn't worth anyone's time and effort, just to satisfy the demands of the internet detective brigade. 

 

I'd say given the often hard to verify provenace of IP ownership and that this particular IP would have had to pass through several bankruptcies to get to the current owner it's fair question to ask for anyone claiming the rights to this kind of thing to provide some solid proof to their claim.

 

And you'd expect anyone who bought the rights would have that documentation to hand as they'd have been part of the sale.

 

Or are you suggesting it wsn't worth the new owner's time and effort to verify they actually own this IP?

 

FWIW I used to work at Beam Software, with both Fred and William, and knowing how shambolicly run the company was it would not surprise me if the rights ownership of the games they created was badly documented and unclear

 

 

 

[Ste Pickford]

3 minutes ago, ulala said:

 

 

im sure you are an IP holder yourself, how do you feel about others using them?

 

I would object to someone selling copies of my product, or selling merchandising or similar spin-offs based on my IP.

I would not object to someone creating a satirical sketch or comedy skit that included my IP, and as far as I understand it, I wouldn't have any legal basis to object to such treatment anyway.

[ulala]

6 minutes ago, Ste Pickford said:

 

I would object to someone selling my product itself, or merchandising or similar spin-offs based on my IP.

I would not object to someone creating a satirical sketch or comedy skit that included my IP, and as far as I understand it, I wouldn't have any legal basis to object to such treatment anyway.

 

So if all of my youtube videos now feature Plok getting a bit "handsey" shall we say, that would be absolutely fine?

 

 

[maryliddon]

Given that George is working with Andrews on new HORACE WARE I can only assume that this is an approved usage of the his IP

 

 

Get's off to a strong start with some great bants about William Tangs stinking member!