Great News.

Thanks for the analysis, updates and clarifications phisheep! Much appreciated.

oracrest said:

Can and should!

I understand if those guys want to just forget about it, and not deal with any more legal time and energy, but...

Their game was literally pulled from markets because of this guy. What would the most effective strategy be, to compare sales data vs. time that the game wasn't available commercially?

I hope they do if they have a case.

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There's no 'should' about it. While it would make good spectator sport for us, there's no guarantee it will be in Mobigames' best interests.

Chances are there is no money in Langdell's businesses. They don't seem to be engaged in any profitable activity and it's unlikely he would leave them stashed with cash. So you'd need to do two things in addition to showing that Langdell's activities caused a measurable amount of loss - prove fraud (all over again, because there was no finding of fraud in the EA case) and find a way of bringing Langdell's personal assets into play. Both are likely to be expensive, and carry some risk.

So the best option would might be to wait until someone else - either civil or criminal - gets the fraud proved and then leap in afterwards, but by then there'll be even less than no money left.

phisheep said:

IThat make sense?

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Absolutely, thank you so much!

Some of this was stuff I knew in some frame of mind, but you do a great job in making things make sense, so we all appreciate your GAF breakdowns of this case.

So, Langdell has taken down MIRRORS A GAME BY EDGE from his games page... only to be replaced by a suspiciously similar title named A.L.I.C.E. Huh.

phisheep said:

There's no 'should' about it. While it would make good spectator sport for us, there's no guarantee it will be in Mobigames' best interests.

Chances are there is no money in Langdell's businesses. They don't seem to be engaged in any profitable activity and it's unlikely he would leave them stashed with cash. So you'd need to do two things in addition to showing that Langdell's activities caused a measurable amount of loss - prove fraud (all over again, because there was no finding of fraud in the EA case) and find a way of bringing Langdell's personal assets into play. Both are likely to be expensive, and carry some risk.

So the best option would might be to wait until someone else - either civil or criminal - gets the fraud proved and then leap in afterwards, but by then there'll be even less than no money left.

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Yeah, that is what I figured, that it would be too much trouble for what it's worth, unfortunately.

With any luck, the whole debacle has shown some light on their game to a larger audience, and sales have reflected that.

in regards to lucasfilm and "droid", I am fairly sure (wikipedia confirms fwiw) that "droid" first appeared in Star Wars. Obviously android existed long before, but I sure as hell can't find a "slang" reference to droid before it. the etymology of android places "oid" as the suffix, not droid. So does this mean lucasfilm by de facto has rights to the term droid being that they created it (much like Marvel with Hulk)?

Cosmo Clock 21 said:

So, Langdell has taken down MIRRORS A GAME BY EDGE from his games page... only to be replaced by a suspiciously similar title named A.L.I.C.E. Huh.

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Huh, there's been a lot of changes on that site.

No mention of Future Publishing, Edge computers, a suddenly added list of titles produced in the 80s and explicit definitions of how exactly the film The Edge and Edge comic books wre licenced.

borghe said:

in regards to lucasfilm and "droid", I am fairly sure (wikipedia confirms fwiw) that "droid" first appeared in Star Wars. Obviously android existed long before, but I sure as hell can't find a "slang" reference to droid before it. the etymology of android places "oid" as the suffix, not droid. So does this mean lucasfilm by de facto has rights to the term droid being that they created it (much like Marvel with Hulk)?

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I'm not convinced that "droid" was originated in Star Wars. Pretty sure that if I spent enough time reading '60s and '70s scifi I could find a reference or too. Probably spelled with an initial apostrophe ('droid), but then it was only ever heard in the film so you couldn't tell the spelling (I think).

However, that is by-the-by. Originating a term doesn't give you any special rights in it. It is too short for copyright, can't be patented, and can be trademarked only if you are using it by way of trade as a distinguishing mark. The classic example is Phonogram, so everyone had to start calling them gramophones instead (which makes less sense etymologically).

My granny had a Phonogram.

So, no defacto rights for inventing it. Only for using it as a distinguishing trademark or, possibly, (under copyright) if it is a significant part of a larger creative work.

Lucasfilms were quite creative with their Star Wars stuff - by having all the character merchandising they were able to to trademark various character names and references (for toys, games etc) as distinguishing marks. I still think that 'Droid' took it a bit far.

MrNyarlathotep said:

Huh, there's been a lot of changes on that site.

No mention of Future Publishing, Edge computers, a suddenly added list of titles produced in the 80s and explicit definitions of how exactly the film The Edge and Edge comic books wre licenced.

Click to expand...

(rubs eyes)

Nope. I can still see Future and Edge computers there on the front page. Can't see any explicit definitions of licencing either. Maybe my computer needs to catch up.

I have noticed though, that he is no longer claiming the trademarks as 'registered' on the US home page (they've just got TM instead of a little R in a circle) - but he has kept them on the European front page (where there's no order for cancellation ... yet). Hadn't noticed before that there were two front pages - is this new?

I find it very curious that the only item that he's ever had an undoubted right to - the famous Bobby Bearing - isn't trademarked. There's an opportunity there for somebody to troll him back, but don't say it was me that said so.