The following mail was sent to me on July 27th, 1999, telling us to cease and desist our USCM: Infestation efforts. I was at a computer Party in Aalborg at the time I received it. I have subsequently lost it again, but luckily Christoffer had it in his archives from when I sent it out to the team members.
From: Megan O’Brien
To: Michael Heilemann
Re: USCM: Infestation / Unauthorized Use of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation Intellectual PropertyDear Mr. Heilemann:
It has come to the attention of Fox Interactive, Inc. and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (Fox) that you are the lead designer for USCM: Infestation which is a total conversion of the Aliens vs. Predator video game software title released by Fox Interactive, Inc. (Game).
Further, as you certainly know, the website which you host, www.valveworld.com/uscminfestation, uses a picture of the Alien character (Fox Character) from Fox’s Alien franchise of films (Alien, Aliens, Alien3 and Alien Resurrection) without permission or license from Fox.
The use of the Fox Character and/or any use of the Game or elements from the Alien films or Predator and Predator 2 films (collectively Fox Films), including clips from the Game or Fox Films, is an unauthorized and infringing use of Fox’s intellectual property.
Fox is the exclusive owner of all copyright, trademark rights and all other intellectual property rights in and to the Fox Films, and owner of such rights as relates to the Game, including the right to create derivative works of the Fox Films and the Game.
Fox has not authorized you or anyone else who is or may be assisting you or working on your behalf to develop the total conversion of Aliens vs. Predator, nor are you or anyone else authorized to use any of Fox’s other intellectual property with respect to the Films and the Game. Therefore, Fox hereby demands that you immediately cease and desist from creating the total conversion and/or using any elements from the Films and the Game in any manner whatsoever.
In addition to the foregoing, Fox hereby demands that you do the following:
- Provide Fox with the names and addresses of all other persons who are participating with you in the creation of the total conversion and the replication of the artwork from the Films and Game;
- Return to Fox, care of my attention, all materials, including maps, textures, source code, object code, design documentation, end-user rules, drawings and all other material, no matter in what form, created for and/or used in the development of the total conversion;
- Confirm in writing to Fox within 24 hours of receiving this letter that you shall fully and promptly comply with each of the foregoing demands;
and
- Confirm in writing to Fox within 10 days of the date of this letter that you have complied with each of the foregoing demands.
You may send this information to Fox Interactive, Inc., P.O. Box 900, Beverly Hills, CA 90213 – 0900 USA, Attn: Megan O’Brien.
Fox vigorously protects its proprietary interests in all of its properties, including compelling the discontinuance of any infringement thereof. Fox hopes that you will voluntarily comply with the foregoing demands. If you do not do so, Fox will be forced to consider taking further legal action against you.
Please be advised this letter does not set forth all the facts and nothing contained in this letter is intended to be or shall be construed as a waiver or relinquishment of any of Fox_s rights and remedies with regard to the foregoing, all of which are hereby expressly reserved.
Very truly yours,
Megan C. O’Brien
These guys suck.
The thing is, it was a total conversion for Half-Life, not Aliens Vs Predator.
Heh… I never thought of it that way. I always read it as if it was a TC of Alien vs. Predator… Which it wasn’t either, but hey.
What is it about free publicity that makes lawyers tick?
So, what did you do? Did you comply with their demands within 24 hours? Did you get a lawyer?
I wrote them back two mails. First I sent them a mail, that same day, which basically said: “We’ll comply, though I think you should be aware that there are some inaccuracies in your ‘accusations’”.
Then, after I had calmed down a bit, I wrote them another mail, which basically questioned everything in that mail (since everything in that mail – except for the ‘infringing on copyright’-part, is very questionable). It basically said: “Yeah, you can stop us alright, but you’re not getting shit, and I’ll make sure you get a lot of bad publicity while we’re at it”.
Which I then did, by having the story run on every gaming news site known to man… (almost), as well as me being interviewed by some sites and what not.
But truth be told, I don’t really see anything wrong with the protecting their IP. They have to. If they don’t do it every single time someone infringes, it’ll be used against them when it really counts. That’s just how the system works for corporations, like it or not.
I have since then said many times over: I would rather create original content, than ‘live’ off of someone elses content (except Star Wars. I would like to do a Star Wars game).
And I believe more people should adopt that policy, perhaps then we wouldn’t see all those godawful movie remakes.
I’m very interested in knowing what their response was to your ‘come ‘n get it’ response?
I’ve never received a cease and desist but I did get an email from IDG Books (now known as Wiley Publishing I think) that told me I needed to drop the Dummy name in my website, CTF for Dummies. Link. However, they were very cordial about it.
So I renamed the site to CTF 4 Dummies just to see what I could get away with. They responded and said it was a very clever attempt but the Dummies name was still present and that is what needed to be dropped.
So I renamed it to the generic Zulu’s Guide to CTF. But up in the title of the HTML page, it says ‘The Idiot’s Guide to CTF’ which is messing with the trademark of a competitor of IDG books (Que Publishing) and IDG didn’t seem to have any problems with me calling it that.
Sherlock(azulu)
Did they threaten legal action?
Oh, I remember that debacle. It was with this that the phrase “getting Foxed” became synonymous with recieving threatening letters in lawyerese.
I’m the guy who converted the Alien TC from Doom 1 to Doom 2 way back in the days.
Not that I recall. It was a very formal letter but the tone was more informative (“You may not realize this…blah blah blah) than it was threatening (“You WILL do this”). The email did come from their legal department. I don’t know what the norm is as far as company’s legal departments communicating with users who threaten IP, maybe not the way I experienced it after hearing a few horror stories.
Turning in the names and addresses of your friends involved, that one’s the harsh one and that’s the one that would probably would convince me to tell them where to go. The rest I could probably comply with. Betrayal of others though is a tough one.
No kudos to me eh? It was a lucky shot that i still had that stuff in my archive ;-)
Chris: Sorry about that, I was at work when I quickly posted it. Consider it corrected :)
Johan: Man that’s cool! The Aliens TC was the coolest thing I had ever seen back then! :D
Sherlock: Yeah, that whole Gestapo thing just didn’t ring to well with me. “You vill be put in ze file!”
I think I remember that Aliens TC. Is that the one that used audio right out of the movie? Like when you died you got Paxton’s trademark “Game over man!”
That was very popular.
Why do you have to do that?
Well, you don’t. I sent them a mail asking them just that question, and their reply was something in the vein of: “You’ll get answers when we think you’ve deserved them!”… Ehm. Yeah, okay.
So I never sent them anything.
Congratulations, you’ve gotta be good (i.e. a big pain in the ass) to warrant a cease and desist. I’d be proud, stick in on your CV.
Usually it means you’re doing something that’s more popular than their original and they’re kicking themselves for not doing it first, besides, them lawyers don’t come cheap.
Hang it high as a badge of honour.
I agree with the up yours to handing stuff over and giving names and addresses, but you we’ll see if you think it’s worth the court order for the game files (probably wanted to use the stuff in their own development).
Actually, I seem to remember Fox are fairly nasty out of all the big boys, they shut down lots of the Buffy fansites IIRC.
Forgiven, forgotten :)
Lee: Yeah, they have a tendency to shut down everything they can get their hands on. I can understand it with games, but fan-sites?!… I ran an Aliens fansite once, didn’t get shut down though.
Wiley Publishing have tried to sue the owners of at least two blogs I read for using the phrase “For Dummies” in various forms. As far as I know though, no one gave in to their demands and they gave up (see D4D.co.uk – sorry I can’t remember the actual related entry URL).
Off topic, but found your site recently while d/l’ing WordPress – really love the design & it’s an interesting read :)
Man, that’s just the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard… Had ‘for dummies’ been their invention, then yeah they could’ve asked the blogs to use something else, but even then suing would’ve been downright stupid. It’s a phrase, just like ‘dumb as a door knob’…
Thank you for the praise, I’m always happy to hear that my work is appreciated :)
Should just call it “CTF For Dumbasses”. See what they say about that :)
The Wileys thing was, basically, just hilarious – they ‘sent me an email’ (they actually left it in the comments box of the original destruction-for-dummies.co.uk blog) at which point it descended into the farcical.
In the end I changed to domain from destruction-for-dummies to dummies-for-destruction, changed a couple of graphics, and that was it – I’ve never heard from them since. But yes, they did try to sue – intriguing use of US copyright laws on a UK site, too.
Good luck in your fight…
I love how she added
“Very truly yours,
Megan C. O’Brien”
at the end.. haha, It made me laugh!