After a 20-month legal battle, the creators of the super-hero roleplaying game Villians & Vigilantes have prevailed in their court fight with the game's longtime publisher. Magistrate Judge Mark E. Aspey of the U.S. District Court for Arizona ruled on January 15 that Jeff Dee and Jack Herman own the rights to the game based on the 1979 contract they reached with publisher Scott Bizar of Fantasy Games Unlimited. The court also found that Bizar never had the right to sell derivative products or ebook PDF editions of the game, two things he has been actively doing in recent years.
Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there arecomment(s); comment here or there.
- Villains & Vigilantes Creators Win Rights to Game
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james_nicoll- March 19th, 12:47
2013-03-19 05:09 pm (UTC)
Wonder if that means he'll have to let go of Space Opera, too?
2013-03-19 05:41 pm (UTC)
--Hawk
2013-03-19 05:38 pm (UTC)
2013-03-19 05:42 pm (UTC)
--H
2013-03-19 05:57 pm (UTC)
2013-03-19 06:31 pm (UTC)
2013-03-20 01:23 am (UTC)
2013-03-20 08:51 pm (UTC)
2013-03-19 05:58 pm (UTC)
2013-03-19 06:20 pm (UTC)
But my impression might be biased because I was reading blogs by both Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Rausch yesterday.
2013-03-19 06:52 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2013-03-19 07:22 pm (UTC)
2013-03-19 08:14 pm (UTC)
I presume (not knowing) that there was a contract covering each adventure module in its original form. There the situation might be different: I doubt that he has the rights to sell the ebook versions, but he might have rights to sell the originals. (Though without the V&V trademark, that will be difficult, unless Messrs. Dee and Herman want to license it to him.)
2013-03-19 09:07 pm (UTC)
In actual fact, likely the whole thing is a mess, and really all the decision does is let Dee & Herman do what they like with the name and IP and prevents Bizar from actively getting in their way. He could probably still -passively- get in their way by continuing to sell what he has the right to sell.
From what I can read, that does -not- include e-rights. He can specifically only sell the printed versions of those original two editions. So he's gonna have to stick money into printing if he wants to sell the game, but presumably, he can just set up a lulu or something for just-in-time printing of sold products: just no PDFs or other e-book formats.
Edited at 2013-03-19 09:07 pm (UTC)