TRO Succession Wars and Harmony Gold

[Skyth]

I may be in the minority but I preferred the Invid Invasion to Macross era Robotech.

[YingJanshi]

For some reason, I don't think you would make it through voie dire!

The more I think about it, and the more I look at the complaint, the more I think this is headed for a settlement. The claims to bring in HBS are a joke, PGI and CGL don't belong in the same suit, and dragging PGI into US court is a stretch. HG are many things, but legally stupid usually isn't one of them. It just 'feels' like they want something out of a settlement here, but I'm not totally sure what. I don't think it is money, or at least not just money. I'm sure they will demand some money, because why wouldn't they, but I doubt that is what they are really after. Do they want a covenant not to sue? Do they think they need to do this to protect their IP rights? Is it something more nuanced that I'm missing? I'm not really sure, but their whole complaint just seems like something you would file to get people to the table. That's just my opinion though.

Oh I think you're right: I think this was HG's usually tactic of flinging a suit at someone and hoping to intimidate that into a settlement. Except it didn't work because PGI/HBS called their bluff.

And as for a poor jury selection, well, both sides lawyers have a say in the selection process. And really, what PGI/HBS lawyers need to hammer away at is the arbitration agreement that HG has with Tatsunoko. IMHO it doesn't matter how close the artwork is, if it can be shown that HG doesn't have the rights to those designs.

[Charistoph]

HBS is using the same designs/models as PGI but the claims leveled specifically at HBS are so drastically different that they should have no trouble getting everything leveled at them specifically dismissed.  With prejudice too, at least sort of.  I doubt the breach of contract claims can be truly dismissed with prejudice without something to negate the contract as well.

Indeed.  Comparing the Locust to the Marauder?  The Shadow Hawk to the Crusader?  That list was so ridiculous that even the most ignorant judge or juror who might not see the difference between the MWO Warhammer and Robotech Tomahawk would reject them.

Yeah, that's the key point here.  Hell, I'd wager the prosecution will not accept any lawyer on the case that's even a whiff of a mecha fan.  Someone who liked Transformers?  Nope.  Someone who likes Giant Robots?  Not a chance.  Watched Robotech as a kid?  Oh heck no!  Pacific Rim?  Not gonna happen.

They will want the most boring, not geeky people they can find.  Even people from Detail Oriented Professions are typically not accepted on Juries either.  That works against the side we want to win here.  Lawyers trying to lead them on or not, remember, the other side's lawyer is trying to tell them the opposite, that this IS similar.

12 Bored, unhappy to be on Jury Duty people, deciding this.  That's what we're looking at.  12 people like abou's dad who might not care about the minutiae distinctions here, and instead might think all giant robots look alike because that's what HG's lawyer will be trying to convince them of.

That's scary.  Worst case scenario to be fair, but still a bit scary if the jury selection works out poorly.

That's very true.  And those types of people may not see the differences between the MWO designs of the Warhammer, Marauder, and Archer as being sufficiently obvious to the Robotech designs they are akin to.  And the book covers on the report I saw may also not be sufficiently different.

But as others have said, if these same people saw a picture of a VFA-103 F-14 (nicknamed the Jolly Rogers) and a Skull Squadron Valkyrie would not see the same level of differences.

[Juodas Varnas]

Indeed.  Comparing the Locust to the Marauder?  The Shadow Hawk to the Crusader?  That list was so ridiculous that even the most ignorant judge or juror who might not see the difference between the MWO Warhammer and Robotech Tomahawk would reject them.

Actually they're comparing the Shadow Hawk to the Archer (which is even more hilarious)

It's the Atlas that's being compared to the Crusader (despite Atlas being a completely original design).

[abou]

I guess my main point was this: to the layman they make look the same -- all of them. These look humanoid, those don't. Whatever. So none of it matters. Without samurai-inspired details of the head, a Gundam looks like any other. If it wasn't for manufacturer's icons on the front of the car, I wouldn't know that Infinity SUV or Nissan sedan from any other. Which I think was the whole point of Leonard French's video: how can you copyright this stuff unless it is overwhelmingly identical or a straight-up copy. Even the samurai motif of the Gundam can't be strictly taken as anyone can site inspiration from samurai armor.

I don't want to veer too off the course though. Just my ruminations on my day off when I should be cleaning the house.

[monbvol]

And that is part of PGI and HBS's defenses as I understand them.

[Charistoph]

Actually they're comparing the Shadow Hawk to the Archer (which is even more hilarious)

It's the Atlas that's being compared to the Crusader (despite Atlas being a completely original design).

That's right, but unless one is legally blind, it's fairly obvious the similarities are about as much as chainmail vikings and space marines.

[JadedFalcon]

Is HG starting to remind anyone else of Don Fanucci from the Godfather pt2?

I may be in the minority but I preferred the Invid Invasion to Macross era Robotech.

Would be a lot easier to make. Fewer sets, generic location shots, easier plot for execs to understand, and any script doctor can inject a love triangle to meet industry standards.

"It's like Rogue One but with giant robots fighting giant alien robots" sounds easier to understand in an elevator ride than "It's like Transformers but in space, fighting aliens, who look human but are the size of giant robots and hate pop music, so they are defeated by pop songs."

But I guess that's a topic for another thread...

[Sharkapult]

Actually they're comparing the Shadow Hawk to the Archer (which is even more hilarious)

It's the Atlas that's being compared to the Crusader (despite Atlas being a completely original design).

The off the wall comparisons are probably a "hail Mary"  sort of move. If somehow HG convinces a jury that the Atlas IS derived from the Crusader (both walking robots, both have missile weapons, two arms, two legs, etc) and also prove that the similarity infringes on their copyright, well, basically they own Battletech's art.

Edit: fixed trademark / copyright oopsie

[pheonixstorm]

Not likely, especially since the design of the Atlas is just as old as the RT stuff and was never challenged in the 90s. To claim it now is a means to go after HBS for breach of the settlement agreement. No matter how you look at it there is no viable copyright claim there. Also, there is no way they can make a trademark claim, that is completely different. If BattleTech was instead Robowars or some such I could see a trademark claim as was done long ago by Microsoft over the Lindows OS.

[ColBosch]

Harmony Gold isn't claiming breach of trademark, only copyright and contract.

[monbvol]

Yeah they had to do copyright to make breach of contract even possible.

[marauder648]

Personally, because of my dislike of lawyers and lawyerese I'm not going to get my hopes up, i'm just gonna cross my fingers and hope it all comes out fine.  Whilst the information that's been found is at least promising, lets not count our chickens before they hatch ladies and gentlemen.

[monbvol]

Indeed.

[Frabby]

I guess my main point was this: to the layman they make look the same -- all of them. These look humanoid, those don't. Whatever. So none of it matters. Without samurai-inspired details of the head, a Gundam looks like any other. If it wasn't for manufacturer's icons on the front of the car, I wouldn't know that Infinity SUV or Nissan sedan from any other. Which I think was the whole point of Leonard French's video: how can you copyright this stuff unless it is overwhelmingly identical or a straight-up copy. Even the samurai motif of the Gundam can't be strictly taken as anyone can site inspiration from samurai armor.

Exactly. You can turn the layman jury argument around and say that since only detail-obsessed experts can even spot the differences, this amounts to a scenes a faire situation where the design isn't copyrightable to begin with. This is what was ruled regarding FASA's Elementals.

You could even go a small step further and argue that either the designs are sufficiently different to find the defenders are not infringing; or otherwise conclude that the original copyright has a scenes a faire problem as showcased by this very case.
Suddenly, it would be in HG's best interest to point out just how different the PGI/HBS/CGL designs are...  >:D

[ANS Kamas P81]

Harmony Gold isn't claiming breach of trademark, only copyright and contract.

And to happily reiterate, they later agreed they don't have claim on the copyright after all.   :))

[pheonixstorm]

Wish they would.. knowing HG even if they lose the license in 2021 they will still go after people who use anything close to that art knowing the little fish will fold right off.

[ANS Kamas P81]

They've already acknowledged they don't have the copyright to the art (see the arbitration agreement and the end result of document 2003-A), at that point filing further lawsuits is arguably illegal - it'd be like me filing a suit claiming that you're in my house and should be evicted, even though I don't have a deed to your house. 

[Frabby]

They've already acknowledged they don't have the copyright to the art (see the arbitration agreement and the end result of document 2003-A), at that point filing further lawsuits is arguably illegal - it'd be like me filing a suit claiming that you're in my house and should be evicted, even though I don't have a deed to your house.

That's not "illegal", it's just a hopeless case.
Here, the fact that HG seem to have agreed privately to Tatsunoko that they have no rights to the imagery in question may mark their lawsuit as frivolous, however.

[monbvol]

Nor is that document saying what you think it does.

It is possible to own distribution rights for material you don't actually own.

So it isn't an automatic win for anyone Harmony Gold decides to sue to point to that arbitration agreement and say Harmony Gold doesn't own the source images in question.

[Kovax]

lets not count our chickens before they hatch ladies and gentlemen.

Wow, my chickens just hatch more chickens.  Yours hatch ladies and gentlemen?

There's a big difference between ownership and distribution rights, but this is not a "slam dunk" case.  It comes down to legal technicalities, "intent", and all sorts of other nebulous terms which a jury may decide one way today, and another way tomorrow.

[ColBosch]

Yeah, I realized that the arbitrator did find that HG did not abuse its license, which would presumably include previous lawsuits, so it's not the slam-dunk I thought it would be.

[glitterboy2098]

aside from the recent Hasbro one though, all their lawsuits predated the japanese court ruling that showed who owned what.
HG acted in accordance with what they believed their license to include in past lawsuits. that they did not legally have rights to all of what Tatsunoko gave them isn't going to be held against them for those past suits, because HG couldn't know at the time.

who does own the rights in question is an important issue in the current lawsuit however, and HG's past ignorance is no longer a defense, since they have had not only time to understand the japanese ruling, but also have completed arbitration with tatsunoko to sort out who owns what in america.

[monbvol]

Battletech certainly isn't off the hook just yet but some of these tidbits of information that are becoming public certainly seems to point to Battletech's fight being a lot easier and more likely to go in Battletech's favor.

[ANS Kamas P81]

aside from the recent Hasbro one though, all their lawsuits predated the japanese court ruling that showed who owned what.
HG acted in accordance with what they believed their license to include in past lawsuits. that they did not legally have rights to all of what Tatsunoko gave them isn't going to be held against them for those past suits, because HG couldn't know at the time.

who does own the rights in question is an important issue in the current lawsuit however, and HG's past ignorance is no longer a defense, since they have had not only time to understand the japanese ruling, but also have completed arbitration with tatsunoko to sort out who owns what in america.

They also, if you look at the review video, made an agreement in 2003 for 'all rights to macross except the in-japan merchandising and the 41 characters that big west owns full copyright to' since Tatsunoko no longer had that to offer them.  That judgement was carried out in 2002, scroll back and see my comments on it and the list.  In 2003 HGUSA and Tatsunoko signed that new agreement, referred to in the video as "2003-A" and knew at that point that they did not own the copyright to the macross mechs.  That was never in a US court document until the August 2017 arbitration, which defined and spelled it out.

[monbvol]

If it was that cut and dry then Harmony Gold would have been forced to drop their suit by now as I'm certain the lawyers for Battletech are more than aware of that arbitration document by now.

So until we hear something new about the case we must continue to exercise patience and restraint.

[ANS Kamas P81]

As near as I can tell, it is pretty straight-up as far as the "41 characters" go - rights to those were never included in the licensing, in any way.  No distribution or anything else.  I've seen the scans of the Japanese documents; I don't read it but they're pretty extensive in showing all the variations of the art of different mechs and characters. 

On that note, if anyone CAN read Japanese, here's what folks have found.
http://www.courts.go.jp/app/hanrei_jp/detail7?id=12014
http://www.courts.go.jp/app/files/hanrei_jp/014/012014_option1.pdf

http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/topic/36541-concerning-harmony-gold-and-robotech/
There's also this link, though you'll need to convert the animenewsnetwork.com to animenewsnetwork.cc in the linked URLs on that page; they've since changed their site address.  "Tatsunoko Wins Macross Lawsuit" and "Macross Lawsuit" are the important news files.  The appeal from Tatsunoko over the 41 characters was rejected, and there's a VERY extensive explanation of things that follow.

[pheonixstorm]

google translate does a decent enough job translating the ruling pdf. Reading is so so but passable if you want to parse it more than once in certain sections.

[Luciora]

 The macrossworld forum was very helpful too.  Thanks for digging it up.

[ANS Kamas P81]

google translate does a decent enough job translating the ruling pdf. Reading is so so but passable if you want to parse it more than once in certain sections.

News to me, never tried shoving a PDF into google translate.  Didn't know it could do that.  Cool!