I am in the process of having this case reviewed by an actual copyright attorney. I am also working on a summary of previous legal actions, at least those known publicly, for someone who is interested in doing a commentary video on the current lawsuit and what it could mean for the video game side of things. If or when these people release their thoughts on the matter, I will share them with everyone.
That said, Piranha may be in trouble. While HG's claim that the
Atlas, Locust, and
Shadow Hawk are derivative of Macross machines is laughable, those aren't the main subjects of the lawsuit. The primary models involved are Piranha's versions of the
Rifleman, Archer, Warhammer, Marauder, and
Phoenix Hawk. Those machines do resemble the original Macross models quite a bit, and deliberately. Scanning through the documents filed doesn't reveal Harebrained's defense, as far as I can see, but they did demand a trial by jury, which already has a date set: September of 2018. As CGL is a wholly-owned subsidiary of InMediaRes, HG seems to be skipping them to go right for the parent company.
Honestly? This doesn't look great. IMR/CGL may be able to squeak away from this by disassociating themselves from HBS/Piranha (after all, they are different IPs now) and showing that their "Classics" are substantially different from the originals. But HBS/Piranha is playing with fire, and in particular that
Archer may come to bite them in the ass.
The bottom line is that this is
not an obviously "bad faith" nor a frivolous lawsuit. It is a very serious and real action, and one that the court may very well decide in Harmony Gold's favor. I think HG is jerks, but you cannot ignore their IP rights.
This is not about pitchforks, torch-bearing mobs or riots boss. This is about the community congealing to put a stop to Harmony Gold messing with the Battletech IP once and for all. This can be the Clarion Call for the Battletech Community to stand up as a whole against the bully known as Harmony Gold.
DON'T. I'm going to say this (hopefully) once: taking independent action against Harmony Gold not only opens you up to legal action by them, it also weakens HBS and IMR's defense. This is what the courts are for, and internet vigilantism
will not help. Let the professionals do their jobs.