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Let's see... people here seemed to be irked because they want their board to be the one and only EV Developers board. Big deal. Ambrosia owns the trademarks and copyrights regarding Escape Velocity and Escape Velocity Override. Andrew, as CEO of a private company, can do with them what he damn well pleases. If Ambrosia and crew want a developer's board, they can do it. And they can also send any non-official boards a nice little cease and desist letter.
Well, I've no desire to try to shut anyone else's board down -- we're trying to create something positive for the community, we're not trying to be the only game in town.
Hopefully things will work out well for all involved, I see no reason why a number of boards, with different focuses and user bases, can't co-exist together.
------------------ Andrew Welch / el Presidente / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Well actually Mazca didnt want to be the only developers board, he was just felt a bit shocked with the sudden opening of this board.
I understand the only copyright for EV that Ambrosia owns are for the monitor and sound tool's and the plugin loading code that they supplied, the actual game code is done by Matt Burch and therefore copyright to him. The game name is not trademarked, and if it was it would not apply to Mazca or me, as we both live in contries where dictionary words and terms cannot be copyrighted (eg, in the UK and NZ Heinz could not trademark "ketchup" as that is in the dictionary). Escape Velocity is a term for the speed needed to break out of a regions gravity well.
As for the "cease and decist" letter, no he can't. We do not claim to be endorsed or in any way related to Ambrosia Software so he cannot legally do anything to us due to international law differences. eg, if I hacked into this server I could not be prosecuted. If I, however, altered, downloaded, moved, uploaded, deleted or created anything I could be prosecuted for vandalism.
As for andrew, he has been very good about this, and has actually looked at our board and not asked us to close down for anything. Due to the restructuring of the boards I now like this board system
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Not that it matters, but I'd like to clear up something:
Ambrosia Software, Inc. owns the copyright on Escape Velocity and EV Override, not Matt Burch -- it's in the contract we signed with him, and is fairly typical of industry practices.
As for the legal claims, I'll leave it up to the lawyers, but I think that you might be surprised at how far-reaching trademark laws can be.
It's all irrelevent, we have no desire to shut anyone down or harrass anyone.
For the benefit of the Andrew Welch Distrusters, I'd like to say he definitely is not trying to shut the Developer's BOard down. See my post on that board for more infomation. As for the legal issues if he wanted to shut it down, I think blackhole is right about the not being able to trademark Escape Velocity in the UK, but there would be no reason for him to want to shut the Devboard down anyway. If it was the 'Let's Gang Together and Lynch Andrew Welch' board, yeah understandable but the more beneficial boards and sites there are the more people here of EV and the more $$$ andrew gets
Mazca, new moderator of the EV Developer's Corner.