Elite: Dangerous Tabletop Kickstarter Hits Snag

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The Kickstarter for the Elite: Dangerous tabletop role-playing game has hit a legal snag. Based on elements from the 1984 computer game Elite, and the sequels Frontier: Elite II and Frontier: First Encounters published by the video game publisher Frontier Development, the Elite: Dangerous tabletop game's website says:

Elite: Dangerous is the modern day incarnation of the seminal space trading game Elite. 30 years after the original game reinvented the way people experienced playing computer games, Elite: Dangerous Role Playing Game seeks to immerse the role player in the same cut throat galaxy experience by online players.

The problem seems to stem from the fact that one of the rights owners (who had purchased the rights owned by Ian Bell, one of the original developers of the first Elite) is saying that the company who is the current Elite publisher does not have the right to sublicense the rights originally owned by Bell. That is a confusing sentence, and it will no doubt require some legal unpacking to make sense of it. Without actually having access to the documents, it is impossible to figure out who is right in all of this. The basic idea seems to be:

1. Ian Bell and David Braben created the original Elite game, and co-owned some of the rights. Bell licensed his parts of the intellectual property, to allow development of future properties.
2. Chris Jordan, who is either the current owner of Ian Bell's share or the rights, or is representing Bell's share of the intellectual property stake in the Elite games, is saying that the license of Bell's rights were non-transferable. This means that, while publishers could create and publish future Elite computer games, they can not license out those rights to a third party. This would mean that Spidermind Games (the publishers of the tabletop RPG) did not actually have the rights to publish their game.

All of this seems to revolve around whether or not Frontier Development has the right to license the rights to Elite. Again, a confusing and complex sentence.

More on this as it develops...

 

[Desh-Rae-Halra]

This situation sucks, and I hope the legal delay doesn't derail the Kickstarter.

 

[imagineGod]

Ironically, Spidermind Games is not the first company to receive a license to produce a role playing game set in the "Elite: Dangerous" universe. How come nobody noticed the other creators using this intellectual property?

On the same Kickstarter platform, Dave Hughes successfully funded his own variant, but failed to deliver the product till date.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/selezen/elite-encounters-roleplaying-in-the-elite-universe

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[Christopher Helton]

This KS received a lot of attention, which probably brought it to the attention of the rights holder.

 

[MNblockhead]

Big fail on the part of Spiderman Games to not ensure that that the folks they were licensing from had the legal ability to do so. Doesn't seem to have been a lot of due diligence done here.

 

[imagineGod]

This KS received a lot of attention, which probably brought it to the attention of the rights holder.

True talk that, and yet if the Intellectual Property rights holders remain adamant at sanctioning Spidermind Games, those rights holders must explain their official position on all other "Elite: Dangerous" Role Playing Games projects (like "Elite Encounters), a Kickstarter RPG project that collected money from backers for a game that missed all delivery deadlines (the estimated delivery was April 2014).

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...leplaying-in-the-elite-universe/posts/1719800

 

[Desh-Rae-Halra]

This sucks for Spidermind Games, as since their KS campaign hasn't completed, they have collected exactly $0 for all their efforts.

 

[Ovinomancer]

True talk that, and yet if the Intellectual Property rights holders remain adamant at sanctioning Spidermind Games, those rights holders must explain their official position on all other "Elite: Dangerous" Role Playing Games projects (like "Elite Encounters), a Kickstarter RPG project that collected money from backers for a game that missed all delivery deadlines (the estimated delivery was April 2014).

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...leplaying-in-the-elite-universe/posts/1719800

No, they don't. The defendant can attempt the defense that the copyright holder has abandoned the claim through neglect, but it's on the defense to show this, not the holder to prove they have the right to protect their IP.

 

[Morrus]

those rights holders must explain their official position on all other "Elite: Dangerous" Role Playing Games projects

The rights holders don't have to explain anything. The only thing they'll need to demonstrate here is that they do, indeed, have those rights.

 

[Eminence_Grise]

ImagineGod : It's US law that requires to aggressively defend your IP. I do believe this matter is UK law.