Legal threats are being sent out to gaming websites as you read this, Harmony Gold demanding that they pull down the trailer for Mechwarrior 5. Why? It’s a long story.
See, Mechwarrior (and its daddy, BattleTech) haven’t always used original designs for their mech. They sometimes straight up stole them from existing series, particularly Japan’s Macross, which in the US forms the first part of the Robotech trilogy.
So BattleTech and Harmony Gold – who hold the Robotech rights in the West – went to court in 1996. End result? BattleTech (and by extension Mechwarrior) ceased using mech designs lifted from Macross, and instead employed only mechs they had themselves designed.
Harmony Gold’s complaint in this instance is that the Mechwarrior 5 trailer uses designs that they own the trademark to. Now, they may have a point – the red mech in the image above looks a little like the Tomahawk Destroid from Macross (pictured below). But only a little. Surely not enough to warrant legal action.
We’ll update when we hear more.
Ribs
Friday, September 4, 2009 at 1:10 PMAs you can see your honor, their giant make believe robot looks very similar to OUR giant make believe robot……
metalisticpain
Friday, September 4, 2009 at 5:15 PMhahah nice call ribs
I hope we dont get stuck in development/legal hell with this title.
Cindax
Friday, September 4, 2009 at 6:41 PMWith the huge number of Toys, Comics, Anime, Video and Board games out there that have ‘giant make believe robots’ this seems a little like McD’s suing BK’s for having a burger that looks somewhat like their burger.
anonymous
Saturday, September 5, 2009 at 12:11 AMThe snake is biting its tail again, another episode of americunt FAIL lawsuits
Broadside
Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at 2:37 AMThis is the biggest load of rubbish to come out of copyright laws in a while. instead of C&D letters it should be a politely worded letter to the creators saying OI.
Combine
Monday, October 12, 2009 at 3:13 PMThis is how i see it.Battletech gives us an entire universal playground sandbox to play in while Robotech sits on their designs and cry foul every time one of “their designs” are seen in public?Ill side with smith and tinker thanks.At least FASA did something with these designs and created a world from scratch.Multiple factions,pirates,Clans,mecenaries,all the aspects of a long term franchise.What has Harmoney Gold done recently besides re-release Robotech anime?Hmmm?
Starblade
Monday, March 1, 2010 at 4:05 PMWhat I dont understand here is why Hamony Gold is putting out a C&D for this game.
Why dont they instead support S&T and help them develop the game.
They could stand to make good money from this themselves if they do, and it would have been good PR for them as well.
Instead they are now having most of the MW community rise up against them, something which could easily cut into their precious profits.
What this is all about is money, nothing else.
They jusy want to keep all the profits for themselves.