A swell Battlestar Galactica mod for Nexus drew the attention of NBC Universal, who sent a cease-and-desist over to ModDB, which had been hosting the work on it. And 19 other BSG mods. All have been wiped out.
“I was shocked and saddened when i got the message from ModDB admins that our mod, the Nexus BSG mod is being pulled due to copyright claims of NBC Universal,” one of the mod’s leads wrote. “This we cannot fight, these are the terms of ModDB, and we are making our projects based on NBCU’s intellectual property.”
Nonetheless, this rag-tag fugitive fleet is on a lonely quest for permission from NBCU to continue with the mod. They’re asking people to start an email writing campaign through the company’s official contact-us page.
We’ve seen big bad IP holders show mercy in these situations before, but it sometimes takes years, and that’s involving companies whose IPs were already video games. NBCU simply may not have any sympathy for the modders because they have little exposure to such communities. The ModDB thread is not full of much optimism; many are talking about boycotts and anger and exacting any kind of revenge they can, which will probably be not much.
That’s for the Nexus mod. Apparently those who worked on the BSG Diaspora mod are pissed that their work was obliterated now that NBCU finally noticed what was going on.
This only means that the mod work is gone from ModDB; maybe these projects will be taken underground to another host meantime.
Calling Out to All Battlestar Galactica Modders! [ModDB — Thanks Paul W!]
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