Normal Topic So what is the skinny on the court case - THREAD NOT FOR BATTLES (Read 627 times)
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So what is the skinny on the court case - THREAD NOT FOR BATTLES
Mar 2nd, 2016 at 4:46pm
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I saw some comments on Facebook talking about how MHG actually put some text on their site saying that the trademark for V&V belongs to FGU.  Can anyone confirm?  Is the court case finally done?  Please let it be so.
  
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Re: So what is the skinny on the court case - THREAD NOT FOR BATTLES
Reply #1 - Mar 2nd, 2016 at 7:19pm
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Jeff Dee and Jack Herman have declined to give any details regarding the case's outcome, following the judge-led negotiations on January twelfth this year.  However, drawing implication from the fact that there have been no further utterances or requests for assistance on the MHG site regarding their kickstarter for bar-approved legal representation in Arizona, I think we can pretty safely conclude that MHG has got at least enough pull to publish work with the V&V trademark on it - be that the 2.0, 2.1, or 3.0 systems.  Jeff Dee has stated that MHG is getting ready for a formal public announcement on this subject, but has also indicated that things are getting assembled "behind the scenes" somewhat slower than what MHG (and, presumably, FGU as well) would like .

Taking the stance that "No news is good news", I'm going to take MHG's relative silence as an indicator that both MHG and FGU essentially share the trademark at this point; I'd speculate that people who want to write and publish for FGU using the 2.0 system will be free to do so, while MHG will be using 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0.  One of Mr. Dee's latest posts on the MHG site indicates that they are updating "Crisis at Crusader Citadel" for 3.0, and that alone tells me that matters are, for MHG at least, in a go-ahead status.  If FGU keeps publishing new V&V module/sourcebook work for 2.0, then it's clear that Scott Bizar has got his company's end of it addressed as well.
  
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Re: So what is the skinny on the court case - THREAD NOT FOR BATTLES
Reply #2 - Mar 14th, 2016 at 10:25pm
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My take on the situation is this:
- Scott Bizar / FGU owns the trademark for V&V. If you take nothing else from this, take that away.
- Scott Bizar / FGU is letting Dee/Herman/Monkeyhouse use the trademark for their own products.
- Monkeyhouse owns the copyright for the 1st Edition Rules, the 2nd Edition (1982) rules and the variant (version 2.1).
- FGU still has contracts to produce all the other books and the copyrights of the other writers still stand (Destroyers, FORCE, Doc Porky-hips, Devils Domain, Honor, Most Wanted, etc.). Can those authors going forward and write more content for either company? Sure. Just like before.
- The 25K that Monkeyhouse raised will probably go to paying off legal fees (for their lawyer) and legal penalties (for the defamation suit they lost to Bizar and penalties stacked against them in Florida).
- FGU is still producing books, and now I'd suspect Monkeyhouse will begin to increase production. If not, WTF was the point to the lawsuit?

So... who won? Well, this is a friendly post, so I will simply say that FGU won the trademark and Monkeyhouse got $25K, so I guess both sides have reason to be happy. As for the fans... perhaps having companies vying for V&V dollars is a good thing. My hope is that whatever comes out in the long run is competitive in this marketplace, and that the glory days are ahead of us.

That's my take on the situation. Although it does still leave a few questions remaining... Wink

Anyway, now I'm just starting to

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