PKC seeks to attack the V:EKN

As Wil Wheaton would say.... Don't be a dick.

having had the time to sit down and read the entire thread and not be on my phone, I have this to say:

Let them rattle their sabers.

no court in america would hear the case unless the VEKN starts making significant money off of this. Even then, what they're doing is tantamount to trying to copyright their VTES fan-fiction.

Jeff Kuta wrote: Dear V:TES Community:

We privately sent the cease and desist letter to the V:EKN Inner Circle (at 1:00AM GMT on September 27th, 2012) because we wanted to privately resolve the issue and not jeopardize any future attempts to publish V:TES.

Carl, Eric, and Jeff

There is only two options :

* you have not thought of the logical consequence, which is scaring away any firm that would try to republish this - since VEKN will have to reveal this in the negociation if they have any shade of honesty lie. In which case you are not very smart. (well, more like fucking stupid)

* you don't care about that and the "not jeopardize" is a lie. It seem way more likely to be honest.

People say "it's not a big deal". It's stupid to say that. If Jeff go seriously in a trial, regardless of what is in Dance Macabre, there is a significant chance he would win, which since VEKN have not fund will bankrupt it.

Also, for editing VtES, the potential financial gain are far weaker than any legal risk, so any sane firm will at least wait the issue to be entirely resolved before doing anything. And it can take several years.

Jeff Kuta wrote: Dear V:TES Community:

We privately sent the cease and desist letter to the V:EKN Inner Circle (at 1:00AM GMT on September 27th, 2012) because we wanted to privately resolve the issue and not jeopardize any future attempts to publish V:TES.

Carl, Eric, and Jeff

I truly hope this is the case, although I have to point out that sending a Cease and Desist letter is not exactly reaching out a friendly hand in hopes of reconciliation. On the other hand, putting mails of an infected situation on a forum like this is hardly reconciliatory either.

In any case, the release of any eventual fan made expansion is not really necessary in any way. Personally I'd rather just stop the whole thing if it means that the game has a larger chance of getting published again and just not worry about it.

Myrdin - it could be presumed that part of the reason for VTES having a possibility to be picked up is that sets can be designed and produced by an official fan body and then printed leading to a new revenue stream

Jeff Kuta wrote: Dear V:TES Community:

We privately sent the cease and desist letter to the V:EKN Inner Circle (at 1:00AM GMT on September 27th, 2012) because we wanted to privately resolve the issue and not jeopardize any future attempts to publish V:TES.

Carl, Eric, and Jeff

1am? Seriously? That doesn't sound like it was meant to let people sleep.

This is not a 'private resolution'. A private resolution would be a Memorandum of Understanding... this seems like a first-shot.

Cease and Desist orders require people to be trading on copyrighted materials. There is nothing available for public consumption. Also, would you three also be happy to remove your material if such a letter was sent to you at 1am by Hasbro and/or CCP (since your material is freely and publicly available)?

Also, if people want to really get pointy, there is the thought that you are condoning industrial espionage since I remember the details of the playtesting agreement including basically "Don't talk about what's in the set unless you've signed the deal". And you three have publicly admitted to not signing any such agreement, but you still claim that your material is currently being worked on by the VEKN. So either, you are looking at information that dates back to when you were in the Design Team (AFAIK 6-9 months old) OR you are encouraging others to break their NDA (which would be promoting industrial espionage) so you could make your claims.