Battlestar Galactica Mods Get Frakked By NBCUniversal

[The Wooster]

Battlestar Galactica Mods Get Frakked By NBCUniversal

NBCUniversal has shut down twenty Battlestar Galactica themed mods by sending a cease-and-desist to the popular mod hosting site, ModDB.

Fans of 2004's relentlessly grim Battlestar Galactica remake aren't spoiled for choice when it comes to game tie-ins. Faced with a middling browser-based MMO [http://us.battlestar-galactica.bigpoint.com/] and a poorly-received retro shooter, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE5Yeh0VwOU&feature=related] fans decided to take things into their own hands, developing a series of BSG themed mods for games like Nexus: The Jupiter Incident and Freespace 2.

Unfortunately, the trailer [http://youtu.be/yAam9HmeLoE] for the frankly excellent looking Nexus: Battlestar Galactica, helped along by a feature on Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5845927/finally-play-a-battlestar-galactica-game-that-does-what-the-show-did-best/gallery/1], came to the attention of BSG copyright owner NBCUniversal, who promptly popped off a cease and desist to ModDB, [http://www.moddb.com/] the site hosting the mod. In response, ModDB removed Nexus: Battlestar Galactica from the site, along with nineteen other mods that infringed on NBCU's copyrights.

"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," said a lead dev for the mod. "This we cannot fight, these are the terms of ModDB, and we are making our projects based on NBCU's intellectual property."

He went on to add that the only way the project could continue would be with NBCU's blessing, and suggested that fans of the mod contact the company via their contact us page [http://www.nbcuni.com/contact-us/#]. He also stressed that mod proponents have to make their points "politely and with logic," presumably disappointing several angry forum members who were busy looking for a shoebox to defecate in.

According to Kotaku, creators of BSG: Diaspora [http://diaspora.hard-light.net/], a BSG themed space-combat sim based on the Freespace 2 engine, were angered by the removal of their work from ModDB and promised that development of the free game would continue elsewhere.

Source: ModDB forums [http://www.moddb.com/forum/thread/calling-out-to-all-battlestar-galactica-modders/] via Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5848073/takedown-notice-sends-battlestar-galactica-modders-fleeing-from-the-nbc-university-tyranny]


Permalink

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Why shut it down? They aren't making money off of it.

 

[VincentX3]

Why shut it down? They aren't making money off of it.

"BEKAUZ ITS MINEZ!! IF I CANT MAKE MONYSS THEN OMGZ MAN! CEASE AND DERSIST!"

That's why.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

Let's just hope they don't get rid of the mods for Star Trek: Bridge Commander. They're cool.

Also heaven help me if the major studios really crack down on Second Life. I don't know what I'd do if they took away my TARDIS, Stargates, and X-Wing. Then it'd all just be about Furry Bondage sex

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Why do these people have to be such dicks all the time? This is a whole new level of being a dick. I hope they go broke and jump off of a 50 story building, the cocksuckers.

 

[Normandyfoxtrot]

Why shut it down? They aren't making money off of it.

Presumably they believe it's to close to their own BB MMO I disagree being as I've played both nexus (there is a rare thing XD) and their BB-MMO but I can vaguely see where a outsider could make that mistake. Add in the knee jerkiness of corporate trademarking and copy writing legal departments and walla.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Let's just hope they don't get rid of the mods for Star Trek: Bridge Commander. They're cool.

Also heaven help me if the major studios really crack down on Second Life. I don't know what I'd do if they took away my TARDIS, Stargates, and X-Wing. Then it'd all just be about Furry Bondage sex

There's something incredibly depressing about the fact that it's legally possible to do so in the first place.

If you think about what second life is meant to be (in it's ideal form that is, which isn't quite the same as the actual situation), it becomes a little disturbing.

Consider for instance if you had a full-size X-wing mockup sitting in your backyard... Do you think some lawyer could just come along and tell you that because it infringes copyright, they could come onto your property without asking, and destroy it?

Yet because a virtual world such as second life is entirely digital in nature, this can easily be done. And it's further facilitated by the way such worlds basically create a centralised point of control for any copies of an object.

Let's say you made 300 model X-wings and sold them, then got sued for having done so... Whoever bought them off you still has their model unless the lawyers go after all 300 of them individually.

Contrast that to the digital situation, where in suing you they can delete the master, and by association (due primarily to how online worlds work more so than the mere fact that it's digital information), delete every single copy of it at the same time.

The contrast in the degree of centralised control is staggering.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

This is disappointing, but was probably inevitable. Given how much money video game tie-ins can involve, they're afraid that some people are going to beat them to it and they won't be able to swim in their giant pools of cash. Even beyond confusing the existing game with it, there's a strong possibility that they plan to make future games out of the franchise. And they probably wouldn't want to have to even worry about competing with these mods, which might be considerably closer to what they eventually make than the MMO is.

On the other hand, this does say something pretty remarkable about the modding community: we've reached a point where a handful of people doing something as a hobby can actually produce something that threatens to be on par with or even better than an official production. That's pretty fucking exciting.

 

[Normandyfoxtrot]

This is disappointing, but was probably inevitable. Given how much money video game tie-ins can involve, they're afraid that some people are going to beat them to it and they won't be able to swim in their giant pools of cash. Even beyond confusing the existing game with it, there's a strong possibility that they plan to make future games out of the franchise. And they probably wouldn't want to have to even worry about competing with these mods, which might be considerably closer to what they eventually make than the MMO is.

On the other hand, this does say something pretty remarkable about the modding community: we've reached a point where a handful of people doing something as a hobby can actually produce something that threatens to be on par with or even better than an official production. That's pretty fucking exciting.

Honestly I don't find that terrible surprising that mod makers can beat devs that's been true for a long time, it's mostly a matter of much less or nonexistent time tables, oh, the potentially amazing game ruined by too harsh timetables.

 

[duchaked]

I still really wish I had downloaded the game back when it was still on Live, but I hadn't even known about BSG back then heh

 

[j0frenzy]

Why shut it down? They aren't making money off of it.

Because corporations hate fans and the free advertisment they provide.

Or because they want to keep control of a trademark that they are still actively using. I think that answer is a bit closer to home.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

This is disappointing, but was probably inevitable. Given how much money video game tie-ins can involve, they're afraid that some people are going to beat them to it and they won't be able to swim in their giant pools of cash. Even beyond confusing the existing game with it, there's a strong possibility that they plan to make future games out of the franchise. And they probably wouldn't want to have to even worry about competing with these mods, which might be considerably closer to what they eventually make than the MMO is.

On the other hand, this does say something pretty remarkable about the modding community: we've reached a point where a handful of people doing something as a hobby can actually produce something that threatens to be on par with or even better than an official production. That's pretty fucking exciting.

Eh... there already is a licensed Battlestar game you know. It's a really crappy MMO if I recall correctly (that or a F2P space shooter). Though you are partly right, this is obviously an act of fear, thinking people might catch wind that a similar, but better, game might be a few clicks away.

Don't give mods TOO much credit... they are working off pre-existing unaltered tech (usually) that the developers had to either make from scratch or re-code to suit their goals.

Also most mods take 5+ years to make total conversions of pre-existing games compared to the standard 2 to 3 year development cycle of the standard game. The ones that add new animations, new code, new scripts, voice acting etc. take even longer. How long has Black Mesa been in development for? What about the Dark Forces mod for Jedi Academy? How many dead projects are there because the Modder who started it got fed up?

That said, I love mods and I don't want to disrespect them... just trying to shed a bit of light on the industries behalf.

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

Copyright: Squashing creativity since the invention of being a dick.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Rename the mod to Battlestar Cosmica, rename Cylons to Colons, presto! They've got nothing on you.

Better yet, call it Warsun Nebula, and call the cylons SpaceNet D-model 9001s... it would be funny because they could have 2 trademark or copyright infringements on their hands.

 

[Irridium]

Good thing I downloaded that Battlestar mod for freespace 2 already.

It's pretty fun.

Sucks to hear this happen. Not sure why they pick now, after the mods have been up for years and are all over the internet instead of cracking down years later.

 

[HardRockSamurai]

DAMMIT!!!

I guess this means I'm going to have to shut down the work on my "30 Rock vs The Office" Quake 3 MOD...

Still, at least this gives me more time to work on my indie game; I'm thinking of calling it "Scrollz Edge." Can't get sued for that, right?