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[Lisias]

18 hours ago, Mr. Kerbin said:

If I name a star Debdeb and it’s planets Gurdamma, Donk, Rask and Rusk, etc (the planned planets from KSP2) , will I be banned or sued?

Theoretically, the owner of the IP can sue any of us for any reason they would like, like picking our noses while playing. If the Clerk will file it, or the Judge will not dismiss it, it is a completely different history.

So, a better question would be "would the new IP owner request me to take down my mod if I do it?", and the answer is... maybe, but I don't see why they would do it as long you don't charge money for the add'on and make clear that KSP2 "owns" the names you are using - i.e., you acknowledge the trademarks and don't claim they are your own. The absolute majority of cases I had see about were about defending the trademarks - the companies are compelled to sue you because otherwise they risk losing their rights. But with you acknowledging they are the legal owners of the names you are using, you remove this variable from their equation.

Unless when led by pathological narcissists (some are, unfortunately), Companies only sue people if they are going to lose something if they don't, or if they are going to gain something if they do. Keep this in mind, and you will dodge a lot of legal bullets in the future by preventing them from being fired at first place.

You would be using these material in the claim of Fair Use (or Fair Dealing in UK, or whatever) - but this part you don't need to state on any document, it's necessary and sufficient that you state correctly who owns what, and this is enough. In legalese, less is usually more.

Modding in general are a somewhat gray area - we here on KSP¹ were incredibly lucky on being part of a development process where modding were not only encouraged, but actively promoted by the (at that time) IP owners. We have even (mostly) clear rules about what is permissible or not around here.

To the best of my knowledge (and this is the time in which the Law demands me to say "I'm not a lawyer, please seek professional counseling to confirm my opinions"), you should be fine by doing it, as long:

• Do not even imply,  by omission or whatever, you "own" any involved Copyrights and Trademarks. Make clear who owns what. It's the reason I spam my repositories with a file called NOTICE.
• Promptly comply with a rightful take down notice from the IP owners.
  • You are entitled to ask for proof of ownership, but usually you will know they are the owners because they will hire a lawyer to reach you.
  • You are also entitled to fight back, but...
    • What you would gain by doing it? What you would lose by not doing it?
      • Always answer to yourself these questions before attempting anything legal.
• Don't devalue yourself neither. Even if the "worst" happens, you can relaunch later your add'on changing the names.
  • You will still own anything you create yourself, you are only liable by using what others created themselves.

Copyrights, Trademarks et all are a royal pain in the cheeks. It's unfortunate we, pro bono authors, have to deal with this crap, but... Life is what life is.

Don't hesitate to ask for further information - or even evidences to confirm anything I said. In fact, I strongly encourage you to doubt anything and everything and asks (perhaps privately) for evidences (what I will gladly oblige).

Cheers!

Edited 4 hours ago by Lisias
The day they outlaw tyops will precede the day I will go up the river...

[PDCWolf]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

So, a better question would be "would the new IP owner request me to take down my mod if I do it?", and the answer is... maybe,

Names are not protected in this way. I could develop a first person shooter where the main character is Jebediah Kerman, and so long as he isn't a little green astronaut man from a planet called Kerbin, it's fair game.

In that same vein you'd have to consider that those names were used as part of promotional material labeled as non-final, so for the legal eye, those assets are so many layers deep inside a non-market-existing realm that they enjoy literally zero protection from copyright. You can't copyright ideas and concepts.

Finally, there's the case for referential material (as how S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl has an easter egg with a dead Freeman and a note talking about how he had to trade his crowbar for a can of spam after leaving black mesa) and fair use, where the former is definitely applicable even though the later might not.

Edited 3 hours ago by PDCWolf

[Mr. Kerbin]

And the idea, sort of.

Pretty much recreating them into KSP.

[Lisias]

45 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Names are not protected in this way. I could develop a first person shooter where the main character is Jebediah Kerman, and so long as he isn't a little green astronaut man from a planet called Kerbin, it's fair game.

If they are trademarked, yes they are. Try to sell something with the name "Mickey Mouse" nowadays (I only know a single case of success, to tell you the true). I had seen lawsuits about names before - but, as I had said before, Companies can sue us by picking our noses while playing if they find a way to profit from it, so some of that lawsuits I'm aware could be just legal trolling (it happens).

Copyrights and Trademarks are two completely different things, anyway.

 

42 minutes ago, Mr. Kerbin said:

And the idea, sort of.

Pretty much recreating them into KSP.

In a way or another, I still suggest to handle the case as they would be protected this way. There's nothing to gain in doing it or not, but there's potentially something to lose by not doing it. You are dealing with their IP in a way or another: if the names are not defensible, they will use something else that is.

 

45 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Finally, there's the case for referential material (as how S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl has an easter egg with a dead Freeman and a note talking about how he had to trade his crowbar for a can of spam after leaving black mesa) and fair use, where the former is definitely applicable even though the later might not.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Valve choosing not to exercise their rights doesn't means they don't have such rights

See the Mickey Mouse example above.

Edited 2 hours ago by Lisias
brute force post merge

[PDCWolf]

Just now, Lisias said:

If they are trademarked, yes they are.

Which is not the case here for what's being discussed. This is not a trademark issue, this is a copyright issue. A trademark is a unique mix of text or imagery that identifies a product or a company, nothing to do with the name of an asset in a game, which could potentially enjoy copyright protection by being considered to be made up of artistic assets. Again, not the case for this discussion since the suing party would have to prove debdeb was already part of the assets in the product licensed to the users.

If you're really scared about legal litigation, I can almost guarantee (as much as a non US non law student can) that recycling the names is not a problem at all, those names aren't copyrighted nor trademarked. If you plan to copy the names and designs of those assets, there could be a problem if the development of KSP2 is restarted as a case could be argued where your usage could damage the future available market for those assets (think your mod is bad, and thus damages the image of those systems when they come out officially, very weird but definitely arguable, specially since the court would have to consider what market does actually exist for the original assets). However all of this is moot if you do it in a way that's referential, think homage, commentary or parody, which falls under fair use.

On your favor is the fact that the game is currently abandoned, thus it's easily arguable that the authors haven’t shown any intention of repurposing the assets or enforcing their rights, thus the likelihood of legal action is low.

At the end of the day, every moddable game has mods that restore cut content, which directly use copyrighted assets, so your work, being a homage/referential take on those assets which never actually came out, has very little risk to be pursued legally.

[Lisias]

15 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Which is not the case here for what's being discussed. This is not a trademark issue, this is a copyright issue.

No. It IS a potential trademark issue. The user is not asking if he/she can use the assets from KSP2 (what would be a copyright issue). The user is asking about using the names (what's not a copyright issue - but can be a trademark issue).

Additionally... Please remember: USA is a Common Law ruled country, the current IP owner is a USA Company, we don't know if the next IP owner is also a USA Company, and the trademarks on a Common Law country works differently from a country ruled by the Roman Law.

You don't need to register a mark to own it on USA, you are exercising the so called "Common Law Trademark", and this is defensible on a Court of Law.

As I said before, Copyrights, Trademarks et all are a royal pain in the cheeks.

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Lisias
Better phrasing.

[Gargamel]

@Mr. Kerbin, as I mentioned above, nobody on the forums is part of the PD/TT legal department.    They have no idea what you will or will not be sued for.    And we do not need another argument by a group armchair lawyers disrupting another thread.   
 

The simple advice to make your mod, as long as you don’t use any of the assets from KSP2, you can make whatever planets you want.  If you’re really paranoid about the names, then don’t name them the same, make some small changes so they’re not copies.  

[Mr. Kerbin]

1 minute ago, Gargamel said:

@Mr. Kerbin, as I mentioned above, nobody on the forums is part of the PD/TT legal department.    They have no idea what you will or will not be sued for.    (snip)

The simple advice to make your mod, as long as you don’t use any of the assets from KSP2, you can make whatever planets you want.  If you’re really paranoid about the names, then don’t name them the same, make some small changes so they’re not copies.  

Thanks.