Palladium & Intellectual Property

[jreece06]

I'm not sure about in the USA, but in Canada, three points of difference is often enough to claim a product is "substantially different" from its inspiration (IE - Open Office is basically Microsoft Office, but just different enough to not infringe on copywrite)

There are also laws in both countries dealing with tributes and parodies. Weird Al doesn't have to buy the rights to all the songs he mocks.

[NMI]

Riathenors:

1. Are Symbiots that bound with a host.
2. Use magic
3. Their weapons grow from within
4. Dimension Travel
5. The Symbiot can bond with non-humanoid creatures.

Predators:

1. Are humanoid alien race unto themselves
2. Dont use magic [that we know of]
3. Their weapons are hard tech and must be built, acquired and attached to their existing armor.
4. Not known to Dimensional travel
5. Non-humanoid Predators are not known to exist.

[Jorel]

And Xits aren't based on Alien...you can try act like the inspiration isn't there, but we can all see it for ourselves.

[Asterios]

I'm sure that everyone knows that Palladium sometimes 'borrows' ideas from popular movies. I usually see this as a sort of tribute to the movie in question. However, I wonder how this translates legally.

For example, the Rianthor Warriors are (very obviously) a rip-off of the Predator Warriors from the movies of the same name: same look, same weapon systems, same helmet design, etc. The rights to the Predator franchise are owned by Paramount.

I'm guessing there must be some sort of legal clause that allows this sort of thing, but I wonder because isn't this the same thing that Harmony Gold recently sued Hasbro over?

Can anybody shed any light on this?

Its simple Palladium has no imagination, so they "borrow" from others, and while changing a few things here and there they skate a very thin line, but not to say that Palladium only does this, cause lets face it unique things are running out, pick out something and odds are someone has done it already, so Palladium is forced to take an already out there design and add a new spin to it, but seeing as how I don't play the game I wouldn't know what they did to change it.

Warning: User warned for insulting Palladium. - NMI

[Kryptt]

I'm sure that everyone knows that Palladium sometimes 'borrows' ideas from popular movies. I usually see this as a sort of tribute to the movie in question. However, I wonder how this translates legally.

For example, the Rianthor Warriors are (very obviously) a rip-off of the Predator Warriors from the movies of the same name: same look, same weapon systems, same helmet design, etc. The rights to the Predator franchise are owned by Paramount.

I'm guessing there must be some sort of legal clause that allows this sort of thing, but I wonder because isn't this the same thing that Harmony Gold recently sued Hasbro over?

Can anybody shed any light on this?

Its simple Palladium has no imagination, so they "borrow" from others, and while changing a few things here and there they skate a very thin line, but not to say that Palladium only does this, cause lets face it unique things are running out, pick out something and odds are someone has done it already, so Palladium is forced to take an already out there design and add a new spin to it, but seeing as how I don't play the game I wouldn't know what they did to change it.

Then when someone does the same thing to PB they turn around and sue. Imagine if paramount did that to PB over their predator inspired creatures. Same with the aliens inspired creatures. Talk about a hypocrite.

[Josh Hilden]

There are no or very few new ideas in fiction. As long as trademarked names and such aren't used and direct images aren't lifted it's perfectly kosher.

[Asterios]

Also the same can be said of GW's Necrons and Terminators. tell me they both don't look alike.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Um... not trying to be as overtly hostile here...

There -is- such a thing as parallel development. Two totally separate creations that are similar, totally independent of one another. It happens. The world is wide and many people are inspired by many of the same things, and sometimes, things are developed totally seperate from one another.

I won't say it's common. But it happens.

Then there's.... lets call it an homage. Where you're inspired by something and, wish to pay respect to the original creation with honor. "I liked your apple tarts so much that I developed my own recipe for apple tarts. It's very much like yours and inspired by yours but I add cinnamon!"

Those are much more common than 100% ignorant parallel development. Accredited homage is a thing. It can be an honor.

Unaccredited homage.... can be... less well received. Which some above in the thread seem to be implying.

Yes, many things in Palladium games are.... at the very very minimum "Inspired" by classical fantasy or science fiction elements. Yes, the Riathenors are clearly inspired by the Yautja (Predators). There's too many similarities and likenesses to claim other wise. There are differences, as NMI has pointed out. Now... with out being the creator of the Riathenors, one doesn't know if they are a rip off, with the differences put in to avoid IP claims, or if the Riathenors were inspired by but different due to them just being different. We don't know.

As we don't 'know' claims of ripping off are a bit strong. There are many liknesses, and such. "Homage/Rip off" is hard to say, even harder to prove. As pointed out above, in this day and age it's easy to say "It's All Been Done". 100% pure original ideas are hard to come by. We watch so many movies, read so many books, comics, yes indeed, play so many different RPGs as we grow and develop, our imaginations are flavored by all these things, so our own creations come out, spiced and flavored by all those things that come before.

Not putting too fine a point on it though, coming on the pally forums and claiming their creations are rip-offs, is a quick way to trouble.

[Giant2005]

And Xits aren't based on Alien...you can try act like the inspiration isn't there, but we can all see it for ourselves.

That is a bit of a stretch... The only thing the Xit and Aliens have in common is that they both come from eggs and that is a pretty loose comparison considering the Aliens have the face clutcher stage and require a living host to fully develop. There are a plethora of large insectoids in fiction that they are pretty similar to but I am pretty certain that the concept of "large insects" is as public domain as it gets.
As for the Riathenor, NMI elaborated on that one quite a bit already. In practice they are much closer to something like the Goa'uld of Stargate than Predator - they are a parasitic organism that takes over a host body giving it heightened abilities at the cost of free will or any sense of self. Of course Predator lore is still not 100% defined so it could very well turn out that the Predators really are parasitic in nature in a similar manner but I don't think Kevin could be judged if that turned out to be the case - the prosecutor would have to somehow prove that Kevin is a psychic powerful enough to be able to see years into the future with a significant amount of clarity.

[Josh Hilden]

I think we are really just talking about mining tropes not stealing ideas.

[Raiden]

The Necrons from Three Galaxies and quite scarily similar to the Yuhzahn Vong from the Star Wars expanded universe.

[Pepsi Jedi]

As we don't 'know' claims of ripping off are a bit strong. There are many liknesses, and such. "Homage/Rip off" is hard to say, even harder to prove. As pointed out above, in this day and age it's easy to say "It's All Been Done". 100% pure original ideas are hard to come by. We watch so many movies, read so many books, comics, yes indeed, play so many different RPGs as we grow and develop, our imaginations are flavored by all these things, so our own creations come out, spiced and flavored by all those things that come before.

With all due respect, that sounds like a cop-out. I don't think anything you said would be an adequate defence in a court of law.

Well we're not in a court of law. But more to the point there's alot of legal things that would need to be proven before it even got to a court of law.

Not putting too fine a point on it though, coming on the pally forums and claiming their creations are rip-offs, is a quick way to trouble.

Should I be expecting a couple of RepoBots to show up and shoot me for making a legitimate observation?

I said one of their creations is a rip-off, and it is. I did not say that ALL of their creations are rip-offs. In fact, I disagree with your earlier statement that "100% pure original ideas are hard to come by". Palladium has come up all kinds of original ideas.

[/quote]

Ehhh. I love Palladium. I've played for decades. I love their work but.. well, there's very few 100% original Ideas. Most things in Palladium's games, I can point to other things that came before that carried elements.

That's not me saying they ripped them off, but well when you see a dwarf in a fantasy setting, Kevin/Palladium didn't come up with Dwarves. Or Elves, or Dragons, or ogres, or minotars. And you're going to go "Well classical fantasy. Sure, the things are spread around, but... "

But.. look at the other systems. Heroes Unlimited? I don't have to go there. Super heroes of every stripe and flavor have been around. I can't even talk about "Mutant Underground" with out likely getting in trouble. lol. (Hint. Don't say any words with "X")

Rifts? Well the list on that is huge and long. 30+ World books, 10+ dimension books, Sourcebooks. Clearly I can't list all of the things there, but, many of the elements have shown up in fantasy and sci fi before. High tech power armor? Been done before. Magic? Been done before. Psionics? Been done before, Cyber Knights? There are elements of Knights of the round, and Jedi both, Technological nations, have been done, magic nations have been done. Giant eldrich tentacle beasts (Alien Intelligences), have been done. Vampires, zombies, necromancy. All been done. DBees, are "Aliens". 100s and 100s of different ones can be found in Star Wars, Star Trek, and all over tens of thousands of Science fiction books.

That's not taking away from Palladium. I like what they do with stuff and the way they arrange it and add little new bits to established things. Still there's not that many things you can find in Palladium games that you can't at least partially find in other works, prior to their appearance in Palladium games.

It like how Palladium presents the things that I like. But I'm not going to say that, when I look at a grackle tooth, I don't go "Wow. The Gorn have bulked out" (and if you look at STO, you see they HAVE bulked out.) Or countless other things, found in Palladium dont' have at least aspects of things that come before.

[ScottBernard]

We also wont mention some of the artwork in heroes unlimited, like those bionic claws. They dont remind me of anyone at all.

[NMI]

Ehhh. I love Palladium. I've played for decades. I love their work but.. well, there's very few 100% original Ideas. Most things in Palladium's games, I can point to other things that came before that carried elements.

That's not me saying they ripped them off, but well when you see a dwarf in a fantasy setting, Kevin/Palladium didn't come up with Dwarves. Or Elves, or Dragons, or ogres, or minotars. And you're going to go "Well classical fantasy. Sure, the things are spread around, but... "

But.. look at the other systems. Heroes Unlimited? I don't have to go there. Super heroes of every stripe and flavor have been around. I can't even talk about "Mutant Underground" with out likely getting in trouble. lol. (Hint. Don't say any words with "X")

Rifts? Well the list on that is huge and long. 30+ World books, 10+ dimension books, Sourcebooks. Clearly I can't list all of the things there, but, many of the elements have shown up in fantasy and sci fi before. High tech power armor? Been done before. Magic? Been done before. Psionics? Been done before, Cyber Knights? There are elements of Knights of the round, and Jedi both, Technological nations, have been done, magic nations have been done. Giant eldrich tentacle beasts (Alien Intelligences), have been done. Vampires, zombies, necromancy. All been done. DBees, are "Aliens". 100s and 100s of different ones can be found in Star Wars, Star Trek, and all over tens of thousands of Science fiction books.

That's not taking away from Palladium. I like what they do with stuff and the way they arrange it and add little new bits to established things. Still there's not that many things you can find in Palladium games that you can't at least partially find in other works, prior to their appearance in Palladium games.

It like how Palladium presents the things that I like. But I'm not going to say that, when I look at a grackle tooth, I don't go "Wow. The Gorn have bulked out" (and if you look at STO, you see they HAVE bulked out.) Or countless other things, found in Palladium dont' have at least aspects of things that come before.

I agree with most of what you said. There will always be some things that look similar or are based on similar concepts. I just don't think the Riantors is one of these; they seem to be a straight-up design rip-off of the Predator aliens.

However, I don't think that Paramount Corporation would waste the time and money to bring Palladium to court for copyright infringement because it's such a small thing and Palladium only used Rianthors in one book, and even then it was only a single character. Now, if Palladium came out with a whole book based on the Rianthors that would be a different matter entirely.

Actually, they are listed in 2 books - Aliens Unlimited: Galaxy Guide and Heroes Unlimited Game Masters Guide.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Actually, they are listed in 2 books - Aliens Unlimited: Galaxy Guide and Heroes Unlimited Game Masters Guide.

Ah, I stand corrected. Thanks for the info.

That being said, I don't think it's really a big deal (the Rianthors). But I'm wondering how far a company can go with a homage and not be considered to be 'over the line'.

Each situation would be unique, but the long an short of it is, you can go quite a ways and still be 'legally' ok. Even if everyone and their mom looks at it and goes "Those are Yautja".

You're not wrong that it's likely not to come to court, but you never know.

Look at the last Palladium lawsuit about "Rift". Sometimes people/companies jump on things. Sometimes they let um slide.

[Asterios]

There are also laws in both countries dealing with tributes and parodies. Weird Al doesn't have to buy the rights to all the songs he mocks.

But it is common held belief that a star does not consider themselves a star until Weird "Al" Yankovic does a parody of one of their songs.

[popscythe]

For all the times that I've been warned and moderated for standing up for Palladium, you'd think that someone would have warned or moderate this super obvious troll account Nightforce by now.

Edit: Nightfactory, Nightforce, a rose by any other name.

Warning: User warned for personal attack. -NMI

[popscythe]

I guess "troll account" implies that you're a second account, I was just saying "an account created to troll these forums". I guess troll is a dirty word around here, in the land where reading and understanding the rules to a game is trolling and making 365 threads a year complaining about palladium for ten years is par for the course, so let me rephrase: I approve of the good work you've been doing stirring the pot for your own amusement. It and the reaction to it (or lack thereof) amuses me as well.

Keep them hooks sharp, boys. I swore off posting here for obvious reasons but I got reeled back in. See you the next time a skilled baitman comes around.

Warning: User warned and temporarily banned. - NMI

EDIT: There are no forum members by the name of "Nightforce" either. -NMI