Yuku free message boards

SCREENSHOTS!







My view: the Warhammer (called such in the graphics) here is completely different IN SURFACE DETAIL to the Studio Nue anime original, but FUNCTIONALLY identical to the concept in the original Battletech game. It probably fits the legal definition of reverse-engineered. I wouldn't want to be in the courtroom for this case.

There was just a ruling in a UK court on a suit between Lucasfilm and the costume designer who created the Imperial Stormtrooper armor suits for the first three (New Hope/Empire Strikes Back/Return of the Jedi) Star Wars movies. The designer won because the suits were considered Industrial Design rather than Art, and the copyright for I.D. only runs 15 years. So in defense of FASA/Wizkids/Smith & Tinker yadda yadda yadda, the mecha designs for Macross TV became public domain (or at least reverted to Studio Nue!) in 1998 if this theory was valid in this case. Now, for the VF-1 Valkyrie designs, they were used again in Macross 7 (1994+15=2009!), so if they were used again in Frontier as well--even in a cameo!--Big West might still have a case to retain the copyright on the VF-1. But the Destroids we know in the Unseen set were only used in Macross TV and the DYRL movie, AFAIK.

I'd forgotten about the video games. Which ones had direct Big West copyright/trademark linkage? VF-X? VFX-2? 2036? More importantly, are the Destroids and Battlepods used with the same designs as the TV series? If so, then Big West (and Studio Nue) could countersue for intellectual property rights infringement.

We're talking about courts and LEGAL definitions. Not what the "man on the street" says. Besides, we aren't privvy to the legal agreements made between Studio Nue and the producers of Macross TV at the time the show was made. In addition, the Industrial Design argument can be made because of the secondary products that brought all this about in the first place...the model kits. Studio Nue's work went both directions at once.