The formerly-alleged logo removal was from console game covers and from marketing materials. Which, while sketchy, isn't necessarily a violation of copyright, unless the game devs designed the covers.
> Attempt to pirate the game by the publisher was discovered (February). (Note: this is alleged to have happened long before publisher won on appeal, so it’s not as if the publisher decided to pirate the game after the court determined they are owed the source.)
Actually, there are two alleged instances of piracy.
First, in Feb 2020, their game was slated to be listed on a distribution platform that was not agreed upon.
(In August 2020, they removed their game from Steam.)
Second, in Feb 2021 (just last week!), the deluxe version of their game was listed on Steam with identifying watermarks, copyright, digital signing, and more removed _from the software_.
I’m not sure about publisher’s actions after they won the appeal in late 2020. Deluxe release certainly seems a bit aggressive, but without knowing the details of the ruling it’s hard for me to have a [layman’s] opinion on whether it was acceptable for them to do it.
My [non-lawyer’s] impression based on the older post is that, if true, the publisher acted maliciously enough in early 2020, and the fact that the court decided the appeal in publisher’s favour in the first place weirds me out a bit. It looks like emergency COVID regulations against contract termination came into play? They were designed to protect struggling small businesses, but in this case ended up favoring publisher’s booming enterprise (game sales appear to have done very, very well during the pandemic).
> the fact that the court decided the appeal in publisher’s favour in the first place weirds me out a bit. It looks like emergency COVID regulations against contract termination came into play?
Honestly, the surprising part is that Frogwares won in July. To terminate the contract, they asked Nacon to hand in justification for their costs of distribution and used Nacon's failure to deliver them in a month as justification. As that's not explicitely part of the contract - Frogwares can ask to audit Nacon and Nacon has to allow them to do so in a month, they can't ask to be delivered arbitrary documents - it was obvious that the termination would be deemed illegal.
I don't understand why Frogwares keep speaking of the emergency COVID regulations. They would have allowed the publisher to be late in its contractual obligations but Nacon wasn't. The appeal court explicitely stated they didn't apply as both Nacon and Frogwares kept their activities going as usual.
But to give you an idea of how badly Frogwares managed this lawsuit, the court went out its way to explicitely point they were throwing out parts of Frogwares'"mise en demeure" - the letter explicitely asking Nacon to submit documents - becuase it was to poorly and vaguely worded.
To be harsh, Frogwares are going at it like amateurs. At the end of the day, the heart of the issue is a disagreement regarding the amount they are owned. I don't understand why they didn't just pursue that angle and I don't think the amount of press they are giving the whole thing is going to help them much.
> Attempt to pirate the game by the publisher was discovered (February). (Note: this is alleged to have happened long before publisher won on appeal, so it’s not as if the publisher decided to pirate the game after the court determined they are owed the source.)
Actually, there are two alleged instances of piracy.
First, in Feb 2020, their game was slated to be listed on a distribution platform that was not agreed upon.
(In August 2020, they removed their game from Steam.)
Second, in Feb 2021 (just last week!), the deluxe version of their game was listed on Steam with identifying watermarks, copyright, digital signing, and more removed _from the software_.