Techdirt. Stories filed under "king's quest" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "king's quest"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 29 Jun 2010 04:21:41 PDT Activision Comes To Its Senses; Allows King's Quest Fan Game To Live On (Again) Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100629/03153110003.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100629/03153110003.shtml backed down, and gave the go ahead, so long as the name of the game was The Silver Lining, rather than King's Quest IX. But, of course, you may recall that earlier this year, Activision, who had merged with Vivendi, suddenly decided that the old permission no longer applied, and demanded that all work on the game cease and go away.

Thankfully, Nick Coghlan alerts us that, after many months, this story actually is turning into a repeat of the 2005 story, as Activision has come to its senses and is letting the game live on. Apparently the negative publicity over Activision's previous position convinced the company that it was making a mistake, and it rescinded the cease-and-desist.

While this story appears to have a happy ending where common sense prevails over ridiculous legal threats, the whole situation once again highlights the problems of permission-culture. These fans were trying to build something that celebrated a game that hasn't been commercially released in ages. And yet, twice now, they've had to deal with threats to be shut down, with the second time coming after they'd already secured "permission." This is not how culture is supposed to work.

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]]> permission-culture http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100629/03153110003 Mon, 1 Mar 2010 15:17:53 PST Activision Kills Fan Game Project, Despite Fan License Granted By Previous Rightsholders Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100301/0045448331.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100301/0045448331.shtml King's Quest have been working for eight years on a fan-made sequel to the last such game. Back in 2005, Vivendi (then the rights holder) sent them a cease and desist, but eventually worked out a "non-commercial fan license" that allowed them to continue. Fast forward to today, and Activision now owns those rights and has decided that the fans' efforts should all go to waste. The company has told the fan group to shut it all down:
After talks and negotiations in the last few months between ourselves and Activision, they have reached the decision that they are not interested in granting a non-commercial license to The Silver Lining, and have asked that we cease production and take down all related materials on our website.
This is "promoting the progress"? You have to hand it to Activision, though. Not only has it pissed off a large group of fans, it's stomped out eight years of their hard work as well. I'm sure that will make those folks that much more excited about purchasing Activision games.

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