Knight Rider: The Fan Game

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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by AFTON ROBOTICS » Fri May 12, 2017 3:32 pm

msKEN wrote:There was actually a pretty good reedit AMA with a very popular video game attorney Ryan Morrison. While good for the information that was shared, very disappointing and devastating for the future of our project. He's pretty much confirmed NBCUniversal can ruin my life at any moment. Even though I've talked to people at NBCU it doesn't matter. The fact alone the gentlemen I spoke to is no longer working there in the legal team since 2015 doesn't help my cause either. Ryan Morrison advised I drop this project like a hot potato and that they (NBCU) can literally destroy me and the project and I'd be forced to sign an NDA and never talk about it again all the while being in debt to NBCU for up to 20 years. I don't think that's worth the risk for me or Daan for that matter. Can read the discussion over here:

https://www.reddit.com/user/VideoGameAt ... life_free/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments ... e/dheb0gc/

This kind of changes everything as far as I'm concerned. Further more I can no longer claim ignorance of the law when its now spelled out for me in black and white. We're here joking about changing the game quite a bit to avoid being sued, well I'm afraid if I want to keep going on this that may be my only choice. I'm going to take some time to think about this. I advise others to check out those links above, if reading isn't your thing they sum it up in this video.

http://theknow.roosterteeth.com/episode ... s-him-down

Open to suggestions and ideas from you guys.
well the only thing i could think of to change the game and not get sued is if it would only have the kr cars with all of there stuff and a map and keep it at that because that would make it look like a gta mod but at the same time it would be 10000000000 better then gta
but that would mean having done all the other stuff for nothing
but it would leave you open to using the non kr stuff in a other game wich since it would not be kr you make mony with that one
tell me would you think?

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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by AFTON ROBOTICS » Fri May 12, 2017 3:42 pm

msKEN wrote: I honestly don't understand how its legal to mod another game and it be fine, but a fan game is just off limits.
i think they are ok with modding games because it give people another reson to buy the game so that they can also have kitt or something else

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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by AFTON ROBOTICS » Fri May 12, 2017 3:46 pm

so is it over?

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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by msKEN » Fri May 12, 2017 3:53 pm

Not over, but can't say I'm not concerned either. I'd drasticly have to change the plot and characters likeness to where it's almost not reconigzeable anymore. At which point you have to almost ask what's the point? We've been at this for years trying to get the characters and car just right and now we might have to throw it all out and go a different direction. I'd essentially have to do a reboot of the concept but take it my own direction. Which is what any smart developer would have done from the get go. Just not the game I wanted to make.
Last edited by msKEN on Fri May 12, 2017 3:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by AFTON ROBOTICS » Fri May 12, 2017 3:56 pm

msKEN wrote:Not over, but can't say I'm not concerned either. I'd drasticly have to change the plot and characters likeness to where it's almost not reconigzeable anymore. At which point you have to almost ask what's the point? We've been at this for years trying to get the characters and car just right and now we might have to throw it all out and go a different direction.
the problem is then tho
how many would still care for it if its not the game they have been promised
what ever happens tho i will always stay behind you and your team

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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by Knight Racer » Fri May 12, 2017 4:00 pm

I would still.play a game about a supeecar, even if it's a new design entirely like, like a spyhunter vehicle or what viper did since the producers claimed that it was a knight rider ripoff.

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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by WittgenTT5/Rstein » Fri May 12, 2017 4:01 pm

msKEN wrote:Not over, but can't say I'm not concerned either. I'd drasticly have to change the plot and characters likeness to where it's almost not reconigzeable anymore. At which point you have to almost ask what's the point? We've been at this for years trying to get the characters and car just right and now we might have to throw it all out and go a different direction. I'd essentially have to do a reboot of the concept but take it my own direction. Which is what any smart developer would have done from the get go. Just not the game I wanted to make.
Can't you just.. go underground? What NBCU can't see can't be sued right?
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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by msKEN » Fri May 12, 2017 4:19 pm

Believe me that's the first thing on my mind. How do you do this without disappointing everyone?

Knight Racer I think bottom line that's what it's going to come too. But wow the money and 1000s of hours spent on that 5th season idea. It's very heart breaking for me. That's not to say we didn't prepare for this but honestly the original story we have as backup just isn't as awesome since it's an all new story that would obviously start at the beginning and have to setup a whole new cast of characters. We can't just jump into the history and mythology when we're stuck setting up our own.

As far as going underground? That's what I always wanted this project to be. I advertised it to gain the attention of other artist and developers so the cat is already out of the bag, I would think it would be easy to link me back to it. I was foolish enough to do interviews and go to events like Story Drive in Germany and show off the project hoping to gain more talent for our team. I've tried to make the project go more silently underground such as killing off the website and Facebook page. But as you see everyone is wanting the website back up so staying underground at this point would be next to impossible.
Last edited by msKEN on Fri May 12, 2017 4:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by WittgenTT5/Rstein » Fri May 12, 2017 4:23 pm

msKEN wrote:Believe me that's the first thing on my mind. How do you do this without disappointing everyone?

Knight Racer I think bottom line that's what it's going to come too. But wow the money and 1000s of hours spent on that 5th season idea. It's very heart breaking for me. That's not to say we didn't prepare for this but honestly the original story we have as backup just isn't as awesome since it's an all new story that would obviously start at the beginning and have to setup a whole new cast of characters. We can't just jump into the history and mythology when we're stuck setting up our own.

As far as going underground? That's what I always wanted this project to be. I advertised it to gain the attention of other artist and developers so the cat is already out of the bag, I would think it would be easy to link me back to it. I was foolish enough to do interviews and go to events like Story Drive in Germany and show off the project hoping to gain more talent for our team. I've tried to make the project more silently underground such as killing off the website. But as you see everyone is wanting the website back up so staying underground at this point would be next to impossible.
Ditch the site and make a hidden site only known to a few insiders?

Idk, just throwing ideas around. Posted this on 8chan /v/ earlier: http://8ch.net/v/res/12542721.html#12542771
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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by WittgenTT5/Rstein » Fri May 12, 2017 4:30 pm

WittgenTT5/Rstein wrote:
msKEN wrote:Believe me that's the first thing on my mind. How do you do this without disappointing everyone?

Knight Racer I think bottom line that's what it's going to come too. But wow the money and 1000s of hours spent on that 5th season idea. It's very heart breaking for me. That's not to say we didn't prepare for this but honestly the original story we have as backup just isn't as awesome since it's an all new story that would obviously start at the beginning and have to setup a whole new cast of characters. We can't just jump into the history and mythology when we're stuck setting up our own.

As far as going underground? That's what I always wanted this project to be. I advertised it to gain the attention of other artist and developers so the cat is already out of the bag, I would think it would be easy to link me back to it. I was foolish enough to do interviews and go to events like Story Drive in Germany and show off the project hoping to gain more talent for our team. I've tried to make the project more silently underground such as killing off the website. But as you see everyone is wanting the website back up so staying underground at this point would be next to impossible.
Ditch the site and make a hidden site only known to a few insiders?

Idk, just throwing ideas around. Posted this on 8chan /v/ earlier: http://8ch.net/v/res/12542721.html#12542771
This post seems to make the most sense:
"Only if the copyright kikes cannot find anyone to send a C&D letter or take to court. Otherwise its just release the game across the internet as fast as possible so it cannot get be disposed of."

'scuse the language, that's just how imageboards work.

Ken, I hope you don't have much if any personal info on the net, because that's how they send letters: they dox you for that.

Also, why not join the unofficial KRO Discord while you're at it? https://discord.gg/DsWRsTS
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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by msKEN » Fri May 12, 2017 4:34 pm

It's appreciated, I'm definitely open to ideas at this point. I haven't released anything yet (thank jebus) there are some private alphas floating around out there but that's it.

I was so ignorant of the copyright law I actually thought I'd be covered by fair use. Talk about a wake up call.
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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by WittgenTT5/Rstein » Fri May 12, 2017 5:01 pm

[F5ing intensifies]

That said, if it's a free game, then why would NBCU be able to do a C&D?

Something tells me that Plebbit thread is wrong and that 8chan /v/ is right, but I could be biased.
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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by msKEN » Fri May 12, 2017 5:11 pm

Most fan games I would say are free. They don't really care according to this lawyer. They may not even want to bother you in the first place but the fact that it's their intellectual property means they are obligated to protect it and that means taking you to court. What the 8chan guys are missing is that C&D's are a courtesy. They aren't a requirement at all. They can and do skip that and go straight to sueing you for damages. Free or not. Look up the guy who made the metal gear hd remake fan game. Kind of a different category seeing as there isn't a current knight rider "game" franchise to receive damages from my game, but it doesn't seem to really matter in the eyes of the court. Maybe I'm not fully understanding the lawyer but I think that also speaks volumes at how vauge copyright law is. It all seems to be up to the judge to define how the law works that day.
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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by WittgenTT5/Rstein » Fri May 12, 2017 5:17 pm

msKEN wrote:Most fan games I would say are free. They don't really care according to this lawyer. They may not even want to bother you in the first place but the fact that it's their intellectual property means they are obligated to protect it and that means taking you to court. What the 8chan guys are missing is that C&D's are a courtesy. They aren't a requirement at all. They can and do skip that and go straight to sueing you for damages. Free or not. Look up the guy who made the metal gear hd remake fan game. Kind of a different category seeing as there isn't a current knight rider "game" franchise to receive damages from my game, but it doesn't seem to really matter in the eyes of the court. Maybe I'm not fully understanding the lawyer but I think that also speaks volumes at how vauge copyright law is. It all seems to be up to the judge to define how the law works that day.
Ergo, we're SOL when a C&D happens?
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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by msKEN » Fri May 12, 2017 5:22 pm

I don't see them really protecting their property though. If you have an android I can easily find knight rider and back to the future apps that are being sold with no license. No one is shutting down replica part makers. Plenty of people making and selling stuff on etsy. Plenty of replica plates etc. Maybe I'm worrying about nothing. I just don't want to find out the hard way.
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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by WittgenTT5/Rstein » Fri May 12, 2017 5:25 pm

msKEN wrote:I don't see them really protecting their property though. If you have an android I can easily find knight rider and back to the future apps that are being sold with no license. No one is shutting down replica part makers. Plenty of people making and selling stuff on etsy. Plenty of replica plates etc. Maybe I'm worrying about nothing. I just don't want to find out the hard way.
That's why I said that you should consider going underground with only a select few people that "know" about it.

Or just edit the fuarrrk out of the game's characters and release the original files afterward. Mods can't be DMCA'ed most of the time, i.e BeamNG forums with all those real cars: https://beamng.com/forums/land.44/

Oh, and there's this for Beam, sadly currently broken: https://beamng.com/resources/exotic-metal-200bx.1650/
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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by msKEN » Fri May 12, 2017 5:34 pm

Maybe not calling it something obvious like Knight Rider The Fan Game would be a good start. I'll have to do some thinking and tinkering. Hope you're all looking forward to "Night Driver".
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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by WittgenTT5/Rstein » Fri May 12, 2017 5:36 pm

msKEN wrote:Maybe not calling it something obvious like Knight Rider The Fan Game would be a good start. I'll have to do some thinking and tinkering. Hope you're all looking forward to "Night Driver".
Or Day Driver :mrgreen:

That would work even better I suppose.
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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by Assasinge » Sun May 14, 2017 8:42 am

It's been a while since I decided to visit this forum again, and this topic just blew up my phone. Lol. So I take it Ken ran into copyright issues or something with NBC suddenly? I didn't get a chance to read all the posts here but suddenly things don't look good. Fill me in quick.

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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by WittgenTT5/Rstein » Sun May 14, 2017 10:06 am

Assasinge wrote:It's been a while since I decided to visit this forum again, and this topic just blew up my phone. Lol. So I take it Ken ran into copyright issues or something with NBC suddenly? I didn't get a chance to read all the posts here but suddenly things don't look good. Fill me in quick.
TFG almost went down the drain when Ken found out about a possible C&D issue, we've moved this over to Discord. I'll PM you a new link in a min.
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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by AppleMacri1980 » Sun May 14, 2017 11:33 am

Ken,

In my option i say you should just get some good defense Lawyers and tell them what is going on here and maybe they can help. Since your only doing this since Davlex failed us a game we wanted. I am sure you can find the right people like look at the movie "The Social Network" those guys trusted Mark to build there website and he stole it. So point is you should see if you can do something to let NBCU complete this project on only one condition.

Justin

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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by Knight Racer » Sun May 14, 2017 12:50 pm

Ken, please make sure to send those very expensive defense lawyer bills to Justin. He's just volunteered to pay for them.

Justin, he's using someone else's property. No lawyer would take this case. MSken is better off just remaking the game about a supercar and a new hero.

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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by AppleMacri1980 » Sun May 14, 2017 1:30 pm

so you mean just make KITT a stand alone game now that is better i mean KITT can have a stand alone hero think like the game "Captain America Super Solder" It should be called "KITT Super car" i wish they would give "Herbie" a stand alone game.

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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by Assasinge » Sun May 14, 2017 1:40 pm

"KITT Super Car" still has the name KITT in it, and calling it "Super Jumping Talking Car Adventure 2017" sounds worse than those knockoff GTA V games on the appstore. Like "Super Gangster Crime Mafia City." Hah.

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Re: Knight Rider: The Fan Game

Post by AppleMacri1980 » Sun May 14, 2017 6:49 pm

ao the main hero in the game is KITT same car same everything just a stand alone thing as KITT?

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