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Coleco strong-arming homebrew publishers and fan sites


TPR

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Heh, we are only 2050 topics and 83,001 posts behind the Intellivision Forum. Me thinks these threads dealing with all this should help close the gap rather quickly.

 

Look out Rev!!!

I feel you may be underestimating Rev's power of thread creation. :)

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....mhhhhh ..... I may actually be one of the very few that truly thinks that having homebrew replicate trademarked logo/gfx etc... is just stupid.

Yes it makes the label and packaging look "professional" in a weird sort of way. It kind makes the new homebrew/port "look right" with the rest of the original material on the shelf, at the same time almost every assets of a company is bought and resold many times over even (or especially) once it goes belly up .... I like my homebrew to look like homebrew (don't want to pay through my nose for a wannabe professional packaging with company logo and copied gfx assets or a glossy leaflet manual, you can do it more "rustic" and cheaper and we'll all be just fine) .... why the need to replicate a logo or a font? ... it is truly beyond me. Is it so it "appears legit"? if so then you're obviously playing with fire as you didn't seek the rights to use said log/font/gfx and whatnot. As stated elsewhere we know what we are buying why the need to "pretend"?

 

Only one off seems to be the first (and second I think) run of the SGM in which a licensing deal was obtained to use the logo .... I would not have gone that far but hey they did the right thing in that instance, all credits to them for doing it right.

 

Wrt unauthorized ports it is a different ball of wax .... I understand why it's fun but it is searching for troubles (I'm having a ball playing all the MSX2SMS ports over SMSAdvance on a GBA-ED :) stepping over oh so many grey boundaries but I'd live happily without them, I mean any of them).

The fact that the rights holder has not taken action means nothing, and even if I understand that asking for forgiveness is easier than asking for permission it is still breaking the copyright rules ... those rights keep being transferred around as parts of larger acquisitions .... it's just the way it is. I wish those rights expired much sooner than they do.

Mind you, you can do whatever you want in your home as a private project but when you sell it publicly that's where the trouble starts.

 

Now wrt attacking a fansite .................... I've got nothing,

I don't know why Cardillo keeps thinking TPR is the "producer" ... the last "apology" post copied a couple of pages earlier seems to indicate that the developer of some of the reported SW stated so as a joke .... guess Cardillo didn't get that part right. Dunno.

 

For sure this blew out of proportion on so many ways it's not even funny anymore, at least with the RVGS/CC fiasco there was a lot of bizarro-weird-fetish-alternative_reality kind of a vibe, you know a cardboard prototype, a surreal "power-goes-in-video-comes-out" video, a snes-in-a-jag, a capture card, it was all about incompetence and a curtain of smoke and mirrors .... here is taking somewhat darker overtones .... or maybe it is just me (probably).

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tl;dr - This post by Coleco is full of inaccuracies and this is actually not an apology of any sort.

 

Reposted from: https://www.facebook.com/ColecoToys/posts/1922982161312079

 

To Whom This May Concern,

Recently our company, Coleco Holdings LLC (Coleco), has received a lot of criticism on the Internet based on a false statement by a blogger. Please note, Coleco DID NOT file a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaint against this blogger, or any other party.

 

The part about the DMCA complaint is *technically* correct but horribly misleading. Chris Cardillo would like you to believe that we have been lying about the trademark takedown claim but let me remind everyone once again of the proof, as it has been posted in this thread but Chris Cardillo and his selective memory has chosen to "forget" that this actually exists:

coleco lies about everything.png

 

This is the exact quote I posted in the original post of this thread:

 

"Recently I received a number of Trademark Infringement DMCA take-down notifications from Facebook by Coleco"

 

Yes, I said "DMCA" when really they were trademark infringement claims. The end result being that Coleco had content removed from our page, and that content did not actually infringe on any trademark rights because we didn't create any of the items that Coleco claims were infringing, we just reported on them, and from a journalistic standpoint that falls under fair use.

 

So you can try to paint this picture however you'd like, Chris Cardillo, but at the end of the day, you had content removed from our page erroneously and you refuse to have it retracted or apologize. And any other claim you are trying to make otherwise is flat out lying to get out of having to apologize. That is the type of behavior displayed by a coward that cannot man-up enough to admit their mistakes. And it's not acceptable.

 

As a company, and members of the gaming community, we wholeheartedly apologize to the gaming community for letting this situation get out of hand.

 

I want everyone to understand what this is...

 

THIS IS A BACKHANDED APOLOGY!

COLECO IS NOT ACTUALLY APOLOGIZING FOR ANYTHING!

 

Coleco is "sorry for letting the situation get out of hand." Um, dear Chris Cardillo of Coleco....

 

YOU CREATED THIS SITUATION!!!

 

Your apology is empty and worthless. Please try harder. And when I say "try harder" I mean send an email to Facebook that says exactly the following:

 

I, Chris Cardillo, representative of Coleco Holdings L.L.C, hereby retract the following Trademark claim made against the "ColecoVision Fan" Facebook page:
Report #: 170XXXXXX48629
Rights Owner: Coleco Holdings L.L.C
Email: chris@xxxxxtoys.com
Trademark: 081651, 3179722, 3490101, and 4297747
Please email me the confirmation that these claims will be retracted.
Thank you,
Chris Cardillo

 

That's all you have to do. I've done the work for you. And I know you already have the email address of the person at Facebook that you need to send this to and all the details, because this is not the first time I've sent it. But again, I've done the work for you. All you have to do is go through the following steps and you're on your way to redemption:

 

1. Open your email software.

2. Click "Send Email."

3. Paste in the email address this email needs to go to.

4. Put in the subject "Trademark Claim Retraction."

5. Paste the text above.

6. Click send.

 

That's it! That's ALL YOU HAVE TO DO. And that's all you had to do from day one. Yet you refuse to do it and your reasoning behind not doing is completely absurd.

 

Coleco recently took action against one of our prior licensees based on confirmation that the licensee was counterfeiting merchandise.

 

It's difficult for my brain to even begin to process a response to this sentence because it's so misleading and full of "vocabulary garbage" that it mentally hurts to read it and have to respond to it. I think what you're saying here is "Opcode games are bad boy for making unlicensed arcade conversions."

 

Guess what Chris Cardillo of Coleco, you don't control what Opcode does. You don't control what ANY homebrewer does. You have no say at all and you need to suck that up and deal with it. Provided they do not use your logo on the box, you have no control at all, and I'm not even sure you have any control if they DO use the logo on their box.

 

This is also not "counterfeiting." I believe you are using words that you don't actually understand the meaning of them. You know what I do when I'm writing something and I'm not sure of the exact meaning of a word? I Google it. Because I don't like to sound uneducated to the people reading what I have written. I strongly suggest you start doing this more often.

 

And even still, what does this have to do with trademark takedown claims of Facebook? Don't try to trick people into forgetting what the real situation is here. You remember, the situation that YOU created.

 

Coleco acted against both the developer and their “producer”, who operates an outlet to funnel potential buyers to the counterfeit merchandise

 

First of all, this is completely not true. Two homebrew publishers can both be quoted saying I have not produced any games for them. But since you refuse to listen, I will explain things to you once again in detail so you can have a better understanding of what this scenario is, because once again, you are misleading everyone based on a technicality and turning it into something that is not true at all.

 

As someone who has worked in the video game business most of my life (I produced games such as Aladdin on the Sega Genesis, Lion King on SNES & Genesis, 7th Guest on PC, several other NES, Gameboy, Genesis, SNES, PSOne, PS2, XBOX, XBOX 360, etc games in my 22 year career.) I left the video games business in 2011 to pursue other things as I got burned out of that industry.

 

Fast forward a few years when I get into retro gaming and I have offered to help out in my spare time without payment if some of the publishers if they never needed it. There have only been two occasions where this has actually come up. I'm going focus specifically on the Opcode incident because you keep bringing it up.

 

About a month ago I had a conversation with Eduardo after he received emails from you regarding licensing issues for the SGM, even though Eduardo had documented proof of an agreement already in place with Mark. Eduardo was naturally frustrated and I offered to help. To that end, we joked about my speaking to Chris as Opcode's "producer" to take some pressure off Eduardo. After laughing a bit, Eduardo actually sent the email stating that to try and get past this issue, and that I'd be taken more seriously with that title. And that's all it was, just trying to help Eduardo with this licensing situation, and you've repeatedly blown it out of proportion to suit your narrative. I never produced any games that Opcode has worked on.

 

The other specific incident was to help CollectorVision when Fred Konopaska was pirating their games on eBay. Since I am familiar with eBay and how to report auctions, I offered to help out by being a representative of CollectorVision to get those games removed. At no point did I ever say that I personally "produced" those game or "owned" those games. I only said I was acting as a representative of CollectorVision to help with this one-off situation and according to eBay's policies I was completely in the right to be able to do so:

 

Screen Shot 2017-06-09 at 00.41.45.png

In these cases the "Intellectual Property" that was being reported was the code that CollectorVision owned that made the game run on a ColecoVision system. They own that code and that is their property and Fred Konopaska was violating their rights by making unauthorized copies of that code.

 

But like the Opcode example, you have attempted to mislead people by twisting that scenario out to be greater than it was. Both Opcode and CollectorVision have told you in writing that I am not their "producer" and I have not produced any games for them, so STOP SAYING THAT I AM!!!

 

 

Coleco acted to prevent counterfeiting that was confusing potential buyers.

 

What confusion and what buyers? At no point was there any confusion as to who was publishing the games or who the buyers are. In your delusional world you'd like to think there are tens of thousands of potential buyers out there for a system that hasn't seen a retail shelf in 30 years, but the reality is the only buyers are the ones that follow the hombrewers and they know exactly what they are buying and who from.

 

And let's just say for the sake of argument there were tens of thousands of confused buyers that still shouldn't matter because you didn't go after the homebrewers that were developing and publishing the games, you went after a fan page who was simply reporting on them and has every right to.

 

We were made aware of this professional relationship by the developer during normal business activities. Only after Coleco acted to protect its intellectual property did the developer state publicly that they were “joking” about the business relationship enjoyed with the producer and agreed to cease the activities.

 

There was never a professional relationship. That has been explained however Chris Cardillo refuses to listen because if he did, there would be no way to include it into his narrative.

 

That being said, even if I was Opcode's producer, and produced every single one of their games since before Coleco Holdings existed (which I did not) that still wouldn't matter because Coleco went after a Facebook page which is a completely separate entity from the publisher. If they wanted to make trademark claims, they should have gone after the publisher, not a fan page.

 

Coleco is, and will continue to be, a big supporter of independent developers.

 

Except for the publishers of the 63 games they made trademark claims on, which makes up like 95% of the ColecoVision homebrew community. You can try to convince people as much as you want that you're working with all these homebrew developers, but the reality is that now that all this has happened, none of them want to work with you.

 

*Note that I didn't address the part where Coleco said "We encourage, and where possible celebrate, homebrew developers creating new, original, games for our platforms" Because Eduardo already so elegantly addressed this above. Coleco doesn't own any platforms. ColecoVision is NOT their "platform" as Coleco Holdings LLC and Chris Cardillo do not own the "ColecoVision" platform.

 

Again this is just more misleading and erroneous information.

 

However, Coleco still has an obligation to protect its trademarks and to protect its buyers. Please note that this means that while we encourage independent creation of “homebrew” games for Colecovision, those titles cannot be marketed in a manner that suggests to potential buyers that Coleco is the source of the games. If a homebrew game has a large picture of the Coleco logo, that is confusing to potential buyers. If a homebrew game simply states: “For Use on the ColecoVision Platform” in plain text in smaller text at the bottom of the label, we agree that is a fair use of the trademark. Essentially, the labels should not confuse consumers or amount to counterfeit merchandise, which is what occurred here.

 

Congratulations, Chris Cardillo, you actually made a point that made sense, other than the incorrect use of the word "counterfeit" again. It is completely fair (although personally think it's still a bit ridiculous, but whatever) that you don't want your precious Coleco or ColecoVision logo on any unlicensed games. Fine.

 

SO WHY DIDN'T YOU GO AFTER THE PUBLISHERS WHO WERE INFRINGING INSTEAD OF A FACEBOOK PAGE???

 

We are open to licensing the use of our logos and related trademarks to publishers. Coleco is only interested in bolstering the rich natured community of fans that enjoy Colecovision games

 

Except that you aren't. News flash: "Fans that enjoy ColecoVision games" don't want a Rainbow Brite game. They want games like Tron, Zoo Keeper, Robotron, Dracula, Phoenix, or a number of other games listed HERE. Guess what, Chris Cardillo? There is an entire thread based on what games people would like see made for the ColecoVision. You know how many times a "Rainbow Brite" game appears on that list? That would be ZERO. The reality here is that you are completely out of touch with what "Fans that enjoy ColecoVision games" want, and you are also out of touch with the homebrew community and how it works.

 

Use of the logo also gives the buyer the impression that Coleco has approved this title and will stand behind its quality as anyone would expect the publisher to do so as well.

 

I have news for you Chris Cardillo, Coleco is not, and with your current attitude will never be respected like this...

oldnintendoseal.png

This sooner you get that through your head, the better.

 

Our actions are not only to protect our rights, but to meet expectations of the fans.

 

And you've done such a GREAT JOB of meeting those expectations so far! WELL DONE!!! /sarcasm

 

Together, the community and Coleco, can make the future as bright as we want it to be.

 

Coleco wants to control everything made on a system that hasn't seen a retail shelf in 30 years. And that's just not realistic. I encourage the homebrews to make whatever they want to. Just don't use the Coleco logos AT ALL. Do not give Coleco any recognition whatsoever. They do not deserve it.

 

The other reality here is that these last couple of paragraphs that Coleco wrote are only there to distract you from the real situation: That they still refuse to admit that they unfairly attacked a fan page, homebrewers, and the ColecoVision retrogaming community and have no plans at all to restore any of that. They want you to walk away from their poorly written post full of garbage points thinking they are on your side, but they are not.

 

Here we are nearly a month later and instead of Coleco working to resolve any of these issues with the fan page, the homebrewers, or the community, they continue to just make things worse. On Tuesday Chris Cardillo sent me a text message asking me if I would speak to him on the phone. I told him "I prefer written communication and I will wait until you are willing to do that" because I was not willing to have an undocumented phone call. I am still waiting for Chris Cardillo's response to that text.

 

And all that being said, I really do not have that much else to say other than it would be really nice to put all of this pointless drama behind us and start having fun again, but apparently that's not what Chris Cardillo wants.

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If you crowdfund for an attorney, you probably should go with something like GoFundMe instead of Kickstarter.
But if you do go IndieGoGo or Kickstarter, then perhaps:

 

$1 - Supplier - Every bit helps! Thank you for your support

$5 - Wildcatter - Your ammo helps us prepare for the oncoming zombie waves. Thank you!

$25 - Hater Brigader - You've joined the resistance to fight against the zombie apocalypse. INCLUDES: One "Hater Bridager" badge designed by Nathan Strum.

$50 - Leechkiller - Leeches have been found as the cause of the zombie outbreak. INCLUDES: One COLeech-o tee shirt designed by Flojomojo.

$75 - ????

$??? - ????

$125 - Zombie Slayer - Your zombie-battling exploits precede you. INCLUDES: One clear reproduction prototype COLECO Chameleon console shell.

$1000 - LMOE - You are the ultimate survivor. Zombies see you and run in the opposite direction. INCLUDES: One full reproduction COLECO Chameleon console and box. Remember when!

$5000 - General of all the Lands - Your zombie tactics have saved humanity, and your reward is our eternal gratitude. INCLUDES: One sandwich delivered to your home by Ian.

Edited by PlaysWithWolves
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This line stuck out to me:

"Coleco is creating legitimate, paying, jobs in the retro gaming community something we will continue to do in the future."

 

Scummy telemarketing shops can also be said to create 'legitimate and paying jobs', it still does not make them ethical. I'm with you, context needs to be taken into account here.

 

BTW - I love your new avatar! photo-2410.gif

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A few specific comments that should not distract from TPR's message.

 

tl;dr - This post by Coleco is full of inaccuracies ...

...

 

The part about the DMCA complaint is *technically* correct but horribly misleading. Chris Cardillo would like you to believe that we have been lying about the trademark takedown claim but let me remind everyone once again of the proof, as it has been posted in this thread but Chris Cardillo and his selective memory has chosen to "forget" that this actually exists:

Attachment coleco lies about everything.png

Yes, they are being vague, almost suggesting that no takedown request was made. Unfortunately, others have run with the DMCA thing. But, I'm thinking if it's not a DMCA takedown then Facebook has no legal obligation to act. I'm assuming you made your case to Facebook and they were not helpful.

 

 

In these cases the "Intellectual Property" that was being reported was the code that CollectorVision owned that made the game run on a ColecoVision system. They own that code and that is their property and Fred Konopaska was violating their rights by making unauthorized copies of that code.

Well, the additional work would have to have sufficient creative elements to be copyright-able. And it may very well have it. However even if it were copyright-able, in the United States with a derivative work that is done unlawfully (ie. without the original works rights holder's permission), copyright protection is not given to those portions. It might also have to do with how the new portions are intertwined with the original. And laws in Canada could be different. That's legal stuff; the ethics and morals are completely different. This subject might be off topic anyway.

 

 

This is also not "counterfeiting."

I'm not saying they are right; but they could argue that if I make a new game in a cartridge and box that looks like it was made in 1985 by the old Coleco, that it is counterfeit. Someone, who doesn't know, could buy it thinking they are buying something from 1985, something that it's not.

 

 

Except that you aren't. News flash: "Fans that enjoy ColecoVision games" don't want a Rainbow Brite game. They want games like Tron, Zoo Keeper, Robotron, Dracula, Phoenix, or a number of other games listed HERE. Guess what, Chris Cardillo? There is an entire thread based on what games people would like see made for the ColecoVision. You know how many times a "Rainbow Brite" game appears on that list? That would be ZERO.

I agree with this completely except RWB didn't say they would support Colecovision fans with RWB products. The fact is, their products are not meant for the people on Atariage. An inexpensive standalone Rainbow Brite game on a Walmart shelf could sell way, way more than a Robotron Colecovision cartridge (as sad as that sounds).

 

 

... and I'm not even sure you have any control if they DO use the logo on their box.

Yes, their ownership of the Colecovision brand is iffy. Can it be challenged? People here have been using the name and logo for many, many years before RWB.

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I can't get enough of this unfolding soap opera. It's so ridiculous.

 

I was visiting my parents last night, and talked to my dad about this whole mess. He is the one who bought our family's ColecoVision almost 35 YEARS AGO for my older sister for Christmas in 1982.

 

His take: "How can a company that didn't even make the ColecoVision expect to do anything about what anyone does with a 35 YEAR OLD game system? Are they gonna knock on your door and demand money?"

 

I also told him about the other brands Dormitus owns. When I got to Spuds McKenzie, he said, "Isn't that the one that Anheuser-Bush owned that got them in trouble because of marketing to kids? Who would actually want to bring that back? Are they bringing back Joe Camel too?"

 

For the record, my dad is not a "gamer". He likes his gadgets, and he even bought an original Magnavox Odyssey back in the 70's, but aside from catching him playing Rad Racer on the NES when I was 6 and supposed to be in bed, I've never seen him ever pick up a controller. He's a regular guy. Regular guys don't give a crap about Coleco. He's lucky to even know what it is!

 

Let's go back to what my dad said about the Coleco situation. He's 100% right. There is nothing they can do to stop people from buying homebrew games. So, the homebrew guys don't use the logo anymore. WHO CARES. It's not like we are going to GameStop to pick up the latest copy of Gradius and a SGM, and can't tell what it's for until we see that rainbow logo. The only people that are even playing the ColecoVision are retro gamers, and they know where to get the games and from who. Even if you have an agreement to use the logo, at this point, it would probably associate your company with these trolls. I'd leave it off the box.

 

This was probably mentioned 100 times before, but, if they are worried about so-called piracy and all that, how about they look into Coleco's (the REAL Coleco) past and have a gander at EXPANSION MODULE #1, a device that for lack of a better term, turned the ColecoVision into an UNAUTHORIZED ATARI 2600*. It goes both ways there, guys!

 

*Yes I'm aware that they did it with off-the-shelf parts and "legally" got away with it

 

Once the dust settles and CardilloVision eventually crawls back into the catacombs to create crappy rap videos for the rest of eternity, I can't wait to see the documentary film, a la King of Kong. That will be awesome.

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A few specific comments that should not distract from TPR's message.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not saying they are right; but they could argue that if I make a new game in a cartridge and box that looks like it was made in 1985 by the old Coleco, that it is counterfeit. Someone, who doesn't know, could buy it thinking they are buying something from 1985, something that it's not.

 

 

 

Not all of us uses and ever used the Coleco box template. I never did, not even the Coleco name, except for the SGM that had the license (because I was naive to think I was getting it from the rightful owner).

And even if someone buys a homebrew CV game now thinking it is from 1985, I still can't see how that affects Coleco Holdings, since they aren't the old Coleco neither produced any of the original games or even have the rights for them. They are a different company with no rights for the legacy stuff. So even if I sell a bootleg copy of Zaxxon on eBay, that still isn't any of their business.

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Just to make a point here, the issue here is that a company is obligated to protect their trademarks, because if they don't actively pursue infringements, they will lose them. It doesn't really matter the degree to which a trademark is being infringed, if a company knows of an infringement being sold commercially, they are required to pursue action to see that such activity is stopped. If they don't, and it can be shown that the company knew of the infringement and failed take action, the USPTO can nullify their trademark claim. Most companies will simply issue a cease-and-desist order, and usually that does the trick, as most infringers know they're infringing and will stop once they're caught because it's expensive to fight things further, especially if they have no legal case for their usage of it (eg. fair use, parody). Not to defend the BS that Cardillo has been doing, but it's likely Cardillo, in his vigorous pursuit to protect the Coleco trademark just to make sure he can be shown to be making a serious effort should the USPTO call it into question, went well overboard and reacted abhorrently to the response.


Again, I am not defending what Chris has done here, but I wanted to point out that at the core here (which has been deeply buried under mountains of Chris' bullshit) is the protection of a trademark as is legally required in order for Coleco to keep it. Whether Coleco's claim is legit in the first place given the specimen they provided to obtain it is another matter.

Edited by Mindfield
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For it to be counterfeit there needs to be an intention to "deceive or defraud". There has never been an intention to deceive or defraud with any of the homebrew releases (unlike the Coleco Chameleon). For example, CollectorVision's approach was to honour the original Coleco box designs and in this way appeal to fans of the ColecoVision system. In addition, all of the boxes have the year of release and the CollectorVision name on the back - both printed very clearly. In the absence of an intent to mislead, defraud etc. these simply cannot remotely be classified as "counterfeit".

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