There is no point in debating the rights and wrongs legally, because it doesn't matter.
If Atari wants, it could destroy this site, the games, and most of the community on a whim. We could argue all we want, but wether we're right is irrelevant, because Atari has the resources and
legal prowess it needs.
Atari could know full well given an equal in court it would have lost, but it would still do it anyway.
What's more, non *A games could be shot at for 'enabling' the *A games "anybody can just download Evo, remove the engine, and plonk our IP in there and get TA", then there's the derivative works "That model wasn't produced by us, but clearly it is a Goliath, and that's diluting our brand".
What's more they're likely to wait until the very last moment, having known for years. If they're bothered enough to do any of that, they'll ignore any 'licenses' we've put on our content. Who cares if it's GPL, we want it down.
Likely reasons being:
- Games like NOTA and BA being seen as a threat to new RTS games using the TA IP
- Attempts to sell games using Atari IP on the spring engine, possibly with nobody in this community being aware
- Competition with unrelated IP
- Sale of the TA IP to a troll company, much in the way we have patent trolls
I'm sure after the Ataripocalypse we'll all be on Reddit raging at how unfair and illegal it all was, and chances are we're probably right. Atari has made no defence of its TA IP, but that doesn't matter.
Atari would likely send cease and desist letters to springfiles & Licho. Should it progress, Licho and JJ would likely have the servers taken out from under them by their hosting companies thanks to Atari involvement.
The one thing I will say that is ironclad, is that if you've played BA, or NOTA, you should own a copy of Original Total Annihilation. Not because it's a defence against Atari, but as a gesture of honour and respect, to Atari, to Cavedog, to the game itself, and to the community.
TA was our heritage, and there are no excuses for not owning a copy but playing TA based content. It's trivially cheap to buy and available online internationally.
