Dangers of Imaginary Property Laws

[owsf2000]

"The jist of it works like this: Owners of a Copyright have to defend their copyright against any form of copyright abuse--or they lose it. "

No. That is NOT how it works.

I was going to write up a lengthy note regarding the differences between patents, copyright, and trademarks (trademarks are what need to be defended or you lose it.) but instead this is all I will say in response to what someone said in the Kotaku comments regarding the Silver Lining and why Activision just HAD to crush the fan game.

Comments

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

The thing that is different, to me, about this crap with The Silver Lining is that it wasn't just some out of the blue C&D. I wouldn't really have had a problem with that, as I didn't really have much of a problem with it when Vivendi originally shut them down years ago. It was regrettable, and it annoyed the shit out of me, but things like that happen all the time.

But then, Vivendi extended them the "fan license" and let them keep going. Yay! The game didn't get killed after all! Woohoo!

And now, Activision, assholes that they are, have undone this, revoked the ability of Phoenix Online Studios to work on the game that had already been extended to them by Vivendi, and killed them again.

If what that commenter said is true and Activision "has to defend their copyright or lose it," then why the fuck was Vivendi able to create the original agreement with them? Wouldn't that have been impossible under that supposed "have to defend it or lose it" shit?

No, all this does is horribly tarnish Activision's already horribly tarnished reputation. That is all.