Did CBS Steal the Tardigrade Idea?

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Discovery' started by Prax, Oct 20, 2017.

  1. Jinn

    Jinn Mistress of the Chaotic Energies Rear Admiral

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    I thought both had a beard, but it may have been part of the tattoo.
     
  2. dahj

    dahj Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Do Mirror Tardigrades have beards?
     
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  3. Jinn

    Jinn Mistress of the Chaotic Energies Rear Admiral

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    Duh.
     
  4. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    So instead, we trash the person with the complaint, because there's no way our precious Star Trek could lift ideas from others. :p

    I simply don't know if it is true or not. Life is sometimes funny that way.
     
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  5. cultcross

    cultcross Postponed for the snooker Moderator

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    But we can apply our critical analysis skills to the claim. And it doesn't hold up to much scrutiny.
     
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  6. carlosp

    carlosp Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    So this has moved on to being an actual lawsuit, which we'll be covering on AxaMonitor. As we discovered during the Axanar debacle people don't really understand how copyright works, but we'll continue coverage as long as the case lasts. Read more »

    Indie Gamemaker Sues 'Discovery' for Stealing His Ideas
    Lawsuit Alleges CBS Copied Significant Features From Unpublished ‘Tardigrades’ Game
    [​IMG]
     
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  7. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    I think we can apply our critical analysis skills and still end up being wrong. If guy wants to pursue it, it is up to him at the end of the day. It is his time and money.
     
  8. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    Well tardigrades are real, that’s most likely where they got it. But I’m crazy because I go with whatever is the most likely scenario.
     
  9. Agony_Boothb

    Agony_Boothb Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I agree, I never said there was an actual case for plagiarism, only that if there was something should be done about it. In the time since I made the quoted post, it's come out that the tardigrade was supposed to be an actual member of the crew, but was incredibly expensive to do every episode, so it was canned. Bryan Fuller wanted to keep it and incorporated the tardigrade character into the spore drive arc. So there was likely no plagiarism involved, only convergent ideas.
     
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  10. gblews

    gblews Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The narrator of this video seems to think that just because a lawsuit is filed (and sounds like it hasn't), that that is some kind of proof of wrongdoing by CBS.

    Also, I'm not sure why the narrator scoffs at CBS filing a lawsuit of their own, that is standard practice. It will provide at least a semblance of leverage regardless of the merits of the lawsuit.

    CBS and other content providers face these types of claims all the time. As I wrote further up thread, if the game developer goes through with actually filing the lawsuit, CBS will kick out some money for nuisance value. It's not cost effective to allow the lawsuit (if it' it gets filed), to hang around.Additionally, settling a lawsuit is never an admission of wrongdoing, however, if CBS does throw some money at this to make it go away, I have no doubt the narrator will post another video claiming the game developer "won the case".

    I'd be willing to bet that what the narrator thinks was "stonewalling" by CBS, really was just a lack of concern.
     
  11. Red Panda

    Red Panda Commander Red Shirt

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    I don't think it's unbelievable that he had never heard of DSC before he was told by a friend, as I don't think Netflix is major in Kuwait, and they didn't do any major campaigns for the show even in top markets like the UK. Also the article you link to is just an automated AFP syndicated article, not an original article written by that newspaper.
     
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  12. XCV330

    XCV330 Premium Member

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    And both countries very close to Jordan which is building a mega Star Trek theme park (and whose King was a starfleet officer back in the 90s). I'd say there's star trek interest in that part of the world.
     
  13. OpenMaw

    OpenMaw Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    You sound rather defensive.

    There's simply no way to know for sure until this moves forward. If there's more evidence, we'll find out soon enough. If not, then it's just a fluke and parallel development. Which has happened before. IE Look at disaster films in the 90s. We had a bunch of deep sea terror films all around the same time, then we had volcanoes, and then we had big rocks hitting Earth.
     
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  14. Grendelsbayne

    Grendelsbayne Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    If there was more evidence, this guy would've already posted it. He's the one who went to his blog before going to a lawyer.

    The simple fact is that his 'evidence' is laughably stupid. The tardigrade itself is the ONLY thing that's even remotely worth taking seriously, and even that is clearly different and was known to be even more different before budget considerations forced changes, and it is not a huge leap to make in the first place.

    You guys can keep harping on due process all you want, but nobody here is part of the court and we're not obliged to withold judgment. We've already had this guy's entire case laid out for us, and it is not impressive.
     
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  15. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    I was going for sarcastic, this is dumb.
     
  16. TorontoTrekker

    TorontoTrekker Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The difference between this and Harlan's lawsuit against James Cameron is that Cameron came right out and said, in an interview for Starlog, that he'd ripped off a couple of "Outer Limits" episodes for the Terminator movies - the ones he was referring to being Harlan's "Soldier" and "Demon With a Glass Hand." His claim was a lot more solid, just based on Cameron's running his mouth. (And even though the statement was apparently removed from the interview before publication, the fact that he said at all meant there were witnesses to his admission.)
     
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  17. cultcross

    cultcross Postponed for the snooker Moderator

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    To be honest I'm happy to believe he had never heard of Discovery - the part I find unlikely is that the producers of Discovery had heard of his game.
     
  18. Tosk

    Tosk Admiral Admiral

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    Just Soldier. Even Ellison himself has stated that Demon had nothing to do with it.
     
  19. Rahul

    Rahul Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    That's the real money question right here.
    Does anybody know how popular this game was before this story? Like, is it possible that a producer or someone came across, I don't know, a promo for this game on some gaming site?

    Because the aesthetic of both (blue uniforms, dark grey hallways) is both super similar, but in the most generic way possible. But a giant fucking FTL-capable Tardigrade?

    IMO if that's really a coincidence, then it's a REALLY big one. Especially since it's not a minor thing in a plot of the week or anything. It's literally the only completely new and creative (and wildest) idea DIS added to the franchise.
     
  20. Serveaux

    Serveaux Fleet Admiral Premium Member

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    None of the rationalizations advanced here so far for the plausibility of the "coincidental" invention have been anything other than funny - certainly not persuasive on the merits.

    Just regarding the tardigrade - the other characters are trivial.