Case dismissed! Discovery and Tardigrade game "not similar"

[Jackson_Roykirk]

All I'm personally saying is, I'm pretty annoyed that we had entire episodes of season 2 taking place inside the upside dow-errr... mycelial network, and NOT ONCE did a tardigrade show up or was ever mentioned again! Shame.

Ripper did not live in the upside-down / mycellial network, but rather he taps into the network. I suppose if a Ripper is making a jump, it might briefly appear inside the network's dimension, but odds are the crew wouldn't have seen it when inside the network.

 

[Tuskin38]

You know it IS okay for people to not conform to majority (Discovery forum fan) opinion...

Well the evidence is against Abdin, so thinking he has a chance doesn't make any sense.

 

[BillJ]

Well the evidence is against Abdin, so thinking he has a chance doesn't make any sense.

Whatever any of us thinks, it isn't over until the court passes down its ruling.

 

[DaveyNY]

Let's be honest. We all have our bias and we all show it. To steal a page from another lawsuit, "I have no dog in this fight." I don't give a shit at what happens. I enjoy Disco but its not my favorite show and even at a worst case scenario, the production has to pay some royalties to Abdin, add a credit for him in some form and call it a day. The production budget may be a little less, but that's not a huge deal. There's no way in hell Abdin will win his point about getting the show off the air, if that's even still something he expects. Its a ridiculous demand on his part.

But as has been suggested time and time again, Abdin has to prove it and the case he's presented thus far is fairly flimsy. Could he pull it out and make it happen? Sure. Is that a likely outcome? Have you met my friend, Dr. Strange?

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I admit that I like DISCOVERY, but I have no everlasting love for CBS.
As far as I'm concerned DISCOVERY shits all over the look of TOS and the only reason I excuse it is because my personal head-canon uses "First Contact" and "Regeneration" (both of which I enjoyed immensely) as the point where things in the future became altered.
(if CBS wants to call this the Prime Universe, that's OK by me, but it's still off kilter as far as I care)

Any perceived bias toward this court case from me, stems from the facts as presented and my own investigations...

Abdin's ideas for his still nonexistent "game" were never really shown completely for public consumption until After he determined to bring suit against CBS.
Back when this first became a thing, I found his original presentation in STEAM (which BTW he has altered extensively since then) and there was no mention of a Tardigrade at all.
It even had a completely different name back then which in no way indicated he ever intended to include a tardigrade in the game play.
In point of fact, it included many references from "DUNE" and even used whole quotes from that IP.
(something that I would imagine brings new light to just who is actually the one doing the copying)

Even if somebody from the DISCOVERY Production team had seen his entry back then (2014), they would not have seen the mention of a Tardigrade at all.

In actuality, my true bias is toward all the folks that began encouraging him to foolishly go to court because of their disdain toward DISCOVERY and fed into his concerns of CBS coming after him IF he ever released a finished version of said game.

 

[Campe]

I admit that I like DISCOVERY, but I have no everlasting love for CBS.
As far as I'm concerned DISCOVERY shits all over the look of TOS and the only reason I excuse it is because my personal head-canon uses "First Contact" and "Regeneration" (both of which I enjoyed immensely) as the point where things in the future became altered.
(if CBS wants to call this the Prime Universe, that's OK by me, but it's still off kilter as far as I care)

That never has bothered me. I take a similar approach to it as you did suggesting that all of the mucking with the timelines has made Disco how it looks now. No skin off my teeth.

Abdin's ideas for his still nonexistent "game" were never really shown completely for public consumption until After he determined to bring suit against CBS.
Back when this first became a thing, I found his original presentation in STEAM (which BTW he has altered extensively since then) and there was no mention of a Tardigrade at all.
It even had a completely different name back then which in no way indicated he ever intended to include a tardigrade in the game play.
Even if somebody from the DISCOVERY Production team had seen his entry back then (2014), they would not have seen the mention of a Tardigrade at all.

All true. The "game" was called Epoch and appeared to be more based in the idea of this mystery across time periods, particularly focusing on Ancient Egypt. But, like I suggested in my timeline a few pages back, no, there really is no Tardigrade in his work he put on display until a few months before Disco premiered (other than a little one that runs across the logo). Considering the work that goes into any production, particularly one with high visual quality like Disco, requires a lot of pre and post production work. The idea that they could do an effect as detailed as Ripper in three months and have it look as good as it did is ludicrous. That's not me being a Disco fanboy. That's me being a realist who knows a thing or two about TV/film production.

In actuality, my true bias is toward all the folks that began encouraging him to foolishly go to court because of their disdain of DISCOVERY and fed into his concerns of CBS coming after him IF he ever released a finished version of said game.

And while I truly have no skin in this game, I have the same issue against these people. Because of people like Midnight's Edge and Doomcock, Abdin believes (or did believe) he has a far bigger case than he actually does. That in itself is frustrating. Abdin, for whatever reason, is an unwitting pawn in all of this.

 

[Rahul]

To be fair to Abdin: His game was already called "Tardigrade" - including a small little blue Tardigrade logo - way before that. And the visual of his giant-sized, blue sparkling Tardigrade going FTL was publicly presented before DIS premiered. That's a pretty convincing case, and the reason why it's really only this DIS-fan-subforum on a Trek-fan-forum that extensively defends CBS. Outside, in the real world, people have most likely either A) Never heard of that case, or B) Believe Abdin, because, well, he was first. And usually, if it comes to creative similar materials, first dips count.

But! As such, CBS actually has a damn good case: As per @Campe98's timeline, CBS already had finished filming their Tardigrade episode before the day Abdin's Tardigrade teaser debuted. That's the main convincing argument. Because without the Tardigrade, it's just people in blue jumpsuits in grey corridors. But if you wouldn't know this little tidbit - again, which was burried deep within even here - just on a surface look, Abdin's claim doesn't look that far fetched.

 

[XCV330]

To be fair to Abdin: His game was already called "Tardigrade" - including a small little blue Tardigrade logo - way before that. And the visual of his giant-sized, blue sparkling Tardigrade going FTL was publicly presented before DIS premiered. That's a pretty convincing case, and the reason why it's really only this DIS-fan-subforum on a Trek-fan-forum that extensively defends CBS. Outside, in the real world, people have most likely either A) Never heard of that case, or B) Believe Abdin, because, well, he was first. And usually, if it comes to creative similar materials, first dips count.

But! As such, CBS actually has a damn good case: As per @Campe98's timeline, CBS already had finished filming their Tardigrade episode before the day Abdin's Tardigrade teaser debuted. That's the main convincing argument. Because without the Tardigrade, it's just people in blue jumpsuits in grey corridors. But if you wouldn't know this little tidbit - again, which was burried deep within even here - just on a surface look, Abdin's claim doesn't look that far fetched.

Disney had a talking duck with anger issues and a reluctance to wear pants before WB did.

 

[Rahul]

Disney had a talking duck with anger issues and a reluctance to wear pants before WB did.

Did it sparkle blue though?

 

[saladdays]

To be fair to Abdin: His game was already called "Tardigrade" - including a small little blue Tardigrade logo - way before that. And the visual of his giant-sized, blue sparkling Tardigrade going FTL was publicly presented before DIS premiered. That's a pretty convincing case, and the reason why it's really only this DIS-fan-subforum on a Trek-fan-forum that extensively defends CBS. Outside, in the real world, people have most likely either A) Never heard of that case, or B) Believe Abdin, because, well, he was first. And usually, if it comes to creative similar materials, first dips count.

Even if this could be proven (which it cannot), how many of the people that believe Abdin know the actual details instead of just "oh, it's little guy vs. big guy"?

But! As such, CBS actually has a damn good case: As per @Campe98's timeline, CBS already had finished filming their Tardigrade episode before the day Abdin's Tardigrade teaser debuted. That's the main convincing argument. Because without the Tardigrade, it's just people in blue jumpsuits in grey corridors. But if you wouldn't know this little tidbit - again, which was burried deep within even here - just on a surface look, Abdin's claim doesn't look that far fetched.

But, of course, lawsuits need to be based on more than "a surface look." And it's a good thing that they they do.

 

[fireproof78]

To be fair to Abdin: His game was already called "Tardigrade" - including a small little blue Tardigrade logo - way before that. And the visual of his giant-sized, blue sparkling Tardigrade going FTL was publicly presented before DIS premiered. That's a pretty convincing case, and the reason why it's really only this DIS-fan-subforum on a Trek-fan-forum that extensively defends CBS. Outside, in the real world, people have most likely either A) Never heard of that case, or B) Believe Abdin, because, well, he was first. And usually, if it comes to creative similar materials, first dips count.

But! As such, CBS actually has a damn good case: As per @Campe98's timeline, CBS already had finished filming their Tardigrade episode before the day Abdin's Tardigrade teaser debuted. That's the main convincing argument. Because without the Tardigrade, it's just people in blue jumpsuits in grey corridors. But if you wouldn't know this little tidbit - again, which was burried deep within even here - just on a surface look, Abdin's claim doesn't look that far fetched.

That's the thing, though. It cannot just be surface level in terms of actual legal judgement. That's why the legal process takes its time to do so.

 

[Rahul]

Even if this could be proven (which it cannot), how many of the people that believe Abdin know the actual details instead of just "oh, it's little guy vs. big guy"?


But, of course, lawsuits need to be based on more than "a surface look." And it's a good thing that they they do.

Again: That CBS would win this thing was pretty much a given regardless of weather or not they were actually in the "right".

What exonorates them creatively is that the timeline truly suggest "independant creation" of a similar idea. And that's what most people - outside CBS and Abdin themselves - are interested in the case.

 

[Noname Given]

Again: That CBS would win this thing was pretty much a given regardless of weather or not they were actually in the "right".

In a U.S. court of law filing responses to motions as well as your own motions IS "part of the fight". CBS is definitely "in the fight", and has the upper hand so far because Mr. Abdin has failed to provide any real hard evidence to the Judge to back up any of his claims.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Then both

Did it sparkle blue though?

Both having sparkly blue tardigrades could just as easily be coincidence, considering tardigrades were all the rage a few year ago, with mainstream culture stories about tardigrades being found in the high atmosphere -- and speculation that they might survive space travel. And that neon blue color is very popular in sci-fi design (neon blue lighting, glowing blue things everywhere, blue nacelles. bright blue here, bright blue there).

So since "coincidence" is a distinct possibility, Abdin would need to present evidence showing that it is NOT a coincidence, or else the (very possible) idea that it is nothing but a coincidence would likely prevail in court.

I mean, do you really find it surprising that a Star Trek TV show or movie made in the21st century would use use blue? What if Adbin used lens flare in his game graphics. Would you think DSC's use of lens flare was stolen from him?

 

[Campe]

To be fair to Abdin: His game was already called "Tardigrade" - including a small little blue Tardigrade logo - way before that. And the visual of his giant-sized, blue sparkling Tardigrade going FTL was publicly presented before DIS premiered. That's a pretty convincing case, and the reason why it's really only this DIS-fan-subforum on a Trek-fan-forum that extensively defends CBS. Outside, in the real world, people have most likely either A) Never heard of that case, or B) Believe Abdin, because, well, he was first. And usually, if it comes to creative similar materials, first dips count.

Its really not that clear and convincing of a case. There are significant differences between Abdin's tardigrade and Discovery's. They've been gone over ad nauseum so I'm not going to repeat them again.

As for TrekBBS being the only place where we side with Discovery over Abdin?

Hmmm...

I suspect otherwise. The tardigrade is unusual, but beyond that the other similarities Abdin mentions could be found in any number of new television series. It seems astoundingly unlikely that Star Trek’s producers would have cast the show to match the pixel art of an unreleased game. But it’s easy for me to feel detached about this. Not so for Abdin.

Ooooh....

Though it is an interesting coincidence that both used giant blue tardigrades to aid in instantaneous travel, the mechanisms by which they worked appear to be different. The tardigrade in Star Trek: Discovery functioned as a living computer and only worked at extreme peril to itself while, according of videos, Tardigrades has a more symbiotic relationship with their passengers.

You don't say...

Here’s what I see wrong… firstly, Abdin has filed the suit against CBS Broadcasting, not CBS Studios – the actual makers of Star Trek: Discovery. Secondly, the defense would have a very strong case to argue irreparable harm if the injunction was granted. Thirdly, that sum of the profit is well over the hundreds of millions of dollars and is a significant amount of money for an inde game developer to be demanding from a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company. I’m not saying that CBS or any other studio shouldn’t be held to account, quite the opposite, however the way Abdin has conducted himself here, the timing and the way he’s gone about this smacks of an attempt to profit off the successful series, once success has been shown. (Why now? Why not mid-season?)

Yes, he has some support. Won't deny that for a second. But most of it is from people who are anti-Discovery. And in all of this: the court of public opinion means shit in the actual courtroom. Abdin has the chance to prove his case. CBS having more resources doesn't mean a thing if he can actually prove something. He's had the opportunity for limited discovery. That gives him far more of a leg to stand on than most judges would allow. But I feel like we've gone over this before.

 

[Rahul]

Its really not that clear and convincing of a case. There are significant differences between Abdin's tardigrade and Discovery's. They've been gone over ad nauseum so I'm not going to repeat them again.

As for TrekBBS being the only place where we side with Discovery over Abdin?

Hmmm...

Ooooh....

You don't say...

Funny thing: Look at the FIRST comment on each of those articles.

Of course the journalists/people that really dig deep in find a more measured approach to describing this case. But as far as normal people goes, this place right here is the actual only place where you can find regular user posts defending CSB. IMO that's a problem.

Yes, he has some support. Won't deny that for a second. But most of it is from people who are anti-Discovery before.

Also, I think this is a very dangerous stance to take. Because you're excluding a whole lot of people - the majority of internet users outside of this particular forum to be exactly. DIS is not that much a success that it can afford to ignore everyone talking a more sceptical stance on DIS - in fact, they might have even way over-corrected at the end of last season. Because most people - even the ones favourable towards the show - admit it has quite a few problems. If you're lumping all of them together with rightwing online trolls, you can have a very distorted view of reality and see enemies at every instance of resistance.

Hell - it happened right here. If I got a Penny everytime someone accused me of being "anti-Discovery" in this very thread, I probably could open my own, private Trek message board.

 

[XCV330]

What would be interesting would be a thread where one person says the same thing over and over again, and several people reply to him with the same thing over and over again, albeit with the wording slightly changed.
I bet that could go on for.. hell.. 80 pages!

 

[fireproof78]

Of course the journalists/people that really dig deep in find a more measured approach to describing this case. But as far as normal people goes, this place right here is the actual only place where you can find regular user posts defending CSB. IMO that's a problem.

I think this goes more to the culture of distrust, especially in the United States, around large corporations than any of the actual facts.

That is to say, the arguments against CBS are largely emotional driven rather than having any basis in facts. That, in my opinion, is a much larger problem, because it demonstrates a willingness to simply have an emotional reaction with no rational basis behind, "This is what it looks like/feels like/seems to me."

If this is the case (as I largely suspect it is) there is not one thing CBS can do to redeem themselves. The emotions towards them are too negative to be overcome by a simple court case.

 

[Campe]

Funny thing: Look at the FIRST comment on each of those articles.

Of course the journalists/people that really dig deep in find a more measured approach to describing this case. But as far as normal people goes, this place right here is the actual only place where you can find regular user posts defending CSB. IMO that's a problem.

AGAIN, the court of public opinion and this particular issue means shit to CBS or the judge.

Also, I think this is a very dangerous stance to take. Because you're excluding a whole lot of people - the majority of internet users outside of this particular forum to be exactly. DIS is not that much a success that it can afford to ignore everyone talking a more sceptical stance on DIS - in fact, they might have even way over-corrected at the end of last season. Because most people - even the ones favourable towards the show - admit it has quite a few problems. If you're lumping all of them together with rightwing online trolls, you can have a very distorted view of reality and see enemies at every instance of resistance.

Sigh. This is a Star Trek BBS. Of course we're going to discuss this. Of course the Star Trek subreddit will do the same. Of course YouTube channels devoted to Star Trek will do the same. But first, how much of the population outside of these things care? And the dozen or so people on each of these things that discuss it are not a large sample. There are 7.53 billion people on this planet. The population of Star Trek fans in the world is decent. Not huge. But decent. Those who actually watch Discovery is less than that. The people who discuss Star Trek online is even less than that. The population of those who talk about this lawsuit is even smaller. You're literally talking a fraction of a fraction of a fraction. So, no, I can't take your concern seriously. Because as you suggested above, most people don't know about or don't give a shit about this suit.

P.S. - I did not once bring up right wing anything in this conversation. Please do not put words in my mouth.

 

[serabine]

If this is the case (as I largely suspect it is) there is not one thing CBS can do to redeem themselves. The emotions towards them are too negative to be overcome by a simple court case.

I was in several arguments with people online who are utterly convinced that the only reason CBS would win this case is "because they have more money", "because they can afford better lawyers", and "because the big companies always win against the small guy". They'd claim that I am biased in favor of a multi-million (billion?) company since I find Abdin's "evidence" flimsy at best, while their absolute conviction that CBS is evil and could not possibly win this lawsuit because Abdin doesn't really have a case/evidence of the alleged theft is, of course, absolutely unbiased.

They are fully prepared to repeat the claim that CBS stole from Abdin regardless of what the court will find. The excuses are already in place, like with any persistent conspiracy theory.

 

[fireproof78]

I was in several arguments with people online who are utterly convinced that the only reason CBS would win this case is "because they have more money", "because they can afford better lawyers", and "because the big companies always win against the small guy". They'd claim that I am biased in favor of a multi-million (billion?) company since I find Abdin's "evidence" flimsy at best, while their absolute conviction that CBS is evil and could not possibly win this lawsuit because Abdin doesn't really have a case/evidence of the alleged theft is, of course, absolutely unbiased.

They are fully prepared to repeat the claim that CBS stole from Abdin regardless of what the court will find. The excuses are already in place, like with any persistent conspiracy theory.

And that truly is what it is. Regardless of what the court rules, or how the evidence is presented it will be insufficient to change this conspiracy that CBS is working to take down the little guy.

And there is no logic or reasoning with that basis.