On February 20, the Russian developer Black Sun Game Publishing announced a fundraising campaign for the creation of the game “Corsairs: The Black Mark” (“Corsairs 4”). The next day, Dmitry Arkhipov, co-founder of Akella, the developer and publisher of the first three parts, said that the creators of the new game do not have rights to the trademark of the series. App2Top.ru I talked to representatives of both sides of the conflict.
Who is a participant in the conflict?
There are two direct parties to the conflict: Black Sun Game Publishing and Dmitry Arkhipov.
Black Sun Game Publishing is a Russian company that was launched in 2014 by the managers of the Russian publishing house Akella: Alexey Yarovit, head of the PR and Marketing Department, Nikita Ivanov, head of Akella Online, and Andrey Zemlyan, head of the QA department.
In one of its presentations, the studio stated that since September of the same year it has owned the right to use the Akella trademark.
Logo of the company “Akella”
After the launch of the studio, she announced the conclusion of a contract for localization and publication in Russia and China of the project
Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues. The latter is created with the participation of Richard Garriott, one of the pioneers of MMO development and creator of the Ultima series. From that moment there was no news about new projects until yesterday.
Dmitry Arkhipov is the co–founder of Akella, one of the largest developers and publishers of games in the CIS in the noughties. The company was threatened with bankruptcy in 2012.
Dmitry himself notes that there is no such company as Akella now, but there are a number of persons who are the legal successors of all the intellectual property of the publisher.
What was the catalyst for the conflict?
On February 20, Black Sun Game Publishing launched the Corsairs 4 project on the Russian crowdfunding platform QIWI Fundl. The stated goal was to collect from 2 million rubles for development. This money, according to the official campaign page, will allow the team to create a project design document.
However, the main task of the campaign is to prove to investors the interest of users in the project. As the developers write, “in case of a good response from the CA, the entire development budget (about $ 6 million) will be allocated by investors.”
Art for a new game
The industrial community greeted the news warmly.
App2Top.ru connects this with two points.
The first: Corsairs is one of the few commercially successful “big” (non–mobile/social) gaming franchises from Russia in the West. The original game, released in 2000, garnered good press, including in the USA.
Second: Renat Yudinov is the producer of the announced project. He is not only the game designer of the first three original parts (in the first part he worked on game design together with Konstantin Sapronenkov), but also one of the notable figures of the modern domestic mobile industry. Renat is the director of the VGTRK gaming division, which today successfully produces projects on behalf of brands such as Interactive Cartoon and Interactive Stories.
Dmitry Arkhipov ‘s reaction
The day after the campaign started, Dmitry Arkhipov posted an appeal to the QIWI Fundl platform on his Facebook page. In it, he stated that Black Sun Game Publishing has no rights to the game. In addition, Arkhipov declared the dishonesty of the studio’s top managers at the time when they worked at Akella.
In conversation with App2Top.ru Arkhipov called the situation a “raider seizure” of the trademark. According to him, a lawsuit is currently underway between the current copyright holders of the Corsairs franchise, who created it, and Black Sun Game Publishing.
Dmitry ArkhipovThe lawsuit was filed by Black Sun Game Publishing with the wording about the non-use of the trademark.
According to Russian legislation (Article 1486), “the legal protection of a trademark may be terminated (…) due to its non-use continuously for three years.”
At the moment, projects under the brand “Corsairs” are being sold on the Steam digital platform. Akella is listed as the publisher.
The latest project released at the moment under the trademark “Corsairs” is the addition “Hero of the Nation” to the game “Corsairs: To each his own”. The official release date of the add–on is 2017. The role of developers was played by BlackMark Studio.
What is the situation from the point of view of the court?
The registration number of the trademark “Corsairs” is 421164. Last year, the Avatar Company (apparently, this is the legal name of Black Sun Game Publishing) filed an application to the court for the early termination of the legal protection of this trademark due to its non-use.
The company “STM STATUS” acted as a defendant. According to the materials of the court, “Akella Company was involved by the court to participate in this case as a third party who does not make independent claims regarding the subject of the dispute.”
Corsairs: To each his own (2012)
On November 17, 2017, the Intellectual Property Rights Court partially satisfied Avatar’s claims regarding trademark 421164.
By partial, it means that we are talking only about those goods that relate to computer programs and electronic services.
But, as we noted above, Arkhipov insists that the trial is still underway. According to him, “The case is now on appeal. Until then, it’s too early to talk about someone losing or winning.” The meeting is scheduled for April.
QIWI Reaction
In the comments to Dmitry Arkhipov’s Facebook post, representatives of the QIWI platform were noted. The company stated that “At the stage of preliminary moderation of the game “Corsairs-4″, the author of the project – the company Black Sun Game Publishing – was tested for legal purity.” She also expressed regret over the emergence of a conflict over “one of the most striking projects exhibited at the QIWI Fundl site.”
What do they think about the accusations at Black Sun Game Publishing?
The studio’s official response, which it published in the form of an open letter to Dmitry Arkhipov, is also based on the court’s decision. Black Sun Game Publishing insists that it has won the court and since November 17, 2017, the trademark “Corsairs” in relation to digital games no longer belongs to either Akella or the last copyright holder of the brand, the STATUS STM company.
Project producer Renat Yudinov in an interview with App2Top.ru , stated that he assumed a negative reaction from the co-founder of Akella: “I assumed that Dima might react violently to such news. But for me, on the one hand, a story with a similar scandal was on the scales, and on the other hand, it was probably the only opportunity to revive one of the few good domestic game projects.”
Renat Berdinov
To the question of whether the company is not afraid that Arkhipov’s accusations will negatively affect the results of the fundraising campaign
Yudinov replied that it was difficult to talk about it now.
He also noted that Black Sun Game Publishing “registers the Corsairs trademark after clearing it.” As for the Sea Dogs trademark, the rights to it belong to Bethesda Softwork, “which acted as the publisher of the game in the Western market.”