Elite: Dangerous crowdfunding campaign reinstated after copyright flap

Enlarge / Pew pew! (credit: Frontier Developments)

After a three-week pause due to a copyright complaint, Kickstarter has un-frozen the crowdfunding campaign for Spidermind Games’ Elite: Dangerous pen-and-paper RPG. The campaign’s page is back online as of 21:45 GMT.

The complainant appears to have been an individual named Chris Jordan, who filed the complaint on behalf of Ian Bell Elite Rights LLP. Ian Bell is the co-creator of the original 1984 space combat and trading simulator Elite. Bell and partner David Braben parted ways after Elite, with Bell pursuing other interests while Braben continued developing the Elite series (Braben also was instrumental in the development of the Raspberry Pi).

At some point, Ian Bell allegedly sold his portion of the Elite copyright to Chris Jordan. In an e-mail to Spidermind Games obtained by Ars, Jordan appears unhappy that the Elite: Dangerous RPG does not credit Bell. “I’m sad to see you commercially exploiting the work of the one man without which Elite would never have existed, without permission, credit or even mention,” wrote Jordan. “Given you say you are an Elite player and fan, I’m assuming your omission isn’t through mere ignorance.”

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Ars Technica

Post Author: martin

Martin is an enthusiastic programmer, a webdeveloper and a young entrepreneur. He is intereted into computers for a long time. In the age of 10 he has programmed his first website and since then he has been working on web technologies until now. He is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of BriefNews.eu and PCHealthBoost.info Online Magazines. His colleagues appreciate him as a passionate workhorse, a fan of new technologies, an eternal optimist and a dreamer, but especially the soul of the team for whom he can do anything in the world.

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