I have received a letter from a law firm representing Hasbro Germany, expressing a strong feeling of dislike for our project, backed up with legal claims. Regardless of whether the claims they are making are factually correct or not, I have agreed to shut down the project in its current form. As soon as this is completely sorted out, development work will be put into keeping alive the code base in such a way that it can be used for other purposes.

I deeply appreciate all the support from the community and hope to see all of you again soon. I will keep you posted if there are any news.

2013/02/27

Max-Wilhelm Bruker <brukie@gmx.net>

Hasbro's lawyers have stated that they regard the case as over assuming I stick to the declaration of cease and desist that I had signed before. According to their latest letter, there will be no further consequences. However, when I asked whether I could publicise their letters, there was no reply, and I assume there won't be any. Long story short, the main point of the declaration is: I may not copy, distribute or use for advertisement any copyrighted visual representation related to MTG. As you know, I've never done any of that myself (except for some screenshots in the downloads section), but as their exemplary screenshots show parts of the Cockatrice UI with MTG card pictures in it for the most part, what they mean is probably that I should not distribute this software any more. The immediate consequences are as follows:

I'm looking for someone else to take over this project and modify it to be a general purpose card playing program. Cockatrice was never meant to infringe any copyrights, and I'm certain it can be made that way. The code contains very few MTG-specific bits, and throwing away the whole code because of those bits is not the way to go. I will be happy to assist with development of a non-infringing software based of Cockatrice once a new project leader is found.

I had to pay attorney fees in the amount of € 911.80 (about $1200). As many of you have expressed a wish to help me in this regard, I've added the donate button again. Any donations are greatly appreciated.

2013/04/07

Max-Wilhelm Bruker <brukie@gmx.net>

I have been informed about a promising project called Lotus that strives to develop a legally viable general purpose card game based on the Cockatrice code. The project leader is Brock Huxtable. I suggest that everyone who wants to contribute have a look. Check out Brock's page at Indiegogo.

2013/06/17

Max-Wilhelm Bruker <brukie@gmx.net>

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