Coleco strong-arming homebrew publishers and fan sites

[Rey]

Let's not post too many pics here or Cardillo may claim those too as his own hehe.

[DuggerVideoGames]

Ah, I see now. So Cardillo retweeted somebody's retweet of Robb's post. So in addition to being a charlatan, Cardillo/ColecoHoldings is inept, egotistic, and oblivious (among many other things). By retweeting a retweet of Robb's tweet, he's basically endorsing the very page he tried to shut down.

Well, nobody ever accused him of being smart.

[Schizophretard]

 

I understand that, but it seems like this would be a great opportunity for Mike to start "clearing his good name" again, and since we have another legit bad actor in Cardillo, it would be easy for someone who hadn't followed the play-by-play to give him some leeway. As such, I think it's worth noting that, while this adds to our knowledge of the Chameleon saga, it doesn't alter any existing facts. Mike, according to all evidence available, was the brains of the operation.

 

What evidence? I don't recall any evidence indicating that there were any brains behind the operation. All I remember was just a zombie with a crooked smile that needed a double tap to be put down.

[opcode]

Ah, I see now. So Cardillo retweeted somebody's retweet of Robb's post. So in addition to being a charlatan, Cardillo/ColecoHoldings is inept, egotistic, and oblivious (among many other things). By retweeting a retweet of Robb's tweet, he's basically endorsing the very page he tried to shut down.

 

Well, nobody ever accused him of being smart.

 

And by now if it isn't still clear what this is all about, I don't know what else still need to happen to make that clearer. Tip: it has nothing to do with protecting trademark.

[cybercylon]

He certainly can't be smart. This is a lot of wasted time and energy by Cardillo for not a whole of money going by one of Opcode's earlier posts (and that was a good year, right).

 

So it simply has to boil down to being a power play... for something that won't get him anything positive. There is little power to be gained here unless he just likes acting like a d__k.

[TPR]

And by now if it isn't still clear what this is all about, I don't know what else still need to happen to make that clearer. Tip: it has nothing to do with protecting trademark.

 

Yep., I'm sure I pointed it out a few hundred posts back somewhere, too. The "trademark claims" were just the vehicle used for Cardillo to get to get what he wanted, which to try to shut my page down (again, coming full circle to the original post in this thread.)

 

It's pretty clear now with setting up his own Facebook "fan" page, buying Twitter followers, trying SO HARD (too hard) to prove himself on social media, etc, you can see what this is all about now.

 

The biggest difference though between Cardillo and myself is... I wasn't doing this for some sort of ego boost due to having insecurities, I was doing it because I *actually like* the ColecoVision and am passionate about the platform and the community. I didn't start the ColevoVision Fan page because I was trying to "show off" to anyone, I did it to help feature all the OTHER people who were doing such hard work at making homebrews and to show how much FUN it is to collect for the system. I always put other people before myself when it came to what I was featuring on those social platforms.

[opcode]

He certainly can't be smart. This is a lot of wasted time and energy by Cardillo for not a whole of money going by one of Opcode's earlier posts (and that was a good year, right).

 

So it simply has to boil down to being a power play... for something that won't get him anything positive. There is little power to be gained here unless he just likes acting like a d__k.

 

Indeed. That was a year when I only did 3rd party stuff. Compared to that, Opcode is usually a money sinker, and there were occasions were I lost significant money, like in 2012, when I released the SGM. Expenses went over budget by almost $5k, with reprints and other issues. That is well documented in this very forum.

[DuggerVideoGames]

 

Yep., I'm sure I pointed it out a few hundred posts back somewhere, too. The "trademark claims" were just the vehicle used for Cardillo to get to get what he wanted, which to try to shut my page down (again, coming full circle to the original post in this thread.)

 

It's pretty clear now with setting up his own Facebook "fan" page, buying Twitter followers, trying SO HARD (too hard) to prove himself on social media, etc, you can see what this is all about now.

 

The biggest difference though between Cardillo and myself is... I wasn't doing this for some sort of ego boost due to having insecurities, I was doing it because I *actually like* the ColecoVision and am passionate about the platform and the community. I didn't start the ColevoVision Fan page because I was trying to "show off" to anyone, I did it to help feature all the OTHER people who were doing such hard work at making homebrews and to show how much FUN it is to collect for the system. I always put other people before myself when it came to what I was featuring on those social platforms.

No kidding. When I and others post photos of our high scores on his page, Robb also shares those posts so they get more exposure for us players. He also helps another FB group I'm a part of and thoroughly enjoy (I'm sure Andy appreciates everything you've done, Robb). Cardillo is the exact opposite as all of his actions have been about ego, image, and control. Robb takes joy in others' successes and enjoyments!

 

Sorry to talk about you in the third person while quoting one of your posts, but if you didn't already know it, you should now: I and many others appreciate everything you have done. Our common passions become enriched by the ability to share them with others who have the same passions.

[phoenixdownita]

 

Yep., I'm sure I pointed it out a few hundred posts back somewhere, too. The "trademark claims" were just the vehicle used for Cardillo to get to get what he wanted, which to try to shut my page down (again, coming full circle to the original post in this thread.)

 

It's pretty clear now with setting up his own Facebook "fan" page, buying Twitter followers, trying SO HARD (too hard) to prove himself on social media, etc, you can see what this is all about now.

 

The biggest difference though between Cardillo and myself is... I wasn't doing this for some sort of ego boost due to having insecurities, I was doing it because I *actually like* the ColecoVision and am passionate about the platform and the community. I didn't start the ColevoVision Fan page because I was trying to "show off" to anyone, I did it to help feature all the OTHER people who were doing such hard work at making homebrews and to show how much FUN it is to collect for the system. I always put other people before myself when it came to what I was featuring on those social platforms.

Sorry to ask some clarification, I promise this is not to foster drama.

 

Your page is an independent fanpage while obviously the other one "owned" by Cardillo/RWB/Coleco is NOT as it is affiliated with the very same commercial entity that can profit from stirring opinions left/right.

So told any officially run fanpage MUST declare so in order to avoid confusion as to the ties with the commercial entity, and in doing so basically losing any appearance of impartiality due to the obvious conflict of interest.

 

He can't really be trying to be running "the only" Coleco fanpage, if the TM thing hold (I doubt it) he can for sure have his own "official" fanpage, is the master plan to try to steal your audience as it is cheaper than build it up himself?

Is there more to it that my obviously non-social media friendly mind is having trouble to understand?

[DuggerVideoGames]

Sorry to ask some clarification, I promise this is not to foster drama.

 

Your page is an independent fanpage while obviously the other one "owned" by Cardillo/RWB/Coleco is not as it is affiliated with the very same commercial entity that can profit from stirring opinions left/right.

So told any officially run fanpage MUST declare so in order to avoid confusion as to the ties with the commercial entity, and in doing so basically losing any appearance of impartiality due to the obvious conflict of interest.

 

He can't really be trying to be running "the only" Coleco fanpage, if the TM thing hold (I doubt it) he can for sure have his own "official" fanpage, is the master plan to try to steal your audience as it is cheaper than build it up himself?

Is there more to it that my obviously non-social media friendly mind is having trouble to understand?

Simply put: it's all about ego, image and control for Cardillo. His ego will be his own source of self destruction. Don't forget that moron attacked PatTheNes punk and actually commented about making a PatTheNesPunk fan page (sure enough, he makes a clone Colecovision Fan fan page because he's pissed off that Colecovision Fan has way more FB likes). Then after Albert disagreed with Cardillo's whining about being "bullied", Cardillo attempted to stir people away from the AtariAge forums by creating a new forum for Atari and calling his new forums the defenitive Atari forums (LMAO!).

 

It is self-evident in all of his actions thus far that he is all about satisfying his own massive ego.

[phoenixdownita]

Cardillo attempted to stir people away from the AtariAge forums by creating a new forum for Atari and calling his new forums the defenitive Atari forums (LMAO!).

 

Say what?

[DuggerVideoGames]

Say what?

Yeah, he threw one hell of a temper tantrum and started posting links to some Atari forum that he claimed is the definitive Atari forum; he deleted the post after a bunch of comments posted links to AtariAge instead.

[TPR]

Sorry to ask some clarification, I promise this is not to foster drama.

 

Your page is an independent fanpage while obviously the other one "owned" by Cardillo/RWB/Coleco is not as it is affiliated with the very same commercial entity that can profit from stirring opinions left/right.

So told any officially run fanpage MUST declare so in order to avoid confusion as to the ties with the commercial entity, and in doing so basically losing any appearance of impartiality due to the obvious conflict of interest.

 

He can't really be trying to be running "the only" Coleco fanpage, if the TM thing hold (I doubt it) he can for sure have his own "official" fanpage, is the master plan to try to steal your audience as it is cheaper than build it up himself?

Is there more to it that my obviously non-social media friendly mind is having trouble to understand?

 

I honestly cannot tell if you're trolling for drama, information for use in your own agenda or really just don't "get it." But fine. I'll humor you this one time and answer.

 

Frankly put: Chris doesn't like that I have nearly thirty thousand people on our Facebook page and I am good at social media and he sucks at it. I didn't mean to end up controlling the majority of the "ColecoVision Content" on social media. I didn't do that on purpose, it was just a byproduct of the fact that I know what I'm doing. And i put on my page what I feel that "fans" like myself would want to see. I personally think the stuff that Coleco Holdings is offering is awful so I chose not to feature their content in favor of homebrewers and other fans. Cardillo doesn't like that because he's insecure, wants the attention and the control.

 

That's what it comes down and I'm not trying to brag or be egotistical, I'm just stating facts. I'm not explaining it any further because I don't buy the you're not here for some weird dramatic purpose.

[DuggerVideoGames]

It's also almost 23,000 more than Cardillo has. Just saying.

 

Frankly put: Chris doesn't like that I have nearly thirty thousand people on our Facebook page and I am good at social media and he sucks at it.

[phoenixdownita]

I honestly cannot tell if you're trolling for drama, information for use in your own agenda or really just don't "get it." But fine. I'll humor you this one time and answer.

No trolling, no personal agenda, I really don't get it.

As in, I cannot believe that an adult (Chris) in charge to rebuild a brand/retro-console/nostalgia-blah for a wider audience (not who already knows about it obviously) decides that the best course of action is to attack/close-down the major fanpage about said console.

I should state it better to avoid misunderstanding: I'm in total disbelief (meaning of "inability or refusal to accept that something is true or real") that such a stupid course of action appeared good in any shape form or fashion to the individual that decided to take it ..... and yet he did it and apparently is keeping at it.

 

Thanks for the explanation.

[TPR]

It's also almost 23,000 more than Cardillo has. Just saying.

 

It's not just about likes and followers. It's about engagement. You can have a million followers on your page, if they aren't engaged in your content, you still fail. Case in point, I just posted this three hours ago...

 

That ONE POST probably has WAAAAY more engagement than the Coleco Holdings page has had all year. I've been working in social media since before social media was a term. I chose to donate some of my time and knowledge to benefit the ColecoVision and retrogaming community because it was fun for me, and I thought other people would hope my social media offerings would be fun as well. No other reason.

[enoofu]

No trolling, no personal agenda, I really don't get it.

As in, I cannot believe that an adult (Chris) in charge to rebuild a brand/retro-console/nostalgia-blah for a wider audience (not who already knows about it obviously) decides that the best course of action is to attack/close-down the major fanpage about said console.

I should state it better to avoid misunderstanding: I'm in total disbelief (meaning of "inability or refusal to accept that something is true or real") that such a stupid course of action appeared good in any shape form or fashion to the individual that decided to take it ..... and yet he did it and apparently is keeping at it. Why?

 

I guess the ego thing (or a personal vendetta) is the only rationale I can fathom.

 

Chris branded himself towards Ghetto Media so doing trashy branding decisions is what he believes will leaved to a wider audience

Edited June 13, 2017 by enoofu

[kevtris]

 

Kevin Horton used the name minus the rainbow in 1996 for his game Kevtris that I believe may be the first homebrew. In game is says,"Coleco Vision Reverse-Engineering Society"(CVRS)on the title screen but there also seems to be another release with the rainbow version upside down. One says that it is an internet release so maybe there was one that was sold($20 plus $3 shipping) and one for downloading for emulators.

 

 

 

 

So, maybe his use of Coleco Vision for commercial purposes or generic uses like in Coleco Vision Reverse-Engineering Society after Coleco Industries, Inc. went under but before "Coleco" came on the scene could somehow challenge their trademark? It would also be cool if another thing he has done helped put an end to another "Coleco is Back!" project.

 

I called it that because I had to reverse engineer everything about the Coleco. Back in 1995, there wasn't much available on the chips inside; even though said chips were off the shelf, it wasn't possible to just go to bitsavers and download datasheets. You had to know someone that had a data book about the chips. At the time I remember trying to find databooks on the chips at the hamfests but had no luck. So I was tasked with figuring out how the video and audio worked by looking through the code of some games.

 

The controller button decoding was done by writing a program that piped the controller bits to the sound chip by writing the value read directly to the frequency registers, then listening to determine the correct 'order' that they were in (this was done before I had video stuff working). After that, the video was done by randomly sending data to the video chip and seeing what happened.

 

I am pretty much 100% sure that it was indeed the first Coleco homebrew, because I started it in late 1995 and finished it in early 96. It didn't sell too fast; took me almost 2 years to sell all 100 copies of the game at $20 each. The game was really kind of a programming demo for me, and I wasn't even going to release it until someone said I should. I don't think it's a great game or anything. Just kind of meh. I wanted to release some other games but never got around to it; other projects took my time and I didn't want to spend 6-8 months working on a game. Around that time I was working on Bankzilla which was an all inclusive system packed into a 7800 case that ran every 2600 game (at the time). Speaking of that, I should really do a video on it and the 5200 Jr. which is a similar thing; a 5200 with every game built in with a "scene demo' style menu to select the desired game. It fits into a 2600 Jr. case.

 

As for the Cardillo thing, I guess I kind of a dodged a bullet since he asked me to design them a new Coleco countertop system and I politely declined; right after the chameleon debacle.

[Benheck]

Here's what I sent them in 2008.

 

 

Again, the original (and only) Coleco portable I made was in 2005, by commission for a customer who was not associated with RWB.

 

And yes as some have mentioned it was a heavily modded original Colecovision, not a new machine. And by looking at the dates on these provided logo files, RWB contacted me over 2 year after I built the one-off.

[opcode]

Here's what I sent them in 2008.

 

 

Again, the original (and only) Coleco portable I made was in 2005, by commission for a customer who was not associated with RWB.

 

And yes as some have mentioned it was a heavily modded original Colecovision, not a new machine. And by looking at the dates on these provided logo files, RWB contacted me over 2 year after I built the one-off.

 

For those following this closely, here is something you can search online: search for similar cases where a false specimen was submitted (and the applicant was aware it was false) and a registration granted based on that. Then check what is the most current legal precedent in case that is opposed in court.

 

And then tell me if you agree that someone must be sweating... and then try to use that (the bogus 1st registration) to make sense of the new application...

[+frankodragon]

Just like Citizen Kane:

 

[Flojomojo]

Ben Heck's logos are are attractive, but not authentic to the original. Shame on "Coleco" for trying to pass them off as the real thing, yay USPTO for calling them out on it.

[enoofu]

 

For those following this closely, here is something you can search online: search for similar cases where a false specimen was submitted (and the applicant was aware it was false) and a registration granted based on that. Then check what is the most current legal precedent in case that is opposed in court.

 

And then tell me if you agree that someone must be sweating... and then try to use that (the bogus 1st registration) to make sense of the new application...

Personally I don't think it will happen unless Coleco Home-brew community publicly challenges the Trademark especially ones with standing that were using the mark at the time

[Flojomojo]

Personally I don't think it will happen unless Coleco Home-brew community publicly challenges the Trademark especially ones with standing that were using the mark at the time

How does that happen, and what good could come of it?

 

I see how the case could be made that RWB doesn't deserve to have access to the brand.

 

That wouldn't make it available to others though, would it? Or does an abandoned brand belong to everyone? What's it take to make it considered "public domain" (in quotes because I don't understand if that can apply to a trademark as well as it could to a formerly copyrighted work)?

[enoofu]

 

 

How can I challenge a trademark registration or application?

Several options exist to challenge another party's trademark registration or application, depending on the particular circumstances and grounds for challenging:

• You may challenge a trademark registration issued by the USPTO by filing a petition to cancel the registration with the Trademark Trial & Appeal Board (TTAB).
• You may challenge an application for trademark registration at the USPTO by filing an opposition with the TTAB within 30 days after it is published in the Official Gazette.
• You may file a declaratory judgment lawsuit, asking a court to declare that your mark does not infringe the trademark owner's mark, and/or that the trademark owner's mark is invalid.
• If you are already a defendant in an infringement lawsuit, you may assert an "affirmative defense" and/or a counterclaim against the plaintiff challenging the validity of the plaintiff's trademark.

https://www.uspto.gov/about-trademarks

By revoking a trademark it would go into the public domain so anyone could use it

Edited June 13, 2017 by enoofu