A lawsuit has just been filed in the US District Court against CBS and Netflix for perceived similarities between the storyline and characters in the latest Star Trek series and an inde game developed back in 2014.
Kuwait based Anas Abdin posted to Twitter yesterday about his frustration in discussing his concerns with CBS over the last few months. It all surrounds the game he developed called Tardigrades in 2014. The game focuses on a civilisation living on Earth 20,000 years ago, where they’re on the verge of interstellar travel using giant space lifeforms – tardigrades – to travel anywhere in the universe.
Abdin elaborates about the similarities with the characters as well, in his original blog post from October last year:
One of the main lead characters of Tardigrades is called Yolanda – a female that comes from an area that is now central Africa (remember the game is set on 20,000 B.C.)
In the court documents obtained by TREKZONE.org, the nature of claims states,
Plaintiff received copyright protection in said works via the Berne Convention and/or Universal Copyright Convention.
Abdin is seeking damages in the lawsuit filed on the 22nd of August US time.
Comment has been sought from CBS, Netflix and Abdin, but was unavailable before publication.
This post will update.