Paramount and ABC Sue Dynamix

In the aftermath of the recording industry's neutering of Napster's online presence, and following on the heels of Paramount Studios' success in removing any references to "Star Trek" on the Internet (other than on owned and licensed sites), Paramount and ABC have joined forces to regain control of copyrighted material in the hit Dynamix computer games Tribes and Tribes 2.

"Dynamix is illegally providing copyrighted material to all users of these games," said Kat Alyorbase, spokesperson for the plaintiffs' legal teams. "This suit is about protecting artists' rights, and of course, getting royalties for each individual's use of copyrighted material."

At issue is the use, in both Tribes and Tribes 2, of the term "shazbot." The word comes from Paramount's prime-time television show "Mork and Mindy" which aired on ABC from 1978 to 1982. Mork, played by Robin Williams in his breakthrough role as an alien from the planet Ork, used the made-up word in the show as an Orkan expletive. The Tribes games have pre-recorded voices that exclaim "Shazbot!" when players press the proper command keys.

"What we have here is a failure to remunerate," said Ms. Alyorbase. "But we agree that it is most likely beyond the current capabilities of Dynamix to track all players and their 'shazbot' usage in online games. So we're involved in discussions to reach equitable remedies."

Dynamix is having a difficult time coming up with possible solutions. "Hell, at this point, we don't have too many options," said an anonymous source. "One is to plug Paramount, ABC and 'Mork and Mindy' using images for base walls and stuff. Another is to, get this, put Mork's rainbow suspenders on all the player models. Got patch?"