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scrapple

Row blows up over ownership of 'space marine' term

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The subtext being that Doomguy is a marine in space (sort of) and therefore this is related to Doom?

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Ms Hall said Games Workshop could launch a similar protection campaign in Europe as it had had a registered trademark for the term "space marine" since 1995. Its trademark claim covers the use of the word in connection with many aspects of tabletop gaming and video games, she said, but also extended to published works.


Doom predates this by 2 years. Fuck 'em.

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I don't think this will stand. It's like trying to trademark "socks" or "carrots", which is not allowed under copyright law (for the time being, anyway).

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The Doom FAQ said
In DOOM, you're a space marine, one of Earth's toughest, hardened in combat and trained for action.


That said, Warhammer 40,000 dates to 1987 (six years before Doom's release). But apparently the term was used in science fiction stories many years before that, first appearing in 1932.

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Hah, look what was published 10 years before Warhammer 40000: Space Marines is a science fiction miniatures wargame created by A. Mark Ratner. There were two editions. The first was published by FanTac Games (1977) and the second by Fantasy Games Unlimited (1980). Both versions include artwork by David C. Sutherland III.

I have an idea, I'm going to create a game that'll feature units known as Warhammers, and I'll trademark Warhammer because of that. It's a super-generic term that has been used as a title for published products by other companies before; so it fits all the prerequisites to become my trademark. Apparently.

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Actually, from what I read the author doesn't actually have enough money to challenge the claim, otherwise she would win (honestly I don't know how these legal things work).

Anyway, Games Workshop are known for having an inept legal team and no real understanding of the modern world - hence the lack of advertising, crappy White Dwarf magazine, lack of online community contact, rumour lockdowns etc.

After the recent "Chapterhouse debacle" - 3rd party manufacturers were making copies of Games Workshop's designs for models they had not released yet based upon their own artwork. Games Workshop challenged the most blatant one ChapterHouse Studios in court and from what I gather failed rather embarrassingly.

Because of this GW are now implementing a paranoid and draconian copyright lockdown procedure to prevent such a fiasco from happening again - hence the stupid 'Space Marine' copyright claim. The more you know!

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Donald Trump tried to trademark You're Fired when another television Billionaire had been using it for a decade.

Gene Simmons trademarked the dollar sign on a money bag.

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Captain Toenail said:

Actually, from what I read the author doesn't actually have enough money to challenge the claim, otherwise she would win (honestly I don't know how these legal things work).

As I understand it, civil court cases are usually resolved in favour of the party with the biggest pile of money. I'll be surprised if the ChapterHouse Studios ruling goes unchallenged.

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this is another stupid idea of putting ownership on basic components for fantasy creations, imagine if the expression in anyway possible for the word and concept of "Fireball" would be set... it would escalate to that no one cares about the rules and then ultimately the ones that does right in putting ownership of a complete game that is popular and apreciated get their shit flipped because no one will care about abused rules.

Claiming components is stupid, while claiming something as a whole composoin is ok.

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Hope nobody takes the ownership from 'Doomguy'!

This is all a load of silly stuff though! Its like when that mine craft dude got a letter from the Elder Scrolls people becuase he used the work 'Scroll' in one of his expansion packs or something.

Sorry if that was a bit vague, though im sure most people know what im talking about.

What ever came to that anyway, did he get away with it.....not that he did anything wrong anyway *rolls eyes*

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Both controversies appear to be sorted. Scrolls is in alpha stage and the ebook mentioned in the linked article is back on Amazon.

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DooMAD said:

Both controversies appear to be sorted. Scrolls is in alpha stage and the ebook mentioned in the linked article is back on Amazon.


Thats cool :)

Wonder what the next word from the dictionary is going to be 'claimed'

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We should create Trademark Inc. which would trademark the term "trademark" for all uses in litigation.

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chungy said:

Maybe Valve should try suing scientists for using the term "half-life" ;)


Or engineers for the word valve.

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geo said:

Gene Simmons trademarked the dollar sign on a money bag.


How does this work with Monopoly games that are created after his trademark? Or have they pretty much stopped using it entirely?

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