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So if I wanted to show off and tell the world about my Space Wolf army, then registering a domain of "wolfstansspacewolfarmy" would have them having a hissy fit? I'd have to call it something that didn't infringe their IP and hope that it was found via meta tags?

I've mentioned meta tags before and what I find interesting about them is that to promote my site I could use terms like "real space wolves, genuine space marines, official space wolf site" and it's not an infringement, even though they would be being used to mislead and direct people to my web site. However I create a site called "wolfstanspacewolfarmy" and plaster a mixture of own photos and GW artwork on it, but with a clear disclaimer at the bottom, I run the risk of get a C&D letter.

Just thought I throw that in to the mix

If you made a commercial site plastered with those kind of metatags, and were not selling official GW figures, they probably would jump on. Metatags are a bit like advertising.

Like I said, the domain name thing is not illegal, there is legal precedent that shows that using someone else' IP in your domain name is fair use, so long as it cannot be confused with a 'official' website.

FUMMBL's situation is a bit stickier, and in all honesty, my solution would be to move the servers to a nation where it's activities do not constitute a copyright violation.

Just a quick check on GW's trademarks and I turned up these 2 attorneys as the ones who filed the most popular GW trademarks; Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer.

Attorneys:
Naresh Kilaru
Mark Sommers

Grab the torches, get 'em!!

I wonder how a company can trademark something like an abbreviation. 40k is just an abbreviation for 40,000... is that even legal? Or is that trademark on a specific font and style?

I don't think you can trademark 40k on it's own. However, 40k when referring to Warhammer 40,000 you probably could make an argument for.

Same way GE can copyright "GE". Sure they are paired up commonly in words like "age, adage, rage, cage...etc." So they cannot be copyrighted in terms of "OMG you used the words spaceaGE in your url so we can sue you"; but if you went and created a website discussing the merits of GE products (why you would I do not know) and then called it "GElovers" you most likely would get a friendly warning and then a C&D (or maybe it'd go right to a cease and desist).

A company is not required to play nice you know in regards to legal matters. If someone is trying to steal my tv from my house I SHOULD fire a warning shot or yell out a warning but there is no law saying I have to. I can just go right to the killing and maiming if I want.

I can just go right to the killing and maiming if I want.

What country do you live in, lol...if anything what I've heard seems to suggest the opposite. You can't kill someone for stealing your TV, nor can you shoot them, and I even have my doubts about being able to throw a punch their way if they were coming at you and clearly intended to do you harm. You'd probably get sued for it and/or end up doing time.

Maybe it differs depending on the state, I dunno.

It is state law; it's usually called the "castle doctrine", or something along those lines, and it allows pretty much any action to be taken to defend yourself against someone breaking into your residence.

We just need to let that one lie. This thread will derail super fast (although it is on it's way to closure within the next 5-8 pages).

Point I'm making is that if these sites violate GW's policy on their IP (and seriously, do some goddamn homework on the subject before you begin) GW does not owe it to them to give them 3 warnings or 6 or 8. If you are found to be pirating and distributing movies I promise the MPAA is not going to send a C&D letter first. Your home will be raided, computers taken and your illegal movies confiscated for use as evidence. MPAA won't give 3 strikes, why the hell should GW?

In the end we will all gnash teeth and bitch about how fair or unfair we think they are with their IP "strong arming" but I guarantee that 5 years from now I will be posting on dakka (or at least reading all the whining about GW's continued evil corporate ways) and I will see the same people that I see now putting up pics of newly painted minis or posting rumors or what have you that involves this big corporate evil entity known as GW.

Chapterhouse wrote:I wonder how a company can trademark something like an abbreviation. 40k is just an abbreviation for 40,000... is that even legal? Or is that trademark on a specific font and style?

Trademarking does not give you the right to control all possible uses of the phrase, only use in a specific category of trade such as names for wargames.

Fateweaver wrote:
In the end we will all gnash teeth and bitch about how fair or unfair we think they are with their IP "strong arming" but I guarantee that 5 years from now I will be posting on dakka (or at least reading all the whining about GW's continued evil corporate ways) and I will see the same people that I see now putting up pics of newly painted minis or posting rumors or what have you that involves this big corporate evil entity known as GW.

Perhaps, perhaps not, I would not have predicted five years ago that there would have been strong companies like PP emerging to challenge on any form of scale (still a small scale I know but rising), since I was fairly convinced the fantasy tabletop game was becoming extinct with the rise of MMORPGs. I still think the online gaming will continue to eat at the potential customerbase for these types of game and will continue to grow more advanced and I still think rival companies will continue to emerge and that is entirely healthy, GW needs some very strong rivals to emerge to make it healthy again, if it has gone down the road of corporate power then it needs a vibrant market or we see what we have seen happening to GW continue, it remains bloated and overpriced in a virtual monopoly.

I do not hate GW, despite my agitation with it. I am annoyed at how it has been behaving for the last 10 years or so, my annoyance heightened by how I remember it and how I believe we have seen across many other corporations a change for the better in customer relations that is woefully missing in GW's approach. It's abit like someone sat Kirby and the other senior management in a dark room and forced them to watch Wallstreet on a loop for a week and they all emerged bleary eyed murmuring 'greed is good' and believing they're still in the economic bubble of the late 80s. If this had been the GW of 15 years ago, they would have carried a full article in WD about the fansites and what they did and interview the owners, overjoyed at being able to promote the Hobby as Community instead of what we see here in action as the Hobby as Product.

I don't want GW to fall, I love warhammer and 40k, I grew up with those figures and reading the fluff and walking with my friends into the wargames club at age 12 and getting sneered at by old 40somethings for bringing a 'fantasy' game to the club and arguing to keep the warhammer game in the club when at the AGM some of the less tolerant wanted it thrown out.

But I want GW to change its ways.
I want it to respect its customers, not produce end of year financial reports that imply the customer of their product will tolerate much abuse because they love the product so much and use that as vindication to carry out actions like we are seeing here and the continued price hikes or inefficient and downright infuriating rules/codex/armylist cockups we keep seeing.

I have become nostalgic for the GW I knew and that is entirely impossible to recreate because the company has moved on as has the market, I understand completely and as I said, good, because I want to see eldar and orks and genestealers and skaven and witchelves in another 5 years or 50! I want the company to be healthy so it can survive. But not as it is, not with the crazy prices, not with the bullying we've seen here, not with the cynical use of rules to promote sale of certain products, not with the fingers in the ears denouncing of the rest of the wargaming world, not with the failings in the rules that are covered by some shrugging and being told to 'roll for it', not with the failure to maintain ALL lines instead of concentrating on one line to the detriment of the others.

I was sent a pm by someone here telling me to 'show some respect' to GW. I ask you, why would I show respect to a company that is proving entirely unwilling to respect me as it's customer?

putting up pics of newly painted minis

No, NEVER! As long as I draw breath no mini of mine will ever see paint!

I was sent a pm by someone here telling me to 'show some respect' to GW. I ask you, why would I show respect to a company that is proving entirely unwilling to respect me as it's customer?

What the feth? Who said that?

You got a lot of balls guy, but not a lot of brains. I'm sorry but only a gak would show respect to someone who clearly doesn't give a rat's ass about them and treats them like dirt on a daily basis.

Respect has to be earned.

You can receive cease and disist orders all day long, they go the same place all the offers for credit card processing go...into the shredder...unless it comes from a court which has jurisdiction over you its just a letter.

For a Tort to be valid they have to prove Real Damages, and will be hard pressed to do so.

Plus over here in the states it takes 30 seconds and 50 bucks to create a LLCorp, anything big actaully comes down the pipe and you let that corp go bankrupt.

From someone of the same age... respect MGS. Do you per chance go to the model / engineering show @ The Bath & West Show Grounds? If you do it would be nice to meet and greet next year. Our club, Wessex Wyverns along with our friends from MCS Miniatures & Simple Miniature Games should be there in force in 2010. I missed our first showing last year, but gather some serious drinking happened

Wolfstan wrote:From someone of the same age... respect MGS. Do you per chance go to the model / engineering show @ The Bath & West Show Grounds? If you do it would be nice to meet and greet next year. Our club, Wessex Wyverns along with our friends from MCS Miniatures & Simple Miniature Games should be there in force in 2010. I missed our first showing last year, but gather some serious drinking happened

Sounds cool, lemme know when?

Mr. Anonymous must be a Space Marine player, that's all I can think of. It's the only way that makes any sense.

Hi all.
It appears that GW PLC are using two seperate corperate ideals against each other!

Originaly fan support went into GW towers and was delt with by inclusion and/or acknowledgement by GW staff.

After a while it seemed posible to let fans support games directly with minimal support from GW PLC .(Specialist games were a test of this IMO.)

And so GW PLC cut the amount of game development and support to the absolute minimum, assuming the fans will take up the slack.
(FAQs ,alternative armies , rules etc.)

Now the fans HAVE taken up activley supporting GW games saving GW PLC loads of time and money...The corperate lawyers take exception and start slapping C&D on them!

Either GW takes game development and support seriously and keeps it in house,(with fan input,) or it lets it go to fan support.

Being too 'fat and lazy' to do a job properly , then stopping others from doing it for you, is a recipie for disaster IMO.

TTFN
Lanrak.

I see that TGN has an interesting post on the subject. He's trying to get the whole subject clarified by some IP lawyers who have offered to answer relevant questions.

Sounds like a good idea in principal Just out of interest have we had any IP lawyers post their opinions here? The reason I ask is that there does appear to of been posts from people with legal experience, but I have to say, they don't seem to be singing from the same song sheet. Now this could be because they aren't IP lawyers, but work in the legal world.

I believe there are two IP lawyers who post on Dakka, however I don't think either of them have chipped in in this thread.

Platuan4th wrote:

BaronIveagh wrote:

Somnicide wrote:Also remember that there is that newish blood bowl video game - I can see them wanting to protect their IP - as someone else mentioned, if they don't do anything about little stuff, they can't do anything about big stuff (say Hasbro making a fantasy world based blood bowl type football game) because they didn't protect their IP

Point of fact, Hasbro could legally make a fantasy world based blood bowl style games since they own something called Dungeons & Dragons...

I don't know if it's Hasbro, but there's some fantasy football board game they sell at TRU. It's a self-contained game, but I can't think of the name and can't find it through a web search yet.

What's TRU?

Toys R Us

Anyone can make a fantasy world based blood bowl style game as long as they don't call it Blood Bowl.

Chu Ching!

Green Blow Fly wrote:Chu Ching!

Indeed!

I wus jus finkin abawt 'Blud Bowlin!' (TM) where ya gets all da stunties and lines em up an den yous frows da big squig at em and sees 'ow many ov dem get's squashed!

Miniwargaming got a C&D for having GW pictures of their products.

Ok, this is heading into the realm of just plain fethed up.

http://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/2009/11/17/31483

So, we'll punish the fans if we hear them talking about using substitute figures??? WTF?

IF microsoft can't get away with it, why should GW.
Report them to the monopolies commission.

BaronIveagh wrote:Ok, this is heading into the realm of just plain fethed up.

http://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/2009/11/17/31483

So, we'll punish the fans if we hear them talking about using substitute figures??? WTF?

Except that's not what they're stating.

They'll punish the fans if they hear about other COMPANIES marketing figures exclusively as stand-ins for ones GW doesn't make.