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.. that's it ! GW must have found a cache of unsold BB boxsets and have hit upon this cunning marketing plan as a means to shift them.

Amen to that brothas.
What the hell are they doing? Protecting their property and all that, LETS LYNCH EM, YEHAW.

-_-

H.B.M.C. wrote:And ordering another company to not sell its own products - that comes under the banner of 'protecting trademarks' now does it?

That's a completely different topic, and if you want to go after GW for it feel free, though I missed where the evidence and detailed information for this came out in the thread.

I'm just saying, this is a toy soldiers game. Not even that, it's one of the lowest-selling toy soldiers games of the company. One website with a badly-chosen name got shut down, and now we have people on this thread likening the situation to a multi-planet corporation that uses unwilling innocents as hosts to a deadly alien parasite to create the ultimate uncontrollable biological weapon. You think this might be going a bit OTT? Especially concidering that the owner of the site doesn't care.

To JOHIRA - small game it may be, but at one of the biggest gaming conventions in Australia CANCON last year, there were more Bloodbowl players than 40k or fantasy by a long margin, they were only out represented by Flames of War players.

Also this issue has grown much larger than the initial post if you cared to read through properly.

Anyway this thing has grown exponentially now:

Apparently now approximately 54 letters to varying websites and companies have been forwarded by GW.

How does this website infringe?

www.enefel.org/

They are simply "Fantasy Football"

I dare say FUMBBL will be getting their C&D letter shortly to kill the fun for tens of thousands of people worldwide.

Add some more threats to Impact Miniatures -

Quoted from Impact Miniatures on Ausbowl:

Quote::
"Games Workshop takes no issue with legitimate competition, and you will no doubt be aware that we believe the hobby wargames market benefits from a greater variety of products being available.

Nonetheless, the Impact! Miniatures range and the accompanying 'Elfball' game bear a very strong resemblance to the Blood Bowl game.

Aside from any of the legal concerns raised in this letter, you will appreciate that whilst we may appreciate healthy and fair competition, we are less enamoured with activities which are designed to attract business away from Games Workshop. We would consider it inappropriate for you to sell or market Impact! Miniatures or 'Elfball' at a Blood Bowl event, for example.

Simply put, activities which are designed to support Blood Bowl should do so. On the other hand, commercial activities which are intended to compete with Blood Bowl should take place with no proximity to Blood Bowl events, publications, or products.

Unless your competing activities are scaled back, we may have no option but to review your activites regularly and, for example, reconsider your eligility for Blood Bowl competitions and events. In legal terms, attempts to make a connection between Elfball/Impact Miniatures and the Blood Bowl game may represent passing off at law.

We look foward to receiving your confirmation that you will refrain from marketing your products at any Games Workshop events or in any Games Workshop related paraphernalia. "

It's really a pity that such a useless pack of @#$^wits have the IP for this game.

As some people suggested it may be time to move on simply because of that fact even though I love the game.

I think what many people who get these C&D letters dont know is that GW sends these things off like mass marketing mailers.

Unfortunately, few and far are the number of people who actually realize that GW has no legal precedent behind many of the letters.

All it takes is for them to ignore that letter the same way you ignore any junk mail (it is in no way a legal document) or send it back to GW asking what laws they are using to back up their claims.

Unless GW is sending the letters certified with proof of delivery and reciept, I doubt that anyone could take these seriously.

Try ripping off a legitimate companies IP for real, and youll have a certified letter being delivered to you by your post man.

Kilkrazy wrote:If I start a Blood Bowl club and recruit 24 players for a league, set up a website for news and discussion with the URL www.londonbbclub.org, hire a church hall, accept fees from members to pay for the hall and the website fees, will I get closed down by GW?

At this stage Kilkrazy I couldn't really say but it might be a very real possibility.

BeefyG wrote:Aside from any of the legal concerns raised in this letter, you will appreciate that whilst we may appreciate healthy and fair competition, we are less enamoured with activities which are designed to attract business away from Games Workshop. We would consider it inappropriate for you to sell or market Impact! Miniatures or 'Elfball' at a Blood Bowl event, for example.

What Games Workshop considers inappropriate has absolutely no relevance to anything. They don't get to make the rules, that's the law's job. Also "healthy and fair competition" pretty much includes "activities which are designed to attract business away from Games Workshop" by definition.

BeefyG wrote:Unless your competing activities are scaled back, we may have no option but to review your activites regularly and, for example, reconsider your eligility for Blood Bowl competitions and events.

I like that they used the phrase "competing activities" here, because it gives the impression that it's the competition that's the problem, not the potential for IP dilution or passing off issues. I also like the implication that any future activity Impact! willl engage in will be monitored and passed judgement upon by Games Workshop.

Is there a real danger that Elfball and Blood Bowl could be confused? I don't think so, not any more than t here's a danger that an Avatars of War miniature might be confused for a Warhammer miniature (which indeed would be easier, since the AoW guy sculpted for GW as well).

^ That is why these cases can't be decided until they come to court.

It takes someone to stand up to GW and force them to bring a suit before it can be decided.

If everyone being attacked by GW rolls over, then GW win by default.

Most of the people/companies currently being attacked are too small, too scared of GW's size, or care too little about the issue to stand up.

Johira the thread is much more than you claim it to be and even if I understand a bit were you coming from I'm more inclined to agree with the ridiculous big number of BB fans outhere who will get the end of the stick in this situation and are expressing their discontent... Sure it may just all be a irrelevant not important issue to you but for some its their main game, and they are not just 5 guys with a torch.

GW is simply way way offmark... one thing its their events another thing is independent events... I would love to see the oposite, a big independent con that didnt allow any GW products... Soon GW will also try to control any miniature producers since hey! they have miniatures...

GW have no legal or moral right to stop another company making fantasy style football figures except if the maker passes them off as Blood Bowl.

GW do have the right to set conditions on what happens at their own events, and can influence events they sponsor or want to attend.

I feel they have gone a bit far this time, moving beyond defence of their trademark to shutting down all unofficial fan sites, and this will rebound against them.

Indeed they have. Maybe it's wrong to equate them to Weyland-Yutani (though I sure as hell loved the reference), but in the case of Impact it seems GW is less concerned about protecting it's IP and more about snuffing out the competition in not-quite-legal ways.

BeefyG wrote:Now, I could simply remove Bloodbowl from the domain by renaming it to TalkBB.com, but that means buying a new domain and time spent sorting everything out. Bearing in mind I hardly visit TalkBloodBowl.com anyway, I can't really be bothered with all that so have decided to let it die.


Regards,
JohnnyP

Looking at the site, that kind of forum is the exact same kind of forum my student club/fraternity has. I think it costs us about 30,- Euro a year, and that is it.

If there are any updates needed for a forum like that in the first place, they are either included in the 30,- you pay once a year or there aren't any. We certainly have never had to pay additional money for updates.

So that makes me wonder: where do those donations go? It is perfectly reasonable to assume he is indeed making a profit if only a small portion of those 4610 registered users occasionally donate.

If this JohnnyP really cared about the website all he had to do is make a few simple and cheap changes. If JohnnyP and three or four other members skip their weekly meal at McDonalds they would probably be able to cover the expenses of buying a new domain.

But no, he hardly visits the site anyway and "can't be bothered with all that". Looks to me like he either doesn't care and/or he knows damn well he is doing something wrong.

GW is perfectly within their legal right to protect their IP and ask for these changes. That site should be happy they have been left alone for so long.

Agamemnon2 wrote:

BeefyG wrote:Unless your competing activities are scaled back, we may have no option but to review your activites regularly and, for example, reconsider your eligility for Blood Bowl competitions and events.

I like that they used the phrase "competing activities" here, because it gives the impression that it's the competition that's the problem, not the potential for IP dilution or passing off issues. I also like the implication that any future activity Impact! willl engage in will be monitored and passed judgement upon by Games Workshop.

Is there a real danger that Elfball and Blood Bowl could be confused? I don't think so, not any more than t here's a danger that an Avatars of War miniature might be confused for a Warhammer miniature (which indeed would be easier, since the AoW guy sculpted for GW as well).

What I'm catching here is that their example is that they're going to "reconsider your eligility for Blood Bowl competitions and events", which sounds to me like cutting off prize support, I can totally see GW not wanting to be in the position of subsidzing their competition..

It would have been interesting to see this (the OP) go to court.

The site was offering a service that was not provided by the IP holder. If GW had an official forum for people to discuss BB, they might have a legal leg to stand on.

If I can legally resell my GW created figs and potentially make a profit, why wouldn't I be able to provide a service that is NOT provided by GW by creating a message board for people to talk about their hobby. I'm not selling a GW product, I would be selling access to my site where it just so happened people were talking about BB. It wouldn't help his case that he used bloodbowl in the URL; however, like so many people have stated, that's an easy enough fix...

agnosto wrote:It would have been interesting to see this (the OP) go to court.

The site was offering a service that was not provided by the IP holder. If GW had an official forum for people to discuss BB, they might have a legal leg to stand on.

If I can legally resell my GW created figs and potentially make a profit, why wouldn't I be able to provide a service that is NOT provided by GW by creating a message board for people to talk about their hobby. I'm not selling a GW product, I would be selling access to my site where it just so happened people were talking about BB. It wouldn't help his case that he used bloodbowl in the URL; however, like so many people have stated, that's an easy enough fix...

It would not have been interesting. He would have lost miserably.

Whether or not GW provides the service is completely irrelevant legally.

Legally, the exact wording of something is crucial. The whole point to this is that "Bloodbowl" is part of the site's name. Without any names infringing GW's IP there would be no issue.

I've always wanted to pick up a set of Impact! miniatures.

All it takes is for them to ignore that letter the same way you ignore any junk mail (it is in no way a legal document) or send it back to GW asking what laws they are using to back up their claims.

Oh but they do, not seriously but if you question the SnD you will get tons of legal "explanations" trying to make it legit.

On a funny side note I should really sculpt up a set of "BB" footballs on chapterhouse for use in football "miniature games" and then we´d see what happens

TBD wrote:GW is perfectly within their legal right to protect their IP and ask for these changes. That site should be happy they have been left alone for so long.

Nobody is arguing that GW has the right to protect their IP. The issue is that GW is harassing people who are not infringing on their IP. People who they know will not fight back. And they're doing it to their very own fans, no less.

Legally, the exact wording of something is crucial. The whole point to this is that "Bloodbowl" is part of the site's name. Without any names infringing GW's IP there would be no issue.

Except that GW has been doing the same thing to similar websites which do not contain "Bloodbowl". They're not protecting their IP. They are just antagonizing their fans.

TBD wrote:

BeefyG wrote:Now, I could simply remove Bloodbowl from the domain by renaming it to TalkBB.com, but that means buying a new domain and time spent sorting everything out. Bearing in mind I hardly visit TalkBloodBowl.com anyway, I can't really be bothered with all that so have decided to let it die.


Regards,
JohnnyP

Looking at the site, that kind of forum is the exact same kind of forum my student club/fraternity has. I think it costs us about 30,- Euro a year, and that is it.

If there are any updates needed for a forum like that in the first place, they are either included in the 30,- you pay once a year or there aren't any. We certainly have never had to pay additional money for updates.

So that makes me wonder: where do those donations go? It is perfectly reasonable to assume he is indeed making a profit if only a small portion of those 4610 registered users occasionally donate.

... ...

The 30 € per year is just the basic maintenance of the domain name.

You also have to pay for hosting and -- importantly -- data service fees. These can be mount up if your site is popular.

If the proprietor was making a good profit off the site surely he would have changed the name and carried on? He probably didn't receive a lot in the way of donations. I think he was lucky if he covered the maintenance and had a bit over for a few drinks.

Here's a game site which appeals for donations. http://www.youplay.it/default.asp

You can see they ask for $15 per year and have gathered 100 donors so far in 2009. The site owners certainly aren't making much after paying their hosting costs.

Lanceradvanced wrote:What I'm catching here is that their example is that they're going to "reconsider your eligility for Blood Bowl competitions and events", which sounds to me like cutting off prize support, I can totally see GW not wanting to be in the position of subsidzing their competition..

It's a bizarre move because it's not Impact that GW's supporting with those prizes, but the organizers of Blood Bowl events. So basically they're threatening to punish unrelated organizers if said organizers have Impact minis for sale at their events. Of course, some of those two camps of people are likely to be the same people, but still.

Hell if GWS actually started a lawsuit that could be fun, discovery laws let you find out all kinds of fun information about companies, internal memo's, accounting ect.

Also if anyowne actually knows the owner of that site have him PM me depending on bandwidth usage Id happily host his site for next to nothing.

What about DakkaDakka members clubbing together and funding a class lawsuit against GW over the use of Michael Moorcock's chaos sign. I know MM is ok about it generally, but wouldn't it be nice to hit them with a lawsuit and see them squeal!!!

What? GW is acting in a heavy handed and thuggish manner protecting its IP(which of course was taken from various others IP MANY A TIMES)?

I'm shocked I tell you, shocked.



On a serious note, these places have been around for almost a decade, holding the torch for games they, GW, have pretty much run out of their stores and shops and turned their back on.

Yes they should protect their IP, but once again GW has demonstrated why long time vets have nothing but anger and contempt for the company.

@ Wolfstan:Naw, just send them a C&D letter.

I've researched this type of thing, and I've found that generally, when a company or an agency (like the FCC) sends out a C&D letter, it means they can't really do anything else but send a letter. I mean most of the time, a case could be made, but it would cost a lot more than just sending out a letter, and there's a chance the case could be lost...or in some cases, there would be no gain from going to trial.

What about DakkaDakka members clubbing together and funding a class lawsuit against GW over the use of Michael Moorcock's chaos sign. I know MM is ok about it generally, but wouldn't it be nice to hit them with a lawsuit and see them squeal!!!

Well, Mr. Moorcock is NOT amused about it actually...since I wrote back and forth with him about this.
The interesting thing is that I have Mr. Moorcocks approval to use and sculpt his chaos compass and I will do that also. Wonder if GW will try and forbid me to sell someone elses IP...

I'm fairly certain the stylized Chaos sigil is not the property of Moorcock or Games Workshop...

malfred wrote:I've always wanted to pick up a set of Impact! miniatures.

I'd never heard of them until this happened. Go GW!

http://www.impactminiatures.com/index.php?option=elfballteams

Kanluwen wrote:I'm fairly certain the stylized Chaos sigil is not the property of Moorcock or Games Workshop...

From the GW website

"TRADEMARK INFORMATION
Adeptus Astartes, Battlefleet Gothic, Black Flame, Black Library, the Black Library logo, BL Publishing, Blood Angels, Bloodquest, Blood Bowl, the Blood Bowl logo, The Blood Bowl Spike Device, Cadian, Catachan, the Chaos device, Cityfight, the Chaos logo, Citadel, Citadel Device..."

I'm guessing that one of those entries is the 'chaos star'. Which to the best of my (and Michael Moorcock's) knowledge is an invention of Michael Moorcock's.

Archonate wrote:Nobody is arguing that GW has the right to protect their IP. The issue is that GW is harassing people who are not infringing on their IP. People who they know will not fight back. And they're doing it to their very own fans, no less.

Except that GW has been doing the same thing to similar websites which do not contain "Bloodbowl". They're not protecting their IP. They are just antagonizing their fans.

I'm not sure what you are arguing here? I have seen several people say that GW has no right to do this, even though they clearly do have that legal right because that site is infringing on their IP. So who are these people they are harrassing who are not infringing on their IP?

And can you give me an example of any of those other sites they did this to as well? It should be a "simple" matter of taking a look at what such a site is doing and what GW is claiming.

If a site knows it has nothing to worry about because it is doing nothing wrong then they can just let GW take them to court and GW would lose. I doubt GW would go to court unless they have an actual legit case.

Wolfstan wrote:What about DakkaDakka members clubbing together and funding a class lawsuit against GW over the use of Michael Moorcock's chaos sign. I know MM is ok about it generally, but wouldn't it be nice to hit them with a lawsuit and see them squeal!!!

How about we all just talk about it some more and do even less.

Yea its not GW you should hate. Its lawyers!