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Video games vs Tabletop.

And Blizzard can't really trademark anything, whatsoever, from their games. They're bog standard fantasy/grimdarkfuture archetypes.

The Elven races in Warcraft, for example. They're three "sundered" kin bands, one of which was basically slaves to the other two at one point or another(the Night Elves having been non-magic users during the early years).
Then we've got the Humans and Dwarves, two races who've bound themselves together for mutual protection and out of thanks for the humans having saved the Dwarves from being overwhelmed by a gigantic Orcish horde...

Etc, etc, etc.

Kanluwen wrote:And Blizzard can't really trademark anything, whatsoever, from their games.

Like hell they can't. They have trademarks and copyrights up the ying-yang, just like GW does. Take a moment and read the legalese on their website and games sometime. And every bit of art they commission is copyrighted, even the skins of the character models.

The things they have trademarked are basically the Zergs and Protoss, along with expansions, characters, and a few of their insignias.

Everything else is just so fething generic there's nothing really distinct about the universes to separate them from anything else.

Every image generated through any of their games belongs to Blizzard's IP. Doesn't matter if someone else has a "dwarf" because the ones generated by Blizzard's code are unique instances of art.

I agree with Breotan. This is not an argument about conceptual ownership (at Kanluwen) as you could easily start the tedious argument of GW's taking concepts such as starship troopers, Gundam etc. This is about unique products that they take legal ownership of.

The argument that was raised earlier about Blizzard versus GW was a good example and comes down to each big companies choice of business model.

One model is open and encouraging at the risk of diluting the quality of their product (Blizzard). Whilst the other is closed and discouraging at the risk of killing interest in their product.

The choice of Blizzard to issue licenses to fans who wish to work in that fan space is met with glee by most.

The choice of GW to drop the iron curtain is met with much disdain and disgust by a lot of veterans. The 1 million pound licence statement is horrible if it is a company wide policy.

It's their (GW's) choice and as Insaniak said. Time will tell who's is the more intelligent business model.

Personally in response to this I've stopped buying GW and started buying alternate. YMMV.

loki old fart wrote:Was gw able to trademark, (orcs, trolls,vampires,) ETC.
Because those words and or descriptions were in common folk lore, long before GW began. If not their fantasy line has no protection.

Among those trakemark there is: Tau, necrons, kroot, dark angels, eldar, space marine, deathwing, pretty much all colors of paint,


Some are dead like: confrontation, heroquest , squat, warcry, codex

Even if warhammer is trademark there is some old warhammer drawing that have not been renewed but are still copyright

orcs, vampire and trolls have a lot of trademark own by someone else. They can coexist if they are not in the same domain or same geopraphic area

Breotan wrote:Every image generated through any of their games belongs to Blizzard's IP. Doesn't matter if someone else has a "dwarf" because the ones generated by Blizzard's code are unique instances of art.

Erm, you know what IP is right?

Blizzard's dwarf is like any other dwarf.
Just with bigger hands.
Thus, your argument holds no water whatsoever.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BeefyG wrote:I agree with Breotan. This is not an argument about conceptual ownership (at Kanluwen) as you could easily start the tedious argument of GW's taking concepts such as starship troopers, Gundam etc. This is about unique products that they take legal ownership of.

The argument that was raised earlier about Blizzard versus GW was a good example and comes down to each big companies choice of business model.

One model is open and encouraging at the risk of diluting the quality of their product (Blizzard). Whilst the other is closed and discouraging at the risk of killing interest in their product.

The choice of Blizzard to issue licenses to fans who wish to work in that fan space is met with glee by most.

The choice of GW to drop the iron curtain is met with much disdain and disgust by a lot of veterans. The 1 million pound licence statement is horrible if it is a company wide policy.

It's their (GW's) choice and as Insaniak said. Time will tell who's is the more intelligent business model.

Personally in response to this I've stopped buying GW and started buying alternate. YMMV.

You're aware that the "licenses" they issue to fans are for artwork(things like drawings, videos of gameplay, etc)--and those licenses also have the basic limitations that GW's do?

Blizzard, just like Games Workshop, doesn't care if you write a backstory for your army/characters. That's awesome, fantastic. Big whoop.
Blizzard also, just like Games Workshop, has a limitation as to how much you can alter your gameplay experience(mods, UIs, etc). Heck, what do you think Battle.Net is all about?

There's also the fact that, while Games Workshop works in an artistic medium--Blizzard works in a mostly digital medium. You don't have Chapterhouse styled companies selling you an alternative product. You don't have competition like Privateer Press, etc.
You basically have just Blizzard, their game engine, their game models, and whatever authentication protocols they use.

scramasax wrote:Some are dead like: confrontation, heroquest , squat, warcry, codex

Hang on - if GW hold the trademark for Confrontation, how did Rackham manage to run a game with that name for years? Would it because they're based in France?

I would guess either because GW let the Confrontation trademark lapse (it's pretty old... Confrontation was the aborted precursor to Necromunda), because it was only registered in the UK, or because Rackham's Confrontation was a completely different game, meaning there was no real chance of someone confusing the two.

shutting down fan sites looks like it's gonna be a regular thing with GW, prolly a stupid question, but there aren't any reasons or grounds for them to serve this site with a cease and desist, are there? Are all the "i's" dotted, so to speak?

As has been stated several times, Dakka is legally secure.

gil gerard wrote:
shutting down fan sites looks like it's gonna be a regular thing with GW, prolly a stupid question, but there aren't any reasons or grounds for them to serve this site with a cease and desist, are there? Are all the "i's" dotted, so to speak?

These threads are causing alot of paranoia. GW has asked sites not to infringe copyright/IP - NO ONE has been forced to shut down.

Ultra, point of fact, someone in a forum saying 'Deathwing' could constitute infringement of their IP, depending on context and how extreme GW wants to get with this. (Nintendo used to send out C&Ds to porn sites for making references to their games. Including forum posters sigs.)

If GW does take it that far, there's not much of a point of a fan site where you can't talk about, or show pictures of, GW rules and minis.

Gw closes fan sites is stupid

Chapterhouse wrote:

I said it and I think mostly everyone here will back me up. They delete any mention of non-GW products (even if it pertains to 40K) as well as discussions that question the board and mods actions. They dont edit, they flat out delete.

That is my opinion based on actions many people have witnessed on that board. Can you give me another explanation as to why they blatantly block mention of ANY companies minis but GWs (by block I mean move, delete or edit).

It may not be the admins, it could be just the owner, in any case, they are doing the best job of pro-GW censorship I have ever witnessed.

Sorry, Chapterhouse, I call BS on this one.

If they did do what you were claiming, why would there constantly be Avatars of War(non-GW product) news in the WHFB News and Rumour Section?

Eh, Chapterhouse is exaggerating for effect, but by and large, I've noticed the same thing, that threads seem to simply 'vanish' from time to time. I've had one or two that I was subscribed to reach a page or two and then disappear. Not locked, just gone.

But then again, anything I say will be justifiably suspect, as I've had threads hijacked and 'edited' by the mods of late and made no bones about bitching about it on other boards.

But we're getting off topic here.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:No, it could not possibly tm or even try to claim ownership over the word goblin for example.

Someone forgot to tell this to Marvel, DC, and TSR/WotC, all three have TMs on historic or mythological characters, races and locations.

BaronIveagh wrote:Eh, Chapterhouse is exaggerating for effect, but by and large, I've noticed the same thing, that threads seem to simply 'vanish' from time to time. I've had one or two that I was subscribed to reach a page or two and then disappear. Not locked, just gone.

But then again, anything I say will be justifiably suspect, as I've had threads hijacked and 'edited' by the mods of late and made no bones about bitching about it on other boards.

But we're getting off topic here.

I wish I was exagerrating...

hahaha watch this lads

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK-cI9bE9Tw