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Interesting. I'm glad he came forward with their side of the story. He didn't mention C&D notices or anything prior to the lawsuit; I hope he kept all his communications with this Erik person.

Did some google-fu and he seems to have given several interviews with online fan-sites from 2006-2007. He still works for GW as of DoW II as he's listed in the credits as, Licensing and Acquiring Rights Manager.

Seems like the legal department is not talking to the licensing department; either that or folks over there have really short memories.

Except again, he has no legal standing speaking for Warhammer Alliance now.

Kanluwen wrote:Except again, he has no legal standing speaking for Warhammer Alliance now.

He is a representative of the plaintiff, that has bearing in a court of law.

Cardazo?

He has NO legal standing whatsoever to be representing Games Workshop(the Plantiff).

Cardazo used to own Warhammer Alliance.

He sold it to Curse, Inc

Implicit consent. The sale has no bearing on the consent of operation/usage unless the owning party was notified of revocation. They can show that they attempted to contact the owners, though I imgagine Curse isn't all that hard to find. Even without implied consent; a disclaimer is fairly strong protection as it states that there is no connection between the IP holders.

Regardless, fair use applies here regardless of whether the website is owned by Joe Schmo or Jo Inc.

GWs recent history with C&Ds and bullying tactics has succeeded thuse far as they had some grounds for a genuine complaint (products available for download that contained GWs IP); however, a discussion/commentary site (as they don't even have a download section) with a displayed and hitherto agreed to disclaimer is well within the law under title 17, section 107.

On a side note; I read through the complaint again and started giggling when I saw, "dilution". As some of you may know dilution is the legal concept where a "famous" trademark that is so frequently used becomes generic in the mind of the buying public. So by claiming dilutiong, GW is likening their IP to Google, Apple, Band-Aid, Kleenex and Viagra. That's a bit arrogant considering there really aren't all that many wargame nerds in the world, comparatively.

______________________________________
@ Kanluwen:

If you wanted to come down to it, everyone that posts pics of GW models on this, and every other, site is breaking GW IP rules by not including a disclaimer. On their website they state that:
"We encourage fellow hobbyists to show off their painting skills by taking photos of their miniatures and putting the on the site. Please remember to correctly credit the IP - "miniature © Games Workshop 2003. All rights reserved. Used without permission - model painted by xxxxxxx"

Kanluwen wrote:Cardazo?

He has NO legal standing whatsoever to be representing Games Workshop(the Plantiff).

No, Erik Mogensen, GW's employee charged with licensing. As GW's appointed rep at this, he's speaking as GW's legal representative when he approves the use of 'warhammer'. volenti non fit injuria

I'm confused as to what Erik Mogensen has to do with Cardazo's giving a statement.

Mogensen gave no such statement now. He worked with Cardazo in 2006, when it was still a "fan site"--and gave an interview around that time also.

The point was that he, at that time, gave full consent, and never issued a statement repealing that. Further, as we discussed in the other thread, websites are treated as property, in general, by courts.

Since the permission had no collary such as 'this permission reverts should the site change ownership' it transfers along with the property.

GW's claims are implicit in, among other things by the nature of the claims, that no permission was ever given. This is not factual.

Cardazo was, at that time, functioning as de facto head of a profit making property or body, known as warhammer alliance. Regardless of it's 'fan' nature, GW gave it's consent at that time.

An example might be that a company is bought out by another company. Just because this happens does not mean all the existing agreements or contracts are nullified. Since GW agreed to a set of terms by which their property might be used, which did not include a nullification or termination clause, this can be transferred.

For example, Mythic was a separate company when it licensed Warhammer for the MMO, and then was bought out by EA. Notice they did not lose the license.

Er, we don't know that there wasn't a collary like that actually.

And GW gave its consent to what, at the time of 2005, was a guy whose advertising revenue from the site was going explicitly towards supporting the site.

What was unknown to GW at the time was(according to the wording of the suit at least)that Cardazo was an employee of Curse, Inc--and then his site was later bought from him by Curse, Inc and turned into a situation where they're actually making revenue rather than just supporting their overhead.

We also can't prove that he wasn't making revenue and lining his pockets. Which makes it profit.

It that was the case they'd have claimed that the defendants had defrauded them rather then infringed on their IP. The infringement suit implies that they never consented to anything.

Making a profit has nothing to do with anything. Many businesses that are for profit don't make any money. A not for profit enterprise is registered as such with the government and is also tax exempt (i.e., a church or charity). I can't find any evidence that, "Warhammer Alliance" was ever registered as such either with the feds or the state of Maine.

I really don't know why you're stuck on this income thing as there is nothing under federal law that differentiates a for profit and not for profit when it comes to fair use under title 17, except for "education" which we should be able to agree would not apply here.

.... actually, some sites really do get by with that claim. GameFAQs used it on the grounds that they were educating people in the most efficient way to play a game.

So since Warhammer Alliance has guides, they can claim that. Since the term 'education' is not clearly defined in the law. However, wasn't there some sort of case between Apple and ifixit?

Couldn't find anything legal regarding ifixit and Apple. There was an interview recently with one of the co-founders and he stated they had had no formal contact with Apple and basically that what they're doing is legal so they can stuff it.
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/for-ifixit-the-ipad-is-d-day-the-super-bowl-the-oscars/

I still say that GW has gotten away with bullying sites thus far because the audience is small, the sites are poor and it's been cheaper for people to just shut themselves down rather than defend themselves. It will be interesting if Curse decides to stand up on this one and set a precedent for future action.

I played war online since beta and here is my guess at why the lawsuit was filed.

They have taken a marketing lead approach to the game. All decisions come from marketing staff, money flow goes almost completely into marketing and they have a reputation for trying to black out any negative information. Like a lot of companies they realised that it makes them more money to rush a crappy product and trick people into buying it with marketing than it does to actually deliver quality.

Almost all of the warhammer online players use the warhammer alliance forums as the "official" forums because the actual official ones were impossible to post in. The mods had it locked down tighter than a chastity belt. If you said anything even the least bit negative or pointed out the glaring flaws your thread would be deleted. This has been mythics strategy the whole time, all effort and money goes into convincing people it's a good game rather than actually making it a good game.

So with the warhammer alliance forums being a place where people could actually freely converse about the game and it's disapointments GW and mythic want it shut down as part of their strategy of blocking any negative press about the largets MMO failure in the history of MMOs so they can try to recoup some of their losses. In their minds if people aren't allowed to say bad things about it it will sell and they can make some money. This goes hand in hand with GW usual mentality that community is not good for their products because community can say bad things some times.

*sadface* no one liked my demot?

~~--Bladebaka

Actually, there was another one sort of like it, but I haven't been able to find that one. But it was good.