In the Future, All Space Marines Will Be Warhammer 40K Space Marines

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**KalashnikovMarine**

Comment of the day: Forget the promises of progress and understanding, for in the grimdark future there is only litigation.

The Escapist put an article in on the subject:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121956-Warhammer-Company-Makes-Space-Marine-Trademark-Claim?utm_source=news&utm_medium=index_carousel&utm_campaign=all

and the Pope hat signal is away!
http://www.popehat.com/2013/02/06/the-popehat-signal-help-an-author-against-a-bogus-trademark-claim/

apparently Popehat.com has found pro bono representation for just causes.

**SickSix**

This is insane. I am going to copy paste that nice reference timeline on the first page into an email to GW and tell them to stop if they want any more of my money.

Not that they care because they clearly hate money.

**KalashnikovMarine**

Good news folks, apparently Hogarth is getting legal support, the Pope Hat website I linked already had a copyright/trademark lawyer jump in and say he'd go in pro bono, and apparently the sheer amount of fuss that's been caused by the case is getting the EFF (which previously declined to do the case as it's a bit outside their usual pro bono work) to take a second look.

**Ouze**

Much like pirates, IP trolls are the bane of all civilized men.

**KalashnikovMarine**

Full update from the writer:

First, the good news: I am now in talks with the EFF. I’m not to say anything more on it, but this development was very heartening.

So yes, there’s that. And then there’s… there’s all of you, and it’s just… it’s totally overwhelming. My WordPress site has had almost 50,000 hits in 24 hours. The post has gotten retweets from luminaries I’ve admired all my life and been written up in at least fifteen different venues, and those are only the ones I know about (I’ve started tracking them here; feel free to add yours!). Hundreds of people have left me encouraging comments or sent me warm personal emails. When Neil Gaiman retweeted the post I put my head down on my desk and cried.

I am deeply moved by your support, and very grateful. I’ve taken the next step with that phone call, and I’ll keep you updated on that as it develops. But some of you have asked what more you can do. Here are my suggestions:

• Keep talking! I’ve seen #spacemarine, #spacemarines and #savespacemarines hashtags on Twitter and Google+. I’m seeing personal blog posts pop up along with news articles and even humor; one of my favorite finds was at cheezburger.com! It all helps. And please, share your links with me. I’m collecting them!

• I’ve heard that many of you are contacting Games Workshop about this issue. If you do so, I’d ask for your courtesy when engaging them; the person receiving the email/tweet might not have anything to do with the problem. I’ve worked customer service and the impotence you feel when facing an angry customer is painful.

• Many of you have suggested I put the e-book up in some other way. You can find the e-book (all formats) on Smashwords, which allows you to sample the first 15% to see if it’s your cup of tea.

Your questions to me are accumulating faster than I can answer them personally, though I’m going to try. If I don’t manage, I just want to reiterate: thank you all. You are making a difference.

Source: http://mcahogarth.org/?p=10638

To get specific:

And plenty of other Marine Corps astronauts since.

Just the funny, the usage list on the last page (which I got off wikipedia and I'm sure is no where close to complete is the actual proof this whole thing is ridiculous.

**Kanluwen**

This is stupid.

Back in December, at the time of the original takedown order the "book"(it's really more of a "script") was being buoyed up by a number of fake reviews on Amazon and was continually being put into the same search syntaxes/"suggested product" lists as Black Library novels--which is a common tactic for these kinds of self-published no name authors.

I call shenanigans on this author.
This is nothing but publicity for her alongside of the rabid hatred people have for Games Workshop.

**Ouze**

Kanluwen wrote:
I call shenanigans on this author.
This is nothing but publicity for her alongside of the rabid hatred people have for Games Workshop.

As opposed to the opposite end of the scale, I suppose - specifically, do you have any evidence that GWS was not responsible for having it pulled from Amazon? Or is it just as much conjecture as the other camp, who says they did?

I mean, on the one hand, we have the possibility the customer self-published the book, had it pulled from Amazon to drum up publicity (while also making it almost impossible to actually buy the book) in order to "drum up publicity" and drive people to some website that people have never heard of to buy the book, as opposed to Amazon. The reward here is iffy at best.

On the other hand, GWS has a very long and unambiguous history of wildly overreaching with their IP claims to historic creatures. I'm not trying to re-hash that argument here, simply using it as an example that Occam's Razor is not on their side on this. It's certainly in-character for them to have done this.

Still, could just be Amazon being the bad guy here.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, why is this suddenly a big story now, and not back when this first happened?

**SagesStone**

Quick someone grab the rights to "Games" or "Workshop".

**Lt.Soundwave**

Foundation references. I approve.

**Howard A Treesong**

spiralingcadaver wrote:

Is it really that hard to believe? Do you suppose the author just made up the whole story after the ebook was taken off of Amazon?

I think that the "free publicity" angle is right on the money.

If you're naming something Space Marine, in this age, you're probably hoping for publicity from it: either search results that give you a bump in traffic or a suit and the publicity from that.

**Compel**

I don't understand your point, Howard...

So, lets say GW isn't as big as you claim, in that case, it would make sense that an author naming something to do with 'Space Marine' would NOT be riding off of "I'm hoping those warhammer geeks will think its sphess mehreens and buy it" but would instead be more trying to tie into the legacy of, like you say, Starship Troopers or Aliens. Which is a common thing for any sci fi authors to do...

**BryllCream**

I'm actually on GW's side on this one. Given that Space Marine is the name of a video game, as well as generally being associated with the Astartes, they have every right imo to take action.

Obviously some sort of compromise might be better. The author could offer to rename the book and I don't see why GW wouldn't agree to that.

**Compel**

So?

There's a rather popular (and, lets be frank, far more popular video game series than GW's) series called "God of War."

Should that mean no-one else should be allowed to write books about Ares, Athena and Mars?

Ray Harryhausen made a very popular film in the 80's called "Clash of the Titans." - As well as the sequels/remakes, there have been several films about Titans. They can't just decide to lay claim to the historical term and stop anyone else from using it, just because it's their brand name.

So why should GW, who also used the Space Marine term for the first time in the 80's, be able to lay claim to a term that seems to have been first used in 1932?

1932 or 1000bc, it's no difference.

**Wolfstan**

I see it's made it to the Blastr site as well now: http://www.blastr.com/2013-2-6/writer-sued-over-using-term-space-marine-really

It's all well and good to protect your IP, but really this is going over the top. As mentioned before Harry Harrison uses the term in some of his books.

**Kilkrazy**

Games Workshop certainly are allowed to "lay claim" to a phrase that was first used in the 1930s however as a trademark it must be restricted to the categories in the legal framework about trademarks.

The point is whether a trademark can be established for a title of a book, to deny other authors the use of it.

**purplefood**

This kinda of nonsense ruins everyone's fun...
It's hardly losing them money...

**chromedog**

TheAuldGrump wrote:
Does not really have suasion, given the prior history of the term.

It is rather like Lucas trademarking Nazi(TM). But at least Lucas had better sense than to try to press the matter....

The Auld Grump

Don't know about Lucas trying it, but TSR sure as hell tried to. In the Indiana Jones games they published back in the late 80s.
Didn't stand up at all, but didn't stop them trying it on.

GW is just following in the footsteps of another idiotic game company.

**Lanceradvanced**

For those calling "Publicity Stunt" here's something to comsider, if so, it's been a rather long planned one, Just judging by the history on the TV tropes page for the book

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=Main.SpotsTheSpaceMarine

She'd have to be dangling bait out there for at least 2 years... That's a bit to long..

**Holdenstein**

Kilkrazy wrote:
Games Workshop certainly are allowed to "lay claim" to a phrase that was first used in the 1930s however as a trademark it must be restricted to the categories in the legal framework about trademarks.

The point is whether a trademark can be established for a title of a book, to deny other authors the use of it.

In the Chapterhouse case, the consensus (from both lawyers) seemed to be that you couldn't establish trademark through a single book title, but could through the name of a series, eg the Harry Potter series, which would also apply to Gaunts Ghosts . in this case GW must be establishing trademark via the Space Marine Battles(tm) series.

**weeble1000**

Holdenstein wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
Games Workshop certainly are allowed to "lay claim" to a phrase that was first used in the 1930s however as a trademark it must be restricted to the categories in the legal framework about trademarks.

The point is whether a trademark can be established for a title of a book, to deny other authors the use of it.

In the Chapterhouse case, the consensus (from both lawyers) seemed to be that you couldn't establish trademark through a single book title, but could through the name of a series, eg the Harry Potter series, which would also apply to Gaunts Ghosts . in this case GW must be establishing trademark via the Space Marine Battles(tm) series.

However there is the reverse question. Can a book title infringe a trademark? If a book title cannot be considered a mark for trade, how then can it infringe a trademark other than by diluting a famous mark. But, as a federal judge has recently found, GW's trademarks, including Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer 40K, and Space Marine, are not famous marks. So, even if it was a deliberate attempt to trade off of GW's intellectual property, and I seriously doubt that it was, and even assuming that Space Marine is anything near a valid mark, which I seriously doubt it is, how can the book title "Spots the Space Marine" infringe said mark?

**Howard A Treesong**

Compel wrote:
I don't understand your point, Howard...

So, lets say GW isn't as big as you claim, in that case, it would make sense that an author naming something to do with 'Space Marine' would NOT be riding off of "I'm hoping those warhammer geeks will think its sphess mehreens and buy it" but would instead be more trying to tie into the legacy of, like you say, Starship Troopers or Aliens. Which is a common thing for any sci fi authors to do...

I seem to have put a quote bracket in the wrong place, only the last paragraph was mine. Someone using the 'Space Marine' term isn't riding on the IP of anyone, it's a generic science fiction term. The majority of people outside the gaming community will not associate Space Marines with GW, and that community that are familiar with them is quite small in the grand scheme of things. GW trying to claim on the use of 'Space Marine' in general usage is just another example of them puffing up their chest and trying to look a lot bigger and important than they are.

**Alfndrate**

BryllCream wrote:
I'm actually on GW's side on this one. Given that Space Marine is the name of a video game, as well as generally being associated with the Astartes, they have every right imo to take action.

Obviously some sort of compromise might be better. The author could offer to rename the book and I don't see why GW wouldn't agree to that.

Except that it's not just Space Marine. It's Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, and yes it's pretty easy to guess in our little microcosm of a site dedicated to Games Workshop games that this seems to be a publicity stunt, but nothing about the book, its cover, or its description on Amazon even show anything related to Space Marine(s) other than the title.

**Ouze**

Howard A Treesong wrote:
I seem to have put a quote bracket in the wrong place, only the last paragraph was mine.

This makes your post from earlier make a lot more sense

**Holdenstein**

weeble1000 wrote:
Holdenstein wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:
Games Workshop certainly are allowed to "lay claim" to a phrase that was first used in the 1930s however as a trademark it must be restricted to the categories in the legal framework about trademarks.

The point is whether a trademark can be established for a title of a book, to deny other authors the use of it.

In the Chapterhouse case, the consensus (from both lawyers) seemed to be that you couldn't establish trademark through a single book title, but could through the name of a series, eg the Harry Potter series, which would also apply to Gaunts Ghosts . in this case GW must be establishing trademark via the Space Marine Battles(tm) series.

However there is the reverse question. Can a book title infringe a trademark? If a book title cannot be considered a mark for trade, how then can it infringe a trademark other than by diluting a famous mark. But, as a federal judge has recently found, GW's trademarks, including Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer 40K, and Space Marine, are not famous marks. So, even if it was a deliberate attempt to trade off of GW's intellectual property, and I seriously doubt that it was, and even assuming that Space Marine is anything near a valid mark, which I seriously doubt it is, how can the book title "Spots the Space Marine" infringe said mark?

With difficulty I would say. It does become more of a problem if Spots the Space Marine Goes to Mars etc. It was more to say that book series can become trademarks, and even if GW had that trademark, it wouldnt prevent anyone using Space Marines for their futuristic mercenary company/energy drink/ramen noodles, because GW is not active in those areas (unlike what is proposed above. For what it's worth I think that both this and the Chapterhouse case are a phenomenal waste of effort and money by GW.

**Sean_OBrien**

DarknessEternal wrote:
Upon further review, it looks more like a guy trying to drum up free publicity.

As mentioned, it is the eBook which GW was able to shut down with a DMCA complaint - standard form letters for IP lawyers now. The physical product falls outside the limits of the DMCA complaints, and would require GW's lawyers to go find a judge to issue an injunction on the sale of the product and then serve Amazon with that injunction. Pretty sure they don't think their case is that strong...so they are not going to go in front of a judge who might well tell them that they have no grounds.

If the judge tells them that, then they can't file anymore DMCA complaints for the same term as they have been told that they don't have the claim by a judge (and would be committing fraud by stating they do have a claim). Until a judge tells them the claim is bunk though, they can feign ignorance of 80 years of prior art and use of the generic term.

**heartserenade**

If this is a publicity stunt, it's the worst publicity stunt ever. If she really wants publicity because of the title it would be more in line with "Spots the Star Trekker" rather than a more broad term like Space Marine.

**Bossk_Hogg**

daedalus wrote:
It's a trademark. Not sure about UK law, but US law, you have to proactively defend it, or you risk losing it.

It's asinine, but then again, the law is asinine.

Except you cant blanket trademark a term unquestionably in use before you. Its like Marvel trying to shut down any book with Thor in it. They own the trademark of Thor, the guy in the red cape who turns into Donald Blake and is friends with a space horse named Beta Ray bill. Not all references to the god Thor. Similarly, GW owns the trademark to Space Marines, complete giant shoulderpads, too many skulls and all that.

This is why I buy all my GW stuff from recasters. At least those guys have scruples...

**Rainbow Dash**

Grey Templar wrote:
They couldn't sue over Orc as that word is owned by the Tolkien Estate IIRC.

I don't think anyone owns orc, considering, like space marine how many books and such it's been in

**mattyrm**

KalashnikovMarine wrote:

To get specific:

Hey we were 111 years ahead of you Johnny come-latelys. If anyone is entitled to grinding GW beneath their iron-shod boots its us!

I was looking for a cool picture to put up like yours on google and found a fething great one. How good is this.

Royal Marine complete with gak tattoo wearing flip flops whilst brassing the Taliban up with a big fifty. I think dress regs have slipped since I left in the Gan 2009

On topic, as much as I like to slag GW off, I do think they kind of have a point, its just a thorny one. Say what you like, the actual Space Marines in common perception are GW. Aliens marines were Colonial ones, and plenty of marines have been "in space" In books and sci fi for years, but technically it can be any kind of soldier really, they dont actually do "Amphibious operations" as per a marine.

But.. I dunno, I can see both sides of the debate certainly. If you say Space Marine, I think most people do think of the big shouldered giants that GW makes.

**weeble1000**

mattyrm wrote:

But.. I dunno, I can see both sides of the debate certainly. If you say Space Marine, I think most people do think of the big shouldered giants that GW makes.

That is fine to say, but we do know that a federal Judge in the 2nd circuit dismissed GW's claim of trademark dilution related to the exact same word mark ("Space Marine") for lack of evidence. And that claim was made against products in a much, much more closely related category of goods. Clearly, the Court felt that there was no evidence that the "consuming public" would associate the word mark "Space Marine" with Games Workshop, outside of the company's very narrow niche market.