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 marielle wrote:
I find it amusing that...

That the GW hate squad have rallied to the 'Defense of the Fiddler'.

That GW have sought to defend the earning potential of Black Library by targetting a title that by the authors own admission was not making money.

Roll dice and tie.

still was nice to see GW get taken down a peg

 marielle wrote:
I find it amusing that...

That the GW hate squad have rallied to the 'Defense of the Fiddler'.

Because no matter what Games Workshop does, if you criticize them, you're a "hater".

Someday Tom Kirby is going to walk onto a stage in Nottingham, and eat a live puppy; knowing full well somewhere on the internet, someone will be beating feet to post how that puppy was a jerk, and that's totally acceptable in some cultures, etc.

 Ouze wrote:

 marielle wrote:
I find it amusing that...

That the GW hate squad have rallied to the 'Defense of the Fiddler'.

Because no matter what Games Workshop does, if you criticize them, you're a "hater".

Someday Tom Kirby is going to walk onto a stage in Nottingham, and eat a live puppy; knowing full well somewhere on the internet, someone will be beating feet to post how that puppy was a jerk, and that's totally acceptable in some cultures, etc.

and some won't believe it even after all the evidence, some will blame the puppy's parents for trying to get famous

Kirby forced to defend his rights as puppy eater™

No, he was eating fake puppies, but then a GW hater threw a real one on stage and he couldn't tell the difference.

GW's motives for all this are rather suspect. They can't take on the big boys but they seem to want to have exclusivity on generic terms like Space Marine on products. So they target tiny people who can't fight back, in this case they rely upon Amazon wanting to avoid hassle and taking the book down without investigating or fighting the matter.

If GW were allowed to succeed in this strategy of claiming on something they don't own for long enough then they really would appear to be unique in using it. Then in what seems almost like circular logic, they might attempt a claim that they have the right to true sole ownership of the term on the basis that they are apparently the only person using it, never mind that they've bullied anyone else away from the term with false claims prior to this.

It's actually quite concerning when any person or company start making claims over generic language and start by picking on the smallest people they can to lay some precedent. Where's it all heading? The statement on the GW Facebook page is pathetic, they hand wave the situation claiming they need to serve shareholders. They say they don't claim ownership of the term 'space marine' but don't then explain their right to target this woman's book.

It gets more ironic with this:

http://www.lse.co.uk/ShareChart.asp?sharechart=GAW

Shareprice has gone down in a big triangle of triangleness since this has all come out.

Not really understanding much about that kind of thing, what is that indicative of?

Listen to the first couple of minutes of the BoW Weekend show : http://www.beastsofwar.com/the-weekender/weekender-entitled-space-marine/

 Lanceradvanced wrote:
This drifted across my screen today..

M. C. A. Hogarth (haikujaguar) wrote...

"In mid-December, Games Workshop told Amazon that I’d infringed on the trademark they’ve claimed for the term “space marine” by titling my original fiction novel Spots the Space Marine. In response, Amazon blocked the e-book from sale [original post and update]. Since then, I’ve been in discussion with Games Workshop, and following their responses, with several lawyers."

"In their last email to me, Games Workshop stated that they believe that their recent entrée into the e-book market gives them the common law trademark for the term “space marine” in all formats. If they choose to proceed on that belief, science fiction will lose a term that’s been a part of its canon since its inception. Space marines were around long before Games Workshop. But if GW has their way, in the future, no one will be able to use the term “space marine” without it referring to the space marines of the Warhammer 40K universe."

More at http://haikujaguar.livejournal.com/1208235.html

Then Games Workshop may want to talk to James Cameron since back in 1986 he had "Colonial Space Marines" running around kiling stuff. Though I'm pretty sure James could take GW in a lawsuit.

Ceteram censeo GW esse delendam.

And don't forget the salt.

Normaly when GW throws its weight about, only us 'in the niche hobby' seem to find out.

But as this effected something more in the public domain, EG AMAZON BOOKS.

Lots of people use Amazon to buy books.(Compared to those that play 40k anyway.)

And even the BBC has asked GW for comment on trying to claim copyrite on general words that were used together to describe soldiers in space since 1932...

Oh dear , GW did not want to speak about it..
This results in wider negative publicity than normal 'geek whine', and so some share holders get a bit 'nervous' perhaps.

Just because T.Kirby thinks he knows best, and all his yes men want to keep their jobs . GW towers appears to be mutating into a isolated, and some could say deluded, dictatorship .With little interest-understanding of how the real world works.

Lets hope this last pubilc display of indifference/arrogance, brings King Kirby to his overdue expulsion/retirement.

T.Kirby mutating my favorite game settings into his own personal pension fund since 2002...

There's always Beyond The Gates of Antares. The best bits of Games Workshop - Rick Priestley, Bob Naismith and Paul 'Fat Bloke' Sawyer, without all the annoying corporate rubbish...

 Pacific wrote:
Not really understanding much about that kind of thing, what is that indicative of?

Listen to the first couple of minutes of the BoW Weekend show : http://www.beastsofwar.com/the-weekender/weekender-entitled-space-marine/

A lot of shares have been sold yesterday and the price offered was low because people did not want strongly to buy.

However, without knowing the normal volume of trading (number of shares sold per day) we cannot tell if it is merely a blip -- Kirby selling enough for his summer holiday -- or a general bailout of investors.

It's also not great for publicity to target a book that is donating money to veterans.

Another way to look at it could be, that the negative press of this has wiped out any short term gain the Warriors of Chaos release at the start of the month got them...

 Rainbow Dash wrote:

 marielle wrote:
I find it amusing that...

That the GW hate squad have rallied to the 'Defense of the Fiddler'.

That GW have sought to defend the earning potential of Black Library by targetting a title that by the authors own admission was not making money.

Roll dice and tie.

still was nice to see GW get taken down a peg

Only if you are a teenage bedroom revolutionary high on Adderol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Compel wrote:
There's always Beyond The Gates of Antares. The best bits of Games Workshop - Rick Priestley, Bob Naismith and Paul 'Fat Bloke' Sawyer, without all the annoying corporate rubbish...

Yet.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Not really understanding much about that kind of thing, what is that indicative of?

A lot of shares have been sold yesterday and the price offered was low because people did not want strongly to buy.

However, without knowing the normal volume of trading (number of shares sold per day) we cannot tell if it is merely a blip -- Kirby selling enough for his summer holiday -- or a general bailout of investors.

And why would they not strongly want to buy? Because the stock has been performing exceptionally well until the bad publicity hit. It could be a coincidence but it's unlikely.

I doubt someone like Kirby would have chosen that day to sell off his stock, as he'd be much better off waiting for it to normalise, the same with anyone else looking to cash in who is able to wait a couple of weeks. The only people willing to sell stock so far below the current asking price are those that just want rid of it for some reason.

You can specify limits on stock transactions, so whoever sold the stock was presumably happy with what they got for it. I can't imagine many people would normally accept sales for £26.50 less than the market price.

Putting it in perspective, if the value of GW dropped by ~£8M overnight, and Kiby owns 6% of the shares, he lost £480,000 in stock value since this thing dropped. It'll come back up but that's got to hurt.

Good Article here..

http://www.aaronsanderslaw.com/blog/space-amazons-space-marines-and-the-non-existant-trademark-takedown-notification

 Compel wrote:
It gets more ironic with this:
http://www.lse.co.uk/ShareChart.asp?sharechart=GAW
Shareprice has gone down in a big triangle of triangleness since this has all come out.

After a considerable spike before, so shareholders went:
"Good dog, kill the bunny, go for it!"
Noticing the crowd gathering. "Erm ... I meant... bad dog ... let go at once!"

 Compel wrote:
There's always Beyond The Gates of Antares. The best bits of Games Workshop - Rick Priestley, Bob Naismith and Paul 'Fat Bloke' Sawyer, without all the annoying corporate rubbish...

... and without any restricting concepts except "Give us half a million dollar, send us ideas and we will fix something for you".

 Lanceradvanced wrote:
Good Article here..

http://www.aaronsanderslaw.com/blog/space-amazons-space-marines-and-the-non-existant-trademark-takedown-notification

i lite this part :So Games Workshop is heartless. But Amazon is cowardly. Abjectly so. If you’d like, you can call it “extreme risk aversion” combined with a kind of extreme laziness. But cowardice fits the facts better.

Great article. What I understamd (sorry if I did the wrong conclusion, my brain is sleeping) GW did a good move to see if they have a case of copyright violation even they have no solide case. Amazone was scare to go in legal action and remove the ebook. The author got a free publicity.

IMO, nobody is the big EVIL. That just a legal move to clarify a trademark situation

does people go nuclear to fast on this?

There's a good phrase - not sure of its origins:
Never ascribe to malice that which can be ascribed to incompetence. Or words to that effect.

GW have here a weak trademark, contest to which is largely inevitable. It's not that they are trying to defend it (they must), it's that some idiot thought it would be protectable in the first place. GW actually have a fairly large number of similarly weak. 'trademarks' which I can't see lasting if challenged as invalid.

Oddly, the phrase I'm on about seems to be connected with Heinlein. Who'd a thunk it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

winterdyne wrote:
There's a good phrase - not sure of its origins:
Never ascribe to malice that which can be ascribed to incompetence. Or words to that effect.

GW have here a weak trademark, contest to which is largely inevitable. It's not that they are trying to defend it (they must), it's that some idiot thought it would be protectable in the first place. GW actually have a fairly large number of similarly weak. 'trademarks' which I can't see lasting if challenged as invalid.

They don't have the trademark to be obliged to try and defend it though. They are hoping to expand their trademark to cover it and issued a copyright violation notice to remove something they felt violated their trademark.

They certainly claim it here:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=&categoryId=§ion=&pIndex=6&aId=3900002&start=7&multiPageMode=true

The fact is, even in genres for which they do have 'Space Marine' as a registered trademark, because those exact words are in common use the mark is weak, to the point of being indefensible.

Herzlos wrote:

winterdyne wrote:
There's a good phrase - not sure of its origins:
Never ascribe to malice that which can be ascribed to incompetence. Or words to that effect.

GW have here a weak trademark, contest to which is largely inevitable. It's not that they are trying to defend it (they must), it's that some idiot thought it would be protectable in the first place. GW actually have a fairly large number of similarly weak. 'trademarks' which I can't see lasting if challenged as invalid.

They don't have the trademark to be obliged to try and defend it though. They are hoping to expand their trademark to cover it and issued a copyright violation notice to remove something they felt violated their trademark.

This actually is the crux of the matter: right now GW believes that they are entitled to protection on a number of marks, covering a variety of images and terms that (IMO) they have no ability to protect. But as long as they continue to only enforce/issue C&D letters to companies that don't have the capacity to dispute them, they won't get to the stage of actually having these things stripped from them.

Which is, of course, why they will never intentionally involve themselves in an action with, say, Blizzard-Activision, despite the similarities and origins of materials. GW's stance relies on picking on the little guys.

To add, this is worth a read. Specifically, bearing in mind the usage in SF related literature and games of the words 'space marine'.
Read part 1, section 1, paragraphs 3c and 3d. Page 8.

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tmact94.pdf

winterdyne wrote:
They certainly claim it here:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=&categoryId=§ion=&pIndex=6&aId=3900002&start=7&multiPageMode=true

That doesn't list the classes the claim it in.

Think about that. You wrote a story with this title : the last stand of the space marines.

Your story have nothing to do with GW and 40k.

Your are a SF fan and you see a title like that, your first tought will be : that a 40k novel!

Confusion.....maybe?

As a corporation, you ask to your lawyers to take actions if it is a case of trademark/copyright.

@ Killcrazy

40300 shares were traded on that blip.

As I have stated in the past I dot not and will not buy shares in any company that I deemed, have a suspect financial history.

40000 shares is a drop in a bucket compared to 1995900 shares traded on Jan 24th 2013 at 655 per share.

And the trading session was flat as far as price per share on that day.

People who are the financial professionals should look at the large trade on that day and see which hedge fund made the trade.

As far as GW and the way they do business? This is not the first time that they have done this and it won't be the last.

There are smart and easy ways for corporations to work with the cottage industry and make a profit. The problem is that the mindset of today's society is short term profits/gratification and "screw the future" mentality.

hellpato wrote:
Think about that. You wrote a story with this title : the last stand of the space marines.

Your story have nothing to do with GW and 40k.

Your are a SF fan and you see a title like that, your first tought will be : that a 40k novel!

No, if you're a gamer you may think that. SF fandom is a lot bigger than GW.

It might be your first thought, but it isn't the only use of the term.

That the term can be used to explicitly describe a product is the key point. Coca-Cola cannot trademark the term 'Cola Drink', it is simply too descriptive. So they don't. GW However have tried to hold a trademark on a generic term, which you can do in only a few limited ways.