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 Absolutionis wrote:

Gitzbitah wrote:
Heroquest 25th Anniversary edition- Legalquest. A fast paced, flux style card game where 4 companies compete for rights to an antique game in the courts of several countries, each with varying victory conditions!

------------------------------------------------------------
Legalquest (1-4 Players)
------------------------------------------------------------
Four Factions to play!
*GameZone wins if the game gets published by them.
*Moon Design wins if all players are okay with it.
*Hasbro wins if they can get through the entire game without needing to take a turn.
*Games Workshop wins if they control everything by the end of the game.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Yes, well played

Would back a Legalquest kickstarter.

I love how it caters for all player types.

If you don't really understand complicated rules, play as GameZone.

If you don't really like being mean to your friends, even in a game, play as Moon Design.

If your favourite TV programme is on but your friends want you to play boardgames, play as Hasbro.

And if you're that horribly aggressive, competitive wazzock who spoils it for everyone else... actually I am usually that person on family game night.

Not much in the way of news but from Twitter:

Still waiting for the response of KS on our request to reopen the campaign. We maintain the position indicated in our last statement
12:13am - 3 Dec 13

Also interesting to note the project has lost 479 backers and $110,066 (currently $432,824) in funding since the suspension could be hard to regain momentum again.

 Alpharius wrote:
So all the crap that was speculated as possibly happening is actually happening?

What a mess!

At least it's a mess right now rather than in 6 months time after money has been paid. I've already dropped my pledge down to a dollar just to sit in for any updates that we do get via KS.

 Hellfury wrote:
Heh! Get this. Its rich. Now we have four entities claiming rights.

Rights is loose, since there are many (trademark, copyright, IP), but now GW apparently claims to "hold all licenses for hero quest". IMNSHO, is likely a load of BS.

"Many thanks for your email. Games Workshop do still hold all the licenses to the Hero Quest game and this is not an official release supported by Games Workshop. We will pass this down to our legal team to investigate further.

Many thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Kind regards,
Scott Edwards."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I would love to see GWcrushed beneath the jack boot heels of Hasbro legal. One of the few times I would think it merited.

Good luck, GW with that claim. You're gonna need it.

Hellfury.. can you share where that quote from "Scott Edwards" came from? I don't see a citation in this thread pointing where it was spotted...

-P

carboncopy wrote:
The fact that GZ used the old commercial of the old game and has titled their kickstarter as a 25th anniversary edition shows that they are directly piggy-backing off of the old games copyright and puts them at a legal risk. The trademark isn't going to protect them there. MD should be as cautious as they have been when entering into that kind of deal without some kind of licensing or written blessing from Hasbro.

Trademark, not copyright. You're talking about the product name, therefore you're talking about a trademark. And from what I have read, the trademark is lapsed to Hell and back. Trademarks don't last forever. Monopoly is still in production, for example. HeroQuest is not. I don't think Hasbro would really care about this one stitch. GW might care...but they're bonkers over there.

From what I have gathered, this Moon-whatsit registered the HeroQuest trademark in the US and asserted it against Gamezone? Is that right? And it was Kickstarter that suspended the project? I apologize, but I have not been following this until this morning. I just want to make sure I have the facts straight.

So HeroQuest is a Live US mark registered on Jan 10, 2012 to a Francis Gregory Stafford of Arcata, CA.

The Issaries Heroquest mark is dead. It was filed on May 15th 2001 and canceled on July 4th 2009. I assume that is because Issaries ceased to exist, yes?

GW abandoned the Advanced HeroQuest mark in the US back in 1990, and canceled the HeroQuest mark in 1999.

You can take a look here.

So only this Francis fellow has a live mark in the US related to HeroQuest. Is that this Moon studio business?

Copyrights last for freaking ever, sadly, so there might be a mess on that front. Though I have seen nothing of the HeroQuest 25th Anniversary game, so I have no opinion in that regard, although I played the Hell out of HeroQuest when I was knee high to a grasshopper.

I think you do...

Also:

GW might care...but they're bonkers over there.

Ha!

Yeah, Greg Stafford is the creator of the Glorantha setting, and hence at least is associated with Moon Designs (who currently produce games and supplements for that setting).

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
Yeah, Greg Stafford is the creator of the Glorantha setting, and hence at least is associated with Moon Designs (who currently produce games and supplements for that setting).

Gotcha. Well his mark is not in the category appropriate for board games in any case, which would be class 28. His registration is in class 16, which is paper goods. So his mark is really only effective when it comes to books and manuals, not a board game.

Even if the board game contains books and manuals with the trademark?

rigeld2 wrote:
Even if the board game contains books and manuals with the trademark?

I would think you could leave the HeroQuest name off the manual if that was a concern. The name on the box is the draw, not the name on the manual.

rigeld2 wrote:
Even if the board game contains books and manuals with the trademark?

Product categories are strange. It is about what the product is, as far as I understand. Class 28 includes games and playthings, which includes, among other things, Christmas ornaments. Monopoly is registered in class 28, for example, even though it contains written rules. IANAL, mind, and trademark classes are not something I am terribly familiar with in the grand scheme of things, but name a popular board game with books and manuals and we can see in what categories it is registered.

Class 16 is a "coordinated" class because applicants usually file in both class 28 and class 16, so you may very well have a point on that. Even so, there's also the likelihood of confusion issue. It would be absurd to think that the HeroQuest mark as registered for role-playing games is famous, so there could probably be no claims of dilution. Likelihood of confusion then becomes the main question. But again, in the US, the mark is only registered in class 16, which makes sense as the product does not contain a board, playing pieces, and so forth.

Issaries was the previous publisher of HeroQuest/RuneQuest related material and is also tied to Stafford. The trademark has essentially been Staffords since 2001.

Was taking a look at the heroquest.es forums and in looks like a "Daniel" from Mkultra Studios and Questron posted. I won't really discuss his comments much... since they could be fake or just badly translated. Anyways the poster seemed confident the project would go forward and his companies were slated to make 50% of the figures. Anyone have any experience with Mkultra/Questron or know what other projects they've done?

 silent25 wrote:
Issaries was the previous publisher of HeroQuest/RuneQuest related material and is also tied to Stafford. The trademark has essentially been Staffords since 2001.

I appreciate the point, but the mark belonged to Issaries, which I gather no longer exists, and was therefore canceled. The word mark was independently registered by Stafford as a category 16 good in 2012, about 2 and a half years later. It is the only live Heroquest mark in the US, and relegated strictly to printed material as it relates to a role-playing game which solely takes the form of print media. That is by and large the only area in which Stafford, and only Stafford, can enforce the mark, unless Stafford has licensed rights to the mark to Moon Base Alpha.

Mkultra -

Juan's blog

http://idonotcode.blogspot.ie/

Daniel (Questron) on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/user/QuestronX/videos

They have done work for Impacts! chibi line, Star Bowl, Mantic Deadzone and Mars Attacks and Total extinction amoungst others. They have actually done a lot of stuff recently you might not be aware of and are booked up for several months on advance now. I see this as very good news if they are doing the 3D sculpts.

weeble1000 wrote:
[Copyrights last for freaking ever, sadly, so there might be a mess on that front. Though I have seen nothing of the HeroQuest 25th Anniversary game, so I have no opinion in that regard, although I played the Hell out of HeroQuest when I was knee high to a grasshopper.

Length of time depends for copyright, but in general in the common law, they last 50 years after the death of the creator (if created by a corporation, just plain lasts 50 years). There's some Disney exceptions, but those are pretty narrow.

 porkuslime wrote:

 Hellfury wrote:
Heh! Get this. Its rich. Now we have four entities claiming rights.

Rights is loose, since there are many (trademark, copyright, IP), but now GW apparently claims to "hold all licenses for hero quest". IMNSHO, is likely a load of BS.

"Many thanks for your email. Games Workshop do still hold all the licenses to the Hero Quest game and this is not an official release supported by Games Workshop. We will pass this down to our legal team to investigate further.

Many thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Kind regards,
Scott Edwards."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I would love to see GWcrushed beneath the jack boot heels of Hasbro legal. One of the few times I would think it merited.

Good luck, GW with that claim. You're gonna need it.

Hellfury.. can you share where that quote from "Scott Edwards" came from? I don't see a citation in this thread pointing where it was spotted...

-P

Sure. Sorry, I forgot to include the link.
http://boardgamegeek.com/article/14142951#14142951

Kind of a funny situation - companies would have to prove ownership of the IP to make a claim against Gamezone. Moon has a registered trademark, so there's a presumption for them, but if GW and Hasbro can't settle who has ownership of the IP, it could turn into a pissing match not actually involving Gamezone.

Either way it still 'involves' them, potentially, for product coming into the US?

decker_cky wrote:

Length of time depends for copyright, but in general in the common law, they last 50 years after the death of the creator (if created by a corporation, just plain lasts 50 years). There's some Disney exceptions, but those are pretty narrow.

I believe that it's death + 50 in Canada, and death + 70 in the US. But whenever a certain mouse comes close to entering the public domain the copyright terms are extended.

It seems that they should be pretty clear on Copyright claims.

What could be copyrighted in the original game:
the specific wording of the rules - they're rewriting and changing the rules so that seems fine. the rules themselves can't be copyrighted and there are no patents.
the art on the cards and box. new art for the new edition and as long as it isn't copying the old one (or trying to closely match) it's fine.
the sculpts of the figures. New figures, and a very different look from the bits we've seen (also I doubt the original pieces could be copyrighted in the UK given recent developments, but they probably could in the US).
Art/design of the board - this is the one that seems closest, but there are some differences.

So really it's down to using the name as a trademark.

The only real problem I see where they could have gotten themselves into trouble with copyright is using the old commercial in their video. That would still be under copyright (MB>Hasbro).

decker_cky wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
[Copyrights last for freaking ever, sadly, so there might be a mess on that front. Though I have seen nothing of the HeroQuest 25th Anniversary game, so I have no opinion in that regard, although I played the Hell out of HeroQuest when I was knee high to a grasshopper.

Length of time depends for copyright, but in general in the common law, they last 50 years after the death of the creator (if created by a corporation, just plain lasts 50 years). There's some Disney exceptions, but those are pretty narrow.

Yea, which is next to forever. And in the US it is author's lifetime +70 years, which blows the point of copyright law right out of the water. Blows it right out. HeroQuest should by now be public domain. In any case, we should probably try to avoid a discussion on this as it could easily run way off topic.

But to be clear, by "freaking forever" I meant 'much longer than they should be allowed to last or were ever intended to last'.

When it comes to a trademark, Hasbro and Games Workshop are not involved in any way, shape, or form. Neither party has any such mark, and the fact that they did have such a mark at one point in time is utterly meaningless. That is a fundamental principle of trademark law, if you don't have a product, you don't have a mark. HeroQuest has not existed as a product for too long to be a trademark, at least in the US, and the USPTO records are explicit about this. LIVE means live and DEAD means dead.

Now, when it comes to a copyright...well, then there might be something on that score. But it depends, and I have not seen the Gamezone product so I can't really make any sort of informed expression on that point. However, it is highly likely that Games Workshop has retained no records of its license or deal with Milton Bradley, and Hasbro would probably come out the winner in such a fight, if there ever was one. But when Hasbro buys GW it won't matter in any case, and I seriously doubt that Hasbro would care one lick of spit about its rights to HeroQuest. If it did, it would not have abandoned the mark.

weeble1000 wrote:

carboncopy wrote:
The fact that GZ used the old commercial of the old game and has titled their kickstarter as a 25th anniversary edition shows that they are directly piggy-backing off of the old games copyright and puts them at a legal risk. The trademark isn't going to protect them there. MD should be as cautious as they have been when entering into that kind of deal without some kind of licensing or written blessing from Hasbro.

Trademark, not copyright. You're talking about the product name, therefore you're talking about a trademark. And from what I have read, the trademark is lapsed to Hell and back. Trademarks don't last forever. Monopoly is still in production, for example. HeroQuest is not. I don't think Hasbro would really care about this one stitch. GW might care...but they're bonkers over there.

Yeah, I'm not talking about trademark, but copyright. GZ could make a game close to Heroquest, and even call it Heroquest, and wouldn't have to worry. However they take it a step further by associating it with the old game (which has a copyright), using the old commercial (which has a copyright) most likely without permission , and claiming it will be a 25th anniversary edition of "that" game - all of which gives it tremendous monetary leverage. Because of that it sounds to me that they are treading into a much more risky legal-zone without the copyright holder's permission.

Ashitaka wrote:
What could be copyrighted in the original game:
the specific wording of the rules - they're rewriting and changing the rules so that seems fine. the rules themselves can't be copyrighted and there are no patents.
the art on the cards and box. new art for the new edition and as long as it isn't copying the old one (or trying to closely match) it's fine.
the sculpts of the figures. New figures, and a very different look from the bits we've seen (also I doubt the original pieces could be copyrighted in the UK given recent developments, but they probably could in the US).
Art/design of the board - this is the one that seems closest, but there are some differences.

So really it's down to using the name as a trademark.

The only real problem I see where they could have gotten themselves into trouble with copyright is using the old commercial in their video. That would still be under copyright (MB>Hasbro).

Agree on the video. That part is 100% clear and was flat out irresponsible by Gamezone. If they didn't have permission, the kickstarter should have been shut down for using that alone.

I could see a case argued based on a copyright in the composition of the above things (can have a copyright in a particular composition, even using stock elements). Each element has been changed a bit, but if the overall composition is substantially the same, then copyright could exist. Honestly have no clue how strong such a case would be, but that, if anything, is the IP lifeline for Hasbro (or is it GW?) in this situation.

decker_cky wrote:

Ashitaka wrote:
The only real problem I see where they could have gotten themselves into trouble with copyright is using the old commercial in their video. That would still be under copyright (MB>Hasbro).

Agree on the video. That part is 100% clear and was flat out irresponsible by Gamezone. If they didn't have permission, the kickstarter should have been shut down for using that alone.

Yeah, I would imagine taking someone's commercial wholesale and advertising your own product using it would be a no no

 RiTides wrote:

decker_cky wrote:

Ashitaka wrote:
The only real problem I see where they could have gotten themselves into trouble with copyright is using the old commercial in their video. That would still be under copyright (MB>Hasbro).

Agree on the video. That part is 100% clear and was flat out irresponsible by Gamezone. If they didn't have permission, the kickstarter should have been shut down for using that alone.

Yeah, I would imagine taking someone's commercial wholesale and advertising your own product using it would be a no no

Yea, but how friggin' old is that commercial anyway? In my opinion, this falls squarely in the realm of "Who gives a ?"

The game is more than 20 years old, the marks are canceled or abandoned, these guys want to do a reboot that no one else has an interest in doing. That is the essence of what copyright law was always intended to promote. This is why Disney could make billions off of stories like Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and so forth. Now, those stories are too old and do not qualify for copyright protection in the first place, so the example is not precisely on point. But copyright is intended to allow an author a reasonable amount of time to profit from a work of art, after which it becomes fair game to everyone. That reasonable period used to be 20 years. Now it is lifetime +70, thank you Mickey.

Copyright law wants to encourage authors to take something old and used up and make something new and interesting out of it. And at the end of the day, neither GW nor Hasbro has yet pitched a fit about it that we know of, right? It's just some Moon Roof publishing jerk with a narrowly registered mark, right?

I would applaud Hasbro for leaving this one alone, and do a dance if Hasbro endorsed it wholesale. "Hey, great idea, hope it works out for you. Why don't you take a nominal license to our HeroQuest game to keep off the wolves and go knock yourselves out while we make a new version of Monopoly." What a world that would be .

I'd be glad for them to leave it alone too, weeble, but that doesn't change the fact that they've already used copyrighted material.

An official license from Hasbro to remake the game (regardless of who owns the name now for whatever reason) would have been fantastic.

But just because something is old and not being made doesn't mean I can take a commercial for it to use as my own... sounds like you should petition a lawmaker to get that time period shortened

 Erasoketa wrote:
I've canceled my pledge and bought some popcorn.

You have no idea how much I wish Tony Reidy had come up with the idea for HeroQuest 25 first.

 RiTides wrote:
I'd be glad for them to leave it alone too, weeble, but that doesn't change the fact that they've already used copyrighted material.

An official license from Hasbro to remake the game (regardless of who owns the name now for whatever reason) would have been fantastic.

But just because something is old and not being made doesn't mean I can take a commercial for it to use as my own... sounds like you should petition a lawmaker to get that time period shortened

Oh no, I agree with you that it is wrong. And if there ends up being a hullabaloo about it, most of the fault lies with Gamezone for just doing what they darn well felt like. I just wish that these sorts of things could be resolved amiably by responsible people well in advance before it blows up, you know. They wouldn't have to be if copyright expired after 20 years...but that isn't the law at the moment. It should be, but it isn't, and that doesn't excuse violation of someone's rights.

Running off half-cocked is a great way to piss people off, and in the context of a Kickstarter for which they were raising money, for shame. On the other hand, Moon Pool making a fuss about it is rather unreasonable. So what if they snapped up the HeroQuest mark in 2012 because they made an RPG. Does that give whats-his-face rights? Sure it does, but that doesn't mean he has to be an about it when someone else wants to make a product that will have virtually no negative impact on his own.

weeble1000 wrote:

 silent25 wrote:
Issaries was the previous publisher of HeroQuest/RuneQuest related material and is also tied to Stafford. The trademark has essentially been Staffords since 2001.

I appreciate the point, but the mark belonged to Issaries, which I gather no longer exists, and was therefore canceled. The word mark was independently registered by Stafford as a category 16 good in 2012, about 2 and a half years later. It is the only live Heroquest mark in the US, and relegated strictly to printed material as it relates to a role-playing game which solely takes the form of print media. That is by and large the only area in which Stafford, and only Stafford, can enforce the mark, unless Stafford has licensed rights to the mark to Moon Base Alpha.

Issaries appears to be a subsidiary of Design Moon Publishing these days. Greg Stafford was the founder and owner of Issaries. It's likely Stafford transferred the rights to himself when Design Moon took Issaries over.