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Folks,
A friend and myself are on the precipice of dabbling in the dark world of ammateur application development for a wargaming application. Unfortunately we're extremely new and niave to the action-packed world of copyright material; and while I know there is a way to be able to tailor content for a game such as 40k (as evidenced by the fine work of Army Builder), I have no idea how this works or even where to look to understand more.

So while I'll certainly be mailing the Lone Wolf team and hope they're feeling generous, I thought I'd post this question to you learned fellows! Any ideas?

I really wouldn't matey. GW are notoriously strict on their IP.

The Lone Wolf team only produce a database manager program (AB). That it can be customised to suit many games is its biggest drawcard.

The datafiles themselves ARE NOT done by them (and if they were, GW would stomp them flat). This is their 'get out' clause. The files are done by volunteers, out there in internet land, not by in house people.

Some sort of 40k version of Ibodger would be awsome. I know that Privateer Press allowed it, but i don't think that same thing would fly with Games Workshop. However if it works out and you do develope for Android let me know and I'll be sure to pick it up.

The trick is to look at the big list of copyrighted words and don't use ANY of them.

http://www.s6engineering.co.uk/abouts6.html
See the big list at the bottom - those are the words and names that they consider themselves to be 'owners' of.

Look at what http://battlescribe.blogspot.com/ is doing. They are following the same model as Lone Wolf. Software in one group, data files in a second group.

And it was on that day, children, the 6th of December in the Year of Our Lord 2010, that the opening salvos were fired in the revisitation of the great "GW IP Wars."

: )

Eric

Can GW really consider themselves the owners of the word 'Epic'. Surely some of the names on s6engineering are wrong, or that GW only own the name in the context that it's in.

Grimm wrote:Can GW really consider themselves the owners of the word 'Epic'. Surely some of the names on s6engineering are wrong, or that GW only own the name in the context that it's in.

Trademarks don't give a company sole exclusive ownership of the word. They rely on context. So GW don't own the word 'Epic'... but they own the name of their 'Epic' wargame.

It's all quite convoluted and confusing, which is the reason people pay expensive lawyers to tell them what is and isn't allowed.

I'm pretty sure it's context, seeing as there are three movies titled simply "epic," there's the "Epic Games" videogame company, "epic.com," and the Elderly Pharmaceutical Insurance Coverarage program, to name a few.

I'm sure if you tried to make another miniatures or table-top wargame called "Epic" you'd get your ass sued off.

Thanks guys, a great help - all's go to create the App!

We haven't even started yet on this app, so I'm not going to potentially waste everyone's time with needless hype before we even have anything near a product; but if all goes well and we don't crash out, we should have something very exciting to present to the community within the next 6 months...

Trademarks only protect products in the same category as the trademark holder.

You can have EPIC anything else and be fine.
Release an EPIC miniatures game and you're toast.

Have they trademarked 'Adamantium' - if so, I think a comic company might have issues with them - and all of the OTHER prior usage holders.

Grimm wrote:Can GW really consider themselves the owners of the word 'Epic'. Surely some of the names on s6engineering are wrong, or that GW only own the name in the context that it's in.

That's the disclaimer they ask you to quote. There's plenty of words in there that they'd struggle to enforce though. (at least they've taken Avatar out....)

Commander Endova wrote:I'm pretty sure it's context, seeing as there are three movies titled simply "epic," there's the "Epic Games" videogame company, "epic.com," and the Elderly Pharmaceutical Insurance Coverarage program, to name a few.

I'm sure if you tried to make another miniatures or table-top wargame called "Epic" you'd get your ass sued off.

Not necessarily. It would depend on the exact content of the game and how it was presented.

For example, if you made a 6mm SF game and called it Epic Space Wars, they would easily nail you, because the name and game are very similar to their game.

If you made a video dungeon game and called it "Epic Quest" you probably would be fine. As long as no-one else has already made and trademarked a similar title.

This is why you do trademark searches, and pay lawyers to figure out if you are likely to be sued and lose.