This is tangential, but if you overlook the issue, then you'll find that this is how you do PR. Gaming even the serious things out is the perfect stage for myth making. Asking a giant to battle you in a game over a trademark is the stuff of legends.
Hey, Bethesda Let’s settle this
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Re: Hey, Bethesda Let’s settle this
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Remember, in Game of Thrones, that Bronn only became Tyrion's champion for the money, not any sense of honor. What if Bethesda finds it easier to hire 3 top Quake 3 players for 1k each to fight Notch and friends? They might find it easier than going through the lawsuit.
Well, okay, that's true (but not my primary point, since i've not read/seen Game of Thrones). My point was that Bethesda is under no obligation to do this, and it's not clear to me that this would have legal binding. So in that sense they'd be accepting based on Notch's intentions (honorable or not), and I presume that Mojang would only agree based on their honorable intentions. There are of course many ways to wease…
I'm not sure why a legally counselled written contract wouldn't be considered legally binding.
Re: Hey, Bethesda Let’s settle this
#43This is not without precedent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_airlines#.22Just_Plan... Southwest Airlines was sued by Stevens Aviation over their use of the phrase "Just Plane Smart" in their advertisements. Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwest, offered to settle the dispute by arm-wrestling the CEO of Stevens. He lost the match, but got rights to the phrase anyways, and both companies got a lot of good publicity…
You get a plus for that one. I always like when people provide evidence to back stuff up. To me though, how can someone trademark or copyright a single established word in any language, it just seems ridiculous really. PS: I hope Bethesda takes him up on the offer.
Heh, trademarking a single established word is not even where it stops. T-Mobile owns the color magenta! [1]. So don't just stop at words. Let's do letters, colors, etc. And of course as soon as you trademark a color, it implies that you've trademarked all the individual colors that make it up. Thus a trademark on the color white (#FFFFFF (c) (tm) Igor Partola, all rights reserved) would give you all other colors.
[1] http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/color-the-next-limited-re...
EDIT: Fixed silly color theory mistake.
EDIT2: s/copyright/trademark/g
Re: Hey, Bethesda Let’s settle this
#44I thought Bethesda was a city in Maryland. Talk about name confusion!
Bethesda Softworks started in Bethesda, MD. It's now located just up the road in Rockville, MD.
Re: Hey, Bethesda Let’s settle this
#45Does that count as legally defending your trademark on Bethesda's part? And if Bethesda is right in that "Scrolls" is too similar to "The Elder Scrolls", as to cause confusion in the market place, how would a game of Quake rectify that?
In ancient Mesopotamia (according to my grade 10 ancient history class a long time ago), when one man accused another of a crime, the accused would be thrown into the Euphrates river. If the man died, then the gods decided he was guilty. If the man survived, then he was falsely accused, and the accused gained possession of the accuser's wife. I believe the point of a duel in this context, though, is simply to avoid a…
Funnily enough, this got reversed by the time of the witch hunts.
Re: Hey, Bethesda Let’s settle this
#46If only all legal battles could be solved with an old-fashion duel. Even better, lets make the lawyers fight to the death. Solves both the legal side and serves as a nice control of the lawyer population... More seriously, I really hope that the legal system can start setting a practical standard for intelectual property debates. From patents to trademarks or even how we handle trade secrets, it's like the informatio…
> If only all legal battles could be solved with an old-fashion duel. Even better, lets make the lawyers fight to the death. Solves both the legal side and serves as a nice control of the lawyer population...
Ironically, the elimination of trial by combat was seen as a great advance, casting away a practice that was "superstitious and barbarous to the last degree".
And so the circle is closed.
Re: Hey, Bethesda Let’s settle this
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
You get a plus for that one. I always like when people provide evidence to back stuff up. To me though, how can someone trademark or copyright a single established word in any language, it just seems ridiculous really. PS: I hope Bethesda takes him up on the offer.
Heh, trademarking a single established word is not even where it stops. T-Mobile owns the color magenta! [1]. So don't just stop at words. Let's do letters, colors, etc. And of course as soon as you trademark a color, it implies that you've trademarked all the individual colors that make it up. Thus a trademark on the color white (#FFFFFF (c) (tm) Igor Partola, all rights reserved) would give you all other colors. [1…
Black is the absence of colour. White is composed of all other colours.
Re: Hey, Bethesda Let’s settle this
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering that they're the guys making "Dota 2", I'm inclined to agree.
Well they did hire the creator of Dota to work on it for them, not like they've stolen the name from him..
IceFrog isn't strictly the author of DotA. DotA is, if memory serves, based on an even older mod called Aeon of Strife. And DotA's development history is riddled with support from the WC3 mapping community so it's really unfair to name any one individual as a sole creator or rights holder. There really is no rights holder to the game and there have been at least 3 major releases by distinct developing groups: Demigod (GPG), LoL and HoN.
Re: Hey, Bethesda Let’s settle this
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
You get a plus for that one. I always like when people provide evidence to back stuff up. To me though, how can someone trademark or copyright a single established word in any language, it just seems ridiculous really. PS: I hope Bethesda takes him up on the offer.
Heh, trademarking a single established word is not even where it stops. T-Mobile owns the color magenta! [1]. So don't just stop at words. Let's do letters, colors, etc. And of course as soon as you trademark a color, it implies that you've trademarked all the individual colors that make it up. Thus a trademark on the color white (#FFFFFF (c) (tm) Igor Partola, all rights reserved) would give you all other colors. [1…
Oh FFS, did you even spend a second figuring out what a trademark on a color actually means?
Re: Hey, Bethesda Let’s settle this
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
You get a plus for that one. I always like when people provide evidence to back stuff up. To me though, how can someone trademark or copyright a single established word in any language, it just seems ridiculous really. PS: I hope Bethesda takes him up on the offer.
Heh, trademarking a single established word is not even where it stops. T-Mobile owns the color magenta! [1]. So don't just stop at words. Let's do letters, colors, etc. And of course as soon as you trademark a color, it implies that you've trademarked all the individual colors that make it up. Thus a trademark on the color white (#FFFFFF (c) (tm) Igor Partola, all rights reserved) would give you all other colors. [1…
It’s important to point out the colour trademarks are applicable only within their chosen markets. Orange in the UK (mobile phone network) have a shade of orange that they claim as a trademark. EasyGroup (a company in a rather diverse set of industries) use a very similar shade of orange, but that wasn’t a problem until they tried to enter the mobile market as a virtual network:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EasyGroup#EasyMobile.2FShimmerB...