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IKEA made a mod for Skyrim [video]

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Re: IKEA made a mod for Skyrim [video]

#141

Post by jchw »

Crunchified wrote: post #115
PeterHolzwarth wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always been curious - what are some examples of trademarks being lost due to not being defended?

There's lots and lots of them. Have you ridden an escalator® lately? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericize...

Though that is not the type of abandonment that IKEA is worried about in this case. In fact it isn't really clear what form of trademark abandonment IKEA would have to be concerned about for this action to be justified. IANAL but IKEA is definitely not worried about the trademark being ruled abandoned due to non-use, procedural issues or naked licensing; they can easily prove the mark(s) are in active use, and the other two are not related to trademark enforcement.

Again, IANAL but we do need to stop spreading FUD about what trademarks entail. Trademarks are meant to protect a brand from being diluted or confused, not to police the world of all parody or reference to some thing. In fact, if the store in the game wasn't even called an IKEA, I am really curious what "trademark" they felt it violated, but unfortunately not curious enough to find out.

P.S.: a better example of a trademark that fell to non-use would be "Twitter". However I personally dunno if there is a trademark that fell specifically because they didn't bully enough people who tried to use their trademark in ways that wouldn't be confused with their brand. That seems to be a made-up invention by corporate lawyers that people just accept at face value. If it really worked this way, the mark "JavaScript" should've fallen a long time ago.

Re: IKEA made a mod for Skyrim [video]

#142

Post by crooked-v »

t2r3121 wrote: post #126
aidenn0 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No reasonable person would have been confused into thinking it was an official IKEA game; IANAL, but it seems unlikely to me that IKEA would have ultimately prevailed in court, though a simple change to the color of the logo would probably have been helpful to the devs of the game.

It's a direct ripoff of https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3008 , a popular sci-fi horror story set in an IKEA. At the time the game was also using IKEA's brand colors.

The game description on Steam even explicitly mentions "SCP Foundation", which the creator also doesn't have the rights to use unless the whole game is Creative Commons-licensed.

Re: IKEA made a mod for Skyrim [video]

#143

Post by lovich »

ck2 wrote: post #131
boredpudding wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah sorry man, that's clearly IKEA so it's obvious they had to act on it. Can't sell IKEA-branded games without their permission. Even on their Steam trailer, the first second is clearly IKEA. Just changing the name is not enough. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1593010/The_Store_is_Clos... Sometimes it's not that deep. Sometimes the cute little indie dev just made a mistake. The game is also not out yet, even th…

I've never been in an IKEA but it looks like Backrooms to me did Backrooms also infringe on IKEA or maybe every furniture store has the same concept

Some of the early backrooms lore and levels were based on noclipping in furniture stores or even IKEA directly since it was all fan made stuff not caring about the legal ramifications.

I tried to find a link but it’s impossible now that backrooms is a popular IP

And having been in an empty IKEA, it definitely had that liminal feel

Re: IKEA made a mod for Skyrim [video]

#144

Post by jameshart »

setopt wrote: post #128
aidenn0 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No reasonable person would have been confused into thinking it was an official IKEA game; IANAL, but it seems unlikely to me that IKEA would have ultimately prevailed in court, though a simple change to the color of the logo would probably have been helpful to the devs of the game.

IANAL either, but could this be a trademark issue? My understanding is that if you don’t defend your trademarks you risk legally losing them.

You can only defend your trademark with respect to product categories that you actually market. Unless IKEA were in the business of selling parody video games, their trademark doesn't apply.

Wait... is that why IKEA just put out a parody video game?

Re: IKEA made a mod for Skyrim [video]

#145

Post by abejfehr »

srdjanr wrote: post #53
Hackbraten wrote: post #46

IKEA bullied the developer of the indie game The Store is Closed into gutting the whole game. [0] It’s a shame how people can even acknowledge, let alone applaud IKEA’s “funny” gaming-related ad after their successful meddling with SCP folklore, not to speak of the chilling effect their actions may have had on indie gaming. [0]: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/the-store-is-closed-indie-s...

My (very) naive take: Was it important part of the game that the store looks just like IKEA? If yes, that probably makes it more likely that it was a trademark infringement and that IKEA was justified. If no, it shouldn't be a big deal to change the colors, just to avoid potential confusion.

I saw beads at a bead store today that were clearly Pepsi/Sprite but they were "Pepsis" and "Spritc", presumably to be legally distinct.

Is it important that the beads looked like Pepsi/Sprite? Kind of, people want recognizable brands

Re: IKEA made a mod for Skyrim [video]

#146

Post by ZiiS »

mikestew wrote: post #101
ZiiS wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whom they often sue. 100% they would would consider the logo/branding/bottle infringing if they were a competing product.

Sue for using “cola” in the product name? Citation most definitely needed.

Is that what I said?

Re: IKEA made a mod for Skyrim [video]

#147

Post by saghm »

aidenn0 wrote: post #117
boredpudding wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah sorry man, that's clearly IKEA so it's obvious they had to act on it. Can't sell IKEA-branded games without their permission. Even on their Steam trailer, the first second is clearly IKEA. Just changing the name is not enough. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1593010/The_Store_is_Clos... Sometimes it's not that deep. Sometimes the cute little indie dev just made a mistake. The game is also not out yet, even th…

No reasonable person would have been confused into thinking it was an official IKEA game; IANAL, but it seems unlikely to me that IKEA would have ultimately prevailed in court, though a simple change to the color of the logo would probably have been helpful to the devs of the game.

Yeah, that seems like the type of thing that should at least in theory be fair use.

Re: IKEA made a mod for Skyrim [video]

#148

Post by wavemode »

david-gpu wrote: post #130
wavemode wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, tradmarks can be parodied too. It's a first amendment protection, and extremely common in movies, TV and video games. If the developer worked with a lawyer they could've gotten any suit by IKEA (this wasn't a suit yet, just a cease and desist letter) quickly dismissed.

> It's a first amendment protection FWIW: Ziggy, the developer, is based in the UK.

Oh, I must have missed that

In that case yeah, it certainly depends on what the local laws say. I think in the UK parody protection applies to copyright but not trademarks.

Re: IKEA made a mod for Skyrim [video]

#149

Post by xoxxala »

bsammon wrote: post #107
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of a tangent to Weird Al, who often is said to not need the permission of the original artist because his songs are parodies, usually isn't commenting on the actual content of the original song but instead takes the lyrics and gives them a different theme. 'Smells like Nirvana' is one of the few songs he does that actually does directly parody the original. His videos are far more parody than the songs themselv…

(Not sure if you were saying this in your comment) I read somewhere that Weird Al always asks permission before releasing a parody song. IIRC, the same article/post also said that some other prominent parody artists (Stan Freberg might have been an example) generally did not.

There's a pretty famous story about Weird Al's Amish Paradise and Coolio. Weird Al got permission from the recording company and producer, but not Coolio. Coolio was not amused, initially.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_Paradise#Coolio's_respon...

Re: IKEA made a mod for Skyrim [video]

#150

Post by [deleted] »

kalleboo wrote: post #9

I watched a bit of someone's play through and was impressed by how much content there actually was for a one-off bit like this. I would have assumed they would have just made enough content to make for a funny ad but there's quite a lot of scripted storyline and voice acting.

[deleted]
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