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In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

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Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#61

Post by eliasmacpherson »

drakeandrews wrote: post #14

I knew this was going to happen some day. Games Workshop is essentially two separate companies, the raving legal department/copyright trolls (A couple of years ago they regularly put full page colour adverts in all the British wargaming magazines warning that they would enforce their IP with the full power afforded to them by the law, it was generally considered a bad joke by most.) and the (for a lack of a better te…

About the favouring those with deeper wallets: there's a great history of players making their own miniatures. I think provided they are reasonably near the dimensions of the 'original' piece - the homemade pieces are accepted and encouraged, allowing those without the financial means to use their own.

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#62

Post by scarecrowbob »

jrwoodruff wrote: post #56

I wish there was a Kickstarter like non-profit organization whose focus was finding and defending worthy cases like this. People/organizations submit their situation and do the work of raising awareness and collecting pledges, the organization uses the money to oversee the actual legal case and pay the attorneys, ideally a network of folks who would be willing to consider defending said cases at a reduced or pro-bono…

This was my initial reaction. Is there any reason why you couldn't create a kickstarter campaign around this?

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#63

Post by drakeandrews »

eliasmacpherson wrote: post #61
drakeandrews wrote: post #14

I knew this was going to happen some day. Games Workshop is essentially two separate companies, the raving legal department/copyright trolls (A couple of years ago they regularly put full page colour adverts in all the British wargaming magazines warning that they would enforce their IP with the full power afforded to them by the law, it was generally considered a bad joke by most.) and the (for a lack of a better te…

About the favouring those with deeper wallets: there's a great history of players making their own miniatures. I think provided they are reasonably near the dimensions of the 'original' piece - the homemade pieces are accepted and encouraged, allowing those without the financial means to use their own.

The official line has always been fuzzy. A lot of the more quota-led managers would bring out the "no-proxy" rules a lot. But then there is a very blurred line between a "converted" figure and a plain old handmade one. In this regard, HQ was much more lenient than other stores.

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#64

Post by jellicle »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #57
gamblor956 wrote: post #53

In the future, all "space marines" will simply be "marines." In any plausible scenario in which we have "space marines," having a dedicated corpus of naval marines would be unnecessary. Ergo, the solution is simply to let Games Workshop keep the silly moniker and just call your future super-soldiers what they would properly be called.

Wouldn't they really be called something else entirely? The term marine implies a soldier who specialises in sea based warfare or deploying from sea.

Humans rarely use new words when old words will do. When we were looking for a word to use for "thing that keeps us alive in space", "ship" was the obvious one since we already had a word for "thing that keeps us alive on the ocean".

When we are looking for a word for "soldiers that accompany ships in space", "marines" is almost certainly the word that is going to be used.

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#65

Post by illuminate »

eliasmacpherson wrote: post #61
drakeandrews wrote: post #14

I knew this was going to happen some day. Games Workshop is essentially two separate companies, the raving legal department/copyright trolls (A couple of years ago they regularly put full page colour adverts in all the British wargaming magazines warning that they would enforce their IP with the full power afforded to them by the law, it was generally considered a bad joke by most.) and the (for a lack of a better te…

About the favouring those with deeper wallets: there's a great history of players making their own miniatures. I think provided they are reasonably near the dimensions of the 'original' piece - the homemade pieces are accepted and encouraged, allowing those without the financial means to use their own.

"the homemade pieces are accepted and encouraged"

It's not like they can do much about cardboard cut-outs and stand-ins.

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#68

Post by dylangs1030 »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #67

Colonial Marine, Galactic Marine, Star Marine, Void Marine, Interplanetary Marine. I could come up with many more, why not just pick one of these instead. Space Marine sounds familiar for a reason. I've got to side with GW on this one.

But that's not the point - it sounds familiar because it is a catch call term that has been broadly used in science fiction literature.

This isn't trademarking the term, "lightsaber." This is trademarking the term, "laser sword."

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#69

Post by grabeh »

jellicle wrote: post #58
grabeh wrote: post #55

Certainly in the UK, it's a defence to use a trade mark in good faith in a descriptive manner. I think this would be a solid defence in this case as the usage is merely describing the character (I assume). Of course the problem is internet intermediaries who are not interested in the nuances of trade mark law. In the first instance, I would look to appeal the Amazon decision on the basis of good faith descriptive usa…

> Certainly in the UK, it's a defence to use a trade mark in good faith in a descriptive manner. Using it in a descriptive manner is something like: "I have here for sale two boxes of Kleenex tissues and one box of Band-Aid bandages and one Warhammer 40K rulebook." You are not infringing any trademarks, even though you are using the trademark in commerce, because you do in fact have those things (as created by the or…

I would argue that in the UK, s11(2)(b) of the Trade Mark Act could be used to make my argument. The book features a marine who is in space aka a space marine. The usage is necessary to describe the product. Admittedly this may be a tricky one to run.

Your point is more about exhaustion of right where goods have been put on the market with the owner's consents. In the UK, this would be covered under s.12 of the above act.

Re: In the future, all space marines will be Warhammer 40K space marines

#70

Post by illuminate »

njharman wrote: post #17
a2tech wrote: post #2

As a huge science fiction nerd and Games Workshop customer, this feels like rank betrayal. I expect this kind of legal bullying from big companies, but from a company that makes minifigs and other gaming accessories I expect better behavior.

GW is a large company. And it is the behemoth in it's industry. They do not innovate, just rehash same properties. They are the incumbent, "monopoly", content holder who (attempts to) destroy little guys.

Legal wrangling aside, I don't see a problem with a lack of "innovation", the same WH40K I played as a kid would still be fun today, however it is certainly interesting to see how WoTC has attempted to innovate to sell new products.

The main difference, of course, is that WH40K is wargaming min-maxy and specific troop-based versus D&D allowing a great deal of flexibility in the rules and creative content.

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