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'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

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Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#21

Post by DenisM »

filoleg wrote: post #13
djsumdog wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, so this serve the companies interest because they're trying to defend their trademark; even if they failed. I doubt Humvee is in danger of becoming a generic term (Jeep is more likely; I cannot tell you much my it annoyed me my ex called her Suzuki 4x4 a "Jeep" .. it's not a Jeep! It's a 4x4 or off-roader.." but if they enter into other trademark battles, the opposing council can't say "Well they haven't tried t…

Interesting you bring up a point about Jeep. Never once in the US I've heard of a non-Jeep-made SUV referred to as a "Jeep". But back when I lived in Russia, every single SUV was referred to as a "Jeep". I don't even know of another word for SUV in Russian. Not trying to argue against you btw, I just personally find stuff like this interesting. EDIT: just checked the wikipedia page for SUV in russian, and yep, in the…

Another word is внедорожник, or off-roader: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BE...

The legend has it that when economic restrictions were relaxed towards the end of the SU someone bartered a huge quantity of a natural resource (coal?) for a huge number Jeep Grand Cherokee vehicles. So around that time they were only types of cars in SU - subpar Soviet cars and fancy American Jeeps.

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#22

Post by skocznymroczny »

smabie wrote: post #2

I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me that many companies pursue legal action that is against their own interest. Surely, Humvees in CoD could only help the brand, no? Moreover, the fact that they don't even sell any consumer products in the first place makes the entire suit even more dubious. The use of Humvees in CoD is going to sow confusion among the military purchasing officers and the…

What if Humvees become the worst vehicles in the game because of balancing reasons? If I were the owner of the brand I'd be pissed. Even worse in case of other vehicles like racing cars. Imagine a racing game in which Porsche cars are slowest and break more often than other cars. You wouldn't want your brand to be associated with that, even if it's a videogame. Or imagine a completely broken game with popular car. Big Rigs level kind of broken. You wouldn't want your luxury car brand associated with broken school project level of games.

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#23

Post by duskwuff »

save_ferris wrote: post #5
smabie wrote: post #2

I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me that many companies pursue legal action that is against their own interest. Surely, Humvees in CoD could only help the brand, no? Moreover, the fact that they don't even sell any consumer products in the first place makes the entire suit even more dubious. The use of Humvees in CoD is going to sow confusion among the military purchasing officers and the…

Ehh, I think Humvee saw a company making a truckload of money and felt they had a right to some of it given that they own a major vehicle that's used in the game. I could easily see an ego-maniacal CEO or founder getting pissed that he's not getting paid for something he feels entitled to. Maybe they're seeing how pro athletes are licensing their likeness to games and thought they could make a compelling argument for…

The flow is typically in the other direction, though -- companies pay for placement of their products in media, like movies and video games, as it's seen as a form of advertising.

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#24

Post by ceejayoz »

saagarjha wrote: post #16
CM30 wrote: post #15

Have to be honest, I've always thought complaints about trademarked products in works of fiction were a silly thing to begin with. Why shouldn't a fictional universe feature products and businesses found in the real world? Are we supposedly to randomly assume all other universes don't have humvees or macbooks or the Red Cross? Who's to say the same people/companies/organisations would even be responsible in that work…

What if I took your product and had it fail spectacularly in my movie?

Is it being marketed as a documentary?

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#25

Post by Koshkin »

norifukuoka wrote: post #18
CM30 wrote: post #15

Have to be honest, I've always thought complaints about trademarked products in works of fiction were a silly thing to begin with. Why shouldn't a fictional universe feature products and businesses found in the real world? Are we supposedly to randomly assume all other universes don't have humvees or macbooks or the Red Cross? Who's to say the same people/companies/organisations would even be responsible in that work…

Meanwhile, in this other fictional universe, a guy who looks just like you and posts the same things as you on HN is a child pornographer. Not to worry, our hero stops him. Or perhaps it is your company that is involved in the pornography. And they are secret Nazis. Not to worry. All fictional.

Well that's what Freedom of Speech is all about, isn't it?

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#26

Post by Alupis »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #22
smabie wrote: post #2

I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me that many companies pursue legal action that is against their own interest. Surely, Humvees in CoD could only help the brand, no? Moreover, the fact that they don't even sell any consumer products in the first place makes the entire suit even more dubious. The use of Humvees in CoD is going to sow confusion among the military purchasing officers and the…

What if Humvees become the worst vehicles in the game because of balancing reasons? If I were the owner of the brand I'd be pissed. Even worse in case of other vehicles like racing cars. Imagine a racing game in which Porsche cars are slowest and break more often than other cars. You wouldn't want your brand to be associated with that, even if it's a videogame. Or imagine a completely broken game with popular car. Bi…

> What if Humvees become the worst vehicles in the game because of balancing reasons? If I were the owner of the brand I'd be pissed.

Pretty much exactly what happened with the Glock in the Counter Strike PC game.

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#27

Post by ketzu »

save_ferris wrote: post #5
smabie wrote: post #2

I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me that many companies pursue legal action that is against their own interest. Surely, Humvees in CoD could only help the brand, no? Moreover, the fact that they don't even sell any consumer products in the first place makes the entire suit even more dubious. The use of Humvees in CoD is going to sow confusion among the military purchasing officers and the…

Ehh, I think Humvee saw a company making a truckload of money and felt they had a right to some of it given that they own a major vehicle that's used in the game. I could easily see an ego-maniacal CEO or founder getting pissed that he's not getting paid for something he feels entitled to. Maybe they're seeing how pro athletes are licensing their likeness to games and thought they could make a compelling argument for…

Licensing for games is common for car manufacturers as well.

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#28

Post by wmil »

smabie wrote: post #2

I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me that many companies pursue legal action that is against their own interest. Surely, Humvees in CoD could only help the brand, no? Moreover, the fact that they don't even sell any consumer products in the first place makes the entire suit even more dubious. The use of Humvees in CoD is going to sow confusion among the military purchasing officers and the…

A while back (90s?) defence involved corporations adopted a "maximum ip" strategy.

So they demand license fees for things like scale model F-15 kits.

They want to keep that revenue and expand it, so they try to make video game companies get licenses. To expand revenue and defend trademarks.

Re: 'Call of Duty' wins First Amendment victory over use of Humvees

#29

Post by baq »

solinent wrote: post #9
crooked-v wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called trademark erosion. An example of this historically would be aspirin, which was originally a trademarked brand name of Bayer but was legally ruled in 1918 and 1921 to have become genericized, because the company took no actions to prevent others from using the name. This generally only applies when non-holders use the trademark to market in the same field as the original business, though: not "we went t…

The standard example I've heard is for Trampoline. No one calls them rebound tumblers anymore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trampoline#First_modern_trampo... I think this is really just a case of lawyers being super-protective. It also pays well, I'm sure. I think a words like Humvee or even Google have coloquially already lost their meaning--their meaning is polymorphic, it's only a matter of time (100 years is a m…

I’ve always liked escalators and xerox machines.
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