Bethesda Doesn't Enjoy Being "Forced" into Mojang Lawsuit

[Atheist.]

So how did the TV drama Dexter get its name trademarked if the cartoon Dexter's Laboratory is only one word away?

 

[screwvalve]

You know it's Mojang who are the copyright trolls here right? You know they're the ones trying to get the legal right to stop Bethesda calling their games The Elder Scrolls: XXXXX don't you? I mean you have spent 5 minutes looking into this before making the decision to boycott Bethesda haven't you?

I know notch offered to give up on the Scrolls trademark, not copyright. Yeah, i dont like Notch either, but i dont think he'd be that stupid to try trademark single words, like scrolls. But I bet Bethesda doesnt like being forced into an Interplay/Masthead lawsuit either. My contempt towards them is much higher.

 

[screwvalve]

So how did the TV drama Dexter get its name trademarked if the cartoon Dexter's Laboratory is only one word away?

Great point. I remember the first time i heard of that show I thought, wow, cartoon network's dexter is now a TV drama? There's the brand confusion that zenimax lawyers mentioned. Cartoon network should have sued fox.

 

[Treblaine]

Right on with that middle finger picture. Because of this, I'm not purchasing Skyrim. Bethesda/Zenimax and their lawyers can go f*** themselves.

You know it's Mojang who are the copyright trolls here right? You know they're the ones trying to get the legal right to stop Bethesda calling their games The Elder Scrolls: XXXXX don't you? I mean you have spent 5 minutes looking into this before making the decision to boycott Bethesda haven't you?

You know what you are saying is complete lie?

In no way would or could Mojang be able to stop Zenimax from continuing to use their "The Elder Scrolls" trademark. I have spent more than 5 minutes looking into this. You clearly haven't as you call this COPYRIGHT trolling when it is Trademark, you clearly don't even know what you are talking about.

Trademarking "The Elder Scrolls" does not give Zenimax right over the name "Scrolls"

Also the inverse, a trademark of "Scrolls" does not give Mojang the right over "The Elder Scrolls".

 

[AzureRaven]

You know it's Mojang who are the copyright trolls here right? You know they're the ones trying to get the legal right to stop Bethesda calling their games The Elder Scrolls: XXXXX don't you? I mean you have spent 5 minutes looking into this before making the decision to boycott Bethesda haven't you?

Notch may be a lot of things, but you honestly believe he's stupid enough to take on Bethesda unprovoked? He was just trying to trademark his own game, not go after TES. However, it's not really Bethesda's fault either. While I severely doubt Mojang would attempt it due to the fact that they'd get wrecked in court, someone else may...so Bethesda has to lay down a precedent to know they aren't gonna let it stand. The whole thing is just a truckload of gray really. The laws are more to blame then either party. But yea, boycotting Bethesda for this is just stupid. Have fun whoever goes and does that, I'll be having a blast playing Skyrim!

 

[Laxman9292]

Now I'm all for protecting your copyrights and stuff, but considering that Notch has made TONS of efforts to compromise and Bethesda hasn't done jack shit, I'm going to hope that Bethesda loses; which they will, because this is in Sweden.

Did you read Notch's copyright? He wanted to copyright Scrolls in a very vague way covering a bunch of media and other things that might have restricted Bethesda's use of it. Besides, it' is Bethesda's trademark and they are obligated to defend it from what I understand. Hence, being "forced into" the lawsuit

 

[jurnag12]

Bethesda, you know why no one will confuse Scrolls with the Elder Scrolls?
BECAUSE NO ONE CALLS THEM THE F*CKING ELDER SCROLLS EXCEPT YOU! WE ONLY USE THE SUBTITLES!

 

[Guillermo Gonzalez]

So it's basically just a pissing contest.

 

[sinterklaas]

No one refers to 'The Elder Scrolls' as 'Scrolls'. People refer to the series as Oblivion, Morrowind and Skyrim.

As for people who do not game and could potentially confuse the two, they should not enter the equation as they have no relevance.

 

[UnravThreads]

I know notch offered to give up on the Scrolls trademark, not copyright. Yeah, i dont like Notch either, but i dont think he'd be that stupid to try trademark single words, like scrolls. But I bet Bethesda doesnt like being forced into an Interplay/Masthead lawsuit either. My contempt towards them is much higher.

If Notch hadn't tried to trademark "Scrolls", this whole case wouldn't even be happening! If Notch hadn't opened his mouth and gone "lol guyz were bein sued lol", we wouldn't know this was happening! What Notch has done by being unprofessional is unleashed a can of worms for himself and Mojang, but also for Bethesda.

Look at this topic. Look at the level of armchair lawyer idiocy in this topic. Multiply that across IGN, Gamespot (Assuming they're covering it), PC Gamer, RPS and every other site running this story. That's readerships of millions seeing this and kicking off against Bethesda for their lawyers doing their jobs. The potential damages for Bethesda are high, not just in terms of sales for Skyrim but their public image, and all because Notch had to open his mouth and talk about being sued.

Bethesda are fighting two battles. The first is to protect their trademark, and it's required of them otherwise it weakens the brand in a legal sense. The second is because Interplay have arguably violated the terms of the license agreement for the Fallout license with regards to the MMO, Fallout Online, and as such Bethesda are taking them to court. Bethesda have to fight both, because they need their brands strong, just as any other company does.

Is trademark/copyright law dickish and idiotic? Yes, clearly it is by this case existing at all, or even by the Tim Langdell cases in the past years with his frivolous lawsuits over the word 'Edge'. But that is not the fault of Bethesda. They do not dictate the laws, but they are bound by them just as much as any company. It is irrelevant what has happened to other situations with similar names, because we don't know if there was even a case. But Bethesda have been put in a position where they have to fight against Mojang, and Notch has not helped. He didn't help by making it public in the first place, he didn't help when he tried to be funny by saying they should duke it out over Quake. All he's doing is making it worse for everyone involved.

 

[Selifator]

I don't know if this has been mentioned before but the trademark that Mojang wants is for everything from games to films to clothing to plates. Bethesda's trademark is only for games, so if it wanted to do anything else it would be liable to being sued by Mojang. Kotaku has some good articles on both sides of the story. http://kotaku.com/5847295/mojang-v-bethesda-part-2-the-attorneys-and-notch--pete-weigh-in

 

[Monsterfurby]

Mojang fanboy: "LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU. I AM TOO BUSY BOYCOTTING YOU FOR BEING THE DEVIL"
Anyone else: "Ok that makes sense, we pretty much figured as much already"

Que?

What is this boycotting straw-man argument? There is no boycott.

How the hell does it make sense to sue Notch over "Scrolls" yet not "Rage" when there are trademarks for "Streets of Rage" and "Primal Rage"?

Zenimax owns Rage through Id.

THAT IS THE POINT!

RAGE uses a single word from another registered trademark.

The same thing that "Scrolls" does. Zenimax are hypocrites.

It is likely that their copyright definition varies greatly. There are more than 1800 trademark entries that use the word Rage in them, and all are of different type and scale. When you register a trademark, you have to spell out what you use it for - to simplify, you would say "PC game". Now if someone else comes along and wants to use the same word for "my company" or "a book", they may do so, those marks do not conflict.

However, if two similar words are registered to the same or a greatly similar purpose, things get very complicated very fast.

Folks, what seemingly happened is not Bethesda going out on a suing spree without reason. Apparently, they consulted an expert (internal or external) who told them that, should they let Notch's registration pass, their own trademark might be in danger - as someone before me stated out, a precedent would be created that would greatly limit the reach of their trademark. So, to prevent this, they went through the legal system.

This is not about harassing Notch, and people need to stop seeing it as such. This is about protecting an existing trademark from being willingly abused/circumvented in the future. The case has less of a "Bethesda versus Notch" inclination and in the end boils down to what is pretty much a formality.

Also, let's face it, Mojang is financially strong enough to handle this. This is not the big bad company trying to gobble up the poor, innocent start-up. We are talking about two multi-million-dollar companies here, and although Notch's PR is considerably better (and often more amateurish, which appeals to those outside the industry), the half-informed hate for Bethesda is a typical example of people bending the facts so they fit into the story they would like to hear.

People, I know you like stories that involve heroes, villains and preferably lightsaber duels. But the real world does not work that way. Get your facts straight before judging.

Signing out.

 

[rabidmidget]

This is what I have suspecting about this case for a while, the problem is that if Bethesda lets this case through, it will hurt their standing against further copyright issues.

Kind of puts them in a catch 22, if they go through with it, they take a PR hit, if they don't, they lose power over their copyrights.

 

[Zanaxal]

This whole business seems dumb imo. Coca-Cola doesn't sue Classic cola or Pepsi Cola etc. even tho they used the cola word prob first. Its just stupid courthouse ASS on head logic. Next they probably will decide that since Iphone is a trademark no one can call any company for something with phone since its just removing and I.

Theres probably plenty of games called something with a scroll already just retarded lawyers needed some work to pay their silicon butcheeks and new 50 yrd yachts.

 

[SinisterGehe]

Why is it in Sweden? USA to costly?

Because Mojang operates in Sweden and obeys Swedish laws. Wouldn't you think it would be silly that you commit a crime in Finland and then get sued and judged by American courts.

Mojang is Swedish company, owned by Swedish residents and is registered in Sweden as a company. They need to follow American laws as much as anyone else outside America needs to. If Bethesda wants to sue them they need to follow Swedish laws or the case will be rendered null, or put on standby till Mojang as a company goes to America.

But honestly I have never... Seen anyone refer to the elder scrolls game series as "Scrolls" it has always been "Elder's" "Elder's scroll" or the title of the game example "Morrowind" "Oblivion".

I think bethesda is just wanting to be the big boy.

I just wonder if anyone can start calling copyrights on words, how long we will have words that we can use as titles of games? Soon we need to come up with a totally new language or take some minority language, example Finnish or some other language that really has no "cousins" and then copyright the words in it... This is getting silly.

Hey... I Think I will copyright a title " The The - the first the" And let's see how many new titles I can sue...

 

[Drejer43]

If what pete says is true then it actually just sounds like "lawyers being lawyers" :/

 

[Treblaine]

Mojang fanboy: "LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU. I AM TOO BUSY BOYCOTTING YOU FOR BEING THE DEVIL"
Anyone else: "Ok that makes sense, we pretty much figured as much already"

Que?

What is this boycotting straw-man argument? There is no boycott.

How the hell does it make sense to sue Notch over "Scrolls" yet not "Rage" when there are trademarks for "Streets of Rage" and "Primal Rage"?

Zenimax owns Rage through Id.

THAT IS THE POINT!

RAGE uses a single word from another registered trademark.

The same thing that "Scrolls" does. Zenimax are hypocrites.

It is likely that their copyright definition varies greatly. There are more than 1800 trademark entries that use the word Rage in them, and all are of different type and scale. When you register a trademark, you have to spell out what you use it for - to simplify, you would say "PC game". Now if someone else comes along and wants to use the same word for "my company" or "a book", they may do so, those marks do not conflict.

However, if two similar words are registered to the same or a greatly similar purpose, things get very complicated very fast.

Folks, what seemingly happened is not Bethesda going out on a suing spree without reason. Apparently, they consulted an expert (internal or external) who told them that, should they let Notch's registration pass, their own trademark might be in danger - as someone before me stated out, a precedent would be created that would greatly limit the reach of their trademark. So, to prevent this, they went through the legal system.

This is not about harassing Notch, and people need to stop seeing it as such. This is about protecting an existing trademark from being willingly abused/circumvented in the future. The case has less of a "Bethesda versus Notch" inclination and in the end boils down to what is pretty much a formality.

Also, let's face it, Mojang is financially strong enough to handle this. This is not the big bad company trying to gobble up the poor, innocent start-up. We are talking about two multi-million-dollar companies here, and although Notch's PR is considerably better (and often more amateurish, which appeals to those outside the industry), the half-informed hate for Bethesda is a typical example of people bending the facts so they fit into the story they would like to hear.

People, I know you like stories that involve heroes, villains and preferably lightsaber duels. But the real world does not work that way. Get your facts straight before judging.

Signing out.

If that is true... explain to me why the hell Zenimax refused Notch's offer to drop his Trademark claim? That should have ended it.

This is the bullshit I am angry over. Zenimax says one thing but does another.

 

[Treblaine]

They need to follow American laws as much as anyone else outside America needs to. .

Might want to rephrase that.

 

[Disthron]

"other companies could produce deliberately-confusing titles like The Eldest Scrolls: Skyrings and leave Bethesda with no legal recourse."

*shrugs* In my opinion, it's wrong if a company can copyright a regular word. There are at least a few games on the DS with the wrod Puppy in the title, and how meany games have Ninja in the name. More than a few. If this really dose have the potential to dammage a companies brand then maybe the laws need an overhall.

I just went and checked out the websites for both games and they are as differant as Stronghold and Bastion, you'd only get them confused if you were blind and stupid.

 

[MonkeyPunch]

Wait what?
Could someone explain this to me:
"...the applicant has merely deleted the term ELDER from the registered mark."

So Notch actually initially called his game Elder Scrolls too? I thought it was Scrolls with some kind of tag line.