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

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Shut up Bethesda, you don't hate being forced into this. I'm buying Skyrim because I love elder scrolls games, but I'm losing any friendly feeling I had for your company. There is no confusion between your product and Mojang's.

Why isn't Activision (the industry's biggest a**holes bar none) suing over "Call of Cthulu" or "Call of Juarez"? Huh? Because there's no damn confusion. One is a horror game, the other a crappy western. As a consumer I can tell the fuc**ng difference.

The only people who are confused by the word scrolls, are your a**hole, monkey-brained lawyers. You own "Elder Scrolls", not the word "scrolls". Stop this nonsense while gamers still think something positive about your reputation or your name will sink to match Activision and EA as "just another bunch of w**kers".

Signed,

KingsGambit

 

[SinisterGehe]

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

Might want to rephrase that.

Like how? I am sorry but my limited English skills (Because I am not native speaker) along with my dyslexia makes it hard for me to see anything wrong with that sentence.

Can you tell me specifically whats wrong with it, then I will be glad to fix it then, but I don't see anything wrong with it.

 

[Notsomuch]

Transmorphers.

 

[GraveeKing]

Every time I see this story come up I lose more and more respect for Bethesda.
I can understand why it came up at first, but it's CLEARLY different - and technically they're removing 2 words not one 'Elder' AND 'The' the game is not called 'The Scrolls' after all, it's not even remotely close to the famous series, and really I'm beginning to see this as Bethesda's way of making a quick buck by picking on smaller weaker company's.

See now if I claimed I simply won't play Skyrim in anger of this situation - I'd be lying, what I probably will do is support the Pirate sites in distributing copies. I'd recommend anyone who actually wants to do something against this probably do the same, 'Boycotting' is simply ineffective in a world of millions of purchases, see providing pirates with seeding can mean the difference between someone buying Skyrim and downloading it illegally.

Of course I'm -hoping- that this pointless legal shit will all have been sorted out by the time Skyrim has been released, in all honestly I'm lazy as hell and can't be asked to put effort into helping pirate sites unless I have to. Hell! I ain't that big of fan of Notch, I just hate seeing the big company's pick on the smaller ones just because they know they'll get away with it, it's nothing to do with 'defending their trademarks' if anything it'll give them a TERRIBLE reputation and annoy a lot of fans, it's just so.... face-palm worthy.

TLR version:
Bethesda are stupid for pushing this action, although I can see their reasoning.

 

[Zyntoxic]

Now I can finally learn about what my homecountry does in cases like this!
I've heard that we are very..... hardhanded with cases like this. Should be fun! OH AND I CAN WATCH THE COURTROOM CASE (or can i?....)

if it is a public case and you know which court and which time it will be then yes, but if it is decided the cases is of a too sensetive matter they can order it to be closed for anyone but the people involved, in swedish it's called "lykta dörrar"

 

[Sir Prize]

After this I can see the reasoning behind the lawsuit, since copyright law does seem to be one big pain the rear...yet again.

 

[Actual]

I'm not a Notch fanboy, I really really hate minecraft. But Notch did offer to drop his trademark completely and Bethesda are continuing the court case regardless, to force him to drop a trademark he's already dropped...

He didn't offer to drop the trademark, he offered to change it to Scrolls:, which does nothing to alleviate the solution. Loaded headlines made him seem like the innocent party betting beat up on by big bad Bethesda until you read the content.

Read it again matey. He offered to change the name to Scrolls: Inserttexthere and completely drop the idea of trademarking it at all.

 

[paketep]

US trademark law is stupid.

And Bethesda can say what they want, but choosing to fight over "Scrolls" is way over the top. They don't own the dictionary. It's like suing if anyone uses "Magic" in their title because, "hey, they just removed Mayhem from there"!.

Idiots. Forget about my money.

 

[DonTsetsi]

US trademark law is stupid.

And Bethesda can say what they want, but choosing to fight over "Scrolls" is way over the top. They don't own the dictionary. It's like suing if anyone uses "Magic" in their title because, "hey, they just removed Mayhem from there"!.

Idiots. Forget about my money.

Problem is, if they don't stop Mojang from trademarking "Scrolls", they can get sued when The Elder SCROLLS: Skyrim is released, taking the game off shelves for an unknown period of time and potentially losing a lot of money for the company. Bethesta has nothing against the name Scrolls, just as EA has nothing against the name Edge, but was sued for Mirror's Edge. Notch may have offered to drop the trademark, but we haven't seen any LEGAL documents of this proposal.

 

[Funkysandwich]

(damn right you remove the troll accusations, that itself is trolling)

snip

The only think Mojang is guilty of is assuming the little guy will get fair treatment. They reality is you need to be RICH enough to afford a massive legal department to fight these redundant claims.

Way to show some decency there, yes, I removed my accusations of you being a troll, because it was rude, but no, just throw that in my face.

"The Little Guy" is getting fair treatment. Should Bethesda just give up on pursuing it's trademark just because Mojang isn't as big as it? No, of course not, that would be completely retarded.

Mojang decided to trademark the word Scrolls for it's use, Bethesda is forced, by U.S. Trademark law, to contest that, or it loses it's trademark. Were this Microsoft or E.A. who had tried to trademark 'Scrolls', no-one would bat an eye when Bethesda/Zenimax went after them, but for some reason people think Mojang deserves a free pass? No, sorry, that isn't how it works.

Using that logic, Call of Juarez would infringe on Activision's Call of Duty Trademark, and therefore Activision would have no choice but to sue Ubisoft over it. Actually, knowing Activison, I'm surprised they didn't.

 

[WaruTaru]

Right, step back for a bit here.

Lets say Bethesda didn't contest Notch's claim for the word "Scrolls". Since its a different game, people wouldn't confuse Skyrim with Scrolls. Fair enough, they let Notch go on with the "Scrolls" game.

Now, lets say some other company (or Mojang themselves, doesn't matter which) comes along and claim the word "Elder" for a racing game (or any game besides an RPG, really).

What happens if Notch and "the other company" work together? Or one buys out the other? Effectively the combined company now has control over "Elder" and "Scrolls". What is stopping the combined company from crossing over the separate "Elder" and "Scrolls" game and make it into "Elder Scrolls"? They own the two separate trademark, and they can do whatever they want with it, yes? Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the two games are crossed over, they have every right to call it "Elder Scrolls: Crossover" or some such thing, no?

Edit: Now that I think about it, Mojang could have avoided the trouble by making their game title longer to distinguish between their game and Bethesda's trademark. As it stands now, the scenario I've mention could become real and cause a problem for Bethesda.

 

[Hybridwolf]

All this seems to be is a gigantic mess over the fact that Mojang can't change a name. If Notch truely respects Bethesda, then he'd pick another name. Dragging your own company down and potentially taking a trademarked title from another doesn't seem entirely reasonable. However I do agree that Bethesda haven't been doing themselves any favors recently, espically with the Interplay mess, and in all fairness, I think the best outcome would be for the two to settle outside of court. Losing a trademark you've had for several years prior isn't going to happen though, and I really feel that the problem lies with Mojang here. Just my humble, uninformed opinion mind...

Also, isn't there another game you need to get around to finshing first mojang? Y'know, don't count your chickens etc etc?

 

[Treblaine]

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

Might want to rephrase that.

Like how? I am sorry but my limited English skills (Because I am not native speaker) along with my dyslexia makes it hard for me to see anything wrong with that sentence.

Can you tell me specifically whats wrong with it, then I will be glad to fix it then, but I don't see anything wrong with it.

The way that is phrased it sounds like america can enforce its sovereign rule all over the world. You know, the old "world police" allegations.

Really, US based intellectual-property law is only enforced globally because each country agrees to it and ratifies it, not just because it is American law.

 

[Vykrel]

so, by their logic, it would be okay to sue developers if they were to make games with any of these names:

Auto (Grand Theft Auto)
Cell (Splinter Cell)
Club (Midnight Club)
Faction (Red Faction)
Planet (Lost Planet)
Warfare (Modern Warfare)
etc.

the word "Scrolls" is seriously just too freaking vague to warrant a lawsuit.

 

[thiosk]

The strange thing is, I never even refer to the Elder Scrolls. I refer to Oblivion, or Morrowwind.

Notch should change his game's name to Morrobliviwind.

 

[Something Amyss]

EDIT= Wow so many quotes, (some of which were kinda funny)- yes I know it could set an ugly precedent, but is the law really that blind? I mean "Scrolls" is fairly inert whereas "Skyrings" is blatant.

It's not even true they have to sue to protect their trademark, as they could come to a legal agreement (which they have balked at).

I'm not saying I know what happened in those negotiations, but they rejected them in favour of court. The truth is, they do have to enforce a trademark, but it doesn't mandate going straight for the throat and adds credibility to the speculation that they just want to make an example of Mojang.

If they don't want to sue, they should probably work a little harder at an agreement. Claiming a necessity here is a little silly. They won't lose their trademark for good faith negotiations. They would if they ignored it and let it happen, but they were never going to do that.

I'm pretty sure in a US court, they would have trouble arguing market confusion, and based on the cases we've seen in the media in the past, I'm surprised they found a lawyer who would argue it was sufficient for market confusion.

The law isn't necessarily that blind, no, but remember, they DID entertain the Spike Lee/Spike TV lawsuit for a while.

 

[Norks]

All of you are thinking about this as hardcore gamers. Oh course, *you* know the difference. Try to view this from the point of an outsider. The point Bethesda makes is correct.

^^^this.

Also, Notch is being his usual douchebag self and pushing all kinds of "Hey I'm just the little guy" bullshit.

The Quake match was stupid publicity stunt, and by pushing the lawsuit with Bethesda he's just trying to get his game associated in some way with TES right before their big game release. Oh, you think it's a coincidence that this is brought up a month before one of the most anticipated releases of the year?
Notches game has been in production for months, and they would have a title worked out long before they released it into the public knowledge, they would also have back-ups in case of case of something like this happening.

Once again. Notch is a dick.

 

[idarkphoenixi]

I understand the need to copywrite intellectual property like Elder Scrolls. But "Scrolls" is just a word, nothing more. Calm down Bethesda, they dont have a chance at competing with you anyway.

If anyone actually looks at the scrolls game and mistakes it for "Elder Scrolls"...You're an idiot.

 

[Roserari]

The following words can then no longer be used in any videogame title:

Assassin
Creed
Half
Life
Gear
War
Final
Fantasy
World
Warcraft
Metal
Solid
Devil
May
Cry

And so on.

This is so ridiculous. >_>