Bethesda Doesn't Enjoy Being "Forced" into Mojang Lawsuit
- Thread starter Marshall Honorof
- Start date
This is kind of sad. How many working hours and millions of dollars will be wasted all because of one word? I wonder what kind of damage two words could cause. I don't even want to think about the damage that would ensue over three words and four, oh the humanity, that would almost be like dividing by zero.
I understand the legalities surrounding trademarks but sometimes you just have to call BS on certain situations.
I understand the legalities surrounding trademarks but sometimes you just have to call BS on certain situations.
I still don't under stand why anybody in the universe would ever get The elder scrolls, and scrolls mixed up. Surely by that logic, Crysis would be infringing on Time Crisis. And Rage would infringe on Rage against the machine. And Dark souls, and soul caliber etc, etc.
I'd understand more if Notch called the game was called scrolls of the elder. Then that would make a lot more sense I suppose. But just 'scrolls?'
God sake. I hate trademarking.
I'd understand more if Notch called the game was called scrolls of the elder. Then that would make a lot more sense I suppose. But just 'scrolls?'
God sake. I hate trademarking.
Copyright/IP law in general has become increasingly problematic due to decades of corporate interests getting ludicrous concessions from lawmakers - it's not something that's limited to the US (especially with the recent pushes to harmonise IP law enforcement on an international level). Thanks to the current IP law structure, a lot of the cultural output of the 20th century won't enter the public domain until well into the 21st century, and it's very likely that some of it will still be copyrighted at the start of the 22nd century. Surely I'm not the only one who finds this fucking insane.The_root_of_all_evil said:
And don't even get me started on software patents...
A new law should be made, no one is allowed to use one noun, or one verb words as titles, I HATE THAT! When a movie/show/book/ect... Is called a single word. Always makes it seem more important, as in "O, so that word is YOUR word." but that just a personal preference. The second more legitimate reason is its annoying as hell to look for or to look up afterwards.
Yes but those people wouldn't buy either of these games.Harn said:
We're not selling soft drinks here; these are expensive niche product that to just use them take a lot of knowledge and understanding. The people would would go for such games are not the sort who would make such a bone-headed mistake, no amount of buzz for Skyrim is going to lead to an inadvertent sale to Scrolls.
As I stated. US Trademark Office says that it is. US Trademark Office > You.Treblaine said:
Because we have no way of TELLING if any sort of legal events happened for those instances behind the scenes (Transmorphers being sued, then subsequently the trademark being ruled ok, except we didn't hear about it because its pretty standard business), primarily because companies know to keep these things quiet and professional. Instead we have Notch being an idiot and making things tougher.
Then Zenimax has NOTHING to worry about, and by the way, TransMORPHERS guys did not get sued at all and Transformers rights are without question valid.
Mojang offered both, drop the trademark for just scrolls and extend it to "SCROLLS + [something else]"
That would put Mojang PERFECTLY IN LINE with the likes of:
"Dead Island" and "Dead Rising"
or
"Metal Gear Solid" and "Gears of War"
Already Mojang is in the same position as:
"COD: Black Ops" and "Black"
Number 1 there is no issue to alleviate
number 2 what notch has offered would remove any HINT of an issue
"If they do not sue, they lose their trademark "
What planet are you on? That is a ridiculous slippery slope argument, that you must stamp out EVEN THE VAGUEST SIMILARITIES otherwise people could make COMPLETE rip offs of your titles.
That is bollocks.
Zenimax is between a rock and a hard place, and Notch's childish behaviour hasn't helped the situation.
Notch could actually just, not name the game scrolls, and there wouldn't be an issue. Or he can sit there and wait for the suit to finish. Its unfortunate, but its JUST the way the trademark system works, as explained by an attorney who works for the freaking US trademark office.
It's entirely possible -and likely- that someone will go looking for a game, perhaps after having 'Elder Scrolls' recommended to them, and get it confused with 'Scrolls'.Treblaine said:
Or having a parent/grandparent/sibling/etc who isn't all that into gaming try and purchase 'Elder Scrolls' only to confuse it with 'Scrolls'
And since when is TES a niche product? This isn't some poorly publicized gem of a game that only the hardest of the hardcore know about, it's quite possibly the most well-known (If not in the top 3) Western RPG on the market.
You can't just dismiss this as 'People who don't already know about TES will never buy TES'
Yay, more people automatically blaming Bethesda because they're a big company that's obviously just using their power to abuse the little guy to get their way and make sure their sales stay high. It's not like Bethesda (or Zenimax as the case may be since they own Bethesda) have a legitimate point that actually makes sense. Oh no. They're just using their money to piss on the little guy. Either that, or their lawyers just wanted to find something to do. That MUST be it.
We're all games who keep up on gaming news. If we weren't then we wouldn't reading this as this IS gaming news that's fairly obscure to anyone who doesn't care about games. To us it's obvious that Scrolls: Revenge of the Subtitle is different from The Elder Scrolls: Subtitle's Revenge. But to little old lady O'Leary who's buying a game for her grandson, it isn't. Nor to anyone who doesn't have much of a knowledge on either series. Many would think that the two are connected. Yea, it might say different publisher's on the box, but the people in question wouldn't know the difference between EA or Valve.
And, as was mentioned in the news post, this being allowed would open up the floodgates for those actually trying to confuse people. Yes, it's unlikely Mojang is doing this to steal Skyrim customer's away by tricking them. But that doesn't mean OTHER companies wouldn't do it. Namely the small rip-off businesses that are just there to make a quick buck. They kinda had the same problem back before the Nintendo. People didn't know which were high-quality games and low-quality, which is what caused video games to crash and burn. That's why the 'Nintendo Seal Of Quality' became so important. This could lead to the same sort of situations. Low-quality titles tricking people into buying them and hurting everyone but the people who ripped off the name for a quick buck.
I guess I'm just sick of all the people who seem to think that Bethesda was just bored/annoyed at having any socompetitionpition, so they decided to attack Mojang. That's not the case. This is a issue they have to seriously consider. I honestly think they're in the right on this one, though I do understand where Mojang is coming from as well.
We're all games who keep up on gaming news. If we weren't then we wouldn't reading this as this IS gaming news that's fairly obscure to anyone who doesn't care about games. To us it's obvious that Scrolls: Revenge of the Subtitle is different from The Elder Scrolls: Subtitle's Revenge. But to little old lady O'Leary who's buying a game for her grandson, it isn't. Nor to anyone who doesn't have much of a knowledge on either series. Many would think that the two are connected. Yea, it might say different publisher's on the box, but the people in question wouldn't know the difference between EA or Valve.
And, as was mentioned in the news post, this being allowed would open up the floodgates for those actually trying to confuse people. Yes, it's unlikely Mojang is doing this to steal Skyrim customer's away by tricking them. But that doesn't mean OTHER companies wouldn't do it. Namely the small rip-off businesses that are just there to make a quick buck. They kinda had the same problem back before the Nintendo. People didn't know which were high-quality games and low-quality, which is what caused video games to crash and burn. That's why the 'Nintendo Seal Of Quality' became so important. This could lead to the same sort of situations. Low-quality titles tricking people into buying them and hurting everyone but the people who ripped off the name for a quick buck.
I guess I'm just sick of all the people who seem to think that Bethesda was just bored/annoyed at having any socompetitionpition, so they decided to attack Mojang. That's not the case. This is a issue they have to seriously consider. I honestly think they're in the right on this one, though I do understand where Mojang is coming from as well.
I was thinking the same thing. The "Skyrings" comparison, is kinda a worse-case sinario of sorts, and there would be no way that would get through.Togs said:
Although I agree that "Scrolls" probably wasn't the best name choice, I really don't think it will interfire will sales, or cause any trademark issues for that matter. If having one word will cause that kind of a problem, then there would be a lot more of these trials if you were to think about how many games share a word or two.
I'd just like to state for the record that I think "Scrolls" by itself is a very uninformative and unimaginative title.
The thing about this is, even if Bethesda are legally obligated under the vagrancies of American Trademark Law to enforce their trademark, they don't need to be as stand-offish about it as they currently are. Given how many concessions Notch has already offered to make - even if the retards at the patent office don't consider them enough - it would suggest that the two companies could easily reach an out of court agreement. But so far Bethesda haven't even given any sign of being prepared meet Mojang halfway, or indeed anywhere that isn't within stepping distance of a courtroom.
The other thing I can't comprehend is how people can actually claim Notch is being an asshole in all this. The deathmatch offer was a lighthearted joke, not to mention a gesture that indicated the rights to the name weren't something they were going to defend to the very end. It was not, as some people have somehow twisted it to be, an offensive challenge designed to turn public opinion against Bethesda. Furthermore, of course Notch has trademarked the word 'Scrolls' across a range of media. He's learned his lesson: before he nailed down the word 'Minecraft', someone made a Minecraft clone for IOS and called it Minecraft, leading people to complain to Mojang about 'their' buggy IOS port. So quite sensibly he's taken out the full range of trademarks so that, should Scrolls become say as popular as Minecraft, someone can't sell t-shirts with the Scrolls logo printed on them. Anyone who suggests that he's going to use it to brutally shut down any other uses of the word 'Scrolls' is getting way ahead of themselves. Just because Bethesda are isolating a single word from their trademark and arguing with the US patent office that no one else can make a video game using that word in the title, it doesn't mean that Mojang would be able to do the reverse and argue that anything using the word 'Scrolls' as part of a longer title can be shut down. Look what happened to Tim Langdell when he tried that crap with 'Edge'.
The other thing I can't comprehend is how people can actually claim Notch is being an asshole in all this. The deathmatch offer was a lighthearted joke, not to mention a gesture that indicated the rights to the name weren't something they were going to defend to the very end. It was not, as some people have somehow twisted it to be, an offensive challenge designed to turn public opinion against Bethesda. Furthermore, of course Notch has trademarked the word 'Scrolls' across a range of media. He's learned his lesson: before he nailed down the word 'Minecraft', someone made a Minecraft clone for IOS and called it Minecraft, leading people to complain to Mojang about 'their' buggy IOS port. So quite sensibly he's taken out the full range of trademarks so that, should Scrolls become say as popular as Minecraft, someone can't sell t-shirts with the Scrolls logo printed on them. Anyone who suggests that he's going to use it to brutally shut down any other uses of the word 'Scrolls' is getting way ahead of themselves. Just because Bethesda are isolating a single word from their trademark and arguing with the US patent office that no one else can make a video game using that word in the title, it doesn't mean that Mojang would be able to do the reverse and argue that anything using the word 'Scrolls' as part of a longer title can be shut down. Look what happened to Tim Langdell when he tried that crap with 'Edge'.
HI 5 FOR CORRECT PREDICTION!Nicolaus99 said:
Honestly Bethesda, this next image is for you.
And that goes to your lawyers too. Your picking on a indie dev, thats already a ass thing to do, thne you start trying to cop out blame onto the maker of a very popular indie game, and also are pissing off both your fanbases.
No, seriously, not everyone. Again, that's the wrong way to look at it. Don't even look at it through gamer eyes at all. Then you'll understand where I'm coming from.Matthew94 said:
This makes this case make a lot more sense and makes Bethesda look a lot better in my eyes. If there is a bad guy in this, it is copyright law. This case shows how much it can hurt any party involved in a case over copyright, either defendant or plaintiff. As it is, if Mojang wins the case, then Bethesda stands to lose a lot on their part, and if Bethesda wins, then Mojang gets hurt just as much when neither want to go that far.
William Shakespeare had it right when he declared, 'Kill all the lawyers'
William Shakespeare had it right when he declared, 'Kill all the lawyers'
Tim Langdell didn't have a case because he didn't have a viable property to attach it to, forfeiting his claim. Bethesda in this case does have properties to justify their case. That is the distinction. And to make the matter clear, this case has nothing to do with "Tim Langdell" syndrome as some would have you believe. This is companies following copyright law as they should.Gxas said:
Notch has stated willingness to do even that(among many things, including just changing the name), but according to the article even that choice is out of their hands for some reason. It is up to the courts now what happens.skorpion352 said: