Warhammer Company Makes "Space Marine" Trademark Claim

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I can't say I'm surprised.

GW is obsessive over copyright, the Damnatus film is another example.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/Damnatus?from=Main.Damnatus

EDIT: Turns out there weren't going overboard due to differences in German and British copyright, worst case scenario would have been that Warhammer 40k would have gone into the public domain in Germany.

They're still obsessive though.

 

[Jennifer Atkinson]

good, come up with your own term for space military men

First off, Games Workshop is hardly the first ones to use the term, second off, you realize that space marine is just a generic description, right? They're marines who happen to be in space. What would you rather they be called? Cosmic Warfighters?

Actually...

Oh dear God above, no...please no...please?

 

[Rad Party God]

As much as I enjoy the Dawn of War series (and I'm still hoping for a 3rd installment), this is beyond stupid, it's almost like Edge all over again.

 

[wgar]

I think that is not entirely true. After all Aliens did it first.

Literal Space Marines. Heck if we go by that definition there are even older space marines in Starship Troopers. Heavy Armour Clad Warriors defending the Empire of Man against filthy Xenos?

You must have had a plagiarism field day when creating the board game digging through pre-1980's sci-fi. So no. You do not get to own a part of pop culture. Sad day for you.

It's the name, not the concept that is the issue.

Starship Troopers =! Space Marine, and apparently Space Marine is used very little before GW got their hands on the trademark (don't forget, use it or lose it). What'd be the point of owning the Space Marines trademark if you didn't exercise it on media calling itself 'Space Marine'?

Colonial Marines are also not Space Marines, nor are stormtroopers, and I don't understand how you could confuse the 2 words.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17490/space-marines id like to leave this here. it predates warhammer 40k by a decade its a minatures wargame first released in 1977 and happens to be called space marine.

they maybe obbsessive but its still a completely dick move

Did they trademark it?

Do they even remotely have a claim on it?

I don't understand why people are hating on GW and not the law for allowing to trademark a term that only generic and bland writers would use (considering its pointing towards an American-centric and lazy writer); they trademarked it first so they get to keep the name.

As the article says, trademark "Adeptus Astartes" or something but not such a generic term as "Space Marine"

Can't see it succeeding to be honest

What succeeding? Did you even read the original article on boing?

They asked Amazon to take it down, they did. The end. What is your point? The author isn't going to fight it as it would involve an enormous legal battle that would end up with either her bankrupt or GW losing the Space Marine trademark so Chinese companies could continue to make cheap knockoffs with the same names.

 

[rofltehcat]

Tbh, Warhammer is the first thing I think of when hearing the term space marine. However, this is still stupid. Cases like this and the whole Edge debacle show why the trademark system needs a rework.

captcha: angel food
I guess I better start blinking as little as possible?

 

[1337mokro]

I can't say I'm surprised.

GW is obsessive over copyright, the Damnatus film is another example.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/Damnatus?from=Main.Damnatus

EDIT: Turns out there weren't going overboard due to differences in German and British copyright, worst case scenario would have been that Warhammer 40k would have gone into the public domain in Germany.

They're still obsessive though.

Well I think it is about time it did become Public Domain. At least under old copyright law. They have long since made a huge profit on their IP and at this point in time it should be about right to let it just go and think up something new.

All they are doing now is just living off it. Kinda like Tolkiens kids who really have no right to live of the work of their father just because under current law an author keeps the copyright several decades after their death.

Kind of defeats the point of copyright which was to stimulate artists to create more works by offering them an exclusive period of time in which their work was protected.

Can't really create anything when you are dead so copyright just lost it's purpose.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I pulled this from the GW site.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=&pIndex=5&aId=3900002&multiPageMode=true&start=6

Below you will find information about Games Workshop's Copyrights and Trademarks. If you are interested in using Games Workshop's images and logos on your own web site, we have something you should read first:

COPYRIGHTS AND TRADEMARKS
Last updated: 01 January 2010

COPYRIGHTS
All artwork and logos on this site and all the images contained therein have been produced either in-house or as work for hire. The exclusive copyright in the logos and artwork, including the images it depicts, is the property of Games Workshop Limited. © Copyright Games Workshop Ltd 2000-2013.
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If you have any queries, please contact the GW legal department at:
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[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I can't say I'm surprised.

GW is obsessive over copyright, the Damnatus film is another example.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/Damnatus?from=Main.Damnatus

EDIT: Turns out there weren't going overboard due to differences in German and British copyright, worst case scenario would have been that Warhammer 40k would have gone into the public domain in Germany.

They're still obsessive though.

Well I think it is about time it did become Public Domain. At least under old copyright law. They have long since made a huge profit on their IP and at this point in time it should be about right to let it just go and think up something new.

All they are doing now is just living off it. Kinda like Tolkiens kids who really have no right to live of the work of their father just because under current law an author keeps the copyright several decades after their death.

Kind of defeats the point of copyright which was to stimulate artists to create more works by offering them an exclusive period of time in which their work was protected.

Can't really create anything when you are dead so copyright just lost it's purpose.

Thank Disney for that. Gotta keep Mickey Mouse safe and sound after all!

A better case could be made that the term 'space marine' is a common theme or trope than the copyright going public due to age.

 

[1337mokro]

I think that is not entirely true. After all Aliens did it first.

Literal Space Marines. Heck if we go by that definition there are even older space marines in Starship Troopers. Heavy Armour Clad Warriors defending the Empire of Man against filthy Xenos?

You must have had a plagiarism field day when creating the board game digging through pre-1980's sci-fi. So no. You do not get to own a part of pop culture. Sad day for you.

It's the name, not the concept that is the issue.

Starship Troopers =! Space Marine, and apparently Space Marine is used very little before GW got their hands on the trademark (don't forget, use it or lose it). What'd be the point of owning the Space Marines trademark if you didn't exercise it on media calling itself 'Space Marine'?

Colonial Marines are also not Space Marines, nor are stormtroopers, and I don't understand how you could confuse the 2 words.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17490/space-marines id like to leave this here. it predates warhammer 40k by a decade its a minatures wargame first released in 1977 and happens to be called space marine.

they maybe obbsessive but its still a completely dick move

Did they trademark it?

Do they even remotely have a claim on it?

I don't understand why people are hating on GW and not the law for allowing to trademark a term that only generic and bland writers would use (considering its pointing towards an American-centric and lazy writer); they trademarked it first so they get to keep the name.

As the article says, trademark "Adeptus Astartes" or something but not such a generic term as "Space Marine"

Can't see it succeeding to be honest

What succeeding? Did you even read the original article on boing?

They asked Amazon to take it down, they did. The end. What is your point? The author isn't going to fight it as it would involve an enormous legal battle that would end up with either her bankrupt or GW losing the Space Marine trademark so Chinese companies could continue to make cheap knockoffs with the same names.

You have not been out much have you?

Why should we be mad about a law when GW doesn't HAVE to make this claim? They could have just said "Let's be decent people and not be IP nazi's" however instead they saw a loophole and jumped through it both feet forward. Just because a doesn't restrict you doesn't say you should do it.

There is no law against DMCAíng random youtube videos. Fuck SEGA went on a DMCA spree and took down hundreds of Lets Plays, promotional videos from WAY back and even reviews, fucking reviews of old games that are not in stores any more. There is no law to STOP them so should we just let them have a free pass?

Space Marine was a term that was created back in the 1930's and has been used in multiple works of sci-fi. GW has admitted to using Aliens and Starship troopers (note they are NOT storm troopers) as inspiration. I would say they even blatantly ripped off artwork from Starship troopers.

VS

I can see that GW is nothing but original, especially because they somehow in your mind have the exclusive right to use a bland generic term like Space Marines, but no one else does.

The fact that you learned of the term Space Marines thanks to GW doesn't make them somehow sole proprietors of a trope. Especially when you point out that Colonial Marines aren't Space Marines... but they are Marines in Space. They are literally Space Marines a year before the GW released anything.

Want to pull up the Tyranids next? Xenomorphs that absorb useful traits whilst being an engineered life form? Traveling the universe gathering biomass from the things they consume? Ring a bell?

OH YES FUCKING ALIENS! Except instead of chest bursting they just melt you down.

Please don't go accusing authors about being unoriginal when all they are doing is using a term that has existed since the 30's. It would be like calling out an author for using the word Dwarf, something that has existed for hundreds of years and was popularized by Tolkien.

However unlike Hobbit which WAS a Tolkien original nobody owns a copyright on Dwarfs despite every single person on earth having a Tolkienesque view of what a Dwarf looks like.

 

[Treblaine]

Unfortunately, Hogarth says she doesn't have the resources to take on Games Workshop's lawyers

British litigation in a nutshell.

It's not about justice, it's who has the most money and who is willing to spend the most money.

or GW losing the Space Marine trademark so Chinese companies could continue to make cheap knockoffs with the same names.

uuuuuh sorry to break it to you but ALREADY the Space Marine trademark is free for anyone to use, you just have to be a big shot to threaten mutually assured destruction in the HUGELY costly litigation system where lawyer fees and court fees rank up into hundreds of millions of dollars while everything is paralysed.

You think there aren't references to space marines throughout almost all forms of media?

And who cares, how do Starcraft 2 Space Marines cost GamesWorkshop anything?!!?!? Starcraft can do that as they have big lawyers backed from Activision, not the case for a small author.

No, Warhammer 40'000 is the telling point, not "Space Marines". That's like Lucas acting like he owns the word "Empire" because the subtitles of one of his films was "The Empire Strikes Back".

 

[faefrost]

Games Workshop bullied Lego and a fan creator into changing the name on a CuuSoo project proposal a few months back
http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/5127

For those not aware CuuSoo is a mechanism where a Lego fan can propose a project online. If it gets 10k votes Lego will consider making it. It's how we got the Lego Minecraft set. This project (which hit 10k and is up for review) was originally named "Space Marines". Because of GW's threats it is now called "Space Troopers".

 

[DoomedSheridan]

good, come up with your own term for space military men

First off, Games Workshop is hardly the first ones to use the term, second off, you realize that space marine is just a generic description, right? They're marines who happen to be in space. What would you rather they be called? Cosmic Warfighters?

Actually...

Oh dear God above, no...please no...please?

You can see Activision making the next CoD that, admit it.

 

[Yakostovian]

I rarely say this, but this has me outraged. This is even worse than the International Olympic Committee suing Legend of the Five Rings over the latter's use of five interconnected rings in their logo (which IOC owns any variation of five interconnected rings in many parts of the world as a trademark.)

 

[DarkArk]

Codex

How the hell can they trademark "Codex." It's a term that goes back to describing medieval books. Same goes for inquisitor.

The only thing I could think of is if it means their exact use of the term.

 

[Frostbite3789]

Want to pull up the Tyranids next? Xenomorphs that absorb useful traits whilst being an engineered life form? Traveling the universe gathering biomass from the things they consume? Ring a bell?

OH YES FUCKING ALIENS! Except instead of chest bursting they just melt you down.

Except the Xenos from Aliens...don't do most of those things. They're never shown to have a space travelling hive mind, as they tend to get spread by other life forms (Humans and Predators). They don't absorb new creatures, they do however adopt the traits of a host creature. The Tyranids have no host creature. They just take over a race and adopt it into their hive.

Like the Zerg. Which were originally supposed to be the Tyranids.

I see where you're coming from as far as GW and originality, but as far as Xenos vs Tyranids, outside of basic visual design (verrrrry basic visual design) there aren't many similarities. I've never seen a Xeno use a weapon. I've never seen a Xeno do much other than hunt and kill.

 

[Frostbite3789]

Games Workshop bullied Lego and a fan creator into changing the name on a CuuSoo project proposal a few months back
http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/5127

For those not aware CuuSoo is a mechanism where a Lego fan can propose a project online. If it gets 10k votes Lego will consider making it. It's how we got the Lego Minecraft set. This project (which hit 10k and is up for review) was originally named "Space Marines". Because of GW's threats it is now called "Space Troopers".

Lego makes so much money it's obscene. I doubt they were so much bullied, as the fight didn't matter to them. Why fight it when you can change the name on an unreleased product in 2 seconds?

 

[DoomedSheridan]

Codex

How the hell can they trademark "Codex." It's a term that goes back to describing medieval books. Same goes for inquisitor.

The only thing I could think of is if it means their exact use of the term.

I'm also curious about how they can apparently trademark "talisman", that seems like a pretty broad term to own!