Id Software Is Trying to Stop a Man Who Wants to Name His Band 'Doomscroll'

[harrisi]

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29209291

[DethNinja]

There is a trend with larger companies trademarking single word names like: Meta (Facebook), Matter (Ubisoft)

I’m sure large companies have figured that they can eliminate a large segment with single word trademark route.

I bet this is what Facebook is planning too, eliminate every company from using any word with “meta” in it.

[DicIfTEx]

I wonder if they'll go after Metapedia[0]; that's a brand association that even Facebook would find rather toxic.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metapedia

[amelius]

"Meta" is also a woman's name.

https://babynames.com/name/meta

[LudwigNagasena]

Single words and common collocations shouldn’t be protected, it always results in a mess.

[fortran77]

Huh? "Doomscroll" is a neologism. However, trademarks generally have a "scope of protection" to apply to the goods and services that your company is involved with. See:

https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/scope-protection

It seems that you're objecting to "common collactions." Do you mean common words used together? Like "General Electric" or "Master Card" or "Mountain Dew?"

It's also very common for people to file an objection to a Trademark registration. We've had SAP and other companies do it to us. The marks get granted anyway. It's just something Big Company lawyers to do get more billable hours.

[Causality1]

IP lawyers are the lowest of the low.

[apples_oranges]

What a shame, this lowers my view of Id, someone with money should step in and countersue or whatever you do in such cases..

[erk__]

Does this really come as a surprise, the parent company have done it before in the past with the Mojang game scrolls

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller%27s_Bane#Bethesda_lawsu...

[HugoDaniel]

Why does it say "Id Software"? shouldn't it be Bethesda?

[paulryanrogers]

I guess it depends on how far up ownership goes. IIRC Microsoft bought Bethesda.

[juice_bus]

Or Zenimax, or Microsoft.

I'm sure they all have lawyers though.

[amelius]

IIRC, trademark law requires the trademark holder to actively protect the name in order to not lose the rights to it. Could this be such a case?

[lbotos]

Sure, but trademark is "your brand + your market"

You can see that play out here in the early case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer

"As a condition of the settlement, Apple Computer agreed not to enter the music business, and Apple Corps agreed not to enter the computer business."

As long as the band Doomscroll doesn't make their logo look like Id's DOOM logo, and as long as they are very different Id doesn't own DOOM everywhere...

[laumars]

“Actively protect” is an overstated term. You don’t need to file against every edge case to demonstrate that you’ve been protecting that trademark.

[needmore88]

This is very interesting,does this mean if you find plentiful examples of acme corp not defending their trademarks before than this could be used as a defense today? Fascinating

[sickcodebruh]

Is the issue that he wanted to name his band Doomscroll or was the trademark attempt the problem? Plenty of metal bands don’t trademark their names. I just did a handful of searches against popular bands using some of my Spotify suggestions and found only a handful of matches. I bet he could have flown under the radar for a while until he got their attention, if ever. (This isn’t an attempt to excuse their behavior, it’s just an observation.)

I’ve been active in my segment of the metal world for some time and I’ve always had the impression that this isn’t something most bands do, especially when they don’t have an actual brand to protect! I’ve certainly never done it, never been advised to do it, never had a discussion with anyone else about it.

[restes]

Why is Id’s behavior bad (edit: need excusing, that is)? What’s wrong with enforcing your trademark?

[Belphemur]

Ars/Wired has a better article about this: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/11/dooms-creator-go...

Basically, they just don't want their brand Doom to be associated with the band "progressive thrash metal" music.

It's not the first time this happens and it does make sense. In another occurence about a podcast named Garden of Doom, they found an agreement.

> Jeff, who tried to trademark Garden of Doom, his podcast, says he came to an agreement with the lawyers representing Id Software; he says he just can’t make a movie or video game called Garden of Doom.

[ianleeclark]

> Basically, they just don't want their brand Doom to be associated with the band "progressive thrash metal" music

Very funny given the various metal genres that have been used in doom games.

[CogitoCogito]

> Basically, they just don't want their brand Doom to be associated with the band "progressive thrash metal" music.

> It's not the first time this happens and it does make sense. In another occurence about a podcast named Garden of Doom, they found an agreement.

How does this make sense? Why in the world would they have any say as to the use of the term "doom" in another market? The fact that there is precedence is more evidence that id/bethesda has a large legal department and isn't afraid to swing it around. If someone had the will (and means) to stand up to them, I highly doubt any judgement would come down saying that consumers confuse video games and heavy metal bands.

This whole thing makes id look pretty bad.

[thaumasiotes]

Hmm. How did their trademark settlement work out for Apple Records?

[fallingfrog]

Most likely this is not the decision of any member of the doom development team or anyone who works on actual games at Id software. It’s the work of some corporate lawyer at their parent company (Zenimax media) just making a routine filing for legal reasons. Corporate America is ridiculously litigious.

[cedricgle]

I am not sure: did the word doom predate the game or did Id invented it ?. The word origin isn't very clear in wiktionary [1].

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/doom

[acdw]

Doom is an extremely old word[1] that was originally neutral in meaning, but has had a negative connotation since the 14th century.

[1]: https://www.etymonline.com/word/doom#etymonline_v_13942

[jjbinx007]

The word doom was around long before the game.

This is ridiculous. Companies don't magically own all the words.

[legutierr]

"Be it so, for I submit: his doom is fair, That dust I am, and shall to dust return."

http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Milton/pl10.html

"Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom."

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45106/sonnet-116-let-...

[thaumasiotes]

> The word origin isn't very clear in wiktionary

Huh? Is 'from Old English dōm ("judgement")' not clear enough for you? It's a native word; as far as we know it's infinitely old.

[tobr]

Is this an attempt at sarcasm? The etymology mentions proto-indo-european, which predates Id by a little bit.

[bussierem]

Well it's not exact, it's the middle english spelling, but the "Doomsday Book"[1], aka "Domesday Book" comes from 1086, so that might predate Id by a bit.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_Book

[ingenieros]

If anything Tom Cruise should be the one suing Id Software http://www.factfiend.com/how-tom-cruise-inspired-doom/

[egypturnash]

It goes all the way back to Middle English, with roots further back. https://www.etymonline.com/word/doom

“Modern adverse sense of "fate, ruin, destruction" begins early 14c. and is general after c. 1600”

[Brian_K_White]

I can't believe someone asked this. Seriously?

[alophawen]

What is not clear? They have a detailed etymology