I knew this was going to happen some day. Games Workshop is essentially two separate companies, the raving legal department/copyright trolls (A couple of years ago they regularly put full page colour adverts in all the British wargaming magazines warning that they would enforce their IP with the full power afforded to them by the law, it was generally considered a bad joke by most.) and the (for a lack of a better term) hobbyists who make most of the miniatures and write most of the rules. And it seems like they take turns running the company. For ages, there'll be lots of player-friendly new things and shiny new figures and the terrible quota-driven managers at the shops will be replaced with the people who are there because they love their hobby. And then everything'll change and they'll start enforcing stupid dictats on IP, change the rules of the games to excessively favour those with bigger wallets, bump up the prices of everything and fire those people that sacrifice short term gains for cultivating a long term base of customers and fans.
I find it really sad, I grew up near their HQ in Nottingham. A number of my dad's friends work for them. And I'd love for this to be the push that means that all the other wargaming companies (who in the past couple of years have really progressed in professionalism and quality) will find even more traction. (Although they all still suffer from a lack of space to sell things, there is a GW in almost every town in the UK. They've all but squeezed out the independent hobby shops.) But a lot of people just won't care. And an equal number of people are too locked in, they've spent a lot of money on the GW armies. All their friends have GW armies. You can't just splurge two, three hundred pounds on warmahordes unless all your friends do the same.
All I can hope is that GW gets their arse handed to them and the hobbyists get put back in charge.
About the favouring those with deeper wallets: there's a great history of players making their own miniatures. I think provided they are reasonably near the dimensions of the 'original' piece - the homemade pieces are accepted and encouraged, allowing those without the financial means to use their own.
I used to run a fairly large 40K website (Tau Online, now defunct).
I'd regularly receive letters and e-mails from the Games Workshop legal team.
I remember one time, someone had made a simple post on our forums saying they were thinking of selling a short story they'd written based around the 40K World. He hadn't named the story. It wasn't for sale. He was just thinking out loud.
Anywhoo, the GW lawyers contacted me: they asked me to delete the whole thread, ban the user and provide them with the poster's IP address, name and contact information. Which, y'know, is a bit overkill. (And possibly not legal? We didn't have their name nor contact information, but I would have assumed I couldn't just hand this information out to any random lawyer).
As in this case, the Games Workshop legal team regularly throw around threats - often with no legal basis.
I hope the blog poster is able to garner enough support to move forward with this. Unfortunately I fear that GW's baseless threats will beat back hobbyists, yet again..
At least Warhammer 40K is their actual product. As comments in TFA and here indicate the expression has been in scifi since 1932: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_marine
According to Wikipedia[1], the first use of the term 'space marine' in literature was the 1932 short story Captain Brink of the Space Marines by Bob Olsen. That's a full 43 years before Games Workshop was founded, and 55 years before Warhammer 40K was introduced.
And the prior usage of the term and concept kept coming strong throughout the intervening half-century.
That would be relevant in a patent case, but not to trademarks, which do not depend on prior use but on when a trade mark first enters the stream of commerce.
I've said it before in other contexts: GW is not really being a villain here, they're just making a show of defending their trademark. If they don't, someone else could start using the mark and then say 'well you didn't defend it when those people were (arguably) infringing on it, so I assumed you had abandoned the mark,' and get away with it. If you're a trademark owner, you have to go through the motions of defending your mark against all possible infringers - a use-it-or-lose-it situation, as it were.
Games Workshop must be scared shitless of 3d printing.
Their rulebooks have been passed around on torrent sites and IRC networks for years but I assumed they never really gave a shit because the models are where the cash is.
As a huge science fiction nerd and Games Workshop customer, this feels like rank betrayal. I expect this kind of legal bullying from big companies, but from a company that makes minifigs and other gaming accessories I expect better behavior.
There's some interesting discussion on Scalzi's blog, too. Here's a bit of information I found rather interesting and potentially useful (from the comments section):
The mark was registered for US Class 22 – games and such – and is most specifically not the class(es) for printed books or ebooks.
Goods and Services IC 028. US 022. G & S: board games, parlor games, war games, hobby games, toy models and miniatures of buildings, scenery, figures, automobiles, vehicles, planes, trains and card games and paint, sold therewith. FIRST USE: 19870900. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19871000
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 74186534
Filing Date July 19, 1991
Current Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1A
Published for Opposition November 23, 1993
Registration Number 1922180
Registration Date September 26, 1995
Owner (REGISTRANT) GAMES WORKSHOP LIMITED CORPORATION UNITED KINGDOM Willow Road, Lenton Eastwood Nottingham NG7 2W5 UNITED KINGDOM
Attorney of Record Naresh Kilaru
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). SECTION 8(10-YR) 20051125.
I'm no 40K fan (at all), but I realize it's huge. On the other hand, the concept of "marines, but in space" really is a genre trope as pointed out in the article. It feels wrong for a single company to own that generic term.
I've read if not shelf-meters then certainly shelf-decimeters of SF with plenty of marines in them, none being of the Warhammer variety.
I'm looking forward (not) for the chilling effects to make authors invent new wordings to avoid infringement.
They only "own" it because they're taking it. Space marines were used in science fiction before they did it. They're taking something that doesn't belong to them, by being much bigger than their opponent. The word for that is bullying.
>I've read if not shelf-meters then certainly shelf-decimeters of SF with plenty of marines in them, none being of the Warhammer variety.
I've read at least a shelf-meter of books involving 40K space marines. As the article alludes, 40K space marines are called Adeptus Astartes or simply Astartes.
This is one of things that makes this such a jackass move. Their own, licensed writing would seem to acknowledge "space marine" as generic.
Anyone who read 2000 A.D. in the early 80s knows where the guts of Warhammer 40K was stolen from. (And Ridley Scott would like his Tyrannids back, please.)
Google's Ngram Viewer shows that the term "Space Marine" was in use for quite a while before W40K's 1987 release but there was a big increase after 1987. At a glance, the trend seems to be similar to trends for other related terms such as "powered armor" but doesn't match the trend for "Warhammer".
The solution to this is to not support Games Workshop any more. They are no good for anyone including your FLGS. Stop giving them the attention and money that allows them to continue to punish their customers and competitors
The G&S description for their mark is board games, parlor games, war games, hobby games, toy models and miniatures of buildings, scenery, figures, automobiles, vehicles, planes, trains and card games and paint, sold therewith.
The mark has been registered for more than five years so it is "incontestable"(with caveats). But, even if the registration is valid, they have an issue with the class and g&s for their mark in terms of enforcing it against your goods and services.
This strikes me as more of an issue with Amazon than anything else, because they should have only removed the book from the markets where it the complaint was raised, instead of everywhere.
I've enjoyed many 40K novels, love the Dawn of War games and even own some table top material, but I wasn't aware of GW's taste for lawsuits until now.
GW just lost a customer.
Thankfully, Dan Abnett isn't afraid to write original novels and Relic has other franchises.
We might be watching a company eat itself here. Considering the amount of engineering types in the market for minifigs, plus the impending ubiquitization of 3D printers, customer good-will should be the most valuable asset of Gamer's Workshop.
No amount of good-will is going to prevent GW's business model from being seriously affected by consumer-level 3d printers.
Thankfully for them, we're still a few years away from this being a concern. My guess? 3-4 or whenever the UV resin-baseds take off. The Repraps and higher-quality extruders still aren't ready for your average consumer in price, time, and finish.
I doubt it. This is not a new development. It's well known and well-established that GW are anal with regard to their IP. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has spent any time involved with the GW community.
I wish there was a Kickstarter like non-profit organization whose focus was finding and defending worthy cases like this. People/organizations submit their situation and do the work of raising awareness and collecting pledges, the organization uses the money to oversee the actual legal case and pay the attorneys, ideally a network of folks who would be willing to consider defending said cases at a reduced or pro-bono rate when possible. Might even out the David-and-Goliath odds of corporation vs. small business/individual.
The problem is that when you pay the legal fees for a party, you can be exposed to liability in certain cases. It's actually happened quite a few times.
They weren't exactly the nicest company in the 80's and 90's (ask a lot of old game store owners), so I guess it comes as no surprise that they took the lesson they learned from Blizzard this way.
I rather hope that this will be one of those situations where overstepping the mark leads to their being pulled up on all of their unreasonable trademarks and copyright assertions.
Legally, where does that leave StarCraft, especially the soon to be released Heart of the Swarm (all have units called Space Marines)?
If GW don't (and never did) enforce their trademark against Blizzard, do they have any say against a book author that wants to push the topic in front of a court?
Does it have to be 'space marine'? Can he change it to 'galactic' or 'interstallar' or something else that would be less infringing?
I know it's disheartening but this isn't the battle he wants to fight. Someone with deeper pockets will fight it someday. It's enough to spread the word about GW's legal bullying and let us all make our own decisions on whether we want to purchase their products.
The really unfortunate part of the situation is that they are generally required to defend their trademark or else it goes away. Even when they know something is "fair use" or whatever.
"Unlike patents and copyrights, which in theory are granted for one-off fixed terms, trademarks remain valid as long as the owner actively uses and defends them and maintains their registrations with the competent authorities. This often involves payment of a periodic renewal fee." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Comparison_with_paten...
Of course I still think that there is no effing way that they should have gotten a trademark on "Space Marine." Totally bogus. I want to start selling a product called "Legal" and trademark it and use that trademark to shut down every company that offers legal services.
In the future, all "space marines" will simply be "marines." In any plausible scenario in which we have "space marines," having a dedicated corpus of naval marines would be unnecessary.
Ergo, the solution is simply to let Games Workshop keep the silly moniker and just call your future super-soldiers what they would properly be called.
[+] [-] drakeandrews|13 years ago|reply
I find it really sad, I grew up near their HQ in Nottingham. A number of my dad's friends work for them. And I'd love for this to be the push that means that all the other wargaming companies (who in the past couple of years have really progressed in professionalism and quality) will find even more traction. (Although they all still suffer from a lack of space to sell things, there is a GW in almost every town in the UK. They've all but squeezed out the independent hobby shops.) But a lot of people just won't care. And an equal number of people are too locked in, they've spent a lot of money on the GW armies. All their friends have GW armies. You can't just splurge two, three hundred pounds on warmahordes unless all your friends do the same.
All I can hope is that GW gets their arse handed to them and the hobbyists get put back in charge.
[+] [-] eliasmacpherson|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] waterlesscloud|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tristanperry|13 years ago|reply
I used to run a fairly large 40K website (Tau Online, now defunct).
I'd regularly receive letters and e-mails from the Games Workshop legal team.
I remember one time, someone had made a simple post on our forums saying they were thinking of selling a short story they'd written based around the 40K World. He hadn't named the story. It wasn't for sale. He was just thinking out loud.
Anywhoo, the GW lawyers contacted me: they asked me to delete the whole thread, ban the user and provide them with the poster's IP address, name and contact information. Which, y'know, is a bit overkill. (And possibly not legal? We didn't have their name nor contact information, but I would have assumed I couldn't just hand this information out to any random lawyer).
As in this case, the Games Workshop legal team regularly throw around threats - often with no legal basis.
I hope the blog poster is able to garner enough support to move forward with this. Unfortunately I fear that GW's baseless threats will beat back hobbyists, yet again..
[+] [-] masklinn|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bunderbunder|13 years ago|reply
And the prior usage of the term and concept kept coming strong throughout the intervening half-century.
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_marine
[+] [-] anigbrowl|13 years ago|reply
I've said it before in other contexts: GW is not really being a villain here, they're just making a show of defending their trademark. If they don't, someone else could start using the mark and then say 'well you didn't defend it when those people were (arguably) infringing on it, so I assumed you had abandoned the mark,' and get away with it. If you're a trademark owner, you have to go through the motions of defending your mark against all possible infringers - a use-it-or-lose-it situation, as it were.
[+] [-] dkhenry|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jiggy2011|13 years ago|reply
Their rulebooks have been passed around on torrent sites and IRC networks for years but I assumed they never really gave a shit because the models are where the cash is.
[+] [-] pessimizer|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hartror|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a2tech|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CodeMage|13 years ago|reply
The mark was registered for US Class 22 – games and such – and is most specifically not the class(es) for printed books or ebooks.
Here's the link to the comment in question:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/02/06/space-marines-and-the-...
[+] [-] drucken|13 years ago|reply
Oldest "Space Marine" trademark record in full:
1. Registration Number 2100767 (http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4004:vp...) here:
<quote>
Word Mark SPACE MARINE
Goods and Services IC 028. US 022. G & S: board games, parlor games, war games, hobby games, toy models and miniatures of buildings, scenery, figures, automobiles, vehicles, planes, trains and card games and paint, sold therewith. FIRST USE: 19870900. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19871000
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 74186534
Filing Date July 19, 1991
Current Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1A
Published for Opposition November 23, 1993
Registration Number 1922180
Registration Date September 26, 1995
Owner (REGISTRANT) GAMES WORKSHOP LIMITED CORPORATION UNITED KINGDOM Willow Road, Lenton Eastwood Nottingham NG7 2W5 UNITED KINGDOM
Attorney of Record Naresh Kilaru
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). SECTION 8(10-YR) 20051125.
Renewal 1ST RENEWAL 20051125
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE
</quote>
2. Games Workshop Limited also owns "Space Marine" Registration Number 1922180 (http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4004:vp...):
"Goods and Services: IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: video computer games; computer software for playing games"
[+] [-] unwind|13 years ago|reply
I'm no 40K fan (at all), but I realize it's huge. On the other hand, the concept of "marines, but in space" really is a genre trope as pointed out in the article. It feels wrong for a single company to own that generic term.
I've read if not shelf-meters then certainly shelf-decimeters of SF with plenty of marines in them, none being of the Warhammer variety.
I'm looking forward (not) for the chilling effects to make authors invent new wordings to avoid infringement.
[+] [-] CapitalistCartr|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] incision|13 years ago|reply
I've read at least a shelf-meter of books involving 40K space marines. As the article alludes, 40K space marines are called Adeptus Astartes or simply Astartes.
This is one of things that makes this such a jackass move. Their own, licensed writing would seem to acknowledge "space marine" as generic.
[+] [-] rodgerd|13 years ago|reply
Be pure. Be vigilant. Behave.
[+] [-] sxp|13 years ago|reply
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=space+marine%2C...
[+] [-] riazrizvi|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dkhenry|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nroach|13 years ago|reply
The mark has been registered for more than five years so it is "incontestable"(with caveats). But, even if the registration is valid, they have an issue with the class and g&s for their mark in terms of enforcing it against your goods and services.
[+] [-] cube13|13 years ago|reply
http://mcahogarth.org/?p=9999
This strikes me as more of an issue with Amazon than anything else, because they should have only removed the book from the markets where it the complaint was raised, instead of everywhere.
[+] [-] incision|13 years ago|reply
I've enjoyed many 40K novels, love the Dawn of War games and even own some table top material, but I wasn't aware of GW's taste for lawsuits until now.
GW just lost a customer.
Thankfully, Dan Abnett isn't afraid to write original novels and Relic has other franchises.
[+] [-] awakeasleep|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] illuminate|13 years ago|reply
Thankfully for them, we're still a few years away from this being a concern. My guess? 3-4 or whenever the UV resin-baseds take off. The Repraps and higher-quality extruders still aren't ready for your average consumer in price, time, and finish.
[+] [-] jasonlotito|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrwoodruff|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scarecrowbob|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] interurban|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danielweber|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] homosaur|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] protomyth|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] styluss|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bencollier49|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cobrausn|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Argorak|13 years ago|reply
If GW don't (and never did) enforce their trademark against Blizzard, do they have any say against a book author that wants to push the topic in front of a court?
AFAIK, Blizzard didn't license the term.
[+] [-] Zimahl|13 years ago|reply
I know it's disheartening but this isn't the battle he wants to fight. Someone with deeper pockets will fight it someday. It's enough to spread the word about GW's legal bullying and let us all make our own decisions on whether we want to purchase their products.
[+] [-] msandford|13 years ago|reply
"Unlike patents and copyrights, which in theory are granted for one-off fixed terms, trademarks remain valid as long as the owner actively uses and defends them and maintains their registrations with the competent authorities. This often involves payment of a periodic renewal fee." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Comparison_with_paten...
Of course I still think that there is no effing way that they should have gotten a trademark on "Space Marine." Totally bogus. I want to start selling a product called "Legal" and trademark it and use that trademark to shut down every company that offers legal services.
[+] [-] danielweber|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gamblor956|13 years ago|reply
Ergo, the solution is simply to let Games Workshop keep the silly moniker and just call your future super-soldiers what they would properly be called.
[+] [-] jiggy2011|13 years ago|reply
The term marine implies a soldier who specialises in sea based warfare or deploying from sea.