This post is mainly being invoked by a certain "B" suing a certain "N" for a certain trademark of "S". But we'll get to that later.
Suing! The act of finding small fault in something, and taking it to court for a large sum of cash! Yes, my friends. The great art of suing has returned to the world! Not that it ever left really... All over the world, particularly in a land called America (Disclaimer: I shall leave all jokes about America aside in this blog post because they have a culture of suing), this noble act is practised by the dozen every day.
Of course if you are reading this, you don't care about real problems, like single mothers, damages, life-threatening conditions and all that junk. You want to know the juicy stuff about game developers and publishers suing other game developers and publishers for X amount for reason 1-a trillion.
This mainly came to my attention when W. Axl Rose sued Activision for misuse of the Guns n' Roses anthem "Welcome to the Jungle" on the game Guitar Hero III. Now, of course Axl Rose is a very controversial person indeed. I have my opinions of him but in this case I shall keep them to myself as despite his various negatives, he remains to this day a very talented singer, pianist, musician and performer. The main focus on this lawsuit was the use of Slash (or a Slash-like character) in the game. Of course most people will know of the feud between the two, but I shall leave that aside. This ludicrous reason led Axl to sue Activision for $20million! Now I am not one to really call myself an expert. I am a teenager from England and in my area lawyers and policemen alike are hated with a passion. God I love London. But all personal issues aside, what the FUCK? I have no idea what the American legal system is like, but how can he sue this company for a bloody image of a former band mate, who I might add co-wrote the song? Believe me, it pains me to defend a company like Activision but I see no legal ramifications in suing someone for an image nonetheless! It's like delving into every video on the net of Guns n' Roses playing live with the original line up and replacing the images of his former band mates! Come to think of it.... If that were possible, I would hijack my good friends at Gamesbyte and doctor good ol' Indy's segments to make him sound more like Wulff ;)
...I see I've gone completely off track now so I will move onto what brought up this wonderful topic.
It seems Bethesda (Or specifically Bethesda's lawyers) have decided to sue Notch for a pending trademark of the name "Scrolls" for an upcoming video games of Notch's, because of the word's use in Bethesda's famous "The Elder Scrolls" series. Now, I'm no expert in the subject. I should probably find an American to talk about this. Shit I did it again... Yes. Congratulations Bethesda's lawyers! Join Axl Rose and Tim Langdell in the esteemed "Hall of Lawsuits that make no fucking sense"! Es mierda de torro!
So take this instance for example. I am an indie developer called Scotch. I have made a successful sphere-based farming simulator called DigMake that has sold over 3million copies and is still in beta. I decide that not all my creative talents have been used in DigMake and wish to expand my horizons. I decide to make a Strategy game with elements of a book-game called Find Freddie and a popular corrigated card game called Ju-Bi-Moh! (I'm running out of ideas, shut up) I name the game "The" because its a snappy name that everyone would know. But noooo! A company that makes excellent games' lawyers decide to send me a 15 page statement telling me to change the name of the game, because they have a 3 word trademark for a game series, that is nothing like the game I am planning, and "The" is a word used in it.
It might just be me, but I find it ridiculous that Bethesda's lawyers are doing this and like most of the gaming community, will support Notch through this. I also hope that Bethesda call their lawyers out on this ludicrous lawsuit and hope to see Scrolls (Or whatever it shall be called) in the future. But that's just my opinion on the matter of course.
I am Zamros, and this made me feel better.
No comments:
Post a Comment