Bethesda Says Mojang's Scrolls Infringes on Elder Scrolls Mark

[Azure Sky]

I suspect that if Bethesda are serious about this, they are going to be on the receiving end of one hell of a public lynching.

Or worse.
I hear Anonymous likes their Minecraft.

 

[Madman123456]

Bethesda needs to reign their Lawyers in. "Scrolls" can not be protected. Even if a game had Elders which maybe be organized in a Council and then they write Scrolls it would be a rather difficult Case because Elders writing Scrolls in a Fantasy World is pretty much a given.

"Scrolls" alone can not be protected by any law, which leads me to assume the Lawyers at Bethesda just want to abuse the legal System for a nice bit of PR.



I propose the following: If Bethesda wont back off (and seriously consider getting other Lawyers), we should wait for about a Month before we buy Skyrim.

 

[bob1052]

What your not understanding is that a copyright goes beyond the simple copyrighting of a name.

This issue is completely unrelated to copyright. This is an issue with Trademarks which have an entirely different set of issues related to them, but most importantly it does not go beyond the simple rights of a name.

Part of trademark law says that it is the trademark holder's responsibility to take legal action against anyone who infringes, else they lose all of their rights to the trademark. If someone made an game called "The Elder Scrolls" and Bethesda did nothing they would lose the rights to "The Elder Scrolls".

When you get to a grey area where there are some things in common but not entirely it is simply safer to take action and lose than to not take action and see what happens.

When Mojang's "Scrolls" was announced Bethesda could do one of two things:

Not sue them, which might be followed up next year by someone who is clearly trying to infringe citing Mojang's "Scrolls" as legal precedence that Bethesda does not protect, and therefore does not hold rights to their trademarks. Essentially Bethesda could risk sitting on their hands and letting Mojang proceed and risk losing their flagship IP's trademark due to some legal grey area that someone else could try to abuse in their favor.

Sue them, and regardless of the outcome they set a legal precedence regarding their trademark that shows they are willing and able to protect it. Whether Mojang backs off the name "Scrolls", or if Mojang wins the court case and proceeds with "Scrolls", Bethesda is in no danger at all regarding their hold over their trademark.

It isn't Bethesda being greedy, it is Bethesda, a company, dealing with the laws that affect them.

 

[Therumancer]

What your not understanding is that a copyright goes beyond the simple copyrighting of a name.

This issue is completely unrelated to copyright. This is an issue with Trademarks which have an entirely different set of issues related to them, but most importantly it does not go beyond the simple rights of a name.

Part of trademark law says that it is the trademark holder's responsibility to take legal action against anyone who infringes, else they lose all of their rights to the trademark. If someone made an game called "The Elder Scrolls" and Bethesda did nothing they would lose the rights to "The Elder Scrolls".

When you get to a grey area where there are some things in common but not entirely it is simply safer to take action and lose than to not take action and see what happens.

When Mojang's "Scrolls" was announced Bethesda could do one of two things:

Not sue them, which might be followed up next year by someone who is clearly trying to infringe citing Mojang's "Scrolls" as legal precedence that Bethesda does not protect, and therefore does not hold rights to their trademarks. Essentially Bethesda could risk sitting on their hands and letting Mojang proceed and risk losing their flagship IP's trademark due to some legal grey area that someone else could try to abuse in their favor.

Sue them, and regardless of the outcome they set a legal precedence regarding their trademark that shows they are willing and able to protect it. Whether Mojang backs off the name "Scrolls", or if Mojang wins the court case and proceeds with "Scrolls", Bethesda is in no danger at all regarding their hold over their trademark.

It isn't Bethesda being greedy, it is Bethesda, a company, dealing with the laws that affect them.

Actually, while I probably used the wrong term, (copyright as opposed to trademark) this sounds pretty close to what I've been saying.

 

[MorphingDragon]

They have stupid lawyers ... assholes...

There is no other kind of lawyer than stupid lawyer assholes.

So what about Family Lawyers, who spend most of their time breaking up violent marriages and getting kids away from their idiotic parents?

 

[DustStorm]

I suspect that if Bethesda are serious about this, they are going to be on the receiving end of one hell of a public lynching.

Or worse.
I hear Anonymous likes their Minecraft.

I also hear LulzSec still has Bethesda User's account information...

If they continue than I won't doubt LulzSec's willingness to release them.

 

[Eggsnham]

They have stupid lawyers ... assholes...

There is no other kind of lawyer than stupid lawyer assholes.

No, there are semi intelligent vampire lawyer assholes. These are the lawyers who actually manage to fuck shit up for everyone.

 

[Pearwood]

Finish Minecraft! This is getting ridiculous.

I thought Minecraft would be similar to Dwarf Fortress, I was surprised to hear he had any plans of ever releasing it fully.

 

[AmaterasuGrim]

Note to anyone making a game name it dsvnhvnsdianvdiondsavnisavnasoins because every word is copyrighted -.- lawyers being d***s all this is.

 

[Keava]

Finish Minecraft! This is getting ridiculous.

And honestly. I don't think anyone here actually believes that Scrolls will be better than either Oblivion or Skyrim ~_~. If it's a legitimate case, then Bethesda are within their rights to go nuts. If not. We'll see. They aren't staffed by idiots. They're likely to know what suing Notch will look like. THEY ARE A GAME COMPANY FFS.

The way some in this thread are carrying on, you could confuse them for EA.

How one does finish Minecraft? A sandbox game like that is pretty much open ended just like MMOs. There is no plot to end, there is no hero to save the world. Over time Minecraft can be either expanded more and more with community creating additional mods. What point of Minecraft would you even consider as finished version?

How can it be better if it's completely different game, with completely different rule set, with completely different objectives and gameplay ? It's like comparing Starcraft to Half Life. Nothing in common whatsoever.

The word "Scrolls" itself is not a game title Bethesda owns, i don't even recall anyone ever referencing The Elder Scrolls as Scrolls.It's always been either TES or just the sub titles like Morrowind/Daggerfall/Oblivion.
It's like Blizzard suing every company that uses World in their titles name, not to mention such obvious similarities like World Of Tanks or World of Airplanes.

 

[Apollo45]

To be fair, when I saw that Notch's new game was going to be called Scrolls, my mind immediately flashed to The Elder Scrolls. I can see why the lawyers would notify him, but I don't think anything will come of it; it's just lawyers covering all their bases and being, well, lawyers. Considering that we haven't gotten any updates since then, I don't think either company is making a big deal of it.

 

[Mr. Gency]

Aside from waiting on word from Bethesda, Notch said he'll be making a blog post about the situation when he gets home, so I'd keep an eye on that.

I find it rather silly, especially since newer Elder Scrolls games have been associated with the subtitle name, I bring up Elder Scrolls and 60% of the time I get asked, "What is that?" and have to respond with Oblivion and then they go, "Oh!"

I also doubt a card game and open world RPG will have much of a consumer clash.

So true.
In fact for a while, I honestly thought Elder Scrolls 4 was simply called Oblivion.

 

[Andy Szidon]

Epic fail. This might sucede, but there'll still be a bunch of boycotting.

 

[Amphoteric]

Hopefully this has nothing to do with Bethesda Game Studios.

 

[Dejawesp]

How about Notch finish minecraft first before he starts the next project?

Wait scratch that. Notch should just finish minecraft then leave it at that. Minecraft was a once in a life time fluke on his part and he will never make anything as great or as popular ever again. He should just finish the game. Sell the IP and and then run for his life.