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.Therumancer said:What your not understanding is that a copyright goes beyond the simple copyrighting of a name.
bob1052 said: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.Therumancer said:What your not understanding is that a copyright goes beyond the simple copyrighting 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.
So what about Family Lawyers, who spend most of their time breaking up violent marriages and getting kids away from their idiotic parents?thiosk said:There is no other kind of lawyer than stupid lawyer assholes.CezarIgnat said:They have stupid lawyers ... assholes...
I also hear LulzSec still has Bethesda User's account information...Azure Sky said: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.
No, there are semi intelligent vampire lawyer assholes. These are the lawyers who actually manage to fuck shit up for everyone.thiosk said:There is no other kind of lawyer than stupid lawyer assholes.CezarIgnat said:They have stupid lawyers ... assholes...
I thought Minecraft would be similar to Dwarf Fortress, I was surprised to hear he had any plans of ever releasing it fully.TypeSD said:Finish Minecraft! This is getting ridiculous.
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?TypeSD said: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.
So true.Scizophrenic Llama said: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.