Blizzard Throws Down With Valve Over DOTA Trademark

[kasperbbs]

Modders made it, so it belongs to them, it was never Blizzards property, and since one of these modders has joined Valve and others have no objections that means its just petty jealousy 'why didn't we think of that!?'. But i'm no expert in trademark laws, it might not work that way.

 

[TheScientificIssole]

Now he works for Valve, but we can hope he isn't "in Valve now" because that just sounds dirty.

Man's gotta do what, he gotta do.

 

[Starke]

Why don't Valve just create a DotA-esque game and market it "developed by/with some/one of the creators of the original DotA!"?
I mean, movies are marketed like this all the time..

The completely unverified scuttlebutt I recall running across on a blog was, "Icefrog". Basically it was someone claiming to be from Valve throwing a shitfit over Icefrog on an anonymous blog. The upshot was, Icefrog was hired as "a personality", and he proceeded to be a dictatorial diva. He was the one that insisted that the game be Defense of the Ancients 2 or he'd walk. He was the one that insisted it had to be as close to the Blizzard assets as legally possible, and so on.

At the time I took it with a grain of salt and wandered off. This surfaced about the same time as the EA Louse thing, so there's every reason to believe that the blog no longer exists, but I'll poke around and see if I can find it.

EDIT: Rather surprisingly, it's here [http://icefrogtruth.blogspot.com/]. I'm actually a little surprised it's still up and rolling. The October 13, 2010 post is the one you want, btw.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Actually, DotA has nothing to do with blizzard other than being on warcraft 3...

...which, according to the Warcraft 3 map editor EULA, grants them the copyright to anything created with it.

So unless DotA was secretly developed on privately generated tools, which is, I guess possible, the trademark actually belonged to Blizzard all along.

And i also believe Valve avoided that by turning it from an acronym into a word.

Attempted to, at any rate. But simply turning it into an acronym, while simultaneously, continuing to ape the Warcraft 3 art style and retaining the overall game mechanics is much dicier.

I mean, the conceptual test (not the actual legal test) for Trademark is "can this confuse the consumer as to who is producing this?" In this case, yeah, yeah it can.

This isn't a Valve is always right but Blizzard does not have a leg to stand on here and they have literally no case as far as I can see.

Nice to see all the legal experts weighing in. They didn't act on the other DotA clones because they didn't look like Blizzard products, and they weren't named in such a way that they appeared to be Blizzard products.

Nice to see people can't read. Everyone who is an actual gamer knows mechanics mean more. So when you actually take the time to read what someone has to say get back to me. I never once claimed to be an expert.

 

[Realitycrash]

Why don't Valve just create a DotA-esque game and market it "developed by/with some/one of the creators of the original DotA!"?
I mean, movies are marketed like this all the time..

The completely unverified scuttlebutt I recall running across on a blog was, "Icefrog". Basically it was someone claiming to be from Valve throwing a shitfit over Icefrog on an anonymous blog. The upshot was, Icefrog was hired as "a personality", and he proceeded to be a dictatorial diva. He was the one that insisted that the game be Defense of the Ancients 2 or he'd walk. He was the one that insisted it had to be as close to the Blizzard assets as legally possible, and so on.

At the time I took it with a grain of salt and wandered off. This surfaced about the same time as the EA Louse thing, so there's every reason to believe that the blog no longer exists, but I'll poke around and see if I can find it.

EDIT: Rather surprisingly, it's here [http://icefrogtruth.blogspot.com/]. I'm actually a little surprised it's still up and rolling. The October 13, 2010 post is the one you want, btw.

Hahahah oh, this has gone from "silly copyright infringement" to "hilarious nerd-ascension". The guy pretty much thinks that he's such a mastermind that he can bully Valve into such an action? And he gets away with it?

Oh, this gonna be fun.

 

[Wintermoot]

considering DOTA was announced months ago I,m surprised Blizzard just now took action.

 

[Starke]

Nice to see people can't read.

Yeah, unfortunately, sooner or later you'll need to actually come out of the bathroom and interact with the rest of the human race.

Everyone who is an actual gamer knows mechanics mean more.

Not in a court of law. Not in litigation. Not in this context.

So when you actually take the time to read what someone has to say get back to me.

I did actually, but, out of deferance I didn't want to embarass you by pointing out how many mistakes you made, shal we review them?

I never once claimed to be an expert.

I never claimed I wasn't a sarcastic bastard. It goes back to that whole reading comprehension thing you seem to have problems with.

So, let's begin.

This isn't a Valve is always right but Blizzard does not have a leg to stand on here and they have literally no case as far as I can see.

And here you are pretending to understand the law.

They have done nothing about the other clones out there for one.

This would make sense if the universe worked the way you wanted it to, unfortunately it doesn't. Trademark protects the integrity of a brand, in this case, Warcraft's but it doesn't protect game mechanics. You can make a DOTA clone, or a Diablo clone or a Doom clone, but you can't turn around and actually call it DOTA, or Diabolical or Doomed, and rip off the aesthetics of the original.

When you look at Demigod, for instance, you're not going to be confused, "am I playing a Blizzard game?" where as with DOTA2, the character design, the trailers, it's all very Warcraft 3, right down to the individual hero units themselves.

Secondly, this was a mod made by people not affiliate with Blizzard it just happened to be on Warcraft 3. I may wrong on that with a clause in an EULA or something.

You are, actually, as the modder surrenders all rights to their work to Blizzard. Now, there may be games out there where the modders retain their rights, usually when they're using third party tools to do the modding, but the norm is for the rights to go to the publisher or developer and Warcraft 3 is no exception.

Thirdly, thus far no modders that I know of who were involved in the project have come out against it and 1 is even working on the game.

Which is about as relevant as a tap dancing iguana. In this case, the modders have no right to their own work, so what they want is completely irrelevant. Not that it matters, but it's worse than that in this case because the modder in question is emulating trademarked designs that they did not create. (IE: Reusing specific unit designs from Warcraft 3, such as the Demon Hunter, the Ranger, the Water Elemental, the Pandaran brewmaster, and that's just from a cursory glance at the steam store page.)

So as far as I know with the copyright laws in America over the whole Scrolls thing with Zennimax needing to enforce copyright or lose it.

Nope. And again, you're pretending to be a legal expert. Copyright is copyright, you make something and it's yours, unless you give it up for some specific reason.

What's more, that's not what happened with Zennimax and Scrolls, that was a trademark dispute, as is this. Now, I get how the terms sound similar... well, actually, no, I don't. But they're about as similar to each other as they are to patent cases. Which is to say, barely.

That is how it works.

Again, no, it's not.

So since Blizzard has not been enforcing its copyright it should in legal theory going by of course that this is how it works has already lost copyright.

Again, not how this works. The only way you loose copyright is if you actually give it up, IE: Sell it, or relinquish it to someone else, as an affirmative action, or if you die, and stay dead for about 70 years, give or take.

Now this may be a steaming pile as I do not know a lot about the laws but it seems this is the case.

You don't need to tell me that. This is filled with downright incorrect assumptions made from one or two news articles and assuming that everything is the same. It's not.

 

[Starke]

considering DOTA was announced months ago I,m surprised Blizzard just now took action.

Years, actually. Though, if I was paying as much attention as I think I was, Blizzard didn't take action until Valve filed a trademark claim.

As a general thing, months of delay, or even years of delay, before filing a court case isn't really that unusual. Both parties will usually try to work things out through their lawyers first, with one filing and mailing off a statement, and the other responding. Everything's on paper, and it can take an inordinate amount of time.

In torts,[footnote]A tort is the traditional, "you hurt me because X, so I'll sue you", lawsuit.[/footnote] this back and forth can easily go on for years if both parties feel they're making progress, or don't want to actually litigate for some reason.

 

[faspxina]

I think that most important of all is that League of Legends is a great game and it's free! So go play it.

 

[Darkmantle]

Valves pretty sneaky, blizz owns DOTA, so they make "DOTA 2" which technically isn't dota, it's the sequel. It's like if bungi made halo for Microsoft, then went ahead and made halo2 for sony.

I would personally prefer it if developers, not publishers, owned intellectual property.

 

[lacktheknack]

Any excuse to delay Half Life3 eh Newell?

Oh God. It COULD be a conspiracy.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Nice to see people can't read.

Yeah, unfortunately, sooner or later you'll need to actually come out of the bathroom and interact with the rest of the human race.

Everyone who is an actual gamer knows mechanics mean more.

Not in a court of law. Not in litigation. Not in this context.

So when you actually take the time to read what someone has to say get back to me.

I did actually, but, out of deferance I didn't want to embarass you by pointing out how many mistakes you made, shal we review them?

I never once claimed to be an expert.

I never claimed I wasn't a sarcastic bastard. It goes back to that whole reading comprehension thing you seem to have problems with.

So, let's begin.

This isn't a Valve is always right but Blizzard does not have a leg to stand on here and they have literally no case as far as I can see.

And here you are pretending to understand the law.

They have done nothing about the other clones out there for one.

This would make sense if the universe worked the way you wanted it to, unfortunately it doesn't. Trademark protects the integrity of a brand, in this case, Warcraft's but it doesn't protect game mechanics. You can make a DOTA clone, or a Diablo clone or a Doom clone, but you can't turn around and actually call it DOTA, or Diabolical or Doomed, and rip off the aesthetics of the original.

When you look at Demigod, for instance, you're not going to be confused, "am I playing a Blizzard game?" where as with DOTA2, the character design, the trailers, it's all very Warcraft 3, right down to the individual hero units themselves.

Secondly, this was a mod made by people not affiliate with Blizzard it just happened to be on Warcraft 3. I may wrong on that with a clause in an EULA or something.

You are, actually, as the modder surrenders all rights to their work to Blizzard. Now, there may be games out there where the modders retain their rights, usually when they're using third party tools to do the modding, but the norm is for the rights to go to the publisher or developer and Warcraft 3 is no exception.

Thirdly, thus far no modders that I know of who were involved in the project have come out against it and 1 is even working on the game.

Which is about as relevant as a tap dancing iguana. In this case, the modders have no right to their own work, so what they want is completely irrelevant. Not that it matters, but it's worse than that in this case because the modder in question is emulating trademarked designs that they did not create. (IE: Reusing specific unit designs from Warcraft 3, such as the Demon Hunter, the Ranger, the Water Elemental, the Pandaran brewmaster, and that's just from a cursory glance at the steam store page.)

So as far as I know with the copyright laws in America over the whole Scrolls thing with Zennimax needing to enforce copyright or lose it.

Nope. And again, you're pretending to be a legal expert. Copyright is copyright, you make something and it's yours, unless you give it up for some specific reason.

What's more, that's not what happened with Zennimax and Scrolls, that was a trademark dispute, as is this. Now, I get how the terms sound similar... well, actually, no, I don't. But they're about as similar to each other as they are to patent cases. Which is to say, barely.

That is how it works.

Again, no, it's not.

So since Blizzard has not been enforcing its copyright it should in legal theory going by of course that this is how it works has already lost copyright.

Again, not how this works. The only way you loose copyright is if you actually give it up, IE: Sell it, or relinquish it to someone else, as an affirmative action, or if you die, and stay dead for about 70 years, give or take.

Now this may be a steaming pile as I do not know a lot about the laws but it seems this is the case.

You don't need to tell me that. This is filled with downright incorrect assumptions made from one or two news articles and assuming that everything is the same. It's not.

How are you embarrassing me? Oh no I'm wrong on the internet somehow, just somehow I think I'll live and survive this.

I never once said I was right and gave my opinion based on what I know. So no I don't actually care what you have have to say on the matter. Happy you were right on the internet though, you should go and frame this post and put it on your wall.

 

[Ieyke]

Just as Natural Selection doesn't belong to VALVe just because it's a Half-Life mod and subsequently Natural Selection 2 is being made elsewhere, DotA doesn't belong to Blizzard just because it was a mod for Warcraft 3.

This might actually be downright diabolical brilliance in VALVe's part. If this is settled in Blizzard's favor....well, that would mean that VALVE obviously DOES own an awful lot of stuff it didn't have before....like Natural Selection.
If it's settled in VALVe's favor, as it should, then they still have DOTA2.

Is this VALVe's Xanatos Gambit?

 

[Saltychipmunk]

I just find it stupid that blizzard is complaining NOW of all times. dota2 is already in playable form.

"
You are, actually, as the modder surrenders all rights to their work to Blizzard. Now, there may be games out there where the modders retain their rights, usually when they're using third party tools to do the modding, but the norm is for the rights to go to the publisher or developer and Warcraft 3 is no exception."

man that is just sounds like a dick move. Its like taking the credit for the work of others without actually lifting a finger ..... kinda like publishers and we can see all the wonderful things publishers have done for our medium.......

"Which is about as relevant as a tap dancing iguana. In this case, the modders have no right to their own work, so what they want is completely irrelevant. Not that it matters, but it's worse than that in this case because the modder in question is emulating trademarked designs that they did not create. (IE: Reusing specific unit designs from Warcraft 3, such as the Demon Hunter, the Ranger, the Water Elemental, the Pandaran brewmaster, and that's just from a cursory glance at the steam store page.)"

this makes me wonder why any serious modders would use their good ideas to make mods. Seems to me like a deal with the devil.....

how devious.

but i guess the entry price for the tools is worth it for some

 

[Starke]

I just find it stupid that blizzard is complaining NOW of all times. dota2 is already in playable form.

You are, actually, as the modder surrenders all rights to their work to Blizzard. Now, there may be games out there where the modders retain their rights, usually when they're using third party tools to do the modding, but the norm is for the rights to go to the publisher or developer and Warcraft 3 is no exception."

man that is just sounds like a dick move. Its like taking the credit for the work of others without actually lifting a finger ..... kinda like publishers and we can see all the wonderful things publishers have done for our medium.......

Yeah, honestly, the entire industry is a black hole for creative work. The EULA for most games' editors forces you to relinquish the rights to what you do, and in some cases the game's EULA itself does. If you work for a developer, it's pretty common for your contract to stipulate that any work you do in your own time belongs to the company, and so on.

Combine this with an environment where publishers dictate that developers like Dice or Infinity Ward will keep pumping out sequels for franchises they're already sick to death of, and it's a pretty lousy situation all around.

STALKER still sticks out for me, as one of the exceptions, but there are damn few these days.

"Which is about as relevant as a tap dancing iguana. In this case, the modders have no right to their own work, so what they want is completely irrelevant. Not that it matters, but it's worse than that in this case because the modder in question is emulating trademarked designs that they did not create. (IE: Reusing specific unit designs from Warcraft 3, such as the Demon Hunter, the Ranger, the Water Elemental, the Pandaran brewmaster, and that's just from a cursory glance at the steam store page.)"

this makes me wonder why any serious modders would use their good ideas to make mods. Seems to me like a deal with the devil.....

how devious.

but i guess the entry price for the tools is worth it for some

Well, I know it used to be, you'd use the mods to produce content you could use to sell yourself, that is to say, portfolio pieces, rather than products you could sell directly.

I do remember a bunch of shovelware level packs that got sold back in the 90s, where some third party publisher would spend a couple days in the editor (or, more likely download every map they could find for the game online over a 14.4kb connection) and spew out a couple hundred shitty maps for a game like Doom or Dark Forces, and then sell them in retail. I specifically remember running across these things in Wal-Mart. With that context, it's entirely reasonable the publishers didn't want those packs diluting the value of their games.

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't like either company, but Blizzard has a valid claim under the law.

 

[Bagged Milk]

Icefrog was the developer of the DoTA mod. Valve owns them now, and has Icefrog working on DoTA 2. I think Valve wins.

I have an idea! get one of the original devs of DOTA to copyright it for himself, and then just let Valve have it! I'm sure that the original devs have a better case than either of the 2 companies!(I have no idea how these copyright laws work!)

One of the original devs is in Valve now

that's kinda why I thought of that.

 

[Cymen]

The one who maintained DotA and made DotA the game it is today is an employee at VALVe.
Blizzard only made WC3. I mean does VALVe own Natural Selection 2 or Chivalry Medieval Warfare because their originals were VALVe game mods?

Also, people who think Blizzard only wants to stop big mean VALVe from taking the name instead of having it belong to the community IS AN IDIOT. Read what they wrote for the court: They claim all credit for the creation of the mod, it's popularity and want the name for the production of their own commercial products.

 

[Dendio]

The one who maintained DotA and made DotA the game it is today is an employee at VALVe.
Blizzard only made WC3. I mean does VALVe own Natural Selection 2 or Chivalry Medieval Warfare because their originals were VALVe game mods?

Also, people who think Blizzard only wants to stop big mean VALVe from taking the name instead of having it belong to the community IS AN IDIOT. Read what they wrote for the court: They claim all credit for the creation of the mod, it's popularity and want the name for the production of their own commercial products.

Court is one thing, but Blizz has for years had the dota trademark within its games and did not attempt to take it from the community. Blizz is stepping up now, only to stop valve from taking it away from the blizzard community. Valve wants the trademark and now blizz needs to lay claim in order to bring it back to its community.

Also the majority of people who worked on Dota want it to remain open source. The best bet for that is to have blizzard win the court case. Blizz after all kept it open all of these years.

Well one of the creators who should own part of the rights to DotA has join valve. So unless the others who created the mod challenges Valve or Blizzard has purchased the rights from the modders then there is no violations.

Several former modders have filed cases against valve. Now that blizz threw their hat into the ring more people are paying attention

 

[Krion_Vark]

Thirdly, thus far no modders that I know of who were involved in the project have come out against it and 1 is even working on the game.

WRONG. The actual CREATORS of the mod not the guy who just did bug work after it was done which is what Icefrog did came out against this a while ago. They are part of a little MoBA game company called Riot maybe you've heard of them? Yeah the Escapist had an article last year about it.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/102870-DotA-Creators-Counter-File-Trademark-Against-Valve
There you go.