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Randomness XVIII: Ex-Vee-Triple-Eye

Froggy the Great

By Froggy the Great,
in Off-Topic Rampancy

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ManvsMini Godlike

ManvsMini

Posted
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Tired... but here's your morning trivia for what happened on September 17th:

  • 1683 – Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek wrote a letter to the Royal Society describing "animalcules", later known as protozoa.

  • 1859 – Joshua A. Norton, born in England and living in San Francisco, declared himself "Norton I, Emperor of the United States." Most citizens of San Francisco considered him insane or eccentric, yet humored him during his 21-year "reign".

  • 1983 – Vanessa Williams became the first black Miss America.

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kristof65 Godlike

kristof65

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11 hours ago, TheAuldGrump said:

Back in the Nineties GW sent a letter to stores carrying their miniatures that they should not let those miniatures be used for non-GW games.

 

Rick laughed, crushed the missive up into a little ball, and threw it in the trash.

 

GW, then as now, is a little crazy.

 

The Auld Grump

During the 90s our little game company was a GW Retailer for awhile.   I recall three letters from GW that had us all laughing. 

One was the sternly worded letter about our decals - it wasn't exactly a C&D - it was more of a pre-C&D. 

The second was the letter you mention. 

The third was an essay about how selling GW models at a discount "devalued the brand for everyone" and "should never be sold for less than MSRP."
 

11 hours ago, TheAuldGrump said:

It probably was never challenged - and I don't think WotC ever tried to defend it, in any case.

I get that, but I still think shame on the patent office for granting it in the first place. 

 

8 hours ago, TheAuldGrump said:

Man, that is the wurst model of the Enterprise that I have ever seen.....

you don't have to be a brat about it. :devil:

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PaganMegan Godlike

PaganMegan

Posted
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12 hours ago, TheAuldGrump said:

Game mechanics aren't covered by either patent or copyright.

 

If you name the mechanic, you can trademark the name, but that is avoided by not using that name.

 

It is also why some games use proprietary dice - which can be trademarked and copyrighted. (Other times, they are a gimmick, or just a way to weight probability - Rumbleslam is an example off the latter.)

 

The Auld Grump

It probably was never challenged - and I don't think WotC ever tried to defend it, in any case.

 

Sort of like that Alabama law that no one is allowed to use their back pocket to hold an ice cream cone* - it never got challenged or enforced, so was never removed.

 

The Auld Grump

 

* There was a real purpose to the law - that method was used to steal horses - who would follow the thief of their own volition - the horse wanted that ice cream cone.

It followed me home, Judge. Can I keep it? ::D:

1 hour ago, kristof65 said:

During the 90s our little game company was a GW Retailer for awhile.   I recall three letters from GW that had us all laughing. 

One was the sternly worded letter about our decals - it wasn't exactly a C&D - it was more of a pre-C&D. 

The second was the letter you mention. 

The third was an essay about how selling GW models at a discount "devalued the brand for everyone" and "should never be sold for less than MSRP."
 

I get that, but I still think shame on the patent office for granting it in the first place. 

 

you don't have to be a brat about it. :devil:

TWO  of you?!

 

To be frank, that's... Nope, the frank pun is all I got. ::(:

The GW behavior goes hand in glove with being resource wealthy, cash poor.

 

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CaptainPete Godlike

CaptainPete

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21 hours ago, kristof65 said:

I know, right? 

The guy was claiming that game mechanics are protected by copyright because his friend who tried to make his own version of 40k got a C&D letter from GW.  Now it's entirely possible that his friend was copying more than the game mechanics, and the C&D was a legit use of it, but given how heavy GW has been known to be with C&Ds, it's hard to say. 

 

I know first hand at how little it takes (took?) to get GW to send a letter. My old game company got hit with a letter from GW for some decals we did - someone told them we were doing space marine chapter decals. We were, but they were all for our own chapters, and every one had been drawn by us and did not copy any GW property. We sent them a copy of the decal sheets in our retail packaging, and that was the end of the matter. 

Words can be copyrighted, ideas cannot. It's... Not that hard to understand. <_<

20 hours ago, kristof65 said:

I think they've backed off some, after getting burned by some of the legal actions they've taken, such as going after Spot the Space Marine.   They have also made a big shift in what they call their stuff now, to better protect it - While they're still Space Marines, their models are given names like Primaris Eradicators and Primaris Intercessors.  On the fantasy side, they've gone even more extreme - instead of Elves and Dwarves, they're calling them things like Aelf and Duardin. Note that it took me 10 minutes to figure out their new names for those races to write this post - I wasn't sure because my only contact with them these days is passing by those aisles at the FLGS, where there are a lot of weird names on the Age of Sigmar boxes, like Vulkite Berzerkers and Vanari Auralan Sentinels. 

It was the Chapter House lawsuit. They half won, half lost. The judge (that poor, poor judge) pointed out that if you can't trademark a name, you can't stop people from using it to sell things that work with your stuff.

17 hours ago, Pezler the Polychromatic said:

 

While this is true, GW did try to copyright the term 'space marine' and the courts shut them down. That is why things have been renamed Adeptus Astartes, Astra Miltarum, Drukhari, etc., so that they can hold those as unique IP.

 

 

Gadzooks! What kind of dire straits is the business in if they have the barbarian doing IT?!?!!

If it hadn't have been for the outrage, and money, GW would have been able to win. This is one of the major problems with copyright and trademark law (and civil law in general); Who has the most money, wins.

3 hours ago, ManvsMini said:

Tired... but here's your morning trivia for what happened on September 17th:

  • 1683 – Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek wrote a letter to the Royal Society describing "animalcules", later known as protozoa.

  • 1859 – Joshua A. Norton, born in England and living in San Francisco, declared himself "Norton I, Emperor of the United States." Most citizens of San Francisco considered him insane or eccentric, yet humored him during his 21-year "reign".

  • 1983 – Vanessa Williams became the first black Miss America.

AND PROTECTOR OF MEXICO!

Also, he fired Congress. Twice.

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SparrowMarie Godlike

SparrowMarie

Posted
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52 minutes ago, kristof65 said:

I found this a relevant article:
https://kotaku.com/please-stop-closing-forums-and-moving-people-to-discord-1847684851

 

I like Discord, I really do but there is definitely still a place for forums. In a lot of the bigger servers I have a very hard time keeping up with things so half the time I just don't read or contribute like I would on a forum.

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