So... We got renamed...

[Boggy]

I mean, if you're not trading(ie. you don't sell anything for real money with that name) how does it violate a trademark? I guess it may come down to that all items found on the server like Guild, Character, Item, etc. are property of GOA.

I think it is because GOA are trading, and it's technically them who are publishing your name (it's on their hardware and in the application they operate). That's why GOA are so interested in it. If it was the account holder liable, obviously GOA would be more likely to let you take your chances.

It's moot, though, whether you're trading. Unless a case can be made that you (through GOA) are offering a product or service in the same "NICE" category as the trademark holder, or that in some way your use of the trademark affects their ability to do so, there's no infringement. Someone earlier quoted this from Wikipedia, but you'll find exactly the same information if you look up the UK Inellectual Property Office (the offcial UK government office dealing with trademarks). Dunno about France or other countries, but trademark legislation is one of those areas that has been pretty thoroughly internationalised.

 

[scorge]

BUT it is then up to the discression of the company/persons who own the copyright as to wether they decide to act on this or not.

HB ( the football team ) have not acted a player did, and you cant copyright a name just the trademark or symbol e.g.


this is a registered trademark

the little (R) in the corner gives it away the words "Manchester United" are not a trademark.

 

[Legean]

I dont see how this could infringe copyright. If a bunch of people from Manchester decided to make a guild and call it Manchester United that would be acceptable?

The first part is the name of the town? So as long as one of you live there they cant repute it. Even if you dont i fail to see how it would matter. Boldklub means football/sports club? Which obviously isn't a trademark.

 

[Honza]

oh crap, I just found out my REAL LIFE name is used by some spanish company. What shall I do now? Report it and let the offices change the most used first name in my country?

 

[Raven]

Don't forget to check WL pets' names too

Cmon, clearly this is ridiculous, GOA should just admit they done a mistake and put it behind them.

Wont ever happen, they will just ignore it until it goes away.

 

[Gear]

Wont ever happen, they will just ignore it until it goes away.

I know . Not like I'm affected by the change, but if we just let it slip it's only going to go into worse territories.

 

[Faeldawn]

I dont see how this could infringe copyright. If a bunch of people from Manchester decided to make a guild and call it Manchester United that would be acceptable?

The first part is the name of the town? So as long as one of you live there they cant repute it. Even if you dont i fail to see how it would matter. Boldklub means football/sports club? Which obviously isn't a trademark.

You cannot copyright place names or words in common usage, as such you cannot copyright the word "Manchester" or the word "United". In fact you cannot copyright the words which make-up the name Manchester United, but you can copyright the trademark and as such by definition copyright the name but only as a part of the brand concept.

As such, anyone using the brand name "Manchester United" and infringing on that copyright by representing or allying themselves with that brand without the express consent of the brand owner is in direct copyright violation. Again, it is the brand, not the name as such.

Again, you CANNOT copyright a name as such.

Again, as i have said, if you do use a name that has an associated copyright trademark but it is distinctly delineated from the original concept, then it is NOT a copyright violation.

The guild is not representing themselves as anything to do with the football club trademark, the owner of the copyright has not made any complaint (afaik), the guild is distinctly delineated from the original concept of the trademark and as such it is not subject to a copyright violation. However, there is a potential for it to be if the trademark is being used or any association with that trademarked concept is suggested such as to have any effect on potential market use of the brand.

In English, you can make a guild and call it Manchester United as long as you don't use the trademark logo or otherwise associate yourselves with the brand.

As such, GOA, imo, are wrong.

 

[Legean]

You cannot copyright place names or words in common usage, as such you cannot copyright the word "Manchester" or the word "United". In fact you cannot copyright the words which make-up the name Manchester United, but you can copyright the trademark and as such by definition copyright the name but only as a part of the brand concept.
e a guild and call it Manchester United as long as you don't use the trademark logo or otherwise associate yourselves with the brand.

Yeh kind of what i was getting at. Manchester United could be the name of some support group and I'd bet the football club would have trouble making them change it, the name isn't distinctive enough which is required to registar a trademark. Infact there are the supporter clubs which advertise the name and as far as im aware arn't run by the club themselves?

Better example would be Manchester City which is more apparent.

 

[Faeldawn]

Yeh kind of what i was getting at. Manchester United could be the name of some support group and I'd bet the football club would have trouble making them change it, the name isn't distinctive enough which is required to registar a trademark. Infact there are the supporter clubs which advertise the name and as far as im aware arn't run by the club themselves?

Better example would be Manchester City which is more apparent.

Supporters clubs are often deemed to be beneficial to the "brand" but are often official clubs and as such run (or at least supported or sanctioned) by the brand, in much the same way unofficial supporters clubs are often allowed to operate, usually as long as ther have a positive effect and contribute to the promotion of the brand. This is often down to the discretion of the brand holder tho.

This differs from such things as forums, where discussion is free as long as the forum is not brandishing the trademark without permission. This is also why often official forums are heavily moderated and anything deemed derogatory or damaging to the brand might be removed to stop users reading it and generating negative connotations. This borders on censorship though, which is something im going to avoid talking about as it's not really relevant to the example

 

[HerculesPluto]

Shadowlords Society supports HB in getting their guildname back. A name on which they build a good repurtation over many of years.

You not only upsetting HB members, you upsetting the whole old DAoC comunity.

Its a shame how GOA treats their longtime customers.

I agree, and i remember both you guilds on daoc excal what server u chaps on? the Dragon Fighters are back with a vengance on Karak Azgal now (had to move from orrud) on destruction side.

 

[Sollers]

oh fs, Im a bloody russian car

http://www.sollers-auto.com/en/about/history/

 

[GrivneKelmorian]

oh fs, Im a bloody russian car

SOLLERS :: Èñòîðèÿ

wroom wroom

and tbh, it is bullcrap with the name change.

why havnt it been changed before is the question i think we all want answered.

Havnt there been lots of these cases around?

It could be a long shot aswell, but how about writing a letter to the Herfölge Boldklubb and ask them for permission and shove it up GoA's... faces

 

[Legean]

Uh oh seems Guild of Order is mentioned in some Ultima 5 lore and so obviously GoA are going against their own EULA. Report them until everyone is named "a", "b", "c" and so on to make double sure no one is breaking the law. But then damn don't the Jackson brothers own abc123?

Source for Guild of Order having been written down before:

Now comes the Ultima Online tales. They could not use Blackthorne for this event because in Ultima Online, they have already killed him off. Of course, we adapted the Ultima Online story into our own fiction, meshing both Ultima Prime lore with Ultime Online lore. We solved this conflicting issue by creating the Brothers Blackthorne, noble brothers of Anoteerian birth who served Lord Robert DeMecka. One of the brothers continued to wage war on Lord British, creating the chaos guild to battle Lord British's guild of Order

 

[scorge]

On another note send a letter to EA, there are the parent company of Mythic, now they deal a lot with trademarks for sports games and they will know if it violates any law to use HB in an MMORPG.

FIFA 09

Accroding to EA's own fifa web page its only the logos that are registered trademarks not the name..

"The Premier League Logo is a trade mark of the Football Association Premier League Limited and the Premier League Club logos are copyright works and registered trade marks of the respective Clubs. All are used with the kind permission of their respective owners."

here is EA's address for the UK

Electronic Arts Limited, Onslow House, Onslow Street, Guildford, Surrey, GU1 4TN, United Kingdom.

 

[Boggy]

"Order" and "Destruction" are both registered as trademarks in the UK. Someone needs to report these naming violations.

 

[scorge]

you would think with HB being loyal players and payers in DOAC, that GoA would show some loyalty back.

Send Mark Jacobs a letter, i find these are better than emails about GoA's handling of this. It might not do much but it will definetly be a mark against GoA in any other future negoatiations or contract issues.

Just because GoA can get away with it, doesnt mean they should.

I think the reason we havent heard much about GoA on this issue is either, they do not care about the english community, or they are seeking advice of how to save face, from an obviously ill thought out decision, which has had consequences they were not expecting

 

[Boggy]

Well, I'm not sure about that. This type of issue, for any organistion, would be one of those that they don't comment on other than to state, and maybe explain a little about, the policy, and Nic has done that. I'm not even sure they'd be wise to enter into discussion with the user community on this.

When something relates to the law, the policy of any application provider should be "Do what is best for our users while remaining comfortably and clearly within the law." But instead, we often see risk-averse decision making from corporations whose policies can be better described as "Do what we can be absolutely sure is safe for the corporation."

In theory, these two policies are not mutually exclusive, but when the corporation does not take the time to understand the law, the only way they can feel sure they are covered is to be maximimally restrictive, as we see here.

Another problem with this particular situation is that addressing it would require them to change their EULA. Again, most corporations will perceive this as being too hard, when in fact it would be pretty easy. God knows, it would be nice to get some REAL use out of that stupid feature they build in where we had to agree the EULA upon login.

 

[Legean]

Problem with this, as has been demonstrated in the waralliance forums, is that GOA are opening a pandoras box of potential copyright infringement complaints. As one of my teachers once said theres nothing new under the sun and just about any name someone believes they can come up with is likely to have been used before!

 

[scorge]

Magus - web content engineers

where do i report it to think its a trademark breach

and while your at it get mark jacobs to change his name

Marc Jacobs Designer Clothes for Men, Women, & Children. Find Bags, Shoes, Eyewear, Jewelry, Fragrances, & Accessories.
Mark Jacobs Duck Creek Village Real Estate

 

[MesS°]

There is no reasoning with the CSR's at GoA now. We are now at the stage where whatever I ask them, they tell me the case closed and they wont discuss it anymore. Now, I have no place else I can go with this. There are no one who can give me the actual reason for our renaming.
Mythic wont and can't help us. And we are definitely not important enough for EA to take serious. We wont get our name back, because its not important enough to use any time on investigating. We have only 2 choices, cancel, or take it up the butt.

I could probably provide legal documents from the football club saying we are allowed to use the name in Mmo's, even though we shouldn't have to as we are not doing any trademark violations. We are not profiting of the name. There is no risk anyone would mistakeing us for being a football club, and we are not even close to being in the same genre. Our name was/is not trademark, nor can it be. Only football clubs logo's can be trademarked. GoA would know this if they talked with there owner EA (Read: Fifa Soccer).

I think one of the reasons they are being stubborn is because, this went public before I had a chance to reason with the them. And they wont reverse it now, even though they know it was the wrong action to take. All the time talking with the CSR's I have had the feeling I was bothering them, trying to prove my point. Only getting the answer there is nothing I can do about it.

I have lost most of my guild management and other core members because of this. Some who where resubbing say they wont now. And its only been a few days. I don't know where this will end, but I'm hoping we can survive it.
To be honest some left not only because of the renaming, for some it was the famous drop tipping the whole thing over. It makes me wonder if GoA knows that for many peoples part it is only the community feeling keeping them in WAR. And by destroying that, they are actively pushing people from the game?

We where not allowed to use any variation of the 2 letters HB, or any name similar to Herfølge Boldklub. So for now we are named "Herfolge Reloaded" in WAR.


Thanks for you're suppport, cu in the battlefield.

 

[Jeros]

Simple matter of fact, no company is going to risk getting its arse sued

Sad you lost your name, such a legendary guild and all, but this is bigger than a name in a mmo....

Its laywers, possible court cases etc etc

There will proboly be somone, even if its the person whos a distantly related shareholder will think "hey thats our name! SUE SUE SUE SUE!"

We only have to look at america to see how seemigly meanlingless lawsuits can get massive pay outs.

Makes you wonder who made the complaint huh? Sure it could have just been a player, or it could have been a player who happens to have a lot of money invested in the football club cueing a wordy 25 page email from some laywer if you see what i mean, that would really put the shits up a company, and theres the media side to think of etc etc etc

"DANISH COMPANY STAKEHOLER SUES EA FOR 35 MILLION FOR TRADEMARK INFRINGMENT!"

Im no fan of GOAs, but i see why they did this

still really sucks tho....

 

[TheBinarySurfer]

Bloody silly tbh - 9/10 times the naming / trademark legalities are only valid where the product is similar, and any UK judge would laugh someone trying to sue on this basis all the way out of court.

My sympathies.

 

[Boggy]

Mess, I seriously think you should consider reporting other naming violations. Trademarks are all searchable online (at least UK ones, and I assume many other countries).

Stick in every character name you can find, and when it comes back that the text is registered as a Trademark (which many will), report it as a naming violation.

GOA will then have the choice of changing the name of hundreds of characters and guilds, or revisiting their policy.

Since it's my suggestion, go right ahead and start with my two main characters (Irony and Sable) if you like.

 

[Glottis]

GoA can shuff a French baguette up their ...

Stupid, but probably typical for a French company.
They are not known for their flexibility...
Just logged in on the HB forums and read the post.
@ Goa, was about to renew my subscription to be with my fellow HB mates ingame... now I will spend my money elsewhere, ignorant frogs.

Guess Warhammer online is not bringing home the money they where hoping for....
Regards, Glottis

PS. HB - happy new year! (seems bit odd to say that, stupid frogs!)

 

[MesS°]

Mess, I seriously think you should consider reporting other naming violations. Trademarks are all searchable online (at least UK ones, and I assume many other countries).

Stick in every character name you can find, and when it comes back that the text is registered as a Trademark (which many will), report it as a naming violation.

GOA will then have the choice of changing the name of hundreds of characters and guilds, or revisiting their policy.

Since it's my suggestion, go right ahead and start with my two main characters (Irony and Sable) if you like.

Some of our members already made a list of close to 100 names on KA alone, with name violations greater than our own.

But there are 2 issues with this.
1) Submitting 100 appeals would get you're account banned for herassing the CSR's. (wont really matter for the once making the list).
2) We would be creating an extra workload for GoA, but if only a few feels about there name as we do, we would be harmng others, which isint really the point.

I asked them not to pursue this.

 

[Honza]

Actualy, I could just go and put complaint because GOA violates laws in my country. Law says every product sold here must be accompanied with translation of user manual and license. Not nescessary to say there is no such a translation.

I tried yesterday to check my country database on department of industry and bussiness to find out there is 503 companies in my country with the name HB. According to GOA interpretation of term "trademark violation" just this would take lawyers over 400 years to sue out.

I am one of those who canceled the subs after GOA approach, for me it was the last drop. If they want my money they should behave according to that.

Cya in some other MMO that has nothing even far common with GOA.

 

[scorge]

i think for me this is the straw the broke the camels back and i will not be resubbing, while i am not a member of HB i find the attitude of GoA going back to the old days of DAOC and not learning anything, so much for same or best service as Mythic.

I remember on WHA, my acount getting banded prior to the official launch for "GoA" bashing, aparently the mods there didnt like the truth being told, about there past performance.

HB if you still like the game, even if GoA have tainted it for you, i would say reroll on the US servers with your guild name, if not then to be honest all GoA have done is destroy HB on the warhammer servers and i wouldnt give them the satisfaction of having my money.

Your name was good enough for 7 years in DAOC, but not good enough for WAR.

You could in theory now start reporting every single violation you see ( and there are a lot) GoA would either ban your account for "harrasment" by submitting to many requests, or change them in which case it would annoy a lot more of there player base.

I dont think there is any need of HB to spoil the game for anyone else, GoA are doing a good job of that without you.

 

[Grotnob]

Maybe I should start a guild called Manchester United.

Lame?

There you go then.

 

[Filip]

Im actually shocked, quite a few years ago when i played daoc i gave up reading Freddyshouse forums. To much flaming and stupid ppl etc.

But in this tread ppl have come out intelligent and well educated, even those who don't agree with us....

Actually a lot better tread than the one Warhammer server forum.

Annoying with out name, even more frustrating with GOA's handling of it.

But nice to see a nice community debate and reaction on this.

Cheers,

Filip

 

[scorge]

English WAR Community Manager

We realize how unsettling this must be for you and I wish there was more we could for you right now, but we really can't, sorry.

all i can say Nic and Magnus that this is Epic fail on your part being the
English WAR Community Manager

think the community has shown you its not a trademark infringement, and that your reasoning was unsound, at least Requiel had the balls to say we where all sociopaths!