So... We got renamed...

[scorge]

The EulA for WAR is not the same as the EulA for Dark Age of Camelot. A precedent set in DAoC therefore doesn't carry over into WAR.

Again Nic, if your legal bound to change it then, it does not make any differance in between the DAOC EULA or the WAR EULA, what your telling me is that the DAOC EUAL is illegal, and acting in contary to trademark law?

Unless of course if your saying the DAOC EULA overrides law?

again i would check with whoever provides GoA with your legal council on trademark infrihdgements, i think you will find it heavey handed, as it doesnt even have to be the same name if i saw a name similiar to NIKE, like NIKKE, or NIIKE, then you would also have to change it as this is also a possible infringement, the law was not meant to be interrpreted this way.

You should apologise to HB.

 

[Aiteal]

I opened up my first edition copy of Elric of Melniboné, published in 1972 (I collect first editions)
And inside the dustcover read

All characters, the distinctive likenesses thereof, and all related indicia are the trademarks of Michael Moorcock

For those not aware of the Elric series, Moorcock pitted the human young kingdoms firstly against Elric's own Melnibonean empire, then against the chaos lords and their human agents lead by the theocrats of Pan Tang.

The human armies lead by Pan Tang became horribly warped by the Chaos gods patronage, growing mutated extra limbs, bestial faces and they marched under the eight pointed star of Chaos (as opposed to the single arrow of Law motif )

Moorcock was cited as the man "who's fault it all was" in the first edition of Warhammer by it's authors, he has stated on his website on more than one occassion that he believes Games Workshop to be "pirates" stealing intellectual work from fantasy authors and giving nothing back in return.

Ironically, GW now claim the eight pointed star as their own intellectual property, probably because Moorcock (being an anarchist with no real interest in money) has said he cba pursuing the theft and infringement of his intellectual property rights.

Have we really come to the situation where stealing Moorcocks idea's and then claiming them as your own is acceptable (a charge levelled at GW)
but naming a guild after something as completely unrelated as a footbal team is not?

 

[scorge]

Have we really come to the situation where stealing Moorcocks idea's but then claiming them as your own is acceptable (a charge levelled at GW)
but naming a guild after something as completely unrelated as a footbal team is not?

it is up to the owner of the trademark to complain, not a reader or player.

 

[AngelHeal]

so... wich post should i give you rep for scorge?


edit: spread some blablabla :<

edit2: happy new year, im off

 

[luedieniel]

*Eagerly waits until GOA gives up and lets a decent company sort out the european part of Warhammer*

 

[Ctuchik]

*Eagerly waits until GOA gives up and lets a decent company sort out the european part of Warhammer*

any other company would have changed it also if someone would have reported it.

it doesent matter what scorge finds on the wiki pages, they have no rights whatsoever to use that name. and GOA (or any other MMO company) have all the rights in the world to change whatever name they feel like.

evidently i dont care much about this stuff either, but atleast i dont use trademarked names

and moving letters around usually wont work. Just look at Marvel Comics lawsuit against NCsoft when City of Heroes released and there started to pop up all kinds of Incredible Hulks or Wolverines and variants of the Marvel heroes/villains name. you can LOOK like the marvel heroes/villains but u arent allowed to use the names, or even misspelled variants of them.

and i think its ultimately Mythic thats getting busted if a trademark owner gets pissed off as GOA is only operating the servers while its Mythic that owns the game, and the marvel vs NCsoft were handeled by a US court and is therefore a leading case that will most likely be used as refference if anything comes up again.

So unless HF actually give GOA a written statement allowing their name to be used there's not a whole lot they can do about it.

 

[Frozenheart]

GoA changed it to cover their own arses if they get a threat of being sued .. it's a prevention tbh.

 

[GReaper]

Again Nic, if your legal bound to change it then, it does not make any differance in between the DAOC EULA or the WAR EULA, what your telling me is that the DAOC EUAL is illegal, and acting in contary to trademark law?

Unless of course if your saying the DAOC EULA overrides law?

again i would check with whoever provides GoA with your legal council on trademark infrihdgements, i think you will find it heavey handed, as it doesnt even have to be the same name if i saw a name similiar to NIKE, like NIKKE, or NIIKE, then you would also have to change it as this is also a possible infringement, the law was not meant to be interrpreted this way.

You should apologise to HB.

Before you start waffling on about the law, just read the code of conduct instead. The CoC doesn't allow names which are trademarked or have copyrights, along with various other restrictions which GOA doesn't want in their game - the reasons don't have to be legal!

If this particular name is allowed, it would set a precedent for others. Whilst I'm sure it's amusing to use the name of an obscure football team, what would you feel about other names being used? I don't particularly want MMORPGs full of brand names with various trademarks which don't belong there.

It's a shame that an old guild we're all familiar with will have to change name - they've just been fortunate enough to escape GOA's attention until now.

 

[othmaar]

I stand corrected ... if the football club did indeed complain then GOA had to change the name. Then again if they did complain, why would you want to use their name anyway. Time for a change I suppose

 

[Brommix]

The football club is not trademarked therefore the above mentioned does not go into effect. It is as simple as 2 plus 2 makes 4, so not only have the original football club not made a complaint (because in reality they dont mind us using the name) secondly the name does NOT apply to the section about trademarked names as the name is not a trademark.

 

[Platin]

As an ex HB member it sadens me, that name was epic (no joke)!

 

[Jimmi]

Write them, then:

Kontakt

 

[Boggy]

The code of conduct and EULA are symptomatic of a company that desires to cover its arse legally (as all do) and that also does not understand the law (as many don't).

GOA are not obliged to change trademarked names unless they relate to a similar product or service. The NCSoft example is perfect for understanding this - in City of Heroes, people were applying trademarked names to their characters. The characters were fictional superheroes, and so were the trademarked products.

In the case of this guild that GOA have changed the name of, the guild is a fantasy RPG player association, the trademarked name is a football team. Where's the trademark infringement? I can't see one.

 

[Frozenheart]

Why don't you guys write a new CoC and tell them to use it, lol *rolls eyes*

 

[mooSe_]

Why don't you make your new name just like Herfolge Boldklub (normal o) or just change a couple of letters round, that way you aren't stealing a name and you still pretty much get to be called what you like. I'm no copyright expert or part of the guild so ignore me if this is an unacceptable solution.

 

[Honza]

Actualy, our guild name we use ingame is "Herfolge Boldklub", not "Herfølge Boldklub".

 

[Frozenheart]

Actualy, our guild name we use ingame is "Herfolge Boldklub", not "Herfølge Boldklub".

Which is how the club is spelt on English sites on a yahoo search .. So obviously wasn't different enough.

#
Charlton Athletic Sign Denmark Under-21 Winger Martin Christensen On ...
Relegation-battlers Charlton Athletic have signed Denmark Under-21 winger ... an initial £250,000 from Herfolge Boldklub, with whom the Londoners have also ...
premiershiplatest.com/news/charlton-athletic-sign-denmark-under-21-... - Cached

 

[Honza]

Not our fault english folks can't type ALT+0248.

 

[Mey]

Why don't you make your new name just like Herfolge Boldklub (normal o) or just change a couple of letters round, that way you aren't stealing a name and you still pretty much get to be called what you like. I'm no copyright expert or part of the guild so ignore me if this is an unacceptable solution.

It doesn't work like that, as it still bares a likeness to the original "trademark".

 

[Frozenheart]

Not our fault english folks can't type ALT+0248.

Maybe not your fault but then again the english ones aren't complaining they had their guild name changed :<

 

[MesS°]

We have gotten allot of positive support, and we appreciate it. It makes for a very interesting debate. And it makes us even more sure we have to fight this. Not only for our selfs.

We moved the discussion out of our guild information thread and started a separate one.
You can follow the discussion evolve here:
GOA does it again.. HB renamed to "Guild of Order" - Warhammer Forums



Frozenheart... Where have I heard that name before?
Maybe from the radio station: FM FM frozenheart.co.uk FM FM - Home
Or was it from the organization helping parents whose children are taken overseas: Home Page
Or maybe its the name of one of Acid death's songs: ACID DEATH - FROZEN HEART LYRICS
There are plenty more violations if you want to go down that road.

All better known than the Danish football club. And we are not even using the same name. So I guess knowing this, you are going to change name?



Thanks again for all the support, its very much appreciated.

 

[Boggy]

Frozenheart... Where have I heard that name before?
Maybe from the radio station: FM FM frozenheart.co.uk FM FM - Home
Or was it from the organization helping parents whose children are taken overseas: Home Page
Or maybe its the name of one of Acid death's songs: ACID DEATH - FROZEN HEART LYRICS
There are plenty more violations if you want to go down that road.

All better known than the Danish football club. And we are not even using the same name. So I guess knowing this, you are going to change name?



Thanks again for all the support, its very much appreciated.

That's very funny

Be quite interesting to see how many character names actually ARE registered trademarks that just haven't been reported. Quite a few I would think. Possibly a good way to encourage GOA to change their CoC and EULA would be to spam them with name violation reports.

[EDIT]Just looked up my main - it is registered in two categories in the UK. Guess I need to report myself and get my name changed.

 

[Gear]

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.

 

[Nate]

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.

 

[scorge]

The football club is not trademarked therefore the above mentioned does not go into effect. It is as simple as 2 plus 2 makes 4, so not only have the original football club not made a complaint (because in reality they dont mind us using the name) secondly the name does NOT apply to the section about trademarked names as the name is not a trademark.

there you have it then if HB is not trademarked name, then GoA have no reason to change, even changing it was dubious in the beginning as the owner didnt complain.

Whats the bet that GoA wont admit they made a mistake, and change it back....

 

[scorge]

i am going to have to report myself as well, my magus lemonhead although sounded funny at the time is obviously a violation...

lemonhead - Google Image Search

LEMONHEADS CANDY

think i will have to chnage them all to a chinease gold farmer name something like HUUYTJKGIUK


then again thats probably trademarked.....

thnk you need to all check your characters names out see if your against the EULA before goa bring the law down on ya....

 

[Frozenheart]

We have gotten allot of positive support, and we appreciate it. It makes for a very interesting debate. And it makes us even more sure we have to fight this. Not only for our selfs.

We moved the discussion out of our guild information thread and started a separate one.
You can follow the discussion evolve here:
GOA does it again.. HB renamed to "Guild of Order" - Warhammer Forums



Frozenheart... Where have I heard that name before?
Maybe from the radio station: FM FM frozenheart.co.uk FM FM - Home
Or was it from the organization helping parents whose children are taken overseas: Home Page
Or maybe its the name of one of Acid death's songs: ACID DEATH - FROZEN HEART LYRICS
There are plenty more violations if you want to go down that road.

All better known than the Danish football club. And we are not even using the same name. So I guess knowing this, you are going to change name?



Thanks again for all the support, its very much appreciated.

I think you will find i am not breaking the Warhammer CoC as i don't have a character named Frozenheart ... this one is from DAoC in which you were also allowed your name .. that is the difference, lol Besides, i simply pointed out the o in the english version of the football club name .. i didn't report you or make you change your name so no need to start whining at me, lol

 

[Ilienwyn]

That's very funny

Be quite interesting to see how many character names actually ARE registered trademarks that just haven't been reported. Quite a few I would think. Possibly a good way to encourage GOA to change their CoC and EULA would be to spam them with name violation reports.

[EDIT]Just looked up my main - it is registered in two categories in the UK. Guess I need to report myself and get my name changed.

My latest char is named Crusader. I hope after all this naming mess I won't have an issue with pope suddenly telling me to go on some crusade or something!!! :lol::lol::lol:

 

[Ilienwyn]

Posted this on WHA:

You should know this is a trademark/copyright issue over which we have very little influence. When, like in this case, a player reports a name of a character or a guild and it is found to be a trademark belonging to someone else we are simply bound by law to rename it, no matter how unfortunate the timing. Note that the name was changed because of this trademark issue and not for role-play or harassment reasons.

In this case, with this guild's long and proud history and good name in Dark Age and WAR we agree it is a painful situation for all of us. The EulA for WAR is not the same as the EulA for Dark Age of Camelot. A precedent set in DAoC therefore doesn't carry over into WAR.

So my advice to you is to have your Guild master send an in game appeal with suggestions for a new name for the guild, please note that unless this ticket comes from the Guild master our CSR's won't be able to discuss the matter.

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.

but... but... but... GOA (amongst other things) is a region in India. So maybe GOA Should change name too! :lol:

PS: Being funny here so I hope I won't get flamed/whatever!

 

[Faeldawn]

it is up to the owner of the trademark to complain, not a reader or player.

I'm afraid it doesn't quite work that way.

It is a copyright infringement to use a trademarked name without permission, pure and simple (this is essentially GOA's problem here), 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. There is such a thing as "good faith" in such proceedings.

By the letter of the law, the production of "fan fiction" is a copywright violation as it is using material protected by copyright. However, companies may waive this as it generates brand interest. An example would be someone writing fan fiction including Gottrek or Felix from the Warhammer novels or a Warhammer setting. The names of the characters and the setting would be covered by the copywright as concepts.

I would also consider the "fair use" argument. As one is a football club and the other a completely unrelated guild name in a computer game and the guild is in no way attempting to identify or associate themselves with the owners of the trademark, there is no effect on potential market use of the name as the use of the name for a guild is distinctly delineated from the original concept.