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Dice Age — Indie Gaming Project vs. Hollywood
ArrowBay writes "Dice Age, a independent game project that raised nearly $35K through Kickstarter, is apparently facing some scrutiny from a certain movie studio that has produced movies with a similar name. From the latest project update: 'As if the Ice Age was exclusively the name of a movie, or if Dice Age was a movie itself, the 20th century fox has just asked for an extent of time (till 10-26-2011) to oppose to the registering of our beloved Dice Age game name. My point of view, as a scientist, is the Ice age is a geological era before it is a movie.""
Hollywood has made it their goal to privatize everything from "Seal Team 6"- registered by Disney, to our fairy tales like Snow White. Stealing from the public domain and threatening everybody not in the club is nothing new for them. I have little doubt that the bean counters at Fox known damn well that most courts in the land will back their insane claim, assuming the small developer can even afford to fight the battle.
Just rename it "Dice Edge"!
Oh... wait, that won't work either.
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Why should anyone pay to see a motion picture from a major studio ever again?
If they're going to have this kind of hostility to society, by claiming all of culture as their own private property, I don't see a single reason why I should respect them in any way.
I have said before, and believe more strongly all the time, that pirating movies is a political act of civil disobedience against elements of private industry who have attacked us first by stealing our shared culture.
They can take a story from Aesop, turn it into a movie, and then sue anyone who uses the phrase "The Tortoise and the Hare".
They have declared cultural war against us. I think we should strike back.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Please kill yourself and any children you might have before the gene pool of our species is even further polluted.
...about using Casablanca in the title of their film. Sadly, Snopes says Groucho ws being a bit disingenuous, but still an awesome read.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Killing the children one might have is actually a very pleasurable process for males.
In a word: no.
I've seen Ice Age, and a sequel, I think, but when I first read "Dice Age", if it hadn't been in the context about a movie studio claiming to own the name of an epoch, I would not have confused the two in any way. And watching the video on Kickstarter, it's even less confusing.
Should no one be able to create anything with remotely similar names without expecting this to happen? What about "rice age", "nice age", "spice age"? Or a little further out? "Rice rage"? "Mice Mage"? "Price Gauge"? When do you feel that it ceases to be "obvious that this would happen"?
Now, if it were a game based on similar characters, or even a the geological epoch with a similar mission theme, I'd say your statement might have some merit. Might. But as it stands, it's ridiculous.
I was once served with a C&D regarding a trademark I was supposedly infringing on. With the first notice, I explained why there was no TM conflict and provided some documentation regarding the merits of their requests. With the second notice, I re-sent my first response and offered some options of remediations, including offering to sell them the domain in question for what it would cost me to re-brand it and re-establish my new brand. Again, the only response I got was another C&D, and at that point I told them to fuck off or I'd sue them for harassment.
Amazingly enough, they stopped. A lot of this sort of activity is similar to that of bighorn sheep butting heads in the wild. Show of force, lots of bluster. If it's handled right nobody really gets hurt.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Fair point. However I did think of the film when I first saw this... Hence my comment. I don't agree with the studio's doing this and I think the majority of lawsuits we hear about are bull. My point is that a little thought up front about a name may avoid obvious problems later on.
Just so we are clear. I don't agree with the studios on this they should be allowed to call their game whatever they want.
My guess is you first saw this with the tagline "Dice Age — Indie Gaming Project vs. Hollywood", otherwise I doubt you'd have made the connection. I've been aware of this project for at least a couple of months, I even considered supporting it, yet I never once thought of the movie "Ice Age" in relation to it until I saw this story.
I think you are either avoiding my point or missing it possibly? I will put it another way.... Was this totally unforeseeable?
Products in different industries with no reasonable claim that it may confuse or mislead consumers. Absolutely no attempt to invoke the film's characters, images, or design. The game's title is not even Ice Age, it's a pun for a common phrase which accurately describes the product.
This isn't even close to copyright/trademark gray area, like parody, fair use, etc. It's simply intimidation and proves we're speeding down the IP-law slippery slope opponents had feared.
Well, if they don't like "Dice Age", they should just propose a rebrand as 21st Century Dice....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
How about a game where you have to kill an aromatic herb that's very nice in poultry and dumplings (but don't put too much or it tastes of medicine)?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
But why should one even have to spend time or thought to avoid a name like this? It's clear it has nothing whatsoever to do with the Ice Age movies, or even the Ice Age itself, if you assume that just by creating a movie in an era and giving it the name of that era, you now own it and all related names.
Again I agree. It shouldn't be necessary to have to think to heavily about things like this in an ideal world. But I ask again. Was this totally unforeseeable knowing what a litigious country the US is?
When I was choosing my company name. I did searches for it on google, companies house and domain whois to ensure I wasn't entering any potential legal issues with the name. It is common sense these days I would have thought.
When I heard of the name "Dice Age", I didn't associate it with "Ice Age" at all until it was mentioned in the post. Not only that, but I associated it with the geological era before the movie.
This is lawyers nitpicking.
I am not devoid of humor.
perhaps they named the latest transformers movie "dark of the moon" only because they feared they'd get sued from pink floyd if they used "dark side of the moon". "dark of the moon" doesn't even sound appealing. "dark side", however, makes so much more sense.
...
I hadn't heard of Dice Age before I saw this article, but now that I saw THE DICE I am totally on board. Maybe this whole Fox SNAFU will work out in Dice Age's favor by further spreading its name?
Really?
"but Batman," he whined, "my gang and I were going to go hang out tonight!"
Was he as bad as the idea sounds?
*shudder*
Oh... right. The lawyers are taking all the money.