Slashdot Mirror
MMO Fan Site Removes Character Stats Over Trademark Claim
steveb3210 writes "EQ2Wire.com is a fan site for the MMO Everquest 2. One feature of their site is a searchable portal for all game-related stats such as characters, equipment, items, and mobs which they generate from an XML feed provided by the game's publisher. Recently, the owner of a trademark has been threatening them over the name of a character and in the face of possible legal bills, they were forced to remove the character's profile from their site. Adding further insult to injury, the character seems to have been created prior to the trademark in question."
I hereby trademark "Anonymous Coward". You are all infringing by reading what I say. Pay me $10.
the character seems to have been created prior to the trademark in question
Too bad there's not some 'first copyright use trumps filing of intent-to-use trademark application" doctrine to make that relevant.
Sometimes it's hard to read the IP coverage here, really hard.
This part was amusing:
The misusage of a trademark is a crime and has serious consequence as civil case and criminal case.
Haha what? Is there really a country that has criminalized the using of someone else's trademark? Or is the guy writing these letters really as stupid as he sounds?
Been looking for a new in-game name for Steam. Found it! Considering there's nearly 3300 people using "Fluttershy" on Steam, something tells me Valve DGAF.
If someone decides to name their company the same name as one of my existing World of Warcraft characters, or maybe one of their products named after one of them, etc, they can go FUCK themselves! If I'm first, I'm first! Get over it.
Chances are said character just got booted from his guild for being teh lamez.
this company has a trademark to the name for use with game characters? trademarks are limited in scope, not all-encompassing-anything-with-the-name exclusivity. e.g. there can be a mcdonald's roofing, just like there's a mcdonald's restaurant.. but there can be only one mcdonald's restaurant... and that restaurant chain can't do a damn thing about mcdonald's roofing unless they start selling prepared food.
they have no business demanding, or even asking, for its removal. period....
I am going to go create characters in every game I play with that name.. Woohooo...
Who still plays that shit?
WTF
Trademarks apply within the Trade field of the company that registers the trademark.
You can't do Nike sports wear. But Nike is not a gaming company. You can make a Nike game.
The appropriate response to any trademark take down request is -
a) send me a notarized copy of a trademark registration document for the trademark in question that is currently valid in the country you wish to assert your ownership.
b) explain to me how the usage in this context infringes on your trademark. In your explaination cover
i) physical locality of the usage you claim infringes and its relationship to region your trademark registration is in
ii) a detailed description of how the usage in the claimed infringement conflicts with the registered usage.
c) notice that failure to do a) b) will result in no action taken on my part. Insufficient detail and in particular legal grounding for the explanation provided in b) will result in delays and requests for more details. In particular a simple claim in b) that "they used our trademark" without any attempt at detailing domain of usage conflicts will result in the ignoring of your request as insufficiently documented.
Not sure I would seriously consider legal threats from someone who uses the word "coz" in their email.
Change the entry from Malshandir to Malshandork.
it's lame that the admin caved to the demands of one loudmouth guy with a misdirected claim.
I am publishing information provided publicly by Sony Online Entertainment.
this is the only part that matters. instead he bickers with the loudmouth and finally caves. he should have just responded with that and ignored all further correspondence.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The trademark in question is registered to Herr Freyer, not to the (dissolved) Malshandir Ltd. So he owns it and it hasn't expired.
Malshandir is the character name. I have no idea why the summary didn't post it. Kinda a cool name. When I get home, I'm gonna create a character/profile with that name in: Youtube Diablo 3 World of Warcraft Guild Wars Guild Wars 2 XBox Live Slashdot (oh wait, I already did that one). And anywhere else I can think of. But seriously, WTF?!?
IMHO, this seems to be a variation of what Prenda Law is doing. I guarantee it won't stop until a handful of lawyer get convicted of perjury and serve some stiff sentences.
The original intent of trademarks was to prevent people from releasing products under the same corporate or product name. It was not intended to stifle free speech in order to provide corporations with a cash cow so that they can charge people for sharing information about products. Part of me would recommend standing up for yourself and refusing to take down the content since their claims are somewhat spurious. The other half of me would recommend replacing the content useful to the Everquest community with a notice that a greedy corporation has made overreaching trademark claims and the content is being taken down to prevent any beneficial side effects it might have generated for that company's intellectual property.
"I don’t tolerate bullies, and I don’t tolerate threats." ... but I'm going to bend over and do every single thing you asked me to without fighting! Please don't hurt me!
From TFA:
> Even if you are not in the EU all countries have agreed
> in merchant cases to accept the decision of the
> wedish handelskammer in Stockholm.
"Wedish handelskammer" would make a good name for a dwarf character.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Trademarks cover tradeable products and services, which are "are identical or 'colourfully' similar" to other products or services. It's right in the fucking name. TRADEmark.
This claim would only have merit if EQ2Wire was selling the character account, and if Malshandir (the company) also was involved in the video game account... industry.
If in game wealth creation is taxable, than IMHO your character is being used in legitimate commerce.
Could the lawyer produce some kind of proof they own the trademark to that name in the domain of videogames?
I'd like to see the trademark&patent office's document granting the trademark for that domain. Otherwise, the claim is bogus.
https://twitter.com/malshandir
Did this Elf Bard also receive a C&D? http://www.domainofheroes.com/Avatar.aspx?chaid=82177
No wonder he wants to defend his trademark: http://home.neopets.com/~Malshandir
There should be a fund to help people fight these spurious claims. Maybe it could be run by a white hat IP firm. I bet there is at least one firm out there who would jump at the chance to have a tag line like "We hate patent/trademark trolls too. Lets do it the right way". I know I would give the fund a few bucks occasionally to keep it going. Another resource would be a site with links to all these great stories about what happened to the troll. I bet most trolls would back off pretty fast when faced with the consequences of their actions. Maybe even add a few boiler plate legal looking documents to send back to the troll; fight fire with fire.
This is ridiculous. I'm changing my Control Wizard's name in Neverwinter to "Pepsi" in protest.
Another guy caves because some generic dude on the Internet sent him some baseless but threatening letters. I'll play a sad song on my tiny violin.
At least let the guy get sued before reporting it as actual news.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Recently, we have read the story of how the owners of the 'James Bond' rights sent a letter to Monolith DEMANDING that they cancelled all work on their first-person shooter 'No One Lives Forever', and to furnish proof of the cancellation within 10 days. Monolith, understanding that anyone can create their own unique spy spoof product without any permission from anyone, simply ignored the threat- and 18 months later delivered a great computer game.
When you are in the right and have no connection to property owned by people behind any legal threat, you simply ignore the threat. Responding, as the filthy shills advise you to do, actually acknowledges that the threat has some validity, and this complicates your legal position in all kinds of ways.
Should the criminals behind the threat take the most unlikely step of acting on the threat, THEN you act.
Remember, threats are issued by disgusting lawyer scum because it is an easy form of income for them (especially if the threatened party is dumb enough to respond, generating further letters that the client has to pay for). For the client employing the crooked lawyers, it is the cheapest form of 'legal' (yeah, right) action. Moving beyond threats to actual action elevates the costs and risks to the client. A threatening letter has no downside, but unjustified legal attacks against the previously threatened party has all kinds of potential downsides.
Also, most threats today are part of an automated process that has no Human hanging on the other end waiting to see what happens. Dealing with machine 'logic' is far different from dealing with a Human. Refusing to respond to threat one probably leads to an automated threat two sometime in the following months. Ignoring that will mean at worst that the threatening agency will now assign a Human to look at the case, and understand that it is mistaken. This is why if you are obviously in the right, you never respond to threats.
PS should Slashdot really be promoting stories along the lines of "I'm a cowardly scumbag, too thick to get good advice, who therefore got scared, bent over, and let the other party have me.". What next? A story about how this person allowed himself to be robbed by a mugger armed with a banana?
This is a straight bluff, and not even very well done. If you fold to that you will lose your shirt everytime.
The guy getting these stupid emails should have just trashed them and not responded instead of wasting his time treating it like a serious concern.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
i just hope the geek rage of /. users finds its way to him in the form of packets, pornados and all sorts of fun don't forget to say hi on mingle! :P
Ken White, crackdown master of internet libel trolls everywhere, has posted his take on this.
http://www.popehat.com/2013/07/25/listen-dont-mention-the-malshandir-i-mentioned-it-once-but-i-think-i-got-away-with-it-all-right/
Doesn't sound like much to delete a character , but when you only have 3 ppl left playing EQ2 it;s quite noticeable. I think the first M in MMO is just a courtesy title at this point.
So based on your numbers she worked 29.5 8 hour days. Her lower region must be really sore by now
Just send the guy with the crooked nose to cut off a few fingers say the thumb and index finger on both hands. Tell him If I have to come back it is both arms and legs.
There are several pointers to this guy operating out of the basement of his mom's house and being a pure troll with no merit whatsoever to his claims:
Also, the numerous spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors peppered throughout the emails are pretty hard to miss.
Why remove the profile - just rename it so the person who owned it can still reference their data
better - rename it as a belittlement of such small mindedness and petty money grubbing
they could even have an online contest to see who can come up with the best replacement name to fit the situation
To the reply given in Arkell Vs. Pressdram.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
The system
He talks like a little kid.
This will likely get buried but to update the story he stopped blocking characters with the name in question.
That seems to be him: Datenbankexperte und Projektmanager (database expert and project manager) Thomas Freyer.
And so it begins:
http://www.malshandir.us/