The GW IP bullies are at it again. It seems they didn't like the Aquilla in the logo at Librarium Online.
http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/general-announcement/182704-letter-gw.html
It's been changed to comply. But this is stupid. The Aquilla dates back to the ancient Romans, and LO's logo looked more like the Aquilla used in several Eastern European state seals than the one in the 40K logo.
There's nothing like alienating the community that buys your products. Morons. These websites are doing more to help the hobby than GW is. They're even going after sites that use GW images to sell GW products!
Maybe I'll finally make a banner logo for the Back 40K. I'm thinking of the great seal of the United States, with an extra eagle head, holding a paint brush and a pair of dice. Let GW complain about that!
Edit:
It took some Google-Foo, but I finally did see the logo they were selling on their t-shirts. And it does look like the GW Aquila logo was copied and pasted (artfully) over the rest of their own graphic.
So hand-smack to LO, and apologies to GW.
I'll calm down now. :)
It's not that you can't use the Aquilla. It's using the Aquilla in a site about Warhammer. Apples aren't disallowed logos. You can use an apple as a logo. Just trying using your Apple logo on a computer.
ReplyDeleteOh, also wanted to point out about the pictures, too. You aren't allowed to use their pictures for their products online. I believe you can use your own if you wanted. They ban this across the board, and a lot of online stores were ignoring it, while others were following the rules. This is rather unfair to the ones following the rules.
ReplyDeleteWhile this might appear to be all "evil company" stuff, they are in the right, ethically and legally, imo.
I understand that GW needs to protect it's IP, but they don't have a monopoly on the image of an Aquilla. Which is a symbol that's literally thousands of years old. They only have a monopoly on their registed logo or any image that could be reasonably confused with that specific logo and harm their sales.
ReplyDeleteApples, being apples, are hard to make distinct from one another. But "Slice Computing News" could make a logo of a sliced apple with a completely distinctive sillouette and color scheme without Apple having much of a case against them.
It's bullying, plain and simple.
The issue with product images, on the other hand, is legal for them to do, but short-sighted. Consumer Product companies in other industries would laugh at them.
ReplyDeleteTypical GW shown there. Just because the can do the threatening doesn't mean they should. Every year GW seem to be alienating more and more of their fan base.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame really.
-Jim
After reading over the statutes, I can see why GW waited until now to spring this.
ReplyDeleteNews sites and non-commercial endeavors are specifically protected, and GW would have no case at all against LO but...
LO started selling merchandise with their logo on it. Which suddenly made them a commercial endeavor, rather than a non-commercial news/views site. Giving the GW lawyers an "in". I still don't think their case would stand. But I'm not running LO.
Look ... this isn't new people. GW has been doing this for YEARS. All big corporations agressively defend their IP ... like it or not. WOTC does it, Disney, EA, GE ... name any media company. Hell Privateer Press does it when they can. Its just a matter of size. Once a company gets big enough that they can afford to have lawyers on retainer for IP ... they start going after people. This might seem innocuous the site and matter you reference ... but I can tell you all around the world there are instances of blatant copyright infringement against GW ... people out there assembly line knocking off their product and selling it. So unfortunately they get aggressive because of the really bad stuff and the policy is the policy ... they go after everyone. Perhaps I seem like a jerk too ... but it belongs to Games Workshop ... if people start making money off of their IP no matter how tenuous they have a right to stop it. If people think they have a good case ... go ahead and lawyer up and fight it out :) Otherwise ... create some IP of your own and then there won't be any accusation of being a leach and making money off of others work ;)
ReplyDeleteAlso I don't think this alienates any fan base. It might piss off the few people who run the site ... even though people are flaming on a board ... end of the day they are still going to buy GW stuff if its good. Everyone here same deal. If people are that mad then really ... go find another game company .. in fact show me examples of game companies the size of GW who don't smash any IP infringers they find ... examples please ...
ReplyDelete"I understand that GW needs to protect it's IP"
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't think you do. The Aquila LO was using was GW's. Maybe an ever-so-slight modification, but anyone looking at it knew what it was. No one looked at the Aquila and thought, oh, that's not the Imperial Aquila, that's the ancient Aquila. And that is where the problem is.
You can say you don't like what GW is doing, but realize what they are doing is right. Realize that they *have* to do this if they want to keep their IP, and that LO was legally in the wrong.
Law != Morality, Law == Law
ReplyDeleteGW may be defending it's "rights" as it sees them. But that doesn't automatically make it the "right" thing to do.
That said...
It took some Google-Foo, but I finally did see the logo they were selling on their t-shirts. And it does look like the GW logo was copied and pasted (artfully) over the rest of their own graphic. So hand-smack to LO.
I'll calm down now. :)
Well, the sizeable amount the company spends on law firms who spend their time scouring the nets has to try and be justified..
ReplyDeleteIn these days after the killing off of Golden Throne (at least in spirit) and TSoALR they have to look for lesser targets :)
I laugh though that there are a number of Russian website flagarantly ignorning IP and copyright laws and seem to go on regardless, which IMO is a far bigger issue than this.