Games Workshop gets trigger happy

Good to see they're trying hard to win over and reward loyal fans.
GW has sued a fan site for trademark infringement...

http://www.massively.com wrote:

A look at the official complaint revealed a litany of allegations including cybersquatting, unfair competition, dilution (of the IP), and more. Part of Games Workshop's problem with all of this, according to the complaint is that Curse's use of the Warhammer name and trademarks "literally
states and implies that Defendant and their business are in an
"alliance" with Plaintiff and its products and services offered under
the WARHAMMER Marks," and that this "conduct as aforesaid has
caused great and irreparable injury to Plaintiff, and unless such
conduct is enjoined, it will continue and Plaintiff will continue to
suffer great and irreparable injury."

Full article here


Whatever next...

I saw this myself, Warhammer alliance...Because of GW's disregard for it's loyal fans and customers, I have boycotted them until they wise up. Privateer press, Ebay, and other mini sites from now on.

Screw em'

If they don't do these things then they might lose certain rights pertaining to their copyright. I CBF listing all the details. Yes, this sucks. But it is also a necessity in today's lawsuit-friendly world. Its just one of the drawbacks.

Guaranteed most of those sites were given options that would have remedied the problem.

Pretty standard case you see coming every few months now. Don't use Warhammer, 40k, Mordheim or other of their products in your domain name, make clear that you are not affiliated with GW and everything should be okay. Indeed there seem to be reasons for protecting their IP and trademarks that have to do with them becoming public domain or something like that otherwise.

Agreed, a trademark claim on a future competitor could get really messy if they allow other sites to use their trademarks without taking action, so this is something they kind of have to do (although it of course looks ugly).

From what I've read it stopped being a "normal" fansite quite some time ago. Apparently a company called "Curse" took over ownership of WarhammerAlliance.com and they were making money out it by selling add-ons for WAR.

http://www.curse.com/Premium/Signup.aspx

GW sued Curse for making money from their IP, just like any other company would.

It sucks for the users but I expect there are other WAR fan-forums about that aren't trying to profit from it.

GW seem to be targeting sites that generate income, rather than every site with a GW copyright word in the URL.

Well, if the company were making money the claimed way, then I cant really blame GW for acting as they do.