Bethesda sues Notch over the use of the word "Scrolls"

[Glasknochen]

Idiots. All over. Idiots.

I just can't repeat it often enough. Idiots. Total idiots!

 

Surely NOBODY else but a total IDIOT would think that a game named "Scrolls" has anything to do with "The Elder Scrolls". That's three words against one! Everybody i've been talking to about the last one was refering to it as "Elder Scrolls". So it is defined through the word "elder" and not through the word "scrolls". By the way is the word "scrolls" very common in everyday language rather than "Warcraft" or something with that in it's title.

 

You know what? Those capitalistic "murders" just intend to do one thing. They want to boot an upcoming and successful little software company out of business. That's the name of the game. I'm ashamed of some mankind. It makes me mad and sad at the same time... and that's a serious mixture.

And it happens everywhere, every goddamn day, in the small and the big. Just think about it for a second.

Mankind dooms itself.

 

Regards!

[CheeseyBall]

You said it for me sir.

[Castornebula]

Zenimax has always been made up of extremely litigious morons.

Aren't these the same people who tried to put a stop to Morroblivion despite the plainly obvious fact that it required owning both games to make it work?

 

Note that even they know they have no case, this is one of those nuisance lawsuits that demand money from the target in the hopes that they will give in.

This is exactly the type of bullying tactic Sony used to shut down Lik-Sang so many years back; million dollar companies throwing their weight around to try and kill something they don't like off without even going to court.

 

Edit: As for people being cynical about big bad Zenimax going after poor old Notch.

I don't care about Notch. I've already said I don't particularily care for him. But I can see full well that Zenimax are being stupid and petty.

If they had an actual reason to sue I'd be behind them, but they don't. This is a ridiculous reason.

Edited August 10, 2011 by Castornebula

[roquefort]

im light of this discovery im copywriting the word (the) and the letter (i I) both capital and lower case so now all books and any text or keyboard company etc has to pay me money to be used. is that dumb enough for ya zenimax?? bunch of fools.

The issue is trademark, not copyright, although there does seem to be a lot of confusion about the two.

 

You could indeed trademark the word 'The' if (for example) you owned a clothing chain called that. There's a band called The The, and I'll bet they've trademark-registered that name.

 

The thing about trademark violation is that it's only a violation if the product (or whatever) with a similar name can be confused with the original, so (again for example) the sedative once marketed in the UK as Oblivon [sic] would not be threatened by Bethesda's legals if it were still on sale; one's a game and the other's a pill.

 

Somebody else in the thread reckoned that a single word couldn't be trademark-registered. Tell that to Apple, or Windows. Practically anything can be registered as a trademark; random letters, a word, a colour-combination (though that most likely would fall under 'trade dress'), a logo or icon, or even a single colour (check out International Klein Blue).

:thumbsup:

[moikle]

surely if a trademarked title automatically trademarks EVERY word in the title, then we would have probably run out of words to use in the English language. In that case, production of video games, books, films, or pretty much ANYTHING should be halted immediately.

[Commander19]

I've been a fan of Bethesda for a number of years now, but to hear they are suing an indie gaming company just because they used the word "SCROLLS" is beyond ridiculous, in fact I doubt there is any word in existence that can explain this situation. First of all, there are A LOT of games (specifically those of the medieval era) that use the word "SCROLLS" in some, way, shape or form, so what, since they can sue a company like Mojang, does that mean they can look around at every other medieval era game and say "Whoops, you are using the word SCROLLS we are going to sue you now." seriously WTF?! Secondly, how is an in-game item that is an entity of a slightly medieval styled block building game even remotely affiliated with any specific chapter of the "THE ELDER SCROLLS SERIES," last time I checked there is no place called Tamriel or Kvatch (just to serve as an example) and/or any NPC (Non-Playable Character) and/or PC (Playable Character) within the video game entity of Minecraft.

 

Bethesda, I know you might have a concern of Minecraft becoming too popular, but seriously this is the most f'd up thing any company/person/corporation/whatever, can do to an indie game company. If you say you are all about the community than stop your attempts to slash away at certain segments of the community. Indie games DO keep the gaming industry alive just as much as any professional development entity does. I am going to follow this story, and I guarantee you, it is not going to end well. This is just as ridiculous as the claims that Activision made against Infinity Ward (Regardless of what your opinion is towards Call of Duty).

[EpicPieDish]

I'm fairly sure this will get shot down in court. The games have NOTHING in common with each other, barring the single word "scrolls" -- to which Bethesda does NOT own trademark of. If I'm not mistaken, they've only trademarked the single phrase "The Elder Scrolls" or "Elder Scrolls", and as long as Notch didn't use that in a way that could confuse people (LOL), he'd win in court.

 

It's sickening, really, to think that a big company would bully an indie like that. Then again a similar thing happened between Apple and Samsung over their new tablets, though this time over shape rather than name.

[shinigami117]

That's just stupid. I really hope Bethesda lost that one.

[parhelion]

Irregardless of what happens "at court" (which it may never even get to), Zenimax is likely going to get their way when it comes to causing damage to Notch. Essentially, the maker of Minecraft will have to be responsible for coming up for the money to defend the word "scrolls", and the demand for money is probably an extortion to stave off a court battle which would ultimately cost them even more.

 

Point being, a court battle would likely be a drop in the bucket for Zenimax, but a real blow to Notch.

[Thalan1a]

Bethesda is just being stupid with this one. I'm a big fan of their games and stuff but to sue some one for using a word that is a single part of a tile that consists of more than two words is just retarded.