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February 6, 2013
Games Workshop Manages to Make A Whole Passel of New Enemies
Posted by Alan Wexelblat
This is all over my blogroll today: Games Workshop is coming down absurdly, wrongly, overreachingly hard on a small author over its fantasy of having a trademark on the phrase "Space Marines" that prevents others from using that phrase.
The most direct victim at this time is author M.C.A. Hogarth. Hogarth reports on a disheartening, but all-too-familiar, situation in which the big company pulls out the big lawyer guns and picks on the small (mostly self-published) individual who doesn't have the money to fight protracted legal struggles. One of the people who has responded is John Scalzi whose blog entry at "Whatever" points out that not only is this "weak sauce" on GW's part, the story may turn out very differently if they ever try to pull this crap on ",,,an actual publisher, with actual lawyers. That should be fun."
Also chiming in is Cory at Boingboing. Doctorow makes several important additional points, such as this being B.S. because what Games Workshop is claiming is a trademark and DMCA claims don't apply to trademark. Readers may remember June of last year when I questioned another GW use of the DMCA. This seems to be a standard corporate tactic for them, now: grab the nearest legal stick and whack little people with it, no matter how wrong.
Doctorow's post (correctly, I think) also lays some of the blame on Amazon. They had no need to take down Hogarth's e-books. That was a craven corporate decision, and a disappointment. Say what you like about Google, but their efforts with their Transparency Report are setting a standard that other corporations including Amazon could do well to emulate.
So what happens next? Well, readers might want to let Games Workshop know how they feel about this. You can reach them by physical mail in the UK. at Games Workshop, Willow Road
Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS - or if you're more digitally inclined I believe they read and comment pretty regularly on their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/gamesworkshopofficial)
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1. BW on February 8, 2013 3:24 PM writes...
Allan,
Permalink to CommentI hope you are having a great day. I stumbled onto your blog during some research for a Communications Ethics class I am taking right now found it very interesting. I had no what you were talking about until I did a little research. I guess my bottom line question would be is the term Space Marines copyrighted by Games Workshop. I did some looking on the internet and saw Games Workshop logos that showed the term Space Marines as a trademark. There is actually a website called spacemarines.com that shows the logo with a trademark symbol. I have also seen very recent news flow from the UK that leads me to believe it is not trademarked or copyrighted. A brief search of the internet will net several instances of that term being used long before Games Workshop was in existence. I guess what may be at issue is the fact that Games workshop may not have been the first to use the phrase, but they want to be the first to copyright the phrase. Legally that may be all that matters. This debate seems to be swirling more in The UK, which I have come to find is where Games Workshop is located, than it is in the U.S. Given the difference in the copyright positions in the U.S. and the UK, I would say that were Games Workshop and American company there wouldn’t be much debate. Dan Burk characterizes the U.S. view on copyright laws as: Being utilitarian in its ethics. In short he states that there is an expectation that in return for the production of goods and services, the creator can be assured of personal reward, primarily in the form of money or other economic goods. This differs from Browns classification of the European approach as being deontological, meaning that the European copyright tradition provides legal protection out of respect for the autonomy and respect for the author (Burk 2007 p 96-100). I guess in the end it all goes back to the almighty dollar or in this case the almighty pound. Very interesting.
BW
2. BW on February 8, 2013 3:30 PM writes...
Allan,
How rude of me, I forgot to list my source in a discussion about copyright issues. Here it is.
Bryan
Burk, Dan 2007, Privacy and Property in the Global Datasphere. In S. Hongladarom and C. Ess (eds). Information Technology Ethics: Cultural Perspectives, 94-107. Hershey, PA:IGA Global.
Permalink to Comment3. Alan Wexelblat on February 8, 2013 9:41 PM writes...
BW: Part of the issue is that GW seem to be asserting a trademark (which it's debatable that they even have) against a book. As you say, a copyright issue would be handled differently but even if one allows for argument's sake that they do have this trademark then they're going about protecting it all wrong. DMCA takedowns against e-books are just not relevant if we're talking trademark.
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