Games Workshop Likes A Guy's Warhammer Fanfilms So Much It Hires Him To Do An Official One

from the fans-of-fans dept

Being fully immersed in an era of copyright protectionism, it seems that we've become numb to the effects of it in many ways. One of those effects is how fans who create content around their favorite franchises are treated. The basic policy of the entertainment industry towards fan-films and similar creations appears to be that they can either bully those projects out of existence, sue them out of existence, or do one or the other even after confusingly giving tacit approval for such projects. Those are the options in full, as far as most entertainment companies are concerned, while the public looks at those actions and shrugs their collective shoulders. You'll even occasionally hear noises such as, "Well, what did these fans expect?" All this, keep in mind, for the crime of trying to express fandom, and free advertising for the franchise they love.

Well, if you're Games Workshop, the company behind the Warhammer 40k franchise, you react to a dedicated fan who has created great fan-films by hiring him to do his thing professionally.

Richard Boylan wowed us with both Helsreach and Guardsman, short, gripping takes on different pockets of the Warhammer 40,000 universe in both animation and live-action. And it turns out he wowed Games Workshop itself, too, because he’s now helping the company make an official Warhammer animated series.

GW has now unveiled Angels of Death, a new animated series set to release from Boylan and his team in 2019.

It's frankly sad how few media companies take this route, which sure appears to be the optimal one. This is all essentially a combination of encouraging fans to produce otherwise free promotional material for the Warhammer franchise, showing that those efforts might actually be rewarded with paid work if they're good enough, and garnering the kind of positive PR messaging that can only be cultivated organically. Meanwhile, Games Workshop isn't harmed in any way, and in fact continues to benefit. And it gets a great marketing campaign for the film, given that it's produced by a fan, for fans.

It’s cool to see Games Workshop branching out the Warhammer brand like this again—it has tried animated movies in the past, but they’ve been a bit lowkey. Hopefully, by reaching out to Boylan, who’s already proved that he can do great things with animation on a fan’s budget of...well, personal passion, something really cool can come out of Angels of Deathgetting the proper GW seal of approval.

What needs to happen is for this kind of response to become SOP, rather than some weird outlier. If more entertainment companies embraced their biggest fans, rather than trying to bully and sue them, the world would be a more entertaining place.

Filed Under: copyright, fan films, fans, richard boylan, warhammer
Companies: games workshop

Games Workshop Proves It Would Rather Bully Authors Than Be A Culture Participant

from the authors-unite dept

Back in December, I informed you of an unfortunate Amazon takedown of a novel by M.C.A. Hogarth, Spots The Space Marine, due to Games Workshop, maker of the Warhammer series claiming trademark over the term "space marine." As I noted at the time, that term has been around for at least the better part of a century, becoming so common place as to be the placeholder name for anonymous characters in games like the original Doom. That said, one can't feign surprise at Games Workshop's actions, considering how they've treated their own fans in the past. Still, I had rather hoped at the time that cooler heads would prevail, some agreement would have been worked out between both parties ($1 license, anyone!?!?!?), and yet another novel would have been offered to a public in sore need of a good story.

Sadly, my hopeful optimism has proven once more to be a fool's stance. Despite ongoing conversations between Hogarth and the company, it appears no arrangement could be constructed and the only options are a court case or the disappearance of a piece of culture. Considering the potential costs of a trial and the villianous myopia of Games Workshop's legal department, the likely outcome would appear to be the latter, save some rescuing group swooping in at the last minute. Don't underestimate the company's bravado in this instance, since the precedent it sets is a dangerous one.

In their last email to me, Games Workshop stated that they believe that their recent entrée into the e-book market gives them the common law trademark for the term “space marine” in all formats. If they choose to proceed on that belief, science fiction will lose a term that’s been a part of its canon since its inception. Space marines were around long before Games Workshop. But if GW has their way, in the future, no one will be able to use the term “space marine” without it referring to the space marines of the Warhammer 40K universe.

Feel free to point out that the trademark only covers certain markets if you like, but the claim by the company so far overreaches what trademark was intended to be that such an argument fails to find many footholds. Hogarth may be one author and this claim may be over one book, but for a cultural term like "space marine" (snicker if you like, but that's what it is now) formerly shared, but now locked up in corporate perdition, the impact is all of ours. For a company to lock it up as though it birthed the term is disgusting.

Hogarth, for her part, isn't some IP abolitionist either, lest you get the wrong idea.

I used to own a registered trademark. I understand the legal obligations of trademark holders to protect their IP. A Games Workshop trademark of the term “Adeptus Astartes” is completely understandable. But they’ve chosen instead to co-opt the legacy of science fiction writers who laid the groundwork for their success. Even more than I want to save Spots the Space Marine, I want someone to save all space marines for the genre I grew up reading. I want there to be a world where Heinlein and E.E. Smith’s space marines can live alongside mine and everyone else’s, and no one has the hubris to think that they can own a fundamental genre trope and deny it to everyone else.

It's difficult to imagine anyone but Phobos' fictional imps disagreeing with her. Still, while several lawyers she's spoken with have agreed to take on the case, the costs are predictably prohibitive. In her blog post, Hogarth seems bewildered that these are the only choices she faces: spend more money than her writing earns income in a legal battle, or relinquish her novel to the ether.

Which conjures another interesting question. Where are all of the author's groups that are supposedly built to protect their flock from this sort of thing? What good are groups like the Science Fiction Writers of America, The Writer's Guild, and their like if they refuse to get involved in cases like these? These groups are supposed to be about a great deal more than handing out their proprietary awards. They're supposed to be advocating for culture as well. Why they haven't in this case is a mystery to me.

Filed Under: mca hogarth, science fiction, space marine, trademark, warhammer
Companies: games workshop

Author's Book Removed From Amazon By Bogus Trademark Claim

from the no-books-just-crooks dept

If you recall the company named Games Workshop from Techdirt stories, you likely already have a bad taste in your mouth from my mentioning them. The game publisher responsible for the Warhammer games twice went after fan sites that were simply building a better experience for fans of the game. We wondered at the time how a company could be so boneheaded as to target their own fans and level trademark suits at them instead of getting creative with a way to allow those fans to continue to be fans. Well, I have an answer for how they could do that, and it's going to surprise you.

No, Games Workshop's CEO is not Satan...but you're close!
My theory is that the people working at Games Workshop, or at the very least their legal team, are in fact from a completely different universe than we are! How did I come up with this theory, you ask? Well, it all revolves around the company having Amazon take down author M.C.A. Hogarth's fictional novel over their supposed trademark on the term "space marine".

Today I got an email from Amazon telling me they have stopped selling Spots the Space Marine because Games Workshop has accused me of infringement on their trademark of the word ‘space marine’.

If you go to the Trademarks Database and look up the word “space marine” you’ll find the Games Workshop owns a trademark on the term “space marine,” but it only covers the follow goods and services: IC 028. US 022. G & S: board games, parlor games, war games, hobby games, toy models and miniatures of buildings, scenery, figures, automobiles, vehicles, planes, trains and card games and paint, sold therewith.

Hogarth then goes on to say that she (shockingly!) didn't come up with the term for Space Marine after playing a Warhammer board game, but instead from what appears to be its original use back in the 1930's. At the time of this writing, Hogarth's blog post states that she's discussing the situation with the people involved, so hopefully that means not only is Amazon reversing course and putting the book back up on Amazon, but also be soliciting an apology from the company.

In any case, Games Workshop being unable to understand their own trademark is only mildly surprising, but their interest in trademarking what, to me at least, seems like such a common phrase these days got me wondering just how common the term "space marine" is. So I went to Wikipedia to see what they had to say, and that is where I discovered the shocking truth: "space marine" is an archetype of science fiction. Don't know what an archetype is?

"An archetype is a universally understood symbol, term, statement, or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated."

This suggests two things to me. First, if "space marine" is an archetype, then by definition it is designed to be a symbol (amongst other things) for all to copy and emulate. That would seem to be the antithesis of this particular trademark suit. Secondly, if it is to be universally understood and Games Workshop didn't recognize this to the point that they decided to trademark the term as distinct, well, then they obviously are not of this universe at all. It seems clear that they're inter-dimensional lawyer-merchants that may, or may not, have plans to colonize Earth and destroy the human race.

Well, that or they're just kind of jackasses.

Filed Under: space marine, trademark
Companies: amazon, games workshop

How Not To Win Fans: Game Maker Sues Fan Site

from the drop-the-warhammer dept

samkash was the first of a few of you to send in the news that Games Workshop, makers of (among other things) the tabletop Warhammer games, has apparently decided to sue the operator of a Warhammer fansite. The website is WarhammerAlliance.com, and is run by a company called Curse. Now, some will quickly say that the trademark owner needs to enforce its trademarks or risk losing them, but it's not quite that simple. First, that's only in the case where the use really is infringing. A fan site that is clearly not associated with the company is unlikely to confuse consumers and hardly a dilution issue, since it would likely increase the value of the Warhammer brand. Second, even if it really was a trademark issue, the company could respond by granting the fansite a free license just to encourage the community. It takes a pretty shortsighted view to instead sue the operators of a fan site.

Filed Under: fan site, fans, warhammer
Companies: curse, games workshop

Games Workshop Goes After Its Biggest Fans With Takedown Order

from the when-will-they-learn dept

dave blevins points us to the unfortunate news that game publisher Games Workshop seems to be attacking its biggest fans by ordering the super popular site BoardGameGeek to takedown all fan-made player aids. Basically, the biggest fans of Game Workshop's games have been helping make those games better, including "scenarios, rules summaries, inventory manifests, scans to help replace worn pieces." Basically increasing the value of those games so that it's easier to play them and easier to keep playing them. And, in response, Games Workshop sends out its lawyers? How does that possibly make any sense at all?

Filed Under: fans, games, takedown
Companies: boardgamegeeks, games workshop