6 ms·

Some backstory: http://www.pcgamer.com/fan-made-doom-spin-off-from-2002-challenged-by-zenimax-legal-team/ http://www.pcgamer.com/fan-made-doom-spin-off-from-200

by Nr7 10y ago

Some backstory: http://www.pcgamer.com/fan-made-doom-spin-off-from-2002-challenged-by-zenimax-legal-team/ http://www.pcgamer.com/fan-made-doom-spin-off-from-2002-chal...

discordianfish 10y ago
Can someone explain why companies would do that? Is there really some good reason, if only from a business perspective, to do this?
- Arcsech 10y ago
  If you don't enforce your copyright or trademark, you lose it. That's likely what this is: Some lawyer saw that DoomRL was using Zenimax property and got all excited about it.
  - CM30 10y ago
    Only trademark. Copyrights aren't lost by not defending them (this is a very common misconception for some reason).
    - Hemospectrum 10y ago
      > this is a very common misconception for some reason The use of the umbrella term "intellectual property" is a deliberate tactic to seed that type of misinformation in public discourse, so that people will assume these different concepts are equivalent and that protections applying to one of them apply to all of them. You're seeing cases where this tactic has succeeded.
      - rpdillon 10y ago
        Richard Stallman rejects the term 'intellectual property' for exactly this reason. It's another case where Stallman can seem extreme, but is actually quite insightful. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
- kbenson 10y ago
  To keep it from turning into a generic trademark[1], I would guess. Aspirin is the classic case of this that I know of. It's the same reason Coca Cola sends representatives to restaurants and when they ask for a coke they make sure you actually bring a coke, or ask if Pepsi is okay if that's what they have. If Coke becomes generic for Cola, then they can lose their right to enforce their trademark. As an example of this happening, apparently in some areas of the US Coke is generic for soda/pop, not just Cola, and it's not not unheard of for someone to ask for a Coke, and when prompted for what type, respond with Sprite. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark
  - baq 10y ago
    xerox and escalator are good examples, too.
    - TrevorJ 10y ago
      Related to the first, a dramatic (and hilarious) reinactment of actual deposition transcripts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZbqAMEwtOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZbqAMEwtOE
  - rpdillon 10y ago
    Completely agree with your point. One nit: > If Coke becomes generic for Cola, then they can lose their right to enforce their copyright. That should say 'trademark' rather than 'copyright'. Copyright and patents don't become less enforceable if they are selectively enforced. The same is not true for trademarks.
    - kbenson 10y ago
      Corrected, thanks! They occupy a similar place in my mind, and while I purposefully and deliberately made an effort to use the correct one initially, I accidentally regressed later...
  - pault 10y ago
    I grew up in one of those regions and was flabbergasted when, at the age of 8 or so, I moved to Seattle and asked for a coke and they gave me a Coke without asking what kind of coke I wanted (Dr. Pepper of course). I then proceeded to protest to a very confused clerk that I wanted a Dr. Pepper coke, not a Coke coke.
- CM30 10y ago
  Well, I heard part of it is more a company issue with John Carmack (who supported the game's spiritual successor on Twitter) than a business one. After all, the same ZeniMax also supported Brutal Doom (a Doom mod) for the Game Awards and was fine with numerous other Doom fan projects. And this game itself has been going fine for about 10 years. They'll say it's an IP ownership thing, but a lot of people are more convinced it's a personal grudge thing.
  - AJ007 10y ago
    For reference: http://www.pcgamer.com/zenimax-accuses-john-carmack-of-theft-in-amended-oculus-rift-lawsuit-filing/ http://www.pcgamer.com/zenimax-accuses-john-carmack-of-theft...
    - cr0sh 10y ago
      I wasn't sure that this was still going on - sadly I guess it is. I find zenimax's claims that Palmer didn't invent anything to be spurious at best; I was following what Palmer was doing on the MTBS3D forums for a couple of years before the Kickstarter was launched. He's been hacking on this tech for a long time. He was taking old-school HMDs from the 1990s and upgrading them, experimenting with optics and displays - ultimately perfecting them into what would become the prototype of the Rift. I've played around with DIY VR since the early 1990s - and I've collected many of the same HMDs Palmer was experimenting with. I've got a few hacked power gloves (sadly, I don't have a Menelli box - but the parallel port hack works great; there's even a linux driver, now), some old VFX-1 HMDs, a Cybermaxx, etc. I even have a complete set of the PCVR magazine before it folded. I played with REND386 and AVRIL back in the day. I even got some crap working on my Amiga 1200 (using AMOS 3D). In short - I knew when I saw what Palmer was up to, that he was the "real deal", and that of anyone, he had the best chance of bringing VR into a "second revival" - which is why I backed the Kickstarter. I may not agree with what has happened post FB money (I'm really disappointed that official linux driver support has been relegated to the bin of history), but I still believe the company to be legit when it comes to the claim of invention. For zenimax to say that Palmer couldn't have invented this stuff in his "garage" is pure rubbish - many people in the 1990s were hacking VR in their garages, on their kitchen tables, and at the PCs in their bedrooms. You had to, if you wanted inexpensive VR. Furthermore, it doesn't take much to plop a couple of cheap fresnel lenses in front of a couple of old Casio portable pocket TVs to get up-and-running. PCVR and Presence magazine both had articles on how to configure optics and build homebrew HMDs; the tech isn't exactly rocket science. Where Palmer got lucky (no pun intended) was being at the right place, at the right time, and being one of the few people in the world at the time still experimenting around with low-cost homebrew VR (compared to the 1990s, there were only a handful in the world doing it post-2010). The tech finally came around (because of smartphones) for low-cost, high-resolution, small, lightweight LCDs - the kind of display we could only dream about back in the 1990s. He was positioned perfectly to take advantage of this - and he did. The rest is history.
CydeWeys 10y ago
It's a shame that it took a threat of a lawsuit for it to be released as open source. This wasn't a game that was ever charged for, so I see no reason it shouldn't have been released like this 15 years ago. There's actually a weird culture in roguelikes (and similar ASCII games) of not releasing the source, and using opaque, non-open development processes. NetHack was open source but only recently switched to an open development process recently, and may other popular entrants in the genre such as ADOM and Dwarf Fortress are closed source entirely.
- problems 10y ago
  Yeah, I think that might be a matter of wanting to keep things secret from players. Of course, it doesn't keep things secret from players with a copy of IDA and too much time on their hands, but it probably adds to the mystery for some people.
  - clarry 10y ago
    I don't think it's about keeping secrets. Stuff are often covered in great detail in changelogs, development blogs, forums, etc. And players figure stuff out. All the info will be on wikis. It is not effective. If people want to spoil it, they check out the said wikis. If they don't want to spoil it, they don't check the wiki or the source, if it is available.
    - hurbledr 10y ago
      Actually, several developers have stated as much, most notably Thomas Biskup, who develops Ancient Domains of Mystery. That's not to say you're wrong on any of your other points, but I think the reasoning for it isn't so much to prevent players from figuring stuff out and publishing guides, but more to encourage players to experiment and figure stuff out for themselves rather than relying on a guide to tell them the 'right' way to do things.
    - Cursuviam 10y ago
      In Dwarf Fortress's case, the closed sourcedness is because the creator wants to be the sole driver of the project until it's "done."
JoshTriplett 10y ago
In all fairness, it doesn't look like they're complaining about how the game follows the plot of Doom, or uses the setting, locations, creatures, and weaponry from Doom. They're complaining that it uses the trademarked name Doom. That doesn't seem like a completely unreasonable complaint here. Also glad to see the source for DoomRL released, despite the reason.
- wsc981 10y ago
  You might be correct they don't care too much that monsters look alike. Many, many years ago on the Mac we had this Bomberman clone called BOOM and it was a mix of Bomberman gameplay with graphics that mimic some Doom monsters [0]. --- [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOmkLGTX7Xk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOmkLGTX7Xk
- fapjacks 10y ago
  The thing loads of people forget is that if you don't try to protect your trademark, you lose it. One of my previous employers went through exactly this scenario, where AT&T tried to argue that they hadn't tried to protect the use of this company's trademark, and therefore had lost it. It was certainly eye-opening to hear that story. Anyway, it may be that they even like what the DoomRL dev is doing... But if they don't send a C&D letter, they risk losing their trademark on the name "Doom".
  - AnOscelot 10y ago
    Can Bethesda issue a revocable license to DoomRL for the use of "Doom" and still have their trademark protected? Since it doesn't seem like Bethesda cares whether or not DoomRL exists, and since it would provide good will and good PR towards Doom, this seems like a better move than sending a C&D, which just causes hostility.
    - kbenson 10y ago
      Sure, but then you're on the hook for what they officially do with the name, since you've sanctioned them. Then you come to the cost of doing this while protecting yourself. Getting lawyers to draft up something appropriately restrictive is probably expensive, and still unlikely to cover all the problems you might run into, and getting the project to sign it might be hard since it's in their best interest to have a lawyer review it to make sure it doesn't give away IP, and that costs money...

by Nr7 10y ago

Some backstory: http://www.pcgamer.com/fan-made-doom-spin-off-from-2002-challenged-by-zenimax-legal-team/ http://www.pcgamer.com/fan-made-doom-spin-off-from-2002-chal...

discordianfish 10y ago

Can someone explain why companies would do that? Is there really some good reason, if only from a business perspective, to do this?

Arcsech 10y ago
If you don't enforce your copyright or trademark, you lose it. That's likely what this is: Some lawyer saw that DoomRL was using Zenimax property and got all excited about it.
- CM30 10y ago
  Only trademark. Copyrights aren't lost by not defending them (this is a very common misconception for some reason).
  - Hemospectrum 10y ago
    > this is a very common misconception for some reason The use of the umbrella term "intellectual property" is a deliberate tactic to seed that type of misinformation in public discourse, so that people will assume these different concepts are equivalent and that protections applying to one of them apply to all of them. You're seeing cases where this tactic has succeeded.
    - rpdillon 10y ago
      Richard Stallman rejects the term 'intellectual property' for exactly this reason. It's another case where Stallman can seem extreme, but is actually quite insightful. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
kbenson 10y ago
To keep it from turning into a generic trademark[1], I would guess. Aspirin is the classic case of this that I know of. It's the same reason Coca Cola sends representatives to restaurants and when they ask for a coke they make sure you actually bring a coke, or ask if Pepsi is okay if that's what they have. If Coke becomes generic for Cola, then they can lose their right to enforce their trademark. As an example of this happening, apparently in some areas of the US Coke is generic for soda/pop, not just Cola, and it's not not unheard of for someone to ask for a Coke, and when prompted for what type, respond with Sprite. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_trademark
- baq 10y ago
  xerox and escalator are good examples, too.
  - TrevorJ 10y ago
    Related to the first, a dramatic (and hilarious) reinactment of actual deposition transcripts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZbqAMEwtOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZbqAMEwtOE
- rpdillon 10y ago
  Completely agree with your point. One nit: > If Coke becomes generic for Cola, then they can lose their right to enforce their copyright. That should say 'trademark' rather than 'copyright'. Copyright and patents don't become less enforceable if they are selectively enforced. The same is not true for trademarks.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    Corrected, thanks! They occupy a similar place in my mind, and while I purposefully and deliberately made an effort to use the correct one initially, I accidentally regressed later...
- pault 10y ago
  I grew up in one of those regions and was flabbergasted when, at the age of 8 or so, I moved to Seattle and asked for a coke and they gave me a Coke without asking what kind of coke I wanted (Dr. Pepper of course). I then proceeded to protest to a very confused clerk that I wanted a Dr. Pepper coke, not a Coke coke.
CM30 10y ago
Well, I heard part of it is more a company issue with John Carmack (who supported the game's spiritual successor on Twitter) than a business one. After all, the same ZeniMax also supported Brutal Doom (a Doom mod) for the Game Awards and was fine with numerous other Doom fan projects. And this game itself has been going fine for about 10 years. They'll say it's an IP ownership thing, but a lot of people are more convinced it's a personal grudge thing.
- AJ007 10y ago
  For reference: http://www.pcgamer.com/zenimax-accuses-john-carmack-of-theft-in-amended-oculus-rift-lawsuit-filing/ http://www.pcgamer.com/zenimax-accuses-john-carmack-of-theft...
  - cr0sh 10y ago
    I wasn't sure that this was still going on - sadly I guess it is. I find zenimax's claims that Palmer didn't invent anything to be spurious at best; I was following what Palmer was doing on the MTBS3D forums for a couple of years before the Kickstarter was launched. He's been hacking on this tech for a long time. He was taking old-school HMDs from the 1990s and upgrading them, experimenting with optics and displays - ultimately perfecting them into what would become the prototype of the Rift. I've played around with DIY VR since the early 1990s - and I've collected many of the same HMDs Palmer was experimenting with. I've got a few hacked power gloves (sadly, I don't have a Menelli box - but the parallel port hack works great; there's even a linux driver, now), some old VFX-1 HMDs, a Cybermaxx, etc. I even have a complete set of the PCVR magazine before it folded. I played with REND386 and AVRIL back in the day. I even got some crap working on my Amiga 1200 (using AMOS 3D). In short - I knew when I saw what Palmer was up to, that he was the "real deal", and that of anyone, he had the best chance of bringing VR into a "second revival" - which is why I backed the Kickstarter. I may not agree with what has happened post FB money (I'm really disappointed that official linux driver support has been relegated to the bin of history), but I still believe the company to be legit when it comes to the claim of invention. For zenimax to say that Palmer couldn't have invented this stuff in his "garage" is pure rubbish - many people in the 1990s were hacking VR in their garages, on their kitchen tables, and at the PCs in their bedrooms. You had to, if you wanted inexpensive VR. Furthermore, it doesn't take much to plop a couple of cheap fresnel lenses in front of a couple of old Casio portable pocket TVs to get up-and-running. PCVR and Presence magazine both had articles on how to configure optics and build homebrew HMDs; the tech isn't exactly rocket science. Where Palmer got lucky (no pun intended) was being at the right place, at the right time, and being one of the few people in the world at the time still experimenting around with low-cost homebrew VR (compared to the 1990s, there were only a handful in the world doing it post-2010). The tech finally came around (because of smartphones) for low-cost, high-resolution, small, lightweight LCDs - the kind of display we could only dream about back in the 1990s. He was positioned perfectly to take advantage of this - and he did. The rest is history.

CydeWeys 10y ago

It's a shame that it took a threat of a lawsuit for it to be released as open source. This wasn't a game that was ever charged for, so I see no reason it shouldn't have been released like this 15 years ago. There's actually a weird culture in roguelikes (and similar ASCII games) of not releasing the source, and using opaque, non-open development processes. NetHack was open source but only recently switched to an open development process recently, and may other popular entrants in the genre such as ADOM and Dwarf Fortress are closed source entirely.

problems 10y ago
Yeah, I think that might be a matter of wanting to keep things secret from players. Of course, it doesn't keep things secret from players with a copy of IDA and too much time on their hands, but it probably adds to the mystery for some people.
- clarry 10y ago
  I don't think it's about keeping secrets. Stuff are often covered in great detail in changelogs, development blogs, forums, etc. And players figure stuff out. All the info will be on wikis. It is not effective. If people want to spoil it, they check out the said wikis. If they don't want to spoil it, they don't check the wiki or the source, if it is available.
  - hurbledr 10y ago
    Actually, several developers have stated as much, most notably Thomas Biskup, who develops Ancient Domains of Mystery. That's not to say you're wrong on any of your other points, but I think the reasoning for it isn't so much to prevent players from figuring stuff out and publishing guides, but more to encourage players to experiment and figure stuff out for themselves rather than relying on a guide to tell them the 'right' way to do things.
  - Cursuviam 10y ago
    In Dwarf Fortress's case, the closed sourcedness is because the creator wants to be the sole driver of the project until it's "done."

JoshTriplett 10y ago

In all fairness, it doesn't look like they're complaining about how the game follows the plot of Doom, or uses the setting, locations, creatures, and weaponry from Doom. They're complaining that it uses the trademarked name Doom. That doesn't seem like a completely unreasonable complaint here. Also glad to see the source for DoomRL released, despite the reason.

wsc981 10y ago
You might be correct they don't care too much that monsters look alike. Many, many years ago on the Mac we had this Bomberman clone called BOOM and it was a mix of Bomberman gameplay with graphics that mimic some Doom monsters [0]. --- [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOmkLGTX7Xk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOmkLGTX7Xk
fapjacks 10y ago
The thing loads of people forget is that if you don't try to protect your trademark, you lose it. One of my previous employers went through exactly this scenario, where AT&T tried to argue that they hadn't tried to protect the use of this company's trademark, and therefore had lost it. It was certainly eye-opening to hear that story. Anyway, it may be that they even like what the DoomRL dev is doing... But if they don't send a C&D letter, they risk losing their trademark on the name "Doom".
- AnOscelot 10y ago
  Can Bethesda issue a revocable license to DoomRL for the use of "Doom" and still have their trademark protected? Since it doesn't seem like Bethesda cares whether or not DoomRL exists, and since it would provide good will and good PR towards Doom, this seems like a better move than sending a C&D, which just causes hostility.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    Sure, but then you're on the hook for what they officially do with the name, since you've sanctioned them. Then you come to the cost of doing this while protecting yourself. Getting lawyers to draft up something appropriately restrictive is probably expensive, and still unlikely to cover all the problems you might run into, and getting the project to sign it might be hard since it's in their best interest to have a lawyer review it to make sure it doesn't give away IP, and that costs money...