7 ms·
Hey, Bethesda Let’s settle this
- tjogin 15y agoDoes that count as legally defending your trademark on Bethesda's part? And if Bethesda is right in that "Scrolls" is too similar to "The Elder Scrolls", as to cause confusion in the market place, how would a game of Quake rectify that?
- esrauch 15y agoThey can specifically give him a license to use the name "Scrolls" under certain conditions (a disclaimer that this game is unrelated). Then there is no issue of failing to protect their trademark.
- Shenglong 15y agoIn ancient Mesopotamia (according to my grade 10 ancient history class a long time ago), when one man accused another of a crime, the accused would be thrown into the Euphrates river. If the man died, then the gods decided he was guilty. If the man survived, then he was falsely accused, and the accused gained possession of the accuser's wife. I believe the point of a duel in this context, though, is simply to avoid an elongated legal process, arguing something so ridiculous and trivial. Notch just wants to keep developing.
- corin_ 15y agoNot exactly; I mean, sure, he clearly doesn't care a massive amount, but if his only aim was to keep developing then he could always just give in and change the name without trying to get this PR out of it.
- koenigdavidmj 15y agoFunnily enough, this got reversed by the time of the witch hunts.
- tylerneylon 15y agoThis is a great solution because it can settle things quickly with less stress and let everyone get back to work. Gamers are _not_ going to confuse Notch's and Bethesda's use of the word "scrolls," so I don't see why either company should take this too seriously. (Re-naming a game is less work than a drawn-out lawsuit.)
- runjake 15y agoI have no clue who Bethesda is, but if they took him up on the offer it would be great PR in the eyes of gaming(?) consumers. It would show they're cool and don't take themselves too seriously. They'd certainly win cool points from me. Do it, Bethesda.
- knowtheory 15y agoBethesda being the company responsible for the Elder Scrolls (Morrowind, Oblivion and now Skyrim, amongst others), and for Fallout3 and Fallout: New Vegas.
- ConstantineXVI 15y agoAnd oddly enough, by way of their recent purchase of id, Quake 3.
- shasta 15y agoThey publish fallout, but develop the elderscrolls games themselves.
- tjogin 15y agoRight. But, Bethesda already have a stellar reputation in the gaming community, their "The Elder Scrolls" series is many many orders of magnitude more well known than Mojang's upcoming game "Scrolls". The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the most anticipated games this year. Mojang and Notch have far far more to gain from this than Bethesda do.
- runjake 15y agoThanks for this explanation. I've vaguely heard of Bethesda, but for some reason, it was attached to the old GEOS GUI for DOS, in my head. I hadn't head of Elder Scrolls before. I'm a GTA/Battlefield/Minecraft junky, but thats about it for games.
- LXicon 15y agoit goes without saying that a 17 year old series is more well known than a new game. on the other hand, i have never referred to "The Elder Scrolls" as just "Scrolls". i've called it "Morrowind" or "Oblivion" and i'll probably refer to the new game as just "Skyrim". if i saw a game that was just called "Scrolls" i would not confuse it with Bethesda's games.
- saddino 15y agoThe fact that Bethesda has engaged counsel means they've already invested in defending their trademark rights. Agreeing to any "contest" in which they'd abandon their mark would serve as record (to other competitors) that their mark is diluted. No chance of that happening. Unfortunately this is a legal issue now, not a game.
- orillian 15y agoThere is no abandoning or diluting going on. The trademark is still intact, and they take the word "Scrolls" off the table as an issue. Now if you decided to create a game called "The Younger Scrolls" they could still go after you! The fact that "Scrolls" as a singular word is no longer contestable would hold no baring on the legal action taken against you. O.
- revorad 15y agoNow I want to see Larry and Steve battle it out over Angry Birds.
- cavilling_elite 15y agoawesome way to settle frivolous lawsuits
- famousactress 15y agoI think they should actually make their lawyers play the Quake 3 match.
- coderdude 15y agoI don't know anyone who plays The Elder Scrolls but I could see their fanbase calling it "Scrolls" for short. If not for trademark, they could just be trying to protect SERPs: http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=scrolls&tbs=qdr:m http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=scrolls&tbs=... (query: scrolls) http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=scrolls+game&tbs=qdr:m http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=scrolls+game&... (query: scrolls game) You can clearly see that "scrolls" pulls up mostly pages about The Elder Scrolls. (You have to ignore the pages about the lawsuit.) Then again, Notch called his previous game Minecraft, which certainly makes you think of Warcraft and Starcraft. Sounds like this is just his shtick.
- jholman 15y agoNo one in TES's fanbase calls it "scrolls", we call it TES ("The Elder Scrolls"), because that's what Bethesda calls it, over and over and over again. Or we mention the particular games by name and leave out the series title: Daggerfall, Arena, Skyrim, etc.
- Natsu 15y agoThat is my experience as well. I've never heard anyone refer to it as just "scrolls." I have heard all of the things you mention, though (TES, The Elder Scrolls, Daggerfall, etc.), but never ONCE have I heard it called just "scrolls." Ever.
- crag 15y agoI played every version of The Elder Scrolls. And I never called it "Scrolls". And never saw anyone in the forums use that term to describe any of the games.
- joshaidan 15y agoCan this method be adopted to solve software patent disputes?
- troymc 15y agoI thought Bethesda was a city in Maryland. Talk about name confusion!
- michaeldhopkins 15y agoBethesda's parent company owns Quake 3, so it's an away game for Notch.
- lmkg 15y agoThis is not without precedent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_airlines#.22Just_Plane_Smart.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_airlines#.22Just_Plan... Southwest Airlines was sued by Stevens Aviation over their use of the phrase "Just Plane Smart" in their advertisements. Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwest, offered to settle the dispute by arm-wrestling the CEO of Stevens. He lost the match, but got rights to the phrase anyways, and both companies got a lot of good publicity out of the match.
- jeremyarussell 15y agoYou get a plus for that one. I always like when people provide evidence to back stuff up. To me though, how can someone trademark or copyright a single established word in any language, it just seems ridiculous really. PS: I hope Bethesda takes him up on the offer.
- mccutchen 15y agoI think Microsoft owns the trademark for the word "Windows". http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/IntellectualProperty/Trademarks/Usage/Windows.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/en/us/IntellectualPrope...
- teamonkey 15y agoFor a long time they didn't own the trademark for Excel, having to call it "Microsoft Excel" in all official communication. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Excel#Excel_2.0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Excel#Excel_2.0
- IgorPartola 15y agoHeh, trademarking a single established word is not even where it stops. T-Mobile owns the color magenta! [1]. So don't just stop at words. Let's do letters, colors, etc. And of course as soon as you trademark a color, it implies that you've trademarked all the individual colors that make it up. Thus a trademark on the color white (#FFFFFF (c) (tm) Igor Partola, all rights reserved) would give you all other colors. [1] http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/color-the-next-limited-resource/ http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/color-the-next-limited-re... EDIT: Fixed silly color theory mistake. EDIT2: s/copyright/trademark/g
- fragsworth 15y agoSeems like a brilliant move on Notch's part.
- patio11 15y agoThere were a few precedents from the 1980s and 1990s where Japanese firms in a few industries settled commercial disputes in the $ZOMG region via rock-paper-scissors. This nearly caused an aneurysm or three in my Japanese economy class, but the prof explained "It's fair, cheap compared to litigation, and even if you lose your CEO is not going to want to stab an icepick into the eye of someone who he is almost certainly going to have to do business again with." I'm mostly telling this for the "funny anecdote" angle, since without a social connection (either direct person-to-person or inferred by being a member of the same fraternity of elite megacorps), the likelihood of a Japanese firm agreeing to this method of dispute resolution with a firm of Notchs' size is zero.
- GeneTraylor 15y agoThis is tangential, but if you overlook the issue, then you'll find that this is how you do PR. Gaming even the serious things out is the perfect stage for myth making. Asking a giant to battle you in a game over a trademark is the stuff of legends.
- knowtheory 15y agoI love this idea, and in a society that prided itself on honor, Bethesda would take him up on it. Unfortunately the law does not promote honorable behavior.
- eggbrain 15y agoRemember, in Game of Thrones, that Bronn only became Tyrion's champion for the money, not any sense of honor. What if Bethesda finds it easier to hire 3 top Quake 3 players for 1k each to fight Notch and friends? They might find it easier than going through the lawsuit.
- Shenglong 15y agoWhat a wonderful precedent. The future of law: gamers
- NickPollard 15y agoThere's a science fiction book in this. Get writing!
- knowtheory 15y agoWell, okay, that's true (but not my primary point, since i've not read/seen Game of Thrones). My point was that Bethesda is under no obligation to do this, and it's not clear to me that this would have legal binding. So in that sense they'd be accepting based on Notch's intentions (honorable or not), and I presume that Mojang would only agree based on their honorable intentions. There are of course many ways to weasel out of straightforward agreements. That's why presidential debates are always so terrible.
- strmpnk 15y agoIf only all legal battles could be solved with an old-fashion duel. Even better, lets make the lawyers fight to the death. Solves both the legal side and serves as a nice control of the lawyer population... More seriously, I really hope that the legal system can start setting a practical standard for intelectual property debates. From patents to trademarks or even how we handle trade secrets, it's like the information age has created a new cold-war era in business mentality and it serves no purpose other than to abuse power.
- Splines 15y agoAfter listening to TAL's "When Patents Attack" episode in the car this morning, I'm inclined to agree with your proposal.
- gwern 15y ago> If only all legal battles could be solved with an old-fashion duel. Even better, lets make the lawyers fight to the death. Solves both the legal side and serves as a nice control of the lawyer population... Ironically, the elimination of trial by combat was seen as a great advance, casting away a practice that was "superstitious and barbarous to the last degree". And so the circle is closed.
- mentat 15y agoCheck out The Dosadi Experiment by Frank Herbert.
- benbeltran 15y agoCome on Bethesda. Take the bait. It's great PR. (I'm sure valve would do it)
- dgritsko 15y agoExcept it's highly doubtful Valve would've sent the C & D in the first place.
- A-K 15y agoConsidering that they're the guys making "Dota 2", I'm inclined to agree.
- corin_ 15y agoWell they did hire the creator of Dota to work on it for them, not like they've stolen the name from him..
- huckfinnaafb 15y agoIceFrog isn't strictly the author of DotA. DotA is, if memory serves, based on an even older mod called Aeon of Strife. And DotA's development history is riddled with support from the WC3 mapping community so it's really unfair to name any one individual as a sole creator or rights holder. There really is no rights holder to the game and there have been at least 3 major releases by distinct developing groups: Demigod (GPG), LoL and HoN.
- palish 15y agoHe's not the author, but he's "the face of Dota" at this point. (Well, he's "the person of Dota", at least. Mr. Ismail is far too reclusive to ever show his face.) Unfortunately, it pains me to say this, but this is the truth: If you tried to commercially release your own DOTA, and if you'd copied skills/heroes/items from the original game, Valve, or rather Ismail, would sic lawyers on you immediately. I know this because they tried to do it to S2, the creators of HoN (a very similar game). So it's unfortunately not true "There really is no rights holder to the game". Valve/Icefrog hold all the cards at this point.
- angrycoder 15y agoIt would seem Bethesda fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go against a Swede when trademark is on the line"!
- DNeb 15y agoLove the Princess Bride reference! I even read this in that character's voice (what was his name?)
- aserra69 15y agoVizzini (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/) - played by Wallace Shawn (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001728/ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001728/)
- rycs 15y agoI like notch, even before this, but now I feel morally obligated to buy Minecraft even if won't ever play it, and Scrolls too :).
- jjm 15y agoTonight on xplay Todd from Bethblog will be on. Rewteet? https://twitter.com/#!/jasongiedymin/status/103860430157524993 https://twitter.com/#!/jasongiedymin/status/1038604301575249... https://twitter.com/#!/JasonGiedymin/status/103861372705701891 https://twitter.com/#!/JasonGiedymin/status/1038613727057018...
- mrcharles 15y agoI wonder if Notch thought this through... Bethesda can draw on id employees to play for them.
- alfredp 15y agoThis reminds me of a certain high stakes rock-paper-scissors match... For future reference, use scissors against normal people: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/29/arts/design/29scis.html http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/29/arts/design/29scis.html
- dkersten 15y agoAccording to Fez from That '70s Show, rock always wins!
- xom 15y agoThe economic factors are totally different here, but still it reminded me of: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2690799 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2690799 quote: "See the following paper for an economic analysis of trial by battle: http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/LEO.Leeson.Trial_by_Battle.pdf http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/LEO.... I particularly liked this quote: "[I]t's reasonable to expect to find a large number of retained legal representatives under a legal system in which people feel that their property rights are constantly threatened by rent-seeking litigiousness or in which rampant rent-seeking opportunity gives them an incentive to behave litigiously themselves. The rarity of retained champions in medieval England therefore suggests that rent seeking under trial by battle wasn't rampant.'"