Surely BOLS must rake in a fair bit using adsense with the amount of advertising festooning their site?

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

I too would like to see someone push back on GW a bit for their IP practices.  I have been working on my own set of 6mm rules for some time now, and keep bumping up what I have read about Future War Commander and the decision not to mention GW AT ALL in their rulebook.

I think this is overly cautious, and unecessary. As I get closer to publishing my rules (rather than tinkering with them), I may well engage GW on this point, as I see no legal reason why I couldn't explain clearly that my rules are "For use with Games Workshop ™ brand / Citadel ™ miniatures" among many other brands, and further urge players to buy the things from GW (and Forge World ™).

GW jealously guard their IP primarily because they are the only ones who could likely afford the fight.  However, they very much cannot afford a bad decision.

I am not a millionaire, but I am an attorney with some IP litigation experience.  If it were just me on the line, it might be fun to go to court on it, though I'm sure my wife would think otherwise.

I'm sure talkbloodbowl and sites like our fair TacComm could resolve such a problem with GW out of court, though I agree with the comments above that the issue is in using the trademarked name Blood Bowl as a way draw traffic and obtain donations from the site. Probably not a good plan.

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Designer of Polyversal, currently in development with Collins Epic Wargames.
Twitter: @Weeklywargamer

Pete did approach GW when he was producing FWC and they declined to give permission to use their names in the book. That's how we end up with Eldritch Caste etc.

But good luck with contacting the all powerful giant.

Maybe Michael Moore would help...
;-)

It is funny, because most of the folks 'warned off' by the missives from GW legal really don't have much of a dog in the fight -- why support a fan-site for a company that doesn't want fan sites?

Of course the fact most of these ventures frgure 'why bother' does build a bit of an aura around GW Legal, which can report that it successfully settled XXX number of IP infringement cases, and that GW is duly diligent in protecting its intellectual property.  

The result of this Kabuki play is not real profitability, but the ability to cook their corporate bottom line by adding their zealously guarded IP as a paper asset.

And we wonder why they make questionable business decisions....

That said, if they were actually a profitable enterprise, they'd have been bought by Hasbro by now.

As someone who is a collector of Hasbro products, I can say with pretty much certainty that if Hasbro were to ever buy out GW, we would all be worse off and lamenting the 'good old days' when GW were not owned by them!  

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https://www.cybershadow.ninja - A brief look into my twisted world, including wargames and beyond.
https://www.net-armageddon.org - The official NetEA (Epic Armageddon) site and resource.

Seems to me that it is simply the inappropriate URL that is the real problem for GW. They don't want it to look like an official GW site when it comes up in search results, links, etc. I think the donate button just gave them legal justification to take action.

For sites like ours, the website is the brand and 'talkBloodBowl' is just too similar to 'Blood Bowl' itself. Fortunately, 'Tactical Command' is its own brand :-)

Edit: doh!

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Uti possidetis, ita possideatis.
May your beer be laid under an enchantment of surpassing excellence for seven years!
An online epic force creator: Armyforge

Most interesting thread. Thanks for the info on trademark Neal.

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http://diceatdawn.blogspot.se

Can't argue with that. Look what happened when Hasbro bought Avalon Hill.

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

Are you in the US or UK?

If you're in the UK, I have some technical legal questions for you.

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Neal

Seems like GW took a really random potshot.  If all they need is a site making revenue and sporting a GW IP in the URL, they could go after a multitude of sites, including ones associated with online gaming.

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WAAARGH!!
The Lost & the Dipped

I really don't think we have to worry ... We talk about G/W Stuff ... But we also talk about GZG, FOW, E/W, DRM, etc., etc. ...        

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

NB, there are a number of separate threads on this same issue on this board.

There's a lesson about internet marketing here.

Neal: I am in the USA.

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Designer of Polyversal, currently in development with Collins Epic Wargames.
Twitter: @Weeklywargamer

OK

Here is the latest from GW where the Bloodbowl community has provided the latest rules to GW (V6.0), and GW have turned around with this caveat:



So I repeat the concern at this time, is this site next (in the future)?  Are we making the rules better for GW to turn around and hold the community at ransom for models that are needed to play certain forces, yet have a snowflakes chance in hell of ever being made by GW?

My recommendation: buy up big from backyard operations now, before they are stopped.

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Frogbear is responsible for...
Previous World Eaters
Previous Emperor's Children
Previous Death Guard
Previous Imperial Fists
Previous Chaos Squats

So GW are a bit concerned with some competition. There are at least 2 other 'fantasy' football style games out in the market so how they can complain when other companies are making figures is a bit beyond me.

Now if those companies are trying to sell them as 'a perfect proxy for X star player' on their website then I could see GW's point, but I don't think they are.