FantasyGrounds Takes Legal Action Against WotC

[tomBitonti]

But ... one of the displays could have been arranged to show the similarities. We don't know how either display was selected.

 

[Stoat]

So are they suing or not? Cause if they are, this is sensational. If they aren't, then it's not so sensational.
/M

I don't know nothing about Finnish law, but in the U.S. a Cease & Desist letter is not a lawsuit. It's a threat of a lawsuit. Given that WotC took down the offending content more or less immediately, I doubt that Smiteworks will sue them.

 

[redcard]

I don't know nothing about Finnish law, but in the U.S. a Cease & Desist letter is not a lawsuit. It's a threat of a lawsuit. Given that WotC took down the offending content more or less immediately, I doubt that Smiteworks will sue them.

In fact, given that it looks like it was a mistake and can be shown to be so in court.. and that it was taken down in hours upon notification.. it's likely that if Smiteworks DID sue them, then it would likely be dismissed in contempt for bad faith.

 

[rvalle]

But ... one of the displays could have been arranged to show the similarities. We don't know how either display was selected.

There was no arranging. WoTC took an image that was on the FG website and used it as their own.

So, FG had a picture of their desktop with dice on them and said "Look how cool our VT desktop is! You get dice!"

WoTC took that image, cut out the picture of the dice and used it as their image of how THEIR dice will look.

Someone at WoTC had the job of showing dice on a VT and instead of creating their own went out and copied someone else's.

rv

 

[Mort_Q]

Sounds to me like someone was using placeholder art during early designs and forgot to replace it with unique art. Stupid error, but easily fixed.

 

[LeaderDesslok]

So are they suing or not? Cause if they are, this is sensational. If they aren't, then it's not so sensational.

/M

It's not so sensational. WotC took the image down the same day, as posted earlier. There is no longer any issue to deal with, just an interesting point and a cautionary tale to marketing staff: ask before taking from development!

 

[Darrin Drader]

In light of the confusion between C&D letter and lawsuit, I changed the thread title for the sake of accuracy.

 

[jgerman]

Defend it, or lose it.

That's for trademarks, not copyrights.

 

[Orcus]

Yeah it will be changed and then both companies will move on.
However what this does do is show what wotc does and if i was a 3rd party publisher about to agree to a license that gave wotc permission to take my work and make it their own i would be rethinking my products.

Which license are you talking about? The OGL?

Because the GSL doesnt "gave wotc permission to take my work and make it their own" but the OGL does. In fact, that was a big objection that many of us had to the OGL at first. So are you objecting to the OGL? Are you cautioning new publishers against using the OGL?

I'm not understanding. Or (more likely) you are not understanding the licenses.

Come on people...

Clark

 

[erisred]

For next to no cost at all, Smiteworks has gotten a raft of publicity, within their target market, for Fantasy Grounds. Good job for them!

Fantasy Grounds, Battlegrounds, Kloogewerks, Maptool and others are VTT's available right now. Now, it's true that none of them have all the projected features of DDI, but WoTC's VTT is currently vaporware and is certainly weeks, and likely months, away from release. Given that 1.0's are almost always neither stable or feature complete, there's no telling how much longer after that it will be before it becomes better than competing VTT's.