Lone Wolf sends Cease & Desist letters to anyone using the term 'Army Builder'

[unan oranis]

uh oh, the nerds are restless tonight!

If a few more gaming companies pull boners like this, does that mean wotc's "blunders" in grognard-relations be forgotten or even forgiven?

 

[jdrakeh]

It looks like a fairly obvious threat of legal action to me. I am curious, though, what Lone Wolf's response would be if Privateer Press had issued a similar statement towards Lone Wolf in regards to their linking downloadable extentions of Warmachine to be used with Lone Wolf products.

I think the relevant portion of the Privateer Press legal policy regarding software is "We do not allow our materials to be used in any for-profit projects, of course." Army Builder is, last I checked, a for-profit project.

Since the likelihood is that those modules in question are made without the express consent of Privateer Press and Lone Wolf knows this, if I were a betting man, I'd wager their response would be something along the lines of "Up yours."

Likely with the defense of "We don't host the files, so we aren't responsible!" (As I pointed out earlier, though, this defense didn't work out too well for The Pirate Bay).

 

[pawsplay]

If you want to sleep well at night, give away any IP you don't need. I don't think people who love games really went into the gaming business to become plaintiffs. If that is what your business becomes, you really have to ask yourself if it's worth it.

It would have been a helluva lot easier, cheaper, and more popular to simply rename Army Builder to something less generic.

 

[billd91]

uh oh, the nerds are restless tonight!

If a few more gaming companies pull boners like this, does that mean wotc's "blunders" in grognard-relations be forgotten or even forgiven?

Do asylums let our their old lunatics simply because new lunatics appear? I think not.

 

[Stormonu]

Interesting example. Coke tried to stop people from using Cola in the names of their drinks and was shot down.

I feel I should point out that down here in the south "coke" is a generic term for any fizzy soft drink.

 

[jaerdaph]

uh oh, the nerds are restless tonight!

LOL! Your Favorite Game™ iz teh sux0r! NO FANTASY BORED GAME FOR TEH OLD SKOOLZ EVAR!

 

[Dragonhelm]

On the flipside...

Two really good things have happened because of this.

First, I am now a fan of Privateer Press on Facebook.

Second, I have discovered that Privateer Press is offering a Voltron miniatures game. Now, I'm not a huge miniatures game fan, but this is Voltron! I know where my discretionary dollars are headed.

<Tina Fey>
And for everybody playing the drinking game at home...Army Builder.

</Tina Fey>

 

[Holy Bovine]

There was no direct legal threat in the message. The next step was that we'd have to get the attorneys involved. That's standard and I'm sure Privateer is quite familiar with the process. Apparently, many in the user community don't understand this and have lept to an interpretation that is pretty extreme.

Had we wanted there to be a legal threat, we would have had the attorneys draft a formal C&D letter. We didn't want to do that with Privateer. However, we did do it with a couple of sites that were using our trademark within the names of their tools (e.g. "Jim's Army Builder")

Dude, you're screwed. Just admit you horribly messed up, issue a profound and sincere apology and hope and pray the community forgives you. More than likely they will but not without some really heartfelt grovelling on your part.

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[Glade Riven]

I think the relevant portion of the Privateer Press legal policy regarding software is "We do not allow our materials to be used in any for-profit projects, of course." Army Builder is, last I checked, a for-profit project.

Since the likelihood is that those modules in question are made without the express consent of Privateer Press and Lone Wolf knows this, if I were a betting man, I'd wager their response would be something along the lines of "Up yours."

Likely with the defense of "We don't host the files, so we aren't responsible!" (As I pointed out earlier, though, this defense didn't work out too well for The Pirate Bay).

Considering that their download page has no legal disclaimer, nor are they linking an actual website (just a secondary download server), Privateer Press could easily kick their butt in a lawsuit. Forcing action to be taken attracts attention (aka poking the bear), in which case this whole "unofficial cease & desist" could backfire further. This plan has a bit of a gnomish flare:

1. Send "Unofficial" threat of lawsuit to get our way
2. Uh...
3. PROFIT!

Now, the damage control looks to be:

1. Attempt to spin an obviously threatening letter to a way that appears less threatening by assuming role-players are (stereotypically) overeducated critical thinkers (I fit this stereotype, so I am self referancing)
2. Uh...
3. PROFIT!

Perhaps my perception is technically incorrect, but the first rule of PR is Perception = Reality (The second rule is that One does not talk about Fight Club).