TSR The Full & Glorious History of NuTSR

Sacrosanct · Sep 20, 2022

Also, I'll add that you don't have to keep refining or putting out new content to protect IP. So what if the same material from 30 years ago is still being sold. It's the "still being sold" part that matters. If I write a book, I don't suddenly lose my ownership of the rights to it after a couple years if I don't re-write it. Especially if I'm still selling it. That would be silly.

Umbran · Sep 20, 2022

WarDriveWorley said:
Soooo.. they're not sure they're going to take any action, BUT will block/ban? That sounds suspiciously like action.

The wording isn't great, but, I think it means that they aren't going to block/ban folks who have done things in the past, in other venues, or for reasons of association. But, if you publicly support it in that space from this time on, you're toast.

By that, Ernie is okay, so long as he keeps his mouth shut going forward.

the Jester · Sep 20, 2022

BoxCrayonTales said:
Racism and deceptive marketing aside, NuTSR is well within their rights to snatch up trademarks that WotC let lapse.

Yeah, but they didn't let them lapse.

BoxCrayonTales said:
The Star Frontiers and TSR trademarks have long since expired because WotC let them languish. WotC doesn't have any right to claim them now, and putting up low quality scans on Drivethrurpg after telling the fansite to take down their remastered PDFs is a jerk move that shouldn't count toward maintaining the trademark anyway.

As I understand it, the fan site had a deal with WotC.

BoxCrayonTales said:
Hosting PDFs shouldn't count toward maintaining a trademark, otherwise you could maintain a trademark forever simply because an ebook you released two hundred years ago is still being sold even though you did nothing with the IP since.

They do count, though, and trademarks don't expire. It doesn't matter whether you like how a law works; that's how it works. I dislike plenty of laws. The thing to do is try to get them changed, not pretend that it works differently.

BoxCrayonTales said:
It's a really frustrating situation because both sides are in the wrong here.

They really aren't. One side is full of bigots who are trying to claim a bunch of IP that isn't theirs. The other side is saying, "Hey, that's not yours, and in fact it's ours, and in fact, you are making us look like a bunch of asshats by using our material to push bigoted material out. Knock that off."

BoxCrayonTales said:
WotC doesn't have any right to the trademark anymore and shouldn't be allowed to try re-registering until NuTSR's claim lapses, because they clearly didn't care about the IP before and still don't unless they get bad publicity over it.

Your opinion doesn't carry any legal weight here. Whether you like it or not, WotC has continually sold Star Frontiers and a bunch of other stuff bearing the marks in question on DriveThruRPG for, well, basically forever.

BoxCrayonTales said:
One of the most telling acts here is that Sasquatch LLC already snatched the Alternity trademark and published their own retroclone a few years ago (it got cancelled and Sasquatch is now MIA, but whatever). This angered many Alternity fans who thought the IP was coming back only to learn it wasn't. What did WotC do then? Absolutely nothing. They still haven't restored the Alternity PDFs they removed back in 2008 during their infamous hissy fit over piracy.

So what? That has nothing to do with this case. Perhaps Sasquatch didn't rise to the level where WotC noticed them. Perhaps they didn't care enough as long as Sasquatch wasn't making them look like a bunch of bigots. Perhaps Sasquatch went away because WotC sent them a C&D. I don't know, and it's not relevant to the case at hand.

BoxCrayonTales said:
Also, copyright law should be reformed. There are so many orphaned works being lost to posterity because it is illegal for anyone but the copyright owner to maintain them. This fate has befallen many of my favorite obscure RPG supplements like Grim Tales/Slavelords of Cydonia, Alternity, the paperback Hogshead edition of Puppetland, Aether & Flux, Starship Troopers RPG, and many more. If corpos don't care to preserve nor profit off their IPs, then they shouldn't be allowed to prevent others from doing so. That's a grotesque miscarriage of the original purpose of copyright: allow a creator to profit for a time off his labors, then let anyone else preserve and remix the work.

Oh, I agree with you here- but that doesn't make it so. Copyright law is a whole separate discussion that isn't really germane to what is actually going on here.

BoxCrayonTales said:
Anyway, if the judge rules in favor of WotC, then that would set a dangerous precedent for trademark by effectively allowing anyone to maintain a trademark forever.

You already can. Trademarks don't expire. I'm not sure how this is a "dangerous precedent" or who it's dangerous to, though.

BoxCrayonTales said:
They do this just by registering it, posting an ebook on Kindle Unlimited, and then forgetting about it for centuries. This would prevent anyone else from ever registering that trademark ever again, even if the person who registered it has been dead for centuries or the company went out of business centuries ago. This would create the novel problem of "orphaned trademarks," which is similar to the current problem under copyright law where there are countless "orphaned works" whose copyright is either untraceable or held by owners who are deceased, out of business, apathetic, or don't even know they own it. This would be a bad thing for commerce and pervert the original intent of trademark law.

The purpose of trademark law is to prevent someone from selling something similar to the trademarked product under the name you use and confusing the public. I'm not sure why you think this is bad. If Pepsi goes out of business, why should someone in the future be able to swoop up their logo and use it? Make your own brand. But maybe I'm missing something here.

BoxCrayonTales said:
Like, WotC is currently selling scans of the Amazing Engine RPG from the early 1990s. They haven't produced any books for it since the original printings and are almost certainly only selling the scans to reduce piracy. Do you think their behavior constitutes good faith maintaining of the Amazing Engine trademark, such that nobody else should ever be allowed to register it for as long as the PDFs are sold on Drivethru?

Yes. When the copyright expires, someone else can go ahead and strip out the trademarks and then sell their own version of the actual material. I feel like you may be confusing the differences between trademarks and copyright, but who knows? I'm not an expert on these things either.

Deset Gled · Sep 20, 2022

BoxCrayonTales said:
Anyway, if the judge rules in favor of WotC, then that would set a dangerous precedent for trademark by effectively allowing anyone to maintain a trademark forever. They do this just by registering it, posting an ebook on Kindle Unlimited, and then forgetting about it for centuries. This would prevent anyone else from ever registering that trademark ever again, even if the person who registered it has been dead for centuries or the company went out of business centuries ago. This would create the novel problem of "orphaned trademarks," which is similar to the current problem under copyright law where there are countless "orphaned works" whose copyright is either untraceable or held by owners who are deceased, out of business, apathetic, or don't even know they own it. This would be a bad thing for commerce and pervert the original intent of trademark law.

I want to double up on what @LordEntrails said, that there's just so much wrong in your post I don't think I can address all of it. But I'll start here.

First, and most importantly, there are multiple times in your post when you conflate trademark and copyright laws, and this paragraph is a big case of it. Second, you have to actively maintain a trademark, which is what WotC/Hasbro has done by continuing to sell the product. Third, because of the previous point, the idea of "orphaned" IP is a generally a copyright issue, not a trademark one. Finally, the original intent of trademark law is to protect consumers by not allowing a third party to trick customers into buying a product with a fake name. Which is exactly what NuTSR did when they claimed to be the "original" TSR and that their version of Star Frontiers was a "reboot".

This case is not going to set a precedent; what you describe above is exactly how trademark law works and has always worked. This is the reason Edgar Rice Burrows trademarked "Tarzan" in 1912. It's why you can write a story about Tarzan or reprint public domain works, but can't make a comic called "Tarzan" without permission.

WarDriveWorley · Sep 20, 2022

BoxCrayonTales said:
since ebook stores are essentially privatized libraries.

There's a lot to unpack here. That said I reallllyyyy want to chime in on this. Ebook STORES (emphasis mine) are not libraries except that they both have collections of books. If that's the only criteria for something to be a library then you could claim Wal-Mart is a library.

Ancalagon · Sep 20, 2022

BoxCrayonTales said:
Racism and deceptive marketing aside,

(Others have given you good responses on the substance of your text, so I will focus on your opening)

First, you forgot the sexism and transphobia.

Second, no, we will not set those aside. They are very germane. They are what drove WotC to act with such a heavy hand. They are not "lesser concerns". They matter. A lot. They are what is driving us to keep an eye on this case, and why so many of us oppose NuTSR's efforts.

VelvetViolet · Sep 20, 2022

Deset Gled said:
I want to double up on what @LordEntrails said, that there's just so much wrong in your post I don't think I can address all of it. But I'll start here.

First, and most importantly, there are multiple times in your post when you conflate trademark and copyright laws, and this paragraph is a big case of it. Second, you have to actively maintain a trademark, which is what WotC/Hasbro has done by continuing to sell the product. Third, because of the previous point, the idea of "orphaned" IP is a generally a copyright issue, not a trademark one. Finally, the original intent of trademark law is to protect consumers by not allowing a third party to trick customers into buying a product with a fake name. Which is exactly what NuTSR did when they claimed to be the "original" TSR and that their version of Star Frontiers was a "reboot".

This case is not going to set a precedent; what you describe above is exactly how trademark law works and has always worked. This is the reason Edgar Rice Burrows trademarked "Tarzan" in 1912. It's why you can write a story about Tarzan or reprint public domain works, but can't make a comic called "Tarzan" without permission.

I know the difference. Copyright lasts for a fixed period after the creation/publication of a work and/or the death of the author. Trademark has to be actively used or it will lapse. They no longer work as intended because of Disney lobbying the government to extend copyright terms to the point where they're actively detrimental to preservation efforts.

TSR stopped selling Star Frontiers in 1985. WotC only started selling PDFs in 2017. That's a large enough gap for the trademark to lapse, because trademarks have to be actively used or they will lapse. If WotC didn't register the trademark before NuTSR did, then they don't have a claim to the trademark anymore.

Using PDF sales of old books to maintain trademark (not copyright) when you're not actually making any new products with it feels like it's exploiting a loophole. Trademark law was created before the advent of electronic storage, so it doesn't take into account situations where someone might try to game the system by trying to maintain a trademark without actually doing any effort by simply selling a book on kindle unlimited and then forget it exists.

The Burroughs Estate is doing more than just keeping Tarzan in print. They're actively engaged in making new works too. If keeping a book in print was enough to maintain a trademark, then the Stoker Estate would still have the trademark to Dracula.

What nuTSR is doing is clearly wrong, I don't dispute that, but that doesn't let WotC off the hook.

the Jester said:
If Pepsi goes out of business, why should someone in the future be able to swoop up their logo and use it? Make your own brand. But maybe I'm missing something here.

Trademark is not supposed to last specifically forever, it's supposed to last however long it's being used. I feel like most of the posters here don't actually understand trademark or copyright law or the difference between them. I'm not a lawyer or a judge, but I can read the government websites explaining how these laws work.

I get that nuTSR are bigots, but that doesn't let WotC off the hook. WotC let the trademark lapse. Now they're trying to retroactively argue that they didn't because they're selling (low quality) PDFs now.

If WotC wins, then they're setting a precedent that you can retroactively reclaim a trademark that you let lapse without actually registering it.

Ancalagon · Sep 20, 2022

darjr said:
No good deed goes unpunished.

View attachment 261866
View attachment 261867

I'm not really following here. Who is YoDanno, how do we know he was sent an abusive email etc etc?

CleverNickName · Sep 20, 2022

Ancalagon said:
Second, no, we will not set those aside. They are very germane. They are what drove WotC to act with such a heavy hand. They are not "lesser concerns". They matter. A lot. They are what is driving us to keep an eye on this case, and why so many of us oppose NuTSR's efforts.

I'll go even further. These are the very reasons that I want to see NuTSR removed from the hobby. Bigots are categorically unwelcome.

Umbran · Sep 20, 2022

BoxCrayonTales said:
Racism and deceptive marketing aside..

Given the damage done to the reputation of the trademark by that racism and deceptive marketing, it is actually an important part of the case.

BoxCrayonTales said:
I get that nuTSR are bigots, but that doesn't let WotC off the hook. WotC let the trademark lapse.

No, they didn't. They allowed the registration of the trademark to lapse. But, while the registration makes defense of the mark easier, registration is explicitly not required to maintain the trademark. Simply continuing to sell products with the mark is sufficient.

Deset Gled · Sep 20, 2022

BoxCrayonTales said:
I know the difference. Copyright lasts for a fixed period after the creation/publication of a work and/or the death of the author. Trademark has to be actively used or it will lapse. They no longer work as intended because of Disney lobbying the government to extend copyright terms to the point where they're actively detrimental to preservation efforts.

TSR stopped selling Star Frontiers in 1985. WotC only started selling PDFs in 2017. That's a large enough gap for the trademark to lapse, because trademarks have to be actively used or they will lapse. If WotC didn't register the trademark before NuTSR did, then they don't have a claim to the trademark anymore.

Using PDF sales of old books to maintain trademark (not copyright) when you're not actually making any new products with it feels like it's exploiting a loophole. Trademark law was created before the advent of electronic storage, so it doesn't take into account situations where someone might try to game the system by trying to maintain a trademark without actually doing any effort by simply selling a book on kindle unlimited and then forget it exists.

I'm sorry, but this is still just very wrong on many levels. Honestly, this just feels like gish galloping at this point, but I'll play for at least one more round.

There are a lot more differences between copyright and trademark than just the timeframes and how thy are maintained. And you are still conflating them. The argument about Disney is both irrelevant and incorrect; they've lobbied a lot (admittedly, in a way that's bad for the public) about copyright but have had much less effect on trademark.

Your timeline of when TSR used the Star Frontiers trademark is both incorrect and irrelevant. Even if what you are saying is correct, by using the trademark in 2017 they have reclaimed it. This may have been an argument that required corrections if NuTSR tried pulling their stunt in 2016, but it is completely meaningless today.

Selling PDF books is, functionally, no different than reprinting a physical book. Physical storage absolutely existed when trademark law was created. And, frankly, digital storage and digital IP has existed for about half a century at this point. And, let's be real, being a luddite is not a legal defense.

BoxCrayonTales said:
What nuTSR is doing is clearly wrong, I don't dispute that, but that doesn't let WotC off the hook.

There is literally no hook. WotC did nothing wrong. They didn't even start the lawsuit in federal court. NuTSR has been the aggressor and aggravator at every step. You are inventing a problem on both sides to try and claim the middle ground is some sort of a compromise. It isn't. What you are doing is supporting NuTSR.

Waller · Sep 20, 2022

Deset Gled said:
There is literally no hook. WotC did nothing wrong. They didn't even file the lawsuit in federal court. NuTSR has been the aggressor and aggravator at every step. You are inventing a problem on both sides to try and claim the middle ground is some sort of a compromise. It isn't. What you are doing is supporting NuTSR.

I think the phrase is "blaming the victim".

bedir than · Sep 20, 2022

BoxCrayonTales said:
Racism and deceptive marketing aside, NuTSR is well within their rights to snatch up trademarks that WotC let lapse. The Star Frontiers and TSR trademarks have long since expired because WotC let them languish. WotC doesn't have any right to claim them now, and putting up low quality scans on Drivethrurpg after telling the fansite to take down their remastered PDFs is a jerk move that shouldn't count toward maintaining the trademark anyway. The trademark already lapsed sometime in the 90s I'm guessing since the last book was released circa 1985. Hosting PDFs shouldn't count toward maintaining a trademark, otherwise you could maintain a trademark forever simply because an ebook you released two hundred years ago is still being sold even though you did nothing with the IP since.

It's a really frustrating situation because both sides are in the wrong here. NuTSR really is using deceptive marketing practices to trick fans of the Star Frontiers IP when they don't have any right to it. WotC doesn't have any right to the trademark anymore and shouldn't be allowed to try re-registering until NuTSR's claim lapses, because they clearly didn't care about the IP before and still don't unless they get bad publicity over it.

One of the most telling acts here is that Sasquatch LLC already snatched the Alternity trademark and published their own retroclone a few years ago (it got cancelled and Sasquatch is now MIA, but whatever). This angered many Alternity fans who thought the IP was coming back only to learn it wasn't. What did WotC do then? Absolutely nothing. They still haven't restored the Alternity PDFs they removed back in 2008 during their infamous hissy fit over piracy. Word of advice WotC: the easiest way to prevent piracy is to sell PDFs legally, because when push comes to shove consumers will default to the option with the most convenience. Buying a PDF legally from an online store that will host the file for you indefinitely is more convenient that risking a malware infection or a lawsuit on the high seas.

Also, copyright law should be reformed. There are so many orphaned works being lost to posterity because it is illegal for anyone but the copyright owner to maintain them. This fate has befallen many of my favorite obscure RPG supplements like Grim Tales/Slavelords of Cydonia, Alternity, the paperback Hogshead edition of Puppetland, Aether & Flux, Starship Troopers RPG, and many more. If corpos don't care to preserve nor profit off their IPs, then they shouldn't be allowed to prevent others from doing so. That's a grotesque miscarriage of the original purpose of copyright: allow a creator to profit for a time off his labors, then let anyone else preserve and remix the work.

Anyway, if the judge rules in favor of WotC, then that would set a dangerous precedent for trademark by effectively allowing anyone to maintain a trademark forever. They do this just by registering it, posting an ebook on Kindle Unlimited, and then forgetting about it for centuries. This would prevent anyone else from ever registering that trademark ever again, even if the person who registered it has been dead for centuries or the company went out of business centuries ago. This would create the novel problem of "orphaned trademarks," which is similar to the current problem under copyright law where there are countless "orphaned works" whose copyright is either untraceable or held by owners who are deceased, out of business, apathetic, or don't even know they own it. This would be a bad thing for commerce and pervert the original intent of trademark law.

Like, WotC is currently selling scans of the Amazing Engine RPG from the early 1990s. They haven't produced any books for it since the original printings and are almost certainly only selling the scans to reduce piracy. Do you think their behavior constitutes good faith maintaining of the Amazing Engine trademark, such that nobody else should ever be allowed to register it for as long as the PDFs are sold on Drivethru? I certainly don't. I'm no lawyer or judge, admittedly, but I think that's a perversion of the spirit of trademark law. When trademark law was created, we didn't have computers or the ability to easily make and sell infinite copies of a book's content. So claiming that using electronic storage constitutes maintaining a trademark is no different than claiming that libraries storing a copy of your book constitutes maintaining a trademark, since ebook stores are essentially privatized libraries.

Counterpoint, WotC was selling TSR branded pdfs prior to LaNasa claiming the mark as his own. Use always trumps registration

Mannahnin · Sep 20, 2022

Umbran said:
No, they didn't. They allowed the registration of the trademark to lapse. But, while the registration makes defense of the mark easier, registration is explicitly not required to maintain the trademark. Simply continuing to sell products with the mark is sufficient.

Deset Gled has covered in more detail, but I'll quote this one just because it's succinct and hits the key point of fact.

@BoxCrayonTales, trademark law exists to prevent consumer confusion and fraud.

nuTSR explicitly attempted this exact kind of fraud, first coming on the scene claiming to be the original TSR returned, to be the creators of Gen Con, the inventors of D&D, etc.

In contrast, Jayson Elliot's TSR, the publisher of Gygax Magazine, registered the trademark but explicitly did not engage in this kind of fraud or deliberately try to create consumer confusion. They commissioned their own logos, for example, rather than simply stealing or copying the original TSR's marks. nuTSR simply ripped off the old original TSR marks, as part of their campaign of fraud.

WotC is in point of fact zero percent in the wrong here. Legally or morally. Even if I probably agree with you to a large extent about copyright law.

VelvetViolet · Sep 20, 2022

Look, I despise nuTSR as much as any sane person would. They're horrible people and they're soiling the trademark. I can't say anymore about what I think of them without violating the forum rules against saying nasty things about people.

But I despise WotC. I have despised them ever since their stupid hissy fit in 2008 when they took down their PDFs, many of which still haven't been restored. I disagree with piracy on general principle, but these stupid corpos make it really difficult for me to maintain my principles. I despise them way less than I despise the bigots, but I still despise them for their abandonment and mistreatment of beloved IPs. I don't want to let them win anything, even if they do have a point.

So fine, I admit to any legal mistakes I made. As I said, I am not a lawyer or judge.

WarDriveWorley · Sep 20, 2022

BoxCrayonTales said:
Look, I despise nuTSR as much as any sane person would. They're horrible people and they're soiling the trademark. I can't say anymore about what I think of them without violating the forum rules against saying nasty things about people.

But I despise WotC. I have despised them ever since their stupid hissy fit in 2008 when they took down their PDFs, many of which still haven't been restored. I disagree with piracy on general principle, but these stupid corpos make it really difficult for me to maintain my principles. I despise them way less than I despise the bigots, but I still despise them for their abandonment and mistreatment of beloved IPs. I don't want to let them win anything, even if they do have a point.

So fine, I admit to any legal mistakes I made. As I said, I am not a lawyer or judge.

So they're not entitled to due justice because you dislike them based off previous decisions? Sounds super fair.

Snarf Zagyg · Sep 20, 2022

BoxCrayonTales said:
So fine, I admit to any legal mistakes I made. As I said, I am not a lawyer or judge.

What is considered "right" or "fair" may not always match up with what the law requires.

I recommend listening to this brief podcast available here-

If you're familiar with the law, you will quickly know where this is going. If not, you might be in for a surprise as to how trademarks work in the real world.

darjr · Sep 20, 2022

I’m not sure the same management is at WotC from back then. There has been some churn.

Deset Gled · Sep 20, 2022

BoxCrayonTales said:
Look, I despise nuTSR as much as any sane person would. They're horrible people and they're soiling the trademark. I can't say anymore about what I think of them without violating the forum rules against saying nasty things about people.

But I despise WotC. I have despised them ever since their stupid hissy fit in 2008 when they took down their PDFs, many of which still haven't been restored. I disagree with piracy on general principle, but these stupid corpos make it really difficult for me to maintain my principles. I despise them way less than I despise the bigots, but I still despise them for their abandonment and mistreatment of beloved IPs. I don't want to let them win anything, even if they do have a point.

Now this is something that I completely understand. I don't share your hatred of WotC, but I understand. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is an age old saying, and there is good reason people still say it.

But, if I may pontificate, you have shown how this mentality can be dangerous. It seems that you legitimately don't want to support the bigotry that NuTSR has perpetuated. But they have managed to channel your dislike of WotC and funneled it into support for NuTSR's cause. That's where this can become dangerous.

My advice is this: don't be binary. You don't have to choose between the two. There is nothing that says you have to support WotC if you dislike NuTSR. It's okay to hate them both. You don't have to find a compromise between them.

CleverNickName · Sep 20, 2022

Wanting to punish Wizards of the Coast for being a big corporation, or for taking down their PDFs a decade ago is certainly your prerogative. It's a very popular opinion here in EN World. But NuTSR isn't facing them in a court of popular opinion--NuTSR is facing them in a court of law. The courts are going to decide which laws were broken, and by whom, and what damages (if any) should be paid, and I think we all know how that is going to go.

It's not about wanting Wizards of the Coast to "win anything." No matter how hard NuTSR tries to brand themselves as a victim, no matter how often they claim to be the Little Guy vs. The Big Bad Corporation, the law is very clear.

TSR The Full & Glorious History of NuTSR

Legend

Mod Squad

Legend

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Hero

Dusty Dragon

Adventurer

Dusty Dragon

Limit Break Dancing

Mod Squad

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Hero

Hero

Scion of Murgen (He/Him)

Adventurer

Hero

Notorious Liquefactionist

I crit!

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Limit Break Dancing

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