TSR TSR (2) Confirms TSR (3)'s Acquisition of Trademark (Updated!)

Jayson Elliot registered the TSR trademark back in 2011 and used it to launch Gygax Magazine along with Ernie and Luke Gygax. The two Gygax's left the company a few years later after Gary Gygax's (co-founder of TSR (1) back in the 1970s) widow, Gail Gygax, forced the closure of Gygax Magazine. Then, earlier this year, TSR (3) swooped in on the TSR trademark, after Jayson Elliot accidentally let it lapse, as TSR (2) confirms:

We have owned the TSR trademark since 2011. Last year, we missed a filing date, and another company registered it, though we are still using it in commerce. While we could win a lawsuit, we frankly don't have the money to litigate. So, we're licensing it back from them.

As a result, there are two companies now using the name TSR. You can tell when it's us because we're the only ones using the new logo.

They're opening a museum in Lake Geneva at the old TSR house, and we wish them success with it, it's important to celebrate the legacy that Gary Gygax created.

Ernie Gygax, formerly of TSR (1) under Gary Gygax, then working with Jayson Elliot as part of TSR (2), is one of the founders of of TSR (3), and confirmed in his (now infamous) interview --

The other TSR is a licensee because [Jayson Elliot] let it lapse. But he had absolutely ... love for the game and the products. There was no reason to say 'oh you've screwed up, oh it's all ours, ha ha ha ha!' Instead, Justin [LaNasa] came to him and said ... we love that you're doing Top Secret things, we have a much broader goal for the whole thing. But there's no reason for you to stop or even have any troubles. Justin said, I'll take care of the paperwork, you just give me $10 a year, and you put out all this love for old school gaming that you can. And we appreciate that you were there to try and pick up things, and you produced Gygax Magazine, for in its time that you're also working on a game that you love to play ... because Top Secret was Jayson's love, as a young man.

TSR (2), still run by Jayson Elliot, publishes Top Secret, and is not connected to TSR (3) other than now having to license it’s own name from them. TSR (3) has also registered the trademark to Star Frontiers, a game owned by and still currently sold by D&D-owner WotC.

In other news the GYGAX trademark appears to have lapsed.

UPDATE! TSR (2) has decided NOT to license its own name from TSR (3):

Update to our earlier tweet - we will NOT be licensing anything from the new company claiming rights to the TSR logos. We are not working with them in any fashion.

 

[Black Dougal]

So it looks like the business plan was to scoop up other peoples stuff and resell it at a premium using the logo?

From Captcorajus comments on his video.

I have to go catch up. I'm in that comment section, one of my favorite channels to watch.

EDIT: I've never seen Captcorajus get animated in the comments section.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

If I had to venture a guess, the Venn Diagram of "people who complain about woke mobs" and "people who have been spat on in public" are two circles that never, ever touch

It's a privilege, and when others start to get that privilege, it feels like their own rights are being taken away. I can't count the amount of times that I've heard people say "that's autistic/retarded!" as a way of saying "that's stupid!", and I can feel a bit of me breaking every time that happens. They don't know what it would feel like for a core part of your identity to be used that way, for who you are to be seen as abhorrent by society in general.

They tend to think "if they stop being spat on, who will get spat on next?", being afraid that it will be them, when the ideal answer is that no one is spat on in the first place.

I can sincerely empathize with your pain and wish that stuff like this would just go away. I don't like OSR (to be honest, I've never tried it, but the concept doesn't really draw me in), but for people to think "Oh, the reason people like OSR is because of the bigoted content that was included 40-50 years ago" is just straight up wrong and a horrifying reading of the current situation. It says a lot about their character, and the hobby would be better off without people like that.

 

[pemerton]

Are they saying the “umber hulk” was in folk usage before D&D printed it? They are going to have to prove it. The Umber Hulk came from that dime store pack of toys brought to TSR and named there.

No. They're saying that what happened with that dime store pack of toys was, itself, a moment of folk art.

 

[darjr]

I have to go catch up. I'm in that comment section, one of my favorite channels to watch.

EDIT: I've never seen Captcorajus get animated in the comments section.

One of my favorite channels too.
Looks like we know what their business plan is. I wonder if that means Jim Ward was more a target than a contributor?

 

[pemerton]

Yes, but that's a shame, I think. For me, the essence of the game and the hobby is the wildly creative, diy spirit. That's what I resonate with most in the OSR and in indie games.

True. Although the most interesting new game I've played recently was The Green Knight, which is published by a movie studio to promote their movie! (And has probably worked - I hadn't heard of the movie before learning of the game, and playing the game now has me curious to see the film!)

I'm hoping to play John Harper's Agon 2nd ed soon - that's a game that's indie not just in design but in commerce.

For reasons that you can probably work out if you look at my posts in other threads, I think that D&D and DIY/indie spirit parted ways several decades ago.

 

[darjr]

No. They're saying that what happened with that dime store pack of toys was, itself, a moment of folk art.

But it happened at TSR, during work hours, while they were working on thier product.

anyway I think this is a derailment and I’ll stop.

 

[pemerton]

But it happened at TSR, during work hours, while they were working on thier product.

Well, see my post not far upthread about the function of the entertainment industry being to commercialise folk art!

anyway I think this is a derailment and I’ll stop.

No probs!

 

[Malmuria]

D&D is a "Midwestern folk art"? WTF?

I think they mean that dungeons and dragons roleplaying emerges at a specific time in a specific place due to the creative energy of a lot of people, not just the few people who ended up getting credit and making it into a business. Even after TSR formed, the early game was heavily influenced by the directions that individual people took it.

 

[Malmuria]

For reasons that you can probably work out if you look at my posts in other threads, I think that D&D and DIY/indie spirit parted ways several decades ago.

Really? Why do you say that? Or are you just referring to wotc dnd? I'm very impressed by the things that people have been making the past few years

 

[Charlaquin]

Real talk, can I just take a moment to vent here, but can I just say how freaking disheartening it is that to know that the vast majority of the inventors of the medium, the titans of the hobby I love, despise me for being different? It frakking sucks, y'all.

It's so god damn tiring just reading how my existence has caused fractures or how backlash at folks insulting people like me is ruining lives and products and everything... it's exhausting. To say nothing about contributing to moving something, anything forward, inches at a time. I hate it.

Y'all are good folx here, and I appreciate you. Well, most of you, anyway.

Solidarity