Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
TSR3.5 Launches IndieGogo Campaign to "Stop" WotC
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8499794" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>In some ways, it probably isn't. The people selling you the shirts will have licences from the relevant IP holders. (Mostly copyright licences, not trademark licences.)</p><p></p><p>But here's two differences (related ones):</p><p></p><p>(1) If you buy a t-shirt with (say) the Coca Colo logo printed on it, the t-shirt vendor is not trading, nor purporting to trade, as a maker or seller of soft drinks. So the key IP question is about copyright (ie do they have a licence to reproduce the graphics), not trademarks.</p><p></p><p>(2) There is no doubt that Coca Cola has been trading using, among other things, the Coca Cola logo continuously for decades. So that logo performs the role of distinguishing, in the course of trade, their soft drinks. They are not relying upon the sale of the printed t-shirts to establish their use of the logo in the course of trade.</p><p></p><p>Neither (1) nor (2) is the case here. DriveThru is trading as a provide of RPG files and POD publisher of RPG books. And as far as I know WotC's only argument that it has been trading, in recent years, using the TSR logo is that DriveThru has been selling RPG files and PODing RPG books under licence from WotC.</p><p></p><p>This seems to be the peg on which the argument in TSR3's pleading have been hung. To me, with my modest knowledge of trademark law, there seem to be two points of weakness in their argument: (i) they don't seem to know the terms of the WotC-DriveThru licence; (ii) if they concede - as they seem to - that DriveThru has been using the marks in the course of its trade, I don't see how they can argue the marks are distinct to TSR3. (There is at least a third weakness, that by all accounts TSR3 has not traded under the marks at least to any substantial degree, but that weakness seems to me to be independent of the argument about licensing.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8499794, member: 42582"] In some ways, it probably isn't. The people selling you the shirts will have licences from the relevant IP holders. (Mostly copyright licences, not trademark licences.) But here's two differences (related ones): (1) If you buy a t-shirt with (say) the Coca Colo logo printed on it, the t-shirt vendor is not trading, nor purporting to trade, as a maker or seller of soft drinks. So the key IP question is about copyright (ie do they have a licence to reproduce the graphics), not trademarks. (2) There is no doubt that Coca Cola has been trading using, among other things, the Coca Cola logo continuously for decades. So that logo performs the role of distinguishing, in the course of trade, their soft drinks. They are not relying upon the sale of the printed t-shirts to establish their use of the logo in the course of trade. Neither (1) nor (2) is the case here. DriveThru is trading as a provide of RPG files and POD publisher of RPG books. And as far as I know WotC's only argument that it has been trading, in recent years, using the TSR logo is that DriveThru has been selling RPG files and PODing RPG books under licence from WotC. This seems to be the peg on which the argument in TSR3's pleading have been hung. To me, with my modest knowledge of trademark law, there seem to be two points of weakness in their argument: (i) they don't seem to know the terms of the WotC-DriveThru licence; (ii) if they concede - as they seem to - that DriveThru has been using the marks in the course of its trade, I don't see how they can argue the marks are distinct to TSR3. (There is at least a third weakness, that by all accounts TSR3 has not traded under the marks at least to any substantial degree, but that weakness seems to me to be independent of the argument about licensing.) [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
TSR3.5 Launches IndieGogo Campaign to "Stop" WotC
Top