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*Dungeons & Dragons
TSR3 Blames Widespread Pushback On WotC
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<blockquote data-quote="Abstruse" data-source="post: 8324367" data-attributes="member: 6669048"><p>CAH was originally released under a Creative Commons license, which allowed for Crabs Adjust Humidity and other spin-off works. Unless you mean CAH itself, which they never really used any other copyrighted material. The closest was referencing trademarks, which isn't covered under trademark protection because they weren't using the trademark with the product and there would be no brand confusion (like CAH doing a card that says "Coca-Cola®" isn't claiming that CAH is a Coca-Cola product nor is anyone going to confuse a party card game for a soft drink).</p><p></p><p>It's the reason all this trademark stuff is coming up here - it's two different rights involved. TSR Games is blatantly violating copyright in their use of the Star Frontiers artwork and cover. They may be violating trademark by its use since Wizards of the Coast may not have the trademark registered but they do still use it commercially and have protected that trademark recently (in 2017, they prevented Evil Hat from doing exactly what TSR Games is attempting to do - register the trademark to publish a new edition...granted, Evil Hat at least did so in discussions with WotC and didn't publicly announce anything rather than filing the paperwork and not even waiting for it to finalize before making a product announcement). They may be violating copyright in their use of the 1970s and 1980s era TSR logos (even if the trademarks have lapsed, the actual logos themselves are protected under copyright, which is most likely owned by Wizards of the Coast as they were most likely work-for-hire productions for TSR...which is why Jayson Elliot's TSR Games has used its own, original TSR logo for the last decade instead of one of the old ones). They may or may not have the right to the TSR trademark at all (the paperwork isn't approved yet and both Jayson Elliot and Wizards of the Coast could make cases that they both are still actively using the TSR name in commercial trade (though Elliot's case is stronger in that regard because WotC did not defend the TSR trademark against his use for Top Secret).</p><p></p><p>And all of this is just a basic explanation. There are quite a few lawyers who have noticed all this going on and I'd expect a few videos and podcasts coming out in the next few days/weeks from actual lawyers explaining all the legal issues and giving their professional opinions on what's going on.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Abstruse, post: 8324367, member: 6669048"] CAH was originally released under a Creative Commons license, which allowed for Crabs Adjust Humidity and other spin-off works. Unless you mean CAH itself, which they never really used any other copyrighted material. The closest was referencing trademarks, which isn't covered under trademark protection because they weren't using the trademark with the product and there would be no brand confusion (like CAH doing a card that says "Coca-Cola®" isn't claiming that CAH is a Coca-Cola product nor is anyone going to confuse a party card game for a soft drink). It's the reason all this trademark stuff is coming up here - it's two different rights involved. TSR Games is blatantly violating copyright in their use of the Star Frontiers artwork and cover. They may be violating trademark by its use since Wizards of the Coast may not have the trademark registered but they do still use it commercially and have protected that trademark recently (in 2017, they prevented Evil Hat from doing exactly what TSR Games is attempting to do - register the trademark to publish a new edition...granted, Evil Hat at least did so in discussions with WotC and didn't publicly announce anything rather than filing the paperwork and not even waiting for it to finalize before making a product announcement). They may be violating copyright in their use of the 1970s and 1980s era TSR logos (even if the trademarks have lapsed, the actual logos themselves are protected under copyright, which is most likely owned by Wizards of the Coast as they were most likely work-for-hire productions for TSR...which is why Jayson Elliot's TSR Games has used its own, original TSR logo for the last decade instead of one of the old ones). They may or may not have the right to the TSR trademark at all (the paperwork isn't approved yet and both Jayson Elliot and Wizards of the Coast could make cases that they both are still actively using the TSR name in commercial trade (though Elliot's case is stronger in that regard because WotC did not defend the TSR trademark against his use for Top Secret). And all of this is just a basic explanation. There are quite a few lawyers who have noticed all this going on and I'd expect a few videos and podcasts coming out in the next few days/weeks from actual lawyers explaining all the legal issues and giving their professional opinions on what's going on. [/QUOTE]
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