Saturday, February 9, 2013

Games Workshop are Jerks

Nothing to do with Warmachine but I wanted to mention the company that got me into wargaming. Games Workshop have decided that they have a common law trademark on the words "Space Marine" despite the concept having existed for as long as science fiction has existed and has been harrassing independant authors to get their books pulled from sale. They've been targeting specifically independant authors knowing that they  would not be take the claim to court because of the time and money involved in that, depsite the fact that GWs claim has little to no merit. It's a common bullying tactic that you often see from big companies and would have worked in this case but it looks like the Electronic Frontiers Foundation are going to take up the case, they have at the moment got Amazon to put the book back for sale (which should stop GW at least with that retailer, there is no way they can win in court). There is a savespacemarines hastag going around twitter and news of it is up on the EFF page and Boing Boing if you are interested in reading more. Here's a link to the independant authors blog:
http://mcahogarth.org/?p=10593
and the EFF:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/02/trademark-bully-thwarted-spots-space-marine-back-online

I'm very disappointed. I wish I could say that I was shocked but it seems like exactly the kind of dick move I have come to expect from GW. 

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