Jump to content

Games Workshop sues author for using the term 'space marine'


Werthead

Recommended Posts

I always wondered if something like this was ever going to happen, though my money was on them suing over the word "ork" instead of the even more generic term. ;)

Does anyone know since when this is considered a registered trademark of theirs? The oldest published sourcebook I have to hand is from '94, and there "Space Marine" is already listed amongst the trademarked terms.

ETA: Amazon.com and .co.uk don't seem to have pulled the book in question, though. Maybe somebody in GW's PR department realised that this was a really bad idea?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They are probably still sore over the way Blizzard pretty much took their content, made strategy games out of it, and ascended to a way higher level whilst GW stood around slack-jawed watching...

The 'pick on the little guy' (girl) approach is pretty pathetic, and won't ultimately gain them anything more than derision and bad karma from the community they want to sell to.

Presumably they'll claim rights over the word 'Chaos' next.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's sad. Rather than chase after generic ideas that others have bettered Games Workshop should take pride in the concepts they did come up with, like uh, space dwarves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Apparently Amazon have backed down and restored the book. And several American SF authors have registered various 'space marine'-derived websites. Some have even made noises about writing a 'space marines' anthology and inviting GW to try to stop them. Update here about the whole thing.

Meanwhile, sales of the book in question through other venues have apparently shot up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Meanwhile, sales of the book in question through other venues have apparently shot up.

Authors take care of their own it appears. My twitter feed blew up about this, with many authors saying they had just bought a copy and I should too! Glad Amazon backed off. Further proof (like the Applebees thing) that social media cannot be ignored anymore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...