Erm, shock gaming news

[Colly]

Besides not having an iPad or phone, I was too cheap to move from EWR to TEW, I wasn't touching it good or not...

[King Ellis]

When porn companies no longer have to name their movies 'Star Whores' and can now just go with 'Star Wars XXX' or 'The Avengers XXX' I think we've kind of reached the level when it comes to copywright infringement.

[METALMAN]

Calling a character the Overtaker is no different to a player on Pro Evolution Soccer being called Roberto Larcos.

In cdetermining whether there is actually any violation intellectual property, among other things you would consider:

1) How similar the knockoff is to the original. (not very)

2) Whether said knockoff has done any direct harm to finances or reputation of the original. (not really)

3) How important the knockoff is to the product as a whole. (not very)

Nothing can be done.

The Underaker trademark belongs to WWE. That is the word "Undertaker" used in a wrestling context. However, WWE don't have exclusive domain over big tall heavily tattooed men with angry faces. Nor have they trademarked the name "Overtaker".

[GA!]

Is his full name Nobody Gets Overtaker?

[Plubby]

Calling a character the Overtaker is no different to a player on Pro Evolution Soccer Roberto Larcos.

In cdetermining whether there is actually any violation intellectual property, among other things you would consider:

1) How similar the knockoff is to the original. (not very)

2) Whether said knockoff has done any direct harm, to finances or reputation of the original. (not really)

3) How important the knockoff is to the product as a whole. (not very)

Nothing can be done.

The Underaker trademark belongs to WWE. That is the word "Undertaker" used in a wrestling context. However, WWE don't have exclusive domain over big tall heavily tattooed men with angry faces. Nor have they trademarked the name "Overtaker".

I dispute you on all three points. In fact to suggest that the implied identities of WWE wrestlers is not very important to any success that game has had is laughable.

[METALMAN]

Yes, well you're still wrong because this is to be interpreted very loosely: would the game still work if the disputed content were taken out?

[Plubby]

It would still function, yes. There's more to the commercial success of a product than whether or not it actually works.

[METALMAN]

very true. So what?

[Summers]

The WWE has ownership over their characters likeness, I'm sure.

[METALMAN]

WWE probably control their image rights, yes. But most characters are fairly nondescript and it's easy to work around. In the instance of Kane - WWE can't prevent anyone else from wearing a leotard and a mask. As long as the character derived from the WWE character is different, and it doesn't even have to be that different, WWE can't do anything.

[LUKIE]

The difference between say, Fire Pro, or Pro Ev using such names is that their games to suck complete and utter ballcock.

Also, they don't claim to be a serious parody.

Which is serious business.

[gunnar hendershow]

Adding to what metalman said, I'm sure it's possible for a legal team to come up with ways to prove a trademark has been trampled on. However, it's not an easy case and not easy work. It's time-consuming and costly.

If anything happens it will come from an individual wrestler who owns their name, likeness, trademarks, and everything. There are quite a few around. If one of these talents needs the money (or the press coverage, you never know) then you'll see a lawsuit. A cease & desist for anything isn't coming from WWE unless someone uses their exact trademarks. It's not worth the effort in their eyes to assemble a costly legal team for something that barely turns a profit. Securing funding is different than making a successful game.

[RPS]

The fact people keep talking about copyright when you can't copyright a name leads me to believe that a lot of people don't know what they are talking about.

[Colly]

The fact people keep talking about copyright when you can't copyright a name leads me to believe that a lot of people don't know what they are talking about.

Does that not vary between countries? I'm not even vaguely clued up on copyright laws so am probably talking rubbish, but I'm just thinking Pro Evo again where many countries had jumbled player names, all the way to Holland and their 'Oranges23' etc.

[Cymbols]

The fact people keep talking about copyright when you can't copyright a name leads me to believe that a lot of people don't know what they are talking about.

But don't the WWE patent them under characters? So if parody used something like Kane and it was clearly copying WWE's Kane then they could copy them right?

[Sousa]

Isn't metalman some kind of lawyer or guy in law school or vile prosecutor under the tutelage of the crooked Manfred Von Karma or something? I'm much more likely to defer to his expertise than people going "but he looks just like Kane!"

[RPS]

Before I begin, let me just say that this is not legal advice in any way shape or form or is it legally correct. I'm not commenting on any real existing intellectual property disputes. Rather, it is the bored musings about the difference of copyright and trademark. As I stated before, this is not legal advice or a bonafide legal opinion or what the law of the land is, just a distinction between copyright and trademark.

I think a lot of people are confusing copyright and trademark. Copyright is where you have exclusive right to some sort of creation - like a song or a movie or a painting or a ballet choreography. Nobody can copy that creation without your permission (and subject to various fair use exceptions, like journalism, etc.) So if the WWE had a copyright over the name Kane, literally nobody could ever use the name Kane. Nobody could write it down, nobody could utter it publicly, etc. But you can't copyright one word, because a) it's not likely it would meet the creativity requirements and b) because if you gave somebody an exclusive copyright over a word, the whole world would be fucked. So copyright is a very strong right (nobody can copy whatever the creation is) but very limited in scope (it can't be one word, generally longer than a sentence would cover under copyright). Here, if the WWE had a copyright over Kane, than I wouldn't be breaching the copyright if I created a character named Jane who exhibited character traits similar to Kane, because they haven't actually copied anything. Jane is not a copy of Kane, under the law. It's a separate creation. But one words aren't covered under copyright, usually, so it's irrelevant.

What we are talking about here is trademarks. Trademarks are taking things like words, phrases, designs and protecting their attachment with products and people. There is a trademark for McDonalds and World Wrestling Entertainment. But the right is not as strong as a copyright - in copyright, nobody can reproduce whatever has been copyrighted. But if I'm writing a story, I can include the name McDonalds or World Wrestling Entertainment. Where you get into trouble is where you start doing things like passing off your other people's trademarks or creating marks that are too similar to already existing marks. So I can use the name Kane in my story and I could actually have a copyright over the entire story, including the use of Kane. But if I start a wrestling promotion, I can't promote a wrestler named Kane and pass him off as my own creation. The trademark here is protecting the association of the mark (here, the name and identity of Kane) to a brand (here, Kane the wrestler who exists in the WWE universe). So while the right isn't as strong (it doesn't restrict anybody from using the name Kane), it's scope is much larger because it can cover one word and arguably could cover the use of my creation of Jane, a wrestler remarkably similar to Kane, because I am passing off my mark and trying to use WWE's intellectual property as my own and trying to piggy back (so to speak) off their success with a passed off trade mark. Outside of the intellectual property, there are torts for passing off that could theoretically cover my creation of Jane.

This is a very simplified explanation of the whole "legal issue" and it obviously varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. But if we were talking about copyright (which we aren't), than my fictional wrestler named Jane is a-ok. But if we are talking about trademarks, than my fictional wrestling character called Jane could possibly be seen as passing off the trademark of the WWE's creation of Kane.

tl;dr.

Edited June 3, 2012 by RockPaperScissors

[Sousa]

But PRP, he was a dick to us on our wrestling forum after several pages of needling!

Have you considered that in your well-informed legal analysis?

[RPS]

I'll put a note in my file, no doubt.

[KevinStorm]

At the very least, his characters could be considered a parody, which is perfectly legal. Just ask Weird Al. He asks for permission to parody songs because he's a nice guy, but he doesn't legally have to have permission to do it.