Chapterhouse Motion to Dismiss

[Old_Paladin]

Chapterhouse Studios also took many steps to avoid causing confusion. Every registered trademark was identified as such, its source was disclosed, and every page containing a registered mark also included a disclaimer.

Um... No; they didn't have these things at the time of the original filing.
I remember going to their site right away; and they had none of those things. They added several shortly after, and changed the names of many of their products.
I was in fact one of the people that suggested to them to add a disclaimer to show they were not affiliated with GW; and they did so the next day.
I was also the individual that pointed out the problems that calling it the "Doom of Malanait" would cause and that the image was coded with that name; the next day they changed it to the "Doom of Chapterhouse" and recoded the picture to a different file name.
The recently changed them back and then added the trademark or registered marks; and reloaded the older "Doom of Malantai" post.
Don't make up facts you know nothing about. Just because to hope Chapterhouse will win, doesn't mean people will believe your incorrect attempt to falsify the past. And if you think I'm making any of that up; you can look through past posts and Find where I originally said all these things; it's a factual matter of record now (unlike your claims).


That's a major issue; you get judged in a lawsuit upon your past state of affairs; not the present condition.
I'll bet GW has kept the archived statuses of the website to show the problems in their original layout.


Edit: It's posts 24, and 32, on the 'Donations for Chapterhouse' thread; for those that don't wish to have to look through too many posts to find what I've claimed. Both posts are nearly 3 months old now.

[Lane]

[QUOTE=Old_Paladin;124819
I'll bet GW has kept the archived statuses of the website to show the problems in their original layout.
[/QUOTE]

Unless they get those pages from server backups, if there are any, a good lawyer could get those copies thrown out. It's easy to edit an HTML document to say whatever you want and even date stamps can be forged.

[Old_Paladin]

Well, I actually meant that they should have hard copies; actual physical print outs of the pages, that are signed and dated by a legitimate witness (that's what I would have done).

Also, what you’re taking about wouldn't just be having evidence thrown out; you're talking about forgery and contempt of court. GW would automatically lose the case and be severally fined.

[eldargal]

You are completely incorrect on this, CHS had a banner at the bottom of their mainpage listing GW trademarks right from the beginning, I took special note of it. It wasn't exceptionally obvious, nor was it hidden, but it was there. This was twelve months ago, or more, long before there was any whiff of a lawsuit from GW.
You may want to follow your own advice about making stuff up.

Um... No; they didn't have these things at the time of the original filing.
I remember going to their site right away; and they had none of those things. They added several shortly after, and changed the names of many of their products.
I was in fact one of the people that suggested to them to add a disclaimer to show they were not affiliated with GW; and they did so the next day.
I was also the individual that pointed out the problems that calling it the "Doom of Malanait" would cause and that the image was coded with that name; the next day they changed it to the "Doom of Chapterhouse" and recoded the picture to a different file name.
The recently changed them back and then added the trademark or registered marks; and reloaded the older "Doom of Malantai" post.
Don't make up facts you know nothing about. Just because to hope Chapterhouse will win, doesn't mean people will believe your incorrect attempt to falsify the past. And if you think I'm making any of that up; you can look through past posts and Find where I originally said all these things; it's a factual matter of record now (unlike your claims).


That's a major issue; you get judged in a lawsuit upon your past state of affairs; not the present condition.
I'll bet GW has kept the archived statuses of the website to show the problems in their original layout.


Edit: It's posts 24, and 32, on the 'Donations for Chapterhouse' thread; for those that don't wish to have to look through too many posts to find what I've claimed. Both posts are nearly 3 months old now.

[weeble1000]

You beat me to it Eldargal.

I agree with Eldargal about the Chapterhouse website disclaimer. Now, I had never heard about Chapterhouse Studios before I read Games Workshop's complaint, but I don't believe that Nick is lying. It also seems Eldargal has first hand knowledge. I hope we can agree that from day one there was a disclaimer on the website.

Now, Paladin, you are correct that the Chapterhouse website did not always identify registered trademarks. You are also correct that the state of the website at the time the complaint was filed is significant. The website did not identify registered marks until early last year, but this was done long before the complaint was filed by Games Workshop.

Finally, it is important to note that "Doom of Malantai" is not a Games Workshop trademark. Games workshop has not registered this trademark, nor does the company market a product under that name. Thus, it is is no way a trademark belonging to Games Workshop. If you want to be very technical, it is more properly a trademark of Chapterhosue Studios than Games Workshop. This is a critical distinction between copyrights and trademarks.

Again, all of this is why the trademark infringement claims are not a significant part of this lawsuit, in spite of the fact that they are conspicuous to the layperson.

On a different note:

I started this thread to discuss the content and implications of the Chapterhouse Studios motion to dismiss. Since you have such strong opinions, Paladin, I would like to know what you think about Games Workshop's theory of derivative infringement and Chapterhouse's arguments against the validity of that theory.

I'd also like to know what other people think about that. Eldargal, do you have any thoughts?

What about Chapterhouse's arguments that Games Workshop's claims require greater specificity? Do you think they do? What do you think the implications are for this lawsuit and the industry in general?

I have a .pdf copy of the memorandum in support of the motion. Would it be beneficial for that document to be hosted where it will be readily accessible? I don't want to limit folks to relying on my summary of the motion and I realize that it isn't always easy to access these documents.

[Old_Paladin]

Then I'll add a memorandum to my claim;
In the many, many times I visited chapterhouse, I never once saw said disclaimer.
When I brought it up in the past; no one ever challenged me on said disclaimer; when Nick himself was reading this thread last night, he never challenged me on my comment on said disclaimer.
It took 12 hours for a single person to challenge me on that; which is a considerably long time considering the challenge I put forth, and the people I saw viewing the thread.

The only time I had ever seen a disclaimer on that website; was the huge page of text that listed all GW claimed Copyrights, trademarks, registrations, and multiple reiterations that they are a non-affiliated, independent company.

But, I'll believe Eldargal that there was a disclaimer (the only person I have enough faith in and respect more, to not challenge her to provide evidence); but still feel that it was so poorly place or so brief, that the average person would never know it was there (I certainly didn't and I visited the site everytime they put a new post on Bols). A disclaimer about hot liquids being hot, isn't valid if it is printed inside the cup at the bottom or a disclaimer about the dry cleaners not being responsible about damages printed on the receipt after you've handed in your clothes and paid; so to speak.


I'm not claiming the "Doom' is a trademark; It should fall under a full copywrite. It is a proper name in a book that does have a copywrite, and as a literary work, you cannot copy any section either in part or in full without breaking the copywrite (plagiarism). It is on the same level of any other literary character; even if you can produce halfling miniatures, you cannot name them 'Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee,' you can make a model of a Human warrior-mage, but you wouldn't be able to sell it as 'Rand al'Thor.'


As to the actual motion; I think GW does need to drop, or be banned, from claiming on about half a dozen, to a dozen items. Otherwise, we all know what they mean by their claim and chapterhouse knows where they did wrong; but I suppose that clarification wouldn't hurt, if chapterhouses defense is to play dumb, like they don't know what's going on.
My worry is that, the refined lawsuit would end up being hundreds of pages long. You either go with a brief description of your IP universe, then people argue its too generic; or you put up the fine points of your IP universe and people could end up to bored and confused, because that's not the type of thing they're into (just imagine if the Tolken estate was asked to define the 'middle earth' universe and it had to go deeper the "a fantasy world, with men, elves, dwarves, and hobbits, fighting against the evil forces of orcs, goblins and trolls; in order to destroy an evil magical artifact, to save the world." They'd have to plop down, the war of the ring appendices volumes 1-8 and say, "read these 200+ pages. Then you'll see how our world is unique in fantasy." If the jury isn’t huge lord of the rings fans, happy to get some LoTR stuff for free; none of them are going to read that in full. So what was the point at all; people are still going to say 'Yup, stupid kid’s book with elves, short people, and ugly monsters."


I actually don't remember GW's claim on the motion, for derivatives; if you'd just summarize it, I'll say what I feel (but I can tell you now; I'll probably say either 'they need to tone it down a bit' or 'I think they're pretty much spot on.' I'd be shocked if they made a claim that made me *facepalm*, but you never know.).

[weeble1000]

If that's the case, then how does licensing work in the United States? I'm honestly asking, as I don't know...Is there an issue here with the distinctiveness with the terms? Is their Space Marine trademark in danger of becoming a generic term?

wittdooley, I'm sorry about not answering these questions. I just ran through the thread again and realized that I left you hanging here. I've got a bunch of stuff on my plate this morning and I already ate up all my free time, so I'll edit this post with answers to these questions when I have some more time.

Can anybody else answer them?

[weeble1000]

Paladin, I checked my facts and then went to bed before responding, so please ease off on the 12 hour bit. I'll address your other comments when I get back home tonight.

I think Games Workshop can claim "Doom of Malantai" as a copyright. But the distinction is significant because as a copyright there can be no claim of market confusion. In general, I think it is important to keep in mind the differences between various kinds of intellectual property. This stuff can be confusing at times, but a legal battle like the one we're discussing will be defined by these significant distinctions.

I appreciate that Paladin believes Games Workshop should drop from "a half a dozen, to a dozen items." But he follows that up by saying that we all know what the claim means.

What are the 6-12 "items" that Games Workshop should drop? I don't think Games Workshop made its claims very clear at all. The complaint only references a handful of works by name and only a single Chapterhosue Studios product. It doesn't specify what portions of those works have been infringed and it doesn't specify what products have infringed them. How do we have any idea what Games Workshop is claiming?

But I guess Paladin is right in that we know what Games Workshop wants, at least I think I have a pretty good idea. Games Workshop wants to claim exclusive ownership of an expansive, unspecific, generalized, and open-ended universe. Games Workshop wants to argue that anything related to that universe in any way must obviously belong to the company.

There are very good reasons for the way copyright laws are written, and many of them are related to preventing just this sort of thing from happening. This is why the Court ruled FASA's claims on the open-ended BATTLETECH universe were unprotectable as a matter of law. Not only were the claims found to be too unspecific, but they were found to be based on "familiar, general themes" that cannot be exclusively owned by anyone.

For years, Games Workshop has been attempting to promote the notion that it owns the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes. That sounds justifiable because the fine folks at Games Workshop came up with these universes, supported them, and basically invented fantasy wargaming. I don't begrudge them that. I think that there's lots of things about these universes that are special and unique. This is why I wargame, read, role-play, and watch movies in the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes. But much of these universes is based on age-old, unprotectable works; familiar, general themes; and/or the creativity of others. When Games Workshop says that it owns exclusive rights to the entirety of the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 fictional universes, it is claiming the right to exclude others from using everything they themselves used to invent the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes. When faced with this, I have to take a firm stand against it, as much as I think Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 are special and unique. It isn't fair, it isn't right, it isn't legal, and it denies others the rights that Games Workshop exercised to create Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000.

[eldargal]

Well, in hindsight I should have taken a screenshot of the disclaimer. I distinctly remember checking it out, and thinking 'Well, they shouldn't have much trouble from GW with that and their legal advice'.

[Old_Paladin]

wittdooley, I'm sorry about not answering these questions. I just ran through the thread again and realized that I left you hanging here. I've got a bunch of stuff on my plate this morning and I already ate up all my free time, so I'll edit this post with answers to these questions when I have some more time.

Can anybody else answer them?

I've did my best to point out some things, a few pages back.
Here's the link to my thoughts:
[url]http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showpost.php?p=124602&postcount=39[/url]

But to be honest, most of my thoughts are based upon a Canadian point of view. I do keep forgetting ultimately how different United States law can be (case law? what's up with that? Here in Canada, we just ammend our codified laws every few years [sometimes decades]).


The disclaimer now is pretty d*mn solid; it's large and on every page. On some of the actual perchasing pages, I can even see it poking up. It pretty much fills my entire monitor when I scroll down, and leaves no doubt to me that they are not part of GW, corprately.
What did it used to be like? Was it like one or two sentances (like, warhammer 40K is the property of it's owners and creators, all right reserved?) and could it only be found at the bottom of only the home page (that's what Eldargal made it sound like to me)?

I don't mean to be insulting with the 12 hour remark. I just meant it as that is a long time in 'internet land.' When I see people going over it for hours at a time; it says to me that that is a major issue, and people are scrambling to find out what was going on. I honestly expected a "Your wrong" or"here's a mirror site." within like 40 minutes of people reading what I said; if I was misinformed.