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Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning: Games Workshop Files Suit over Warhammer Alliance

MikeBMikeB Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555

Games Workshop, the owners of the Warhammer IP, have filed suit against Curse Inc., owners of the vast Curse Network of sites, which includes Warhammer Alliance.com, the subject of the suit.

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Games Workshop is citing trademark infringement, cybersquatting (the Warhammer Alliance domain name), dilution, and unfair competition. According to Curse.com administrator DoranM, the complaint also states that Games Workshop was unable to contact any of the Curse administrators or "decision makers," despite the contact links available at the site.

You can view the full complaint here.

[Thanks sh4pnel for the tip!]

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Comments

  • BrifBrif Member UncommonPosts: 529

    Wait, what?

  • Vagrant_ZeroVagrant_Zero Member Posts: 1,190

    I'm completely lost now. Why would they sue a fansite?

  • jybgessjybgess Member Posts: 355

    I dont understand. Can someone break it down to stupid level for me...........

  • ShastraShastra Member Posts: 1,061

    Do they really want to kill off whatever community is left of this game? they have no idea how many players they are going to piss off with this. More players use Warhammer alliance compared to official forums.

  • MMO_DoubterMMO_Doubter Member Posts: 5,056

    Originally posted by Shastra

    Do they really want to kill off whatever community is left of this game? they have no idea how many players they are going to piss off with this. More players use Warhammer alliance compared to official forums.

    Luck has nothing to do with this game's failure.

    "" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2

  • AethaerynAethaeryn Member RarePosts: 3,149

    Remember Games Workshop is not Mythic.   It is Games Workshop suing.

    Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!

  • tachgbtachgb Member UncommonPosts: 791

    A fansite created by fans who like the Warhammer universe are going to get slapped about by Games Workshop which seemingly want to spoil their reputation...?

     

    This'll get dropped once they realise how silly they're being...

  • MerkethyMerkethy Member UncommonPosts: 23

    they are suing Curse, since they are the "new" owners of the website (and are making money out of it) It stopped being a normal fansite quite some time ago.

  • kaiser3282kaiser3282 Member UncommonPosts: 2,759

    Originally posted by Shastra

    Do they really want to kill off whatever community is left of this game? they have no idea how many players they are going to piss off with this. More players use Warhammer alliance compared to official forums.

     Games Workshop doesnt care about the WAR MMO anymore, thats Mythics thing, not theirs. Games workshop sold Mythic the licenseing or whatever to make the MMO, this is completely unrelated (well not completely, but its more related to the entire Warhammer IP, not the MMO itself).

    And yeah this seems pretty f-ing ridiculous to me. If this is allowed, then really every company out there could just go around suing every fansite ever created because fo things like them using the trademarked name anywhere in it. I lol'ed at the "warhammer allience making people think the site is in some sort of alliance with games workshop" portion of it. If thats what they get when going to the site, they need some new employees. The average person knows the difference between official sites, and fan / information / reference sites.

    I hope the judge laughs in their faces.

  • icehawkeicehawke Member UncommonPosts: 52

    Forum messages are not "contact links" in my book. An email address, physical address or other contact information would be the way to go. And in looking over their site, there are NO links that say "contact" anywhere on the front page.

    In looking at GW's IP policies (easily found on their website), the major portion of the suit is relating to the name of the website (Warhammeralliance.com) which is prohibited by GW's IP use policy. If the page was named something else with a subtitle of "Warhammer Alliance", my guess is that GW would not have done anything.

    However, I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on tv.

  • xaldraxiusxaldraxius Member Posts: 1,249

    I wish it were possible for these companies to sue any site that posted walkthroughs, cheats or mods that trivialized the content of their games. Suddenly cheating at games, and using walkthroughs is as much cheating as using hack programs, has become acceptable and it's doing nothing but hurting these companies.

  • NaralNaral Member UncommonPosts: 748

    Games Workshop has long had a history of near fascist like protection of their IP and copyright. They have shut down NUMEROUS fansites for their games over the years, not just for the video games, but the miniature games as well. They have always kind of been the Microsoft of the gaming industry, imo.

  • DarkholmeDarkholme Member UncommonPosts: 1,212

    Now you know why I stopped dealing with Games Workshop directly as a retailer. They are a bunch of snooty morons with their heads rammed up their own butts. I dealt with them for 5 years before I finally said screw it and went through a third party distributor... If their stupid games didn't sell so well I would have just dropped them completely. I would not be surprised one bit if this was not a "mistake" at all, nor would I be surprised if they didn't drop this lawsuit...

    -------------------------
    "Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places..." ~ H.P.Lovecraft, "From Beyond"

    Member Since March 2004

  • NotArkardNotArkard Lord of the Rings Online CorrespondentMember Posts: 164

    Go Games Workshop, go!

    The contents of this post do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com and its management.

  • BlurrBlurr Member UncommonPosts: 2,155

    I've always felt that Curse are a bunch of greedy crooks with shady business practices. I hold no sympathy for them if they're getting slapped around legally. I wouldn't shed a tear if their whole network went under.

    Whether or not GW is being overzealous about their IP, I don't really have an opinion. Frankly, though, it's their right to control the use of their IP. 

    "Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000

  • jotulljotull Member Posts: 256

    WA Did everything in their power to trash WAR:AoR when it came out, it was like the site was ran by WoW fanbois...oh wait it was.  Anyone who had anything positive to say about WAR was banned, the only people who got to stick around were the haters and those six counter strike kids that kept screaming for you guessed it gutting the PVE game. Curse and WA deserve every fucking thing they get, I pity them GW has the best attorneys in Europe.

  • BrifBrif Member UncommonPosts: 529

    Originally posted by Blurr

    I've always felt that Curse are a bunch of greedy crooks with shady business practices. I hold no sympathy for them if they're getting slapped around legally. I wouldn't shed a tear if their whole network went under.

    Whether or not GW is being overzealous about their IP, I don't really have an opinion. Frankly, though, it's their right to control the use of their IP. 

    That's harsh, I know most people will sob uncontrollably if anything happens to them.

  • TalthanysTalthanys Member Posts: 458

    Sounds like they want to use the domain name.

    -tal

    image

  • jotulljotull Member Posts: 256

    Brif why should anyone sob about Curse?  98% of the Keyloggers that are planted in in their mods are placed their by them, I have heard Blizzard devs say time and again that Curse is the main pipeline to hacked accounts. It is one of the reasons that they are implementing their own mod delivery system that checks for Trojans.

  • MilanderMilander Member UncommonPosts: 178

    Really? Blizzard have said in print, 'offically' that Curse is the main pipeline for hacked accounts?

    image
  • SinkaelSinkael Member UncommonPosts: 68

    Originally posted by jotull



    Brif why should anyone sob about Curse?  98% of the Keyloggers that are planted in in their mods are placed their by them, I have heard Blizzard devs say time and again that Curse is the main pipeline to hacked accounts. It is one of the reasons that they are implementing their own mod delivery system that checks for Trojans.


     

    wait. . .what?

     

    [Citation Needed]

  • BrifBrif Member UncommonPosts: 529

    Originally posted by jotull

    Brif why should anyone sob about Curse?  98% of the Keyloggers that are planted in in their mods are placed their by them, I have heard Blizzard devs say time and again that Curse is the main pipeline to hacked accounts. It is one of the reasons that they are implementing their own mod delivery system that checks for Trojans.

    I guess you've never heard of sarcasm.

  • jotulljotull Member Posts: 256

    It's the subtlety Brif...never quite could grasp it :P

  • ShojuShoju Member UncommonPosts: 776

    Originally posted by Vagrant_Zero

    I'm completely lost now. Why would they sue a fansite?

    Because Curse/Warhammer Alliance are making money off the Warhammer brand name through their premuim subscription service and advertising links and Games Workshop doesn't like that sort of thing.

  • ZyllosZyllos Member UncommonPosts: 537

    There are three rules to Games Workshop:

    1st: Games Workshop hates you.

    2nd: Games Workshop does not care about you.

    3rd: Games Workshop could give a f*ck.

    ...but I still play the TT...

    =(

    MMOs Played: I can no longer list them all in the 500 character limit.

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