British born Games Workshop have unleashed the attack lawyers on the up-and-coming Curse Network.
This will not surprise industry watchers of any experience. Games Workshop are fiercely protective of their IP (intellectual property).
In fact, Games Workshop are so quick to rip bleeding chunks out of anyone who might be mis-using their IP that I’m super cautious about blogging about them at all. At times we might wonder whether they have an anti-PR department that competes head to head with their PR department.
Games Workshop’s lawsuit against Curse is directly targeted at a trademark infringement. In particular, Games Workshop are unhappy with domain “warhammeralliance.com” and the name “Warhammer Alliance” itself.
The full lawsuit (which Curse published in PDF form) is embedded below but here’s the relevant chunk of text.
“The domain name warhammeralliance.com and the mark WARHAMMER ALLIANCE itself literally states and implies that Defendants and their business are in an “alliance” with Plaintiff and its products and services offered under the WARHAMMER Marks.”
“Defendants’ website at the URL warhammeralliance.com displays HTML links featuring banner advertisements, and, upon information and belief, when Internet users click on one or more of the displayed HTML advertisements at the warhammeralliance.com website, Defendants receive payment from one or more advertisers, search engines, or affiliate programs.”
Here’s the full text;
So, what’s going on? Firstly, I’m sure this is a standard Games Workshop “Grr. No likey!” reaction to someone using their trademark terms to make money. Make no mistake; Curse is doing well.
It also seems likely that Games Workshop doesn’t want to loose the internet space to anyone. Games Workshop hasn’t yet had a stellar internet success and it may well be looking to defend its turf.
Of course, it’s also possible that Games Workshop are just after a bucket of cash of an enforced revenue share from Curse.
Games Workshop’s fans over at Warhammeralliance.com have their own thoughts too. Here’s a few quotes from the forum;
Spuxy suggests,
“Hope no one takes offense by me saying, but this could undoubtably be a good candidate towards the douche of the year awards.”
Jestor notes,
This is Standard Operating Proceedure for GW. They like to protect thier intellectual properties as well as thier trademarks. They have allowed other sites to stay open as long as they recieve permission from GW legal AND they do not make any profit on the site.
Drachlox asks,
This just seems crazy to me. This has been a popular fan-site for years. What is going on at GW?
So, what do you think?
