How will this impact 40k sites?

[Chris]

It seems GW is taking down the most popular blood bowl site.


>>>>>
Good evening everybody,

Today I received a letter from the Games Workshop Group PLC stating that if I didn't compy with 4 directives within 14 days they would take formal proceedings against me. It saddens me to see GW take such action against a perfectly legitamate fan site that has provided a global communications portal for BB fans, with no intention of conning them out of the millions they make in sales. I feel that I have been stereotypically branded as an Internet con-man. I have been a GW fan for 20+ years and this site has been active for almost 9 of that 20. This site has also had GW staff registered and actively contribute to its content (it may still have).

The assumptions from GWG PLC are that I am making a profit from the donations received by this site. They also point out that consumers may believe TalkBB is connected with GW and the fact the domain name includes Bloodbowl which is an infringement of GW's registered trademark. Now, I am not against their need to ensure their trademarks are not used inappropriately, I feel they could have approached me in a more friendly manner to investigte the purpose of the site and discover that I only wanted to provide a hub for dicussing Blood Bowl globally. instead, they immediately enter heavy handed.

If they truely believe the donations have contributed to me becoming a wealthy person or that I have made enough money to give up a proper job they are sadly mistaken. The small amount of money donated has gone to pay for the upkeep of the server (when I used my own hardware and hosted it at home) or towards the costs for hosting with an ISP. In short I have been vastly out of pocket to provide TalkBB rather than the other way around. I thank all those that have contributed as it has helped TalkBB survive.

I have been asked to:

Immediately cease and desist from any activity which infringes GW's intellectual property.
either remove remove your website or the reference to 'Blood Bowl' in your website name.
Remove the donations button from the page.
Confirm by return that you will not infringe GW's intellectual properly rights at any time in the future.

Now, I could simply remove Bloodbowl from the domain by renaming it to TalkBB.com, but that means buying a new domain and time spent sorting everything out. Bearing in mind I hardly visit TalkBloodBowl.com anyway, I can't really be bothered with all that so have decided to let it die. Therefore from Sunday 8 November 2009 [url]www.talkbloodbowl.com[/url] will cease to exist.

Should anybody wish to take ownership of the source and contents I will be more than happy to prepare it for transfer, although this will not include the domain name. I will also have to ensure the recipient will not use DB content for anything other than to maintain the forum as part of an existing Blood Bowl site. This is to ensure passwords and emails do not fall into the wrong hands.

Thank you for your support over the years and for making TalkBloodBowl.com what it is today. Without you all it would have died all by itself many years ago, regardless of donations.

Regards,
JohnnyP
>>>>>>>>

[Aldramelech]

Id write back and say "Fine, I'll see you in court!"

I think they are bluffing and you shouldn't back down so easily. If everything is as you say it is then I cant see how they have a case.

[N0rdicNinja]

How can GW have such an awesome design team but be filled with ****-tards pretty much EVERYWHERE else in the company. I love Warhammer but I ****ing hate GW.

[eldargal]

Well, I'd get legal advice first.

Id write back and say "Fine, I'll see you in court!"

I think they are bluffing and you shouldn't back down so easily. If everything is as you say it is then I cant see how they have a case.

[Melissia]

Ask legal advice from someone who actually knows something about legal advice.

[Nabterayl]

It always saddens me when a cease-and-desist letter is the first contact between a company's lawyers and a third party. That said, it seems to me like they do have a halfway reasonable trademark claim given that Blood Bowl is in the URL. Would they win on the trademark issue? Maybe not. But it would take long enough to find out that it would be a lot less hassle to change the URL.

The donations issue is another matter. They might be trying to lay the groundwork for damages (very broadly speaking, if you receive any money from infringing somebody else's IP, they're entitled to get that money from you), because just off the top of my head it sounds like a stretch to me to say that people aren't allowed to donate money to you.

[Katie Drake]

Greet them with the middle finger salute.

GW took down the Vassal 40K team earlier this year and that's the last straw. Don't let them push you around.

[krispy]

3 questions id say:
1) what country are you in / your server located?
2) what country are GW's lawyers based?
and then
3) does their (the answer to a)'s country law have any power over (country b)?
if yes - do as they ask, if no then no worries as far as i can see.

/k

[Wolfshade]

I think the biggest problem is the donate button as it could be argued that you are deriving profit from their intellectual property. The analogy to this is copying a CD for a friend.

[Duke]

get a list of all the people who donated to you and send them a piece of sand... This way they paid for the sand, not for your site. lol

I all honesty, I would comply. They may not have a super solid case, but they can make your life hell for a long time... Remember that their lawyers are on salary whereas yours would be paid out of your pocket. And trust me Lawyers get expensive... your only hope would be to win and then force them to pay for your legal fees. But that may not happen and Judges generally lean towards protecting IP because it is such a grey area.

Duke