"Space Marines" Now A Trademarked Phrase

zanzjan said:

I'm also going to trademark "it", just so you know. Thought I'd give you time to prepare.

Click to expand...

So I'm not gonna be allowed to do "it" any more?

BigWords said:

So I'm not gonna be allowed to do "it" any more?

Click to expand...

You'll just have to get a license, and pay a royalty every time.

I might consider tradmarking the term "maybe"

You all do that. Personally, I see a very lucrative prospect in trademarking quotation marks...

Oh, now that's just cruel.

You can always get around it with a loophole—I'll be specifically trademarking quotation marks, so single quotation marks will still be fine. Double quotation marks, on the other hand...

Wait! This kind? "text"

*considers writing Cormac McCarthy pastiches*

My understanding is that trademarks are very specific. So while no one else can have a game called "space marines," people can still have things called space marines in their games, novels and movies (just like people could still have dragons in RPGs, novels and movies, even after the game Dungeons and Dragons was invented). In any case, the concept of space marines as a SF trope existed before this game.

And the specificity of copyrights is why you can have a Starship Enterprise that belongs to Paramount and an Enterprise Rental Car company without their suing one another.

Hope someone challenges this and they lose, or it's a very problematic precedent. Maybe someone will copyright a game called "Forest Elves," or "Dark Wizards," and then no one else will be able to use those terms in any other game, story or movie?

Seems ridiculous to me.

Didn't Heinlen' come up with this first in '59? Didn't ALIENS 2 invent the image/look of space marines in '86? Do they both predate GW?

If so...FAIL.

It's Games Workshop. I'm not surprised they've tried it - disappointed, but not surprised. I've seen the way they've put small game shop owners out of business, and the way they've alienated whole swathes of their playerbase.

BigWords said:

We're obviously thinking of different films...

And I apologize for the awful quality of the clip, but that is the same as (actually, possibly slightly better than) the DVD.

Click to expand...

Wow, that's just... wow

When you think about it, the term "space marines" is kind of hokey. Marines were originally forces meant to take land from the sea. The term is quite old, dating from before the American Revolution.

Nowadays, they are still used in engagements that call for speed and flexibility, and are no longer just used in amphibious assaults. But the term marine has stuck (we don't call them "air marines" when they are flown in).

I'd guess that once humans are living in space, and doing things in space becomes a sort of default norm for at least a segment of the population, they will simply call them marines.

Still, I think trademarking a word or phrase like this (especially one that has a history of prior use) is troubling if said trademark/copyright is going to be interpreted to mean that no one can use a term in any context. This is not how trademark law has been interpreted thus far. For instance, you would not be able to start a Brewery and call it Sierra Nevada Brewery, because it would potentially mislead customers into thinking they are buying a product from a competing brewery.

But opening a white water adventure company and calling it "Sierra Nevada Water Tours" would not be considered a conflict. Nor would using the term "Sierra Nevada" in a book when referring to the mountain range. At least it hasn't been historically. That this is being seriously considered legitimate is pretty awful.

Though didn't TSR seriously try to trademark terms like elves, dwarves and halflings way back when? They lost, I believe.

K. Taylor said:

Are they going to go after Blizzard for StarCraft? That'd be amusing.

Click to expand...

To be nit-picky, Blizzard do not use the term space marine, they just call them marines.
On a side note, Warcraft was originally supposed to be a Warhammer game but GW pulled out. So if they could sue Blizzard they would have done that a long time ago.
And Starcraft were originally supposed to be a Star Wars game but Lucasgames pulled out.

I can just see SF prose in the future:

The robot[SUP]®[/SUP] reached into the box of Kleenex[SUP]TM[/SUP] and pulled forth a tissue. The space marine[SUP]TM[/SUP] wiped his goggles and resumed adjusting the sights on his Warhammer[SUP]TM[/SUP] assault laser[SUP]®[/SUP]. He heard the WarpCore[SUP]®[/SUP] powering up and knew his time in this continuum[SUP]®[/SUP] was coming to a close. He stood, glanced at the robot[SUP]®[/SUP] and adjusting the Spandex[SUP]®[/SUP] straps of his Kevlar[SUP]®[/SUP] body armor, hefted the Warhammer[SUP]TM[/SUP] onto his shoulder and stepped into the transmutifier[SUP]TM[/SUP].




That last trademark is mine, by the way, and to use it you gotta pay me with rep points.

I sure am glad I trademarked the TM and ® symbols.

Pthom said:

I can just see SF prose in the future:

The robot[SUP]®[/SUP] reached into the box of Kleenex[SUP]TM[/SUP] and pulled forth a tissue. The space marine[SUP]TM[/SUP] wiped his goggles and resumed adjusting the sights on his Warhammer[SUP]TM[/SUP] assault laser[SUP]®[/SUP]. He heard the WarpCore[SUP]®[/SUP] powering up and knew his time in this continuum[SUP]®[/SUP] was coming to a close. He stood, glanced at the robot[SUP]®[/SUP] and adjusting the Spandex[SUP]®[/SUP] straps of his Kevlar[SUP]®[/SUP] body armor, hefted the Warhammer[SUP]TM[/SUP] onto his shoulder and stepped into the transmutifier[SUP]TM[/SUP].




That last trademark is mine, by the way, and to use it you gotta pay me with rep points.

Click to expand...

lol[SUP]TM[/SUP]

As a huge (huge) fan of 40k, this doubly weirds me out because...

Space Marines are not really like "marines" as you think of them.

They're more like a cross between Knights Templar and the Mobile Infantry from Starship Troopers, with a heaping dose of religious xenophobia and psychotic rage. I mean, they have more in common with The Doctor than they do with the space marines from Aliens, because THEY have two hearts (and can spit acid, live nearly forever, and gain the memories of their enemies by eating their brains.)

GW...I am disappoint.

The thing about Marines, and why we still think of them as being 'Marines' despite the fact that they fly places now is that (at least in the U.S.) they're organized as part of the department of the Navy. They are attached to Navy ships and work with naval personnel all the time.

Also, in the movie: Aliens, they're not Space Marines. They're Colonial Marines. It's a fine distinction since they all serve the same function, but it is this kind of technical differentiation that matters in these kinds of scenarios.

As a personal example, I've worked on some as yet unpublished sci fi stories that have 'space marines' in them. When I refer to them no one calles them: Space Marines. They're just marines.

That said: GW is dicks for doing this and Amazon has proven itself once again to be no friend to the writer.

Alessandra Kelley said:

There is a huge streak of sexism in the Warhammer games. I hadn't originally intended to bring it up but, yeurgh. Most of their toy soldiers are male, and the females tend to be viciously sexual and grotesquely exaggerated at the same time.

Click to expand...

Actually...it's not Warhammer that's sexist, I think.

It's Game's Workshop that is sexist.

See, Warhammer 40,000 properties are made by GW, their book imprint (Black Library) and now Fantasy Flight Games. The Black Library books vary between being meh on the term of gender/sex/feminism to being surprisingly good (the Ciaphas Cain books are awesome, as are some of the Gaunt's Ghosts books, the ones where Dan Abnett remember that women exist).

FFG, though, wins fifty bazillion awards because, while GW was busy mutilating women constantly (the Gray Knight codex makes me cry many tears of anger-rage)...they were busy writing really REALLY cool fluff and stats for Sisters of Battle.

Playing a space nun of doom has never been more fun!

So, yeah, the practical upshot is that Games Workshop can fuckoff and die. Their IP is better in everyone else's hands.

EDIT: And, just for the people who don't know, latest GW codexes (a combination of rulebook and setting detail book) include space marines dismembering Sisters of Battle (the only all female army in the game, and their ALLIES) and painting their armor with their blood.

It makes even less sense in context, somehow.

Alessandra Kelley said:

Yeah. And GIRLS can't be Space Marines because . . . because hormones, see?

Seriously, that's the story.

There is a huge streak of sexism in the Warhammer games. I hadn't originally intended to bring it up but, yeurgh. Most of their toy soldiers are male, and the females tend to be viciously sexual and grotesquely exaggerated at the same time.

Click to expand...

They've created this futuristic race of ultra warriors for a game and they're insisting they all be male because female hormones would mess the transformation process up or something?

Thanks heavens for that. I mean, allowing female ultra warriors might cause suspension of disbelief issues or something.

All I can say is Wow. Just when you think sexism is dead...