Tag: Entertainment | Page 3

Take-Two Opposes Trademark For An Entertainment Company Running An Axe-Throwing Facility

October 16, 2020/in Internet Security

When it comes to my writing about trademark and intellectual property issues, there is perhaps no more flummoxing company than Take-Two Interactive. Why? Well, because the company is simultaneously the victim of a ton of stupid disputes, and also a purveyor of stupid disputes. On the one hand, we’ve defended Take-Two when it has been the victim of spurious claims brought against it by The Pinkerton Agency, Lindsay Lohan, and a handful of tattoo artists over athlete depictions in video games. On the other hand, we’ve slapped back at Take-Two when it has taken down modding tools for its games that have been around for years and years, or when the company decides to file lawsuits over fan-projects. The point is that when it comes to the pain brought by overly protectionist IP activities, Take-Two is a company that should know better, but acts as though it doesn’t.

This can often times go to ridiculous lengths, such as when Take-Two opposes the trademark for Rockstar Axe Throwing, LLC, because “Rockstar.”

Applicant Rockstar Axe Throwing filed its application in Class 41 for “Entertainment in the nature of axe throwing competitions; Instruction in the nature of hatchet and axe throwing lessons; Providing sports facilities for hatchet and axe throwing. Take-Two Interactive is “a leading worldwide developer, marketer, and publisher of interactive entertainment, including software, video games, computer games, mobile games,” and other goods and services. Rockstar Games is a subsidiary of Take-Two.

That paragraph is really all you need to know. These companies aren’t in the same industries, aren’t competing for customers, and the existence of the defendant is wholly unlikely to result in any customer confusion. Axe throwing: need we say more?

But, just to cover all of the bases, Take-Two also complains in its opposition about the Rockstar Axe Throwing, LLC logo.

Take-Two has marks that comprise or contain “the term ROCKSTAR and/ or prominently featuring the letter ‘R’ combined with a star design, used alone or with other words or designs…

The logos for the two companies aren’t similar. Like, at all.

Argue those logos are similar if you want, but you’re wrong, you know you’re wrong, and you’re probably in need of psychiatric care. On top of their being dissimilar, there is that whole “Axe Throwing” text right in the logo. If that isn’t enough to ward off anyone who might wander into an axe-throwing facility thinking it was associated with Grand Theft Auto, I can’t imagine what would be.

This, again, is where it gets really frustrating. There is zero reason for Take-Two to have undertaken this opposition. Zero. And yet it did, despite being on the receiving end itself of other ridiculous attempts at IP maximilism. Why?

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The Museum Of Art And Digital Entertainment Calls For Anti-Circumvention Exemptions To Be Extended To Online Game Archives

February 14, 2018/in Internet Security

Now that we’ve covered a couple of stories about game companies, notably Blizzard, bullying the fans that run antiquated versions of MMO games on their own servers to shut down, it’s as good a time as any to discuss a recent call for the DMCA anti-circumvention exemptions to include the curation of abandoned MMO games. A few weeks back, during the triennial public consultation period in which the U.S. Copyright Office gathers public commentary on potential exemptions to the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, a bunch of public comments came in on the topic of abandoned video games. Importantly, the Librarian of Congress already has granted exemptions for the purpose of preserving the art of video games so that libraries and museums can use emulators to revive classic games for the public.

But what do you do if you’re looking to preserve a massive multiplayer online game, or even single-player games, that rely on server connections with the company that made those games in order to operate? Those servers don’t last forever, obviously. Hundreds of such games have been shut down in recent years, lost forever as the companies behind them no longer support the games or those that play them.

Well, one non-profit in California, The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment, wants anti-circumvention exemptions for running servers for these games to keep them alive as well.

“Although the Current Exemption does not cover it, preservation of online video games is now critical,” MADE writes in its comment to the Copyright Office. “Online games have become ubiquitous and are only growing in popularity. For example, an estimated fifty-three percent of gamers play multiplayer games at least once a week, and spend, on average, six hours a week playing with others online.”

“Today, however, local multiplayer options are increasingly rare, and many games no longer support LAN connected multiplayer capability,” MADE counters, adding that nowadays even some single-player games require an online connection. “More troubling still to archivists, many video games rely on server connectivity to function in single-player mode and become unplayable when servers shut down.”

Due to that, MADE is asking the Copyright Office (and the Librarian of Congress) to allow libraries and museums exemptions to run their own servers to display these games as well. Frankly, it’s difficult to conjure an argument against the request. If games are art, and they are, then they ought to be preserved. The Copyright Office has already agreed with this line of thinking for the category of games that don’t require an online connection, so it’s difficult to see how it could punt on the issue of online games.

And, yet, we have examples of fan-run servers of abandoned games, or versions of games, getting bullied by companies like Blizzard. These fan-servers are essentially filling the same role that groups like MADE would like to do: preserving old gaming content that has been made otherwise unavailable by companies that have turned down online game servers.

It’s enough to make one wonder why a group of fans of a game shouldn’t get the same protections afforded to a library or museum, if the end result is nearly identical.

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