ZeniMax are flexing their legal muscles towards DoomRL

Quoting: ajgpWhile I am in no way supporting Zenimax here, and dont agree with their behaviour. I believe this is a case of a rock and a hard place; in order to maintain trademarks on things you have to actively use and critically take steps to prevent its use by other parties. So while DoomRL may not pose any threat to Zenimax by not defending the trademark they potentially down the line open themselves up to others who could be a threat being able to use the trademark as they would be able to prove that Zenimax wasnt actively protecting it.

Source: My Memory of something I read; Dont quote me; Not a lawyer!

So let me source my logic:
Scrolls, doom and there was some other thing they were going after... are english words in the english dictionary. Yet zenimax seeks to claim them as trademarks? Not only that, they go after the guy who respects the trademark (he made a doom game) rather than slapping the name doom on a completely different title. Yet they would have to spend time on this, a 17 year old game, to protect their trademark? That doesn't sound very logical to me.

Then the costs of them going after a no name developer, it's just not sane. If they have that much money to burn through then a Linux version should be a trivial matter.

The violation of the trademark, though with no commercial motive, is so blatantly obvious that they can't afford to ignore it (if you ignore trademark violations you risk losing rights to the trademark and it ending up in the public domain). I can't really fault Zenimax for this. There isn't really anything stopping the game/site from continuing, but all violations of the trademark would have to be removed. You could still mention that the game is inspired by Doom with a disclaimer about rights to the game Doom being owned by Zenimax.

Of course, this doesn't mean there aren't plenty of other things that I can fault Zenimax for (like sucking all the life out of Id).


Last edited by CFWhitman on 2 December 2016 at 3:17 pm UTC

Quoting: ajgp

Quoting: reaVerLets all note here that it isn't economically viable for them to port their games to Linux, yet it is economically viable for them to go threaten people that have no money with lawsuits.

While I am in no way supporting Zenimax here, and dont agree with their behaviour. I believe this is a case of a rock and a hard place; in order to maintain trademarks on things you have to actively use and critically take steps to prevent its use by other parties. So while DoomRL may not pose any threat to Zenimax by not defending the trademark they potentially down the line open themselves up to others who could be a threat being able to use the trademark as they would be able to prove that Zenimax wasnt actively protecting it.


Source: My Memory of something I read; Dont quote me; Not a lawyer!

Quoting: buschapThey aren't trying to shut the project down. They are trying to protect their trademarks. This is compulsory under US trademark law. If you do not protect your trademarks, and other people use them in an unconnected and unauthorized fashion, your trademark can become a generic term.

This serious misconception needs to DIE FAST:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/ubuntus-trademark-folly-fueled-by-misunderstanding-of-law-eff-says/
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not-require-companies-tirelessly-censor-internet (via the previous link)

While the risk of having one's trademark falling into the generic use exists, it is fairly limited, and completely unrelated to this kind of trademark enforcement.

Example:you say a FPS, a 3D Game, a video game, not a DOOM, an Arena or a Pong, right? (although it is debatable in the last case because of those "Pong games", and in the first with DOOM-like; Arena Wasn't a very good example either). FPS is really the generic term here, regardless of the "DOOM clone" term, which might be generic, whereas DOOM isn't.

I guess I'll rest my case with that post :D

Those greedy idiots.
Remember: Zenimax is NOT id software, and they will never be. Hell, they even sued John Carmack.
id is dead. Zenimax looted id's IPs and their community, to the extent that they ripped off Brutal DooM with their latest installment. Granted, it is a good ripoff, but those guys would do any stupid thing for the sake of money.


Last edited by omer666 on 2 December 2016 at 3:47 pm UTC

Quoting: liamdaweWell the title was quite on-point, even if it was an hilariously bad typo :D

Ah man, you fixed it! :-(

Quoting: MyeulCThis serious misconception needs to DIE FAST:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/ubuntus-trademark-folly-fueled-by-misunderstanding-of-law-eff-says/
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not-require-companies-tirelessly-censor-internet (via the previous link)

Im happy to be corrected, as I say it was only based on information that I could remember. I will of course read the links when I have a bit of spare time

next doomsday site and soft has to be renamed?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought this stuff only tended to happened when it involved a commercial product with 'demonstrative value'? If the game is free it's not even really commercial, yeah?

We would have had the new Doom with Vulkan support without Zenimax, a Crystal Giant with a very little vision.