Mojang being sued by Zenimax Media

The same logic that's used in this could be applied against any game title with the word 'the' in it. There's 'overly aggressive legal defense' and then there's being outright retarded.

And frivolous lawsuits NEED to be punished monetarily. No, the aggressive party shouldn't be able to just shrug and go on their way without penalty, because that gives them incentive to keep making crappy lawsuits until one of them sticks. Which they can afford to do, seeing as how the companies that engage in this sort of thing tend to have small armies of lawyers who zoom in after people who would have trouble affording a defense. This doesn't damage the impartiality of the judge any more than it does in cases where the defendant is found guilty and the judge decides on the appropriate punishment.

edited 5th Aug '11 6:27:56 PM by Karkadinn

Note that I said the Judge just can't say "Thanks for wasting my time, pay me." There's more to it than that. If it can be said in a better way with more words and isn't just "You suck", that's fine.

That's presuming that they can fine them "for wasting their time", anyway. Otherwise, the punishment wouldn't work.

To clarify, while it'd be neat if they could do that, they still can't shrug it off either. This is a court of law, not "you suck for being stupid and should be punished". There has to be more reason than I hate what you did.

edited 5th Aug '11 6:41:17 PM by Hydronix

Oh Bethesda. I love you, sweetie, I really do. But "Scrolls"? That's a little ridiculous. And by a little, I mean completely. I could understand if it looked/played similar to Elder Scrolls, or even had a similar logo...but it's called "Scrolls".

They're so full of BS

How long before Todd, the master of P Ring, shows up to sweep this under the rug?

This is almost as bad as Paris Hilton trying to claim ownership over the phrase "That's Hot"... it might actually be worse because someone is actually being targeted in this case. This is just... petty.

Pathetic

Whats more, suing the word "Oblivion"?

Oh, Crap!, they might go after Mastodon if they do!

LOL

This is just plain retarded.

Monjang should pwn Bethesda IMO.

edited 7th Aug '11 1:23:36 AM by NONAMEGIVEN

Funetik Aksent time? Cannae even use 'tha' anymore.

I wish I was better at that.

>At OP

Again, this isn't Bethesda's doing, it's Zeni Max Media.

@Karkadinn: In Britain they have a system where the loser of a lawsuit has to shoulder all the winner's legal fees. It's a pretty good system for deterring lawsuits deliberately filed to waste everyone's time. And last I heard Texas was talking about implementing that system too.

Yes, but trial lawyers contribute too heavily to politicians to implement something like that here.

Is there ANYTHING USA does in same fashion as majority of countries I can think of? In law department I mean? Its bad enough that you can make law suits that go against the common sense over there -_-;

Well, our politicians do whats in their best interest alone, I think that's the same everywhere.

Well, at least our libel laws aren't stupidly broad.

edited 7th Aug '11 9:11:48 AM by deuxhero

It's a little bit silly, but I think you guys are a little wrong on some of your points.

It's not like trying to trademark the word "the". That's an absurd argument. The is a word we use literally everyday, every hour, every five minutes. Scrolls is a pretty dang specific word, and I can see why Bethesda (Or Zeni Max) might be a little worried about Mojang out of the blue trying to trademark a very specific word that just so happens to be part of the title for their biggest series.

They might be a bit paranoid, but they're just protecting their trademarks and shit.

Can we change the OP to Zeni Max Media before the kind of people who tl;dr all previous posts start weighing in? Would save more sensible people from having to clarify over and over again.

I barely knew about Bethesta (And I probably just mispelled the company´s name), I just know than they are the creators of Fallout 3 (And I didnt even played that!)... and thats about it...

AS for mojang, while I played Minecraft and enjoyned it somewhat, I stoppped caring about it a long time ago and now I even kind of hate it (Actually, more then hate Minecraft, I hate Notch. But thats a whole other history...) so it all balances out, really.

So I am quite neutral on this I guess. Therefore, my previous opinion renaims.

edited 7th Aug '11 8:02:41 PM by NONAMEGIVEN

I just realized that, what with QuakeCon going on, a lot of people, not just Minecraft fans, are going to hear about this given that this is the company that owns Bethesda and id Software.

This can't be good for PR.

Exactly, Rocket Dude. They're shooting themselves in the foot. Whether they win or lose won't matter for their sales. It's the fact that they may think they're being petty about a single word.

It doesn't help that the word "Scrolls" are in many japanese media already.

What does Japan have to do with it?

Ninja Scroll?

This.

And the point was that they're trying to capitalize on the world "Scroll"(no, not Mojang), which is already used so often, they'd have to sue just about every single use of it to actually have a reason to bother with this current lawsuit.

About the only reason why this was is even specific to them, is that they're trying to copyright the word Scrolls for a game. So it was easier to be notable. Nothing more.

edited 7th Aug '11 9:59:03 PM by Hydronix