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A story from ArsTechnica:
It wouldn't be a Grand Theft Auto-related movie without some controversy, but the BBC's upcoming dramatic, 90-minute retelling of the series' genesis has come under fire not from Jack Thompson but from the game's parent company. A Thursday announcement confirmed that Take Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games, has filed a lawsuit against the BBC over its still-in-production TV movie Game Changer.
Rockstar representatives offered a statement to Ars Technica—the same one that was originally reported by IGN. It described Take Two's filing against the BBC as a "trademark infringement" lawsuit over the Grand Theft Auto franchise and insisted that neither Take Two nor Rockstar had anything to do with the film's creation. "Our goal is to ensure that our trademarks are not misused in the BBC's pursuit of an unofficial depiction of purported events related to Rockstar Games," the statement said. "We have attempted multiple times to resolve this matter with the BBC without any meaningful resolution. It is our obligation to protect our intellectual property, and unfortunately in this case litigation was necessary."
The statement did not clarify where the suit was filed, nor what specific trademarks may have been violated to make the British TV movie production worth filing suit against. A Rockstar representative confirmed that the suit had been filed this morning in London but declined to comment on our other questions.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday May 23 2015, @04:04PM
this has to do with the legal principle of estoppel.
You can't have a patent or copyright taken from you unless you agree to let someone else have it. But if you don't enforce your copyright, it can fall into the public domain through your own inaction. That led to "Sacks 41st Avenue" of Capitola California receiving a C&D letter from Saks 5th Avenue's attorneys.
That said I don't have a clue about the merits of this particular case.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday May 23 2015, @05:25PM
But going after a documentary seems a bit over the top, wouldn't you thing?
BBC is, best I can tell, not trying to market anything except the documentary. If estoppel were really the issue here, just about any un-solicited news coverage, reenactment, docu-drama would be similarly attacked.
I rather suspect there is some dirty laundry in that wash basket that the plaintiffs are trying to keep under cover, rather than any real objections over free advertising.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday May 23 2015, @05:31PM
Witness the prior story on this page. Google and Amazon "celebrating" Pacman.
Cupping my ear, listening for lawsuits. Crickets.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday May 24 2015, @12:40AM
My suspicion too. The question is what....
Is it one of those "I have nothing to hide!" ? ;-)
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday May 25 2015, @06:06PM
I don't think that's how trademarks are meant to work though. You can't trademark yourself and sue newspapers writing stories about you, for example. Likewise, you can't use a trademark to stop someone working on a documentary (with the exception that if you are showing content FROM the games, then you have a copyright issue). If the BBC were advertising this as a GTA Approved Official From The Makers documentary, that would then be a trademark issue, but simply being about GTA does not violate trademark for fair use reasons.
Write story about Apple (trademarked name) -> legal
Start company named Apple that sells apples -> legal
Start company named Apple Electronics -> trademark infringement
Trademarks are intended to protect brand name use, not as a copyright or intellectual property hammer to wield indiscriminately.
Disclaimer: not a lawyer.
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