Curse.com sued by Games Workshop over Warhammer Alliance's name

I cannot help but wonder if this is partly an effort by GW to distance itself from Warhammer Online.

That said, they could be motivated by the very low quality of warhammeralliance.com, cause partly by curse's near-abandonment of Warhammer Online. WA is a neglected cesspool. And Wardb is not being properly maintained. Such neglect could reflect negatively on Games Workshop, even though the IP is licensed to Mythic.

GW treats fans this way?

*spit

I just don't see how they could truly benefit from this. It seems to me like any money they make from this lawsuit (which they might not get a dime anyways) would be off-set by the number of fans that will be pissed off by this and avoid GW in the future. I admit to not having much experience with Warhammer Alliance people but in general Curse has always seemed to be there largely as a support mechanism for MMOs. I got all my addons for WoW off of Curse when playing WoW and they greatly enchanced my gameplay. And let me add that half of these addons just do stuff that the developers are too lazy to do. There were addons for switching your gear over years before WoW programmed it into the game and Auctioneer still does a ton of basic functions the game should just do.
So it seems like attacking a website like Curse (rather than, here's a novel idea, just politely asking them to change any offending name or references to the IP or blah blah) is going to make a lot of players mad and probably not get them much. Maybe GW are just a pack of jekrs and can't help it, I don't know. But I seriously doubt they've had "great and irreparable injury" done to them. What a joke that statement is. If I was in a jury on this case they wouldn't be able to speak over the sounds of me laughing my butt off at hearing that kind of swill.

Don't forget that Curse is not a bunch of altruistic volunteers; it's making money from stuffs made by fans for free, and stuffs based on other companies' IPs without licencing them. It looks like a fan-site, but it's a business for sure.

Every year or two, I have a sudden yearning for playing Games Workshop games again, as I did in my youth. Every time, they do something stupid that makes me decide not to bother. Usually it's hiking the price of their ridiculously over valued miniatures. I guess this legal case will have to do this time.

Personally, I remember Warhammer Alliance as being the only damn place for the WAR community to gather, back in the days some idiot in EA/Mythic decided official forums weren't necessary. By the time they woke up and realised that yes, giving players of the game an official place to go to discuss their game is not an optional thing of an internet product myself and the bulk of the playing population had already given up on the game.

Oh well. Maybe next year it'll finally seem worthwhile starting that chaos marine army.

Good for them, its their IP.

Go try to mess around with anything NFL related... you can not even show a game in public on a screen bigger then they say its allowed or you get slapped with a lawsuit. Not to mention using one of the teams logos to try to sell something.

GOOD FOR GW.

ITA: People with minimalistic reading skills and an agenda against WAR think EA/Mythic instigated the lawsuit, when the MMO has nothing to do with the lawsuit.

Stay klassy with a capital K, WAR trolls.

Nobody has pointed this out yet, but GW has to do this. It's the nature of trademarks. If you don't vigorously defend them with actions like this, you will lose them. If GW lets this slide, then when someone else down the road actually tries to infringe, they can point to GW not doing anything about WA and claim GW doesn't want or care about their IP anymore.

It's ugly, but that's our "system" of TMs and IP.

Yes, GW is a British company but their marks are registered here too.

Warhammer Alliance had (Perhaps still does) a awful reputation in the opening months of Warhammer Online, these forums have had tons of comments about it's... well it was pretty freaking irritating.

I can totally see GW's point in this lawsuit and wish them the best.

Bad enough Warhammer Online is dead, don't need people equating Warhammer Alliance with GW and it's products/customer service.

Anyone who plays any of GE tabletop games knows how hard up GW is for money lately. Stor closings, staff layed off, stores down to 1 employee, events cut back, store events nixed, price hikes on all products etc the list goes on.
GW used to be king of tabletop games but has a lot of stiff competition that has sprung up in the last 5 years or so. That coupled with the crappy economy has the scrounging for money anyway they can.
I still think this is a lame lawsuit and a desperate move for money. If anything, Curse encourages people to play WAR Online. The fact that they've only just now started to cry about the Warhammer Alliance says a lot.

Actually the "global wargaming community" as I would like to think each and every one of us who discuss wargame related things on the net in various ways and media, is sceptical if this is right or even logically stands from this and previous attempts of GW to sue its fan base.

GW seems to get more and more paranoid about their IP and how much they control it, in a way logical since their wargames product is average at best and it can only grow so much, their IP licensed looks like their way to further profit, but how much of the bulling they do is legal and stands in a court if the defendant stands for it is questionable, C&D letters are worthless papers anyone can issue them without any real legal binding, C&D orders on the other hand are legal binding documents from settled court cases, so far GW has not obtained any, usually because the fanbased target just gets disillusioned raises the middle finger and never again looks back to GW, how much damage has GW done to themselves with their actions is open to speculation, same goes on how profitable could licensing their IP can be, if they, come two years in the future of any game release, start a witch-hunt of who has screenshots of their IP in their fan websites and blogs, that would be a mild to catastrophic damage to your published game.

Games workshop are extremelty litigious when it comes to anything they see as an infringement of their IP rights.

There have been many mods since modding started that have been shut down because they put space marines in an FPS, or 40k spaceships in Homeworld. These were non-commercial mods to existing games, like Halflife, Quake, and Unreal.

Its GW being the corporate money grabbing bullies that they always have been. It was never about the hobby for GW, its only ever been about the money.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Most of you need to learn to read, they aren't suing for having a fan website, they are suing because Curse.com bought the website and is making money off selling merchandise with the Warhammer Name on it, which Games Workshop doesn't see a penny, basically they are askign to cease selling merchandise and stuff using the warhammer name or give them a percentage of the money made, which to me seems fine because no one allows others to make money off of their own work.

Basically the real fans and community make add-ons and warhammer related things and Curse.com benefits by selling "Premium" services etc.. with that free labor provided by the fans.

GW is notoriously litigious. As a former player and fan of their tabletop games, I know that it is nothing new to see them go after fans who produce a work of love and dedication, which GW sees as "diluting the brand". As for myself, I have trouble support any GW game because that company holds such casual and blatant disrespect for their fanbase.

GW will win this suit, as they always do, but someday karma will catch them. They've got it coming.

There is a clear disconnect between Mythic and GW...GW is suing the pants off Warhammer Alliance while Mythic still has Warhammer Alliance listed first on the fansite page.

To me it sounds like GW wants to piss off the WHO fans, are they trying to kill off the MMO?