Epic demands: quit making Gears dolls

shhhhh.... emilio, if i slip you a 50 can i get the doll?

Get the story right first before you post a title like that.

They didn't say stop making Gears dolls. They said "Remove our logos from your doll and the packaging you created."

Gears of War mmm... War & Goodwill.
So American... Merry Christmas, Bang Bang your dead.

Ah, remember when Epic was a friend of us gamers?

Respect for CliffyB -10

If the dude was making a bunch of the things and selling them, it'd be one thing. But he made, by hand, a 1-off, and they had to RIAA him? Bastages.

"Come on Epic, we know you are much cooler than that as this seems just a little too corporate for even a company like EA."

Gold.

Epic: please be cool about this. It was a mere Christmas present and was by no means meant for sale of any sort.

this is what happens when the almighty dollar starts to affect the brain.

i live in nc (same state as epic) and they are known here to be some major assholes at times. i was affliated with the g2expo (i posted the GRAW2 vid that was shown here months ago) which was to raise money for a community college. we contacted epic SEVERAL times asking if they would make the 30 min drive and come and speak at the event, and they never responded. i dont know what all was said, but they just completely overlooked us. i posted a link on the official gears forums linking to the GRAW2 vid, and they IP banned me from their site.

case and point...

I would imagine that, even if Epic were to bring this case to court, that they would be laughed out and told to pay legal fees for the defendant.

This is absolutely disgusting that they would go after a guy who hand-made 1 doll as a gift, as if he were mass producing them and hawking them on ebay. Shame on you Epic.

"I would imagine that, even if Epic were to bring this case to court, that they would be laughed out and told to pay legal fees for the defendant."

I was just about to post about that.

I would LOVE to see them TRY to take this to court. What a joke that would be. Legal action for a one-off Christmas present to a relative. YEA...that REALLY has legal grounds.

Why can't anyone see the real point of this story? It's one thing he made the doll for a gift, but he used licensed material ... names, etc, to do so and then made the mistake of publicizing it to the whole internet community.

Any smart company is going to clamp down on unauthorized use of it's patented rights. They have to set a legal president. If you don't stop this "baby step" then people get the wrong idea that they can go off and do whatever they please and then you have a real serious problem on your hands with misuse of your product(s) and associated brand. It's when people start offering money for what appears to be a licensed Epic GoW product there in lies the real serious nature of this problem. It takes this situation beyond the realm of harmless fanboy-like nature into a situation any company has to be concerned about.

Throwing on a slant of 'oooh look at big bad Epic throwing it's weight around against an poor innocent man' angle is poor judgment. It's one thing to inform us about what is going on, but dump the sensational spin type of journalism at home. We're gamers ... we love GoW ... but it doesn't mean we're all stupid and can't see the other side of the coin.

The problem isn't the figure as much as the unauthorized and unlicensed use of the registered trademarks.

He has put "Gears of War®" on everything, I gather if he removes that, he'll be fine.

"Any smart company is going to clamp down on unauthorized use of it's patented rights. They have to set a legal president."

A legal president, huh? LMAO. I'd hate to have an illegal president in the White House.

Hard to take you serious if you don't know the difference between a president and a precedent.

BTW, the lawyer's email address, as best I can make out, is zbishop@hunton.com. Maybe we need to write him a letter?

The US currently has what should be an illegal president in office. :P LOL

I guess the guys who made the Gears of War pumpkins are going to be getting these cease and desist letters next.

There is a good way and a bad way to handle situations like this.

Good way = Red vs Blue

"The problem isn't the figure as much as the unauthorized and unlicensed use of the registered trademarks."
badvermin is correct.
it's not the doll at all, it's the pictures and box art that all contain the gears logo.
if he would simply correctly marked them trademarked and wrote at the bottom the ownership of the trademark and that he is not affiliated, i'm sure this would have never happened.
it's as simple as taking legal precautions, and i guess he didn't feel the need to.

Epic...bah. I remember when those guys used to be cool.

I would keep the font, keep the colors, change the wording to something like Gears of Death or Grinds of War or some other equally stupid knock-off name and THEN I'd sell them on ebay.

I posted this to my blog yesterday, may as well cross post it here because you are all missing the point of the C&D.

There’s a huge fanbase out there for Epic Games, creators of Gears of War. They are known to be a very fan-friendly company always catering to their followers.

About a month or so ago, images started circling the web of a custom made figurine in the likeness of Marcus Fenix. It was a nicely done job and a one-time only deal for the creator’s cousin. The creator went so far as to create packaging emblazoned with the Gears of War logo and title. On this guys website were links to his other work. Basically, he does art type stuff for a living and now that these pictures have circled the web he drew a lot of attention thanks alone to Epic’s intellectual property.

Recently, Epic sent the guy a Cease and Desist letter. Those rabid fans are now very angry calling Epic bad names like “Sony” (ouch, but I’m not sure I see the correlation there). Saying how dare Epic overreact like that. How did they overreact? The artist clearly used their protected logos and titles, as well as a likenesses to promote himself. I don’t see where the issue is here.

Sorry, but companies have to aggressively protect their trademarks otherwise they stand to lose them.

If a company decided to relase dolls like Emilios, Epic would have a tough time defending the trademark if they had already let someone else get away with it.

The best thing for Emilio to do would be to get a licensing agreement with both Epic and Munny and start producing a line of them for real.

He can make anything he wishes using anything he wishes for his own personal, private use or as a gift for his cousin. He doesn't have to take name, logos and mark off the doll. He has to take them off the Web as Epic sees the publication of the marks as infringement upon their exclusive use of the mark.

I haven't read the letter but I doubt it deals with the doll at all. It deals his Web site and the depiction of the doll there with their marks on it.

Now whether or not making one doll as a gift, not selling it, publicizing it only as representation of what he achieved as "art", whether that consitutes fair use -- think Warhol and the Campbell's soup logo -- I don't know and might have to be decided by a court. A copyright and trademarks attorney could advise the artist whether or not Epic has something they could even reasonably file in court as a formal lawsuit. But they almost certainly sent the cease and desist to let the Gears game community know, basically, you may not use our trademarked or copyrighted images or material in a public space without permission. That's their stance. The includes a lot of public use that could be construed as for promotional purposes without authorization. It's just coverage. It may look ugly, but I bet essentially all Epic is asking is that he take the pictures and marks off his Web site because they do not endorse the site. The doll he can leave be. Now the fact the Epic releases kits of ready-made art for "fan sites" might preclude their getting thing done by a court about this. If a court were determine this guy's site, doll pictures and all, is at least in part a "fan site" for the Gears of War game, the court is just going to tell Epic they brough in on themselves by releasing material to promote the creation of such sites in an effort gain free advertising for their products. Which would be funny.

bad! bad Epic!

Hmmm... There must be hudnreds of GoW videos on youtube... even people adding there own music to the GoW trailer. And all that seems to be acceptable... I guess the home made vids don't have the logo so it solves everything.

It is kind of bad by Epic. Of course companys have to protect their trademarks but this is kind of silly. It was a gift. The mistake might have been adding the ®... if you don't, you are safe. It is just a word... or soon we night not use the word "Gears of War" when talking to other people because I might be promoting myself.

Well, I'll keep on playing Vegas...

Here's the deal...if Epic allowed someone to public use their trademark without permission, they lose it. So they had to make a public show of protecting their trademark, otherwise it would set a bad precedent in a court case should someone decide to make a killing off unauthorized GoW merchandise.

Fans like these are what Epic needs. These kinds of fans turned Star Wars into a Mega franchise.

The Star Wars Franchise has no problem with people making fan films, using their characters and overall promoting their product (without making any $$ for themselves) yet epic jumps on this guy like the music industry.

The doll is a cool work of fan art. You see this kind of stuff everywhere for movies, tv shows, etc...

If Epic starts alienating these fans, they will be killing themselves.

Dave

@10, GRT ...

I slapped that together real quick before I went to work. Hence my mis-spelling, but telling you this is pointless. You got to make your zippy jab and all is well with the world again.

'cease and desist', I like the idea of Epic sending round lawyers to the guys house 'show me your sewing needles and patterns...NOW'