Should we be concerned about trademarks?

[BFeely]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/1 ... l-zenimax/ suggests so, what's the ZDoom team's take on it? Of course ZDoom is a licensed modification of the DOOM source code, but they may still force the removal of trademarks, and the potential breakage of savegames, etc.

[Rachael]

You are not the first person who has brought this up.

[leileilol]

Unless Randi suddenly makes a kickstarter for ZuperDuperRetroGameEngineNotCarmackAtAll and mentions "creator of zDOOM" we shouldn't have to worry.


though interestingly, they did add clauses about trademarks to the GPL v3 starting from the RTCW/ET source code release, but funny enough they are still ignored to this day (iortcw, iodoom3, rbdoom3, etlegacy, etc)

it is unfortunate that a simple matter of trademark got blown out of proportion though. I don't agree with Derek Yu's licensing of the DRL artwork as CC-BY-SA though, it needs a -NC put in there given it's derivative of id's creative work.

My own approach with OA is this:

- don't knockoff the map layouts
- don't knockoff the characters (i.e. no Kleskish, no Doomish, more fantasy and anime knockoffy than Todd MacFarlane knockoffs)
- don't knockoff the settings (instead of a gothic hell keep, just have a hotspring bathhouse its just as hot lol)
- don't namedrop Q**k* in descriptions (though downstream will be explciit in its "is a cloen of X", and as such it got Ksirk in trouble before)

[Graf Zahl]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/1 ... l-zenimax/ suggests so, what's the ZDoom team's take on it? Of course ZDoom is a licensed modification of the DOOM source code, but they may still force the removal of trademarks, and the potential breakage of savegames, etc.

ZDoom doesn't violate any trademarks. The only thing would be the name Doom, but hey - ZDoom is an engine based on id's source code, that can play the game Doom, created by id, owned by Zenimax. You have to own said game in order to play it. The problem with DoomRL was not that it used the trademark, but that it used it in a context which was considered misleading, i.e. not referring to the trademarked game.

And what's this "breakage of savegame" nonsense?

[Nevander]

knockoff

I prefer the term "homage."

[Gez]

Why ZDoom is not concerned by the same trademark issue that DoomRL was:

1. DoomRL was associated to an ongoing kickstarter for a "spiritual sequel". ZDoom remains a non-commercial endeavor.
2. DoomRL proposes a stand-alone game. ZDoom proposes an improved executable to play Doom.
3. The ZDoom website does not use meta keyword or hidden words to prop it up to appear in search engine queries for Doom. (In fact I don't see meta keywords at all.) The DoomRL site did.

Here's the way this works in a lawyer's mind: "1. someone is making money from a product that 2. they associate to another product that 3. uses our trademark. This is just one step removed from making money on a product using our trademark. Let's tell them that it's uncool, and they should stop."

And that's exactly what happened. Contrarily to public perception which makes them fun-hating greedy vampires, they didn't send a C&D on the game itself, nor did they attempt to shutdown the kickstarter for Jupiter Hell. The authors of DoomRL made some minor adjustments to comply with the demand and everyone is happy now.

[Graf Zahl]

1. DoomRL was associated to an ongoing kickstarter for a "spiritual sequel". ZDoom remains a non-commercial endeavor.

... and even if it was, the offending parts of the source code are not Zenimax's concern, if they were removed and ZDoom published under the GPL it could make as much money as it wanted, provided that it doesn't abuse the Doom trademark by creating a fake logo and such as traffic bait. And the traffic bait was what they had issues with, not the fact that they wanted to make money.

This isn't really much different like selling a watch with the description "looks like a Rolex", - and if you do, Rolex will come pounding you mercilessly.

[BFeely]

And what's this "breakage of savegame" nonsense?

Since the save game contains in its structure the ZDoom name (or GZDoom if saved in GZdoom, or QZDoom if saved in QZDoom) and the different engines will not read the other savegames, if the "Doom" name needed to be removed from those tokens due to a trademark threat, it would render the savegames unloadable even if there were no other breaking changes in the source code.

[Graf Zahl]

To even think about such a thing...

No, ZDoom does not violate the Doom trademark, even if source ports were to be found questionable. After all the word is not "Doom". But in the end all depends on what it is used for. Of course you are allowed to refer to the Game "Doom" by spelling out the word "Doom".

What you are not allowed is to misappropriate a trademark to advertise a project that is NOT the game Doom and not related to the game Doom.

See it this way:

"Here's a photo of my watch, it's a Rolex" is perfectly legitimate to post, but
"Here's a photo of my watch, it looks like a Rolex and I want to sell it" will bring the wrath of the laywers upon you.

It's the context that matters!

Translated to source ports vs. DooMRL it'd be like:

"This is a source port, it can play Doom, provided you have purchased the game." vs.
"This is a new game based on Doom but to hammer it down, let's use a logo that makes this clear to the dumbest person. Oh, and let's use this game to advertise our new commercial project!"

If there is one project that might be in danger it's FreeDoom. Not because of its content but because of its name. Strictly speaking this can also be construed a trademark violation by using "Doom" in a context that makes some implications that are not true, but this one's a lot less clear-cut as DoomRL. What these people did was clearly illegal in most jurisdictions.

[Gez]

To reiterate: I listed three points that caused the letter to the DRL authors. You need all three of them. If you only meet, like, one or two? You're fine.