I think its a bit ridiculous to name a game like that. It seems like a way to live off this groups fame to me
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So, I've kind of cruised through the thread and the arguments here, and I think that there are two sides to this...
1) Yeah, I think that Iron Maiden is stretching things a bit with some of this lawsuit. I don't think that it's completely without merit, but things like the character's name (which comes from a previous game) are just silly. Now, is 3D realms totally trying to make a play on words and get people excited about something by leveraging a trademark that Iron Maiden owns? Yep. Absolutely. Which brings us to point...
2) 3D Realms is a significant company with resources and industry experience, and is just acting like a collective of idiots for not reaching out and getting permission for this. They had to know better. They are clearly leveraging someone else's trademark's popularity to promote their own game. Chances are that if they'd just contacted Iron Maiden's marketing team, they could have not only gotten permission, but made some sort of official tie-in (maybe even get Eddie in there as some kind of NPC teammate? That would be excellent). Sure, they'd need to give the band's org a cut, but with promotion from Iron Maiden's camp, they probably could sell 2X the copies of the game and everyone would make more money. Win/win. Not seeing this up front and handling it properly was just stupid.
TLDR:
1) Yes, Iron Maiden is being a bit petty, but the reality is
2) 3D realms are morons for thinking that this wouldn't be a problem, and should have worn their big boy pants to the party to prevent this from happening in the first place
😎😉
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well, t has its advantages when your name gets picked by a search engine.
And that's totally fine, last time i checked Iron Maiden did not invent the 18th century or 19th century, torture device
the idea of trademarking a medieval instrument or any piece of history is pure nonsense
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The character being from a previous game has already been mentioned. Here is also the ion gun: https://bombshell.gamepedia.com/Ion_Maiden
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People ITT completely disregarding the reality of trademark laws.
It's not about being a dick or trying to scrape extra money-- modern laws and protections force the onus on the trademark holder. Meaning, if they didn't defend their name to this degree, then they would weaken their ability to hold or protect said trademark in the future. See: Nintendo, Apple, and any other modern company.
If trademark, copyright, and intellectual property protections were overhauled and uniform across the board, perhaps such vehement defense of one's creations would not be necessary. But in today's business world, it is an unfortunate reality.
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now im off to listening to some iron maiden.... o dang it now im playing some obscure 3d realms game, how did this happen.
Being fictitious aside, trademark is crazy on the US, and there are tons of lawyers out there like sharks ready to find these things.
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I can see why Iron Maiden is trying to sue Ion Maiden.
Ion Maiden is more metal than their own game! How outrageous!
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What's with people rushing to extreme judgement without all of the facts?
We live in the age of emotion. Personal feelings over logic.
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Ever hear of Metallica? They do it pretty often. The Rolling Stones only recently relented over the copyright of Bittersweet Symphony to Verve, which had taken over a decade to get over it.
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No, I'm not. This is the reality of modern business. Some people will be kind enough to let their works be used, but it is hardly ever in their best interest to do so due to the state of protections.
It's nice when they let it slide, but it should never be expected.
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Especially when their claims are egregious, which is why said egregiousness is argued over legally, settled via disposition or in court.
Look, I’m not defending Iron Maiden in any way, I’m simply explaining why entities defend themselves this way due to the way protections currently work.
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You're missing the point, again. No one cares about your explanation for the precedence. That wasn't what the question was about. It's not a rush to judgment about them being greedy, because especially when it is egregious anyway, it is being greedy. No one needs to establish that. They literally are already doing it, and have been doing it that way for decades, as noted in the examples above.
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Feels like you’re just shifting the goalpost, as you never even explained “the point” earlier, but okay.
And no, it isn’t greedy. It’s loss prevention in a world with abusable rights.
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Never shifted goalposts. I was just telling you why you missed the point. Ergo, your own aim was off where you thought the goal was when it wasn't the question.
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That was a radically different situation.
First, rather than just being the usual nonsensical example of copyright process that this current situation is, within the Bittersweet Symphony affair the flaws in the copyright system were far more thoroughly highlighted, as The Verve got screwed over despite their having taken appropriate steps before release, and they got screwed over hard.
Former Rolling Stones manager Allen Klein got super greedy and strongarmed the matter (purportedly even going so far as to change an initial push for a 50/50 split to 100/0 after the song got hugely popular), and former manager Andrew Oldham was a supreme asshole about the affair, indicating that he felt that he was due the full credit (and income) for Bittersweet Symphony and going so far as to remark that The Verve hadn't put any actual effort of their own into the song.
This assertion came despite his only claim to contribution being the original framework of the melody that was used for The Last Time/Bittersweet Symphony; However that melody was actually composed by David Whitaker [Oldham has even been criticized by The Rolling Stones for how little he contributed to their music as a producer: According to the Rolling Stones' website "Accounts regarding the value of his musical input to the Stones recordings vary, from negligible to absolute zero"], and lacks the recomposition and writing that The Verve applied to it.
On the other hand, Keith Richards indicated that he was super chill about the whole matter, and wouldn't have pursued it at all had it been up to him. So even there, it wasn't the entire Rolling Stones to blame, just a few specific assholes among The Rolling Stone's [previous] management. (Though I believe Oldham pursued his suit against Klein after Klein took control of the royalties, so The Verve getting screwed over pretty much solely falls on Klein's shoulders.)
Which ends up making it more of a cautionary tale towards the well-known scummy practices present in music management, than allowing it to serve as a criticism of anything The Rolling Stones themselves did [and, in fact, I'm unclear if The Rolling Stones actually obtained any benefit from Klein seizing the royalties, other than getting their names in Bittersweet Symphony's credits].
Here, however, the issue seems to be more about overzealous presentation of completely normal copyright defense than it is about any kind of greedy pursuit of royalties, so the situation is different even without considering the fact that Iron Maiden's management would be hard pressed to compete with that level of asshole-ry even if they were to make the attempt.
As doctorofjournalism noted, this is just basic copyright affairs, even if the language used could have been more sensible. Thus, something critizable to general US practices, rather than to Iron Maiden. What happened with Bittersweet Symphony was appalling in a way that this current matter doesn't even begin to touch on, and definitely falls solidly on the misbehavior of specific individuals.
The Last Time - David Whitaker, credit stolen by Oldham
The Last Time - The Rolling Stones
Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve, credit stolen by Klein
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What doctorofjournalism actually said which I was responding to:
"What's with people rushing to extreme judgement without all of the facts?
We live in the age of emotion. Personal feelings over logic."
He's implying people weren't getting the facts, when it was the OP who actually pointed out that these claims of copyright affairs are often overused that this isn't surprising, yet it has to be asked. This has nothing to do with the language of copyright laws, it has to do with the question of why they are more predatory about it especially to the point, which as you conceded, these claims were egregious in the first place. The laws are used as a crutch so much that It has also made Youtube hazardous to post videos, with fear of getting the video removed, blocked, or even the account suspended. Youtube is not taking a stance to be the arbiter of these claims, even if they are pretty much bogus.
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Says a lot about your fan base if you go on record saying they can't distinguish the word Ion and Iron, they don't even sound similar.
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glad i'm not a fan of that group anyway..
blatant cash grab
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They're off by one entire letter, and have a character that's a trope for another guy. I don't see the infringement. Brütal Legend is full of stuff like this as well.
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not only the name isn't the same but those shitheads picked a band name from an already existing name. HEY GUYS I PICK THE NAME "SUN" AS MY ARTIST NAME SO ANY OF YOU DOING ANY SUN-RELATED STUFF WILL OWE ME ROYALTIES. what a retarded shit
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You realize there are plenty of trademarks that aren't original names, right?
It has nothing to do with how original it is and everything to do with how it is defended.
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Iron is a mineral. Ion is a particle so they don't have trademark claim.
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It has nothing to do with how original it is and everything to do with how it is defended.
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You can't defend a trademark of something you don't have a trademark over.
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Which is literally what the legal argument is over— there’s an entire industry built on this. I’m not saying anyone is correct, I’m explaining why the system works this way.
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Which is why it's a frivolous lawsuit. Should just automatically be thrown out.
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i know about how companies/bands/whatever, at least in some parts of the world, have to "defend" their IPs. now how do you even know that in this case they aren't just bullshitting ? how do you even go and "defend" your IP against something that's not of the same name as them and whose features they claim are somewhat too much like them existed way before both parties even existed ? to me copyright laws and authorship in their globality are complete bullshit anyway
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to me copyright laws and authorship in their globality are complete bullshit anyway
I echoed the same sentiment in another comment. I’m not saying any of this fair, I’m just explaining why trademarks and IPs are handled this way.
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yeah but i mean, it doesn't sound much like "really" defending an OP there. like sometimes one could lose their IP if they don't defend against, but i doubt it'd be the case here. looks more like another reason, like PR move
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It’s not that you’d lose the IP. It’s that you weaken any future defense of it, because there’s a precedence of you not defending it. Again, I’m not saying it should operate like this, but it’s the way things currently are.
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Iron Maiden. 3D Realms making a build engine game. insert "what year is it" meme here
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The basic art design of that game really isn't helping us avoid that meme, either.
They're definitely playing into the nostalgia with that art design, even if they've polished it up rather nicely.
In some of the screenshots, you can't even tell that it's a modern game. :P
But yeah, last time 3D Realms and Iron Maiden were both on people's tongues at the same time was probably the early 2000s, between the 1999 return of Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith to Iron Maiden and the 2001 release of 3D Realm's Max Payne. Can't say either one has really made a big splash since then.
Though the largest factor in that is going to be 3D realms only releasing stuff like Duke Nukem Forever and Bombshell (both of which were not received well) within this past decade. Kinda hard to make a (positive) impact with those kind of releases.
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This is likely the work of Iron Maiden's managers rather than the members of Iron Maiden themselves.
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The similarities seem circumstantial at best. I get the need to fight for copyrights but it's not like they straight-up took one of the band members or assets and put them in the game like a lot of the homebrew Nintendo-inspired games.
Either way the game looks fun!
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they straight-up took one of the band members
I mean, it'd be pretty funny if their response to that was a copyright suit rather than a kidnapping charge.
and put them in the game
Hiding the evidence! Clever!
Well, maybe a bit derivative to Adventures in Dinosaur City or the most recent Jumanji film.
like a lot of the homebrew Nintendo-inspired games.
..oh, I see where this is going.
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Haha, don't forget to say "Yoink!" when you take a band member!
Also that Koopa show looks terrifying. I still would've loved it as a kid though.
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Haha, don't forget to say "Yoink!" when you take a band member!
Is it even possible to nab something without saying yoink? =O
Surely not.
Also that Koopa show looks terrifying. I still would've loved it as a kid though.
I'm disappointed that no better quality footage exists of the show. It truly was a show that deserved to be.. properly appreciated.
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Also, 'cause noone really brings up "yoink" enough, you get these bonus images:
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That was the actual plot of Peter Pan, the whole trip to Neverland was just a metaphor. True Story.
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Huh. I just deleted the game from my wishlist last night, then this happens :/
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The fandom weakened, and the music industry attacked, it's your doing D:
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it should have been chinese game and there wont be any drama ensues (probably)
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I guess they have to sue George Lucas for using ion cannons in The Empire Strikes Back now.
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Looks like free publicity for a band about to go on tour actually.
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Fear of the Cash$
Fear of the Cash$
I have a constant fear that someone will steal my name...
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I like both Iron things and Maidens...
Ooops, I guess I'll be sued now...
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If other band, especially metal band, would take name "Ion Maiden" then lawsuit would be totally reasonable.
A game on the other hand, if it has nothing in common with band - should be ok even with "Iron maiden".
Imagine someone writing a history book about torture devices and getting lawsuit because he called it "Iron Maiden".
Or famous brand using common "names" for their name. The Doors suing shops selling doors... Simon & Garfunkel suing every guy named Simon which tired to start his own business...
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Yeah, copyright when applied to reutilizations of preexisting terms is always.. especially dubious.
The Doors suing shops selling doors
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I want news about Iron Maiden threatening 3D realms with a lawsuit if they don't put (Fr)eddie into their game.
" If the cheeky bastards picked Ion Maiden as the title, the least they ought to do is include something as close as Eddie as Ion Maiden is to Iron Maiden" told the manager of the band.
Jokes aside they shouldn't really have any base for this, a metal band and an FPS game based on build engine isn't really two things that can confuse the buyer, or being close to any fraud.
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That moment when you accidentally buy a David Bowie film instead of The Man in the Iron Mask because the consumer electronics retailer was playing Fear of the Dark by Gordon Giltrap on the store radio.
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i was just watching disenchantment and there was an iron maiden in it. lets see if that past its prime band's lawyers are good enough to take on the Simpsons lawyers.
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Iron Maiden are suing video game company 3D Realms over the game Ion Maiden, which they describe as an “incredibly blatant” infringement on their trademark.
The lawsuit, which demands $2m (£1.58m) in damages, argues that the game’s title will cause “confusion among consumers”, “is nearly identical to the Iron Maiden trademark in appearance, sound and overall commercial impression”, and “is attempting to trade off on Iron Maiden’s notoriety”.
It argues that the name of the game’s protagonist Shelley Harrison is a play on Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris, and that a skull icon is similar to the band’s mascot Eddie. It also argues the game is similar to Iron Maiden’s own game Legacy of the Beast and gives examples of fans writing online that they presumed the game was a band tie-in.
3D Realms, who previously developed the Duke Nukem and Max Payne franchises, responded on Twitter, saying they “will review our options once we receive official notice of the lawsuit and will make any necessary decisions at the appropriate time”. The game is still in development, and 3D Realms adds that “everyone continues to work diligently on Ion Maiden to deliver the best possible experience later this year”.
The case follows another recent copyright infringement case in the world of hard rock: in May, Guns N’ Roses sued a Colorado craft brewery over a beer named Guns ‘N’ Rosé.
Source - The Guardian
Kind of like the band Iron Maiden, but this seems a bit petty / greedy?
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