On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 17:05:45 GMT, Mike Hibbert
wrote:

Hello All,

We have just created a Board Game Fansite, and are wondering about a
potential legal issue.

The site is called www.thexxxxx.co.uk (where xxxxxx is our name).

There are a couple of other sites around.....

www.xxxxxx.com which is a Voice over IP reseller site
www.xxxxxxs.org which is a games seller in the US
www.thexxxxxx.com which is a non engligh language Flash site

So, are we breaking any Copyright/trademark/intellectual property
rights? We are not doing this commercially, but simply a Fan site vith
views and reviews - much like a blog.

Thanks in advance, any help will be much appreciated!


Mike

No real comment can be made on copyright in a specific sense since it
differs from country to country. Basically the owner of the name has
full rights to exploit it and no one else, without their consent. You
are using the name of a game which is a product and may or may not be
a trade mark. Most makers are pleased to allow fans to use game names
in sites like yours, since it drums up business.

As an example. MS are rabid about their name being used, yet Age of
Empires III has many sites, with some of them actively working on game
mods that alter the game at code level. Visiting the developers site
yesterday, I saw that they are aware of this and upset because some of
the mods allow cheating in clan matches. They weren't upset by the
mods, just what they could be used for. An update was issued that does
a CRC check on all players before a match starts. )