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WARLORDS! Legal way to get around Atari @ names!


SoundGammon

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Notice the "!" with the name Warlords!.

 

Back when The Beatles were working on their movie HELP!, it was originally just called HELP, no explanation point.

 

They were told that title was already used and couldn't use it.

 

But what they did find out they could put an explanation point on it and it was now it was perfectly legal!

 

So now we shown be able to rename Medieval Mayhem to Warlords!

 

Also change Space Rocks to Asteroids!

 

Any legal minds want to weigh in on this?

 

Also how about Ataris name for TRAK BALL that they copyrighted but they can't touch TRACK BALL!

 

I think I will copyright the name "ATARI!" That would be fun for sure!

 

And there are those that "PICK-PIC-PICK"! lol

Edited by SoundGammon
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Interesting work around, but maybe not worth the chance of a homebrew game being pulled due to the legal risk? Great story on the exclamation point in the Beatles Help movie. Funny in the response of a second exclamation point.

 

I before E except remove the C

I usually post TRAKBALL instead of the presumed correct spelling probably due to owning the 5200 version for decades. I sometimes post misspelled JOYSTIK as a tease to the arcade games magazine.

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I for one would recommend using a name used in a different region, so Gradius for the 2600 would be Nemesis everywhere except Europe, where it would use Gradius. Lawyers from other countries can't touch you, from what I know. Unless you want it to be called Gatana, of course. (Gradius = Gladius, Gatana = Katana)

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The Beatles movie HELP! opened on July 29, 1965. That is 53.5 years ago. Would laws regarding trademarks and copyrights have remained unchanged for 50+ years?

 

From what I understand, the title Help had been registered for a movie in the making, but I don't find any on IMDb around that era. If that is correct and perhaps an important detail, it means you'd have to claim that Warlords, Asteroids, Battlezone etc don't already exist but are games under development, and that by adding an exclamation mark, your Asteroids! will be different from the other Asteroids which may hit the market in perhaps 6 months from now. Most likely you will have a hard time claiming those games don't already exist.

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