Games Workshop: PR Fiasco

Games Workshop has claimed ownership of the title of "Space Marine" and is going after anyone that uses the term. (Link) That goes for (so far) games and now books. I wonder if they will go after the Heinlein estate or the estate of EE Smith (both of whom used the term in books over 60 years ago)? How about James Cameron since he wrote the screenplay for Aliens? I get that the hulking, power-armored warriors of Warhammer 40K are their bread and butter, but this flies in the face of common sense and artistic decency. They are going after small time authors to build a caseload of precedent for when they go after someone big (the author in the article, MCA Hogarth, donates proceeds from her book to The Wounded Warrior Project for crying out loud). Here's hoping that some lawyer will hear about this and stand up for the little guys and get this shameless copyright bullying tossed out.

I've enjoyed quite a few Games Workshop games in the past. Warhammer Quest is one of my all-time favorite games. Now that they have shown to be totally classless, I won't be supporting them with my dollar. No more novels, no more rpgs, and ceratinly nno more of their minis games. The worst part about this is that it will hurt Fantasy Flight Games more than Games Workshop, who handles a lot of the GW product that I pick up anymore. I guess I'll have to look into supporting FFG in other ways instead.

I'm all for companies protecting their copyright, but in this case there's no danger of infringement. I hope gamers the world over will voice their disgust at Games Workshop and hit them where it hurts: right in their wallets.

Sorry to go off on a rant, but this just really hacked me off.