Dice Age — Indie Gaming Project vs. Hollywood

ArrowBay writes "Dice Age, a independent game project that raised nearly $35K through Kickstarter, is apparently facing some scrutiny from a certain movie studio that has produced movies with a similar name. From the latest project update: 'As if the Ice Age was exclusively the name of a movie, or if Dice Age was a movie itself, the 20th century fox has just asked for an extent of time (till 10-26-2011) to oppose to the registering of our beloved Dice Age game name. My point of view, as a scientist, is the Ice age is a geological era before it is a movie.""

Are you surprised? Its Hollywood.

[WiiVault]

Hollywood has made it their goal to privatize everything from "Seal Team 6"- registered by Disney, to our fairy tales like Snow White. Stealing from the public domain and threatening everybody not in the club is nothing new for them. I have little doubt that the bean counters at Fox known damn well that most courts in the land will back their insane claim, assuming the small developer can even afford to fight the battle.

Re:Are you surprised? Its Hollywood.

[Gerzel]

Aye. Who needs a court victory when you can just make the cost too much before even getting to the courtroom.

Re:Baiting the Bear

[Anonymous Coward]

Please kill yourself and any children you might have before the gene pool of our species is even further polluted.

Re:Don't play along

[JabberWokky]

Last week we drove to Pennsylvania and spent time with friends, at a wedding. We then spent time with other friends playing mini-golf and chatting. We played a couple flash games and commented about indie game development. Monday we spent time in DC, including visiting the National Cryptologic Museum (and checking into the NSA on Foursquare). Later that night, we swapped books and killed a couple beers while talking about quilting and Roman cuisine. We spent Tuesday wandering through the back hills of West Virginia with friends, out of any cell coverage and quite happy (some of those towns not only don't show up on Wikipedia, they don't even appear on Google other than a Flicker photo by a biker who snapped a photo as he rode through!). Wednesday, my wife and I drove all day to Tennessee (back home), stopping and getting fireworks and otherwise enjoying the trip. I'm about to head out and go play a tabletop roleplaying game.

I'm enjoying my life quite nicely without seeing movies. We did go and catch Captain America on Saturday night. It was good -- but certainly not the highlight, focus or anywhere near necessary to have had a blast for the last week. I'm pretty sure I and my friends are enjoying culture without the MPAA being involved. Or the TSA, for that matter.

I don't get it

[carlzum]

Products in different industries with no reasonable claim that it may confuse or mislead consumers. Absolutely no attempt to invoke the film's characters, images, or design. The game's title is not even Ice Age, it's a pun for a common phrase which accurately describes the product.

This isn't even close to copyright/trademark gray area, like parody, fair use, etc. It's simply intimidation and proves we're speeding down the IP-law slippery slope opponents had feared.