Little pathetic if you ask me, fellas.

So I sign in to my forum for GoW that I've been working night and day on, and head on over to my Admin tools to do some more editing. Funny thing I come across. I see that we've been reported to Forumotion.com for using copyrighted images. The report read along these lines: "They're using copyrighted images. Make them remove them." Now, this certainly was not written by a professional company. A professional company would write a professional copyright infringement report. A professional company wouldn't write one line anonymously about using copyrighted images. A professional company would bring the heat, citing laws and names of the respected owners of the companies. This wasn't a professional report.

However, what's upsetting to me is that I just today posted the link to our forum in my signature. What's upsetting to me is that the forum is only a day old, some of the images used have not even been uploaded that long. What's upsetting to me is that no one else knows about our forum other than Gears of War members and anyone who uses this forum, and we got reported. What's upsetting to me is that it seems as if some user of these forums had the audacity to disrespectfully go to our forum's page and report an abuse of copyright infringement. What's upsetting to me is that some person was jealous enough to report us without even asking questions.

Well here you go.

Private message with Samhayne,

Quote:

Re: copyright question
Originally Posted by Flowman
Hey Sam,

I messaged 2 of the admins about this already, but just trying to get as many options out as I can. We recently made our own forum for our SL guild, Gears of War. I'm in charge of the design of it, and I've been noticing I'm using too much Gears of War, and not enough SL. With that being said, I was hoping to use STS images on our forum. The banner I have made now is a blend of Gears and the Star Legends image from the games website (The op, eng, and com in space with the ship flying in the back). I intend to make no money off this, and will fully express that it's not my image and that we are a fan forum. If you, or any of the admins, could assist me in how I can use these images without violating copyright, I'd greatly appreciate it. For all I know, this isn't even necessary, but it woudn't hurt to make sure. I'd be happy to show you guys the banner I've as well if needed. Thank you.

- Flow
As long as you're not using the images for commercial purposes (making money) you're all good. Just give credit on the website for the images and content used.

Have fun and send us the link to the site - can't wait to see!

Taken from our Forum page:

Quote:

The Gears of War Guild (gow-guild.forumotion.com) is in no way related to or a part of Epic Games, Inc., creators and owners of the Gears of War title, images, and all trademarks like it. We do not claim ownership of Epic Games, Inc., the Gears of War game series, Marcus Fenix, or any images owned and created by Epic Games, Inc. We are not using our website to produce revenue or advertise. The Gears of War title is used solely for the purpose of labeling our 'guild' in the game "Star Legends" created by Spacetime Studios. Any registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. used in the creation of this forum are used for recreational and decoration purposes only. The majority of the images referencing Gears of War were already uploaded and available for recreational use by hitskin.com.

The Gears of War Guild (gow-guild.forumotion.com) is in no way related to or a part of Spacetime Studios, Star Legends, Pocket Legends, or any trademarks and registered trademarks like it. The game 'Star Legends' has an in-game guild feature and a name must be chosen, with Gears of War being the chosen name to represent this select group of individuals. Any images used referencing games or ideas created by Spacetime Studios are used for recreational and decoration purposes only. We claim no ownership and are not making any revenue off of these images. Prior written consent to reproduce and use Spacetime Studio images was obtained.

Other brands or product names are the trademarks of their respective owners.

I'm not an attorney and I have no training in drafting legal documents, but all grounds are covered for copyright infringement. Most websites using other images that aren't theirs simply use one line "Other brands or product names are the trademarks of their respective owners."

To give this post a purpose so it's not immediately locked or deleted, let me just say to make sure you give credit to other companies when using images or creating a forum for your guild. It seems that someone out there wants our forum webpage removed. It seems that someone out there isn't handling how nice our forum looks or how fast it went up all that well. Keep your documents in check and you'll be alright.

Haters gonna hate, Flow is untouchable,
- Flowman

mabye these people have abeef with you (no flames here)

The swag and the flow has been hated on, time to use the Hata Blackas... Keep it coming haters.

Ugh, copyright infringement can really be a pain.

Hopefully I understood what you were looking for, but PL type images to use?

I think they have a fan site kit they provided, comes with images, banners, etc.

Fan Site Area

And yes, haters gonna hate. Sadly, wherever we go in life, there will be haters. We can be the bigger people :)

You legally have to include PL when writing about STS, I believe. I dunno I saw on Epic's website they included gears of war and all other games they made.

Thanks for the heads up flow! Will double check that aoc forum manager is aware of this :)

I second the title.. a little pathetic but you've shown that you cover all basis.. so let haters be hating

Reminds me of Youtube. Post a fan vid there and its a 50/50 chance it gets removed for copyright infringement THOUGH there's 100s if not 1000s that violate but are still up (just search for "amv" and see how many results)

I think if you post you're not making money and give credit where's due, you should be ok. Maybe put a "legal" section right at the main page with big font and post the "dont sue me" bit on it. :)

Intellectual property enforcement has gone crazy these days.

That's just not even right Flow, your too nice of a guy to have to deal with people doing petty stuff like this. But I do think you more than adequately covered all bases in your disclaimer, and I would think that if there was any problem with copyright infringement, you would more than likely just get an email from epic telling you to take it down. Very highly doubt they would just flat out file a lawsuit, but hey, I'm not a lawyer so I cant say for sure.

The world gets crazier every day.

Do you think it might be the name of the guild?
I dont play GOW. Did you maybe copy some of there art?

I could care less if you copy anything. Im tring to see what you could of maybe did wrong. They should e-mail you if there is a problem.

It's not the forumotion developers it's some random person reporting me, more than likely from these forums. Everything I've used is covered in the disclaimer.

You just can't let it bother you. People will be people some are jealous.

PL Characters Timbabird-55 Oldsillymage-55 SL Character Oldblaster-20