from the the-horror dept
We’ve handled an excellent many foolish trademark disputes within the video game industry over time, however this one is a particular sort of silly. Fntastic, the studio behind the forthcoming The Day Earlier than horror sport, has launched a pair statements currently relating to an obvious ongoing trademark dispute. The primary announcement confirmed that the sport’s launch date was being pushed again due to Steam blocking the game page on the request of a trademark holder for “The Day Earlier than.” Then, shortly after, YouTube began removing videos selling The Day Earlier than from the developer’s channel as properly.
So… what’s occurring right here? Nicely, like I stated, it’s truly fairly silly. Months after Fntastic introduced its sport again in 2021, somebody on the market who had made a calendar app went and acquired a trademark on “The Day Earlier than” and in current days started complaining to Steam and YouTube to get all this content material taken down. Sure, a calendar app.
“First Steam after which YouTube eliminated a few of The Day Earlier than movies from our channel because of a trademark dispute,” Fntastic’s newest assertion reads. The Day Earlier than’s launch date, which was presupposed to be March 1, was not too long ago delayed eight months. Fntastic claims the explanation for that is because of another person submitting a trademark for The Day Earlier than, stopping the studio from doing so.
This most up-to-date assertion truly sheds a bit of extra gentle on what precisely Fntastic is claiming has occurred, revealing who filed a trademark for The Day Earlier than. “The so-called ‘proprietor’ of the rights to the title is the creator of the calendar app, which has nothing to do with the video games class,” the assertion reads. There’s an app called TheDayBefore which is presumably what Fntastic is referencing.
Is that this an try at a money-grab? It actually smells like one. The trademark will get filed just a few months after Fntastic publicizes its sport. Makes an attempt to take down content material and delay the sport launch happen simply earlier than the launch date. And, in a separate statement, the studio says the proprietor of the trademark has requested contact for a dialogue, ostensibly for some sort of association that entails an change of cash.
Besides right here’s the factor: calendars are usually not video video games. Both the trademark holder has the mark in that class or they don’t. And if they don’t, know they don’t, and know that Fntastic’s use doesn’t infringe however submitted takedown requests for this content material anyhow, properly, that’s arguably fraud.
And if all of that’s true, then Fntastic needs to be taking this particular person to courtroom for a declaratory judgement that its use is non-infringing. I might anticipate such a swimsuit to be coming shortly.
Filed Beneath: calendar app, likelihood of confusion, the day before, trademark, video games
Corporations: fntastic
