No Man's Sky developers win legal battle against Sky Plc

[HEXUS]

Sean Murray relieved that "3 years of secret stupid legal nonsense is over."

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[Ferral]

I didn't think that a company could essentially own a word like Sky and apply such a broad spectrum to it. In that case why didn't they go after Bethesda with SKYrim, the classic Beneath a Steel Sky, Stalker Clear Sky, Trails in the Sky and so on....

Is this just a thing Sky have decided to do because No Mans Sky has been getting one hell of a lot of coverage and is highly anticipated I wonder

[Smudger]

They made MS change SkyDrive to OneDrive...

[shaithis]

Wow.....really?

Another reason I am glad to have kicked these money-grabbing-barstewards into touch a while ago. Wish more people would!

[3s-gtech]

Yup, the thought of giving Murdoch a penny of my hard-earned makes me feel ill, so no chance of that. Good luck to the developers.

[Luke7]

I didn't think that a company could essentially own a word like Sky and apply such a broad spectrum to it. In that case why didn't they go after Bethesda with SKYrim, the classic Beneath a Steel Sky, Stalker Clear Sky, Trails in the Sky and so on....

Is this just a thing Sky have decided to do because No Mans Sky has been getting one hell of a lot of coverage and is highly anticipated I wonder

I think it is to do with how 'Sky' is used and the surrounding context. By that I mean Skydrive definitely sounds like it should be a Sky product whereas Beneath a Steel Sky is extremely difficult to link to Sky media. No Man's Sky, imo, had a toe over the line which is why it came to Sky's attention, but not enough for them to have a significant legal advantage. Also, I get your point, I hate this sort of intellectual property too, but 'SKY-rim' was a silly example to pick.

[Monty_Python]

It's about time they stopped allowing companies copyrighting single words straight out of the dictionary unless accompanied by some other form of differentiation (i.e. a logo). I can understand made-up words and cathcphrases, but single words? It's getting ridiculous. Next thing you know, Sky will be demanding payment for every time you say "sky".

[Syphadeus]

This is pretty normal practice for companies that are as big as BSkyB. They will put forward cases very aggressively in moves that they see as being about protecting their brands. I imagine that in the majority of cases, the companies who get hit with these immediately yield because they cannot foresee winning the right, cannot be bothered or feel they don't have the time or money to fight their own case.

In this example it's silly and that is probably why Hello Games have won. Sky will have had to put their case forward and demonstrate how a game called 'No Man's Sky' could damage or impact on their brand. They would have to demonstrate how a consumer might be confused or believe that they are associated in some way. It would seem like they couldn't, so they lost the case.

It's the same thing with Apple. How can you own the word Apple? But Apple Inc could, and probably would, pursue an company that bought out a game or a book called "Johnny Eats Apple".

A complete and utter load of tosh that these companies are so all powerful and so arrogant as to think that they can own a word. Good result in this case though. It's nice to see that they don't always get their dumb way.

[outwar6010]

Another reason to hate sky.

[zarnywoop]

They don't own the word "Sky", they own the trademark "Sky" in relation to a range of trade areas, eg telecommunications, television etc.

The case with SkyDrive was (although as idiotic) they had extended their trademark claim with a foot in the area of online storage, and there were cases of Joe Public calling Sky to ask about why they were having problems with their online documents. Also the SkyDrive icon was positioned next to the SkyTV logo in some digital boxes adding to the confusion (as seen in the link).

https://www.engadget.com/2013/06/30/...skydrive-name/

but with a computer game called No Man's Sky it is unlikely that "the man in the street" could in passing think it had anything to do with Sky, which is the method these things are usually judged on. In the end it comes down to Murdock and his cronies throwing their money around against a smaller developer.

As Syphadeus said, its about them having to show they are actively protecting their brands, otherwise they end up weakening the brand name.

[Ttaskmaster]

Give™ it™ another™ five™ years™ and™ this™ will™ be™ the™ future™.....

[scaryjim]

They don't own the word "Sky", they own the trademark "Sky" in relation to a range of trade areas ....

Saves me the effort of retyping it

Trademark owners have a duty to protect their trademarks; that generally means taking action against any use of the trademark that might be infringing, as failure to do so could be quoted in future cases and put the trademark at jeopardy. I think the case against MS was pretty reasonable, and obviously the courts agreed (not to mention - if you read the thread from the first link in the article - that MS had already had a trademark application for 'SkyDrive' turned down due to it overlapping with/infringing on Sky's existing trademark, and they decided to just use the name anyway). But I really can't see where Sky might have thought "No Man's Sky" infringed on their trademark. Although the word "settlement" does rather suggest the developers have given ground somewhere, and I can't see them doing that unless they thought Sky's case might actually have some merit. Bit of an odd one.

Ultimately though, bringing cases like this is good for Sky even if they lose them, as it demonstrates their willingness to protect their trademark.

[Vorlon99]

The settlement might simply be more along the lines of them agreeing to leave it all alone, so that Sky can't been seen to loose outright?
Or possibly you'll get product placement in the game promoting Sky products ?

[SlickR]

WTF? They won the word "sky" which are the skies above now? Talk about corporate raping of everyone.

How the #### did they even get the "right" to the word sky? Let me just copyright the following words then and become ultra rich:"skies, water, earth, sun, moon, weather, rain, snow, river, tree, green, orange, air, summer, city, star, etc..."

[Tunnah]

The amount of people who don't understand how copyright works is sky high *runs*

[azrael-]

Slightly OT: I could've sworn I posted a comment in this thread yesterday, but it's nowhere to be found. Weird...