Bethesda, Mojang & 'Scrolls'

It would appear that Bethesda - developer of numerous popular titles, including the "Elder Scrolls" series of games - is suing Mojang for use of the word "Scrolls" in one of their upcoming projects.

UPDATE NOTE

There seems to be some (understandable) confusion in regards to where the lawsuit is coming from. To clarify, "Bethesda Softworks" (publisher and developer of game titles) and "Bethesda Game Studios" (Creators of games like Oblivion, Skyrim etc.) are not the same entity. BGS is an in-house game-making team led by Todd Howard which is one part of Bethesda Softworks, and has no direct connection to the lawsuit in progress by Bethesda Softworks. Unless further specified by the acronym "BGS", any references to Bethesda in the following article assume "Bethesda Softworks". Sorry about the confusion!

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Mojang has been in development of another project (which we went over in our last installment), which bears the working name "Scrolls". Bethesda has expressed concern that players could mix up this new game with their own "Elder Scrolls" series, although the two seem to share no noticeable similarities beyond the word "scrolls".

Notch said that their office received a 15-page cease-and-desist letter, claiming that Mojang would be sued for rights to the word, along with formal requests for legal fees. He went on to say that they are attempting to establish talks with Bethesda regarding the word, to find an amicable solution for both parties. At the time of this writing, there was no available response from Bethesda.

We will continue to update this article as information becomes available.

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dra6o0n
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
Bethesda: "Scrolls"

Everyone else: "Trolls"

Seriously, people won't be looking up "The Elder Scrolls", they'll be looking up "Skyrim" DAMNIT.

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Saamic
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
It's just greedy people trying to make some money easily

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Darkhax
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
wow so this geme scrolls isnt even released yet? i could see their is some similarities with the word scrolls and elder scrolls but the game isnt released yet and i dont think the word scrolls is owned by one person. if that was the case i whould try to get claims over the word the and sue everyone.

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Otso
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
It's not really about the word. It's either extortion wrapped in legal wool, or a misguided PR arm. A lot of times this type of filing is used to strong arm money from what's perceived as a soft target.

As a side note about 'its not bethsda its XYZ lawyers'. If Bethsda doesn't want to get burned they need to grab that book of matches out of the kids' hands. Saying 'it was the lawyers' is right up there with "my friend used my log in to do all that stuff"

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jcmorrison
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
agreed

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uglyduckling
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#619 uglyduckling

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Posted Aug 5, 2011
No offense to 'em, but...

**** you Bethesda.

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superpeter
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
come on. we have freedom of speech. mojang isnt referring to elder scrolls. scroll is a word meaning paper that stuff is written on on a roll. i think they will lose that lawsuit

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login7
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
I don't think a document that says 'Bethesda owns the word Scrolls' exits.

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greenwafle
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
This is funny that they think that they can sue mojang for the word "scrolls" no one can own the word "scrolls" or any word.

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Warnek
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
Quote from Son588

She should be sued for having a fat ass mouth.

WTF is this? BETHESDA IS NOT A PERSON. It is a game development company. Do these 8-year olds realize that games are usually developed by a whole team of people, not one person?? Bethesda Game Studios has over 100 people working on Skyrim.

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Pernix
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
I'm so close to returning Fallout... Any chance that big gaming corporations get to leech money from successful smaller companies, they take it.

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Bruschev
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
"Saying 'it was the lawyers' is right up there with 'my friend used my log in to do all that stuff'"

Definitely with you on this, I think Bethesda has engaged in a frivolous task which most likely won't go anywhere, will just wait and see. I always thought that Mojang and Bethesda had a reasonable amount of respect for each other..

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whileloop
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
Wow it's not a big deal so what if 100 people get confused there going to sell millions of titles anyway and what are the chances they will get confused?

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IAreNinja
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
its a god damn word that means a A roll of parchment or paper for writing or painting on. so for the sake of making fun of the company Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls ScrollsScrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls ScrollsScrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls ScrollsScrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls ScrollsScrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls ScrollsScrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls ScrollsScrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls ScrollsScrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls ScrollsScrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls ScrollsScrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls ScrollsScrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls ScrollsScrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls ScrollsScrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls Scrolls and did i forget to mention SCROLLS Come at me bro

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nick40104
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
How can you sue somebody for saying scrolls... The elder scrolls people are just jealous idiots. How can you sue somebody for using the word scroll For this Im not paying a fortune for any elder scrolls game and I will tell my Minecraft friends not to either. We need to get on Notch's side and make sure elder scrolls needs to back off its just wrong!!!
Email me at [email protected] if you think this is wrong.

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skullman86
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
This is how Bethesda gets back at Mojang for setting minecraft's release date to the same date as Skyrim's.

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Sir_Veillance
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#632 Sir_Veillance

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Posted Aug 5, 2011
Let's make a game called, "The"
Then we can get sued!!

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TheWorldwidePathogen
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
Bethesda really needs to pull their heads outta their asses and let up on Mojang!

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Sachdef
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
Quote from Warnek

WTF is this? BETHESDA IS NOT A PERSON. It is a game development company. Do these 8-year olds realize that games are usually developed by a whole team of people, not one person?? Bethesda Game Studios has over 100 people working on Skyrim.

Yeah wtf is this? I keep seeing that happening in this thread.

How..does..it.. and.. what? I don't even man.

Last edited by Sachdef: Aug 5, 2011

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nick40104
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Posted Aug 5, 2011
Oh yeah and its called english. I think thier just jealous terribly and this is for Show DONT GIVE IN AND BUY ELDER SCROLLS!!!

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Bethesda, Mojang & "Scrolls"

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