Pinkerton's suing Rockstar

[Darealbandicoot]

I'm kind of surprised that the Pinkertons are even in the game going after the gang since there was an anti Pinkerton law made in 1893 prohibited them from doing government work even if someone pays them to do it. The most they could be are body guards. 

Edited January 17, 2019 by Darealbandicoot

[nicktestbranch]

The case is near settling, Rockstar will release a patch putting a handlebar mustache on agent Milton, and changing the name of their agency to Pinkman, who are actually chasing down meth makers. In the old west.

 

Upon that, they will announce the release date of their long awaited Agent, which will take place in the cold war era, with Pinkerton's being hailed as troubling and bumbling  heroes.

[Bratva Assassin]

This lawsuit is frivolous. The Pinkerton Agency is definitely pulling a Jack Thompson. RDR2 is a f*cking video game! It shouldn’t have that big of an effect on anyone! Same goes for music genres that people often criticize (rock, metal, etc.) and file lawsuits against!

[SpaceRaven]

Don't worry. they have a plan, THEY JUST NEED SOME MONEY

YOU GOT TO HAVE FAITH

[Mister Pink]

I think Take Two will be fine. I'm sure they had lawyers comb over the use of the name way before release. It will be perfectly reasonable for them to make a historical reference to the Pinkerton Detective Agency as it was known back then

[I Like Fun]

If you read about the history of the actual Pinkertons they were even worse than they are in the game. I think R will be fine. Lawsuits are probably something they expect at this point.

[The Holy Diver]

On 1/15/2019 at 9:48 AM, O.Z said:

After watching “Making a Murderer 1 & 2” Rockstar has a great chance of losing the lawsuit.

 

The US justice system is one of the worst of the modern era 

Criminal justice. This is just a case of copyright infringement. 

On 1/17/2019 at 11:40 AM, Arthur Bell said:

The case is near settling, Rockstar will release a patch putting a handlebar mustache on agent Milton, and changing the name of their agency to Pinkman, who are actually chasing down meth makers. In the old west.

 

Upon that, they will announce the release date of their long awaited Agent, which will take place in the cold war era, with Pinkerton's being hailed as troubling and bumbling  heroes.

Really? That sounds pretty memey. Do you have a source? 

[Guest Guest176525326]

1 hour ago, The Holy Diver said:

Criminal justice. This is just a case of copyright infringement.  

Criminal justice, civil justice or any other justice. It doesn’t matter, all the US courts are rubbish as far as I’m concerned 

[The Holy Diver]

10 minutes ago, O.Z said:

Criminal justice, civil justice or any other justice. It doesn’t matter, all the US courts are rubbish as far as I’m concerned 

Fair enough. 

[Obsi]

1 hour ago, The Holy Diver said:

This is just a case of copyright infringement. 

Actually it would be trademark infringement, not copyright....

 

Copyright generally covers things like written words (content in books etc.) and visual things like art/design.... whereas brand names, logos and things like that are trademarks. 

 

The thing with trademarks is that you need to actively protect your trademark or else it can be determined that your trademark has become diluted or commonly used, and then it's not able to be protected any more.

 

So while using the trademarked name in a game could be something they could argue is infringement, if they have not tried to protect their mark when other companies have used it in the past (in other TV/Movies/Games) - then the argument can be made that they have failed to sufficiently protect their trademark in past usage of it.

[SneakyDeaky]

Apparently Sam Houser is enraged and spends all day pacing up and down the office quoting Dutch.

"They will not crush us!" "Faith!" "Tahiti!"
 

"But rather than have the game removed from shelves, the group noted that they are “willing to discuss a lump sum figure” to settle the matter."

Yeah I bet they are. They are very transparent with this, aren't they?

[eastriver]

On 1/15/2019 at 9:48 AM, O.Z said:

After watching “Making a Murderer 1 & 2” Rockstar has a great chance of losing the lawsuit.

 

The US justice system is one of the worst of the modern era 

The American justice system is not one of the worst of the modern era. It's better than the justice system of most countries. Shows like Making a Murderer are made for entertainment, Making a Murderer is not an academic research into the American justice system. You could make a show like Making a Murderer for every country out there and you would have a much easier time making a show like Making a Murderer for most countries out there.
Not that there aren't issues with the American justice system, it's just far far faaar from being the worst. Anyways, discussing the American justice system in detail would take forever.

 

Finally, to the real discussion at hand. Rockstar won't have issues winning this case if it were to go to trial because free speech is heavily protected under law. The real issue of this lawsuit is going through trial itself, because trial is a very long and expensive process.

Rockstar has a track record of winning cases like this, they've never lost a case. 

Edited January 21, 2019 by IG_