Wednesday 28 January 2015

News: Trademark and Fair Use

Hey, everybody- we at Tiny Leaders are super sorry if our trademark and fair use policy was confusing or unclear.  I'm here to put some rumors to bed, because people seem to have the wrong idea of why we're doing this.

1) "They're Trademarking _____!"

We have trademarked the name "Tiny Leaders", that's it.

2) "Rule 1, you don't talk about Tiny Leaders"

No, we're not that thing that happens thursday nights in the basement of the bar, Tiny Leaders' trademark is just to legitimize us as the rules and ban list people.  The name is still open for use, honestly, the trademark doesn't change anything.

3) "You guys are just trying to make money off of it!"

That would be awesome, but no- we're only looking to protect ourselves from losing opportunities- it's like if you were to take something Wizards owns, say... the clan symbols or guild symbols- and print off a bunch of shirts and sell them?  That would get you in trouble.

4) "You're going to sue us!"

I don't ever want to even think of going through the hassle of litigation.  Honestly, the legal action statement is more of a safety net in case things go horribly wrong in some unforeseeable way.

5) "The EDH guys didn't do it."

The Elder Dragon Highlander development team didn't do a lot of things we're doing, does it make either of us wrong? I don't think so, you might, and you're entitled to that opinion- we're going to continue down this path, and hope things work out for us.

6) "Wizards won't be able to recognize it as a real format if they do this"

The beautiful thing about the law and ownership is that you can change it.  If Wizards wants to bring Tiny Leaders into the fold, they can talk to us and I think everyone is more than happy to do that.

7) "We can't make any money writing about Tiny Leaders!"

Run ads on your site, we do!  It's not up to us to say what you can and can't write about us- but we can ask you to make your articles about Tiny Leaders free to access, because it's the internet and information is important- that's a value we all share.