ValveTime Weekly News Round-Up - 2nd February 2013

[Omnomnick]

Yet another relatively quiet week has passed for Valve. That said, it still hasn't stopped Gabe from giving talks at the University of Texas, the VZBZ from threatening Valve once again or Steam Greenlight receiving detailed developer statistics. Don't forget to check out ValveTime TalkTime Episode 2, which aired earlier this week!

 

[ríomhaire]

You can't copyright a name :/

 

[Omnomnick]

You can't copyright a name :/

Partly true. But its more about breaking the WC3 distinction in order to avoid pissing off Blizzard.

 

[Vegeta897]

You can't copyright a name :/

Well you can't 'copyright' anything, it's not a verb.
You can register it as a trademark though.

 

[Schru]

Copyright is in fact also a verb.

 

[Vegeta897]

No it isn't. How do you copyright something? Explain.

 

[ríomhaire]

Well you can't 'copyright' anything, it's not a verb.
You can register it as a trademark though.

Dictionary.com and Wiktionary disagree

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/copyright
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/copyright?rdfrom=Copyright#Verb

 

[Schru]

It's formed on the noun, but dictionaries (including the traditional ones) recognize it as a verb, and it's been in use since the 19th c.

 

[Vegeta897]

The definitions for it as a verb use the word as a noun.

You're missing the point of my post. You don't have to do anything to have a copyright on your IP. It's there to begin with. If someone infringes on it, you can take action to defend your copyright. But copyright is inherent with any IP you create.

Riom is correct that words don't have copyrights, but one can attempt to register words as a trademark.

 

[Schru]

I didn't mean to say anything on that point, because I think you are right about it.

 

[Vegeta897]

Well then, I guess we're on the same page!

Edit: And just to be clear, I wasn't trying to be pedantic. There's a lot of misconceptions about copyright, and the word as a verb only perpetuates them.