Comment on dBrand Companion Cube cancelled:
TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 1 week agoIt’s a case that looks exactly like the companion cube from Portal. So you’re kinda stepping on their feet in more than one way.
It’s an intellectual property thing. If someone can prove that you didn’t defend an intellectual property in one case then they can argue that their utilization is fair use.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Oh, I didn’t realize that Valve already had a product called a companion cube which already looks and functions the same way as this one. That’s the context I was missing.
Yeah, in that light, what dbrand did seems pretty asinine.
SatyrSack@quokk.au 1 week ago
They don’t. The Weighted Companion Cube is a virtual item in Valve’s Portal series of games.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weighted_Companion_Cube
It is not an actual product in real life. Even in the game, it does not “function the same way as this one” at all. It arguably has no function. In game, it is a glorified paperweight.
With that said, it is trademarked (or copyrighted or whatever) all the same, so other companies are not allowed to make something that even resembles it without permission. That is just how the stupid US trademark/copyright/patent/bullshit system works.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Oh, I see. Yeah, it’s kinda stupid that a company would try to replicate that without license.
That being said, taking an item from a game and turning it into a real object that fans can enjoy is kind of a cool thing. It sucks they didn’t go through the proper channels to make it legit though.
TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 1 week ago
Yeah… I really don’t know what they were thinking. I guess that’s what happens when a company is made entirely of designers? I can’t imagine anyone from a legal department would be allowing them to do straight ip theft against a billion dollar corporation.