Smelling of a copy by WoW, what to do ?

[Makandal]

I mentionned recently in this forum I created, in the 80's (1984 is the copyright date), a game called Argolath.
By vanity and curiosity, I googled it and found, to my utmost surprise, that there was a lot of pages dedicated to Argolath... which is now something (I did not deepen the subject) in the World of Warcraft world.
Frankly, I don't give really a damn about a name but I would have liked to be consulted before. In addition, the probabilty of getting a name like "ARGOLATH" from scratch is pretty low. Finally, maybe I inconsciently copied it from another so source but I cannot find any traces of it. Or I received messages from the future...

More seriously, I think to have absolutly no problem to prove the anteriority of my game's name. What do you think should be done ?

[Commander McLane]

I think it very much depends on french copyright law, about which I know nothing.

For starters, had you registered the name as your invention? If not, is it even possible for your to claim a right over something not registered? If yes, after which time does this kind of registration expire?

Also, googling "argolath -wow -warcraft" shows a couple of hits which seem to be not WoW-related. So maybe people could come up independently with the word?

[Disembodied]

I don't know if there's anything you can do about it. It's not impossible that they made up the same name, whereas it's virtually impossible for you to prove that they definitely took the name from your pre-existing game. WoW seems to contain an Argonath and an Argaloth as well ... "Argonath", in fact, is listed on Wikipedia as a "minor place in Middle-Earth" (the big statues of the kings on either side of the river) ... They certainly wouldn't want to admit to any previous inspiration, for fear of being sued. Ultimately, I think it comes down to this: they have a lot more money, and a lot more lawyers, than you do.

The best thing I could recommend would be to create a Wikipedia page for your original games, if they were commercially published, or at least add them to a pre-existing page about the publishers. if you've got documentary evidence (cover art etc.), so much the better.

[Makandal]

The game itself was copyrighted by the company which published it. French law on IP is pretty tough, at least much tougher than in the US. The copyright in France is for 70 years from the death of the author, not including the period of wars. I am still alive and the game was published in 1984...

Disembodied, I think this is the unfortunate truth...