Permanent Damage Aug 12 (Edge Games)

[The Crime Dentist]

Read the column, and the one thing that stuck out to me was the mention of Edge Games. Not sure how familiar you are with them Stephen, but their founder, Tim Langdell, is quite the character.

He basically seems to feel that he is the global rights holder for the term 'edge' and as such has a legal claim to anything that involves the word. He has gone after dozens of companies from Sony to Marvel. As he has shown in the past, he feels that the fact that he's never contacted you about the book is a mere formality; if (had the book not already been completed) you were to use the term 'edge', then he feels you owe him money and are associated with him by default.

He's developed a global reputation as a twat in the gaming industry, the Edge Games WIki page is quite the treasure trove now:

In May 2009, game developer Mobigame's iPhone title Edge was removed from Apple's App Store in the US and the UK due to lawsuit threats by Tim Langdell. According to Mobigames, the dispute arose while they were trying to register a trademark for Edge in the US, while Langdell claims he owns the global trademark on "Edge.

In 2001, Edge sought revocation of Namco's United Kingdom trademark "SOULEDGE" (for the game, Soul Edge) for reasons including an alleged similarity between the EDGE and SOULEDGE marks. The opposition failed on all grounds. Nevertheless, Namco had already decided to use the name "Soul Blade" in the United States to avoid potential complications.

In March 2009, Cybernet Systems Corporation filed a lawsuit in Federal court against Edge.[12] In the suit, Cybernet states that they were contacted by Tim Langdell beginning in January 2009 and that he asserted his ownership of the term "Edge." The suit also alleges that Langdell asserted his right to have the trademark for Cybernet's "Edge of Extinction" game assigned to Edge Games, and his further right to require Cybernet to enter into a paid license agreement with him due to their use of the name.

^^ As you can see here, even as of this year the man literally feels that if you've made anything with the word "edge" in it, he owns it. He's not even above applying for trademarks for other people's projects already in development:

As of June 1, 2009, Edge Games applied for a US trademark for the phrase, "Edge of Twilight." This is the name of an upcoming steampunk fantasy game that has been in development by Fuzzyeyes Studios for at least two years.

He's even gone after Marvel, among many, many others:

In addition, Edge has been a plaintiff in lawsuits with New World Computing over their title Planet's Edge, Marvel Entertainment over their titles Cutting Edge, Double Edge, and Over the Edge Sony Entertainment over their Playstation Edge, Edge Tech Corporation over their "The Edge" hardware, and John Coates over his EdgeGamers online community. Edge's website also claims that the movie The Edge was released under license from Edge Gaming, though it isn't clear what, if any, involvement Edge or Langdell had in creating or producing the movie.

And showing the mark of true class, his company has used unrelated work by others to misrepresent vaporware his company is supposedly working on:

On 11 August 2009, the Edge Games website posted "new screenshots" of "RACERS" that were identical to screenshots of the unreleased PS3 game "Voltage" developed by Lexicon Entertainment and posted by ComputerAndVideoGames.com on 9 May 2008. The Edge Games website made no reference to "Voltage" in its posting

He's been having roundtables at developer conferences for a while now (with ironic titles like "How to Sell Your IP to Hollywood (Without Selling Your Soul)". He's actually a member of the IGDA, the International Game Developers Association, which among other things exists to help promote smaller developers. Given his high profile jackassery they've actually moved to have him disbarred from an organization which up until now has been completely open and without barriers to entry or qualifications for membership.

So yeah, I'm glad you already got the book out.

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

I'd be a little more annoyed than flattered Steven, that website is definitely trying to infer that you licensed the character edge and wrote a book based on it.

On the other hand, apparently, David Mamet and Fox licensed the film 'The Edge' from him.

[Steven Grant]

Originally Posted by FunkyGreenJerusalem

I'd be a little more annoyed than flattered Steven, that website is definitely trying to infer that you licensed the character edge and wrote a book based on it.

At this point it's such a trivial thing I couldn't care less one way or the other.

- Grant