Feedback: Cyberpunk Slang we Avoid

Please assume positive intent in your responses, I will be for sure.

Safe space and all that.

I inquired with [email protected] as to their stance on the use of common cyberpunk slang that they feature prominently in their games spoken dialogue, and their response was quite clear not that they WON'T follow up on copyright/trademark infringement charges if other games use these common terms, but that they actually CANNOT copyright those types of terms, only larger fragments of full dialogue and complex concepts can be copyrighted if they directly relate to the product itself.

It has been suggested that we can't trust CDprojektRed to say they won't sue because they could turn around and sue, or get bought out and the new IP owner could sue, but again I think it's very important to highlight that they've acknowledged that they simply CANNOT copyright the slang in question, as a matter of the way copyright law functions.

I think this should satisfy the copyright argument and allow us to address what I believe is the bigger issue here, which is Sindome uniqueness and identity as well as people enjoying Cyberpunk 2077 popularized terms, or the reintroduction of old terms/slang from the past, that are re-emerging because of CP2077.

Slither had acknowledged that there is clearly a negative connotation associated with Cyberpunk 2077 and CDPR due to their perceived business practices surrounding the transfer of the "Cyberpunk" Trademark from Pondsmith's company and their potential enforcement of that trademark, by the staff and I do believe this is the bigger motivator for the exclusion and should be the core topic of discussion.

There is also this document released by CDPR to explain the trademark situation, and again I understand you may not trust them, but this type of announcement and indication of intent or lack there of, is something that is easily referenced in a copyright case as it broadcasts general intent and policy to the general public, it'd be an uphill battle for them to try to go back on this just to sue a small MOO text based roleplaying game with relatively no revenue generation.

If that doesn't work… https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C8virw7XoAAJ7kO?format=jpg&name=900x900

I know this discussion has gotten a bit heated on OOC-CHAT so I again encourage everyone to be good to each other so that discussion can stay on topic and be constructive, so that everyone is heard and we can come to the best conclusion to this issue for the community.

You need to understand that words or phrases aren't protectable in and of themselves as trademarks, and they also can't be copyrighted as expressions of ideas. What trademarks and servicemarks protect are the names or phrases associated with particular goods or services, as well as with confusingly similar goods or services.

The slang we use in Sindome is simply not applicable to this at all.

However, the name of Sindome itself IS. One could conclude that Sin Dome in of itself borrows largely from themes incorporated into Frank Miller's trademark Sin City. If you take a look at the trademark filing here: https://trademarks.justia.com/855/37/sin-85537451.html

You can see how the name of this game may mislead consumers which is the primary reason to invoke a trademark suit.

For instance, If the name was perhaps named, Cyberpunk 2085, one could construe how that could mislead consumers in relation to CD Projekt Red's IP. However, it is not.

In short, the in-game slang in no way invokes trademark law as it doesn't mislead consumers in any way shape or form. If you truly wish to pursue this legitimately, please take the time to research and consider this further.

Frankly, this feels largely inflammatory. For weeks, we have been subject to staff shouts, xhelps, OOC-chat demand from staff, and now finally a bgbb post. We rely on staff to protect the game and perform due diligence accordingly - making demands and asking us to prove them otherwise is not cohesive to enriching our game community. It simply perpetuates an Us vs Them attitude which is complicated enough with the IC/OOC communication gymnastics we perform for the good of the gameplay.

I greatly appreciate you finally creating a bgbb thread for this, Slither, but it should have probably been the first thing to happen not the last. New policy discussion should come from Senior Staff and not be argued on OOC-Chat then delegated to junior staff members. It frankly isn't fair for anyone and does nothing but leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

(Edited by Slither at 5:43 am on 3/13/2021)

Just my input.

Censoring the use of certain slang is kinda.. Unnecessary. While I see the cause for concern when a company you've described as an evil megacorp irl have pulled shady as fuck moves with their legal practices in the past. I cannot at all see them coming for a small, niche little corner of the internet to waste their own money on a legal battle they'd eventually lose anyway.

Now, I'm one of the people who've used the slang you had listed, and some other slang terms from other media, be it cyberpunk, or any other form of CP media, and I've not once seen it be an issue. Having sliiiightly different slang to what the game's city has, makes perfect sense for a character coming from outside. After all, slang DOES tend to be a regional thing. Where we may call them Corpies, somewhere else may call them Sararimen, Suits, Corpos, Wagies, Nine-fives, etc.

TL;DR, encourage us to pick up on the Withmore slang, but for the love of ANOR please do not hard censor us from using alternative slang that could easily exist in the game world just because bigbadevilcorp used it as well. Using slang is literally the last thing anyone's gonna be too bothered by, and this all feels incredibly unnecessary to me, and to a lot of the community.

With all due respect, it continues to seem incredibly disingenuous to keep regurgitating the unrealistic prospect of a lawsuit when there are no trademark or copyright laws protecting specific words unless they're wholly representative of a product or brand such as Apple or Microsoft.

Even if I don't use the words we're discussing here, I still find it incredibly compromising and distasteful to even suggest you'd censor legitimate cyberpunk role play slang with word swap code.

We're approaching some 1984 level stuff over this topic for what appears to be a personal beef with Cyberpunk 2077.

And video games control what you say and you love them, so don't give me any crap about 1984. You are collaborative WRITING, editorial is a very normal part of any writing process, as our style guides and community standard wording. I'm just going to remove your ability to fuck up and break the standard.

I also see tons of Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, and other IP-infringing mods for widely popular games that persist for years without any legal trouble despite a very upfront presence on Youtube and we're talking straight up visual, concept, name, and music/sfx use.

Previous points have been made about all of the many borrowed IPs in Sindome to this day, gun manufacturers, corporation names, beverage names, club names, other slang sets from movies, other novels. Yet the only thing we ever hear from you is "Cyberpunk 2077" and the only thing we hear you wanting to change is Word Swap code for slang.

I think if you want this to feel like a more sincere effort, that is actually about preserving the Sindome identity, we should be working as a community to purge all the IP infringing brand/corporate names from Sindome, to make it truly unique.