Once upon a time there was a company named Bethesda, who made games that many people loved.  Their worlds were vast and their influence over the gaming industry just as meaningful.  Then there came a small little company called Mojang, who wanted to make a small game in the shadow of those who came before them.  Bethesda raged, because this new company used a little bit of their magic formula and thus took away their power.  For you see, the magic in their games comes from the words in the title.  By borrowing a word, just one small word, Mojang unwittingly stole a portion of the power of the great giant, and forever weakened it in the eyes of all the land.

It does read like a bad fairytale, but what's at stake here isn't so much a company's right to copyright their material, it's more about the ownership of words.  To Bethesda the words they use are sacred, holy, set apart for their special use.  For anyone to use them constitutes a form of blasphemy, from what I can see, and therefore deserves litigation.  The impending lawsuit, which we all thought would never come to fruition is indeed becoming a reality.

I guess we all forgot the hullabaloo over the Fallout MMO and the lawsuit that held that project up forever, but Bethesda loves them some lawsuits.  This is how they work, and I'm sad to say I'm not surprised.  If they can tie Mojang up in court long enough, they will have to change the name of the game or pause production until the case is completed.  What I am surprised with is that some judge found enough evidence in their claim to approve the case going to trial in the first place.  Exactly when did words become property?  At what point did it become okay to reserve certain words in this open and free society, and keep them away from all the other ones?  This is a dangerous precedent, and one that calls into question the motives of branding initiatives the world over.  Bethesda better lose this case, or we will soon be barred from using the word "magic" because Disney will snap up the rights in a second.