Can Trademark Law Stop a Racist Role-Playing Game?
Wizards of the Coast, the distributor of Dungeons and Dragons, is taking a novel approach to prevent players from confusing a rival's intolerant offering with any of its own.
No hate-filled games, please.
Photographer: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
An otherwise mundane motion for an injunction filed last week in a Seattle federal court opens with this startling sentence: “Defendants’ to-be-released Star Frontiers New Genesis game contains despicable content including blatantly racist and transphobic content.” The kicker is that the litigation concerns not discrimination but trademark infringement.
Even among those of us who’ve taught intellectual property law, the case would be dry and technical — except for the allegations about the viciously intolerant content of the new game. Again, let’s quote the motion for an injunction: