GoW Munny gets saved: Mark Rein apologizes for C&D letter

Good news for beleaguered fan artist Emilio Lopez. Epic Games has taken back the cease and desist order to Mr. Lopez for making a Gears of War munny statue for his cousin, along with giving him a public apology, courtesy of Epic Games VP Mark Rein.

Rein himself apologized on behalf of Epic games (and their lawyers) for the C&D letter, mentioning that the lawyerfolk of the company probably were a little trigger-happy with their suit.

Said Rein to Planet Gears of War about the incident,

Ugh. Our lawyers are trying to do their job and protect our trademarks but I guess they didn’t realize this wasn’t a commercial project and they fired off a standard form letter. It is unfortunate when this happens but the problem with trademarks is you HAVE to protect them and Emilio’s work looks so amazingly professional, right down to a cool package!, that they probably failed to notice this was a one-off gift for non-commercial use. What we need to do is come up with some sort of permission letter for things like these so that we’re properly protecting our future commercial rights but not stopping people from doing cool fan art like this.

On behalf of Epic I apologize to Emilio and anyone who was offended by this.

Definitely cool that they’re doing this, with an apology to boot. Good to know that someone’s looking out for the gamers out there. Grats to Fenix maker Emilio Lopez for getting through that C&D unscathed, and to Epic, for being exceedingly nice about it.

Via Epic Games forums

Good news for beleaguered fan artist Emilio Lopez. Epic Games has taken back the cease and desist order to Mr. Lopez for making a Gears of War munny statue for his cousin, along with giving him a public apology, courtesy of Epic Games VP Mark Rein.

Rein himself apologized on behalf of Epic games (and their lawyers) for the C&D letter, mentioning that the lawyerfolk of the company probably were a little trigger-happy with their suit.

Said Rein to Planet Gears of War about the incident,

Ugh. Our lawyers are trying to do their job and protect our trademarks but I guess they didn’t realize this wasn’t a commercial project and they fired off a standard form letter. It is unfortunate when this happens but the problem with trademarks is you HAVE to protect them and Emilio’s work looks so amazingly professional, right down to a cool package!, that they probably failed to notice this was a one-off gift for non-commercial use. What we need to do is come up with some sort of permission letter for things like these so that we’re properly protecting our future commercial rights but not stopping people from doing cool fan art like this.

On behalf of Epic I apologize to Emilio and anyone who was offended by this.

Definitely cool that they’re doing this, with an apology to boot. Good to know that someone’s looking out for the gamers out there. Grats to Fenix maker Emilio Lopez for getting through that C&D unscathed, and to Epic, for being exceedingly nice about it.

Via Epic Games forums