This is...interesting

As some of you know, a short time ago my husband opened a Zazzle shop, one of the reasons was the possibility to offer for sale prints of his 'A Game of Thrones' works in sizes which we aren't able to print at home.

Well, we received an email from Zazzle saying that all those works are in violation of policy and will be removed, we pointed out that that is official game art, that the client is the owner of the license for the game, that the contract allows T. to sell prints and that the pieces have no relation whatsoever to the HBO show, so there was no infringiment of copyright.

They answered today that HBO asked them to remove offending materials (well within their rights) and hubby's prints will stay out of Zazzle until HBO tells them they are OK.
As if...

So an official license from the owner of the I.P. doesn't matter...unless the owners of a totally different license say so.

BTW, we do understand Zazzle's position, they are plaing it as safe as they can to avoid the possibility of legal consequences, what I can't stand is a company setting a blanket ban on an I.P. even though the products in case have noting whatsoever to do with their share of the license.

Prints Hubbub Update

Hubby's contact in Fantasy Flight Games asked their legal department about Zazzle's 'infringment of copyright' claims, the results are in:

It appears that HBO owns ALL rights to 'A Game of Ice and Fire' merchandising, no matter what. Fantasy Flight's products are protected but, even though they have a pre-existing license, own the art and granted artists the right to sell prints of the commissioned art in their contracts...

...if the artists actually do so they are in breach of HBO rights.

Unless they remove any reference to the IP in the titles and blurbs, for instance turning 'so and so' named character into 'knight'. 


Honestly for a split second I thought it was a joke, it feels like we have landed in Kafka-land