Blackmoor Trademark and Greyhawk Speculation by Semora Verreault and Tenkar

The situation of the Blackmoor Trademark came up in a recent episode on the Vlog of Many Things Youtube Channel. The episode was hosted by Don Semora (Wizard Tower Games), Thomas Verreault and Erik Tenkar and was hosted on the channels of each of the participants. While the video includes discussion about a wide range of topics of less relevance to this blog, but the subject of Blackmoor comes up when  Tenkar brings up the removal of the name Blackmoor from the Greyhawk map of the upcoming Dungeon Master's Guide. The part of the video that is relevant here starts around the 52 minute mark.)

Back in June, I talked about how WotC are now using the name Arn for this part of Greyhawk.Tenkar says he suspects the change was made due to some concern for the Arneson Estate, but the video also brings up possible non-legal reasons for the change. Verrault, however says the recent history of the Blackmoor Trademark is more complicated than that, explaining that the reason the Blackmoor Trademark was not returned to WotC during the recent nuTSR lawsuit where WotC as the defending party apparently won back most of their Trademarks and Icons. He says the reason why the Blackmoor Trademark was not part of this deal is because prior to this lawsuit, nuTSR had somehow "gifted" the Trademark to the Arneson Estate. 

Verrault then goes on to tell a story in which he talked to one of the producers of the Secrets of Blackmoor documentary (presumably Griff Morgan) about the rights to Blackmoor products like Supplement II: Blackmoor in which the producer had given the mysterious answer "we'll see". This lead Verreault to suspect that the Estate (for which the Secrets of Blackmoor producers acts as spokepersons) were planning on awaiting the results of the nuTSR lawsuit and possibly suing WotC themselves (note: this is Verreault speculating). The youtubers then goes on to explain why suing WotC is a bad idea especially over IP that they are keeping in print and selling the items on DrivethruRPG (which includes multiple Blackmoor products). 

When towards the end of the video Griff Morgan actually shows up in the chat section and is asked about the Trademark situation, Morgan says the  and when the youtubers ask him about why WotC have changed the name on the Greyhawk Map, Morgan simply states that the Blackmoor Trademark is owned by the Arneson Estate (it is in fact still listed as pending). 

While some of the content in this video is speculation, but it is nonetheless interesting to follow the discussion.  Blackmoor continues to be a topic of interest to fans, that is for sure. 

-Havard