Hans im Glück v. Board Gaming 

Where do you come down on the Great Meeple Debacle? Should anyone *own* the Meeple?

It's a boneheaded move. In the board game community stuff like this will spread and they will just be seen as the EA of board games and suffer for it long term.

Well spoken video. Did not expect it for something with 200 views!

Cool video! I love it when RU-vid recommends smaller creators that also fit within my interests! Definitely an interesting look at board game copyright laws.

Congratulations on this video, I was expecting to see hundreds of thousands of views and was very surprised about your low view count. With this quality your line is gonna get up!

I think in court the trademark wouldn’t hold up. I feel like the shape is too vague to say it’s ours. And the term is just a part of board gaming now.

I think its...pathetic from Hans Im Gluck to do this. I get it is probably just business being business, but to not defend your trademark against companies that could fight, then to demand a cease and desist from some smaller company. Makes me not want to support them or use the word Meeple anymore. Maybe Neb has some new work to do.

Great video! It seems we went down the same rabbit hole 😆 I’m so glad you are talking about this too - more people need to be talking about it! Thanks again and great job on telling this wild story, you got a new subscriber 🙌

Wow I love the ending! Good job!

"meeple" was not created by Carcassonne, or by Hans. it's already a part of culture, it's slang, but they're trying to trademark it. has about as much legal grounds as trying to copyright the name "thingy"

Fantastic video, well done

So they didn't even create the idea of the meeple, then didn't do any effort in protecting it as their own idea (Countless other games using the word/ shape and them not doing a thing) yet they were allowed to trademark the meeple??? Total horseshite

The term meeple was mostly used as slang amongst gamers. I don't think anyone really cares about games with the word "meeple" on their title. The important thing is the shape. As long as companies are free to use the shape, it doesn't matter what they call it. Besides, no game with meeples actually calls them meeples, they call them workers, assistants etc.

#Gample as a new term for "Meeple" Board game enthusiasts know the tiny wooden pawns as "meeple," a term coined by Alison Hansel in 2000. But with trademark issues surrounding "meeple" I propose "Gample" combining #Game and #People, as a new universal term for any human or animal shape Meeple. "Gample" is short, memorable, and captures the essence of these pawns. Let's make "Gample" the new go-to word for uniting boardgamers everywhere!

I'm never giving any money to Hans im Glück again for the rest of my life.

It’s always the companies with the clearest use of public domain and common domain that love pulling this, eh? Their name being literally someone else’s story, now public domain is just perfect.

I can't believe the EU or US would approve a trademark for a word that was invented by a separate entity and was already in general use by the public. That'd be like Apple trying to trademark the phrase "smart phone." Completely ridiculous

Really nice summary of the case. Good job! The funny (or rather pathetic) part of this is HiG admitted that their cease and desist against Meeple Inc publisher was "too aggresive from their side" and they apologized. Yeah maybe don't sue a random small publisher for something you don't actually own just because their campaign is succesfully funded, I guess. 🤷🏻‍♀️

How about wooden people, or weeples? It also means lamenting the loss of the common name meeple.

Loved the conclusion :D Thank you for this informative and humorous take on the matter. I find the whole thing badly timed and unfortunate. I believe the term Meeple should not be trademarked after being in public use for so long, very much like the popular Happy Birthday tune was opened for public use because it had transcended into culture. The meeple shape is quite a different matter and I am sure that for the 100.000s of board game T-Shirts sold nobody ever asked or credited the designer - very much like in the case of the smiley face icon ^^ The word Meeple is an English term. I remember the uninspired German term for playing pieces in my childhood (1960-70ies) games was "Spielkegel" (they were shaped like bowling pins and thus vaguely human in silhuette). You would find them in games like Pachisi, Halma and even Monopoly. Not sure when we started to use "Möppel" to refer to them which is rather closer to Meeple ... The modern alternative "Spielfigur" just is too long a term and to dry an expression to convey fun :P Btw. the classic "Spielkegel" is still the shape of the German Boardgame Award ^^ There were many other predecessors for the Meeple - of my head I remember Sagaland (1980ies) with hats or Papua (1990ies) with printed faces and "Drunter&Drüber" (1994) with distinct heads but no arms. The latter was also by "Hans im Glück". Also I had a wooden farm playset in the early 1970ies where the farmer looked very much like a green Meeple with a hat. It had a set of simple cut and base painted animals (pigs, geese, chickens, sheep, cows and a horse) - just somehow nobody thought of including such pieces in a boardgame during these times :P The Carcasonne Meeple was what really inspired more elaborate shapes in board games ^^ Love that you have so many odd shapes nowadays including animals like in Everdell :D

If they wanted to protect their trademark, then they need to protect it consistently, which they have not done. This is very much ridiculous and has absolutely damaged their brand. It'll be interesting to see if they backtrack, or if the community comes to a consensus over something different... possibly out of spite.

Next video: How CGS is going after Forsaken & Gametrayz, in the form of some absurd IP claims, as part of an all out lawfare against a former employee / founder, and while doing so not only delaying Forsaken but also hurting RU-vid creators and channels.

Burning all my copies of carcasssone now.. F-ing lawyery germermans.

Sounds like I should stop recommending Carcassonne and Dominion as gateway games, if the company behind them wants to be this shitty.