Oh this wouldn't hold a hope of winning a copyright lawsuit. They are just hoping to bully the indie developer with their corporate lawyer team. Parodies are protected.
I don’t think you can so easily state it’s not parodying Ikea and there’s an argument for fair-use without that, However, at least in the US (this is maybe in the UK?) arguing fair-use for a trademark can cost a lot of money and is a bit fraught.
Also re the ‘our hands are tied, we must protect our mark’ claims, it’s always an option to license the use.
I just don’t see a fair use angle making it very far here. Obviously the “true” test is to actually argue it in court and get a ruling—but it’s fair game to kibitz and make declarations of how you think a case would get resolved, were it to go to court.
Yes, it’s all bench racing but caselaw provides some small manner of clairvoyance.
I think it really depends on jurisdiction. If it was adjudicated somewhere with the Roger’s test, I think it would have a very decent chance. For example, take Seuss v Comicmix, in which Comicmix didn’t sufficiently meet the bar for parody on copyright grounds but cleared trademark fair use.
The whole premise is essentially making fun of IKEA’s labyrinthine design by imagining it as a literal deadly maze, similar to the mythological Labyrinth
In all seriousness, there is one stark difference between a song, skit or an article and a videogame - the latter has two+ orders of magnitude of experience time. I'm not sure if it matters in any way for fair use / being a parody, but a 3-minute song feels different than a videogame that takes 3 or 30 hours to complete.
This appears to just be the CBR article being sloppy in summarizing Kotaku's reporting. The original article makes multiple mentions of trademark infringement, but doesn't mention copyright at all [1].
The game is using the Ikea trademarks, I think that much is clear. The trademark isn’t just the “Ikea” name itself. Just like if you kept the golden arches but changed “McDonald’s” to “O’Brian’s”—the name is only a part of the trademark.
If you asked me to describe it from the first picture, I might say, “It’s a picture of a monster in front of an Ikea store,” and I might not even notice that it’s not an Ikea store.
I don’t understand the “this isn’t infringement” argument, since it looks super obvious like it is supposed to be an Ikea store. I have a hard time imagining someone looking at the picture and saying, “That’s definitely not an Ikea store.”
> If you asked me to describe it from the first picture, I might say, “It’s a picture of a monster in front of an Ikea store,”
Well I wouldn't.
> since it looks super obvious like it is supposed to be an Ikea store
It's supposed to be similar. But trademark isn't an issue unless there's real potential for confusion, and a single glance at a photo where the building is 80% blocked doesn't count.
When someone has a pear phone, it's obvious what that compares to, and it's also obvious that it's not the same brand.
That image evokes Best Buy more to me. They also use rectangular buildings with a blue and yellow color palette, and the visible letters s, t, and y are actually in the name of the company.
2. This is not a copyright issue (trademark dilution)