Name Change

OK so the possibility of a name change has come up due to a legal and originality issue. With the angry marines, we still have S.L.A.M. (Sugar Land Angry Marines). So if we can keep a nice acronym going, that would be the best. If you have any questions on this or would like to suggest a new name, please reply.

As far as the question of legality, would we have to worry beyond anyone but Games Workshop? And wouldn't that be the case no matter what name we choose as long as the name had something to do with Warhammer.

well thats really what im asking. im just looking at our possibilities here.

I still don't see how this is a legal issue. 4chan hasn't ever copy-righted anything on their forums (since it usually disappears after a few days, anyhow) so is the issue with the fact that we have artwork in our title that isn't more than 50% original work?

I mean, the term "Angry Marines" is in no way copy-righted.

i want to keep the name but like you said, the logo is the biggest issue. we need to work on an angry face that we can call ours.

*sigh* We had this exact talk a month ago.


Angry Marines isn't anything that belongs to anyone. It's a cultural and artistic parody from a huge internet forum that's characterized by people posting anonymously. No one own the copyright to it, no one claims credit for the idea. It's just a really liked in-joke or side-joke for a lot of us who have been active at both 40k and internet stuff for a while (4chan, SA, etc.). New art constantly gets put on 4chan before fading as new stuff is posted. Just as the artists who draw angry marines (who all do it differently, and by the way call themselves 'drawfags') are doing a harmless and creative parody of the hobby/copyright, we're going a step further and making a parody of the angry marines now that that the joke has grown big enough to be worth the reference. As far as I know we're the only/the first people to have had the idea to call our gaming group this, and definitely the first in Texas.

The only people we'd have to remotely worry about is GW since they own the space marine IP (armor and such), but even then

a) it's extremely unlikely that they would disapprove much less do anything since they pour a lot of ad money and manpower into growing the customer base and small clubs (heck look at Austin prize support), as even our local store manager has said (he said just to call and ask someone at GW to be 110% sure) and

b) even copyright is not sacrosanct, as comedic/political/theatrical/etc. parody is legal under the law. That's why you see newspaper cartoons or t-shirts or products (many of which even produce revenue) being sold as long as they are obviously a parody instead of an imitation product.


FYI the angry face that you see there is not some sort of universal logo for the angry marines on 4chan or anything. You are misinformed if you think that. Every artist or whatever comes up with something different- it's just generally some sort of frowning or unhappy face. I only made it look like a logo with some cutting and some photoshop work. That exact face only appears on a part of the armor of 1 dreadnaught in 1 picture out of the mannnyyyyy little angry marine joke sketches and pictures that different people have drawn. It's not even supposed to be flat....it was originally slanted in the picture and I made it look more 2d.

I never even thought of the S.L.A.M. thing but think it's a really clever idea. I like having the name Sugar Land in our official title somewhere anyway.

What Nick said. There's no legal reason for us to change our name/logo/theme/mascot.

I like the SLAM acronym as well, but there's no reason to change things up, just add to them.

ok then i think the next step is to get an official logo. what do we got? lol i like a simple angry face