The names “Pepsi” and “Cocacola” are restricted and I’m just curious about why. It’s somewhat funny and I’m wondering if there is some secret reason behind it rather than them just being soda brands.
They’re trademarked.
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That’s boring. Many state names are also restricted too. There are, however, some racial epithets they missed. Anyway, thanks!
If you something that violates the naming policy right click and report blizzard doesnt have the time to go thru millions of players names to find ones that violate the naming policy they rely on players to do it so they can take action.
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…Y’know, that’s a good question and I’m pretty confident trademark law only really applies if you could reasonably be confused for the Coca Cola / Pepsi company, I’m at least 98% sure nobody would think a character named Pepsi for the soda company, so I’m not sure that law actually applies here.
Copyright law applies, though. They own the name, and it doesn’t matter whether the potential for confusion exists.
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The name Coca Cola is protected by trademark, not copyright.
It actually matters a lot and that’s a standard used in a court of law. It’s why Apple Records and Apple can co-exist despite being two different companies.
Either way, pretty sure the devs and Blizzards legal team have a pretty good understanding and reason why.
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Um, Apple Records took Apple Computers to court, but it was settled before a verdict could be made. The fight went on from 1978 to 2007.
You don’t play around with trademarks or copyright. I personally have a lean on someone house for copyright violations of my stuff, the same process goes for trademarks too.
If someone used “Pepsi” as a name, and does something really really bad, Blizzard is liable. As for “Coke”, other than known for a drink, it’s also a common drug reference.
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The legal argument I’m referencing has its own wikipedia page, with a pretty amusing name at that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_moron_in_a_hurry
Here’s a company LOSING a lawsuit based on this standard, over the trademark ‘Blizzard’, funnily enough:
https://www.reuters.com/business/buffetts-dairy-queen-loses-lawsuit-over-blizzard-name-2022-06-20/
Whew. That’s the wildest legal take I’ve seen in a while. That’s actually not true though. Even if liability did exist there–and it absolutely does not–you would be the one liable, not Blizzard.
Did you know that Ravenhawk is a trademarked name? There are companies using that name. And before you bring up that Raven and Hawk are both normal, common words, I’d like to point out that so is Apple and Blizzard. My name is trademarked too. You’ll find no shortage of trademarked names in-game.
I’m admittedly not sure how we’re supposed to find out the answer to this one without Blizzard themselves spilling the beans. 
And if the trademark holder sends Blizzard a C & D letter, the name would be blacklisted and the character would be flagged to choose a new name.
It all seems a little pedantic and speculatory, though.
I suspect we’re just going to have to learn to live with the mystery of it all.
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All copyrighted/trademarked names do not cover the same scope of identity and all corporations and individuals do not defend their copyrights/trademarks to the same degree.
Blizzard is a gaming company. Money and time spent on contested copyrights/trademarks detracts from using those resources for their core business.
Trying to determine if a particular name is going to be contested by the copyright/trademark holder and dealing with the courts if they guess wrong, the most prudent thing they can do for their shareholders is to just avoid the issues entirely by prohibiting the use of copywritten/trademarked names.
Actions taken to rename copywritten/trademarks from in-game names serve to create a history of enforcing copyrights and trademarks that can be demonstrated in court if things deteriorate to that level.
In the end, supporting copyrights/trademarks of others is just a prudent business practice that they are not going to abandon just because some one wants a “cool” character name.
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Something I definitely do not have. I can say that there are several entities that have specifically contacted us about blocking name use, so that is why you may see some automatically prevented.
Most other trademarks usually only apply on RP realms for their naming policy, otherwise, if you can use it and it isn’t considered inappropriate, you usually may.
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Where do I submit suggestions about inappropriate names that aren’t blocked? There are some… choice names I checked for fun that are not filtered out by the mature language list. I think I could make a dev’s day by giving them a list of names they haven’t gotten to.
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You can certainly submit suggestions via the submit a suggestion option in the Support menu in-game.
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Not relevant to the current topic, but I would have you know (since I was pinged to this post) that somebody is using alts, some of which contain sexually explicit references, to like random posts I made, seemingly in order to blow up my notifications. This is getting really weird, Vrak…
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If someone has a bad name flag them as having a inapropriate name.
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To be fair i don’t think the OP can hijack their own thread haha.
Idontknow, one of the flag options is for inappropriate name. Please be sure to take advantage of it.
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My bad edited that post.
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The problem is that the inappropriate names are on characters that are liking posts, not posting themselves. I’m not sure how to report that. I will, however, be making a separate thread for the sockpuppet since continuing that discussion in this thread would just be confusing, so I don’t entirely disagree with Darthwraith. Thanks for the assistance though, everyone. And it was nice to see you in the General Discussion thread, Vrak, even if people didn’t exactly welcome you with open arms.
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