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Hi,

A friend of mine here in South Africa lost his job in November last year when the company he worked for closed down and has not been able to find a decent paying job on account of our Black Economic Empowerment policies.

Thing is this - he's a brilliant sculptor and painter and has been earning enough to scrape by and look after his family (wife had to take a job too though) by painting peoples armies and competition entries etc.

Something we want to look at together is producing 28 / 30mm 40k compatible sprues... things like dynamically posed legs, dynamically posed arms, heads with different expressions etc. the idea is that we would produce the Master Sculpts, have them tooled, cast and reproduced.

The thing is we are trying to determine what is considered a breach of copyright? If we made legs "similar" to SM legs but a little taller and styled just slightly different would GW and FW have a mass heart attack and sue the pants off us?

We are initially planning on Historical 20mm and 30mm troops (WWII) since there is a bigger local following for that sort of thing, but we'd like to do stuff that could be used to do conversions on GW models (as long as they dont carry iconography that is cprght) to attract an overseas market as well...

comments - should we just forget it and stick to Historicals? or should we attempt to do some cool stuff?

i should imagine its possible, but wording must be very careful.
you couldnt advertise them as 40k compatable or extra sprures.

so calling them something like futuristic upgrade sprues would work fine, avoid all legal issues and make you a fair bit.

but, i am no lawyer, so i cant ensure everything i have said is correct.

Thats why you dont want to sculpt legs ( which need to blend in to existing figures right? )

As well as why there are so many companies sculpting alternate heads.

Generic heads = you can use for so many different game / model lines that GW have no chance of catching you.

Atm, there are ALOT of demand on female heads / torsos because good sculpted ones are so rare.

yeh obviously we wouldnt reference GW, WH, FW, 40k or ANYTHING like that.

We wouldn't even say Space Marine or Chaos Space Marine...

We would probably call them something like 32mm Exo-Armor Soldier upgrades, (think true-scale) drop any copyrighted symbols or icons - although is a skull or eagle symbol considered copyright? surely not as they are used in many gaming systems and were greek and roman standards?

Yeh we were actually thinking of a sprue with 10 legs (5 male, 5 female), 10 heads (5m 5f), 5 torsos (f), 5 sets of arms (f)

What concerns me is how close to SM legs can we get without infringing copyright.

Its not that we wouldn't want GW or FW to be ignorant of what we're doing - we just dont want them to say - hey lets sue those guys cause they're ripping us off.

From my understanding, as long as its not a direct copy or moulded from their work and doesn't look like an exact replica or feature their trademarks or copyrights / intellectual property its all ok?

thats what im saying though. why choose such a risky , small niche to promote your product?

when you can do the ones in demand with 0 risk.

how close can you make SM power armor leg without been caught?

Depends how good their lawyer is >:"D

To be honest, I think it's probably best left as a good idea.

GW are understandably hot on copyright infringement things, so for the sake of making a few quid, especially with the setup costs, I'd say it's not really worth it.

Historicals should give you a good enough market, and you could always look into sculpting your own Sci-Fi models as alternatives.

But to do upgrades, thats a little muddy in terms of what is and isn't allowed. Also remember, GW has it's own Hero Scale, so they could use that to suggest intent.

Mind you, I don't know much about this law, so take what I say with a pinch of salt!

Upgrade sprues for existing models sound too risky to me.

But you could do alternative models that look different from GW's. Greatcoat IG comes to mind. Or any number of obscure regiments that don't have models. Or an alternative model line of Space Robots, Space Elves, Daemons...

The legal validity haes very little bearing on the issue when its the little guy vs the huge corporation. Their financial backing is all that's needed to bog you down into bakruptcy. Just being a threat to them is all they'd need.

I can't see how there is a big market for alternative SM legs anyway, Reposing legs can be done by some of the most inexperienced modelers. Whereas heads, close combat weapons and more generic ballistic weapons, now you're talking. And I say generic ballistic weapons because outside of the las/plasma/bolter etc. type weapons GW has no copyright over them, and close combat weapons are pretty much free reign together with heads, provided they don't have any iconography on them.

If your really interested get a lawyer to do the work for you, obviously that's going to cost you a fair bit but it could pay for itself if indeed you were about to breach copyright.

Nurgleboy77 wrote:The legal validity haes very little bearing on the issue when its the little guy vs the huge corporation. Their financial backing is all that's needed to bog you down into bakruptcy. Just being a threat to them is all they'd need.

If he's not doing anything illegal their only way of solving it would be by sending round the company mafia or paying him off. The former is highly unlikely and the later means he wins anyway.

Are we talking about "skulls" or "SKULLZ! HUURRRR"?

I don't know if there's a big demand for legs. Now, if you were doing 'generic' bionic upgrades - both legs, one legs, arms, etc. - there might be a niche for that.

Maybe posed legs would work - kneeling, posed with one foot on something (rock, skull, hunk of metal).

As others have said, it's less an issue of what's legal and more about whether or not it's worth their time to make your life miserable.

Generally the best advice is BE ORIGINAL.

Do not try and swipe GW and hope you don't get caught then if you are you could lose all of your business.

That being said, look at Pig Iron. No one would say they are ripping off GW, they make a lot of high-quality science fiction figures. They also sell the heads seperately and I've bought a ton of them.

So if you made your own figures but sold heads, or bionics arms, or legs seperately there would be no grounds to protest.

So first make sure you have a vision that is not just Space Marines and go from there. Definitely keep compatibility with GW in mind though.

I also have been trying to deal with this issue, I am starting a resin kit company, and my first project is to model decent looking Dark Eldar, that are compatible with the legs off of the DE sprue (the only thing that looks half-way decent in the entire range =P) just so my clients can enter the models in GTs under the 40% GW rules that are enforced.

The way I plan on doing it is sculpting entire models and then offering them for sale as bits. That way people can just buy the torso and heads and I can say that I do not infringe on GWs IP.

Helping gamers "true scale" Space Marines easily would be a big benefit, and while still a niche market, might be a productive and profitably one too.

IF you can do it 'generically' enough, that is...

whatwhat wrote:If he's not doing anything illegal their only way of solving it would be by sending round the company mafia or paying him off. The former is highly unlikely and the later means he wins anyway.

Heh. Ever hear of a Company called Dream Forge?

Wasn't doing anything illegal or even mentioning anything made, written, or produced by GW, but because they were producing something(Leviathans) that could maybe possible in some way perhaps be confused with something that they(GW) maybe perhaps one day possibly at some point in the unforeseeable future could produce through Forge World for 4 times the price(Warlord Titans), they didn't just send around the "corporate mafia", they unceremoniously sent them a cease and desist letter perhaps threatening a copyright lawsuit that GW probably wouldn't win, but would definitely be dragged on long enough to put Dream Forge into bankruptcy and out of business.

GW not only does it, but they're willing to do it at the drop of the hat rather than pay some one off.

I have been told that a product needs to be more than 30% different than a similar product to not be considered a copyright infringement.

Eric

Clthomps wrote:I also have been trying to deal with this issue, I am starting a resin kit company, and my first project is to model decent looking Dark Eldar, that are compatible with the legs off of the DE sprue (the only thing that looks half-way decent in the entire range =P) just so my clients can enter the models in GTs under the 40% GW rules that are enforced.

The way I plan on doing it is sculpting entire models and then offering them for sale as bits. That way people can just buy the torso and heads and I can say that I do not infringe on GWs IP.

Any pics of the progress so far? Im a big DE fan but just couldnt stand even their basic troops. ( well they looked good in codex )

Platuan4th wrote:

whatwhat wrote:If he's not doing anything illegal their only way of solving it would be by sending round the company mafia or paying him off. The former is highly unlikely and the later means he wins anyway.

Heh. Ever hear of a Company called Dream Forge?

Wasn't doing anything illegal or even mentioning anything made, written, or produced by GW, but because they were producing something(Leviathans) that could maybe possible in some way perhaps be confused with something that they(GW) maybe perhaps one day possibly at some point in the unforeseeable future could produce through Forge World for 4 times the price(Warlord Titans), they didn't just send around the "corporate mafia", they unceremoniously sent them a cease and desist letter perhaps threatening a copyright lawsuit that GW probably wouldn't win, but would definitely be dragged on long enough to put Dream Forge into bankruptcy and out of business.

GW not only does it, but they're willing to do it at the drop of the hat rather than pay some one off.

Dreamforge 100% ripped off the Warlord head design though. At that point, GW could categorically prove breach of copyright etc...

Around when was warlord head copy righted? I could have sworn i saw an old manga with such titan.

That would be around 1990 I believe, with the release of Adeptus Titanicus.

What these guys seemingly did was just upscale it.

MagickalMemories wrote:I have been told that a product needs to be more than 30% different than a similar product to not be considered a copyright infringement.

Eric

There is no hard and fast rule.

GW holds two types of copyrights in its models -- one is the artistic copyright on the sculptural artwork. This is what you violate when you recast a figure. The other is the overall design copyright of specific features such as the SM armour.

If you make your variant parts sufficiently different to the originals, and you sculpt them up from your own armatures, you should be in the clear. A leg is a leg. Even a piece of armour or equipment can be fairly generic.

As Kid Kyoto said your best defence is to be original. You can still make the parts fit GW models but make original designs.

If thats true, then they might have ripped off Dragon Quest manga , or vice versa.

Dragon Quest dai no daiboken , the enemy's base is a giant castle titan which have identical head , and similar over all look.


*edit . why dont GW go sue mega man for the leg armor then :"D the ones without knee pads.

luna, all ideas come from somewhere mate




quick tip if your good at sculpting and need some nice proffit:

make large robotic limbs (arms, legs, bodies)
make sure they are the right size for an ork, with a variation of gun arms and CCW arms, im sure you will make a nice proffit from it

With a bit of Wikifu, turns out Adeptus Titanicus predates aforementioned Manga's debut by a year.

JD21290 wrote:luna, all ideas come from somewhere mate




quick tip if your good at sculpting and need some nice proffit:

make large robotic limbs (arms, legs, bodies)
make sure they are the right size for an ork, with a variation of gun arms and CCW arms, im sure you will make a nice proffit from it

Oh i know, but i still feel sorry for dream forge . makes GW almost like a bully

Like any company, GW are obliged to defend their Copyrights and IP, otherwise they can lose it.

Like any company, GW are obliged to defend their Copyrights and IP, otherwise they can lose it.

LunaHound wrote:If thats true, then they might have ripped off Dragon Quest manga , or vice versa.

Dragon Quest dai no daiboken , the enemy's base is a giant castle titan which have identical head , and similar over all look.


*edit . why dont GW go sue mega man for the leg armor then :"D the ones without knee pads.

They're most likely not aware of the Dragon Quest Manga(I know the one you're talking about) and Megaman doesn't have separate feet like Marine armor(and honestly, his leg armor looks nothing like Marine Power Armor).

Plus, GW is probably a lot more wary of taking on large established companies. In the past their threat to sue didn't seem to be so much about them actually winning, it's because they know they can tie up the cases long enough to starve a small, homemade company.

I'm not even going to GUESS at South African copyright law.

From a US standpoint, as a piece of general and non-legal advice, you don't want to start with the proposition "how do I get around someone's copyright?" A much more sustainable position is "what can I sculpt that's interesting, in (heroic) 28mm scale?" Pig Iron is an excellent example - they have their own full line, with a good look to it. They will also sell you bits of models, and are in a compatible scale, which allows for some nice modeling possibilities.

Fortunately, GW doesn't have a lock on the concept of human-sized powered armor (see, e.g., "Iron Man"). If you want to sculpt your own, I'd actually point you towards traditional gothic plate armour; start there, and "futurize" as whimsy takes you.

Any pics of the progress so far? Im a big DE fan but just couldnt stand even their basic troops. ( well they looked good in codex )

I don't feel comfortable posting pictures of models until I can get a website and production line up and running, honestly there is just to much risk of someone "borrowing" my ideas and producing them before I do. But you can be sure that the first day I offer them for sale I will post it here.