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There will always be piracy, one way to tackle it it through customer goodwill. Some people will always buy cheap copies but many are happy to pay more to support a company they feel positive about. The problem with GW is that their pricing policy means that fakes can be a lot cheaper than the real thing and they are very low on customer goodwill because they've trashed relations with their longer term customers.

And I would suggest that it is those very longer term customers most likely to buy recasts because the one-year-and-out customers that GW seem to focus on the most for high sales wouldn't touch Forgeworld and are more likely to buy from GW directly anyway, rather than looking for alternative retailers and product lines (and recasts).

I must say I am not clear how buying pirate CDs rather than the official ones from Sony Music, etc. helps poor recording artistes. One might have thought that 7 cents a disc is more than 0 cents.

 Azazelx wrote:

 Talys wrote:

Sorry, but I don't believe for a moment that "people" will happily pay for legitimate product if prices are "reasonable" -- so long as there exists a substantially cheaper and indistinguishable alternative (I put quotes around people because obviously, I don't mean all people -- I mean people who are inclined to buy recasts or pirate product; and I put quotes around reasonable, because this is pretty subjective term). Many people pirate Netflix shows like House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and Sense8, and what's cheaper than Netflix? You could subscribe to it for 1 month and binge watch everything for the price of capo and a muffin at Starbucks. A lot of people steal music when it's less than a buck a song, or a subscription service is very cheap. I know people who own multimillion dollar homes and pirate ebooks, when the price of their designer Italian leather sofa in the living room could fill a home library three times over (or buy every GW model you could ever want).

I'll counter your anecdotal evidence with my own. Here in Australia, legit Netflix has only been a thing for a very short time (2-3 months or so). I know quite a few people who no longer bother to torrent things and now have Netflix subscriptions. There will always be people who choose to pirate, just as there are those who never will, but there's a big blob of people in the middle who really are riding that "reasonable" train. To wit - I again know people who buy legit product from many manufacturers yet buy recast GW. So there you go...

It's all a difficult balancing act. Unreasonably high prices do lead to more piracy IMO, but then on the flip side even with lower and more reasonable prices you will still get some amount of piracy AND you have to sell more units to turn a profit. Where the balance lies is always going to be difficult to say as we are never going to have solid numbers to stand on, it's always just going to be opinion.

All I can hope is that people choose to support the artists rather than the knock offs. If the artist isn't producing a product you like at a price you like (or by extension, the company that the artist works for), then I'd love it if people moved to supporting other artists who do rather than resorting to recasts.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I must say I am not clear how buying pirate CDs rather than the official ones from Sony Music, etc. helps poor recording artistes. One might have thought that 7 cents a disc is more than 0 cents.

Nobody buys music without having heard it first. Piracy does nothing for Metallica or Taylor Swift, but poor, upcoming artists and bands who struggle to make it onto the radio can essentially advertise themselves through piracy. Some of them actively encourage it because it will get people to listen to their music, and some of those people will then buy it. It's better than no sales at all.

tgjensen wrote:
Nobody buys music without having heard it first. Piracy does nothing for Metallica or Taylor Swift, but poor, upcoming artists and bands who struggle to make it onto the radio can essentially advertise themselves through piracy. Some of them actively encourage it because it will get people to listen to their music, and some of those people will then buy it. It's better than no sales at all.

Nobody you know, maybe... In the social circles I wander through, there are folk who will preorder CDs and albums having only just heard them announced, to support the artists. Be it on recommendation from someone similar, or because they trust the person telling them.
Hell, I've bought CDs based on reviews and descriptions, and I'm no special case.

I cannot say music piracy and sharing is progressive for all small artists. It may work for some. Why accept that gamble after putting hundreds of hours into creating something?
More realistic is getting exposure from DJs in the genre you're looking to sell into. Sure your demo disc may end up in a back log, but that's one copy that could reach a few hundred people.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

tgjensen wrote:
Nobody buys music without having heard it first. Piracy does nothing for Metallica or Taylor Swift, but poor, upcoming artists and bands who struggle to make it onto the radio can essentially advertise themselves through piracy. Some of them actively encourage it because it will get people to listen to their music, and some of those people will then buy it. It's better than no sales at all.

Nobody you know, maybe... In the social circles I wander through, there are folk who will preorder CDs and albums having only just heard them announced, to support the artists. Be it on recommendation from someone similar, or because they trust the person telling them.
Hell, I've bought CDs based on reviews and descriptions, and I'm no special case.

Specific doesn't disprove general, while you may know a few people who do buy without prior knowledge (and I'll bet those who do are already established fans of the artist or genre - I pre order books based on the author in the same way) doesn't mean the overwhelming majority do. (I very much doubt "nobody" was meant literally.)

I cannot say music piracy and sharing is progressive for all small artists. It may work for some. Why accept that gamble after putting hundreds of hours into creating something?

Because the alternative is having it sit on your hard drive, totally unappreciated?

More realistic is getting exposure from DJs in the genre you're looking to sell into. Sure your demo disc may end up in a back log, but that's one copy that could reach a few hundred people.

Sorry, I don't see how this is any different? Make your music freely available in the hope that a few who download support you financially, or send your music to someone with no guarantee they'll even play it, or, if they do, that exposure will translate into financial success?

Seems like a gamble either way. At least with the first option people are more likely to hear your work.

Either way, as I've written this it has become apparent that the comparisons between recasts and digital piracy are beginning to break down to the point it isn't really topic anymore.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

 Talys wrote:

Sorry, but I don't believe for a moment that "people" will happily pay for legitimate product if prices are "reasonable" -- so long as there exists a substantially cheaper and indistinguishable alternative (I put quotes around people because obviously, I don't mean all people -- I mean people who are inclined to buy recasts or pirate product; and I put quotes around reasonable, because this is pretty subjective term). Many people pirate Netflix shows like House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and Sense8, and what's cheaper than Netflix? You could subscribe to it for 1 month and binge watch everything for the price of capo and a muffin at Starbucks. A lot of people steal music when it's less than a buck a song, or a subscription service is very cheap. I know people who own multimillion dollar homes and pirate ebooks, when the price of their designer Italian leather sofa in the living room could fill a home library three times over (or buy every GW model you could ever want).

I'll counter your anecdotal evidence with my own. Here in Australia, legit Netflix has only been a thing for a very short time (2-3 months or so). I know quite a few people who no longer bother to torrent things and now have Netflix subscriptions. There will always be people who choose to pirate, just as there are those who never will, but there's a big blob of people in the middle who really are riding that "reasonable" train. To wit - I again know people who buy legit product from many manufacturers yet buy recast GW. So there you go...

It's all a difficult balancing act. Unreasonably high prices do lead to more piracy IMO, but then on the flip side even with lower and more reasonable prices you will still get some amount of piracy AND you have to sell more units to turn a profit. Where the balance lies is always going to be difficult to say as we are never going to have solid numbers to stand on, it's always just going to be opinion.

All I can hope is that people choose to support the artists rather than the knock offs. If the artist isn't producing a product you like at a price you like (or by extension, the company that the artist works for), then I'd love it if people moved to supporting other artists who do rather than resorting to recasts.

@Azazelx - You've actually just proven my point that some people will always go for the cheapest option without consideration of compensation for the IP holder or licensee. Even though Netflix is available AND cheap, there are some people who still pirate it. Even at half its current price, many of those people would STILL pirate it. In fact, at any price > 0, they would pirate it.

@AllSeeingSkink - I couldn't have said it better!

My personal choice is to either (a) support the artist or (b) not buy the product. I don't think that option (c) of pirating the product or buying a cheaper version from a counterfeiter, is a choice that I would be happy with myself for making. Is that sort of morality a first-world problem? Perhaps. There are certainly things I would like that I can't afford, though, and my solution to that is not to steal it. It's either to be happy with what I've got, be happy with something else, or to figure out a way to earn more money.

Incidentally, some years ago, I met a prominent man from Kenya. He told me that there, before you buy a car, you buy a gun. So that when someone invariably comes to try to steal it, you can shoot them. My point: it's all a matter of perspective, but I'm happy that I live where I live, and that the laws where I live work the way they do.

 Talys wrote:
@Azazelx - You've actually just proven my point that some people will always go for the cheapest option without consideration of compensation for the IP holder or licensee. Even though Netflix is available AND cheap, there are some people who still pirate it. Even at half its current price, many of those people would STILL pirate it. In fact, at any price > 0, they would pirate it..

Nobody was questioning that point.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I must say I am not clear how buying pirate CDs rather than the official ones from Sony Music, etc. helps poor recording artistes. One might have thought that 7 cents a disc is more than 0 cents.

What's a CD, grandpa?

The erstwhile MegaUpload site had a working business model that understood the internet. Consumers downloaded an artists' music without being charged for the song (sounds familiar), but some subscribers paid money to MegaUpload for the subscription service (yep, people did this!). MegaUpload paid content providers (who did all the promotional work a record company would do) whose content was downloaded the most. *Everybody* won, except for the music companies. You already know what happened to MegaUpload and who was behind it.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/01/24/is-this-the-real-reason-why-megaupload-was-shut-down/
http://rt.com/usa/megabox-industry-megaupload-dotcom-803/

Putting recasts aside, what about 3D printers? We know they're going to get better and cheaper in the future. 3D printers separate the design from the manufacture, so companies will have less control over production of parts. In fact, part of a planned obsolescence strategy is to no longer offer parts for older models, encouraging customers to buy the latest one. With 3D printers, *anyone* can design a model (or even parts), with better results than today's molding process (undercuts, no mold lines, sculptures only possible through an additive process, different colors, etc.). Some designs will be IP-free and original, some... won't. Plenty will be ambiguous -- what about parts? What about a customization program which can create both IP-free models, and models that look "very similar"? GameZone already makes GW-knockoffs, er, models similar to GW. And we've already seen GW take down some 40K designs from Shapeways, but they lost (?) in their lawsuit against Chapterhouse. What will happen to miniatures when DriveThru3D will let you download, customize, or order your own miniature?

tgjensen wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I must say I am not clear how buying pirate CDs rather than the official ones from Sony Music, etc. helps poor recording artistes. One might have thought that 7 cents a disc is more than 0 cents.

Nobody buys music without having heard it first. Piracy does nothing for Metallica or Taylor Swift, but poor, upcoming artists and bands who struggle to make it onto the radio can essentially advertise themselves through piracy. Some of them actively encourage it because it will get people to listen to their music, and some of those people will then buy it. It's better than no sales at all.

Given we have the radio, MySpace and YouTube where loads of music can be heard legally for free, do people really need to pirate company CDs to "check out" new songs? No.

The difference is that free to consume services (like the radio) set their own agenda (they're also not always free, but that's a separate thing) and play what they want you to hear or think you'd like. Hence, no Cliff on Radio 1 these days.

While undoubtedly a good way of hearing songs you like, radio isn't a great way of discovering new stuff, especially if it doesn't fit the profile of the station or the DJ's tastes.

Equally, streaming services are flawed, at least until widespread and cost effective wireless internet access becomes a thing.

None of which excuses piracy inherently, but it does justify the need for an offline copy from somewhere.

PS
Is Myspace still a thing?!

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I must say I am not clear how buying pirate CDs rather than the official ones from Sony Music, etc. helps poor recording artistes. One might have thought that 7 cents a disc is more than 0 cents.

It helps immensely in the long run. It promotes small, independent labels, cheap online sales or "download-for-free, donate as much as you want"-buisnes models. I'd buy a new album of my favourite bands for about 5€ as a high-quality digital download, if most of the money ends up benefitting the band.

RE: 3D Printing. BeAfraid and I have a bit of a discussion whenever this pops up. He's of the more pessimistic view that they'll never reach tabletop quality for cheap while I like to think that a technology capable of printing organs with living cells will bee good enough to print some god-damn spacemarines and soon enough too. The really good thing about this is that there will be people with good modelling skills that will share their creations for free, slaanesh bless their souls with bliss. So you will be able to legally print nice-looking, possibly WYSIWYG-compliant models and Gee-Dubs wont be able to do anything about it. And nothing stops the determined hobbyist from learining 3D-modelling himself and create his army the way he wants to.

I did not say that they will never reach tabletop quality.

We already have 3D printers that will print a fully colored/painted miniature with the quality of a tabletop miniature.

It just costs about $700 - $1500 to do so.

My point is simply that this technology is not progressing as quickly as people think it is. At least not at the lower-end where consumer level 3D printing will be a real thing for miniatures until the middle of next decade.

It is going to remain in the realm of the production of masters for other manufacturing methods.

Yes, people might invest in individual figures from places like Shapeways (but the prices still remain higher than GW for individual figures for the most part - exceptions do exist, I am talking about The Rule, though).

MB

Well, here goes.

I have no morale objection to purchase recasts, I have just gotten a post office box and will begin to purchase recast figurines from Russia and China, I don't give a frag.

Least I am honest to say these things.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BeAfraid wrote:
I did not say that they will never reach tabletop quality.

We already have 3D printers that will print a fully colored/painted miniature with the quality of a tabletop miniature.

It just costs about $700 - $1500 to do so.

My point is simply that this technology is not progressing as quickly as people think it is. At least not at the lower-end where consumer level 3D printing will be a real thing for miniatures until the middle of next decade.

It is going to remain in the realm of the production of masters for other manufacturing methods.

Yes, people might invest in individual figures from places like Shapeways (but the prices still remain higher than GW for individual figures for the most part - exceptions do exist, I am talking about The Rule, though).

MB

Actually thet have medical 3-D printers that can at a trial stage relay T-Cell nerve fibres in test animals, it is that advanced. In a couple of years trials will begin on folks with spinal injuries.

My view on 3D printing is that it may eventually be like fax machines and desktop scanner-printers.

They are cheap, easy to use and many households have them but no-one prints their own books.

The drawback to 3D printing is that there isn't much practical use or it in the home.

Need a 5Amp fuse, a spare door key for a guest, or a pack of sticking plasters? Tough luck.

Wargammers aren't most people though, we have a very clear use case that 3D printers will be able to solve in the future for what is a reasonable cost when compared to a RRP costed army. We aren't the only hobby that has such a clear use case and I expect good enough printers to become available sooner rather than later. Even if people don't have a printer at home or have a big job (whole army, bit like getting a bound book made today) they'll be able to go to an existing print shop and get it done for them. Much like photocopying or printing photographs the price will start high but will drop to the penny per page equiv.

When 3D printing reaches critical mass GW's current model is as I think it'll coincide with digital copies of the rules becoming far more common and piracy of both models and rules being easier than ever.

Recasts are not stealing. Also, piracy (in the IP sense) is not stealing.

Also, Metallica heavily benefited from piracy in their early years for exposure and Lars is a hypocrite.

the_trooper wrote:
Also, Metallica heavily benefited from piracy in their early years for exposure and Lars is a hypocrite.

Uh... Metallica were around for nearly 20 years before internet piracy was even a thing. And they were pretty well exposed long before they showed up on Napster.

BeAfraid wrote:
I did not say that they will never reach tabletop quality.

We already have 3D printers that will print a fully colored/painted miniature with the quality of a tabletop miniature.

It just costs about $700 - $1500 to do so.

My point is simply that this technology is not progressing as quickly as people think it is. At least not at the lower-end where consumer level 3D printing will be a real thing for miniatures until the middle of next decade.

It is going to remain in the realm of the production of masters for other manufacturing methods.

Yes, people might invest in individual figures from places like Shapeways (but the prices still remain higher than GW for individual figures for the most part - exceptions do exist, I am talking about The Rule, though).

MB

I was pretty sure that the issue with the printers wasn't that it cant print well. its that all the good ones are still under Patent protection so costs an arm and 2 legs to get.

Aside from getting GW recasts for the various reasons that have been listed here time and again, the only stuff that I really get that's recast are Rackham stuff that's OOP and usually marked up to exorbitant prices on eBay or CMON.

 insaniak wrote:

the_trooper wrote:
Also, Metallica heavily benefited from piracy in their early years for exposure and Lars is a hypocrite.

Uh... Metallica were around for nearly 20 years before internet piracy was even a thing. And they were pretty well exposed long before they showed up on Napster.

But bootleg tapes of their concerts were passed around the metal community, increasing their exposure. Piracy existed before the internet, it was just physical.

Many of those recordings are now on Metallicas official website, too, available to download for free (including one recording from when Dave Mustaine was still lead guitarist, which is cool).

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
But bootleg tapes of their concerts were passed around the metal community, increasing their exposure. Piracy existed before the internet, it was just physical.

Yup, sure. The difference was that before the internet, nobody cared if people were copying music. I never even heard the term 'piracy' applied to copied music before the internet came along.

 insaniak wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
But bootleg tapes of their concerts were passed around the metal community, increasing their exposure. Piracy existed before the internet, it was just physical.

Yup, sure. The difference was that before the internet, nobody cared if people were copying music. I never even heard the term 'piracy' applied to copied music before the internet came along.

People cared. That's why there was that FBI piracy warning on VHS tapes at the start of the tape in the 90's. http://www.cracked.com/article_18513_5-insane-file-sharing-panics-from-before-internet.html

A small local record store near me has shirts for sale with these on them, partially as a parody and partially as a serious thing


Actually I just remembered my parents used to hook a camera up to the VCR and record the movie rented for my sister and I so we could have a collection of kids movies. It was cheaper to rent for a night and buy a bunch of blank VHS tapes then to buy new.

 RivenSkull wrote:
People cared. That's why there was that FBI piracy warning on VHS tapes at the start of the tape in the 90's.

For movies, yeah. Not so much for music. Nobody cared if people were running off copies of their friends' cassettes, or were taping songs off the top 40 countdown on the radio. It was only when the internet came along and file sharing became a thing that the music companies suddenly started complaining about it.

I want to say that the reason that I copy my CDs is, well, redundancy. I have had CDs stolen, damaged, and lost. If you want to make copies of you miniatures for the same reason, I don't see any reason to gainsay you. However, looked at another way, every copy you make is lost profits for the original manufacturer. How (or why) that is so hard for anyone to understand I find extremely hard to understand. If you want to, I don't think that GW would look amiss at your sending some monies their way to assuage your guilt at the 'unintended' theft. I think that GW will eventually institute a 'per model' fee for 3d printers, though the DRM for such things is going to be wonky as hell.

 Achaylus72 wrote:
Well, here goes.

I have no morale objection to purchase recasts, I have just gotten a post office box and will begin to purchase recast figurines from Russia and China, I don't give a frag.

Least I am honest to say these things.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BeAfraid wrote:
I did not say that they will never reach tabletop quality.

We already have 3D printers that will print a fully colored/painted miniature with the quality of a tabletop miniature.

It just costs about $700 - $1500 to do so.

My point is simply that this technology is not progressing as quickly as people think it is. At least not at the lower-end where consumer level 3D printing will be a real thing for miniatures until the middle of next decade.

It is going to remain in the realm of the production of masters for other manufacturing methods.

Yes, people might invest in individual figures from places like Shapeways (but the prices still remain higher than GW for individual figures for the most part - exceptions do exist, I am talking about The Rule, though).

MB

Actually thet have medical 3-D printers that can at a trial stage relay T-Cell nerve fibres in test animals, it is that advanced. In a couple of years trials will begin on folks with spinal injuries.

And that has what to do with printing miniatures by consumers?

I am VERY FAMILIAR with the 3D printing of bio-substrates (having worked in a lab at UCLA where they are doing just that).

The technology of bio-printing is a completely different technology to printing a miniature, having different goals.

Bio-printing is not concerned with "pixelation" at all, for instance, because once the cells begin growing the overall shape of the organ will be determined by the substrate over which the cells grow, and not by a set pattern that is required to be maintained so that the organ will be recognizable, as is the case with miniatures (the shape they take when they are printed is both the shape they will forever have, and the shape the consumer WANTS them to have).

But even in the case of bio-printing, when that technology is rolled out for general use, it will be on a printer that costs hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, which will require a clinical setting to operate (people won't be able to buy then to print a spare set of Kidneys at home, or to repair an ulnar nerve injury - tennis elbow - after an accident at the gym).

That is the exact same pattern playing out for miniatures:

The high-priced, high-resolution printers will remain at a centralized location, with a company that specializes in miniature manufacture (or simply 3D printing), where it will be used to create masters for other production methods.

MB


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Looky Likey wrote:
Wargammers aren't most people though, we have a very clear use case that 3D printers will be able to solve in the future for what is a reasonable cost when compared to a RRP costed army. We aren't the only hobby that has such a clear use case and I expect good enough printers to become available sooner rather than later. Even if people don't have a printer at home or have a big job (whole army, bit like getting a bound book made today) they'll be able to go to an existing print shop and get it done for them. Much like photocopying or printing photographs the price will start high but will drop to the penny per page equiv.

When 3D printing reaches critical mass GW's current model is as I think it'll coincide with digital copies of the rules becoming far more common and piracy of both models and rules being easier than ever.

This is still some decade or so away, given even exponential progress of the technology.

MANY different hobbyists will have a clear-cut use for 3D printing (Scale and R/C modeler a already make use of them, as do many Miniature companies, and the few home hobbyists who own a Maker-bot, or other low-cost 3D printer).

The issue is NOT that they are not going to radically alter our future (THEY DEFINITELY WILL).

The issue is that people are expecting this to occur sooner than is realistic.

But, yes, just like how the Casette Tape radically altered the landscape of copyright and music law, so too will 3D printing radically alter the means of production in the world.

EVENTUALLY, Factories will become a much rarer thing than they are now, when we have multi-media 3D printers capable of printing a working stereo, or car (without the need for assembly).

But even in the cases of products like cars, we will still see 3D Printing services centrally located, such as we find with traditional printing services. FedEx/Kinkos is probably the model to look for, and it looks like FedEx/Kinkos is going to be THE place where you will find these very technologies (they have been looking to buy Shapeways).

As I keep saying... The novelty of these technologies is driving people to overestimate their actual use, or demand.... Exactly how people overestimated the actual use and demand of the early automobile, or of nuclear power (You can look up promotional films from the 40s/50s where they expected every home to have its own nuclear power plant).

It is THAT kind of speculation I am skeptical of.

MB


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 carldooley wrote:
I want to say that the reason that I copy my CDs is, well, redundancy. I have had CDs stolen, damaged, and lost. If you want to make copies of you miniatures for the same reason, I don't see any reason to gainsay you. However, looked at another way, every copy you make is lost profits for the original manufacturer. How (or why) that is so hard for anyone to understand I find extremely hard to understand. If you want to, I don't think that GW would look amiss at your sending some monies their way to assuage your guilt at the 'unintended' theft. I think that GW will eventually institute a 'per model' fee for 3d printers, though the DRM for such things is going to be wonky as hell.

Actually, no.

This has already been ruled upon, back in the 1970s, during the era of the Casette tape I just mentioned.

Music companies filed a suit against Sony claiming that their "walk man" and other Casette technologies, which allowed customers to make personal copies of records was "taking money out of the pockets of the music companies" because "every copy made represented a possible sale for the music company."

The ruling was that the music companies could not prove that the consumers WOULD have bought an additional album, just because they made a copy of it.

AND. . .

Due to the nature of the technology, whether a consumer made ONE copy, or a BILLION copies, made no difference as long as they were solely for personal consumption (point four of Fair Use in the USA is the Fair Use Trump Card - it matters more than all three other points combined)., as the music companies had no means to even know that a copy HAD been made.

As far as the court was concerned, no copies at all existed, until they entered the market (for which they defined very specific events that must occur before a copy was considered to have "entered the market").

So... Making copies of miniatures, for personal use (as defined in the USA, and many other Western Nations) is covered by the EXACT SAME LAW as the laws concerning making copies of music on Casette tape, CD, or DVD. The copies simply do not exist until they "enter the market," at which time they gain value as per an actual item, for the purposes of the copyright holder.

I spent almost two years agonizing over this after having my own artwork (sculpture) copied in exactly this way. We even had cause to claim that the copies HAD "entered the market"(or WOULD do so, eventually), given that the guy often had wealthy clients at his house, which he used as a means of selling his services, so my work was being used as a part of a "promotional program" by the copier.

The judge simply asked "How many copies does he have?"

When our own contract with the guy wound up preventing us from even answering (and there it got complicated for a long time, as to who had the power to release us from the contract and when, or what violations of that contract even were), the judge ruled that we could not even prove that copies HAD been made, as per the original Sony case.

Whether or not I got screwed in that process is a separate issue from what the law says regarding personal use (once a product "enters the market" it is no longer "personal use").

Law is freaking annoying and complicated.

MB

The very concepts of "arts as a product" is relatively new in the timeline of mankind and business. Arts have traditionally been more service oriented and are best tailored as such. Now that we have billion dollar industries based upon arts, and searching for every popular massive profits of cultural "pop" hits, we have this ever pressing pressure to "defend intellectual property."

However, intellectual property is intangible and once an idea (or song, picture, game concept, etc.) is out, well, it's out. And in an era of essentially free reproduction capabilities, it's one of those laws (or series of laws) that becomes increasingly asinine to attempt to shut down and stop because the cost of doing so isn't feasible.

There's literally no way to measure "losses" to piracy. Every account has to make some assumptions on intent to purchase, and at the end of the day, if we could accurately predict that, then we wouldn't need thing like market research, focus groups, marketing, etc.

Hedging bets on fickle things, like the spending habits of your modern day human, isn't easy and I respect the people who devote a large sum of their life's time making cool stuff. The monetization of it to the ludicrous level, so much so we have international law making it a higher crime than physically damaged, life threatening crimes, is frankly stupid. And yes, even though I find the IP law interesting and full of nonsense, I still subscribe to video and music services, buy e-Books, and have a pile of shame that is my backlog on Steam. I support artists, but I do so because I like what they do. Not everyone is going to feel that way, such is life.

If I knew where to find recasters, I would use them along my own moral compass I think.

Box of Finecast Mandrakes? I'll purchase that straight out because it looks great.

A box of 5 dire avengers for the same price as the previous box of 10? Nope.

Sadly, a google search of "Warhammer recasters" brings up endless forum conversations, and not a website to purchase from.

BeAfraid wrote:


The issue is NOT that they are not going to radically alter our future (THEY DEFINITELY WILL).

The issue is that people are expecting this to occur sooner than is realistic.

Can you put a time period on that as I don't think we are that far apart in our timeframe here?

I consider us at the stage just before dot matrix printing on paper became cheap enough to do at home with our current, available 3D printing, its slow, lacks fine detail and you have fiddly ribbons to change. We've a long way to go till we get to the equiv quality of the cheap home laser printers for a similar price point but with the money that new hardware will generate I think we will see that sector innovate quicker than it did in the home on paper printing market. Companies have a better understanding now of how to market and develop rapidly improving tech product than they did 30 years ago. You only have to look at the rapid pace of smartphone development and contrast that to the much slower rate of development of dumb phones. There is so much money to be made selling hardware to a brand new, global, marketplace, this will be like the first gen smartphone or tablet sales.

I'm expecting for the hobby market dot matrix equiv 3d printers to be available within 2 years, 5 years from now for inkjet equiv, then 8 for laser printer quality.

RE availability of recasters, they are still out there but as GW have gotten sneaky with uncovering them, they are hiding in plain sight now as GW keeps getting their paypal accounts shut down. Its made the whole process as a buyer much more risky as you do not have the same levels of protection as you would buying via a proper webshop against a business transaction in paypal. I think GW know that they can't shut it down but they just want to make it hard enough that the majority do not bother.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
My view on 3D printing is that it may eventually be like fax machines and desktop scanner-printers.

They are cheap, easy to use and many households have them but no-one prints their own books.

The drawback to 3D printing is that there isn't much practical use or it in the home.

Need a 5Amp fuse, a spare door key for a guest, or a pack of sticking plasters? Tough luck.

The cheaper they get the more small 3rd party/ companies will start up.