So, the case is over. What do you guys think the likely impact is going to be on the hobby, as well as on the HHHobby?

The things that seem clear are that GWS is no longer going to release codexes that don't have all the associated models. That has already happened, as a consequence of the case being filed at all.

Do you think it will result in more, less, or no changes in the GW C&D's being filed?

Do you think justice was done? Why, or why not?

Hopefully we can discuss the ramifications of the suit here, as all of these things would be offtopic in the main thread. (If you want to talk about the filings and that alone, you should go there instead.)

I think the verdicts given are pretty fair, all together. It's a somewhat phyrric victory for GW, they lost a fair few of their claimed copyrights, and they've failed to have CHS shut down completely (though they might have issues with the fine), and most of what CHS was doing has been ruled as legitimate business, which will be a boon for the 3rd party bitz industry.

That said, CHS defintely deserved to be slapped down on some things, and the Doomseer was one thing (There were others, just the one I was most familiar with) I thought had definitely crossed the line, and it's good to see it ruled as such. Copying someones entire designs that closely is not good for the industry, as primary model makers should have some say over their actual designs.

As for the wider effects... I think things will keep on as they have been, and there won't be huge changes. There will still be a vigorous 3rd party bitz market, GW won't lose out much from it, as most people will still be buying GW base products anyway. The question now is whether each side will take their lumps, or whether they'll appeal the ruling hoping for something better.

Hard to say as of yet, since we don't specifically know what was won and lost. It also appears that until the appeals process is completed, we won't know what the final verdicts are.


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Hopefully it makes GW pull back on their overly-aggressive C&Ds, since this will hopefully make it easier for small companies to secure some pro-bono representation.

Is there a detailed list of all the individual rulings? I know GW had put a couple of hundred things into the trial and lost on roughly 2/3rds of them

We don't have a full verdict yet? I just sort of want the short summary of what happened and what it now means for the industry.

Yeah, I haven't been able to find any kind of clear explanation on what was won or lost, or even if there is a concrete ruling yet. (The best page I found said this was a jury ruling and wasn't final yet.)

I think we will be able to have a more meaningful discussion on the topic when we have a little more information.

The one clear thing I was able to discern from the page I found was that Chapterhouse won on the issue of using the "underlying size and shape" of Games Workshop's space marine shoulder pads. Which is sweet. I'd like to see someone produce actual quality Salamander shoulder pads for something approaching a fair price.

I'll keep checking back until we get some kind of solid information.

Frankly it would have been ridiculous for GW to own a geometrical shape of a specific size. How could it be enforced?

I think both sides will be filing appeals... This isn't done.

It will be interesting to see the whole list of wins and losses as GW fired a buckshot load of claims (arrows crosses etc) and the more generic ones are the Likely losses, so not a big deal. As to the shoulder pads the basic ones are fine to make now (depending on final verdic) but what about marked ones? Hense we need the list to find the detail else it's all guess work.

I don't think it will change anything, truth be told. While I don't think GW's unconcerned about the results over trademarks, I do think it's of less importance to them than the financial judgment. Their strategy for dealing with the third party market has always been, "Comply with this C&D, or we'll crush you." As long as CHS can't afford the damages and goes out of business, I think that's probably all GW was looking for. It doesn't really matter if you're in the right legally if you can't afford to prove it, and most other small studios are probably not going to be able to get a pro bono legal team for the many, many months another one of these would take.

"CHS fought us, was even mostly in the right, and they're still out of business. We've got another million to spend going after you, chumley, if you don't stop selling those power katanas," is a pretty powerful message to send to two guys working out of a basement somewhere.

 Marine_With_Heart wrote:
We don't have a full verdict yet? I just sort of want the short summary of what happened and what it now means for the industry.

The jury have given their verdict but there is still some legal jiggery pokery to be done before there is a final verdict and there may well be an appeal so at this point we know very little.

In the long run I can see GW being more sensible with its C&Ds but I still think that they will be sending them out in bulk. When it comes to backing up those C&Ds with legal action though I suspect that GW will be much more careful, they certainly didn't expect this to blow up in their face.

I can't see much changing in the real world though except that 3rd party manufacturers can now label their products more clearly.

All in all I would call this a victory for CHS, they get to keep most of their product lines and while they do have a fine to pay (why?) the publicity that this case has generated will doubtless be very valuable for them.


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 Seaward wrote:

"CHS fought us, was even mostly in the right, and they're still out of business. We've got another million to spend going after you, chumley, if you don't stop selling those power katanas," is a pretty powerful message to send to two guys working out of a basement somewhere.

Why would they go out of business? Its a $25k fine, which can apparently be paid in installments, for a business with a turn over of about $100k a year and I am willing to bet that people will gladly donate to ensure that CHS survive. GW undoubtably spent far more on their legal fess than CHS ever cost them in terms of 'lost profits' and that is something that GW should be very keen to avoid in the future. The problem for GW is that if they do this again and their next victim gets pro bono representaion (which is probably quite likely given the CHS case) it will end up costing GW a lot of money, again, and may well see them lose even more of their cherised IP. Basically this is very dangerous ground for GW that they would do well to think very carefully about entering again.

 Seaward wrote:
I don't think it will change anything, truth be told. While I don't think GW's unconcerned about the results over trademarks, I do think it's of less importance to them than the financial judgment. Their strategy for dealing with the third party market has always been, "Comply with this C&D, or we'll crush you." As long as CHS can't afford the damages and goes out of business, I think that's probably all GW was looking for. It doesn't really matter if you're in the right legally if you can't afford to prove it, and most other small studios are probably not going to be able to get a pro bono legal team for the many, many months another one of these would take.

"CHS fought us, was even mostly in the right, and they're still out of business. We've got another million to spend going after you, chumley, if you don't stop selling those power katanas," is a pretty powerful message to send to two guys working out of a basement somewhere.

I concur. Intimidation tactics will have lost none of their effectiveness. The fate of CHS being uncertain is the only thing that's actually changed definitively. The rest of the resin kits market would still do well to run away from anything that GW can spin as an infraction.

That's kinda hard to do however when it's GW's honest belief that they "own" even the most generic of sci-fi concepts that have predated their company's existence by many years.

Pretty much everyone making models of soldiers and tanks is at risk.

I'm probably in a minority, but I see this as a bad situation.

If anything, it will make secrecy worse within GW, ideas will be suppressed in fear of being legally plagiarised by parasite companies such as CHS. How can this be anything but bad?

Also - I'm hearing that it's a victory for CHS - as this was a pro-bono case, and GW have been awarded damages, who pays the legal bill? In the UK, it's generally the side which has to pay damages pays the legal costs of the injured party as well - THAT'S what could push CHS put of business.

In the US, each party is responsible for their own legal expenses (barring a few exceptional circumstances, which don't apply here).

My view is that at the least, GW management has been revealed as egotistical and incompetent.

 Ouze wrote:
Do you think it will result in more, less, or no changes in the GW C&D's being filed?

No change. C&Ds will be sent no matter what. Even if GW can't realistically pursue a legal claim and win, they'll still do it to "protect their IP" and intimidate where possible. Also, if GW needs to go to court in the future, having already sent a C&D can only help their position.

I think GW won more than their fair share, but the full details are yet to be known. I don't understand for example where the $25K comes from when CHS can barely be described as 'damaging' GW. What damages? Almost every one of their products requires a GW purchase, and I highly doubt they've taken $25K of shoulder pad sales from GW. Many other things have probably encouraged GW sales oddly enough.

It'll be very interesting to see what other claims they won on, I mean 'powerfists', really? And the Judge seemed very nice to GW given their shenanigans over the last two years. There seem to have been very little consequences for their dubious behaviour in trying to trick previous employees into giving up their rights and the whole thing with the copyright office. Yes GW lost on shoulderpads but the judge still ignored the repeated decision of the copyright office to give GW a chance to argue it in court. And that was still after the funny goings on with GW losing or forgetting about the copyright office decisions and misleading the judge... it seems that action should be taken about their lawyer, according to Weeble on the other thread.

Really I think GW won more than their fair share, because most of what they were claiming was rather generic, but GW just took the approach of flinging as much dirt as possible and some of it did indeed stick. The only things that are questionable are perhaps the doomseer and a couple of others, which they did win on. I've always felt that a GW win was unhealthy for the hobby, because 3rd parties don't damage GW at all and GW want to control a lot of generic ideas. GW don't need to go licencing these third parties, they should just ignore them, they are insignificant in the wider scheme of things.

I don't think it will change GW's approach to sending out C&Ds. They can still do what all big ugly companies can do to much smaller ones, simply threaten a massive legal bill to force compliance. Even if you get pro-bono work, the stress of having this hang over you for over two years with an uncertain outcome is enough to force people into taking down models and the like in line with GW's requests. GW does like taking people to court, it likes frightening people with threats. That will continue I'm sure, because A) it works and B) because GW genuinely seem to believe they own the right to everything.

I think we need someone who understands what's going on to break it down for us.

Trouble is, we don't have a detailed breakdown of the verdict, so nobody really understands what's going on.

From a different perspective, I think it might have a big impact on the 'hobby' in terms of it being a creative medium. Of making something new, converting, making your own pieces - these have always been central to the GW hobby, yet these days WD carries almost none of it. You buy your miniatures, you paint them as intended, you buy the next one.

To be fair I think this has been happening for some time now (a kid commenting on my Pre-Heresy World Eaters, "are those White Scars", and then "why can't you just paint them like they are on the box"?) but I expect this case to completely slam-shut the lid on this part of the hobby - anything at all that will make (the younger gamers) think outside of the box and be creative. In the same way we now will have to have models for everything, lest some other company steal a fraction of a single percentage of GW's sales, we will no longer get those wacky, more 'out there' designs of characters and models in army books that used to help fire the imaginations of games players. The codecies and army books will become even more dull, and by the numbers, if such a thing is possible.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
My view is that at the least, GW management has been revealed as egotistical and incompetent.

Yes and from what I have read... actually, just not very nice people.

Yes, we need an itemised list showing each individual complaint, the reason (TM or copyright) and the decision. That will probably take time to emerge since the judge has to make some kind of decision, and there were hundreds of complaints.

Can say anything before I know the details. Including if Moskin got a penalty for again keeping evidence back.
I expect an appeal by both sides though.

I suspect that one of the consequences of the case will be for GW to include 'unique' elements in its models so it can better claim copyright. In a sci-fi setting this can kind of work, but in a Fantasy setting it leads to silly monsters such as their jabberslythe.

It will be sad to see GW stop making 'generic' dragons and such.

Following on from Pacific's point, which I completely agree with BTW, I fear that this means the end of an era for artwork at GW.

It's started with the covers to Codexes and Army a books already - anodyne, bland artwork, not showing anything that can't be purchased as a miniature.

If I have read the ruling correctly, I can't see how any art work such as the splash pages in the main rules can take place now (thinking of the Empire Menagerie, or the more esoteric imperial set pieces, or even the examples of other alien races), or books such as Xenology ever being done again.

It's time for the artwork to become purely marketing, rather than inspirational following this.

And that's not a good thing.

 Ouze wrote:

Hopefully we can discuss the ramifications of the suit here, as all of these things would be offtopic in the main thread. (If you want to talk about the filings and that alone, you should go there instead.)

Uh, your link goes back to this thread!

 spaceelf wrote:
I suspect that one of the consequences of the case will be for GW to include 'unique' elements in its models so it can better claim copyright. In a sci-fi setting this can kind of work, but in a Fantasy setting it leads to silly monsters such as their jabberslythe.

It will be sad to see GW stop making 'generic' dragons and such.

But the argument will be 'what is unique?'. Even in a sci fi setting, which GW should have more leverage on than their fantasy setting, what else can they add or what else will they want to add?

 Art Steventon wrote:
or books such as Xenology ever being done again.

Did anyone seriously see GW releasing stuff like that ever again anyway? I wouldn't blame that on Chapterhouse, come on.

 yakface wrote:
Uh, your link goes back to this thread!

Whoops, thanks.


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 Seaward wrote:
I don't think it will change anything, truth be told. While I don't think GW's unconcerned about the results over trademarks, I do think it's of less importance to them than the financial judgment. Their strategy for dealing with the third party market has always been, "Comply with this C&D, or we'll crush you." As long as CHS can't afford the damages and goes out of business, I think that's probably all GW was looking for. It doesn't really matter if you're in the right legally if you can't afford to prove it, and most other small studios are probably not going to be able to get a pro bono legal team for the many, many months another one of these would take.

"CHS fought us, was even mostly in the right, and they're still out of business. We've got another million to spend going after you, chumley, if you don't stop selling those power katanas," is a pretty powerful message to send to two guys working out of a basement somewhere.

Sadly I think this is pretty accurate. But we'll see.

What will happen to Merrert and Jones as they came across as out of touch and arrogant, will they be moved from where they are in GW? as I feel they are just as responsible for this GW failure in this court case as Moskin.

I know this is a british case, and its highly egotistical to believe there system is similar to America's courts, but at least in the U.S., a jury verdict doesn't mean much.

Juries are notoriously... confused, if not downright stupid. They don't understand the law, and they tend to pursue group think ideas, no matter how legally wrong they are. I bet once you see the full list of counts, very similar things will be ruled both ways, despite being essentially the same.

Second, the actual ruling itself, at least in the american system, is simply persuasive to other judges. Until it goes to an appeals court, and the appeals court rules, other lower level courts can easily 'distinguish and dismiss' this court case's rulings.

The biggest pain is going to be how expensive appeals are. If CHS wins anything, it would be getting a denial of appeal, so this case doesn't enter a lengthy, and expensive appeals process.

Again, though, just ignore everything I said, because I'm not familiar with the UK legal system, only the U.S. one.

It is a US case.

I was thinking the exact same thing, WRT stupidity of juries.

Just pure speculation, here, but I think its possible something like this could have happened:

Jury thinks that GW wouldn't have brought so many claims unless they had SOMETHING to go on. Very similar to the preexisting mindset that someone doesn't go on trial unless there is evidence they did SOMETHING wrong. This is a very real thing.

Jury gets into the mind set of well, we have to give GW something. So they give GW 1/3 of the claims. Its only fair. GW worked SO HARD and spent SO MUCH...

This is why the final results are going to be so interesting.

Goresaw wrote:
I know this is a british case, and its highly egotistical to believe there system is similar to America's courts, but at least in the U.S., a jury verdict doesn't mean much.

Juries are notoriously... confused, if not downright stupid. They don't understand the law, and they tend to pursue group think ideas, no matter how legally wrong they are. I bet once you see the full list of counts, very similar things will be ruled both ways, despite being essentially the same.

Second, the actual ruling itself, at least in the american system, is simply persuasive to other judges. Until it goes to an appeals court, and the appeals court rules, other lower level courts can easily 'distinguish and dismiss' this court case's rulings.

The biggest pain is going to be how expensive appeals are. If CHS wins anything, it would be getting a denial of appeal, so this case doesn't enter a lengthy, and expensive appeals process.

Again, though, just ignore everything I said, because I'm not familiar with the UK legal system, only the U.S. one.

Great News! The trial was actually held in Chicargo, IL, under US law, because Chapterhouse is a US company.

Things to keep in mind about the $25K judgment and why it isn't really that significant.

Firstly, the judgment doesn't mean that CHS has to immediately stroke a check for $25K and hand it over to GW. It doesn't mean that GW suddenly has access to CHS's bank accounts or other assets to seize those funds. Depending on whether or not either side decides to appeal, the penalty may not even require payment for years. Additionally, assuming the owner of CHS had decent legal advice, he was probably putting money aside specifically to assit in paying any judgment that came up.

Secondly, it is more than likely that CHS was insured. The company seemed to have it's business together, even back to years ago where the owner contended that he had legal representation telling him that what he was doing was allowed within the confines of US law. If the owner was the type of person to do the due diligence to find out if his actions were legal (rather than assuming they were), it's more than likely that he also insured his business. If he does have insurance, his only out of pocket expense will be the deductible that isn't likely to be more than a few thousand dollars.

Even if the owner doesn't have the money, must pay now, and has no insurance, he can still file Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Contrary to popular belief, a business filing bankruptcy does not mean the business closes its doors and goes away. Chapter 11 bankruptcy is merely a debt restructuring. At the very least, a Ch11 bankruptcy would force GW to accept payments that the trustee deemed to be acceptible for the judgment; but it's equally likely that the trustee could set aside the entire balance of the judgment. Since CHS is a basement enterprise, it is unlikely that they have any significant amount of assets (real estate, vehicles, heavy machinery, stock/bond/investment, etc.) that a creditor could demand be liquidated. For a company like CHS, a simple Ch11 bankruptcy would barely impact their ability to business at all. (This is, of course, assuming the business is incorporated or something. If not, he could file personal bankrtupcy, which is even more favorable to the debtor.)

While I have no idea what impact this judgment will have on how GW does business, I am confident in saying that it will have no significant affect on CHS. CHS will modify how they advertise things on their website (which they first did immediately after being served with the suit papers) and avoid marketing entire models that are too close to the GW aesthetic (like the Doomseer). That's about it.

Great News! The trial was actually held in Chicargo, IL, under US law, because Chapterhouse is a US company.

As posted previously the choice of where the case is going to be held is just as important as trying the case.

The reason why I called the verdict correctly is the years of dealing and knowing what kind environment that is our legal system.

Jury thinks that GW wouldn't have brought so many claims unless they had SOMETHING to go on. Very similar to the preexisting mindset that someone doesn't go on trial unless there is evidence they did SOMETHING wrong. This is a very real thing.

Posted previously of what GW's game plan was. The analogy is "Throwing mud into the wall and see what sticks". Again to what I've seen this is more of a standard procedure and the results, right or wrong is what I believe happened in the current verdict.

Now this case is not yet over however I'm greatly amused on how things went.

This thread is a bit pre-mature, no?

 SickSix wrote:
This thread is a bit pre-mature, no?

Sort of agree as this is not over yet. Things can still happen.

 SickSix wrote:
This thread is a bit pre-mature, no?

Sort of, but it serves to stop this discussion (which is off topic) clogging up the other thread.

 Gymnogyps wrote:
It is a US case.

I was thinking the exact same thing, WRT stupidity of juries.

Just pure speculation, here, but I think its possible something like this could have happened:

Jury thinks that GW wouldn't have brought so many claims unless they had SOMETHING to go on. Very similar to the preexisting mindset that someone doesn't go on trial unless there is evidence they did SOMETHING wrong. This is a very real thing.

Jury gets into the mind set of well, we have to give GW something. So they give GW 1/3 of the claims. Its only fair. GW worked SO HARD and spent SO MUCH...

This is why the final results are going to be so interesting.

That is how I feel too.

 Sidstyler wrote:
That's kinda hard to do however when it's GW's honest belief that they "own" even the most generic of sci-fi concepts that have predated their company's existence by many years.

Pretty much everyone making models of soldiers and tanks is at risk.

This is great news! Not only do they own them, but they created them. From their own minds!

Really the speculation of the financial impact of to CHS is useless at this point. It's unlikely to be the final damage number, and no one knows CHS financials beyond personal income, and the total taken in over 4 years because that came out in the trial (unlike GWs financial report, which are public, and released quarterly). Maybe I'm reading too much into it but it seems like wishful thinking every time someone posts about how the damages could kill CHS.

This is nothing but massive win for CHS. Anyone who says otherwise just isn't paying attention.

CHS has a legal precendent that their business does not infringe on IP, and that allows a lot of smaller businesses in the similar '3rd party Warhammer accessories' field to work with greatly reduced fear.

Overly simplistic 'CHS had to pay so they lost!' statements are absurd. 25k paid in some slow payment scheme is absolutely nothing for a business that makes apparently a few hundred k a year, for protecting your business from a giant that's pissed away over a million dollars in pursuing this case.

If there isn't a major shakeup in GW leadership after this; they may actually be trying to torpedo the business.

I read the quotes by the IP manager...I feel like that thought finishes itself

I happen to enjoy GWs products but not thier methods, they deserved a kick in the teeth; hopefully this will be taken as one. It likely will not.

 Killionaire wrote:
This is nothing but massive win for CHS. Anyone who says otherwise just isn't paying attention.

CHS has a legal precendent that their business does not infringe on IP, and that allows a lot of smaller businesses in the similar '3rd party Warhammer accessories' field to work with greatly reduced fear.

Overly simplistic 'CHS had to pay so they lost!' statements are absurd. 25k paid in some slow payment scheme is absolutely nothing for a business that makes apparently a few hundred k a year, for protecting your business from a giant that's pissed away over a million dollars in pursuing this case.

CHS doesnt "make" a few hundred k per year.

For GW it will be business as usual and a tax write off for the attorney fees.

It's a hit to both sides, it's simply a question of who can better absorb the hit. I suspect that's GW.

I don't know CHS' financial situation, but the usual figure I hear quoted is that they pull in 100K a year in gross revenue. Losing 25% of your gross isn't a small deal.

The problem here, from GW's perspective, is two-fold.

First off, no matter how much it bunches your panties when GW issues C&D orders, understand that they have to. If you don't defend your trademarks, you lose them. So it's not like GW has a lot of choice in matters like this; they're obliged to make the attempt even when the infringement is less than blatant.

Secondly, and this is the big one, we run into a potential issue of GW themselves being accused of IP theft by the third-party manufacturers that parasitize their business.

Take, for an example of something actually produced by Chapterhouse, Tyranid Shrikes. Sure, it's a conversion kit for Warriors, so the issue can get fuzzy, but if GW were to produce a Shrike kit of their own, they'd be at risk of a lawsuit if they made one that closely resembled the CHS version.

Part of the answer for GW is to just stop making rules for models they don't actually have ready to produce, so if you want to consider that a win for CHS, go ahead, but in the long run it'll just mean less variety in what shows up in future codices.

Additionally, even for "original" kits by third-party groups, if GW were to in the future decide to produce something similar, they might run into trouble. It's less of an issue than they might face for kits they know they want to produce eventually (eg, Shrikes), but it still limits their options slightly for future products. If a 3rd-party studio made a Flakk Rhino conversion kit, then GW might run into trouble if they made one of their own, for example.

We won't really know what the consequences will be until we get a good look at the exact rulings on individual products.

 Raesvelg wrote:
The problem here, from GW's perspective, is two-fold.

First off, no matter how much it bunches your panties when GW issues C&D orders, understand that they have to. If you don't defend your trademarks, you lose them. So it's not like GW has a lot of choice in matters like this; they're obliged to make the attempt even when the infringement is less than blatant.

I freely admit I'm a little ignorant in this area, but isn't issuing a C+D out of the blue somewhat akin to punching someone in the face as soon as they say something you don't agree with? Wouldn't there be a more cooperative method of both defending their IP and not being so heavy handed?

Secondly, and this is the big one, we run into a potential issue of GW themselves being accused of IP theft by the third-party manufacturers that parasitize their business.

Take, for an example of something actually produced by Chapterhouse, Tyranid Shrikes. Sure, it's a conversion kit for Warriors, so the issue can get fuzzy, but if GW were to produce a Shrike kit of their own, they'd be at risk of a lawsuit if they made one that closely resembled the CHS version.

Taking that example, I believe CHS released the Shrike kit sometime last year. How long have Shrikes existed in the Tyranid codex? GW were flat out wrong in their approach to releasing things, and were leaving themselves open to this. One only has to look at how the release pattern has changed recently to see the evidence of that.

Part of the answer for GW is to just stop making rules for models they don't actually have ready to produce, so if you want to consider that a win for CHS, go ahead, but in the long run it'll just mean less variety in what shows up in future codices.

Well, every new unit in every Codex released in the last what, twelve?, months has had a model to accompany it. It's often reported that models are ready many months if not years in advance of production, so all this likely means is they simply have to get their gak together and be better organised. It won't restrict new releases, as new units are clearly their chosen method of generating income from existing players, because its much less risky than updating models that people may or may not prefer to the ones they replace.

Additionally, even for "original" kits by third-party groups, if GW were to in the future decide to produce something similar, they might run into trouble. It's less of an issue than they might face for kits they know they want to produce eventually (eg, Shrikes), but it still limits their options slightly for future products. If a 3rd-party studio made a Flakk Rhino conversion kit, then GW might run into trouble if they made one of their own, for example.

There's room for more than one version of a given model, GW will have to you know, be original if this situation exists.

We won't really know what the consequences will be until we get a good look at the exact rulings on individual products.

Very true, but every one that has been ruled on is obviously one GW feels is important, as they dropped a bunch before the court case.

 Killionaire wrote:
This is nothing but massive win for CHS. Anyone who says otherwise just isn't paying attention.

CHS has a legal precendent that their business does not infringe on IP, and that allows a lot of smaller businesses in the similar '3rd party Warhammer accessories' field to work with greatly reduced fear.

Overly simplistic 'CHS had to pay so they lost!' statements are absurd. 25k paid in some slow payment scheme is absolutely nothing for a business that makes apparently a few hundred k a year, for protecting your business from a giant that's pissed away over a million dollars in pursuing this case.

]

It may be a massive win for CHS, or it may be a big disaster

we just don't know enough yet (although things look reasonably positive so far).

The verdict has to survive the Judge and any possible appeals

If there are appeals then CHS has to keep their pro-bono representation (can their lawyers leave now if they want to or are they forced to carry on representing them?)

Then they have to be able to pay the fine (or avoid it via chapter 11 or similar) and survive as a going concern

Only then will it have been a massive win

 Raesvelg wrote:
The problem here, from GW's perspective, is two-fold.

First off, no matter how much it bunches your panties when GW issues C&D orders, understand that they have to. If you don't defend your trademarks, you lose them. So it's not like GW has a lot of choice in matters like this; they're obliged to make the attempt even when the infringement is less than blatant.

Yes, but only the trademarks, not the copyrights.

 Raesvelg wrote:
Secondly, and this is the big one, we run into a potential issue of GW themselves being accused of IP theft by the third-party manufacturers that parasitize their business.

Take, for an example of something actually produced by Chapterhouse, Tyranid Shrikes. Sure, it's a conversion kit for Warriors, so the issue can get fuzzy, but if GW were to produce a Shrike kit of their own, they'd be at risk of a lawsuit if they made one that closely resembled the CHS version.

Not true, GW have an automatic right to produce derivative works from their own work.

Ouze, you might want to change the thread title to: "GW vs Chapterhouse" since GW initiated the suit.

I think they will rename the tyranid tervigon, eldar jetbike and other pieces of their IP they have lost.

Eldarzord screamerflyer and Tyranid termipooper. etc.

This was how they handled the paint range, re-release everything with a new and stupid name.

This was how they handled the paint range, re-release everything with a new and stupid name.

I believe the same way on how they handled the paints.

 scarletsquig wrote:
I think they will rename the tyranid tervigon, eldar jetbike and other pieces of their IP they have lost.

Eldarzord screamerflyer and Tyranid termipooper. etc.

This was how they handled the paint range, re-release everything with a new and stupid name.

Off topic, I know, but holy crap; congrats. You just made me snarf my water all over my desk with the "termipooper" name. I would gladly own one of those.

Absolutely hilarious.

You know whats sweet?
starting a discussion of the consequences of a verdict, and then giving no hint as to what the verdict is or how to find out what it is.

 Seaward wrote:
It's a hit to both sides, it's simply a question of who can better absorb the hit. I suspect that's GW.

I don't know CHS' financial situation, but the usual figure I hear quoted is that they pull in 100K a year in gross revenue. Losing 25% of your gross isn't a small deal.

Considering the amount of credit card offers I receive in the mail--and the fact he has a (now legally defined/defensible) 100k/year business--I imagine he could put a majority of that on a small business loan and/or credit card, then make payments. 25,000 dollars is a car.



I think this was a catastrophe for Games Workshop. They likely spent 1+ million dollars on a case--that just granted websites the ability to post "Space Marine/Eldar compatible bits"--along with losing 2/3 of their claims (that actually made trial--remember many got tossed before a jury brought a verdict). Which, the moment those losing claims are published--you'll see 3rd party sites updating their web carts.

In return, it appears they received 25,000 dollars and 30 or so defensible actions on what was likely blatant (DoomSeer) violations. I doubt that 25,000 even covered travel costs for this trial.


What happens if they sue Moskin and company for malpractice? Does that endanger the verdict if they were to win that?

As far as I can see Moskin played very hard indeed and in the case of the US Copyright Office letters arguably may have done something unethical.

However the core weakness in the GW case was the weakness of their claims and the terrible job they did in gathering evidence.

Leaving aside the issue of trademarking a word like "tactical", GW claimed consumers were confused between the Chapter House products and official GW products, but apparently were unable to produce any evidence to support this claim.

 Raesvelg wrote:
Additionally, even for "original" kits by third-party groups, if GW were to in the future decide to produce something similar, they might run into trouble. It's less of an issue than they might face for kits they know they want to produce eventually (eg, Shrikes), but it still limits their options slightly for future products. If a 3rd-party studio made a Flakk Rhino conversion kit, then GW might run into trouble if they made one of their own, for example.

This doesn't concern me in the slightest. For one thing, it's already happening with everything companies out there are producing anyway. If GW wanted to add "clockwork angels" to Sisters, they can't because Privateer already did theirs, etc. The entire industry's already affecting GW in many ways, that some of it's "closer to home" is hardly relevant. For another example, all the "fantasy football" stuff out there means GW will never be comfortable with making a new Blood Bowl iteration since they cannot control that genre.

timd wrote:
Ouze, you might want to change the thread title to: "GW vs Chapterhouse" since GW initiated the suit.

You're right, of course. That's done. Unfortunately due to the vagaries of Dakka it will remain the original way in subsequent posts I believe.

You can always change the title of the post you're composing/have composed.

Some users do that for 'stealth comedy' reasons...

 azreal13 wrote:

I freely admit I'm a little ignorant in this area, but isn't issuing a C+D out of the blue somewhat akin to punching someone in the face as soon as they say something you don't agree with? Wouldn't there be a more cooperative method of both defending their IP and not being so heavy handed?

How? The only other option they really have would be to license the work to a third party, and if they don't want to (and clearly they don't, for obvious reasons), then you can't expect them to be held ransom by companies that go ahead and violate (or skirt the edge of violating) their trademarks and copyrights anyway.

C&Ds may be rather blunt, but the content wouldn't vary if you were really polite about telling someone to stop ripping off your products.

 azreal13 wrote:

There's room for more than one version of a given model, GW will have to you know, be original if this situation exists.

One would question why people seem to be holding GW to a higher standard than the third-party groups who haven't been particularly original themselves, but that's not relevant to this specific point. Which I'll get to in a second.

 Baragash wrote:

Not true, GW have an automatic right to produce derivative works from their own work.

Not just automatic, but exclusive, mind. Which is where we get into trouble with a few of the rulings we do know about.

Is a Flakk Rhino conversion kit a derivative work?

If the answer is yes, then it's a non-issue; a company without the license can't make one to begin with.

If, however, the argument is made that you can't copyright/trademark a simple shape (as appears to be the case with the Marine shoulder pads), then the shape of any empty part of a Rhino kit is fair game. Hell, a company could spend another 2% of cost to create a base element that also accepts that shape, call it a weapon emplacement and sue GW for sticking it on top of a Rhino someday.

This of course raises the issue of design aesthetic and all that, but GW probably isn't going to be happy with the idea of having to go back and sue twenty more people who think that because you can't copyright the shape of a Rhino door, you can produce your own aesthetically-identical weapon sponsons, or find themselves getting sued by the guy who make the Flakk turret that just-so-happened to look overwhelmingly 40K-Imperial. That's almost undoubtedly not a suit that the turret-maker could win, mind, but given the way that IP trolls have played out in other media, it's not unreasonable to assume that someone wouldn't try in the hopes of a quick settlement.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:

This doesn't concern me in the slightest. For one thing, it's already happening with everything companies out there are producing anyway. If GW wanted to add "clockwork angels" to Sisters, they can't because Privateer already did theirs, etc.

Except that they can, so long as it's not possible to confuse their Clockwork Sisters for Privateer's models. The concept of a clockwork soldier hasn't been (and probably cannot be at this point) copyrighted. The issue isn't whether a given concept is being used, it's whether it's being used in a fashion that treads on someone else's IP.

Just because Honda made the Civic doesn't mean I can't create my own inexpensive compact car. It does mean that I can't take a Honda Civic, slap a wing on the back and call it a Blonda Blivic without Honda suing me into oblivion.

Ultimately it's all speculation until the judge rules, and we know exactly what products got ruled in which fashion. It's easy to say that CHS wins because they got 2/3rds of the rulings in their favor, but given that probably 2/3rds of the contested products were things like shoulder pads and vehicle doors, it's not too hard to arrive at that number, since we're told that the jury said you can't copyright the shape of a SM shoulder pad, after all.

Okay Raesvlg who are you... really? You are coming off too polished on certain aspects of your reply.

Curious I am.

 Raesvelg wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

I freely admit I'm a little ignorant in this area, but isn't issuing a C+D out of the blue somewhat akin to punching someone in the face as soon as they say something you don't agree with? Wouldn't there be a more cooperative method of both defending their IP and not being so heavy handed?

How? The only other option they really have would be to license the work to a third party, and if they don't want to (and clearly they don't, for obvious reasons), then you can't expect them to be held ransom by companies that go ahead and violate (or skirt the edge of violating) their trademarks and copyrights anyway.

C&Ds may be rather blunt, but the content wouldn't vary if you were really polite about telling someone to stop ripping off your products.

I guess a more informal approach initially. Contacting the seller and outlining your concerns and perhaps even going as far as suggesting changes that could be made. Of course, were those concerns to be rejected or ignored, you can then go legal on them, and if it did go to court, it would be much easier to spin their actions as the good guy.

Of course, this whole issue could be circumvented by a licensing or approval scheme (such as Apple's "made for.." stamp which indicates an accessory has been made to their standards and with their approval) GW are clearly not afraid of licensing their IP to other industries, or even sub sectors of the same (FFG) but somehow don't seem willing to do the same for miniatures.

 azreal13 wrote:

There's room for more than one version of a given model, GW will have to you know, be original if this situation exists.

One would question why people seem to be holding GW to a higher standard than the third-party groups who haven't been particularly original themselves, but that's not relevant to this specific point. Which I'll get to in a second.

I'm not holding them to any different standard, I would happily buy a GW Flakk Rhino out of all the other Flakk Rhinos if it was the model I liked best, or offered me the best value There's only so many things you can do when designing a concept before it ceases to look like what you intended, a sci fi APC will have to feature certain design cues otherwise people will think its a tank, or a plane or whatever.

What I like to have is alternatives for my model and competition in the market, and hopefully this outcome will stimulate those things.

 Adam LongWalker wrote:
Okay Raesvelg who are you... really? You are coming off too polished on certain aspects of your reply.

Curious I am.

Now I'm curious.

What does "too polished" entail?

As for who I am, suffice to say that I'm one of the people in this picture who is NOT Jervis Johnson.


I realize that doesn't really narrow down my identity that much (unless you happen to know who took the picture and when), but if you're insinuating that I'm involved with GW beyond the role of a long-time hobbyist, you're mistaken.

 Raesvelg wrote:

 Adam LongWalker wrote:
Okay Raesvelg who are you... really? You are coming off too polished on certain aspects of your reply.

Curious I am.

Now I'm curious.

What does "too polished" entail?

As for who I am, suffice to say that I'm one of the people in this picture who is NOT Jervis Johnson.


I realize that doesn't really narrow down my identity that much (unless you happen to know who took the picture and when), but if you're insinuating that I'm involved with GW beyond the role of a long-time hobbyist, you're mistaken.

He means you're coming in with a low post count and making reasoned and balanced arguments. Doesn't happen that often!

 azreal13 wrote:
[
What I like to have is alternatives for my model and competition in the market, and hopefully this outcome will stimulate those things.

You do have alternatives and competition in the market.

It's called Warmachine. Or Malifaux. Or Dystopian Wars.

Or if you prefer systems that didn't survive to the present day, VOR, Shockforce, Chronopia, Warzone and so on.

Games Workshop games are not the market.

If you don't like their minis, you don't have to buy them. You also don't have to buy their games. What you don't really have is the right to expect them to allow other manufacturers to take money away from GW because you don't like the choices that GW provides to you in their own product. In circumstances where GW can't stop them, fine, whatever. But when they can, you should expect them to try, and accept that they're not evil because they do. They're just trying to make money, the same as the guy who's blatantly copying their products.

Are CHS taking money off them? And a big problem with GW is that they send a lot of claims to people that clearly aren't reasonable. They once sent a C&D to Hasslefree for their 'troll slayer' for heavens sake. It's difficult to have sympathy or even know for sure when they are in the right because of the welter of aggressive nonsense from them.

 Raesvelg wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
[
What I like to have is alternatives for my model and competition in the market, and hopefully this outcome will stimulate those things.

You do have alternatives and competition in the market.

It's called Warmachine. Or Malifaux. Or Dystopian Wars.

Or if you prefer systems that didn't survive to the present day, VOR, Shockforce, Chronopia, Warzone and so on.

Games Workshop games are not the market.

If you don't like their minis, you don't have to buy them. You also don't have to buy their games. What you don't really have is the right to expect them to allow other manufacturers to take money away from GW because you don't like the choices that GW provides to you in their own product. In circumstances where GW can't stop them, fine, whatever. But when they can, you should expect them to try, and accept that they're not evil because they do. They're just trying to make money, the same as the guy who's blatantly copying their products.

All fine points.

However, my motivation for wargaming very much comes from the creative end, I built and painted models long before I even knew anyone else who was interested in 40K or wargaming in general.

I'll make no bones about it, I want to be a special snowflake, I like having models that are different from everyone else's. I get a buzz when people complement me on my two CHS extended Storm Ravens. Those are two Storm Ravens I couldn't honestly say I would have bought if I didn't know the CHS kit existed by the way.

There are many rule sets that don't have an associated miniature line, there are many miniatures that don't have a game they are manufactured to be used in. You cannot seriously tell me I must spend my own money only on GW products if I wish to play a GW game? That's laughable. Especially as no company is singly more responsible for pinching other ideas and tropes and trying to claim them as their own than GW.

[

 azreal13 wrote:

I'll make no bones about it, I want to be a special snowflake, I like having models that are different from everyone else's. I get a buzz when people complement me on my two CHS extended Storm Ravens. Those are two Storm Ravens I couldn't honestly say I would have bought if I didn't know the CHS kit existed by the way.

This is essentially the specific reason why aftermarket parts industries exist, both in wargaming and generally. GW's insistence on disbelieving that this sort of thing is important and will simply not exist if they wish hard enough was also seen with their general take-my-ball-and-go-home response to social media and the 'internets' in general.

There are many rule sets that don't have an associated miniature line, there are many miniatures that don't have a game they are manufactured to be used in. You cannot seriously tell me I must spend my own money only on GW products if I wish to play a GW game? That's laughable. Especially as no company is singly more responsible for pinching other ideas and tropes and trying to claim them as their own than GW.

There are ways to do it. Take Privateer Press, for example. You see few custom models for a number of reasons: 1. strict conversion policy, 2. you need a card, 3. a number of official tournament circuits exist, backed by "official" (pressganger volunteer) representatives. I really think that GW allowing the 'official GW tourney circuit' to more or less die on the vine and their becoming increasingly reclusive and non-interactive with the communities, especially those gaming outside of an official GW store, is what has allowed this particular aftermarket parts industry to gain such a broad foothold.

 azreal13 wrote:

I'll make no bones about it, I want to be a special snowflake, I like having models that are different from everyone else's. I get a buzz when people complement me on my two CHS extended Storm Ravens. Those are two Storm Ravens I couldn't honestly say I would have bought if I didn't know the CHS kit existed by the way.

Fully understandable, I enjoy converting minis to be unique myself, and I don't necessarily limit myself to "Games Workshop Approved" bits when I do it.

But.

I also don't hold GW at fault when they decide that they don't want someone using their IP without a license, and don't feel like issuing such licenses for fear of the potential consequences.

The situation is murkier with "upgrade" kits than with outright imitations, I'll admit. GW's apparent policy of not releasing some models, expecting that the players will convert them, is also a significant nuisance and source of irritation.

The point isn't that you have to buy GW minis and only GW minis. GW can certainly enforce such a policy on events that they run, of course, but that doesn't affect friendly play.

The point is that it's unreasonable to expect GW not to do everything in its power to make as much money as possible off of its IP, and it's unreasonable to attack GW when they fight to maintain control of that IP.

It's analogous in broad strokes to the situation extant in fanfiction. Fanfics offer a broader range of options within a given universe; some of those options might not be ones that the IP holder (ie, the author) wants to explore, or frankly wants explored by anyone, and how each individual author deals with fanfic is typically up to them. A fair number will allow anything, so long as it's not being sold. Others will aggressively pursue anyone who posts fanfic of their works in any capacity. A large number are officially opposed to fanfic, but won't pursue the issue so long as they don't know about it, and take steps to make sure that they won't (ie, refusal to associate with forums that allow the posting of fanfic, etc). A scant few will accept submissions, vet and then publish some of the better examples. All of them are keenly aware that they're putting themselves in an invidious position by even acknowledging the existence of a particular work of fanfic for fear a subsequent accusation of intellectual theft. It's happened, shockingly enough.

Legally speaking, the authors who go after fanfic writers have every right to do so, though they may lose such lawsuits if the fanfic is judged to be a transformative work. Typically, that's limited to parody and critical works, but every now and then something sneaks by.

Or it gets rewritten and turned into Fifty Shades of Gray, and we all lose.

GW takes a lot of flak for its aggressive policies regarding IP enforcement, but you also have to recognize that GW is far and away the most successful miniatures gaming corporation in the world, and subject to vastly more imitation and blatant infringement than anyone else. They go after more people in no small part because they have so many more targets to go after; I can think of a half-dozen people that have basically based their business off of making alternates/copies of GW minis. I can't think of one that has done the same for Warmachine, and that's not because Privateer has adopted an enlightened pricing model where everything is so cheap that any kid can afford it. You don't need as many pieces to get started, of course, but on a per-miniature basis, there's little to choose from between the two manufacturers.

It'd cost me a hair under $60 to add another 10-man unit of Praetorian Swordsmen to my Skorne army. It'd cost me a bit over $36 to add 10 Guardians to my Eldar army. And they come with a weapon platform. Admittedly, it would cost me around $70 to add another unit of Dire Avengers, but that's because GW is flying rodent gak insane with their pricing sometimes. Metal vs Plastic, etc etc, but in the end we're basically paying for well-sculpted tokens.

You could play the games with labeled washers if you really wanted to, after all. Possibly with corks glued to the tops for height. You get the idea.

azreal13 wrote:

He means you're coming in with a low post count and making reasoned and balanced arguments. Doesn't happen that often!

Yup that is true. Does not happen often in here.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Are CHS taking money off them? And a big problem with GW is that they send a lot of claims to people that clearly aren't reasonable. They once sent a C&D to Hasslefree for their 'troll slayer' for heavens sake. It's difficult to have sympathy or even know for sure when they are in the right because of the welter of aggressive nonsense from them.

Sympathy? You do not treat people like this in this sector of the entertainment industry. This "holier then thou" aspect of the corporation is what is harming them in the long run. They are bleeding customers. 40K is not the hobby. It is not as large as the perception of what the corporation want people to believe. The lawsuit did open up valuable information on how "soft" and vulnerable (at least in my perception) the corporation is.

Why try to sue someone when it would have been so much easier to license the product and better yet sell it in their own stores. Profit for everybody.

The millions lost in cross licensing deals to 3rd tier companies because of their behavior is what I find astounding.

Now at the end of the day though GW won the suit they are in more ways weaker in IP rights (IMHO) than before the the suit.

But more importantly they have to deal with all of the negativity because of the suit.

And this will affect their profits in the long run. No one likes a Bully, perceived or not.

Now if people are really patting CH on the backs, then as a community we should be doing some crowd source funding to help pay for the bills. Or buy lots of their product in question.

That right there will send an important message to GW.

"We the customers are not happy with the corporation".

"We are voting with our wallets".

This old timer has done what he can do. It's up to you young guns to take over and take charge of the situation.

Adam.

 spaceelf wrote:
I suspect that one of the consequences of the case will be for GW to include 'unique' elements in its models so it can better claim copyright. In a sci-fi setting this can kind of work, but in a Fantasy setting it leads to silly monsters such as their jabberslythe.

It will be sad to see GW stop making 'generic' dragons and such.

I agree with Space Elf (great name BTW) and I think it's already happened. Generic names like Juggernaut and Dreadnaut have given way to silly but more trademarkable names like Blood Crusher and Hell Brute.

Between this ruling and the decision not to adapt any FW designs (is that official or still just rumored) GW will try to more out there with distinctive designs which is a shame since I always thought one of GW's strengths was when the universe had texture and looked lived in rather than just skulls and more skulls.

So bad news for GW models, good news for the 3rd party bitz folks and as for the rest of us, hey Mutant Chronicles Resurection is coming!

 Raesvelg wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

I'll make no bones about it, I want to be a special snowflake, I like having models that are different from everyone else's. I get a buzz when people complement me on my two CHS extended Storm Ravens. Those are two Storm Ravens I couldn't honestly say I would have bought if I didn't know the CHS kit existed by the way.

Some more well reasoned and explained stuff

I'm afraid my battery is low, so please excuse the brevity of my response to your long and well expressed post.

In short, I simply believe that GW have every right to do what they feel they have to to defend their IP, as without it their business is almost worthless, but I think they went about it the wrong way.

Personally I would favour a collaborative approach, where I could earn something back from third party sales through licensing, and have tighter control on quality, as well as indirectly growing sales of core product, rather than the belligerent, adversarial approach they have taken, which has cost them money and damaged their reputation.

1% left!

 sourclams wrote:
[
There are ways to do it. Take Privateer Press, for example. You see few custom models for a number of reasons: 1. strict conversion policy,

Hell, that's the number one reason why I DON'T play WarmaHordes, and I suspect it's one of the reasons that I don't really see that many great and creative conversions using PP minis as a base. It's just not worth the risk to put the time into a piece and then get told that it's not welcome. At least with the abandonment of "official" GW tournaments the environment has become far more permissive with regards to alternate models.

 Magc8Ball wrote:
and I suspect it's one of the reasons that I don't really see that many great and creative conversions using PP minis as a base.

I think you do see great and creative conversions using PP minis as a base, but you do not see the more average-level and 'just okay' conversions using PP minis as a base because they're largely monopose with a single big 'body' bit to which other stuff is attached. Thus the skill hurdle to convert a PP mini is much higher. I used to do a fair bit of artistic stuff with SPEHSS MARENS because it was easy. I haven't attempted much at all with the PP line because it's not.

For customizability, I think most admit that GW figure kits take the cake. Interesting to me, though, that recently they've veered into more 'big piece' snap-together assembly for a lot of their larger kits. Makes me wonder if customizability suffers as a result when all that the 'okay' level of modelers can really achieve is mounting a different gun barrel or strapping even MOAR skulls and chains onto things.

 Marine_With_Heart wrote:
We don't have a full verdict yet? I just sort of want the short summary of what happened and what it now means for the industry.

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?33351-LEGALWATCH-Games-Workshop-vs-Chapterhouse-Verdict

It was pretty much 60/40 win for CHS

nevermind

 azreal13 wrote:

I'm afraid my battery is low, so please excuse the brevity of my response to your long and well expressed post.

In short, I simply believe that GW have every right to do what they feel they have to to defend their IP, as without it their business is almost worthless, but I think they went about it the wrong way.

Personally I would favour a collaborative approach, where I could earn something back from third party sales through licensing, and have tighter control on quality, as well as indirectly growing sales of core product, rather than the belligerent, adversarial approach they have taken, which has cost them money and damaged their reputation.

1% left!

Nothing wrong with brevity.

I'm not so prone to it myself, of course, but I'm enjoying the debate.

It's fairly easy to say that GW is losing money by their decision regarding third-party manufacturers of accessories, but it's difficult to actually prove it. Saying that CHS was doing $100k/yr in sales makes it sound like GW is losing $100k/yr that they could have been making otherwise (had they been making the product themselves), but it's significant to note that a lot of CHS's products overlapped FW products. Salamander should pads? FW has them. Various vehicle door/armor kits? FW has them. Imperial Jetbikes? FW has them. They're not even that much more expensive most of the time; heck, the FW Shrike warrior wings are cheaper in bulk than the CHS kit. Just wings, rather than wings/legs/head, but we can also admit, I expect, that the FW products are significantly higher quality than anything produced by CHS.

It's not that GW isn't producing the models, it's that CHS is making an inferior version that costs less. You could argue that GW is failing to fulfill a market for cheap, inferior goods, but if GW doesn't want to fill that market (and 3rd Edition Dark Eldar models aside, I'd say that they don't), then we can't expect them to let someone else undercut them on their own IP.

As for issuing licenses, it would pretty much be limited to very specific things, upgrade kits to be exact. There's no way GW would be handing out licenses to make full miniatures in direct competition with themselves, after all. So if we engage in the hypothetical that GW would issue upgrade kit licenses, we have to consider a few things.

If GW wants to maintain control of quality and IP, after all, they're going to have to arrange these licenses in a very specific fashion, giving themselves full control over end product. They'll have to pay someone to vet all the products that they're busy licensing out, control which products they are, and so on. That all costs money, and that's going to be reflected in the license itself, which will in turn be reflected in the cost of the end product. GW isn't going to issue blanket "make whatever you want and if it's good we'll approve it" licenses. They'd be issuing "submit a design and we'll tell you if you can make it or not" licenses. There'd be a lot of back and forth from GW to the studio in question (adding to cost), and quite possibly a percentage of each sale included as part of the licensing fee.

When you add it all up, it doesn't seem particularly likely that the sort of small operations that typically produce these products would be able to afford a license on start-up, or inclined to put up with the necessary hoops that GW would probably add on for quality control purposes. Like everyone else here, I don't have access to the sort of market analysis that I'd need to make a definitive statement, but it wouldn't surprise me if GW hadn't considered the possibility, and already decided they'd be better off just sticking with Forgeworld.

Damaging their reputation? That one I'll grant, though it's also important to remember that one corner of the internet, even the general GW-related internet as a whole, isn't the entirety of their market. The internet may be incensed by GW's policy of trying to destroy internet retailers, for example, but most brick & mortar stores that don't have a significant internet presence themselves are huge fans of the policy, in my experience.

C&D letters aren't a belligerent or adversarial approach to the matter, is the other thing. They're the industry standard; it might be nicer if GW called them up and said "We'd appreciate it if you'd stop making products X, Y, and Z because we feel that they infringe on our IP", but the end result is the same. Most people just do away with the pretense and issue the C&D letter.

 Adam LongWalker wrote:
azreal13 wrote:

He means you're coming in with a low post count and making reasoned and balanced arguments. Doesn't happen that often!

Yup that is true. Does not happen often in here.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Are CHS taking money off them? And a big problem with GW is that they send a lot of claims to people that clearly aren't reasonable. They once sent a C&D to Hasslefree for their 'troll slayer' for heavens sake. It's difficult to have sympathy or even know for sure when they are in the right because of the welter of aggressive nonsense from them.

Sympathy? You do not treat people like this in this sector of the entertainment industry. This "holier then thou" aspect of the corporation is what is harming them in the long run. They are bleeding customers. 40K is not the hobby. It is not as large as the perception of what the corporation want people to believe. The lawsuit did open up valuable information on how "soft" and vulnerable (at least in my perception) the corporation is.

Why try to sue someone when it would have been so much easier to license the product and better yet sell it in their own stores. Profit for everybody.

The millions lost in cross licensing deals to 3rd tier companies because of their behavior is what I find astounding.

Now at the end of the day though GW won the suit they are in more ways weaker in IP rights (IMHO) than before the the suit.

But more importantly they have to deal with all of the negativity because of the suit.

And this will affect their profits in the long run. No one likes a Bully, perceived or not.

Where are you coming up with the estimate of millions lost in cross licensing, thats pure nonsense, the add on market is not even a tiny fraction of that number.

There is already negativity toward GW, forumites are already polarized, the overwhelming majority of GW customers dont know about the suit or dont care.

I know a lot of people want to spin this as some disaster for GW, its not a disaster its just business as usual for them. Plenty of people chimed in that they will continue to buy battlefoam even though they dont like the owner. I doubt it is different for GW.

GW has plenty of significant problems, this lawsuit is not one of them.

Just made my contribution to the CHS punitive fee fund. Can't wait to use the truscale Stormraven kit, and LR Iconoclast kit.

Really happy that this case turned out (mostly) positively for Chapterhouse. I fully expect that they, and the wargaming community as a whole, will come out of this ordeal stronger. Freer artistic expression is unilaterally a good thing, especially when it leads to great products for consumers like us.

I have to agree with whoever suggested that this case has bought CHS a lot of advertising. Now that it's over, I'm eying a few of their products myself. Is the CHS news/comments thread still alive?

Another reason that GW sees more 3rd party and fan-made conversions is that they built off of a much more generic base than Privateer.

And, early on, that was very much a conscious decision, at least in the case of WHFB.

The original creators wanted to have iconic fantasy battles - and many of their early scenarios reflected this, up to and including borrowing from Shakespeare. (I loved MacDeath....)

Some of the conversions that I have seen for Mantic's Kings of War come from that same mold. (And Mantic, at this point at least, is encouraging that - even allowing miniatures from other companies in tournament games.)

And, in regards to using other folks bits... look at some of the more ancient models from Citadel - they borrowed parts from Ral Partha models, and used them on some of their own models....

And those parts were direct copies - in fact today they would be called 'recasts'.

The Auld Grump, tempted to get a jetbike from CH, just 'cause....

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Another reason that GW sees more 3rd party and fan-made conversions is that they built off of a much more generic base than Privateer.

And, early on, that was very much a conscious decision, at least in the case of WHFB.

The original creators wanted to have iconic fantasy battles - and many of their early scenarios reflected this, up to and including borrowing from Shakespeare. (I loved MacDeath....)

Some of the conversions that I have seen for Mantic's Kings of War come from that same mold. (And Mantic, at this point at least, is encouraging that - even allowing miniatures from other companies in tournament games.)

And, in regards to using other folks bits... look at some of the more ancient models from Citadel - they borrowed parts from Ral Partha models, and used them on some of their own models....

And those parts were direct copies - in fact today they would be called 'recasts'.

The Auld Grump, tempted to get a jetbike from CH, just 'cause....

Ral Partha used to sell Citadel miniatures in the US. I am not sure whether Citadel sold Ral Partha stuff in the UK but I think maybe they did.

I would be very interested in a specific example where you think part of a Ral Partha model was used on a Citadel miniature. Stylistically and scale wise they were very different even back in the 80s.

At this point Mantic probably would have to allow nonMantic figs in their tournaments just have enough people to run a tournament. They have not been around long enough for a lot of people to have amassed collections of mantic only armies. Many of their miniatures are the suck, I cant even imagine buying enough of their elves to make an entire army.

I don't see the difference between someone buying Chapter House shoulder pads instead of Forge World shoulder pads, and someone making an entire IG army from Mantic figures and Tamiya vehicles. Both result in money not being spent on GW goods. In the first instance the player has to buy GW figures to put his non-GW shoulder pads on, which benefits GW.

From the business angle, the argument that Chapter House should not be allowed to produce conversion kits or figures because it disbenefits GW, is clearly illogical.

From the legal angle, the trial result so far shows that Chapter House were largely within their legal rights in making their kits.

I'm not going into the swamp of GW's supposed moral rights to prevent anyone from making stuff. We've had dozens of pages about that in the other thread -- Dune, Starship Troopers, etc.

JWhex wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Another reason that GW sees more 3rd party and fan-made conversions is that they built off of a much more generic base than Privateer.

And, early on, that was very much a conscious decision, at least in the case of WHFB.

The original creators wanted to have iconic fantasy battles - and many of their early scenarios reflected this, up to and including borrowing from Shakespeare. (I loved MacDeath....)

Some of the conversions that I have seen for Mantic's Kings of War come from that same mold. (And Mantic, at this point at least, is encouraging that - even allowing miniatures from other companies in tournament games.)

And, in regards to using other folks bits... look at some of the more ancient models from Citadel - they borrowed parts from Ral Partha models, and used them on some of their own models....

And those parts were direct copies - in fact today they would be called 'recasts'.

The Auld Grump, tempted to get a jetbike from CH, just 'cause....

Ral Partha used to sell Citadel miniatures in the US. I am not sure whether Citadel sold Ral Partha stuff in the UK but I think maybe they did.

I would be very interested in a specific example where you think part of a Ral Partha model was used on a Citadel miniature. Stylistically and scale wise they were very different even back in the 80s.

At this point Mantic probably would have to allow nonMantic figs in their tournaments just have enough people to run a tournament. They have not been around long enough for a lot of people to have amassed collections of mantic only armies. Many of their miniatures are the suck, I cant even imagine buying enough of their elves to make an entire army.

Been a long time... but the 'offending' parts were wings used on early Citadel wyverns and pegasi (not the same wings....) Sculpted by either Tom Meier or Dennis Mize, if I recall correctly - with the Ral Partha models being created first. Late seventies, early eighties.

I put 'offending' in quotes mostly because, as far as I know, nobody was offended. Everybody involved was a hobbyist, working in their hobby. Pretty sure that they asked Meier if they could use the bits when he visited them around 1981, and he just said 'sure'. Not a matter of theft. Not even a matter of contract.

The Auld Grump

A scant few will accept submissions, vet and then publish some of the better examples.

Just wanted to point out the curiosity, in the context of the rest of this thread, that GW is one of these. One wonders whether BL's model could conceivably be extended to other areas of the business. Probably not, of course, but I like to blue-sky.

Meanwhile, I'm off to make my own modest contribution to CHS's fine fund. Not because I particularly support their position over GW's, but because, regardless of the outcome, I don't believe they deserve to go under because of it.

R.

Personally, I think its premature to contemplate on the consequences, we do not have the final verdict and it may well go to appeals.

I have big issues with GW and how they want to handle the fantasy and science fiction miniatures wargames gender, their cease and desist letters are not just "protecting their IP" but trying to solidify and enforce an IP bully, the vast majority of their claims fall firmly in the common domain, they essentially plagiarize symbols, expressions and ideas that go back decades, centuries, millenia.

I do not want to have to fight legally with GW for such common terms and ideas as "space marine", "twin headed eagle", "plasma", "sculls", ectr ectr, I am against a company that tries to sue any competition and that is what GW geared up to do, with the raging heroes Lamasu cease and desist letter , spots the space marine case and many other its pretty clear they intended (before this one got big) to threaten just anybody, today CHS tomorrow, whoever they fancy.

This had to be stopped by somebody.

Now do they have the right to try and fight upgrade kits? well one can try to turn off the sun, but might get easier and better results harnessing its power, upgrade kits is something well established in the industry and prolific in all other industries, I see nothing wrong with it, it exists because GW leaves gaps in their lines, gives incentives to have specific combinations without providing them or making them prohibitively expensive, they could harness this power enforce their quality control to the garage industry and strengthen their IP by licencing it, make a better face as a cooperating manufacturer, they chose to be the bully and raise their negative image, their managers testimony were quite revealing on how they view themselves and the industry, quite arrogant stance especially from a company that has ripped every single part of their IP from somewhere else, the "we create everything in isolation" comment would make me laugh if it was not said on a trial.

Sorry for been incoherent, in this, but these are my thoughts.

 SickSix wrote:
Just made my contribution to the CHS punitive fee fund. Can't wait to use the truscale Stormraven kit, and LR Iconoclast kit.

Nod. Looks like I need to get a couple of Iconoclast kits.

Reinholt over at Warseer wrote:

Lothlanathorian wrote:If GW thinks CHS are taking sales from them, maybe they should step up their game instead of trying to step on the 'competition'.

GW saw a company making a product that fits with theirs and said, 'Hey, people are buying those, we need to eliminate them so they can't do that' instead of, 'Hey, people are buying those other, probably inferior products.

I would like to point out that the resolution of this case is that, while you are entitled to your opinion, the US legal system disagrees with you.

CH was found to be infringing upon several copyrights and trademarks for GW. This is not an issue of "inferior products" or "we need to eliminate them", this was a case of "those guys are actually breaking the law and flat out stealing our stuff!". Obviously GW hit them with many claims; some of them stuck. This is typical practice when you are suing someone (I have been involved in both sides of lawsuits, and you always throw everything, inclusive of the kitchen sink, at someone so that they have to defend every single claim; it's good practice of law to do this, and it tells you that both sides had professional lawyers, because you always try to maximize your odds of winning, part of which is making every single claim you have legal standing and enough factual basis to make, even if your odds of winning on it are low). This is not an indication that GW was over-reaching. Virtually every single case in the US looks like this. You don't start negotiating at the point you want to end up at; you start at the most favorable position for you that you can plausibly claim.

CH was producing things that infringed upon GW's IP. These are not of the "we are making these as legitimate additions, or added functionality, or producing things that GW has actively chosen not to produce in such a way that we are not stepping on their toes". A legal decision was made that they were out of line.

Notice that GW has not aggressively sued multiple other manufacturers of alternative pieces, many of whom also produce products compatible with GW goods. Why? Because they didn't push the line as much as CH (who were much more aggressive about potential infringement than, say, Kromlech, to pull a random example). Are those people prohibited from continuing their practices by this ruling? No. In fact, much of it is added certainty that what they are doing is legal.

So let's call a spade a spade here: CH was out of line and got called on it. They subsequently lost, though not in truly catastrophic fashion, in court, and will have to alter/remedy their behavior in the future. Pretty much everyone else can keep on doing what they were doing. This is not some evil tyrant stomping out all competition. This is shutting down the most outrageous example of the group, while the others continue to operate.

Reinholt just forgets that GW publicly announced that they will try to shut down the next 200 most outrageous examples as well

...you always throw everything, inclusive of the kitchen sink, at someone so that they have to defend every single claim; it's good practice of law to do this...

It's not good practice of law, it's merely exploiting how badly the law is set up that encourages this. It's simply not right that any company can just raise hundreds of claims to swamp the defendant making it impossible for them to defend themselves, short of being fortunate enough to get pro-bono representation, because it occupies all their time and money. This is one of the big problems with IP law today. It's suppose to protect people's ideas, but instead it's just a weapon to destroy anyone with less money than you. With GW, it's clear that a large number of their claims were just spurious, given by how many were dropped immediately prior to trial. But those were dropped after wasting a colossal amount of time and money which most people in CHS's shoes could not afford.

Typically to win all GW have to do is cook up a huge piles of claims, and watch the defendant buckle under the sheer enormity of having to deal with the paperwork. That's not justice or 'good practice of law', it's abuse of the system. And GW are hardly alone in that, which is my issue with IP law. Similarly is the problem with libel laws, which suffer similar problems beine abuse d in the courts. Basically, you can't afford to say something true about someone who is much richer than you. The fact that the UK is becoming known for libel-tourism is absolutely shameful.

Goresaw wrote:
I know this is a british case, and its highly egotistical to believe there system is similar to America's courts, but at least in the U.S., a jury verdict doesn't mean much.

Juries are notoriously... confused, if not downright stupid. They don't understand the law, and they tend to pursue group think ideas, no matter how legally wrong they are. I bet once you see the full list of counts, very similar things will be ruled both ways, despite being essentially the same.

Second, the actual ruling itself, at least in the american system, is simply persuasive to other judges. Until it goes to an appeals court, and the appeals court rules, other lower level courts can easily 'distinguish and dismiss' this court case's rulings.

The biggest pain is going to be how expensive appeals are. If CHS wins anything, it would be getting a denial of appeal, so this case doesn't enter a lengthy, and expensive appeals process.

Again, though, just ignore everything I said, because I'm not familiar with the UK legal system, only the U.S. one.

The jury verdict seems like it might be pretty laser-like consistent, which would be unusual, especially for a case as large, complex, and confusing as this one.

That 200 companies claim had me raised an eyebrow, are there even that many related companies in the industry?

weeble1000 wrote:The jury verdict is pretty laser-like consistent; unusually so, especially for a case as large, complex, and confusing as this one.

So you have seen it? Can you post a link?

PsychoticStorm wrote:That 200 companies claim had me raised an eyebrow, are there even that many related companies in the industry?

They will also sue anyone using the words human, elf, dwarf, Imperial, grenade launcher, and jetbike without their permission, not to forget Roman numbers, arrows and crosses. They will make Monsanto and Myriad genetics look humble

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

 Killionaire wrote:
This is nothing but massive win for CHS. Anyone who says otherwise just isn't paying attention.

CHS has a legal precendent that their business does not infringe on IP, and that allows a lot of smaller businesses in the similar '3rd party Warhammer accessories' field to work with greatly reduced fear.

Overly simplistic 'CHS had to pay so they lost!' statements are absurd. 25k paid in some slow payment scheme is absolutely nothing for a business that makes apparently a few hundred k a year, for protecting your business from a giant that's pissed away over a million dollars in pursuing this case.

]

It may be a massive win for CHS, or it may be a big disaster

we just don't know enough yet (although things look reasonably positive so far).

The verdict has to survive the Judge and any possible appeals

If there are appeals then CHS has to keep their pro-bono representation (can their lawyers leave now if they want to or are they forced to carry on representing them?)

Then they have to be able to pay the fine (or avoid it via chapter 11 or similar) and survive as a going concern

Only then will it have been a massive win

No, it is a massive win right now. GW got clobbered by a guy working out of his garage, that's a win, period. And GW lost on what it cared most about: using GW's trademarks prominently and nominatively; i.e. "Specializing in custom bits and sculpts for Warhammer 40,000 and Fantasy." GW spent more than 1 million dollars to put a garage business under and succeeded only in getting a 25K judgment that probably won't ever be paid, severely damaging its view of the company's "IP," and helping to establish a clear line that other 3rd party accessory companies can happily operate behind.

GW showed that when it tires to enforce its "IP" it gets smacked down. GW showed that you can stand up to GW's "IP" enforcement, no matter how small you are. GW showed that there are people out there who believe that GW's view of the world is wrong, and are willing to step in and lend a significant hand.

GW severely damaged its willpower to ever go through with anything like this ever again. And if GW does, there is now an established road map for how to put together a successful defense, and a huge amount of work has already been done.

Game. Set. Match.

How many judges set aside jury verdicts? CHS is not likely to lose on anything it already won with the jury, especially because the Judge ruled almost all important factors in GW's favor. This actually gives CHS openings for appeal in addition to making it very difficult for GW to overturn any aspect of the jury verdict.

Did the jury make a mistake? What was that mistake based on? Jury instructions that heavily favored GW's position? Rulings from the judge that are arguably erroneous in favor of GW? Evidence favorable to CHS that was ruled inadmissible by the court?

Did CHS fail to provide sufficient evidence for a jury to have returned the favorable verdicts? Well, fair use is so darn squishy that it is hard to say what the jury did, much less if no evidence was presented. Keep in mind also that before the trial the judge personally weighed at least half of the fair use factors for both copyright and trademark in favor of CHS. In other words, there was evidence. And unlike GW, CHS did not run around saying it had no evidence.

Did GW fail to provide sufficient evidence? Oh, you mean like saying you have shown no evidence of confusion and that it is not likely that customers would be confused? Yea, like that. That's an argument you can make post verdict. That's an argument you can make on appeal. If you show no evidence then there is no reason a jury could have found in your favor. If your sole purpose in testifying was to establish likelihood of confusion and you say that you have provided no evidence of confusion, then you have a serious problem post verdict if they jury found any trademark infringement.

And why might the jury have found trademark infringement even though you provided "no evidence?" Maybe because the Judge instructed the jury that for ~70 of GW's asserted marks the court found that they had been used in commerce as valid trademarks, obliterating the defendant's ability to contest ownership, validity, use as a trademark, etc. That doesn't help GW. All that does is give CHS an opening to attack any adverse verdict on those marks without exposing those that it won on to being overturned.

Game. Set. Match

What is left is to see how much of what it lost CHS can overturn. What is left is to see if this case goes on appeal and makes new case law when Judge Kennelly gets reversed. What is left is to see if in two years time people are citing the GW v CHS case as precedent.

Even if none of that happens, CHS still wins.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Adam LongWalker wrote:


Now if people are really patting CH on the backs, then as a community we should be doing some crowd source funding to help pay for the bills. Or buy lots of their product in question.

That right there will send an important message to GW.

"We the customers are not happy with the corporation".

"We are voting with our wallets".

This old timer has done what he can do. It's up to you young guns to take over and take charge of the situation.

Adam.

You can also order products you want before the court determines injunctive relief (if any). So if you want it, get it now while it is still okay to sell it.

I dunno... your post seems pretty vague, weeble. I think you're saying that this is a good result for CHS? Maybe?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I dunno... your post seems pretty vague, weeble. I think you're saying that this is a good result for CHS? Maybe?

It is an amazing result. A spectacular result. An unexpected result. The only way it could be better is if CHS won everything, but that was never very likely, just as it was insanely unlikely for GW to have won everything.

The unlikely nature of a total win for either party means GW should have settled out a long time ago. Any loss is a huge loss for GW.

Remember that back in the beginning of this case, Magistrate Judge Gilbert told the parties that after this whole thing was over, both companies were still going to be alive, in business, in the same market, and they would have to find some way to coexist.

His point was that even if GW wanted to be harsh, wanted to be unreasonable, and wanted to go all the way to a jury verdict, GW was still not going to be able to get what it wanted, so why not work it out like reasonable people beforehand and save everyone a lot of time and money.

Well, GW ignored his advice and you see what happened.

 Raesvelg wrote:


Nothing wrong with brevity.

I'm not so prone to it myself, of course, but I'm enjoying the debate.

It's fairly easy to say that GW is losing money by their decision regarding third-party manufacturers of accessories, but it's difficult to actually prove it. Saying that CHS was doing $100k/yr in sales makes it sound like GW is losing $100k/yr that they could have been making otherwise (had they been making the product themselves), but it's significant to note that a lot of CHS's products overlapped FW products. Salamander should pads? FW has them. Various vehicle door/armor kits? FW has them. Imperial Jetbikes? FW has them. They're not even that much more expensive most of the time; heck, the FW Shrike warrior wings are cheaper in bulk than the CHS kit. Just wings, rather than wings/legs/head, but we can also admit, I expect, that the FW products are significantly higher quality than anything produced by CHS.

It's not that GW isn't producing the models, it's that CHS is making an inferior version that costs less. You could argue that GW is failing to fulfill a market for cheap, inferior goods, but if GW doesn't want to fill that market (and 3rd Edition Dark Eldar models aside, I'd say that they don't), then we can't expect them to let someone else undercut them on their own IP.

I disagree with your assertion that GW is producing the models. CH's business was built upon items that GW did not produce, such as shoulder pads for a x chapter. Over the course of years GW has started producing SOME of the items. I suspect that if CH did not make the parts then GW would not have bothered to produce them at all.

GW made a horrible business decision to leave gaps in its range and to cancel its bits production. (They are still leaving huge gaps to this day. Even with the release of the new Eldar codex, GW still does not produce a seer on jetbike. Even on plastic sprues they do not include all weapon loadout combinations. For example, they may include one blaster when you can take three. There is also the recent business decision that prevents retailers from selling bits from GW products. This just increases demand for third party bits.) If there were no gaps and bits were produced, then there would have been few or no third party makers such as CH. As it stands now, there are such makers and GW was shown not to own some concepts that it thought it owned.

It is abundantly clear that there is a market for bits, especially for ones that GW does not produce. Given that GW is not making the parts, it appears that there is room for licenses.

You bring up the topic of quality. I think that this is a red herring. There could be debate about the CH parts being inferior to GWs. Have you experience the disaster that is finecast? I have seen some bad forge world stuff as well. CH was making a part that was superior to GWs solution of having a generic shoulderpad with a decal on it.

 Raesvelg wrote:

As for issuing licenses, it would pretty much be limited to very specific things, upgrade kits to be exact. There's no way GW would be handing out licenses to make full miniatures in direct competition with themselves, after all.

GW used to issue such licenses. Armorcast had one. I assume the deal they made with Milton Bradley was also similar. It is not direct competition if both companies are not producing the same product. Further, given that it is licensed, the companies would not be competing, as GW would earn money when the other product sold.

 Raesvelg wrote:

So if we engage in the hypothetical that GW would issue upgrade kit licenses, we have to consider a few things.

If GW wants to maintain control of quality and IP, after all, they're going to have to arrange these licenses in a very specific fashion, giving themselves full control over end product. They'll have to pay someone to vet all the products that they're busy licensing out, control which products they are, and so on. That all costs money, and that's going to be reflected in the license itself, which will in turn be reflected in the cost of the end product. GW isn't going to issue blanket "make whatever you want and if it's good we'll approve it" licenses. They'd be issuing "submit a design and we'll tell you if you can make it or not" licenses. There'd be a lot of back and forth from GW to the studio in question (adding to cost), and quite possibly a percentage of each sale included as part of the licensing fee.

When you add it all up, it doesn't seem particularly likely that the sort of small operations that typically produce these products would be able to afford a license on start-up, or inclined to put up with the necessary hoops that GW would probably add on for quality control purposes.

Again, more about quality. It is unusual to hear quality control and GW in the same sentence. This is the same company that has tons of typos in its books, and produces figures that have air bubbles, and missing parts. There are lots of ways that they could potentially arrange a license, the one you proposed above is only one possibility. If they wanted the licenses to be successful, then they would want to keep costs of the license down.

 Raesvelg wrote:

Like everyone else here, I don't have access to the sort of market analysis that I'd need to make a definitive statement, but it wouldn't surprise me if GW hadn't considered the possibility, and already decided they'd be better off just sticking with Forgeworld.

I am always amazed that GW is not run like a business. For example, in court they were asked about market research, and of course had none that could show customer confusion. They are just greedy, and thus decided to take all production in house rather than have licenses. What they failed to consider is that they can only produce so much. If they cooperated with other companies and issued licenses, then more items could be produced and they could potentially make more money.

 Raesvelg wrote:

C&D letters aren't a belligerent or adversarial approach to the matter, is the other thing. They're the industry standard; it might be nicer if GW called them up and said "We'd appreciate it if you'd stop making products X, Y, and Z because we feel that they infringe on our IP", but the end result is the same. Most people just do away with the pretense and issue the C&D letter.

There is no problem with C&D. The problem is what GW considers its IP to be. Sending C&Ds over the use of the term jet pack is ridiculous. I could see sending C&Ds over someone recasting their parts. Most of GWs TM are taken from other sources. You do not see Disney suing them for using Kruellagh the Vile. GW thinks that they owns everything. They are greedy. Thus, I am glad that they did not get a big win in this case.

I am pretty sure GW is *satisfied* that it got some rulings.

The IP battle I think works to GW's advantage for the following reasons:

It shows that their threats are not hollow; it can and will go the distance to protect itself and its IPs.

There are things that are uniquely theirs and other model makers must beware when considering their own product launches and bits that revolve around the GW hobby cores (40k, fantasy, ect.).

They probably knew a lot of what they were doing was shotgunning and thus were pleased they got what they did. Because now here comes the kicker:

In today's day and age, IPs are king. What your idea is worth basically sums up how much others are going to pay in order to use your idea or buy your idea from you. Disney or Hasbro cannot just simply start from scratch and make their own miniature games that resemble Warhammer 40k, let alone a small third party business (Hasbro and Disney have their own respective sci-fi IPs so I highly doubt they really care about imitating GW).

But it goes back to the value of what GW has. I do think the long term strategy of GW is to eventually sell out and become subsumed by another entity (even if GW doesn't want to do it, the people who own the shares of GW want return investment and make more money in the long run; protection of IPs does all that and increases the value of the company as now their IPs have clearly defined borders and protection that they won't be subsumed by cheap knock offs. If there is anything in this world that investors like as much as making money is stability).

Does anyone know if CHS offered to settle the case early on?

Also, does rule 68 operate the way I think it does? If CHS offered to settle for $50k back in 2010 for instance, does this displace the 'American Rule' and make GW liable for CHS's legal costs? Or does 'costs' have a defined meaning in the federal rules (like only court fees, or disbursements, and no attorney fees)?



http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_68

Making an Offer; Judgment on an Accepted Offer. At least 14 days before the date set for trial, a party defending against a claim may serve on an opposing party an offer to allow judgment on specified terms, with the costs then accrued. If, within 14 days after being served, the opposing party serves written notice accepting the offer, either party may then file the offer and notice of acceptance, plus proof of service. The clerk must then enter judgment.
.....

Paying Costs After an Unaccepted Offer. If the judgment that the offeree finally obtains is not more favorable than the unaccepted offer, the offeree must pay the costs incurred after the offer was made.

I can't wait for Warmachine/horde models to start getting a few models made by a different company , so I can get them at a far cheaper price.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I can't wait for Warmachine/horde models to start getting copied a bit, so I can get them at a far cheaper price.

That's not this thread is about......

CHS got the a-okay to continue with 3rd party bits =/= open season for recasters.

You do not *need* extra parts for WMH, and in the case where you feel the need to do so PP already has an extensive bits service like GW of old and also produces those additional parts themselves. For example the BDIFP kit.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I can't wait for Warmachine/horde models to start getting copied a bit, so I can get them at a far cheaper price.

That's not this thread is about......

CHS got the a-okay to continue with 3rd party bits =/= open season for recasters.

You do not *need* extra parts for WMH, and in the case where you feel the need to do so PP already has an extensive bits service like GW of old and also produces those additional parts themselves. For example the BDIFP kit.

Really? I never knew about that group, thanks!

Um, clear it with your TO and you already can. I used a Reaper pug for years as a Khador wardog. Thanks for trying though.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I can't wait for Warmachine/horde models to start getting copied a bit, so I can get them at a far cheaper price.

That's not this thread is about......

CHS got the a-okay to continue with 3rd party bits =/= open season for recasters.

You do not *need* extra parts for WMH, and in the case where you feel the need to do so PP already has an extensive bits service like GW of old and also produces those additional parts themselves. For example the BDIFP kit.

Really? I never knew about that group, thanks!

I'm detecting a hint of sarcasm there....

I see you've edited your original post that I quoted, as there is some confusion there. Whilst my first sentence is no longer relevant, the part about PP not needing extra parts is. This situation is somewhat uniquely GW's. Yes, there are units/solos etc. mentioned in the background that do not have models yet (Magnus loyalists and Amethyst Rose Gun Mages come to mind. ATM you just have to sub them with he standard Trenchers/ATGM and have a different paint scheme). GW's model, as it were is set up for almost infinite combustibility, it's almost a requirement in some cases with codex creep and the changing of whatever is considered to be the weapon of choice in any particular edition.

Yes, these companies can come out with other bits for other companies, and I highly doubt PP will be as up in arms about it as GW were. They have already had licensed stuff made for them by GF9 (although incidentally I heard that did not end well). On their official forums, suggestions for alternate models in threads are not considered verboten. Whilst this shows there is a gap in the market for some of PP's more "questionable" sculpts (Kayazy, non-PP store exclusive Ashlynn, Zerkova etc.) as people are constantly asking for alternatives for them.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I can't wait for Warmachine/horde models to start getting a few models made by a different company , so I can get them at a far cheaper price.

A friend of mine is in the process of sculpting some "mechs" that can be used as PP Warjacks, SM Dreadnoughts or any other generic mech.

He's been planning to start his own bits company for a while now, but he wanted to wait to hear the results of this trial before he put more of his time into it.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I can't wait for Warmachine/horde models to start getting copied a bit, so I can get them at a far cheaper price.

That's not this thread is about......

CHS got the a-okay to continue with 3rd party bits =/= open season for recasters.

You do not *need* extra parts for WMH, and in the case where you feel the need to do so PP already has an extensive bits service like GW of old and also produces those additional parts themselves. For example the BDIFP kit.

Really? I never knew about that group, thanks!

I'm detecting a hint of sarcasm there....

I see you've edited your original post that I quoted, as there is some confusion there. Whilst my first sentence is no longer relevant, the part about PP not needing extra parts is. This situation is somewhat uniquely GW's. Yes, there are units/solos etc. mentioned in the background that do not have models yet (Magnus loyalists and Amethyst Rose Gun Mages come to mind. ATM you just have to sub them with he standard Trenchers/ATGM and have a different paint scheme). GW's model, as it were is set up for almost infinite combustibility, it's almost a requirement in some cases with codex creep and the changing of whatever is considered to be the weapon of choice in any particular edition.

Yes, these companies can come out with other bits for other companies, and I highly doubt PP will be as up in arms about it as GW were. They have already had licensed stuff made for them by GF9 (although incidentally I heard that did not end well). On their official forums, suggestions for alternate models in threads are not considered verboten. Whilst this shows there is a gap in the market for some of PP's more "questionable" sculpts (Kayazy, non-PP store exclusive Ashlynn, Zerkova etc.) as people are constantly asking for alternatives for them.

Nah, I started posting while half asleep. So it's less sarcasm then some odd caffeine deficient enthusiasm, though a friend of mine who I've been collecting PP stuff with has had a few snapped pieces, and needs some cheaper replacements which is what I've been trying to find for him.

czakk wrote:
Does anyone know if CHS offered to settle the case early on?

Also, does rule 68 operate the way I think it does? If CHS offered to settle for $50k back in 2010 for instance, does this displace the 'American Rule' and make GW liable for CHS's legal costs? Or does 'costs' have a defined meaning in the federal rules (like only court fees, or disbursements, and no attorney fees)?



http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_68

Making an Offer; Judgment on an Accepted Offer. At least 14 days before the date set for trial, a party defending against a claim may serve on an opposing party an offer to allow judgment on specified terms, with the costs then accrued. If, within 14 days after being served, the opposing party serves written notice accepting the offer, either party may then file the offer and notice of acceptance, plus proof of service. The clerk must then enter judgment.
.....

Paying Costs After an Unaccepted Offer. If the judgment that the offeree finally obtains is not more favorable than the unaccepted offer, the offeree must pay the costs incurred after the offer was made.

Bit of a follow up: Anyone have any thoughts on


http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/505

17 USC § 505 - Remedies for infringement: Costs and attorney’s fees

In any civil action under this title, the court in its discretion may allow the recovery of full costs by or against any party other than the United States or an officer thereof. Except as otherwise provided by this title, the court may also award a reasonable attorney’s fee to the prevailing party as part of the costs.

Both 68 and 505 seem to be deviations from each party pays its own costs model.


Does a 68 settlement offer preclude 505 from being applied against CHS? Is 505 rarely applied?

czakk wrote:
Does anyone know if CHS offered to settle the case early on?

Also, does rule 68 operate the way I think it does? If CHS offered to settle for $50k back in 2010 for instance, does this displace the 'American Rule' and make GW liable for CHS's legal costs? Or does 'costs' have a defined meaning in the federal rules (like only court fees, or disbursements, and no attorney fees)?

http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_68

Making an Offer; Judgment on an Accepted Offer. At least 14 days before the date set for trial, a party defending against a claim may serve on an opposing party an offer to allow judgment on specified terms, with the costs then accrued. If, within 14 days after being served, the opposing party serves written notice accepting the offer, either party may then file the offer and notice of acceptance, plus proof of service. The clerk must then enter judgment.
.....

Paying Costs After an Unaccepted Offer. If the judgment that the offeree finally obtains is not more favorable than the unaccepted offer, the offeree must pay the costs incurred after the offer was made.

Given that settlement discussions are privileged, we're unlikely to know what terms, if any, were put forward before the trial (unless there is a rule 68 motion). That said, defining what terms are "more favorable" in a case this complicated is going to be a fun game - if even one of the terms that GW won on wasn't on the list CHS could have presented, is the ruling "more favorable," even if the financial terms quantitatively aren't?

I don't think I've ever seen a rule 68 motion succeed, but my practice is fairly narrow.

On 17 U.S.C. 505. The usual use of 505 is for the sorts of cases that don't survive summary judgment motions; by letting it go go trial, the judge has pretty strongly indicated that GW's case was not "objectively weak."

GW didn't say they had a list of 200 companies they were going to sue. They said there were 200 companies that had come to their attention as possible violators of their IP.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
GW didn't say they had a list of 200 companies they were going to sue. They said there were 200 companies that had come to their attention as possible violators of their IP.

Either way, I'd love to see the list.

 Cyporiean wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
GW didn't say they had a list of 200 companies they were going to sue. They said there were 200 companies that had come to their attention as possible violators of their IP.

Either way, I'd love to see the list.

Me too. I'd probably place orders with a bunch of those I hadn't heard of before!

I think its too late for them to try what would have to be mass lawsuits, the horse has already bolted. There are many manufacturers providing us with alternatives that are steadily veering off from any possible ip infraction yet still providing us with perfectly acceptible items that still fit the frame work for our needs. I've just finished a Hawklords army that is constructed with weapons/helmets/backpacks from various other makers, and I have to say none of them remotely remind me of any GW stuff.
The point I'm making is this; I've made quite a few GW armies over the past 25 years and with each build they all just look the same. While Gw seems to be hell bent on banning creativity by not selling much in the way of bits and stopping others from selling them, the third parties allow us the chance to really customise our forces and make them unique. Long may it continue.

 spaceelf wrote:

I disagree with your assertion that GW is producing the models. CH's business was built upon items that GW did not produce, such as shoulder pads for a x chapter. Over the course of years GW has started producing SOME of the items. I suspect that if CH did not make the parts then GW would not have bothered to produce them at all.

I never said all of the models, just quite a few. Whether or not GW would have stepped in to produce models, or when such models were produced in relation to CHS models, is open to debate, but it's pure speculation for the most part.

 spaceelf wrote:

GW made a horrible business decision to leave gaps in its range and to cancel its bits production. (

I don't think anyone is disputing that. I certainly haven't.

 spaceelf wrote:

It is abundantly clear that there is a market for bits, especially for ones that GW does not produce. Given that GW is not making the parts, it appears that there is room for licenses.

Only if GW wants there to be room for licenses. Period. You can't expect them to submit to blackmail from third parties, "make this piece or we'll make it and you can face an expensive lawsuit to stop us".

 spaceelf wrote:

You bring up the topic of quality. I think that this is a red herring. There could be debate about the CH parts being inferior to GWs.

Not really, everything I've seen from CHS is amateur-hour sculpting. Better than most people can manage themselves, certainly, but nowhere near the quality of FW material. You can attempt to debate that if you like, but objectively speaking, it's an inferior product for the most part.

 spaceelf wrote:

Have you experience the disaster that is finecast?

It's been less than optimal, but hardly the end of the world in my experience. A few bubbles here and there and never on anything particularly important from the pieces I or my friends have picked up. YMMV, of course.

 spaceelf wrote:

I have seen some bad forge world stuff as well. CH was making a part that was superior to GWs solution of having a generic shoulderpad with a decal on it.

Everyone will have production issues occasionally, even FW. Had a bubble in one of them myself, it happens, and it happens to CH too from all accounts.

The last part, that I'll grant. The market exists, and GW should service it, failure to do so represents a bad business decision.

It doesn't represent an excuse for a third party to do so in violation of IP laws.

 spaceelf wrote:

GW used to issue such licenses. Armorcast had one. I assume the deal they made with Milton Bradley was also similar. It is not direct competition if both companies are not producing the same product.

Yes, Armorcast had one. They also collaborated with Marauder back in the day, and the early-years GW was rife with such deals.

It's irrelevant to what we're discussing today.

I've said this before, and others have said it before me. Games Workshop is not the market. GW failing to produce a given piece is not an excuse for a third party to step in and do so, and your freedoms are not being trampled by their attempts to control their own IP.

 spaceelf wrote:

Again, more about quality. It is unusual to hear quality control and GW in the same sentence. This is the same company that has tons of typos in its books, and produces figures that have air bubbles, and missing parts. There are lots of ways that they could potentially arrange a license, the one you proposed above is only one possibility. If they wanted the licenses to be successful, then they would want to keep costs of the license down.

Quality of sculpts is what I'm talking about for the most part, as previously mentioned. Yes, typos, yes, production issues, all of which are endemic to the industry. GW is neither a paragon of perfection nor an exemplar of failure; they're just par for the course.

As for the cost of licenses, the only way to do that, really, is to surrender control to third parties, and GW has no interest or incentive to do so. They'd want to maintain control, for the aforementioned reasons, and in so doing the costs of the license would escalate to the point where it's doubtful that it would be an especially attractive option for a small garage studio.

 spaceelf wrote:

I am always amazed that GW is not run like a business. For example, in court they were asked about market research, and of course had none that could show customer confusion. They are just greedy, and thus decided to take all production in house rather than have licenses. What they failed to consider is that they can only produce so much. If they cooperated with other companies and issued licenses, then more items could be produced and they could potentially make more money.

It's difficult to produce market research for things like this. You're pretty much reliant on anecdotal evidence, when you get right down to it, the guy who shows up to play with someone else's bits on their mini and someone asks them if that's something that GW makes, and/or where they got it. If you threw a bunch of pictures of Marines with CHS shoulder pads up there in front of people who didn't know about CHS, hell yes there'd be some confusion. GW was put in an invidious position there; in order to conduct proper market research on whether or not customers would be confused about the origin of a product, they'd have to expose customers who didn't already know about CHS to something that they'd prefer didn't exist in the first place.

And of course they're greedy. Precisely as greedy as the guys at CHS, and every other group that makes a living off of GW's IP.

 spaceelf wrote:

There is no problem with C&D. The problem is what GW considers its IP to be. Sending C&Ds over the use of the term jet pack is ridiculous. I could see sending C&Ds over someone recasting their parts.

Here, we can both agree wholeheartedly. GW tends to try and trademark everything it can, though that's actually not especially unusual, but given the nature of the business some of the things they try and grab are a little vague. And trying to kill fair use of their trademarks was just silly, they had to have known that that wouldn't pass muster. Then again, the usual approach to matters like this is to just throw as many things as you can at the wall and see what sticks, including some outlandish ones in the hopes that you might get lucky.

 spaceelf wrote:

Most of GWs TM are taken from other sources. You do not see Disney suing them for using Kruellagh the Vile.

The funny thing about trademarks is part of the reason why GW defends them so vigorously; if you don't, someone else can grab them up. Typically after 5 years, unless you've got it registered and defend it, it's fair game for someone else to register.

As for Kruellagh, that would almost certainly fall into the category of a transformative work, ie a parody. Disney probably took a look at it and said "meh, there's no possibility of confusing that with our character, just a similarity in names used in a punning fashion, and it doesn't affect any of our markets in any fashion, not worth the effort to pursue."

 spaceelf wrote:

GW thinks that they owns everything. They are greedy. Thus, I am glad that they did not get a big win in this case.

And again, of course they're greedy. Everyone is greedy. You think CHS is out there doing this out of the goodness of their hearts? Of course not, they're doing it to make money on a proven market without having to do any work in establishing it. Their entire business model is parasitic, which is practically the definition of greed.

GW getting slapped down on some of their trademarks, and their attempts to control fair use, that much I applaud.

But it could be the number of my friends that are authors and artists that leads me to view things to some extent from the view of the IP holder. It sucks when someone takes something you did and uses it to make money, especially when you're not seeing any of it.

Like I said, the situation is analogous to fanfics. 99% of authors have no interest in handing out licenses to other people to write books in their universes, unless those people are proven quantities, and that's typically done on a work-for-hire basis, "write a story for this anthology and we'll pay you x amount of dollars up front if we approve it, and then we'll publish it. Or not. Whichever we decide." For the most part they tolerate the existence of fanfics so long as nobody is selling them, but the notion of handing down C&D letters to people who try to profit from it?

Yeah, that's what pretty much everyone does. It doesn't make them greedy, or evil. It makes them interested in protecting their livelihood.

 Raesvelg wrote:

...
...

Not really, everything I've seen from CHS is amateur-hour sculpting. Better than most people can manage themselves, certainly, but nowhere near the quality of FW material. You can attempt to debate that if you like, but objectively speaking, it's an inferior product for the most part.
...
...

A lot of people have made the same point. It is irrelevant to the legal or ethical concerns in the case, though, except that buyers might confuse the Chapter House product with the official product.

There isn’t any evidence of confusion having occurred, however, so we needn’t concern ourselves with this particular issue any more.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
That 200 companies claim had me raised an eyebrow, are there even that many related companies in the industry?

The number probably includes lots of small time ebay recasters...

timd wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
That 200 companies claim had me raised an eyebrow, are there even that many related companies in the industry?

The number probably includes lots of small time ebay recasters...

I thought so myself, but still looks as a really big number.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
That 200 companies claim had me raised an eyebrow, are there even that many related companies in the industry?

Probably if you include the really small outfits and the places that do bases where it's not uncommon to see bits of other kits, GW and otherwise used as scatter/junk etc, the re-casters etc

I scanned the last four pages but didn't see it. Do we have a link to the actual judgment yet? Or is that still pending?

 spaceelf wrote:

GW used to issue such licenses. Armorcast had one. I assume the deal they made with Milton Bradley was also similar. It is not direct competition if both companies are not producing the same product. Further, given that it is licensed, the companies would not be competing, as GW would earn money when the other product sold.

I'm pretty confident that the Armorcast license was the last ever GW license for miniatures. GW will never do another because of the financial results of the Armorcast licenses. Armorcast sold 30,000 (something over $1,000,000) Warhammer 40K resin kits in three years while limited solely to the US market.

When the first resin model kit license for Titans was set up with Mike Biasi Studios(1991), GW did not think there was a market for the scaled up Epic models and stated this in the letter to Mike allowing him to start production of his Reaver model kit. Mike did not produce large numbers of models and neither did Epicast, but once Armorcast took over for Mike and did some marketing, sales really picked up and started rolling. Pretty obviously GW started looking at the sales numbers and decided it wanted all of that market to itself and decided not to renew Armorcast's rolling two year license. A year or two later GW's own resin company Forge World appeared...

I can't imagine what GW's reasons are for not producing a female Farseer or Warlocks on jetbikes or any number of other missing models in obvious demand, especially given the problems that NOT producing them has caused...

Tim

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

timd wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
That 200 companies claim had me raised an eyebrow, are there even that many related companies in the industry?

The number probably includes lots of small time ebay recasters...

I thought so myself, but still looks as a really big number.

Yes, it looks like an impressive number but it doesn't actually mean anything at all without some analysis of which companies are listed and why.

Nonetheless, GW presented it as if it was a convincing piece of evidence.

 Raesvelg wrote:

As for who I am, suffice to say that I'm one of the people in this picture who is NOT Jervis Johnson.

I realize that doesn't really narrow down my identity that much (unless you happen to know who took the picture and when), but if you're insinuating that I'm involved with GW beyond the role of a long-time hobbyist, you're mistaken.

Are you Chris 'Other List Maintainer' Bickford?

Anyway, from my post in the other thread:

Evil Lamp 6 wrote:First off, I'm surprised that CHS didn't win on more of the claims, but as of yet, we don't have all the specific breakdowns of what exactly was won/lost aside from the few that were mentioned. I know overall this is still a win for CHS.

As it is, I see reasons for both sides to file for an appeal, GW more than CHS though. GW lost so much on these rulings that I will be extremely surprised if they don't appeal. CHS doesn't have as much to gain by appealing, but if they could even avoid coughing up $25k they might take that chance (assuming they would get pro bono representation for the appeal as well).

Once the final judgements are made, what sort of time frame would the more knowledgeable people in this thread say that GW/CHS would have in order to comply with the rulings? Will CHS have a chance to do a Doomseer blowout sale or would it be effective immediately that they could no longer sell that particular model? Also, how would either side appealing these decisions affect such things?

[wild speculation&musing]
It would be very interesting if a bunch of 3rd party SM shoulder-pads were to be produced between the end of this trial and the rulings overturned on appeal, thus shutting them down again (3rd party SM shoulder-pads, not CHS).
[/wild speculation&musing]

 Evil Lamp 6 wrote:
Are you Chris 'Other List Maintainer' Bickford?

No, but thank you for playing.

Like I've said before, the whole winners vs losers aspect of this is up in the air until we see a detailed set of rulings, and most importantly the actual final judgement on the case.

GW not being able to stop fair use of their trademarks isn't a "loss" for GW in any real sense; it was going to happen the first time they got challenged on it and they must have known it. It makes for a decent threat to hang over people's heads when you're handing out C&D letters though.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Nonetheless, GW presented it as if it was a convincing piece of evidence.

They've also presented Finecast as a flawless product, the shutting down of social media presence as "a good thing", 6th edition 40k as the finest ruleset the world has ever seen and the Khornemower as anything other than a joke, so at least they're consistent.

 Raesvelg wrote:

 Evil Lamp 6 wrote:
Are you Chris 'Other List Maintainer' Bickford?

No, but thank you for playing.

Like I've said before, the whole winners vs losers aspect of this is up in the air until we see a detailed set of rulings, and most importantly the actual final judgement on the case.

GW not being able to stop fair use of their trademarks isn't a "loss" for GW in any real sense; it was going to happen the first time they got challenged on it and they must have known it. It makes for a decent threat to hang over people's heads when you're handing out C&D letters though.

You'd think that, wouldn't you. So why not settle out? Why spend all of that money to completely undermine what GW tells people they are not able to do? Why spend the money to see that happen publicly, and risk having it affirmed on an appeal to advance towards becoming solid precedent?

No, GW was either deluded about the law, or deluded that they could lose. I suspect it is the latter, and they were dead wrong.

Raesvelg wrote:
Not really, everything I've seen from CHS is amateur-hour sculpting. Better than most people can manage themselves, certainly, but nowhere near the quality of FW material. You can attempt to debate that if you like, but objectively speaking, it's an inferior product for the most part.

I'd suggest that you take a more extensive look around their catalog. A lot of their stuff stands up against GW's stuff just fine, quality-wise. Compare apples to apples though. GW's main lines don't compare to FW either... Also, everything you said above is Subjective. Period.

Raesvelg wrote:

 spaceelf wrote:

I have seen some bad forge world stuff as well. CH was making a part that was superior to GWs solution of having a generic shoulderpad with a decal on it.

Everyone will have production issues occasionally, even FW. Had a bubble in one of them myself, it happens, and it happens to CH too from all accounts.

The last part, that I'll grant. The market exists, and GW should service it, failure to do so represents a bad business decision.

It doesn't represent an excuse for a third party to do so in violation of IP laws.

Emphasis mine.

You are asserting that aftermarket parts are illegal and in violation of IP Laws despite the mountains of evidence (and case law) to the contrary?

Raesvelg wrote:

 spaceelf wrote:

GW used to issue such licenses. Armorcast had one. I assume the deal they made with Milton Bradley was also similar. It is not direct competition if both companies are not producing the same product.

Yes, Armorcast had one. They also collaborated with Marauder back in the day, and the early-years GW was rife with such deals.

It's irrelevant to what we're discussing today.

I've said this before, and others have said it before me. Games Workshop is not the market. GW failing to produce a given piece is not an excuse for a third party to step in and do so, and your freedoms are not being trampled by their attempts to control their own IP.

I fail to see that an historical fact (GW used to issue licenses for miniature production) has nothing to do with the discussion here. You two (and now we three) are in fact discussing the existence of a market segment that GW could service via licensing since they choose not to service it directly. Seems pretty relevant to me.

Raesvelg wrote:
It's difficult to produce market research for things like this. You're pretty much reliant on anecdotal evidence, when you get right down to it, the guy who shows up to play with someone else's bits on their mini and someone asks them if that's something that GW makes, and/or where they got it. If you threw a bunch of pictures of Marines with CHS shoulder pads up there in front of people who didn't know about CHS, hell yes there'd be some confusion. GW was put in an invidious position there; in order to conduct proper market research on whether or not customers would be confused about the origin of a product, they'd have to expose customers who didn't already know about CHS to something that they'd prefer didn't exist in the first place.

[i]And of course they're greedy. Precisely as greedy as the guys at CHS, and every other group that makes a living off of GW's IP.

Emphasis mine.

If you did what is outlined above it would be deception. Which would lead to confusion. The confusion likely wouldn't have existed without the deception though.

Is GW greedy for making "a living off of" others' IP? Because arguably they are doing just that.

Raesvelg wrote:

 spaceelf wrote:

Most of GWs TM are taken from other sources. You do not see Disney suing them for using Kruellagh the Vile.

The funny thing about trademarks is part of the reason why GW defends them so vigorously; if you don't, someone else can grab them up. Typically after 5 years, unless you've got it registered and defend it, it's fair game for someone else to register.

As for Kruellagh, that would almost certainly fall into the category of a transformative work, ie a parody. Disney probably took a look at it and said "meh, there's no possibility of confusing that with our character, just a similarity in names used in a punning fashion, and it doesn't affect any of our markets in any fashion, not worth the effort to pursue."

I sincerely doubt that Disney even knows about the existence of that miniature. I also seriously doubt that it falls under any kind of parody protection.

They may indeed take issue with the use of a similar name if they were made aware of it. Especially as the name is assigned to this miniature.

Raesvelg wrote:
And again, of course they're greedy. Everyone is greedy. You think CHS is out there doing this out of the goodness of their hearts? Of course not, they're doing it to make money on a proven market without having to do any work in establishing it. Their entire business model is parasitic, which is practically the definition of greed.

Emphasis mine.

You're showing your bias. I'm certain that they guys at CHS did have to do some work to get their piece of the pie. They may not have had anything to do with "establishing the market" but then again neither, arguably, did FW.

Wargaming, and miniatures manufacturing existed before GW. So, is GW "parasitic" because they are profiting (massively) when they didn't do any work in establishing the market? Do you feel that any company who makes add-on or compatible parts for another companies' product is "parasitic"? Or are those feelings strictly limited to "creative" works?

I would call the relationship "symbiotic" since both benefit.

Raesvelg wrote:
Like I said, the situation is analogous to fanfics. 99% of authors have no interest in handing out licenses to other people to write books in their universes, unless those people are proven quantities, and that's typically done on a work-for-hire basis, "write a story for this anthology and we'll pay you x amount of dollars up front if we approve it, and then we'll publish it. Or not. Whichever we decide." For the most part they tolerate the existence of fanfics so long as nobody is selling them, but the notion of handing down C&D letters to people who try to profit from it?

I don't think your fanfic analogy holds water. I'll mull it over some more, but my initial thought is that it is flawed.

~Eric

 Taarnak wrote:

Raesvelg wrote:
It's difficult to produce market research for things like this. You're pretty much reliant on anecdotal evidence, when you get right down to it, the guy who shows up to play with someone else's bits on their mini and someone asks them if that's something that GW makes, and/or where they got it. If you threw a bunch of pictures of Marines with CHS shoulder pads up there in front of people who didn't know about CHS, hell yes there'd be some confusion. GW was put in an invidious position there; in order to conduct proper market research on whether or not customers would be confused about the origin of a product, they'd have to expose customers who didn't already know about CHS to something that they'd prefer didn't exist in the first place.

[i]And of course they're greedy. Precisely as greedy as the guys at CHS, and every other group that makes a living off of GW's IP.

Emphasis mine.

If you did what is outlined above it would be deception. Which would lead to confusion. The confusion likely wouldn't have existed without the deception though.

Is GW greedy for making "a living off of" others' IP? Because arguably they are doing just that.

I'd also like to point out that GW did exactly what was bolded:

Now, Ms. Stevenson, as you recall, you testified that
this chart was put together at your direction by Games
Workshop's hobby team, and they painted and posed the Games
Workshop figures on the right column to look like the colors
and poses of the Chapterhouse products, is that right?
A Almost. The hobby team didn't put the chart together, but
they did build and paint the model.
Q And you said that you found this confusing when you see
them side by side like this?
A I find it compelling.
Q You said you found it confusing, correct?

 Janthkin wrote:

czakk wrote:
Does anyone know if CHS offered to settle the case early on?

Also, does rule 68 operate the way I think it does? If CHS offered to settle for $50k back in 2010 for instance, does this displace the 'American Rule' and make GW liable for CHS's legal costs? Or does 'costs' have a defined meaning in the federal rules (like only court fees, or disbursements, and no attorney fees)?

http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_68

Making an Offer; Judgment on an Accepted Offer. At least 14 days before the date set for trial, a party defending against a claim may serve on an opposing party an offer to allow judgment on specified terms, with the costs then accrued. If, within 14 days after being served, the opposing party serves written notice accepting the offer, either party may then file the offer and notice of acceptance, plus proof of service. The clerk must then enter judgment.
.....

Paying Costs After an Unaccepted Offer. If the judgment that the offeree finally obtains is not more favorable than the unaccepted offer, the offeree must pay the costs incurred after the offer was made.

Given that settlement discussions are privileged, we're unlikely to know what terms, if any, were put forward before the trial (unless there is a rule 68 motion). That said, defining what terms are "more favorable" in a case this complicated is going to be a fun game - if even one of the terms that GW won on wasn't on the list CHS could have presented, is the ruling "more favorable," even if the financial terms quantitatively aren't?

I don't think I've ever seen a rule 68 motion succeed, but my practice is fairly narrow.

On 17 U.S.C. 505. The usual use of 505 is for the sorts of cases that don't survive summary judgment motions; by letting it go go trial, the judge has pretty strongly indicated that GW's case was not "objectively weak."

Thanks for the info. We have a similar settlement rule here, but it is used frequently (but that goes hand in hand with our greater willingness to shift costs to the loser). Arguably it promotes settlement and lowers the amount of frivolous lawsuits, but it can also prevent someone from bringing a meritorious but risky / novel suit. Different legal cultures

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

timd wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
That 200 companies claim had me raised an eyebrow, are there even that many related companies in the industry?

The number probably includes lots of small time ebay recasters...

I thought so myself, but still looks as a really big number.

I'm starting to wonder if GW thinks that literally every other miniature company is infringing their IP in some way. I'm not even exaggerating, that's the only way I can imagine the 200 companies claim making any sense.

 Sidstyler wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

timd wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
That 200 companies claim had me raised an eyebrow, are there even that many related companies in the industry?

The number probably includes lots of small time ebay recasters...

I thought so myself, but still looks as a really big number.

I'm starting to wonder if GW thinks that literally every other miniature company is infringing their IP in some way. I'm not even exaggerating, that's the only way I can imagine the 200 companies claim making any sense.

I doubt 200 small companies can get pro bono representation all at once. If you have the bandwidth to submit 200 lawsuits at once with the threat of "25% chance we can make it stick and cost you tens of thousands" a lot of them won't be able to defend themselves, let alone risk losing.

It will be interesting to see what GW does next as they are clearly not done.

 Sidstyler wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

timd wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
That 200 companies claim had me raised an eyebrow, are there even that many related companies in the industry?

The number probably includes lots of small time ebay recasters...

I thought so myself, but still looks as a really big number.

I'm starting to wonder if GW thinks that literally every other miniature company is infringing their IP in some way. I'm not even exaggerating, that's the only way I can imagine the 200 companies claim making any sense.

Imagine the number of folks who have a GW image on t-shirts, mousepads, or what-not at any one time.
Two hundred isn't that hard to imagine and many of them would likely be legitimate beef.

Was it really 200 companies, I read it as 200 case files for IP infringments. In which case it could be a file on a website posting GW logos and pictures of figures without the relevant disclaimers.

Cheers

Andrew

 AndrewC wrote:
Was it really 200 companies, I read it as 200 case files for IP infringments. In which case it could be a file on a website posting GW logos and pictures of figures without the relevant disclaimers.

Cheers

Andrew

I believe cases Andrew

nkelsch wrote:
It will be interesting to see what GW does next as they are clearly not done.

The only question left, in my mind, is the next thread title.

Games Workshop vs _____: The Revenge

or

Games Workshop, Episode 2: GW Strikes Back

Hang on Ouze, GW is a British company, so it's;

Episode 2, Games Workshop, The Empire Strikes Back.

Hey, if CHS wants a fundraiser, a limited edition figure of a games geek standing on the body of a 800lb gorilla might be appropriate.

Cheers

Andrew

PS Nick, my idea, I'll licence it to you for a free model.....

 Taarnak wrote:

I'd suggest that you take a more extensive look around their catalog. A lot of their stuff stands up against GW's stuff just fine, quality-wise. Compare apples to apples though. GW's main lines don't compare to FW either... Also, everything you said above is Subjective. Period.

We are comparing apples to apples. FW releases resin upgrade kits to existing GW products. GW doesn't really make too many should pad variants for Marine chapters last time I checked in their official lines, but those they do are better sculpted than the CHS equivalents. And honestly, I don't put FW sculpts on a pedestal here either, I don't have much love for most of their older work. They've gotten a lot better over the years, but their early Eldar vehicles... meh.

I have looked extensively at CHS's catalog. I was not impressed. The sculpts aren't sharp, lines are wavery, castings are mediocre at best. It's competent, but nothing better than that. The Farseer Jetbike kit is just nightmarishly hideous.

 Taarnak wrote:

You are asserting that aftermarket parts are illegal and in violation of IP Laws despite the mountains of evidence (and case law) to the contrary?

What case law are you referring to? Auto parts?

I'm referring to the part where CHS tacks existing GW iconography onto things like Rhino doors and thinks they can get away with it. You want to pull that kind of move, you'd be vastly better served to do it with your own homebrew chapter, you might actually sneak it by. We don't know precisely what rulings are going to come down from this, but I'd wager that anything that CHS made for an existing "canon" chapter is gonna be on the list of things they have to stop making.

Don't get me wrong, the market for aftermarket car parts is also inherently parasitic. You can say that Ford made $35k when you bought a Mustang from them, and Company X made $1k when you bought a hood scoop from them, but the ultimate truth of the matter is that you were going to buy a car anyway. These aren't things that motivate you to buy the car, they're things that you add on once you have one. It's parasitic, and that's also legal. A bit sleazy at times, but legal.

And that's the sort of product that probably passed muster in this suit. The stuff that is sufficiently vague that GW can't prove it infringes on an established IP. You can make a spoiler that fits a Honda Civic Si, after all, but you probably couldn't get away with duplicating a Honda Civic Si spoiler. You couldn't call it a Honda spoiler, but you could say it fits Hondas. That's the sort of fine line that aftermarket parts have to tread; a lot of CHS's stuff is in that realm.

A lot of it is not.

 Taarnak wrote:

I fail to see that an historical fact (GW used to issue licenses for miniature production) has nothing to do with the discussion here. You two (and now we three) are in fact discussing the existence of a market segment that GW could service via licensing since they choose not to service it directly. Seems pretty relevant to me.

It's not relevant. Chrysler used to have a collaborative line of automobiles with Mitsubishi, that doesn't mean that they have to now. Just because they did something once, doesn't mean they have to do it again because you want them to.

Besides, the 3000GT looked cooler than the Stealth anyway.

 Taarnak wrote:

If you did what is outlined above it would be deception. Which would lead to confusion. The confusion likely wouldn't have existed without the deception though.

The definition of market confusion is when you put something up in front of the customer and they don't know that it's not one of your products. That's what they're talking about when they discuss IP violation. It's not deception, it's proving the point.

Haven't you been following the ongoing drama between Samsung and Apple?

 Taarnak wrote:

Is GW greedy for making "a living off of" others' IP? Because arguably they are doing just that.
...
You're showing your bias. I'm certain that they guys at CHS did have to do some work to get their piece of the pie. They may not have had anything to do with "establishing the market" but then again neither, arguably, did FW.

Wargaming, and miniatures manufacturing existed before GW. So, is GW "parasitic" because they are profiting (massively) when they didn't do any work in establishing the market? Do you feel that any company who makes add-on or compatible parts for another companies' product is "parasitic"? Or are those feelings strictly limited to "creative" works?

I would call the relationship "symbiotic" since both benefit.

Editing some bits together here, rather than doing this repeatedly when the topics touch on each other rather heavily.

Have you missed the part where I've said GW is greedy multiple times? I just don't assign any particular onus to the fact; everyone in business is greedy, it's just expressed in different ways at times. People go into business to make money; GW jumped on the Tolkien-esque fantasy setting early, gave it a twist of their own by injecting a healthy dose of Michael Moorcock, and then cross-bred it with an equal mixture of Dune and Starship Troopers and called it 40K.

FW is a subsidiary of GW, your point is irrelevant.

And no, CHS had almost no work to do, in the real world. It's the same reason why the aforementioned auto parts business has a thousand suppliers which go in and out of business very quickly, but the people that actually make automobiles are limited to a scant handful of corporations across the entire planet, and those entities tend to last considerably longer.

If CHS had, say, designed their own rule system, created an entire line of their own miniatures, established their own player base, built it up over several years, and all the crap that Privateer and other companies had to do... well, then they wouldn't be operating as a parasite off of GW's business.

As for GW capitalizing on the market for miniatures gaming... Name a game other than Little Wars that predates Warhammer (Chainmail, in case you're wondering, is an option there). Then name a successful game that's still around. The modern miniatures market, the one where you've got a variety of successful games each carved into their own niche? That really started with Warhammer, not before. Most of the games that predate it were small products, operating in small niches, and typically forgotten and neglected by their creators over time, or never successful enough to survive. GW did more to establish that market than anyone else did. It doesn't give them the right to profit from it exclusively, obviously, but comparing them to a company like CHS that exists solely to service GW's clientele is disingenuous.

The line between symbiotic and parasitic is a fine one, no doubt. Ultimately the issue here is one of consent. Did GW profit from people buying kits to alter the appearance of their Stormravens, for example? The answer there, incidentally, is "maybe". Any evidence that can be presented there is anecdotal at best, on either side. But if they didn't want to give consent for that derivative work, they shouldn't be forced to just because you want it.

Part of the reason I'm not overly fond of these companies, incidentally, is because for me at least they represent wasted talent. The idea of endless retreading someone else's work is about as appealing as the idea of rechewing someone else's food. It is, however, an easy way to make money, if you're not particularly ambitious.

 Taarnak wrote:

I sincerely doubt that Disney even knows about the existence of that miniature. I also seriously doubt that it falls under any kind of parody protection.

They may indeed take issue with the use of a similar name if they were made aware of it. Especially as the name is assigned to this miniature.

Remember that comment earlier about confusion? Yeah, zero chance of that. It's like Bored of the Rings, if you've ever read that, and frankly you should.

"Pity stayed his hand. 'Pity I've run out of bullets', he thought."

The Kruellagh mini is ugly (also discontinued), but there's no grounds for Disney to make any ground there. The figure doesn't look like Cruella, so other than a pun off of the name, they've got nothing to go on. And puns certainly fall within the realm of parody. Disney might try to make a case of it, but if it really offended them and they wanted to make an issue of it, they could just issue GW a C&D letter.

Which I'd wager they didn't. Not unless it took over a decade for that particular letter to arrive.

 Taarnak wrote:

I don't think your fanfic analogy holds water. I'll mull it over some more, but my initial thought is that it is flawed.

How so?

If I write a fanfic where, say, detailing Frodo's adventures in Valinor, I'd be extending and expanding on another person's work. They couldn't understand my work without reading Tolkien's work, so both parties profit, right? They've got to buy the Lord of the Rings before they buy my book, after all.

Doesn't that make us symbiotic?

It doesn't, incidentally, because my work doesn't stand on its own. I didn't write LotR, I just tacked on a little extra bit because hey, someone wanted it, and now I get to profit off of Tolkien's work. Symbiotic would be if I were paying a portion of the proceeds of each sale to Tolkien's estate, representative of the work that he did in establishing the universe I was writing in. He gets something, I get something, everyone wins.

But what if my fanfic sucks?

Is the Tolkien estate somehow obligated to let me write it anyway, because you want it? What if it's not even that horrible, but it's still something that they don't want written, something that they feel the story can do without?

What then?

That's what we've got here, incidentally, but it's occurring in an arena beyond the purely metaphysical, and that's where it gets complicated.

And by this point we've pretty thoroughly veered off into the morality of the current situation, rather than the consequences of it. So, to get back on topic:

The outcome, as it stands, was largely inevitable. Once someone went to trial, the likelihood of stopping a company like CHS from making optional bits for GW kits was functionally nil, but it wasn't a legal issue that had ever really been explored in this exact arena. Sure, there have been model kits designed to piggyback on other people's model kits before, but that was depicting real things, tanks and cars and whatnot, existing works (themselves in some cases licensed) where permission was either given in advance, or the lineage of the source material was sufficiently clouded that nobody could lay claim to it as IP.

GW didn't know for certain what the outcome would be. They've tried very hard to protect their IP, as is their right, and while in the past it's typically been enough for them to send out a C&D letter, this time someone took them up on it, and now we have to consider the fallout. The problem, of course, is that we don't really know what the situation actually is, other than vague, until we get a proper list of what products got axed, what terms got upheld, and so on.

As I mentioned, my money is on anything that is obviously GW-canon IP, things like symbols for specific Marine chapters, and pretty much all the stand-alone miniatures that were obviously derivative are gonna get the axe. The more generic bits like shoulder pads for non-canon chapters, generic weapons, and fiddly bits will probably survive. The "Tau" superheavy supposedly gets to live, probably because it doesn't really bear all that much resemblance to existing Tau pieces, though they might have to revise a few bits on it. The big GW terminology will remain their trademarks, but vaguer things like "jetbike" will probably be considered common usage.

That's my guess.

Assuming I'm right, what's the fallout gonna be? Well, minor bits are going to be pretty much open season, and the labeling of such bits will be more permissive, as labeling something as "Compatible with X" is fully within the boundaries of fair use. It's something that other corporations have challenged in the past, incidentally, which is why we know it's fair use, but again, never in this arena so it didn't really hurt GW to try.

As for what GW is going to do going forward?

Well, they've got some options. The easiest one would be to restart an official tournament system, regulated by their people, and simply ban the use of non-GW minis. Basically what Privateer does. It's fairly cheap, it grows the hobby, and it would quickly curtail the market for alternate pieces. From GW's perspective, there are relatively few downsides to it, though if they consider themselves to be sufficiently advanced in market penetration, then the cost doesn't reap commensurate reward. But, maybe they'd be willing to do it anyway. Most of their store managers in my experience are already pretty adamant about not letting any third-party pieces in the store, though minor bits can typically slip by.

The next one would be to just start making upgrade bits kits of their own, but that's... less likely. They could do it, but they'd likely do it the same way that it's been done by GW in the past; a single sprue with a variety of options on it, and you get to buy the whole thing if you want any individual pieces on it. Better than nothing, but not quite the same as getting 5 plasma guns or some such. Though they could just make a sprue with 5 plasma, 5 melta, 5 flamer, etc, stick 'em all in the same mold and just pop 'em out on different sprues. I suppose somewhere in GW there's someone with the logic that if they don't produce such an item, they force people to buy entire kits, but those people are stupid and probably won't be around much longer. They'll probably choke to death trying to tie their ties or something. This is one of the situations that would constitute a clear win for the consumer, incidentally.

Another option is to simply alter the way they put pieces together in such fashion that makes it difficult for the current set of add-on bits to work. That's... vanishingly unlikely, in my opinion, but it could happen. It's implausibly difficult for one, and too easy to get caught up on, but it's possible that they'll consider it an option.

The last one is one that I expect they will be pursuing. We're told a few specifics about pieces in what little I've seen so far; the Tau superheavy can stay (it's pretty vague whether it's a real Tau piece, after all), but the "Doomseer" and "Torturess" models got the axe.

This is not good news for Avatars of War.

It's more difficult to prove in a fantasy setting than Sci-fi, admittedly. But if GW is serious about going forward with more suits now that they've done it once and they've got a good idea of what they can expect, they'll probably start doing more than issuing C&Ds and hoping for the best. And let's be honest, a number of AoW's pieces are pretty blatant copies of GW's work. I expect that they'll be targeting their next suit more carefully, mind, but they're probably still going to have at least some shotgunning in there to be sure.

What is it with armchair lawyers' willingness to re-try the case in their heads even after tje jury has returned a verdict? It's over, bro. Cope.

 Raesvelg wrote:
I have looked extensively at CHS's catalog. I was not impressed. The sculpts aren't sharp, lines are wavery, castings are mediocre at best. It's competent, but nothing better than that. The Farseer Jetbike kit is just nightmarishly hideous.

Did you feel as if you gaze upon it for too long, you'd slowly slip into insanity? That this... un-thing had no place in the realm of men, and that the unknowing fools who summoned it upon us should never have tinkered with the volume bound in human skin they discovered in those cursed ruins?

 Raesvelg wrote:
Part of the reason I'm not overly fond of these companies, incidentally, is because for me at least they represent wasted talent.

I see no conflict between these 2 ideas in the same post.

 Raesvelg wrote:

The last part, that I'll grant. The market exists, and GW should service it, failure to do so represents a bad business decision.

It doesn't represent an excuse for a third party to do so in violation of IP laws.

So we agree that the market exists. GW does not service it fully, as we see with their lack of bits and things like the Warlock of jetbike. The market must be substantial for CH to gross 100k per year.

I agree about IP violation. However, in many instances we are not dealing with GW IP. Lizard heads, cogs, roman numerals, etc. are not GWs IP.

Thus, GW was in the position to cooperate with other companies and grant licenses so that the bits market would be satisfied. They did not do this, and are no longer in that position, as it has been shown that what they thought was their IP is actually not their IP. Thus third parties are free to make such bits and miniatures.

By cooperating they could have made money, and satisfied the market. By being greedy they lost money and IP. You would think that even though the corporate folks at GW are not exactly stellar MBA types, they would have at least gotten the message from fables and kids books.

 Raesvelg wrote:

Like I said, the situation is analogous to fanfics. 99% of authors have no interest in handing out licenses to other people to write books in their universes, unless those people are proven quantities, and that's typically done on a work-for-hire basis, "write a story for this anthology and we'll pay you x amount of dollars up front if we approve it, and then we'll publish it. Or not. Whichever we decide." For the most part they tolerate the existence of fanfics so long as nobody is selling them, but the notion of handing down C&D letters to people who try to profit from it?

Yeah, that's what pretty much everyone does. It doesn't make them greedy, or evil. It makes them interested in protecting their livelihood.

It looks like you have not heard of Amazon's Kindle Worlds. They know how to make money, as do Warner Bros.

 Raesvelg wrote:

I have looked extensively at CHS's catalog. I was not impressed. The sculpts aren't sharp, lines are wavery, castings are mediocre at best. It's competent, but nothing better than that. The Farseer Jetbike kit is just nightmarishly hideous.

Deodorant Tank
Origami Baneblade

Have a nice day.

Of course the quality of CHS is really immaterial to whether they were infringing on IP.

 Raesvelg wrote:
I'm referring to the part where CHS tacks existing GW iconography onto things like Rhino doors and thinks they can get away with it.

I'm going to hit the pause button at the very beginning of your lengthy rant.

What is GW iconography? The GW corporate logo? I don't see any CHS rhino doors with 'Games Workshop' sculpted onto the side. If you're talking about the amalgamation of various historical symbols that constitutes what GW uses as Space Marine heraldry, then a couple things:

1. GW does not 'own' this stuff. The trial showed that. If GW did actually own this stuff they'd be able to present a piece of paper that shows actual ownership in the form of a legally defensible document.

2. CHS did actually 'get away with it' because it turns out producing resin mininature sculptures with open-source iconography is not actually against the law.

 AustonT wrote:
Deodorant Tank
Origami Baneblade

I get the first one, but what's the second one?

 Ouze wrote:

 AustonT wrote:
Deodorant Tank
Origami Baneblade

I get the first one, but what's the second one?

Heresy.

@Raesvelg: I hope your posts don't contain relevant info. I have other big books to read first

Play nice Kroothawk... he's new here....

It seems that a lot of white knights just do not get the fact that

The
Aftermarket
Parts
Business
Is
Legal.

And in some cases is required to say what the part is to be used for - if you make a muffler that only works for a Ford Prefect then it needs to say that it is for a Ford Prefect. Doing so does not challenge the trademarks of either Ford nor the Ford Prefect.

And, yeah - the fact that GW never bothered registering these TM was.... kind of a surprise.

Most of the iconography could have been challenged in any event, but not bothering....

And, at the end of the day, it does not matter if the models look bad, or worse than they actually do - that is not what the trial was determining.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

It seems that a lot of white knights just do not get the fact that

The
Aftermarket
Parts
Business
Is
Legal.

Nobody has ever disputed that, the question is whether specific trademarks or copyrights were violated. People bring up car & guns aftermarket business - but there too manufacturers can and DO stomp on the aftermarket parts makers if they thing the parts are too reminiscent of their own designs, just like GW does.

 Ouze wrote:

 AustonT wrote:
Deodorant Tank
Origami Baneblade

I get the first one, but what's the second one?

White Dwarf 132 I will PM you a link because it contains content not allowed on Dakka.

Backfire wrote:
Nobody has ever disputed that

Actually a lot of people have said that they don't dispute that, but then they go on to create an argument that is basically 'I dispute that CHS can produce aftermarket parts for GW models because opinion".

the question is whether specific trademarks or copyrights were violated.

And the answer to this question, as we now have it, is 'No'. GW generally did an abysmal job of showing ownership to any of the things that they aggressively claim to have owned.

Raesvelg, I have to ask; why the flag of Bastok? I played myself an' got my Elvaan of San'D to 75 on rdm, sam, rng, and thf. Cor was up and coming, but they turned around and proclaimed Rapture as XIV, thats when I quit. Oh yea, my rng was boss on the Dlord, 13k in 10 seconds (damn lag!) Haha!


As to the topic... heh, glad to see the initial outcome looking heavily in favor of CHS. Someone really needed to assert GWs stance as incorrect and the IP cudgel isnt always going to work as it has in the past. :3

I think it's a bit early to truly predict what the fallout will be for GW. However, I think once the dust settles, GW got paid 25K to do the following:

- Provide a list of terms that can and cannot be used when advertising 28mm miniatures and miniature parts which compatible with GW miniatures.
- Provide a box around how close items can and cannot be produced to the GW original. This is a big deal because items can be the same theme as a GW model, but not be a GW model.
- Open the door for the above being done without contacting GW in any way.

With the rapid technological leaps in 3D printers, this is going to be a big deal in the near future. Not only can a guy spin caste the parts in his garage, but any random guy would be able to print out parts in their own home.

Barfolomew wrote:
However, I think once the dust settles, GW got paid 25K to do the following:

Had a thought this morning - GW actually only nets out with 15k so far. They got hit with a 10k fine earlier.

the question is whether specific trademarks or copyrights were violated.

And the answer to this question, as we now have it, is 'No'. GW generally did an abysmal job of showing ownership to any of the things that they aggressively claim to have owned.

Skullhammer wrote:
What ever anyone says CHS have infringed on GWs ip and that's been proven in court. If the didn't GW wouldn't have got a fiscal award in damages.

Ah, okay, you're right then. This Is Good News.

I feel sorry for the jury Forman that had to read all of those counts aloud...

"In the matter of whether the general size and shape of the item was infringed, we find the defendant not guilty.."



Etc.......

 sourclams wrote:
What is GW iconography? The GW corporate logo? I don't see any CHS rhino doors with 'Games Workshop' sculpted onto the side. If you're talking about the amalgamation of various historical symbols that constitutes what GW uses as Space Marine heraldry, then a couple things:

1. GW does not 'own' this stuff. The trial showed that. If GW did actually own this stuff they'd be able to present a piece of paper that shows actual ownership in the form of a legally defensible document.

2. CHS did actually 'get away with it' because it turns out producing resin mininature sculptures with open-source iconography is not actually against the law.

Ah, but we don't have the foggiest idea what iconography they got busted on.

People are acting like they got off scott-free on everything they made, which they didn't. From what we're told, GW won 37 Trademark claims and ~50-60 copyright claims in the trial. CHS makes a lot of stuff, but they don't make all that much.

Declaring something open-source isn't reality in trademark law. The Imperial Aquila on GW's books is a registered trademark; that means that someone got paid money to research it and decide that yes, it belongs to GW. The Aquila goes back to the damn Roman Empire, but that doesn't matter. Citgo uses a damned triangle as their logo, and you better believe it's trademarked. Most corporate logos are common, simple symbols, something that's easily recognizable and the fact that it exists in other forms doesn't mean it can't be trademarked.

Where GW probably got burned is in some of the vaguer things, where it's difficult to prove infringement, or where ownership was never registered and difficult to assert by prior use. Again, probably, because right now we're just speculating until we see the actual ruling. GW may have failed to assert trademark on the work jetbike, for example (which doesn't really hurt them), but the Pilum Jet Bike mini from CHS might have been rules in violation of copyright. Neither party "wins", but GW gets something out of it and CHS gets to resculpt a new jetbike without a Marine on the back.

 AustonT wrote:

Deodorant Tank
Origami Baneblade

Oh god, I remember those. I'm not sure what the relevance is though, to be honest.

 Kroothawk wrote:
@Raesvelg: I hope your posts don't contain relevant info. I have other big books to read first

The secrets to the universe are contained within. Only through suffering can you attain enlightenment.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

And in some cases is required to say what the part is to be used for - if you make a muffler that only works for a Ford Prefect then it needs to say that it is for a Ford Prefect. Doing so does not challenge the trademarks of either Ford nor the Ford Prefect.

Well golly gee, I think I said that exact thing already. Though I used Hondas and spoilers in my example. Because Hondas are better than Fords.

 Xzerios wrote:
Raesvelg, I have to ask; why the flag of Bastok? I played myself an' got my Elvaan of San'D to 75 on rdm, sam, rng, and thf. Cor was up and coming, but they turned around and proclaimed Rapture as XIV, thats when I quit. Oh yea, my rng was boss on the Dlord, 13k in 10 seconds (damn lag!) Haha!

Mostly I wanted to see how many posts I'd get in before someone recognized it and commented lol.

In a moment of pure synchronicity that gives one cause to ponder the existence of the divine, the answer was 42.

 Raesvelg wrote:
Ah, but we don't have the foggiest idea what iconography they got busted on.

It very nearly doesn't matter what specifically they did win when you can pick 3 items and CHS won two of them. That's more or less the definition of 'won the battle but lost the war (by losing battle after battle)'.

The scope of the trial isn't a close gap. GW hemorrhaged defensible objets d'arte from start to finish.

Anyone happen to know if they tried to claim the Maltese Cross or the Teutonic Knights-ish scheme of the Black Templars as their original iconography?

I believe that was included initially but got discarded before the trial.

Edit: I could be wrong on this, though. GW claims the Black Templar's chapter symbol (of the Teutonic Cross) in their blanket statement of things that are trademarked and I may be misapplying this particular instance to the CHS trial.

Big. Brass. Balls.

 Seaward wrote:
Big. Brass. Balls.

You'll get a kick out of this then:

In support of its independent-creation argument, Chapterhouse has submitted two separate motions seeking judicial notice. The first is a request for judicial notice of two political symbols displayed on the Anti-Defamation League’s website. The first, a symbol for the Nationalist Movement (a white-supremacist group), depicts a white cross comprised of two double-sided arrows set against a red background. The second, a symbol for the Ku Klux Klan, depicts a white cross with a red teardrop shape in the middle set against a circular red background. In its second request for judicial notice, Chapterhouse asks the Court to take judicial notice of H.R. Giger’s 1976 painting, Necronom IV, posted on Wikipedia. GW does not contest the motions. The Court grants Chapterhouse’s requests for judicial notice. Fed. R. Civ. P. 201(b).

(From waaaaay waaaaay back in the case)

So does this mean that items can now be easily sold as "Greater Daemon of Skull Taking - an alternative to GW 40k Greater Daemon of Khorne" providing the sculpt isnt sufficient similar but contains elements enough to make it GW looking?

Nobody knows yet. No final judgment.


However, CHS has recently changed their website in that sort of direction. They aren't stepping back at all:
Old Version

ChapterHouse Studios specializes in the creation of high end resin and metal miniature kits and parts applicable for use in a wide variety of Fantasy and Sci-fi Roleplaying and Wargaming. Our mission is to help address public demand for unavailable parts and iconography with the highest standards possible. As our company grows, so to does our ambition, and in the upcoming months we will be introducing some truly fantastic conversion kits and brand new miniatures! We can’t wait to share our new work with you, so stay tuned!

Current

ChapterHouse Studios specializes in the creation of high end resin and metal miniature kits and buts applicable for use with a variety of Warhammer and Warhammer 40k models and the games. Our mission is to help address public demand for unavailable parts and iconography with the highest standards possible. The general idea of our company is that every player should be able to add his own style and flavor to the models and armies they own and we aim to help do that.



SITE UPDATE - The Different styles of Heresy Era Shoulder Pads that are compatible with Games Workshop Terminator models are now back up for sale here!!

Heresy-Era Shoulder Pads for Terminators Type A - 2 pads


This is a set of 2 pewter shoulder pads designed to fit on Games Workshops Space Marine® Terminator figures. Each pad is designed in a style that will fit in with Heresy Era collections and the bad itself has draping armored segments flowing down and 3 distinct armored sections on the upper armor.

This component comes unpainted and is designed to fit on Games Workshop Space Marine® Terminator figures (figure shown for scale and one example of use only).

----------

This is why you see folks talking about something that on the face of it looks like a win (25k damages, prevailing on some claims) actually ending up being a big loss.

The original version of the CHS web site listed things like

Space Marine shoulder pad

This was later changed to Shoulder pad compatible with Space Marine.

GW probably included both usages in their claims and won the first but not the second. Anyone should win the first because it can easily be taken as "passing off". No-one should win the second because it is a completely legitimate use of the trademarked terms.

However, since CHS stopped that usage a couple of years ago, it is academic that they can't do it now. More importantly, they have been granted permission to use huge numbers of GW trademarks including some registered ones.

See the press release from the defence law firm.

http://www.winston.com/index.cfm?contentID=30&itemID=4587

I really hope this opens the flood gates for CHS, I really don't play a whole lot of 40k and the only thing I've bought from them is their ymargyl heads. I hope they continue to innovate new products so I can reward them with my wallet.

Backfire wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

It seems that a lot of white knights just do not get the fact that

The
Aftermarket
Parts
Business
Is
Legal.

Nobody has ever disputed that, the question is whether specific trademarks or copyrights were violated. People bring up car & guns aftermarket business - but there too manufacturers can and DO stomp on the aftermarket parts makers if they thing the parts are too reminiscent of their own designs, just like GW does.

Care to bet on that? I need the money.

Go through the thread - I can find some examples just a couple of pages back on the Lawsuit Update thread - after GW lost on so much of the cases, and it had been pointed out that it is legal.

There shouldn't be anybody disputing it, yet dispute it they do.

Because people are monkeys.

The Auld Grump would like to apologize to any monkeys that are offended by his above statement.

 Raesvelg wrote:

 AustonT wrote:

Deodorant Tank
Origami Baneblade

Oh god, I remember those. I'm not sure what the relevance is though, to be honest.

Typically one uses the quote box above the new comment to derive context, if you can write novels about whatever it is you're on about; I'm reasonably certain you'll figure it out.

 AustonT wrote:

Typically one uses the quote box above the new comment to derive context, if you can write novels about whatever it is you're on about; I'm reasonably certain you'll figure it out.

There's a difference between not understanding the insinuation and not finding to it have relevance.

There is a thought in the "real News thread" I wanted to explore but it would have been offtopic as consequences are not a discussion of the case. Lets discuss it here.

 Orinoco wrote:
I think they're worried about companies making "not space marines" and losing sales on Space Marines TM

Indeed - I can't help but think the real threat to them is not Chapterhouse, but actually, companies like Anvil Industries. Anvil makes a very similar product, there is no handy hook upon which to hang a lawsuit, and the production quality for Anvil is very nearly as good as vanilla Space Marines (indeed, I think many of the weapons are already better)... and he's always, refining, always polishing his lines and updating them.

Do you guys think that the case will embolden more shops/hobbyists/etc to start making similar lines?

Yes, I think we'll see some proliferation now. Some will be good, some bad. The market will dictate who will survive.

GW will need to watch out for companies reaching the point where they can afford tooling on larger kits in the SF war gaming niche. Anvil are slowly progressing that way, Secret Weapon and Antenociti's are already nearly there (and are there with resin kits which put entry level buyers off a bit).

Love those tox troopers on Anvil's site. Most definitely do want.

Resin is not a good material for tabletop wargame figures.

I see the Anvil Industries figures as boutique products for experienced modellers, much like Forge World. To rival GW more directly they would need to be done in polystyrene.

Mantic and other companies are starting to do that, though, so perhaps Anvil might go down that route.

Finecrap is resin.. did you know that?
Everything is perfectly fine for gaming if you know how to handle them...

Yeah, we use a lot of resin wild west figs. They're fine. Good idea to weight bases, but the same is true with plastic.

You could make models out of Gallium and they would be fine if people knew how to handle them, but most people don't know how to handle figures.

That is why robust designs and materials are better.

Finecrap is a flexible resin with filler material, made more robust for tabletop use.

Wait.. what? I saw Finecast break dozend of times when minis bounced of a hard floor....

You're probably see metal and polystyrene break too.

True.
So? That's what I said, wasn't it?
Almost all materials can be used for wargaming...

Some are better than others. It depends on the factors of strength, cost, ease of manufacture, ease of assembly, and detail.

Resin is not as good as polystyrene for inexperienced users, on most of those factors.

Resin is not a good material for tabletop wargame figures.

vs

Resin is not as good as polystyrene for inexperienced users, on most of those factors.

There already is a shift in quality in your posts.

Sure, plastic might be better.. but does that really mean resin is BAD?

Given the sheer number of headless, unpainted Space Marine torsos with a meltagun or missile launcher glued to the base that I've seen and played against on the tabletop, I highly doubt that "oh, resin" is going to turn many people away from a model if they were already considering a substitute purchase.

If you understand the difference between a resin or a plastic model, then you're probably advanced enough to deal with the ad'l intricacy.

If you don't understand the difference between resin or plastic, then your only concern is probably getting your mits on a serviceable model for 1/4 the price.

 Ouze wrote:
There is a thought in the "real News thread" I wanted to explore but it would have been offtopic as consequences are not a discussion of the case. Lets discuss it here.

 Orinoco wrote:
I think they're worried about companies making "not space marines" and losing sales on Space Marines TM

Indeed - I can't help but think the real threat to them is not Chapterhouse, but actually, companies like Anvil Industries. Anvil makes a very similar product, there is no handy hook upon which to hang a lawsuit, and the production quality for Anvil is very nearly as good as vanilla Space Marines (indeed, I think many of the weapons are already better)... and he's always, refining, always polishing his lines and updating them.

Do you guys think that the case will embolden more shops/hobbyists/etc to start making similar lines?

First, Anvil had the luxury to do that because it hasn't been involved in a lawsuit for the past two and a half years. So, yes, I think the CHS lawsuit has already emboldened companies. I think a favorable result for CHS will embolden them further, if by embolden you mean exercise their rights to use trademarks nominatively within the limits of fair use and create unique artistic expressions based on similar ideas and sources.

That was the first I've seen of those tox troopers, absolutely superb. I have always liked plenty of his stuff, and even when I haven't I admire the talent and effort.

Generally I really admire the enthusiastic entrepreneurs that make this gak... which is why I've backed so many kickstarters and indiegogos even though I never get around to painting any of them!

It makes me wish I was better at something other than simply being a witty, handsome, God of war. :(

RoninXiC wrote:
Resin is not a good material for tabletop wargame figures.

vs

Resin is not as good as polystyrene for inexperienced users, on most of those factors.

There already is a shift in quality in your posts.

Sure, plastic might be better.. but does that really mean resin is BAD?

Fundamentally resin is bad. It's okay for blocky models like spaceships and large vehicles. It is pretty easy to damage for thin parts like infantry figures.

Experienced users are better at dealing with it, as they understand its qualities.

A material which is good for some of users is not as good as a material which is good for all of users.

I disagree. Generally the larger the part you're trying to cast the greater the warping. From general use, I've had no damage on resin models. 'course if you keep your models in a bucket...

The functionality of resin is not the consequence of the GW vs. Chapterhouse verdict.

So looking at the CHS website it appears, or at least it does so to me, that all compatable bits, minus a few, are okay, but complete, competing, kits are not.

EG Doomseer, not a scorpion and Truscale.

If thats one of the rulings from the trial, it does not bode well for other companies that make not-a figurines.

Come on Judge, type quicker!

Cheers

Andrew

I'm probably the target demographic that KK is talking about. I don't look at the models as "art"; they're physical representations on a plank of wood, game pieces for the game I play. I hate resin. It's a high maintenance material that you must wash, use hot water to soften so that you may straighten or use other materials to fill in defects. I have neither the time nor inclination to deal with it. I do, however, have a fairly large amount of disposable income which companies that depend on resin for their products do not benefit from. Give me plastics leave the "pro modeling" for those that have more time to dedicate to it.

Edit: sorry for contributing to the off-topic chain but it is somewhat relevant in that CHS won't be seeing any of my money for the same reason. Sad too because I like the idea of magnetized razorback kits.

weeble1000 wrote:

Remember that back in the beginning of this case, Magistrate Judge Gilbert told the parties that after this whole thing was over, both companies were still going to be alive, in business, in the same market, and they would have to find some way to coexist.

His point was that even if GW wanted to be harsh, wanted to be unreasonable, and wanted to go all the way to a jury verdict, GW was still not going to be able to get what it wanted, so why not work it out like reasonable people beforehand and save everyone a lot of time and money.

Well, GW ignored his advice and you see what happened.

This ^. GW has consistently demonstrated that it doesn't want to share the market with anyone and they're willing to bully people out of it. Well, this time they should have played nice. Now there exists a precedent and it's going to be that much harder for them to bully other garage businesses now.

If I remember correctly didn't a couple of guys get hounded by GW some years back? One was running a fan site for BFG if I remember correctly and the other was producing models for use with Bloodbowl. Are they likely to make a return or has too much time gone by?

GW did a big round of suppression of Blood Bowl fan sites about three years ago (I think).

It seems to have been triggered by someone making models for star players in BB that GW did not make the models for.

Now that the dam is broken, will GW have to tolerate fansites as legal?

Good thing that the Fantasy Football scene is alive and kicking, with new non-GW releases every month, with better quality than old GW models.

Yeh , they did a C& D on Fumbl over some of their names being used - poss around the time of the Video Game coming out - could be related to wanting to protect that IP that they licenced to whoever made that Vid game as I think other Bloodbowl sites were targetted and IIRC one had to shut down .

BOT Seems to me that CHS may be a vanguard for a possible wave - would be good to see CHS benefit for their stance

 Kilkrazy wrote:
GW did a big round of suppression of Blood Bowl fan sites about three years ago (I think).

It seems to have been triggered by someone making models for star players in BB that GW did not make the models for.

GW responded by killing the rules for those models. So defeating the purpose for making models for rules which can't be used. This is the same reason why they won't release rules for models they don't make anymore, and by being the first to the market with a model, it drains the potential need for 3rd party (except if the model sucks)

This is why PP doesn't have this issue. They wrote rules which squash conversions and weapon options so the only reason to go 3rd party for PP is if you really dislike the look of the original mode.

While shoulderpads/guardalternatives/headswaps may still have a market... Who is going to buy 3rd party Tervigons now that GW has a model? Who will buy a 3rd party wraithknight now that it has a model? Right now a market which seems to be blowing up is 3rd party ADLs due to a lack of faction specific ones. If GW had released faction-specific fortifications rules with appropriate models, we would see almost zero market for the custom models.

It does feel like while 3rd party Bitz are alive and well, 3rd party models due to the change it rule-release with models is being reduced. I haven't seen hardly any real total 3rd party models for core codex models since GW changed their release schedule.

Is it funny that my work firewall labels the lawyers press release as "Suspicious" and blocks access to it...

 agnosto wrote:
I'm probably the target demographic that KK is talking about. I don't look at the models as "art"; they're physical representations on a plank of wood, game pieces for the game I play. I hate resin. It's a high maintenance material that you must wash, use hot water to soften so that you may straighten or use other materials to fill in defects. I have neither the time nor inclination to deal with it. I do, however, have a fairly large amount of disposable income which companies that depend on resin for their products do not benefit from. Give me plastics leave the "pro modeling" for those that have more time to dedicate to it.

Edit: sorry for contributing to the off-topic chain but it is somewhat relevant in that CHS won't be seeing any of my money for the same reason. Sad too because I like the idea of magnetized razorback kits.

Well cast resin requires far less work than equivalent plastic kits. It's definitely not difficult with good models. The only real difference for the most part is the glue you have to use.
You should wash all models prior to priming anyway; even finger grease from handling during basic clean up can bork the job.

nkelsch wrote:
This is why PP doesn't have this issue. They wrote rules which squash conversions and weapon options so the only reason to go 3rd party for PP is if you really dislike the look of the original mode.

I think this is wrong, being both a WMH and 40k player.
PP don't have this problem, because they have *models* which squash conversions. Until recently, the vast majority of PP's line has been metal, and now they have some models in restic. There are very few models which are multi-part for any reason other than casting convenience - nothing has replaceable shoulder pads. PP models get converted less not because players don't want to convert, it is just bloody difficult compared to GW stuff.
GW models invite conversion. Arms which end at the wrist so different weapons can be attached. Torsos, legs, heads and arms separately on the sprue.
That, and PP don't have this 'problem' because they are not big enough yet.

Also the wealth of fluff in 40k. The richness of the background, and whatever John Blanche used to smoke, makes a lot of variety and conversions desirable.

Trasvi wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
This is why PP doesn't have this issue. They wrote rules which squash conversions and weapon options so the only reason to go 3rd party for PP is if you really dislike the look of the original mode.

I think this is wrong, being both a WMH and 40k player.
PP don't have this problem, because they have *models* which squash conversions. Until recently, the vast majority of PP's line has been metal, and now they have some models in restic. There are very few models which are multi-part for any reason other than casting convenience - nothing has replaceable shoulder pads. PP models get converted less not because players don't want to convert, it is just bloody difficult compared to GW stuff.
GW models invite conversion. Arms which end at the wrist so different weapons can be attached. Torsos, legs, heads and arms separately on the sprue.
That, and PP don't have this 'problem' because they are not big enough yet.

I don't know that I agree with much of this.

We were driven to convert when GW had a mostly metal too. PPs metals are just as 'multi-part' as GW's metals were. And PP has a Bitz store. I don't agree it is 'harder' to convert... just lack of motivation or reason to convert.

Why should I change the look of a warjack? Why should I do a weapon swap on a Gatorman? Unless there are rules or fluff driving me to do so, there is almost no reason to attempt to modify a stock model.

PP designed rules which don't require or even allow for conversions and defined a universe with the touched-upon fluff represented in models. If they had gone into a wide array of different types of clans which shared rules or lots of unseen beasties, then there would be a reason.

And PP is pretty large. Arguably it is larger than 40k if you consider warmahordes 1 game, I would expect to see a proportionate focus on PP to their marketshare, but there is almost zero 3rd party stand-ins. Lack of fluff and rules means a lack of models.

Trasvi wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
This is why PP doesn't have this issue. They wrote rules which squash conversions and weapon options so the only reason to go 3rd party for PP is if you really dislike the look of the original mode.

I think this is wrong, being both a WMH and 40k player.
PP don't have this problem, because they have *models* which squash conversions. Until recently, the vast majority of PP's line has been metal, and now they have some models in restic. There are very few models which are multi-part for any reason other than casting convenience - nothing has replaceable shoulder pads. PP models get converted less not because players don't want to convert, it is just bloody difficult compared to GW stuff.
GW models invite conversion. Arms which end at the wrist so different weapons can be attached. Torsos, legs, heads and arms separately on the sprue.
That, and PP don't have this 'problem' because they are not big enough yet.

That's funny I was MORE apt to convert my metal minis...

Does anyone have a complete list of all the kits Chapterhouse have removed from their website?

nkelsch wrote:

Why should I change the look of a warjack? Why should I do a weapon swap on a Gatorman? Unless there are rules or fluff driving me to do so, there is almost no reason to attempt to modify a stock model.

Because some of the model/weapon looks like gak and you think you can make it look better? There are some weapons on those models that are truly horrendous. As for saying there is lack of fluff limits conversions, you really are only limited by your imagination. When starting WM, had the idea of a corrupted (Cryx) Cygnar army. Whole idea was based on the thought that Haley's mind was warped from having to use a Cryx jack in her battle with her sister. Didn't follow through after reading and hearing about PP's restrictive view on conversions. That and all the metal cutting involved

And don't think PP isn't big enough. The conversion/bit sights are already servicing them with bases. If they weren't, you wouldn't see the round lipped bases that are available, only bevel edge. By having active support for tournaments, PP has enabled a policy that prevents 3rd parties from being able to edge in on their business. If were GW were to become heavily active in supporting tournaments again and require a similarly restrictive policy, you would see a lot of the 3rd bit sites suffer.

To add to the list of $1,000,000 better spent, GW could have thrown that money at global tournament support and probably had a bigger impact on their bottom line than this suit.

*edit* removed portion for incorrect assumption.

silent25 wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

Why should I change the look of a warjack? Why should I do a weapon swap on a Gatorman? Unless there are rules or fluff driving me to do so, there is almost no reason to attempt to modify a stock model.

Because some of the model/weapon looks like gak and you think you can make it look better? There are some weapons on those models that are truly horrendous. As for saying there is lack of fluff limits conversions, you really are only limited by your imagination. When starting WM, had the idea of a corrupted (Cryx) Cygnar army. Whole idea was based on the thought that Haley's mind was warped from having to use a Cryx jack in her battle with her sister. Didn't follow through after reading and hearing about PP's restrictive view on conversions. That and all the metal cutting involved

Funny that you mention Cygnar-Cryx as something you wanted...give me a sec

edit: dangit I can't find it, it was a great thing on the PP forums of a guy who converted Cygnar into half-Cryx half-Cygnar stuff. I'm going to keep looking.

 motyak wrote:

silent25 wrote:

nkelsch wrote:

Why should I change the look of a warjack? Why should I do a weapon swap on a Gatorman? Unless there are rules or fluff driving me to do so, there is almost no reason to attempt to modify a stock model.

Because some of the model/weapon looks like gak and you think you can make it look better? There are some weapons on those models that are truly horrendous. As for saying there is lack of fluff limits conversions, you really are only limited by your imagination. When starting WM, had the idea of a corrupted (Cryx) Cygnar army. Whole idea was based on the thought that Haley's mind was warped from having to use a Cryx jack in her battle with her sister. Didn't follow through after reading and hearing about PP's restrictive view on conversions. That and all the metal cutting involved

Funny that you mention Cygnar-Cryx as something you wanted...give me a sec

edit: dangit I can't find it, it was a great thing on the PP forums of a guy who converted Cygnar into half-Cryx half-Cygnar stuff. I'm going to keep looking.

It was called cryx-nar. Here ya go: http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?53190-Cryx-nar-an-epic-conversion-adventure

Also just for good measure, Khador/Cygnar (the Stormhammer brigade): http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?98-Stormhammer-the-Assault-on-Sul

I know the Stormhammer stuff has been allowed in major competition before as well. People keep thinking the PP conversion policy is unbendably rigid, but actually it's just about making sure your models are still recognizable for what they're meant to be. I mean, if someone declared their stormraven was a Vendetta, or that a powersword was a thunderhammer, that would be pretty frowned upon in 40k too. Plus, I've seen long loooong debates over whether setting up Landraiders to fire from the front ports or the back ports is "Modelling for Advantage". Really, the only difference is that PP has clearly laid out guidelines to help keep things recognisable, BUT ALSO has a very specific line that ANY conversion can be approved of by a TO at his discretion (Rule of Cool trumps all).

 Maddermax wrote:


It was called cryx-nar. Here ya go: http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?53190-Cryx-nar-an-epic-conversion-adventure

Also just for good measure, Khador/Cygnar (the Stormhammer brigade): http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?98-Stormhammer-the-Assault-on-Sul

I know the Stormhammer stuff has been allowed in major competition before as well. People keep thinking the PP conversion policy is unbendably rigid, but actually it's just about making sure your models are still recognizable for what they're meant to be. I mean, if someone declared their stormraven was a Vendetta, or that a powersword was a thunderhammer, that would be pretty frowned upon in 40k too. Plus, I've seen long loooong debates over whether setting up Landraiders to fire from the front ports or the back ports is "Modelling for Advantage". Really, the only difference is that PP has clearly laid out guidelines to help keep things recognisable, BUT ALSO has a very specific line that ANY conversion can be approved of by a TO at his discretion (Rule of Cool trumps all).

Yea, I saw that, but being at the mercy of a TO isn't that appealing when you are about to embark on a major conversion project.

And I think that's enough about PP's policies on conversions. Even for a thread with an intentionally broad topic, we're wandering pretty far afield.

One of the possible outcomes that I would like to see is folks creating WH40K material, and coming up with the rules to support the new stuff. Not good for organized or tournament play - but for friendly games? It would be fun.

Mind you, GW being GW they would sue over that and unless taken to court about something that has already been well established as legal....

The Auld Grump

I think GW would be fine with that as long as you don't try to make money from it.

The setup of 40K is left open so people can make their own SM chapters, Hive Fleets and so on, to do campaigns and what-not.

GW wouldn't like it if you used non-GW models for your variant forces.

I think the biggest change is gw will not release stuff unless they can protect it 100%. Codex will either have less new or take longer to release.

Now this is a wild guess and hope to god I'm way off and wrong and being weird, but I cod see gw changing every kit that chapterhouse is making bits for so none of their bits work with current models.

I know at a local gw store they cracked down on models that don't look like full gw. They even said something about my resin bases.

 cgage00 wrote:
Now this is a wild guess and hope to god I'm way off and wrong and being weird, but I cod see gw changing every kit that chapterhouse is making bits for so none of their bits work with current models.

That's going to be really difficult with some of those. Hard to make a Terminator Shoulder Pad obsolete without going to full-bodied, monopose models. It would also cost quite a bit to re-do basically their entire Marine line.

I do think that you'll see GW releasing far fewer 'empty' codices--every entry is going to have a model.

silent25 wrote:

But one last point on GW losing to a small garage operation. It was pointed out in the main CHS vs. GW thread that it appeared CHS got upwards of $4,000,000 in pro-bono work. They outspent GW 4:1, but CHS was only able to get about a 60/40 split on the ruling. For that much spent, CHS should have gotten off scot-free.

Where? I would like to read that for myself.

~Eric