Faeit received several warnings and failed to heed them or so it appears. I am sure another rumors blog will spring up soon and the Naftka blog will be forgotten. I don't really care one way or another. It is just some pictures on the internet... doesn't really matter to be from whence they appear.
Dozer Blades wrote: Faeit received several warnings and failed to heed them or so it appears. I am sure another rumors blog will spring up soon and the Naftka blog will be forgotten. I don't really care one way or another. It is just some pictures on the internet... doesn't really matter to be from whence they appear.
If everyone gets closed down, the pictures won't appear from anywhere.
(I'm only on page 8, so I'm not commenting on anything beyond that... if this has been pointed out, I'm sorry.)
And yet, GW's stock rises. Today is probably too soon to see whether this move was a financially sound one, but right now it looks like their backers approve.
Dozer Blades wrote: Faeit received several warnings and failed to heed them or so it appears. I am sure another rumors blog will spring up soon and the Naftka blog will be forgotten. I don't really care one way or another. It is just some pictures on the internet... doesn't really matter to be from whence they appear.
Only relevant if what they were doing was wrong or illegal. GW can send notices till they are blue in the face, that doesnt make their claim valid. The only thing which appears to have befallen Faeit was ignoring Google and their ToS...but it appears that Nafka refutes that...in his posts on BoLS.
Farseer Faenyin wrote: "We have lost the sales of old models for the (Insert Infringed Army Here) because somebody leaked that new models were on the way and provided hard evidence. Because of this, we lost $X of average models sales for this range. We need to shut it down!"
Dozer Blades wrote: Faeit received several warnings and failed to heed them or so it appears. I am sure another rumors blog will spring up soon and the Naftka blog will be forgotten. I don't really care one way or another. It is just some pictures on the internet... doesn't really matter to be from whence they appear.
If everyone gets closed down, the pictures won't appear from anywhere.
But since everyone who is upset never buys from GW anyways because supporting GW is immoral, then never seeing leaked models of a product they will never buy anyways doesn't really impact them.
And since people who buy GW are all brainwashed GW supporters, they already support GW's legal claims to block leaked/pirated materials. So they are happy about the photos being blocked.
So everyone wins? Unless there are people who shake their fist and gnash their teeth at GW but continue to buy plasticrack and are addicted to these photos as well as GW's product. I was lead to believe those people don't exist.
Kromlech released a new cool model and is now getting my money... I am not going to get upset over GW's dealings, companies who make me happy get my money.
Farseer Faenyin wrote: "We have lost the sales of old models for the (Insert Infringed Army Here) because somebody leaked that new models were on the way and provided hard evidence. Because of this, we lost $X of average models sales for this range. We need to shut it down!"
HA! Good luck actually proving that.
Not to mention, in this theoretical situation, those lost sales have been replaced by sales of your new product, you've been running inventory down in preparation for the new release, so in actual fact, nothing is lost, in the long run.
Kirby should grow himself a mustache. Just a small, narrow strip right under his nose. And some side parting. Some uniform to go along with it. Dress outside like you're inside!
The question is: Do we let GW tank on itself and let them continue to damage "our" hobby? or do we start putting as much info out there for people to decide whether or not they want to continue to support a corrupt company... I almost hate to admit it, but GW has become a corrupt, money-mongering, self-absorbed sorry excuse of a product. It just burns me to no end that they are so infatuated with the idea that they are doing good for themselves that they are willing to go to legal-war with the world to say "We're the best!". I take pride in smacking anyone or anything down that gets out of line and I do wonder how many others fell the same way...
WarlordRob117 wrote: The question is: Do we let GW tank on itself and let them continue to damage "our" hobby? or do we start putting as much info out there for people to decide whether or not they want to continue to support a corrupt company... I almost hate to admit it, but GW has become a corrupt, money-mongering, self-absorbed sorry excuse of a product. It just burns me to no end that they are so infatuated with the idea that they are doing good for themselves that they are willing to go to legal-war with the world to say "We're the best!". I take pride in smacking anyone or anything down that gets out of line and I do wonder how many others fell the same way...
If you disagree with GW's business practices, stop buying from them. It's really that simple.
So long as you buy their products, they'll continue to do things like this.
GW is a model company. One of the main things they are worried about is re-casts.
If somebody leaks pictures good enough for a re-caster to get start on the model and that re-caster gets the faux model in the channel before GW, that is very bad for GW.
I think in addition to protecting their IP, GW is attempting to stop pre-release fake models.
If the quality is roughly the same and the price of a re-cast is far, far less, many people would buy that model, especially if they can get their hands on it before the "official" model is released.
I think part of the trouble the rumor sites got into was the 3d model that was made from the pix they released. GW, I'm sure, is very worried about this.
evancich wrote: If somebody leaks pictures good enough for a re-caster to get start on the model and that re-caster gets the faux model in the channel before GW, that is very bad for GW.
As has been said, that's absurd.
The recaster would then have to sculpt and create a new model whilst GW already has the stock made and ready to sell within a couple of weeks.
GW is a model company. One of the main things they are worried about is re-casts.
If somebody leaks pictures good enough for a re-caster to get start on the model and that re-caster gets the faux model in the channel before GW, that is very bad for GW.
I think in addition to protecting their IP, GW is attempting to stop pre-release fake models.
If the quality is roughly the same and the price of a re-cast is far, far less, many people would buy that model, especially if they can get their hands on it before the "official" model is released.
I think part of the trouble the rumor sites got into was the 3d model that was made from the pix they released. GW, I'm sure, is very worried about this.
I think you have a fundamental confusion between a recast and another company producing a unique model based on a GW concept.
This is the same thing Rancored Elf got in trouble with WotC over. Posting rumors is one thing. Photographing IP and putting it on your website before it's released to the public by the copyright holder is absurd.
Unfortunately, Faeit doesn't post very much commentary along with these things, so even of he could afford to litigate, I don't think it would go well for him.
I bet he'll be back rumor mongering soon. You'll just have to learn to take his word for it becuse he won't be posting anymore pics.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It's not just about recasts, it's about anyone who would've bought WD just to see the High Elf preview and now doesn't need to because Faeit leaked it.
Shamsael wrote: This is the same thing Rancored Elf got in trouble with WotC over. Posting rumors is one thing. Photographing IP and putting it on your website before it's released to the public by the copyright holder is absurd.
Unfortunately, Faeit doesn't post very much commentary along with these things, so even of he could afford to litigate, I don't think it would go well for him.
I bet he'll be back rumor mongering soon. You'll just have to learn to take his word for it becuse he won't be posting anymore pics.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It's not just about recasts, it's about anyone who would've bought WD just to see the High Elf preview and now doesn't need to because Faeit leaked it.
There is no provision on how much commentary has to be done. Conceivably, his Monday night commentary could be considered enough, however, he posts a lot more than that during the week. In the end, it won't matter for each post specifically, because the website establishes a pattern of news reporting, therefore protecting him.
GW is evil/greedy/stupid/mean/crazy/insert other complaint....
All of this hate and venom...on a FAN SITE!
I know that I’m in the minority here, but I just have to say this…people have been ripping off GW for years, and try in every way to do it every day…
No? How about all of the “bitz makers”? Don’t think that they should be punished for making Shoulder Pads that “GW doesn’t make”?
They are ILLEGALLY using someone else’s COPYWRITTEN material to make money. Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
How about putting COPYWRITTEN material up without the owner’s CONSENT? Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
All of you twits can whine and moan all you like, but the truth is GW is the biggest player out there, so everyone tries to take everything that they can out of them.
I know that some of their directions/policies don’t make sense to us…but guess what? YOU ARE NOT IN THE BOARD ROOM. YOU DON’T KNOW WHY THEY ARE DOING WHAT THEY DO.
You can guess. You can assume. You can use your sources/diploma/insider information/magic to try and understand what GW does, but unless you are IN THE BOARD ROOM when these policies are determined, all you are doing is shooting your mouth off about something that you know nothing about.
So, if you want to “spend your money” on something else, then go do it. PLEASE, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. I, for one, am so SICK AND TIRED of reading nothing but “GW IS EVIL” posts on a FAN SITE. I might as well go get my daily fix of 40K stuff on PRIVATEER PRESS’ website, for all the hate and complaining I see here.
evancich wrote: If somebody leaks pictures good enough for a re-caster to get start on the model and that re-caster gets the faux model in the channel before GW, that is very bad for GW.
As has been said, that's absurd.
The recaster would then have to sculpt and create a new model whilst GW already has the stock made and ready to sell within a couple of weeks.
This is not at all a realistic concern.
Totally disagree. Based on the leaked Eldar pix, some folks were able to model the "yet to be released" model in ProE or SolidWorks. The file was good enough to send to a CNC machine.
Yes, yes GW could have many of those models sitting in a warehouse and ready to ship in 6 weeks or so. I can take those G-codes and do a print on demand run and make roughly the same model and sell it for maybe 25% of the cost of the GW model and I can beat them to the channel and my ability to handle demand is based on many CNC print on demand services that exist. I didn't have to pay the scuptlers or the R&D, I just had some guys send a few hours and make me a 3d model and I put the correct vectors and geo in it and poof I can build thousands of them, faster and cheaper than GW.
This is one of the things GW is worried about and it finally happened in the leaked Eldar pix.
Is making a 3d model off pix that different than getting it in hand and making rubber molds? Who cares, the end result is the same. Faux models entering the channel for a lot less than GW sells them.
Matney X wrote: (I'm only on page 8, so I'm not commenting on anything beyond that... if this has been pointed out, I'm sorry.)
And yet, GW's stock rises. Today is probably too soon to see whether this move was a financially sound one, but right now it looks like their backers approve.
Even if this all is something GW is responsible for, I highly doubt it's anything that would have affected their stock price at all. Aside from Mr. Kirby, all of GW's relevant shareholders are large Hedge Funds that make their decisions at far higher levels.
GW is evil/greedy/stupid/mean/crazy/insert other complaint....
All of this hate and venom...on a FAN SITE!
I know that I’m in the minority here, but I just have to say this…people have been ripping off GW for years, and try in every way to do it every day…
No? How about all of the “bitz makers”? Don’t think that they should be punished for making Shoulder Pads that “GW doesn’t make”?
They are ILLEGALLY using someone else’s COPYWRITTEN material to make money. Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
How about putting COPYWRITTEN material up without the owner’s CONSENT? Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
All of you twits can whine and moan all you like, but the truth is GW is the biggest player out there, so everyone tries to take everything that they can out of them.
I know that some of their directions/policies don’t make sense to us…but guess what? YOU ARE NOT IN THE BOARD ROOM. YOU DON’T KNOW WHY THEY ARE DOING WHAT THEY DO.
You can guess. You can assume. You can use your sources/diploma/insider information/magic to try and understand what GW does, but unless you are IN THE BOARD ROOM when these policies are determined, all you are doing is shooting your mouth off about something that you know nothing about.
So, if you want to “spend your money” on something else, then go do it. PLEASE, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. I, for one, am so SICK AND TIRED of reading nothing but “GW IS EVIL” posts on a FAN SITE. I might as well go get my daily fix of 40K stuff on PRIVATEER PRESS’ website, for all the hate and complaining I see here.
Don't feel compelled to listen to many other people, with various levels of legal insight/qualification saying that what Faiet, and, as you seem to be referring to them, CHS are doing may well be legal and GW's actions tantamount to bullying, hey?
Plus, this is a FAN SITE for WARGAMING not for GAMES WORKSHOP, and, as is often pointed out, if they do something people like, they will receive praise, they just don't do it that often in many people's eyes these days.
No, no, Canute knew that he couldn't stop the tide and was showing this to his courtiers. It's only in the retelling that he comes across as a pillock.
GW is evil/greedy/stupid/mean/crazy/insert other complaint....
All of this hate and venom...on a FAN SITE!
I know that I’m in the minority here, but I just have to say this…people have been ripping off GW for years, and try in every way to do it every day…
No? How about all of the “bitz makers”? Don’t think that they should be punished for making Shoulder Pads that “GW doesn’t make”?
They are ILLEGALLY using someone else’s COPYWRITTEN material to make money. Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
How about putting COPYWRITTEN material up without the owner’s CONSENT? Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
All of you twits can whine and moan all you like, but the truth is GW is the biggest player out there, so everyone tries to take everything that they can out of them.
I know that some of their directions/policies don’t make sense to us…but guess what? YOU ARE NOT IN THE BOARD ROOM. YOU DON’T KNOW WHY THEY ARE DOING WHAT THEY DO.
You can guess. You can assume. You can use your sources/diploma/insider information/magic to try and understand what GW does, but unless you are IN THE BOARD ROOM when these policies are determined, all you are doing is shooting your mouth off about something that you know nothing about.
So, if you want to “spend your money” on something else, then go do it. PLEASE, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. I, for one, am so SICK AND TIRED of reading nothing but “GW IS EVIL” posts on a FAN SITE. I might as well go get my daily fix of 40K stuff on PRIVATEER PRESS’ website, for all the hate and complaining I see here.
Way to go on not reading the thread and making judgements without knowing the facts.
GW is evil/greedy/stupid/mean/crazy/insert other complaint....
All of this hate and venom...on a FAN SITE!
I know that I’m in the minority here, but I just have to say this…people have been ripping off GW for years, and try in every way to do it every day…
No? How about all of the “bitz makers”? Don’t think that they should be punished for making Shoulder Pads that “GW doesn’t make”?
They are ILLEGALLY using someone else’s COPYWRITTEN material to make money. Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
How about putting COPYWRITTEN material up without the owner’s CONSENT? Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
All of you twits can whine and moan all you like, but the truth is GW is the biggest player out there, so everyone tries to take everything that they can out of them.
I know that some of their directions/policies don’t make sense to us…but guess what? YOU ARE NOT IN THE BOARD ROOM. YOU DON’T KNOW WHY THEY ARE DOING WHAT THEY DO.
You can guess. You can assume. You can use your sources/diploma/insider information/magic to try and understand what GW does, but unless you are IN THE BOARD ROOM when these policies are determined, all you are doing is shooting your mouth off about something that you know nothing about.
So, if you want to “spend your money” on something else, then go do it. PLEASE, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. I, for one, am so SICK AND TIRED of reading nothing but “GW IS EVIL” posts on a FAN SITE. I might as well go get my daily fix of 40K stuff on PRIVATEER PRESS’ website, for all the hate and complaining I see here.
Dude - enough of us DO know enough about the law to know that, no, the 'Bits Makers' aren't breaking the law.
Look up after market conversions - pretty much every good model company on the planet has smaller companies that make things for use with their models, from brass etched deck guns to rat lines.
Most model companies even go so far as to send kits to some of the bigger after market companies, because they increase sales.
Every automobile company has smaller companies that make after market parts, from seat coves to mufflers, to entire new bodies designed to go on existing chassis.
Some of the automobile companies have taken after market producers to court - and they have lost every time.
So, the part that some people are missing is IT ISN'T ILLEGAL, STUPID!
GW depends on the small companies not having the funds to defend themselves - and now, some of those companies have started fighting back. But others... just don't have the funds to do so. Not having the funds does not mean that they are wrong or breaking the law, it means that they cannot afford to take it to court.
GW is a model company. One of the main things they are worried about is re-casts.
If somebody leaks pictures good enough for a re-caster to get start on the model and that re-caster gets the faux model in the channel before GW, that is very bad for GW.
I think in addition to protecting their IP, GW is attempting to stop pre-release fake models.
If the quality is roughly the same and the price of a re-cast is far, far less, many people would buy that model, especially if they can get their hands on it before the "official" model is released.
I think part of the trouble the rumor sites got into was the 3d model that was made from the pix they released. GW, I'm sure, is very worried about this.
What you describe isn't recasting, it's making a model that looks like GW, which is rather different.
Sean_OBrien wrote: Interesting addition, though I would disagree with his conclusion of GW having standing...especially in the US, because of the journalistic nature and public interest issues related to the infringing material.
If the information regarding Faeit is correct it may be an issue with Google's Blogger demerit system for why it was taken down.
That doesn't actually change the specific underlying issues of GWs heavy handed and out of line use of the DMCA. Unfortunately, it would mean that one of the recipients would have to actually challenge the claims.
Here is the thing though. As a civil lawsuit, it would make no sense for someone like Faeit to challenge GW in court. He doesn't make money of his blog and would have to find pro-bono representation. Somebody like the EFF might be willing to do so, but the out of pocket legal expenses such as filing fees would still make it very expensive for no gain (except to get his blog back up).
While I agree in principle, their is actually a fairly substantial sized group of lawyers who are looking to get involved in a case just like this...and will do so on a pro bono basis. There is basis for filing a countersuit and winning large sums of money for false claims (See OPG v. Diebold). Not to mention lawyers who want to fight this particular fight, or those who are simply interested in checking a box for pro bono hours.
+1. Indeed. This has put-your-foot-in-it written all over it. It will be very, very interesting to see how this situation develops over the coming weeks, especially considering the CHS lawsuit and the change in GW trade terms. GW is basically asking to be sued, and as Sean said, there are plenty of lawyers out there for whom such a case would be attractive.
GW is evil/greedy/stupid/mean/crazy/insert other complaint....
All of this hate and venom...on a FAN SITE!
I know that I’m in the minority here, but I just have to say this…people have been ripping off GW for years, and try in every way to do it every day…
No? How about all of the “bitz makers”? Don’t think that they should be punished for making Shoulder Pads that “GW doesn’t make”?
They are ILLEGALLY using someone else’s COPYWRITTEN material to make money. Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
How about putting COPYWRITTEN material up without the owner’s CONSENT? Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
All of you twits can whine and moan all you like, but the truth is GW is the biggest player out there, so everyone tries to take everything that they can out of them.
I know that some of their directions/policies don’t make sense to us…but guess what? YOU ARE NOT IN THE BOARD ROOM. YOU DON’T KNOW WHY THEY ARE DOING WHAT THEY DO.
You can guess. You can assume. You can use your sources/diploma/insider information/magic to try and understand what GW does, but unless you are IN THE BOARD ROOM when these policies are determined, all you are doing is shooting your mouth off about something that you know nothing about.
So, if you want to “spend your money” on something else, then go do it. PLEASE, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. I, for one, am so SICK AND TIRED of reading nothing but “GW IS EVIL” posts on a FAN SITE. I might as well go get my daily fix of 40K stuff on PRIVATEER PRESS’ website, for all the hate and complaining I see here.
Just like GW stole ALOT of their ideas from James Cameron's Alien/Aliens/terminator? let's look, cadians = direct rip off of colonial marines. necron = direct rip of of terminator
I am more amazed, at this point, that people are actually trying to defend GW about this.
Their actions are illegal.
Full stop.
Reviews can occur before release.
In fact there is even a word for that: "preview."
Previews are not exclusively to the release.
Anyone that has a view before release can release information about that "preview" despite what GW claims.
Next up GW sues Hasbro for using d6 in their games like Monopoly.
WarlordRob117 wrote: The question is: Do we let GW tank on itself and let them continue to damage "our" hobby? or do we start putting as much info out there for people to decide whether or not they want to continue to support a corrupt company... I almost hate to admit it, but GW has become a corrupt, money-mongering, self-absorbed sorry excuse of a product. It just burns me to no end that they are so infatuated with the idea that they are doing good for themselves that they are willing to go to legal-war with the world to say "We're the best!". I take pride in smacking anyone or anything down that gets out of line and I do wonder how many others fell the same way...
If you disagree with GW's business practices, stop buying from them. It's really that simple.
So long as you buy their products, they'll continue to do things like this.
I got that, but that wont stop the train. I like helping to promote change in something that is destroying the core of the game we love to play: "Have fun"... how can you have fun knowing that every model you buy supports a company whose goal seems to be premier control of the wargaming industry? Its not like I can say "Hay Dakka! we shouldnt buy from GW to send a statement"... 1) I'd get laughed at 2) people would still buy because they love the models. So what are we left with? what effective means, just short of calling Anonymous, do we have at our disposal as consumers to say "Hey Jackass, you're going about this the wrong way!"
I know with our collective brilliant minds something can be done...
Turn your phone sideways!!! edit: Wow, he just made a dig at Dakka "I do NOT like to post there."
That was fairly weird, he just lost my support.
Noone steps on a church in my town.
He criticised Warseer too: one suspects its the nature of forums and the variety of opinions (both good and bad) that puts people off.
I'd imagine you get less criticism on a blog that people actively follow...
Turn your phone sideways!!! edit: Wow, he just made a dig at Dakka "I do NOT like to post there."
That was fairly weird, he just lost my support.
Noone steps on a church in my town.
He criticised Warseer too: one suspects its the nature of forums and the variety of opinions (both good and bad) that puts people off.
I'd imagine you get less criticism on a blog that people actively follow...
And where you can delete/moderate the comments as you like.
CaptainLoken wrote: They are ILLEGALLY using someone else’s COPYWRITTEN material to make money. Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
How about putting COPYWRITTEN material up without the owner’s CONSENT? Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
Can you show what copyrights GW owns that you claim are being infringed upon?
They do own the copyrights to their publications. The nature of taking a picture, you instantly own the copyright to that image, And reproducing copyrighted publications without the owners consent is an issue. The issue has never been 'does GW own the copyrights of their own publications" but is what they are doing 'fair use' and not infringing upon the copyrights. People have made a case it is news reporting and not enough of the source material to be infringement... And then there is 21 pages of a copywrited publication which seems to skate near or over the line.
To claim GW doesn't have the copyrights to their publications or codexes is absurd.
Shamsael wrote: This is the same thing Rancored Elf got in trouble with WotC over. Posting rumors is one thing. Photographing IP and putting it on your website before it's released to the public by the copyright holder is absurd.
But this cannot be because WotC is good an pure and if they bought GW everything would magically get better!
I'm not saying that I particularly like GW's business practices, but this is nothing out of ordinary. Other companies do similar stuff too, people just don't realise that because they're not obsessing over every action of those other companies.
Rorschach9 wrote:GW has no choice but to defend their IP and copyright. If they don't, they lose the ability to defend it in the future. It doesn't matter if it's a small infringement or large, they have the legal obligation to defend it.
GW has to defend their IP, otherwise everyone would use Roman numbers, arrows, skulls, fur, halberds, Moorcock's Chaos Star, Judge Dreads shoulder pads, Heinlein's Space Marines, Tolkien's Elves and Dwarfs, ...
GW has to defend their IP, otherwise everyone would make free advertising for GW products
TheAuldGrump wrote: GW Board of Directors Found Murdered.
GW Stock Leaps 75% on NYSE....
The Auld Grump
Dakka finally arrived at the final station of the Hate-Train: Murder City.
Congratulations on wishing the deaths of complete strangers - a classy move indeed.
Read that again: It is not wishing death to anyone, it is just pointing at the obvious fact that without the current management GW sales would rise by 50+% within a year.
TyraelVladinhurst wrote: Just like GW stole ALOT of their ideas from James Cameron's Alien/Aliens/terminator? let's look, cadians = direct rip off of colonial marines. necron = direct rip of of terminator
Your notion of "direct rip off" is so misguided that I have to question your bona fides in this kind of debate. This might come as a shock to you, but James Cameron or anyone else does not in fact own any kind of copyright to "metal skeleton".
WarlordRob117 wrote: I know with our collective brilliant minds something can be done...
It makes little sense to assume this. Some things, you just can't fix. Some things are impossible.
I'm not really all that concerned about all the legal arguments here, but I do know that continued actions like this makes me want to buy GW stuff less and less. I love 40k, don't have much time to get games in lately, but I still love to paint, model, and build armies. But lately I've been going more and more to other model makers for my minis. Why? My motivation to buy GW stuff is just vanishing, its not that I'm actively boycotting or anything, there's just not as much reason to buy GW as there used to be. They got rid of 'Ard Boyz (and other official GW tournies) so now I don't 'have' to buy all GW to go to tournies. White Dwarf is just a bunch of advertisements. The prices of the minis are nuts. But most of all, other mini companies just make 40k compatible models that I just like better, and those other companies seem to actually want me to keep coming back for more.
I guess all I'm getting at is this stuff just makes GW seem hostile, whether they are or not depends on your point of view. Overall its just a bad PR move. They probably have to ask themselves what is more important, good PR, or whatever hypothetical damage these fan sites much have been doing.
CaptainLoken wrote: They are ILLEGALLY using someone else’s COPYWRITTEN material to make money. Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
How about putting COPYWRITTEN material up without the owner’s CONSENT? Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
Can you show what copyrights GW owns that you claim are being infringed upon?
They do own the copyrights to their publications. The nature of taking a picture, you instantly own the copyright to that image, And reproducing copyrighted publications without the owners consent is an issue. The issue has never been 'does GW own the copyrights of their own publications" but is what they are doing 'fair use' and not infringing upon the copyrights. People have made a case it is news reporting and not enough of the source material to be infringement... And then there is 21 pages of a copywrited publication which seems to skate near or over the line.
To claim GW doesn't have the copyrights to their publications or codexes is absurd.
As an attorney with some experience in copyright and the DMCA, this analysis is spot on. For a good example of fair use and the DMCA, this case is instructive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenz_v._Universal_Music_Corp. It also might give some perspective on how outlandish GW's conduct is. I suggest watching the video in question. if you can make out the copyright protected song clearly you have a better ear than I do.
Even as I regret the loss of my favorite rumor site, it strains credulity to imagine Faeit was operating entirely within the law. This is not the first time a rumor site has been targeted by a game company, nor the first time that GW specifically has stepped in to remove images of their products and publications.
While there is an element of David and Goliath going on here, as there was when mtgnews was taken down by wizards and when GW forbid 3rd party seller sites from using images of their products, nobody has proffered a sound legal argument as to how GW is themselves violating the law.
You might not like it. You might hate it. But the information about their products is their's to control as the see fot within the bounds of the law. as a lawyer, I simply haven't observed GW doing anything illegal. They have the right to control images they've created until release at least.
Not surprised, its almost like the legal boys are trying to one up each other or something. Its like watching a car accident. You know it's gunna be bad but you can't stop watching.
Management need to suffer the wrath of 10,000 wippy sticks
GrandInquisitorOrdoXenos wrote: i have always felt that the best way to deal with an spoiled unruly turd is a firm slap down .
GW did this , and will CONTINUE to do this kind of thing because they know they can . they know they peeve the players off , but they also know that those customers ........most of those customers will continue to buy their products no matter hpw childish and geedy GW acts , because they have been doing this kind of thing for a long time now , and people are still buying their products .
if players really wanted to flex their muscles , and get GWs attention , they would unite , and boycotthe company for a week or 2 . haveing their sales drop to zero for a week would hit them where they hit the customers . sadly though , we all know that players wont do that ; instead being content to be abused and treated like the enemy , as they always have been
No, they haven't always been. Some of us remember a GW that was collaborative and supportive, or at least did a much, much better job of appearing to be. Sadly, that is a long time ago, and possibly in a galaxy far, far away.
no , they have always screwed players , from the first days of 40K (about 24 years ago) when their prices were high , blister sleeves were ALL random (despite uniform unit building requirements ) and parts were often missing when you got the package open , oh and lets not forget books that were "bound" in word only .
later they moved on to hard core WYSiWYG , dropping game support for many of their more popular lines (necromunda) , GW models ONLY for competitions . and lets not forget the FIRST "vehicle manual" at they transitioned to second ed , they completely changed the vehicle rules so you really needed to buy the manual , THEN , 6 months later they change the rules AGAIN , so that the manual you bought was useless .
and now they strong arm the fan sites for trying to help them , and are trying to cut retailers out of their sales model .
they have been screwing customers for 25 years now , and yet poeple still race to fork over money , hand over fist . every one complains , but then grabs their wallet to race out and buy the next item they MUST get to keep their armies competative . i gave up GW a long while back , and only come here for the community and to see what other people do as it relates to the OTHER games i DO play , because this site is AWESOME , a great place to share ideas on how to do things ............................ until GW gets around to going after DAKKA for one reason or another , cause we all know they are looking for one !
the bloggoshpere is FULL of posts by thousands of people WISHING or HOPING GW will learn or see that what they are doing is hurting them self by going after the fans , but its NOT hurting them as long as everyone else here keeps accepting the same treatment , GW has no reason to change , and all YOUR money as an incentive to keep doing things the exact same way . i dont need to pay to have some one treat me like SH*% , but apparently many of the people here do , so it will never change .
to those out there that complain about what GW does , i would say do something about it , or stop complaining . you have no reson to cry foul if you are going to keep rewarding them for their bad behavior , and incase you didint notice ; there are OTHER games out there made by OTHER companies , that actually LIKE having customers buy and promote their products !
Actually it makes since to me even though I could never afford to go. It's like a week long event and lodging and food are included. You'll probly pay something similar if you buy the event pass and have to use a motel for the same amount of time. Plus they have to make a little profit to hold the event.
Looks loads of fun but I can't justify spending that kind of dough for a vacation just for me. My wife would be bored since she doesn't game and my daughter would be getting into everything. I would feel much better going somewhere that I know my whole family will enjoy together. But I still dream of Valhalla
Turn your phone sideways!!! edit: Wow, he just made a dig at Dakka "I do NOT like to post there."
That was fairly weird, he just lost my support.
Noone steps on a church in my town.
Gonna be honest, I never actually read his blog anyway. Like everyone else, I wanted to see the pics but I don't actually play Eldar so it isn't a huge loss.
It's about the same as an all-inclusive resort, which is what they are, just for wargaming. Out of my budget completely, but still interesting were I ever to have a noteworthy amount of money.
I'd rather go when some folks I knew were going, rather than playing with all strangers. Also, getting my models out there would be a pain.
They do offer to let you use their studio models.
If I could stomach being in close proximity of Gately, I'd be down with it . That man is too energetic for a relaxing vacation.
Note: Met him at AdeptiCon, he's easily double my age, and is running around like a spry spring chicken...
d-usa wrote: So when Dakka gets the DMCA notice and we Kickstart Yakface's legal defense fund. The top perk will be a Dakka week at Valhalla?
Ohh, that was good. Kickstarter and GW Legal Practices in the same post. I feel you could have fit some more things in there, maybe a Finecast reference?
d-usa wrote: So when Dakka gets the DMCA notice and we Kickstart Yakface's legal defense fund. The top perk will be a Dakka week at Valhalla?
Ohh, that was good. Kickstarter and GW Legal Practices in the same post. I feel you could have fit some more things in there, maybe a Finecast reference?
I figured everybody knew that the top backer gets their likeness made into a Finecast figure.
d-usa wrote: So when Dakka gets the DMCA notice and we Kickstart Yakface's legal defense fund. The top perk will be a Dakka week at Valhalla?
Ohh, that was good. Kickstarter and GW Legal Practices in the same post. I feel you could have fit some more things in there, maybe a Finecast reference?
I figured everybody knew that the top backer gets their likeness made into a Finecast figure.
Which will be sold by re-casters everywhere.
Better, better. Now get Ward in there somehow and a dino-bot reference and you're golden.
You guys are viciously off-topic. As DCM's I expect better from you. Warnings will be imminently handed out, get back to the topic or stop posting in here.
DMCA's are a funny business. The purpose and process of sending DMCA notices is pretty legit and has it's uses. But just like C&D letters it is a system that is easy to abuse. Google is usually pretty good about getting to the root of the problem and AFAIK actually gives the person that is accused of something a chance to explain themselves (at least that has been my experience).
As dirty as it makes me feel I have actually send one DMCA takedown notice myself once in a Dakka related manner (the root of which shall not be named). It was effective and solved the problem.
But you don't even have to go through a fancy lawyer or type up a letter. I just went through a form on Google's website to let them know "one of your blogs is hosting stuff that I have a copyright over and that I didn't authorize". I didn't even have to send proof other than "I certify that I speak the truth!" So while the law has good intentions it makes it very easy for frivolous claims to surface.
Apparently from what I read in an article linked in this thread, Bell of Lost Souls is planning on moving because of this incident, to a more secure and controllable host-- one that won't be as likely to remove its content in the future?
Should be interesting. I wonder if that'll have any real effect.
Apparently from what I read in an article linked in this thread, Bell of Lost Souls is planning on moving because of this incident, to a more secure and controllable host-- one that won't be as likely to remove its content in the future?
Should be interesting. I wonder if that'll have any real effect.
Iceland has some good hosts that don't mind standing up to that kind of thing AFAIK.
But right now FAEIT 212 has a host that I assume is free.
To take advantage of a more secure hosting service he would have to register a domain and pay for hosting. Not sure if all that is worth the trouble and money for him.
Apparently from what I read in an article linked in this thread, Bell of Lost Souls is planning on moving because of this incident, to a more secure and controllable host-- one that won't be as likely to remove its content in the future?
Should be interesting. I wonder if that'll have any real effect.
Iceland has some good hosts that don't mind standing up to that kind of thing AFAIK.
Such as? This is real curiosity on my part not skepticism.
GW is a model company. One of the main things they are worried about is re-casts.
If somebody leaks pictures good enough for a re-caster to get start on the model and that re-caster gets the faux model in the channel before GW, that is very bad for GW.
I think in addition to protecting their IP, GW is attempting to stop pre-release fake models.
If the quality is roughly the same and the price of a re-cast is far, far less, many people would buy that model, especially if they can get their hands on it before the "official" model is released.
I think part of the trouble the rumor sites got into was the 3d model that was made from the pix they released. GW, I'm sure, is very worried about this.
Can you point to the flood of pirated copies of Privateer, Corvus Belli, Spartan, Wyrd (etc, etc) releases that come from people copying their previews?
My question is, are they recasters if they sculpt a model based on a preview picture from a magazine? Don't recasters usually acquire the model, cast it, and then sell it?
Apparently from what I read in an article linked in this thread, Bell of Lost Souls is planning on moving because of this incident, to a more secure and controllable host-- one that won't be as likely to remove its content in the future?
Should be interesting. I wonder if that'll have any real effect.
Iceland has some good hosts that don't mind standing up to that kind of thing AFAIK.
Such as? This is real curiosity on my part not skepticism.
Not sure about the details. One of the groups I am associated with relocated their hosting to Iceland for purposes of protected hosting against takedowns. I think Wikileaks and the Pirate Bay did the same, but I'm not entirely certain.
But it really depends on how much time, effort, and money Faeit wants to put into this to stand up to a bully. It could be just as likely that he will just take his bag and go home and figure that this is just not worth it.
He said he is going to bring the site back up when he gets back from Valhalla.
The simplest way to do it would be to make Faeit213 and then just not directly host scans of WD pages. Use some other file-hosting service to hold the pictures themselves and link to them.
lol@GW whiteknighters coming in and defending this. It's full-blown censorship, not "defending their IP". An IP by the way that mostly rips off other IP's.
40k is a great setting precisely because it takes away from Tolkein, Starship Troopers, Judge Dredd, Alien, and so on. However if we use GW's own standards of what constitutes copyright infringement against them, they're in deep gak.
In regards to other companies not "going after" previews and leaked pictures do you think this is down to non of them being anywhere close to GW's size and having the backing of a full time legal team? I imagine it would cost quite a bit of money for some of these companies to do it and be counter productive to small businesses.
I wouldn't have the faintest idea how close PP are compared to GW but I would imagine quite a lot smaller. I can mention Warhammer / Games Workshop to pretty much anyone (and I have) and they know straight away. Not a scientific basis by any means but...worth a punt.
gr1m_dan wrote: In regards to other companies not "going after" previews and leaked pictures do you think this is down to non of them being anywhere close to GW's size and having the backing of a full time legal team? I imagine it would cost quite a bit of money for some of these companies to do it and be counter productive to small businesses.
.
I think in the sense again that this smacks of a legal team trying to justify it's existence.
Really, how else do you explain it? Who actually likes what GW has done here (all discussions of legality aside), that which essentially amounts to repeatedly pelvic-thrusting in the face of their biggest fans?
I think the waters have been muddied a bit here by the discussion of whether something is correct or not in the eyes of the law, IP this and Copyright-that. Ultimately, it's just not a very nice way for a company to treat the fans that care so much about their game, and you have to think it wouldn't have been difficult for them to turn a blind eye, even if the site is technically 'illegal'.
gr1m_dan wrote: In regards to other companies not "going after" previews and leaked pictures do you think this is down to non of them being anywhere close to GW's size and having the backing of a full time legal team? I imagine it would cost quite a bit of money for some of these companies to do it and be counter productive to small businesses.
.
I think in the sense again that this smacks of a legal team trying to justify it's existence.
Really, how else do you explain it? Who actually likes what GW has done here (all discussions of legality aside), that which essentially amounts to repeatedly pelvic-thrusting in the face of their biggest fans?
This.
I have held off commenting too much in this thread but Pacific has hit the nail on the head here and I can no longer help myself.
GW is going after 2 sites which are huge champions of their products.
Bell of Lost Souls has a large and successful (40k centric no less) gaming convention it puts on, and GW thinks going after them is a good idea? Good idea/bad idea aside it is just wrong. The guys from Bell, and I assume Faeit although I have no personal interaction with him, are good people who love this hobby, love 40k, and love talking about it. That's who GW went after, not some re-caster or someone ripping off their rules or someone ripping off their story lines . They went after actual fans of their products people who have poured countless hours into the hobby buying, painting, building models and playing countless hours of these games and then writing all about it and drumming up support for a company that just slapped them full across the face.
Pacific wrote: I think in the sense again that this smacks of a legal team trying to justify it's existence.
Agreed, their legal team is a bit OTT.
Really, how else do you explain it? Who actually likes what GW has done here (all discussions of legality aside), that which essentially amounts to repeatedly pelvic-thrusting in the face of their biggest fans?
Whether I like it or not, I understand it. Natfka hosts on Blogspot entire swathes of the magazine before release. I am ultimately unsure if that is legal or not, but if I was a company I would be really unhappy about that. I get he's a big fan and he's trying to promote the hobby, but hosting 20 pages of copyrighted material every month may not be the best way to do that.
Of course, if I was a company, I would probably release information a little earlier too.
The long and short of it is this though. Everyone in the community knows that GW's legal team has gone bat-feth crazy. Why would you taunt them or do things that you know will draw their ire? It isn't like this is the first time he has had action against him. It has happened repeatedly over the last year or two. If I was him, I would have found a way to do what I was doing without getting nastygrams from my service provider every month.
I have held off commenting too much in this thread but Pacific has hit the nail on the head here and I can no longer help myself.
GW is going after 2 sites which are huge champions of their products.
Bell of Lost Souls has a large and successful (40k centric no less) gaming convention it puts on, and GW thinks going after them is a good idea?
Could they have shown some discretion, tapped them on the shoulder and said "Hey, you're good people. We like good people. But stop posting rules and WD scans, OK? Carry on!"
Perhaps some tact could have been used.
But I'm not the head of a multinational, multimillion dollar modeling and gaming company. I put my pants on one leg at a time, then make million dollar records.
I have held off commenting too much in this thread but Pacific has hit the nail on the head here and I can no longer help myself.
GW is going after 2 sites which are huge champions of their products.
Bell of Lost Souls has a large and successful (40k centric no less) gaming convention it puts on, and GW thinks going after them is a good idea?
Could they have shown some discretion, tapped them on the shoulder and said "Hey, you're good people. We like good people. But stop posting rules and WD scans, OK? Carry on!"
Perhaps some tact could have been used.
But I'm not the head of a multinational, multimillion dollar modeling and gaming company. I put my pants on one leg at a time, then make million dollar records.
Have they confirmed that the blogs being down is a result of DCMA? My impression is google removes the post, not the entire Blog. It sounds like the outage is technical not legal in nature.
I have held off commenting too much in this thread but Pacific has hit the nail on the head here and I can no longer help myself.
GW is going after 2 sites which are huge champions of their products.
Bell of Lost Souls has a large and successful (40k centric no less) gaming convention it puts on, and GW thinks going after them is a good idea?
Could they have shown some discretion, tapped them on the shoulder and said "Hey, you're good people. We like good people. But stop posting rules and WD scans, OK? Carry on!"
Perhaps some tact could have been used.
But I'm not the head of a multinational, multimillion dollar modeling and gaming company. I put my pants on one leg at a time, then make million dollar records.
Have they confirmed that the blogs being down is a result of DCMA? My impression is google removes the post, not the entire Blog. It sounds like the outage is technical not legal in nature.
Check the BoLS forums. Bigred is beginning to say otherwise.
nkelsch wrote: Have they confirmed that the blogs being down is a result of DCMA? My impression is google removes the post, not the entire Blog. It sounds like the outage is technical not legal in nature.
They do that the first couple times, but from the looks of that coolingeffect website, Natfka and BOLS may have received many of these notices and google may have gotten fed up.
@Pacific - I agree it seems a bit "woah what the hell" but then again I do understand why they are doing it. I am not sure how it will affect them in the future, only time will tell.
The first pictures I saw of the new Tau were via these sources plus 3++ and to be honest they did actually put me off as they were grainy as hell and looked totally crap, however, once some better quality ones were released it perked me up enough to pre-order a fair amount.
*shrugs*
The amount of time that the new leaks come out before the official announcement isn't that big now either so maybe GW could relax a bit. After all, these sites do promote GW a good deal.
I just really don't know where to sit on this one. In one aspect I understand they don't want shoddy pictures of their new releases being put around the net BUT it does create excitement throughout the community and this whole "leave it until the last minute" business just annoys me.
Whose copyright area would they be operating within by the way? Are our UK laws much different to the US? I assume they are going by the US laws...
Sit back in your chair for a moment and seriously think "Who's better off by Games Workshop doing this?"
Is it us?
Is it GW?
Shareholders?
Allan Merrets Impenetrable IP Moat?
If we collectively cannot come to a solid conclusion on the above, this company is done.
My opinion is at the end of the day this only hurts the type of hobby they claim to want to spread. Play a game and have a beer and talk about the awesome things that happened.
No awesome things happened, there was no beer. They shut down the soapbox for two of their biggest champions the average hobbyist can understand.
I don't know if it's full blown death spiral at this point, but this is a long step towards a journey down 'cannibalizing your own customer base'-land. I have no idea what they're reasonably thinking here. A TON of free advertising in a media that they try their hardest to ignore exists, and they think this somehow hurts them for a CATALOG release.
Check the BoLS forums. Bigred is beginning to say otherwise.
So BOLS has confirmed that google took them down due to legal claims? This seemed to be unclear and it seems like it would have been easy to verify.
It is not 100% confirmed. And no it would not be easy to verify given the size of google and the number of departments that would be involved.
I would think if they send the blog owner an email for putting an infringing item in draft mode, they would have a mechanisim for alerting a blog owner if having their site shut down. So someone on BoLS would have gotten an email I assume.
I would think even if no notification went out, as simple google tech support ticket would result in a tech person being like, "yep, here is the reason right here"
I work with google hosted services every day for a living which is why I am curious about this.
gr1m_dan wrote: @Pacific - I agree it seems a bit "woah what the hell" but then again I do understand why they are doing it. I am not sure how it will affect them in the future, only time will tell.
The first pictures I saw of the new Tau were via these sources plus 3++ and to be honest they did actually put me off as they were grainy as hell and looked totally crap, however, once some better quality ones were released it perked me up enough to pre-order a fair amount.
*shrugs*
The amount of time that the new leaks come out before the official announcement isn't that big now either so maybe GW could relax a bit. After all, these sites do promote GW a good deal.
I just really don't know where to sit on this one. In one aspect I understand they don't want shoddy pictures of their new releases being put around the net BUT it does create excitement throughout the community and this whole "leave it until the last minute" business just annoys me.
Whose copyright area would they be operating within by the way? Are our UK laws much different to the US? I assume they are going by the US laws...
The blog is based in the US and a US law, the DMCA was used against it.
The problem with this is that the DMCA does not protect magazines, so it cannot legally be used. The GW legal people have technically perjured themselves by invoking the DMCA.
The second problem is that normal copyright does not prevent people from using pieces of material for the purpose of reporting news, comment, review and so on. This is called "fair dealing" or "fair use".
The use by the blog could be said to fall into the category of "fair dealing".
I don't know if there is a law that would enable a company to prevent a private individual from showing low quality pictures of stuff. GW could of course avoid this happening very easily by doing what most other companies do and releasing high quality information and pictures in a timely way as part of a marketing strategy.
Edited by Janthkin for obsessive-compulsive reasons; it's DMCA, not DCMA.
Kilkrazy wrote: I don't know if there is a law that would enable a company to prevent a private individual from showing low quality pictures of stuff. GW could of course avoid this happening very easily by doing what most other companies do and releasing high quality information and pictures in a timely way as part of a marketing strategy.
Well yes, but sanity, intelligence, or rational thought aren't high in the priorities of their marketing division.
Kilkrazy wrote: The blog is based in the US and a US law, the DMCA was used against it.
The problem with this is that the DMCA does not protect magazines, so it cannot legally be used. The GW legal people have technically perjured themselves by invoking the DMCA.
The second problem is that normal copyright does not prevent people from using pieces of material for the purpose of reporting news, comment, review and so on. This is called "fair dealing" or "fair use".
The use by the blog could be said to fall into the category of "fair dealing".
I don't know if there is a law that would enable a company to prevent a private individual from showing low quality pictures of stuff. GW could of course avoid this happening very easily by doing what most other companies do and releasing high quality information and pictures in a timely way as part of a marketing strategy.
"Fair Use" is a general defense to copyright infringement allegations. However, the DMCA created a new category of copyright issues, which don't map cleanly into traditional "fair use" space - basically, there are activities forbidden by the DMCA that would likely have been permissible under traditional copyright law.
Also, "fair use" is an assertive defense against allegations of copyright infringement, and involves weighing a number of factors. While newsworthiness and/or critique may factor into a fair use analysis, so too do questions like "how much of the copyrighted work was reproduced," and "is this a commercial use?" If your site has ads, and posting leaked pages from WD drives traffic to your site, it's hard to argue against commercial use.
That said, we still don't have definitive statements about what's going on with BoLS. Coincidence or conspiracy?
Kilkrazy wrote: The blog is based in the US and a US law, the DMCA was used against it.
The problem with this is that the DMCA does not protect magazines, so it cannot legally be used. The GW legal people have technically perjured themselves by invoking the DMCA.
The second problem is that normal copyright does not prevent people from using pieces of material for the purpose of reporting news, comment, review and so on. This is called "fair dealing" or "fair use".
The use by the blog could be said to fall into the category of "fair dealing".
I don't know if there is a law that would enable a company to prevent a private individual from showing low quality pictures of stuff. GW could of course avoid this happening very easily by doing what most other companies do and releasing high quality information and pictures in a timely way as part of a marketing strategy.
"Fair Use" is a general defense to copyright infringement allegations. However, the DMCA created a new category of copyright issues, which don't map cleanly into traditional "fair use" space - basically, there are activities forbidden by the DMCA that would likely have been permissible under traditional copyright law.
Slightly off-topic: Isn't copying DVDs one of those areas? Fair Use says you can make copies of a DVD that you own for your private use. But the DMCA says that circumventing the encryption of the DVD in order to make a Fair Use copy is illegal?
GW could salvage this. Say that they felt obligated to officially complain, and they dindt mean for the whole sites to get blown up. Make a backroom deal with Natfka and BoLS that if they do less of the stuff they don't like, they would help them do more stuff they do like. I think what upsets so many is that we would all want, or at least understand, if this were to happen, but with GW, we know it won't. They can make any situation a bad one.
The thing that things like this always drive home to me is how much of the content we use on a daily basis is under a Google label. Throw in how much business is done through Amazon and its associated brands. That is so much traffic, information,and commerce that relies on just a few companies, especially for ones not always know as bright bastions of benevolence and bravery.
Fair enough, I was not that curious about specifics. Just wondering if that was one of those areas of "Fair Use" in Copyright vs specific DMCA provisions that contradict that areas. So not really a "can we copy DVDs" but more "Fair Use is okay, but ways to get Fair Use are not" kind of question.
But I understand not wanting to get into specifics.
Rorschach9 wrote:100% correct. As much as people like to rail against the man and say they're just being a bunch of jerks (or insert profanity of choice here), GW has no choice but to defend their IP and copyright. If they don't, they lose the ability to defend it in the future. It doesn't matter if it's a small infringement or large, they have the legal obligation to defend it.
I'm not saying it's been done the right way, but it is something they absolutely *have* to do.
it's been explained several times in quite a bit of detail why Games Workshop is totally, unambiguously wrong, and by extension, why you also are totally, unambiguously wrong. It's just mind boggling how many people are simply immune to reality.
Rorschach9 wrote:Good lord, everyone is a legal expert on the internet aren't they?
The amount of disinformation (or at the very least incorrect and misunderstood information) in this thread is amazing.
Niccolo wrote: GW could salvage this. Say that they felt obligated to officially complain, and they dindt mean for the whole sites to get blown up. Make a backroom deal with Natfka and BoLS that if they do less of the stuff they don't like, they would help them do more stuff they do like. I think what upsets so many is that we would all want, or at least understand, if this were to happen, but with GW, we know it won't. They can make any situation a bad one.
The thing that things like this always drive home to me is how much of the content we use on a daily basis is under a Google label. Throw in how much business is done through Amazon and its associated brands. That is so much traffic, information,and commerce that relies on just a few companies, especially for ones not always know as bright bastions of benevolence and bravery.
Why would GW do this? They've already shown that they will blindly pursue cases where they are clearly in the wrong simply in the hopes of bullying the "offender" into backing off. The *only* time they've "backed down" was when a group with much much deeper pockets than them (EFF) threatened action and they realized the expense of pursuing it. There will not be a "backroom deal" here and GW will not "help them" in any way shape or form. That's not how they work. Given that BoLS and Natfka serve a very limited market this is unlikely to garner the type of press necessary to bring the big guys in to help.
I'm not on GW's side, nor am I on Natfka/BoLS. I think GWs stance here is moronic but is certainly understandable given their wider "marketing" crap. Natfka crossed the line many many times and I have no doubt that people have lost their jobs simply due to leaking information they shouldn't have; right or wrong that is sad in and of itself. BoLS is collateral damage (guilt by association) and will likely return within another day or two.
Does this impact me? Not too much yet. I rarely visited Natfka's blog and couldn't care less about the elves release. I did visit BoLS daily, but I'm sure I'll survive until they are back online. As a GW gamer, I'm disappointed. But no more so than I have been given their normal operations. In short, this behavior is expected so don't be surprised when it continues to happen.
Kilkrazy wrote: The blog is based in the US and a US law, the DMCA was used against it.
The problem with this is that the DMCA does not protect magazines, so it cannot legally be used. The GW legal people have technically perjured themselves by invoking the DMCA.
The second problem is that normal copyright does not prevent people from using pieces of material for the purpose of reporting news, comment, review and so on. This is called "fair dealing" or "fair use".
The use by the blog could be said to fall into the category of "fair dealing".
I don't know if there is a law that would enable a company to prevent a private individual from showing low quality pictures of stuff. GW could of course avoid this happening very easily by doing what most other companies do and releasing high quality information and pictures in a timely way as part of a marketing strategy.
"Fair Use" is a general defense to copyright infringement allegations. However, the DMCA created a new category of copyright issues, which don't map cleanly into traditional "fair use" space - basically, there are activities forbidden by the DMCA that would likely have been permissible under traditional copyright law.
Also, "fair use" is an assertive defense against allegations of copyright infringement, and involves weighing a number of factors. While newsworthiness and/or critique may factor into a fair use analysis, so too do questions like "how much of the copyrighted work was reproduced," and "is this a commercial use?" If your site has ads, and posting leaked pages from WD drives traffic to your site, it's hard to argue against commercial use.
That said, we still don't have definitive statements about what's going on with BoLS. Coincidence or conspiracy?
When it comes to fair use, commercial use and copyrights, much leeway is granted to journalistic enterprises...the courts are very careful in making sure that a statutory law do not overreach and limit a constitutional right. Since most news and review is commercial in nature, the courts weigh that as less important than they might weigh it in a regular case...say using music as a background for kittens wrestling on YouTube.
Regarding the fair use issues and the DMCA, that was largely rectified when the FAIR Act was passed (2007...IIRC). It ammended the DMCA to include traditional fair use exemptions, some feel that they extend even further than the regular ones too. I linked to (or quoted) the pertinent section 7 or 8 pages ago now I guess. The FAIR Act goes through and restates those exemptions that some had argued were stripped by the DMCA. It has already been applied in courts as well, which provides case law that can be drawn upon that show comparisons to this situation.
Also, just a point of clarity. While the DMCA does not apply to magazines in general, when you take a picture of a magazine and upload it to a website...the DMCA then comes into play. So, while the actual use of the DMCA in this case was wrong (for reasons stated previously) it is in fact the proper tool for the job...if, for example they were dealing with someone who was scanning full rulebooks or otherwise involved in pirating GW products.
Sean_OBrien wrote: When it comes to fair use, commercial use and copyrights, much leeway is granted to journalistic enterprises...the courts are very careful in making sure that a statutory law do not overreach and limit a constitutional right. Since most news and review is commercial in nature, the courts weigh that as less important than they might weigh it in a regular case...say using music as a background for kittens wrestling on YouTube.
You still have to deal with the amount copied. A critic's review of a new book doesn't have to reprint significant portions of the book; a "news" post announcing the contents of next month's White Dwarf doesn't need to post pictures of every page.
Regarding the fair use issues and the DMCA, that was largely rectified when the FAIR Act was passed (2007...IIRC). It ammended the DMCA to include traditional fair use exemptions, some feel that they extend even further than the regular ones too. I linked to (or quoted) the pertinent section 7 or 8 pages ago now I guess. The FAIR Act goes through and restates those exemptions that some had argued were stripped by the DMCA. It has already been applied in courts as well, which provides case law that can be drawn upon that show comparisons to this situation.
We'll have to agree to disagree on how much the FAIR Act actually fixed.
Also, just a point of clarity. While the DMCA does not apply to magazines in general, when you take a picture of a magazine and upload it to a website...the DMCA then comes into play. So, while the actual use of the DMCA in this case was wrong (for reasons stated previously) it is in fact the proper tool for the job...if, for example they were dealing with someone who was scanning full rulebooks or otherwise involved in pirating GW products.
I'm not sold on how "wrong" a DMCA request was in this case. The portion you cite to addresses anti-circumvention, and exceptions to the restrictions on anti-circumvention, which certainly isn't at issue here ("Violations Regarding Circumvention of Technological Measures").
Could Faeit make an argument that it's journalistic fair use? Sure. But fair use is an affirmative defense; just because Faeit could claim it, doesn't mean that the copyright holder is "wrong" or that the DMCA request is illegal.
BigRed (owner of BoLS) just posted this on the BoLS lounge:
UPDATE:
We are back up and running - full steam ahead! We are working with google to determine exactly what occurred over the last 24 hours with the BoLS frontpage, but I would like to clear up a couple of things for the record:
1) BoLS was never targeted by any DMCA, IP, or any other violation notices. While other 3rd party sites on blogger may or may not have been targeted by Games Workshop and/or Google, BoLS never was.
2) We take our security and availability seriously. Steps are being taken to prevent such an occurrence from ever happening again. BoLS job is to provide you with wargaming news, opinion, and entertainment day in and day out - and we will do exactly that.
On a personal note, I would like to thank each and every one of you who showed up during the frontpage outage and got to see and explore the BoLS Lounge. We are very proud of our great wargaming forum community and hope many of you return.
Look for regular posts, columns and commenting as usual on the frontpage as of now.
So... This is strange. I don't think BigRed is lying, but it is a freaky coincidence that two large 40k fokused blogs go down on the same day without any other blogs being affected... Strange indeed...
Sean_OBrien wrote: When it comes to fair use, commercial use and copyrights, much leeway is granted to journalistic enterprises...the courts are very careful in making sure that a statutory law do not overreach and limit a constitutional right. Since most news and review is commercial in nature, the courts weigh that as less important than they might weigh it in a regular case...say using music as a background for kittens wrestling on YouTube.
You still have to deal with the amount copied. A critic's review of a new book doesn't have to reprint significant portions of the book; a "news" post announcing the contents of next month's White Dwarf doesn't need to post pictures of every page.
Regarding the fair use issues and the DMCA, that was largely rectified when the FAIR Act was passed (2007...IIRC). It ammended the DMCA to include traditional fair use exemptions, some feel that they extend even further than the regular ones too. I linked to (or quoted) the pertinent section 7 or 8 pages ago now I guess. The FAIR Act goes through and restates those exemptions that some had argued were stripped by the DMCA. It has already been applied in courts as well, which provides case law that can be drawn upon that show comparisons to this situation.
We'll have to agree to disagree on how much the FAIR Act actually fixed.
Also, just a point of clarity. While the DMCA does not apply to magazines in general, when you take a picture of a magazine and upload it to a website...the DMCA then comes into play. So, while the actual use of the DMCA in this case was 8wrong (for reasons stated previously) it is in fact the proper tool for the job...if, for example they were dealing with someone who was scanning full rulebooks or otherwise involved in pirating GW products.
I'm not sold on how "wrong" a DMCA request was in this case. The portion you cite to addresses anti-circumvention, and exceptions to the restrictions on anti-circumvention, which certainly isn't at issue here ("Violations Regarding Circumvention of Technological Measures").
Could Faeit make an argument that it's journalistic fair use? Sure. But fair use is an affirmative defense; just because Faeit could claim it, doesn't mean that the copyright holder is "wrong" or that the DMCA request is illegal.
It is true that the ammount posted matters, but so does the nature of what is posted. Because the majority of information is information that GW subsequently makes available for free on their website, that is a mitigating circumstance. Since, by all accounts, the first 10-20 pages of each WD are copies of the images from the GW website, if that is the core of the copying...it is not likely to be judged as beyond the scope of "news" as the news in question would be what new releases are coming, and more impotantly what they look like.
Regarding the FAIR Act, most likely there will be disagreements on how much it fixed or did not fix the DMCA. However, it did restate fair use in regards to the DMCA and related filings.
The crux of the issue really ends up being can this be considered journalism and would that it might be journalism impact whether or not GW would be guilty of illegally using the DMCA. For this, the laws matter, but so does the case law. In particular, you have the OPG v. Diebold case. In that case, OPG published large portions of the email archive from Diebold regarding their voting machines, without any commentary at all.
That applies here for several reasons. First, the issue of public interest was addressed. While a company has a copyright, the public has a right to know things as well. In particular when dealing with consumer products, new and upcoming releases inform consumers and allow them to make decisions on what they might purchase, when and from whom. The second issue addressed is the sworn statements. The court used the simple legal definitions of the takedown notices sworn statements. In particular the issue of "knowingly" and "materially" misrepresenting their sworn statement as defined in 512f of the DMCA. Because the statements are effectively swearing that their is no reasonable defense to the use of a copyrighted material, if their is a question of a fair use exemption, that violates the knowing aspect of the clause. Materially is defined as the actual misrepresentations made to Google regarding the nature of the materials copied.
Like in the Diebold case where they claimed the right of first publication...the first publication of the images in question are not normally the White Dwarf magazine...rather the website. The claim though implies that the leaked images are of significant value to the magazine itself which is a misrepresentation of material facts.
All of those factors would likely lead to the same outcome as the OPG case. The court would likely find that GW violated section 512(f) and would have to pay the legal fees.
First off, a serious mistake people keep making is laying every decision made at the feet of this 'GW'. GW this, GW that, GW is terrible, blah blah blah.
Games Workshop isn't some monolithic hive mind, it was originally a small gaming company of a few 20-somethings in a basement that ballooned into a much bigger business employing thousands of individual human beings all doing very normal human things like being stupid, short-sighted, greedy, and selfish.
So with that where everyone can see it, who exactly at Games Workshop is hurt by an internet site showing pictures from an upcoming issue of White Dwarf? Hmm.
Exactly, the people at GW who run White Dwarf magazine, that overpriced dinosaur around which a large number of concessions have already been made at their company. I'm gonna say it's pretty much a 90% chance that this entire dumb situation is the fault of someone or a small group whose paycheck and position at Games Workshop is entirely dependent on the success of this magazine, and who feel threatened by these newfangled 'internet picture shows' cutting into their relevance.
I'd reckon that half the management at GW has no idea any of this is even happening. Some executive is scratching his head at numbers and wondering why people aren't buying kit #13253, then sending a junior executive to find out what's up (who has his own agenda and plans to stay relevant). Does anyone know how well the various parts of the company even communicate? From what has been written about Games Workshop and the way they do business, for all intents and purposes they seem to have the communicative network of a 1970's startup gaming company crawling out of the basement, with the employees, responsibilities and profit margin of a modern successful company.
GW is many things. Incompetent, archaic, double-minded. But don't make them out to be some sort of Collective seeking the Death of Fun.
Sean_OBrien wrote: It is true that the ammount posted matters, but so does the nature of what is posted. Because the majority of information is information that GW subsequently makes available for free on their website, that is a mitigating circumstance. Since, by all accounts, the first 10-20 pages of each WD are copies of the images from the GW website, if that is the core of the copying...it is not likely to be judged as beyond the scope of "news" as the news in question would be what new releases are coming, and more impotantly what they look like.
We can go back on forth on this one for a while, I think. Given that the only source for those images was the (as-yet-unpublished) WD, regardless of what eventually shows up on the website, copying them in their entirety is going to start affecting the market for the original (another of the Fair Use criteria). If they were already published on the website & freely available, it changes the facts & possibly the outcome.
Regarding the FAIR Act, most likely there will be disagreements on how much it fixed or did not fix the DMCA. However, it did restate fair use in regards to the DMCA and related filings.
It added some fair use exceptions to the "no cirumvention" restrictions (e.g., a teacher can use circumvention technologies to access protected content that they could otherwise make fair use of), but it left a gaping hole - there's no legal way for the teacher to GET those circumvention technologies, as it's still illegal for anyone else to "traffic" in them.
The crux of the issue really ends up being can this be considered journalism and would that it might be journalism impact whether or not GW would be guilty of illegally using the DMCA. For this, the laws matter, but so does the case law. In particular, you have the OPG v. Diebold case. In that case, OPG published large portions of the email archive from Diebold regarding their voting machines, without any commentary at all.
That applies here for several reasons. First, the issue of public interest was addressed. While a company has a copyright, the public has a right to know things as well. In particular when dealing with consumer products, new and upcoming releases inform consumers and allow them to make decisions on what they might purchase, when and from whom. The second issue addressed is the sworn statements. The court used the simple legal definitions of the takedown notices sworn statements. In particular the issue of "knowingly" and "materially" misrepresenting their sworn statement as defined in 512f of the DMCA. Because the statements are effectively swearing that their is no reasonable defense to the use of a copyrighted material, if their is a question of a fair use exemption, that violates the knowing aspect of the clause. Materially is defined as the actual misrepresentations made to Google regarding the nature of the materials copied.
Like in the Diebold case where they claimed the right of first publication...the first publication of the images in question are not normally the White Dwarf magazine...rather the website. The claim though implies that the leaked images are of significant value to the magazine itself which is a misrepresentation of material facts.
All of those factors would likely lead to the same outcome as the OPG case. The court would likely find that GW violated section 512(f) and would have to pay the legal fees.
I draw a factual distinction between "emails relating to the security of voting" and "beating the official announcements of new toys." The former is likely going to get more protection than the latter. (Also, a good chunk of that case came down to a finding of "no commercial harm," something I don't think is as clear-cut in this case.) Also, the OPG court's reasoning doesn't seem to apply here:
OPGvDiebold wrote:No reasonable copyright holder could have believed that the portions of the email archive discussing possible technical problems with Diebold's voting machines were protected by copyright,
as we're talking about photographs, which are definitely copyrighted material, rather than technical details, which often aren't.
Really, these sites really hype up GW products and I’m sure help sales. IMO I would go as far as massively helping sales - In the case of Tau how many less pre-orders would there have been if people didn't hear rumors about how good/ bad they could be? I would not preorder a expensive model with no idea on potential (Unless it looked really awesome).
Exactly. Faeit/rumour blogs actually HELP geedubbs. Without them, few people buy their new releases
As much as I am NOT siding with GW in this situation, their reasoning might sounds something like:
"We have lost the sales of old models for the (Insert Infringed Army Here) because somebody leaked that new models were on the way and provided hard evidence. Because of this, we lost $X of average models sales for this range. We need to shut it down!"
GW has a terribly bad habit of not thinking long term, as shareholders do not care about long term gains if it means short term losses.
Thats point that most people are making. They seem to think only about their short term profits rather than their long-term profits.
Badablack wrote: Exactly, the people at GW who run White Dwarf magazine, that overpriced dinosaur around which a large number of concessions have already been made at their company. I'm gonna say it's pretty much a 90% chance that this entire dumb situation is the fault of someone or a small group whose paycheck and position at Games Workshop is entirely dependent on the success of this magazine, and who feel threatened by these newfangled 'internet picture shows' cutting into their relevance.
This pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter. Bravo.
I don't think it's a matter of short term profits versus long term profits, more a matter of traditionalism, vanity, holding to a status quo and preserving in still life a "magazine" that for the good of the company shouldn't have survived into the 2010s.
Janthkin wrote: (Also, a good chunk of that case came down to a finding of "no commercial harm," something I don't think is as clear-cut in this case.)
I think it's absolutely clear-cut. Nobody buys WD to get access to the same pictures they can get for free from GW's own website, so there's no plausible impact on WD sales. The only possible case for commercial harm would be that seeing a preview before release day might hinder impulse buys as people realize they don't really want what GW is selling if they're given a week to think about it, but good luck making the "our product sucks, we can only get people to buy it if they don't know what they're about to buy" argument in court.
Janthkin wrote: (Also, a good chunk of that case came down to a finding of "no commercial harm," something I don't think is as clear-cut in this case.)
I think it's absolutely clear-cut. Nobody buys WD to get access to the same pictures they can get for free from GW's own website, so there's no plausible impact on WD sales. The only possible case for commercial harm would be that seeing a preview before release day might hinder impulse buys as people realize they don't really want what GW is selling if they're given a week to think about it, but good luck making the "our product sucks, we can only get people to buy it if they don't know what they're about to buy" argument in court.
People buying WD has nothing to do with the takedown of Faeit.
Badablack wrote: Exactly, the people at GW who run White Dwarf magazine, that overpriced dinosaur around which a large number of concessions have already been made at their company. I'm gonna say it's pretty much a 90% chance that this entire dumb situation is the fault of someone or a small group whose paycheck and position at Games Workshop is entirely dependent on the success of this magazine, and who feel threatened by these newfangled 'internet picture shows' cutting into their relevance.
This pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter. Bravo.
I don't think it's a matter of short term profits versus long term profits, more a matter of traditionalism, vanity, holding to a status quo and preserving in still life a "magazine" that for the good of the company shouldn't have survived into the 2010s.
I disagree, if other companies miniatures were featured, and it used advertising as part of its revenue stream, it would still be a successful magazine, the issue is that its focus is too narrow for todays wargaming market.
GW is evil/greedy/stupid/mean/crazy/insert other complaint....
All of this hate and venom...on a FAN SITE!
I know that I’m in the minority here, but I just have to say this…people have been ripping off GW for years, and try in every way to do it every day…
No? How about all of the “bitz makers”? Don’t think that they should be punished for making Shoulder Pads that “GW doesn’t make”?
They are ILLEGALLY using someone else’s COPYWRITTEN material to make money. Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
How about putting COPYWRITTEN material up without the owner’s CONSENT? Guess what? THAT’S ILLEGAL.
All of you twits can whine and moan all you like, but the truth is GW is the biggest player out there, so everyone tries to take everything that they can out of them.
I know that some of their directions/policies don’t make sense to us…but guess what? YOU ARE NOT IN THE BOARD ROOM. YOU DON’T KNOW WHY THEY ARE DOING WHAT THEY DO.
You can guess. You can assume. You can use your sources/diploma/insider information/magic to try and understand what GW does, but unless you are IN THE BOARD ROOM when these policies are determined, all you are doing is shooting your mouth off about something that you know nothing about.
So, if you want to “spend your money” on something else, then go do it. PLEASE, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. I, for one, am so SICK AND TIRED of reading nothing but “GW IS EVIL” posts on a FAN SITE. I might as well go get my daily fix of 40K stuff on PRIVATEER PRESS’ website, for all the hate and complaining I see here.
Ironically, you only capitalized the parts of your argument that were incorrect.
All I'll say that COPYRIGHT is the right to copy a work.
A COPY WRITER is someone who writes blurbs of text to communicate an idea, usually for advertising purposes.
A job I had once forbade us from accessing the Internet for the purposes of downloading copywritten material. The head of IT got a pretty embarrassing scolding from Legal when I pointed out in front of a large annual orientation group that the new policy made seeing Ads online a terminal offense but promised no repercussions for the otherwise illegal streaming of movies. Even if they had corrected Copywritten Copyrighted (not even a real word) they would've made it so you could be fired for looking at anything at all on the Internet as, according to the US IP law, you own the copyright to any written work the moment you write it down, making pretty much all of the Internet copyrighted (still not a real word) by someone.
Janthkin wrote: (Also, a good chunk of that case came down to a finding of "no commercial harm," something I don't think is as clear-cut in this case.)
I think it's absolutely clear-cut. Nobody buys WD to get access to the same pictures they can get for free from GW's own website, so there's no plausible impact on WD sales. The only possible case for commercial harm would be that seeing a preview before release day might hinder impulse buys as people realize they don't really want what GW is selling if they're given a week to think about it, but good luck making the "our product sucks, we can only get people to buy it if they don't know what they're about to buy" argument in court.
People buying WD has nothing to do with the takedown of Faeit.
That's exactly the point. The post I quoted was saying that it's up for debate whether or not GW would be able to demonstrate financial harm from posting the WD scans, since a key element of the "you can post this" precedent case was that no financial harm was done. And my point was that GWcan't demonstrate financial harm because the released material wasn't something that anyone was going to buy.
Janthkin wrote: (Also, a good chunk of that case came down to a finding of "no commercial harm," something I don't think is as clear-cut in this case.)
I think it's absolutely clear-cut. Nobody buys WD to get access to the same pictures they can get for free from GW's own website, so there's no plausible impact on WD sales. The only possible case for commercial harm would be that seeing a preview before release day might hinder impulse buys as people realize they don't really want what GW is selling if they're given a week to think about it, but good luck making the "our product sucks, we can only get people to buy it if they don't know what they're about to buy" argument in court.
People buying WD has nothing to do with the takedown of Faeit.
That's exactly the point. The post I quoted was saying that it's up for debate whether or not GW would be able to demonstrate financial harm from posting the WD scans, since a key element of the "you can post this" precedent case was that no financial harm was done. And my point was that GWcan't demonstrate financial harm because the released material wasn't something that anyone was going to buy.
In fact, Faeit releasing the WD pics was probably helpful to GW, the hype about the tau and all...
EDIT: BoLS going down is reputed to be a server outage, not a GW attack.
Janthkin wrote: (Also, a good chunk of that case came down to a finding of "no commercial harm," something I don't think is as clear-cut in this case.)
I think it's absolutely clear-cut. Nobody buys WD to get access to the same pictures they can get for free from GW's own website, so there's no plausible impact on WD sales. The only possible case for commercial harm would be that seeing a preview before release day might hinder impulse buys as people realize they don't really want what GW is selling if they're given a week to think about it, but good luck making the "our product sucks, we can only get people to buy it if they don't know what they're about to buy" argument in court.
One element of the fair use analysis is "(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." Now, we all may have opinions on the actual value of WD, but it's difficult to argue that if the entire magazine were scanned & posted online, in a location frequented by some portion of the likely audience for the magazine, that it would not have some impact on the potential market.
Obviously, it didn't usually rise to the level of posting the entire magazine, but it was certainly some portion. Which way would a court view that particular element, under these facts? Not sure; I just don't find it as open-and-shut as some of you seem to.
As a banking professional (sorry about the GFC guys, our fault we know) there MAY be some point to what GW is doing and they may even be obliged to do so.
As you would know GW is a publicly listed company. Although its relatively small, it still answers to shareholders. A part of that responsibility involves keeping their company's business private so that the shares are traded fairly on market.
Imagine a Mining Exploration company whose business was to find gold. Now lets say they found a substantial amount of gold in Africa somewhere. If someone was to leak that information onto the market before the company made an official announcement - the share price will shoot up due to all those people with access to that information buying the shares - in this case the people who read the equivalent of Faeit212 and BOLs in the mining world.
On a much smaller scale - lets say Faeit212 posted rumours (substantiated by leaked photos, etc) that SPESH MARINES was getting massive new releases, followed by a plastic thunderhawk, SOBs, etc in 3 consecutive months prior to the end of a financial year.
That has the same effect (on a much smaller scale) as someone leaking the "gold found" info for a mining company.
GW is obliged as a listed company to prevent that from happening...
As a banking professional (sorry about the GFC guys, our fault we know) there MAY be some point to what GW is doing and they may even be obliged to do so.
As you would know GW is a publicly listed company. Although its relatively small, it still answers to shareholders. A part of that responsibility involves keeping their company's business private so that the shares are traded fairly on market.
Imagine a Mining Exploration company whose business was to find gold. Now lets say they found a substantial amount of gold in Africa somewhere. If someone was to leak that information onto the market before the company made an official announcement - the share price will shoot up due to all those people with access to that information buying the shares - in this case the people who read the equivalent of Faeit212 and BOLs in the mining world.
On a much smaller scale - lets say Faeit212 posted rumours (substantiated by leaked photos, etc) that SPESH MARINES was getting massive new releases, followed by a plastic thunderhawk, SOBs, etc in 3 consecutive months prior to the end of a financial year.
That has the same effect (on a much smaller scale) as someone leaking the "gold found" info for a mining company.
GW is obliged as a listed company to prevent that from happening...
Just food for thought.
That still doesn't explain why the blog was taken down. It seems to be that GW's grudge seems to be the posting of WD pics, not the rumours.
Janthkin wrote: Obviously, it didn't usually rise to the level of posting the entire magazine, but it was certainly some portion. Which way would a court view that particular element, under these facts? Not sure; I just don't find it as open-and-shut as some of you seem to.
It's open and shut because the part that was posted has zero value. If they'd posted a complete scan of a painting guide there would be a legitimate argument that it devalued the real product, but we're talking about the catalog pictures. It's the exact same information that GW will have, for free, on their own website, and I'd be surprised if you can find even a single person who buys WD to see it.
Janthkin wrote: Obviously, it didn't usually rise to the level of posting the entire magazine, but it was certainly some portion. Which way would a court view that particular element, under these facts? Not sure; I just don't find it as open-and-shut as some of you seem to.
It's open and shut because the part that was posted has zero value. If they'd posted a complete scan of a painting guide there would be a legitimate argument that it devalued the real product, but we're talking about the catalog pictures. It's the exact same information that GW will have, for free, on their own website, and I'd be surprised if you can find even a single person who buys WD to see it.
Well, I think GW had more of a beef that it was posted, rather than the content.
Timmy149 wrote: Well, I think GW had more of a beef that it was posted, rather than the content.
That explains why GW was unhappy, but we're talking about the legal status of posting it. It doesn't matter how much GW doesn't like that something was posted, if it was done legally under "fair use" laws then GW's DMCA notices are blatant abuse of the legal system. And one of the important factors in determining whether something is covered by "fair use" is whether or not it devalues the product. If the copyright holder can't plausibly claim any financial harm then it's a strong argument that the use of copyrighted material was legal.
Janthkin wrote: Obviously, it didn't usually rise to the level of posting the entire magazine, but it was certainly some portion. Which way would a court view that particular element, under these facts? Not sure; I just don't find it as open-and-shut as some of you seem to.
It's open and shut because the part that was posted has zero value. If they'd posted a complete scan of a painting guide there would be a legitimate argument that it devalued the real product, but we're talking about the catalog pictures. It's the exact same information that GW will have, for free, on their own website, and I'd be surprised if you can find even a single person who buys WD to see it.
You're talking about the first look at the catalog pictures. Time is a factor here - if this was already posted on GW's website, we'd have a different set of facts.
If the pictures had no value, would they have been posted?
It's all well and good to make blanket statements as to whether or not a person who buys WD to see new release pictures exists, but that's an issue of fact, not of law. The difference between the two has a lot to do with whether a DMCA take-down request is eventually found to be valid, invalid, or inappropriate as a matter of law (and potentially sanctionable).
Janthkin wrote: You're talking about the first look at the catalog pictures. Time is a factor here - if this was already posted on GW's website, we'd have a different set of facts.
But it IS already posted by the time people get their WD. The first look (in the absence of leaks) doesn't come from WD, it comes from GW's website (which is free).
If the pictures had no value, would they have been posted?
Of course not, but they had value that the WD issue does not. Getting pictures early is worth something to some people, but getting them in WD after GW has already put everything up on their website is worthless. If WD came out a month before GW put the pre-orders up it would be different, but since they do everything they can to make sure that you don't see anything until pre-order day that value just doesn't exist.
I am so considering changing over to Warmachine. I loved Faiet 212. Where most people wake up and read the morning paper I'd wake up and read Faiet 212. Now I have nothing to read in the mornings.
I played Warmachine when it first came out and thought it was ok. After some looking into it a bit more the game looks like a lot of fun. Now I just need to decide if I'm going to sell all of my 40k and go Warmachine or buy shares in GW and fix there terrible business for them.
Sinji wrote: Check this out its an interview with Naftka done by blue table gaming. Looks like he might shove GW right back into thier corner of the ring. Enjoy.
I see what everybody else means by the legality of the image posting. I agree with what you are saying, but I still don't think that GW should have attacked google and Natfka.
I see what everybody else means by the legality of the image posting. I agree with what you are saying, but I still don't think that GW should have attacked google and Natfka.
What?! When did GW attack google?! Think you have misunderstood the situation here... And besides, since BoLS wasn't taken down by a DMCA act I don't think we can assume that Faeit was either...
Timmy149 wrote:Thats point that most people are making. They seem to think only about their short term profits rather than their long-term profits.
Melissia wrote:In other words, they're a corporation.
Civik wrote:Actually, more like they have a modern western CEO.
Actually, no. They don't think of long term NOR of short term profits. They barely have a flat revenue in a growing market, keeping it flat only by raising prices far above inflation, so selling less each year. No other CEO would keep his job doing this for 7 years.
First of all thanks for the many messages and comments I received from some of you. When I wrote the article about faeit 212 being taken down by GW I did not realize the amount of views our little insignificant blog would receive ^^
Even before yesterday, we were kinda afraid about what GW's Legal Department might do to us with regards to some of the products and services we have planned for our little company. So we had already set up a meeting with a specialized IP lawyer to cover our bases (mid may). Our findings will be valid for every country under the DMCA (which means most of the western world).
We intend to share our findings and give 'advice' to all of you who are interested in this subject. This mostly goes for bloggers, forum owners and users, website owners, commission painters and workshop holders. The 'what can you and what can't you do' question is so fuzzy that we want to at least narrow down the risk for everyone involved. I know many friends who gotten 'Cease and Desist' Letters from GW for example for sculpting an orc bust. As if GW invented orcs...
As well GW should stop worrying about the sites posting leaked content and rather deal with it at the source and find the people leaking the content. A durrr
Hell with it, been awhile ... no more lurky, lurk ...
I am not a lawyer by any means - I used to be a graduate researcher for a university library and used to work on legal arguments, so I have a bit of background in this vein.
Ignore the previous arguments, here is the situation:
Games Workshop Limited has filed 4 DMCA Notices regarding Faeit212, and as of February 20, 2013 (the 3rd notice), Games Workshop legal who issued the notices indicated, "This user, 'Natfka', is a repeat infringer and I request that Google disable the account in accordance with Google's terms of service."
Here is the problem ... per US law, Faeit212 has not violated the DMCA because of the tort restrictions that specifically apply to ONLY new media (audio/video) and would be fully covered by the legal exclusions that protect other journalists, this includes providing copies of images from unreleased editions of White Dwarf. So, technically, Natfka has not violated any US laws nor the Blogger ToS (that I know of, you can twist a ToS) and the site should not have been taken down and should be restored.
This is where things get interesting -- GW legal did not issue the notice against the US version of the blogger pages, they specifically targeted the UK version of the domain name (http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/lots-of-new-pics-for-high-elves.html) and invoked "As copyright owner, Games Workshop also has the rights to first release of the material to the public."
Unfortunately for GW Legal, this is not how "right of first publication" works in the United States, as it is meant to protect a publisher or writer from having a work superseded in publication by another individual or group. Faeit212 did not publish anything that had not already been printed and bound, and merely awaiting release. The law would apply, had Faeit212 recieved a copy of the electronic files used to publish the magazine, then printed or displayed those on the website -- which he certainly did not. Additionally, the usage of "copyright before publication" has only been upheld in previous legal cases when involving commercial intent, and does not extend to journalistic endeavors.
Think of it in the terms of the previous leaks of unpublished novels (think Harry Potter) -- the news outlets would not get sued because they displayed content from the leaks, but had someone attempted to publish the book before it was technically "in-print" this would be a violation of the law. Additionally, once the work was published, showing photographs or images of copies of the work on the internet in a journalistic setting would be protected.
I am willing to bet that the law may be applied differently in the UK (copyright and journalistic laws vary greatly across the pond), which is why the notice was issued in response to the UK version of Blogger for Faeit212 -- so essentially, GW Legal issued a US legal notice about the UK version of a site based upon an infringement of the UK version of right of first publication. The UK may well have a version of "right of first publication" that extends to "rights to first release" in which case, this case may or may not apply - not an expert in UK copyright law, hell, you can barely call me on in US copyright law.
Here are the important facts for Faeit212:
1. The White Dwarf articles had already been published, being present in hard copy, from which photographs were taken and then displayed on the accused website -- this would be excluded from legal action by journalistic protections under US law.
2. GW Legal filed a legal notice under US law against the UK version of a website, in an possible attempt to apply a reading of UK copyright law regarding right of first publication, which in this case may well extend to "rights to first release"
3. Even should this be the case, it would only justify the closure of the UK version of the site (http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/) and would not extend to the shuttering of the US/International version of the site (http://natfka.blogspot.com)
I would STRONGLY, STRONGLY suggest Natfka file a 512 Counter-Notification and explain the situation from a journalistic perspective -- which I would hope Google Legal would recognize.
Kazwulf wrote: Hell with it, been awhile ... no more lurky, lurk ...
I am not a lawyer by any means - I used to be a graduate researcher for a university library and used to work on legal arguments, so I have a bit of background in this vein.
Ignore the previous arguments, here is the situation:
Games Workshop Limited has filed 4 DMCA Notices regarding Faeit212, and as of February 20, 2013 (the 3rd notice), Games Workshop legal who issued the notices indicated, "This user, 'Natfka', is a repeat infringer and I request that Google disable the account in accordance with Google's terms of service."
Here is the problem ... per US law, Faeit212 has not violated the DMCA because of the tort restrictions that specifically apply to ONLY new media (audio/video) and would be fully covered by the legal exclusions that protect other journalists, this includes providing copies of images from unreleased editions of White Dwarf. So, technically, Natfka has not violated any US laws nor the Blogger ToS (that I know of, you can twist a ToS) and the site should not have been taken down and should be restored.
This is where things get interesting -- GW legal did not issue the notice against the US version of the blogger pages, they specifically targeted the UK version of the domain name (http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/lots-of-new-pics-for-high-elves.html) and invoked "As copyright owner, Games Workshop also has the rights to first release of the material to the public."
Unfortunately for GW Legal, this is not how "right of first publication" works in the United States, as it is meant to protect a publisher or writer from having a work superseded in publication by another individual or group. Faeit212 did not publish anything that had not already been printed and bound, and merely awaiting release. The law would apply, had Faeit212 recieved a copy of the electronic files used to publish the magazine, then printed or displayed those on the website -- which he certainly did not. Additionally, the usage of "copyright before publication" has only been upheld in previous legal cases when involving commercial intent, and does not extend to journalistic endeavors.
Think of it in the terms of the previous leaks of unpublished novels (think Harry Potter) -- the news outlets would not get sued because they displayed content from the leaks, but had someone attempted to publish the book before it was technically "in-print" this would be a violation of the law. Additionally, once the work was published, showing photographs or images of copies of the work on the internet in a journalistic setting would be protected.
I am willing to bet that the law may be applied differently in the UK (copyright and journalistic laws vary greatly across the pond), which is why the notice was issued in response to the UK version of Blogger for Faeit212 -- so essentially, GW Legal issued a US legal notice about the UK version of a site based upon an infringement of the UK version of right of first publication. The UK may well have a version of "right of first publication" that extends to "rights to first release" in which case, this case may or may not apply - not an expert in UK copyright law, hell, you can barely call me on in US copyright law.
Here are the important facts for Faeit212:
1. The White Dwarf articles had already been published, being present in hard copy, from which photographs were taken and then displayed on the accused website -- this would be excluded from legal action by journalistic protections under US law.
2. GW Legal filed a legal notice under US law against the UK version of a website, in an possible attempt to apply a reading of UK copyright law regarding right of first publication, which in this case may well extend to "rights to first release"
3. Even should this be the case, it would only justify the closure of the UK version of the site (http://natfka.blogspot.co.uk/) and would not extend to the shuttering of the US/International version of the site (http://natfka.blogspot.com)
I would STRONGLY, STRONGLY suggest Natfka file a 512 Counter-Notification and explain the situation from a journalistic perspective -- which I would hope Google Legal would recognize.
GW legal having no idea what they're doing? Color me surprised.
I thought you all might be interested in an attorney's perspective.
Alec
So Naftka said he was doing something illegal? GW Legal sent the letter to Naftka because he said he was doing something illegal. But turns out neither knew the situation had changed and wasn't illegal.
\(^o^)/ Technicality FTW \(^o^)/
But does that mean according to you IP Lawyer friend GW would have been in the right if the German WD hadn't been released?
I thought you all might be interested in an attorney's perspective.
Alec
So Naftka said he was doing something illegal? GW Legal sent the letter to Naftka because he said he was doing something illegal. But turns out neither knew the situation had changed and wasn't illegal.
\(^o^)/ Technicality FTW \(^o^)/
But does that mean according to you IP Lawyer friend GW would have been in the right if the German WD hadn't been released?
I think the point, right or wrong, is that given the circumstances the DMCA was objectively wrong and GW knew it was or should have known it. GW had all of those facts in its hands.
Also, the distinction made was between something that had already been published (whether or not it had been released to the public), and something that had not yet been formally published. Within that context, the release of the German WD is not so important, because released or not, the WD had been printed and bound. If I understand the argument correctly, the public availability of the German WD at the time of the posting is a fact that further solidifies that the WD had already been printed and bound.
Either way though, the photos were taken from a completed, published work, i.e. photographs of a printed page bound in a magazine, and were taken by a third party. That is what the argument is focused on.
I think the point, right or wrong, is that given the circumstances the DMCA was objectively wrong and GW knew it was or should have known it. GW had all of those facts in its hands.
Also, the distinction made was between something that had already been published (whether or not it had been released to the public), and something that had not yet been formally published. Within that context, the release of the German WD is not so important, because released or not, the WD had been printed and bound. If I understand the argument correctly, the public availability of the German WD at the time of the posting is a fact that further solidifies that the WD had already been printed and bound.
Either way though, the photos were taken from a completed, published work, i.e. photographs of a printed page bound in a magazine, and were taken by a third party. That is what the argument is focused on.
So you are saying then the second something becomes physical and in print it is no longer protected? I think there is a difference between posting pictures from a magazine yet to be released in the warehouse before distribution and pictures from the back room of the game store after it was distributed, but before street date.
*edit* Just to add, reason I'm asking, this whole argument can be boil down to people arguing if a car is parked too far into the red or not and then a cop comes along and say, doesn't matter, it's past 6:00 PM. No parking only applies till 6:00. The original question isn't answered.
I think the point, right or wrong, is that given the circumstances the DMCA was objectively wrong and GW knew it was or should have known it. GW had all of those facts in its hands.
Also, the distinction made was between something that had already been published (whether or not it had been released to the public), and something that had not yet been formally published. Within that context, the release of the German WD is not so important, because released or not, the WD had been printed and bound. If I understand the argument correctly, the public availability of the German WD at the time of the posting is a fact that further solidifies that the WD had already been printed and bound.
Either way though, the photos were taken from a completed, published work, i.e. photographs of a printed page bound in a magazine, and were taken by a third party. That is what the argument is focused on.
So you are saying then the second something becomes physical and in print it is no longer protected? I think there is a difference between posting pictures from a magazine yet to be released in the warehouse before distribution and pictures from the back room of the game store after it was distributed.
I'm not saying that. I was attempting to clarify a point made in the argument you were referring to, but the argument I was thinking of was made by Kazwulf above, not in the Apok 40K post. Sorry about that.
I'm not saying that. I was attempting to clarify a point made in the argument you were referring to, but the argument I was thinking of was made by Kazwulf above, not in the Apok 40K post. Sorry about that.
NP. Just a little annoyed that someone goes out of their way to bring in an IP Lawyer and doesn't answer the question most people are wondering. Or at least I'm wondering.
I am not a lawyer, but I find it hard to see how Faeit212 could get in under the label of "journalism" or "review".
At least on the UK side of things, things like that need to comply with a few criteria, including
•The material quoted must be accompanied by some actual discussion or assessment (to warrant the criticism or review classification).
•The amount of the material quoted is no more than is necessary for the purpose of the review.
Faeit212 posts usually were quite the opposite. There wasn't much text with them, or any review. Mostly it was "new pics... look!" Second, he didn't try to keep the "material quoted" to the necessary minimum. Quite the opposite, he was trying to show everything he humanly could. That was the point.
I cannot really think of a judge who, presented with a typical Faeit212 article, would rule in his favour as his work being journalism or product-reviews.
I see what everybody else means by the legality of the image posting. I agree with what you are saying, but I still don't think that GW should have attacked google and Natfka.
What?! When did GW attack google?! Think you have misunderstood the situation here... And besides, since BoLS wasn't taken down by a DMCA act I don't think we can assume that Faeit was either...
GW had a DCMA complaint put through to google. BoLS was unrelated, Faeit was taken down by google following the DCMA.
I see what everybody else means by the legality of the image posting. I agree with what you are saying, but I still don't think that GW should have attacked google and Natfka.
What?! When did GW attack google?! Think you have misunderstood the situation here... And besides, since BoLS wasn't taken down by a DMCA act I don't think we can assume that Faeit was either...
GW had a DCMA complaint put through to google. BoLS was unrelated, Faeit was taken down by google following the DCMA.
BoLS was possibly down because the blogger-account (!) of nafta was taken down/locked/whatever. That account had author-permissions to both Faeit212 and BOLS.
sounds like BOLS decided to throw Faeit to the wolves and pretend like it never happened. Then again, even here on dakka GW strikes down anytime WD pictures are posted. Its gotten to the point where mods ask for people not to repost or link to the pictures without threat of removal.
tryanotherone wrote: Copyright or not ... Faeit was actually helping GW by pushing the hype and promoting their products for free.
The way GW is dealing the IP issue just pisses off the fanbase and their customers.
I think this is the point that people keep forgetting .. regardless of what you think about the legal connotations, it's just a crappy way to treat your most fanatical fans.
And do you know what? I don't think GW could give a toss, they have long since gone past the point of caring about what anyone thinks of them.
Right, cause theft of intellectual property for the sake of seeing the pretty pictures of models a few days early is totally fine.
This is pretty much no different than someone leaking Iron Man 3 online a week before release, just because we REALLY want to see it now doesn't mean we are entitled to. Far as I can tell what they were doing was outright copyright infringement and GW did exactly what it's legal rights allow it to do and asked for it to be removed. This isn't fair use and it isn't protected, it's just plain theft.
tryanotherone wrote: Copyright or not ... Faeit was actually helping GW by pushing the hype and promoting their products for free.
The way GW is dealing the IP issue just pisses off the fanbase and their customers.
I think this is the point that people keep forgetting .. regardless of what you think about the legal connotations, it's just a crappy way to treat your most fanatical fans.
And do you know what? I don't think GW could give a toss, they have long since gone past the point of caring about what anyone thinks of them.
Fanatical fans? The same ones who have .pdf copies of every codex and spiral-bound Xerox rule books? The ones who don't even buy a codex but instead use Battlescribe? The same people who only eBay for their models, proxy them from another range, and/or give virtually nothing to GW but then ask that GW "throw them a bone" somewhere?
So tuning rules and missions to reflect TO's isn't paying attention to the fanbase? Turning tournaments over to independent organizers isn't listening to the fanbase? Frequent FAQ's isn't listening to fan outcry? How about a new army release per system every month? Reformatting White Dwarf to contain more hobby content than ads doesn't count? No? Ever dealt with customer service? They will remedy and/or replace a faulty product for you faster than most, and genuinely get enthused to help people take interest in the hobby. The in-store employees encourage players to spend most of their time at their FLGS, and use a GW store only for learning, or getting those absolutely hard-to-get pieces. But protecting their IP is a "stunt" that undoes all that and shows they aren't listening?
The fans just have the ability to only pay attention to the negative.
Look, they aren't perfect. They do some things that irritate me, but so does every company on planet earth. EVERY company. Even the top of the customer service heap companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple do things to piss people off and "money grab." Those companies have just become large enough to have more IP in place than someone like GW, so their disputes are virtually unheard of.
Orktavius wrote: Right, cause theft of intellectual property for the sake of seeing the pretty pictures of models a few days early is totally fine.
Actually it is. There's this thing called "fair use" that you should try to understand.
This is pretty much no different than someone leaking Iron Man 3 online a week before release, just because we REALLY want to see it now doesn't mean we are entitled to.
It's absolutely different. Leaking an entire movie damages the value of that movie (why pay to see it in a theater when you can watch it for free without the wait), so it is not covered under "fair use" laws. Leaking the catalog pages from a magazine does not damage the value of the magazine because nobody buys the magazine for the catalog pictures (which GW posts for free on their website), so it passes that aspect of the "fair use" test. The correct analogy would be leaking a legally-obtained copy of the trailer for a movie a few days early as part of an article criticizing how much the movie sucks. It might annoy the copyright holder, but it's fair use.
This isn't fair use and it isn't protected, it's just plain theft.
You might want to go read about what "fair use" means. Posting limited parts of a magazine (which have no financial value) for purposes of comment on an important (for the gaming industry) news event is textbook fair use.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
brassangel wrote: Even the top of the customer service heap companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple do things to piss people off and "money grab."
There's a difference between a legal but unpopular "money grab" and GW's blatant abuse of the legal system. The criticism here isn't that GW is making the fans unhappy by refusing to release information about new releases, it's that they abused the DMCA system to silence legitimate fair use and claim protection for their IP that exceeds what the law actually grants.
I see what everybody else means by the legality of the image posting. I agree with what you are saying, but I still don't think that GW should have attacked google and Natfka.
What?! When did GW attack google?! Think you have misunderstood the situation here... And besides, since BoLS wasn't taken down by a DMCA act I don't think we can assume that Faeit was either...
GW had a DCMA complaint put through to google. BoLS was unrelated, Faeit was taken down by google following the DCMA.
BoLS was possibly down because the blogger-account (!) of nafta was taken down/locked/whatever. That account had author-permissions to both Faeit212 and BOLS.
Orktavius wrote: Right, cause theft of intellectual property for the sake of seeing the pretty pictures of models a few days early is totally fine.
This is pretty much no different than someone leaking Iron Man 3 online a week before release, just because we REALLY want to see it now doesn't mean we are entitled to. Far as I can tell what they were doing was outright copyright infringement and GW did exactly what it's legal rights allow it to do and asked for it to be removed. This isn't fair use and it isn't protected, it's just plain theft.
"Point, Orktavius"
"Orktavius, Point"
Now you've been introduced, hopefully you won't keep missing each other so easily...
Orktavius wrote: Right, cause theft of intellectual property for the sake of seeing the pretty pictures of models a few days early is totally fine.
This is pretty much no different than someone leaking Iron Man 3 online a week before release, just because we REALLY want to see it now doesn't mean we are entitled to. Far as I can tell what they were doing was outright copyright infringement and GW did exactly what it's legal rights allow it to do and asked for it to be removed. This isn't fair use and it isn't protected, it's just plain theft.
There is a vast and over-riding difference between leaking a movie online a week before release AND what Faeit212 did, which is basically publishing poor quality photos and second-hand information.
Comparatively, it would be like someone taking photos during filming or publishing a synopsis of the movies plot online - neither of which is illegal and floods every movie blog and news site.
It happens ALL THE FLOGGIN' TIME and most entertainment companies treat it like it is, which is free advertisement which builds energy in the fan-base.
Going after blogs like Faeit212 is just another in a string of horrible business decisions by Games-Workshop ...
I think the argument that has been made time-and-time again, across our entire online hobby space is incredibly poignant and especially valid at times like these -- any idiot worth two-pence could do a better job of running this company, and being a stockholder (not much, mind you) I think it is high-time those governing the company were replaced, en mass.
If only we had £640 million quid we could make it happen ...
Getting close to 2 years that I have commented about GW's revenue streaming process and its effects.
Front line gaming has written an article about his opinions concerning most recent GW's actions. I suggest you read it to get an idea what "vertical Integration" is about. I consider this a response from GW to their failures in competing at the current economic climate.
It's all about control. From manufacturing to distribution, it is all about control. The need to do this is IMHO is that loss of their customer base by their actions since 2006.
Another thing. I am going to cut and paste a comment made on Frontline's article as it continues the current business trend coming from GW.
BLACKHAND1 May 2013 20:37
Hey Frontline, Another smallish GW douche move that people may not be aware of....
I work at a bookstore in New Zealand, because I also help to run the local gaming club I stock White Dwarf, Fantasy Flight's Relic and other gaming related product(ignore the fact that we get White Dwarf two months later than GW stockists, its not worth arguing over) For the last 2 years we have been stocking Black Library titles, buying them through Penguin books. We have two entire shelves of books ( a lot for a Sci-Fi series in a small shop believe me)and a small but dedicated audience who salivate for the latest title. Two weeks ago I received an email from Penguin advising me that as of May 30th Penguin has lost the rights to distribute Black Library titles and in order to stock these titles we would have to open a Black Library Trade Account. As of today I have received no information on how to open such an account and tbh I have no intention of looking into it, if their terms are anything like the terms for Independent stockists of GW models then we will not be interested.
I can only shake my head at this point as it is more of the same foot shooting that GW has been doing for the 7 years I have been in the hobby but the real kicker? Of the 10 odd customers who regularly peruse the shelves for Black Library only 2 actually play the game! The rest of them will never set foot in out towns model shop (that only ever carries one copy of the latest title and never restocks) and so will JUST STOP BUYING BLACK LIBRARY. Anyways, what can you do? If they are determined to do this to themselves how can we stop it, and do we even want to?
Peregrine wrote: [You might want to go read about what "fair use" means. Posting limited parts of a magazine (which have no financial value) for purposes of comment on an important (for the gaming industry) news event is textbook fair use.
"Textbook" fair use? Hardly. This isn't YMDC, and "fair use" is almost always a fact-based issue in copyright disputes; it's not nearly as clear-cut as you keep trying to portray it.
Adam LongWalker wrote: Getting close to 2 years that I have commented about GW's revenue streaming process and its effects.
Front line gaming has written an article about his opinions concerning most recent GW's actions. I suggest you read it to get an idea what "vertical Integration" is about. I consider this a response from GW to their failures in competing at the current economic climate.
It's all about control. From manufacturing to distribution, it is all about control. The need to do this is IMHO is that loss of their customer base by their actions since 2006.
Another thing. I am going to cut and paste a comment made on Frontline's article as it continues the current business trend coming from GW.
BLACKHAND1 May 2013 20:37
Hey Frontline, Another smallish GW douche move that people may not be aware of....
I work at a bookstore in New Zealand, because I also help to run the local gaming club I stock White Dwarf, Fantasy Flight's Relic and other gaming related product(ignore the fact that we get White Dwarf two months later than GW stockists, its not worth arguing over) For the last 2 years we have been stocking Black Library titles, buying them through Penguin books. We have two entire shelves of books ( a lot for a Sci-Fi series in a small shop believe me)and a small but dedicated audience who salivate for the latest title. Two weeks ago I received an email from Penguin advising me that as of May 30th Penguin has lost the rights to distribute Black Library titles and in order to stock these titles we would have to open a Black Library Trade Account. As of today I have received no information on how to open such an account and tbh I have no intention of looking into it, if their terms are anything like the terms for Independent stockists of GW models then we will not be interested.
I can only shake my head at this point as it is more of the same foot shooting that GW has been doing for the 7 years I have been in the hobby but the real kicker? Of the 10 odd customers who regularly peruse the shelves for Black Library only 2 actually play the game! The rest of them will never set foot in out towns model shop (that only ever carries one copy of the latest title and never restocks) and so will JUST STOP BUYING BLACK LIBRARY. Anyways, what can you do? If they are determined to do this to themselves how can we stop it, and do we even want to?
Can someone verify this to be the case? Thanks.
Chapters indigo here in Canada has cut their shelf space in half for BL at 3 of the stores I visit. Means they are either doing crappy or GW is being a bunch of piss pots
Peregrine wrote: [You might want to go read about what "fair use" means. Posting limited parts of a magazine (which have no financial value) for purposes of comment on an important (for the gaming industry) news event is textbook fair use.
"Textbook" fair use? Hardly. This isn't YMDC, and "fair use" is almost always a fact-based issue in copyright disputes; it's not nearly as clear-cut as you keep trying to portray it.
It really is. Look at the laws for fair use. The US laws give four things to consider:
the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
Faeit 212's posts were done for journalistic purposes, with no commercial gain. Using portions of copyrighted material that is relevant to a news article for purposes of commenting on it is textbook fair use.
the nature of the copyrighted work;
The WD pages that were posted were a catalog, not really a creative work. Copyright protects the expression of an idea, not mere facts, and it isn't really plausible to claim that the exact layout of the product pictures and price list has any creative merit.
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
The posted pages were only a small part of the magazine by page count, and a negligible part of the magazine in terms of its actual content. The "heart" of the magazine, the articles/painting guides/etc, was not posted at all.
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The posted material is also available, for free, on GW's own website, so the effect is nonexistent.
So yes, it has to be settled in court to be 100% sure, but Faeit 212's use of copyrighted material passes all of the tests without any real room for debate.
That is just slowed. I spend a fortune on GW's products and I used to love Faeit 212, it got me worked up and excited and was a good/the best place to look for upcoming stuff since GW has a slowed Apple like policy of keeping people guessing which creates the appetite for stuff like Faeit 212. With the difference I guess that Apple actually bought a clue and realises that the rumour mill is good for business and not bad.
So yes, it has to be settled in court to be 100% sure, but Faeit 212's use of copyrighted material passes all of the tests without any real room for debate.
Including the rumored 21 full pages photographed of the Imperial Armorer book?
If true, double digit full page images of copyrighted publications seems hard to twist into legitimate. It doesn't seem reasonable to photograph much more than the cover and ToC when reviewing a copyrighted publication.
So yes, it has to be settled in court to be 100% sure, but Faeit 212's use of copyrighted material passes all of the tests without any real room for debate.
Including the rumored 21 full pages photographed of the Imperial Armorer book?
If true, double digit full page images of copyrighted publications seems hard to twist into legitimate. It doesn't seem reasonable to photograph much more than the cover and ToC when reviewing a copyrighted publication.
Was reading Faeit 212 regularly and I never spotted that. It was rumours and comment, and quite specifically strayed away from negativity and tried to remain objective.
The irony of complaining about adding nothing to the conversation whilst adding nothing to the conversation and sparking a tangential set of replies that add nothing to the conversation.
The irony of my reply sparking yet another tangent.
My brain running like jam out of my nose into the keyboard. fething agents of chaos everywhere.
cowen70 wrote: The irony of complaining about adding nothing to the conversation whilst adding nothing to the conversation and sparking a tangential set of replies that add nothing to the conversation.
The irony of my reply sparking yet another tangent.
My brain running like jam out of my nose into the keyboard. fething agents of chaos everywhere.
nkelsch wrote: Including the rumored 21 full pages photographed of the Imperial Armorer book?
But that's a separate issue. GW was entirely justified in going after the IA12 page scans*, but that doesn't excuse their abuse of the legal system in the case of the WD stuff.
*Though they were NOT justified in demanding the removal of the text describing the rules, since game rules can't be copyrighted (no matter how much GW's lawyers insist otherwise).
So yes, it has to be settled in court to be 100% sure, but Faeit 212's use of copyrighted material passes all of the tests without any real room for debate.
Including the rumored 21 full pages photographed of the Imperial Armorer book?
If true, double digit full page images of copyrighted publications seems hard to twist into legitimate. It doesn't seem reasonable to photograph much more than the cover and ToC when reviewing a copyrighted publication.
Was reading Faeit 212 regularly and I never spotted that. It was rumours and comment, and quite specifically strayed away from negativity and tried to remain objective.
The URL in one of the takedown notices was referencing imperial armorer which people said were a ton of photos including detailed synopsis. So depending what the content was, it may or may not have been over the line... But the arguments of "it is just white dwarf catalog pages" doesn't apply to rule books or dozens of full pages opposed to small thumbnails of subparts of pages. Of course this is all going by rumors and other people's comments on what was contained.
And when you mix one more substantial and potentially legitimate complaint with a bunch of BS, then google is going to say "they might be on to something" and do what hosting companies do best... Throw you off their server regardless who is right, since they basically have a right to deny service based on almost anything due to the EULA you agree to.
If GW wants to squash their own product and prevent advertisement or exposure of their products... Let them? Who cares?
nkelsch wrote: But the arguments of "it is just white dwarf catalog pages" doesn't apply to rule books or dozens of full pages opposed to small thumbnails of subparts of pages.
I don't think anyone has said that it does, or argued that they're the same.
nkelsch wrote: If GW wants to squash their own product and prevent advertisement or exposure of their products... Let them? Who cares?
So yes, it has to be settled in court to be 100% sure, but Faeit 212's use of copyrighted material passes all of the tests without any real room for debate.
Including the rumored 21 full pages photographed of the Imperial Armorer book?
If true, double digit full page images of copyrighted publications seems hard to twist into legitimate. It doesn't seem reasonable to photograph much more than the cover and ToC when reviewing a copyrighted publication.
Was reading Faeit 212 regularly and I never spotted that. It was rumours and comment, and quite specifically strayed away from negativity and tried to remain objective.
The URL in one of the takedown notices was referencing imperial armorer which people said were a ton of photos including detailed synopsis. So depending what the content was, it may or may not have been over the line... But the arguments of "it is just white dwarf catalog pages" doesn't apply to rule books or dozens of full pages opposed to small thumbnails of subparts of pages. Of course this is all going by rumors and other people's comments on what was contained.
And when you mix one more substantial and potentially legitimate complaint with a bunch of BS, then google is going to say "they might be on to something" and do what hosting companies do best... Throw you off their server regardless who is right, since they basically have a right to deny service based on almost anything due to the EULA you agree to.
If GW wants to squash their own product and prevent advertisement or exposure of their products... Let them? Who cares?
Well yeah OK they shouldn't have had that on. I find it difficult to believe they wouldn't have taken it down if asked though because it certainly wasn't the focus of what they do, I've been checking in there every day for months, now admittedly I would have skipped past IA because I'm not interested being only into strict 40k but all I ever saw was stuff that just pumped up the next big release and comment as said.
But you know yeah pull of that crap that shouldn't be shown, don't take down the whole damn blog.
Its a good case for having your own website for a blog that can't be taken down so easily. It takes all of a few hours to knock up a blog and whack it out after you've got domains and stuff sorted.
nkelsch wrote: Of course this is all going by rumors and other people's comments on what was contained.
It was there. It was originally posted elsewhere and Faeit 212 just compiled it all into a single post, but it had page scans* of some of the units as well as text descriptions** of others.
*Potentially illegal use of copyrighted material.
**Perfectly legal use of material that can't be copyrighted.
If GW wants to squash their own product and prevent advertisement or exposure of their products... Let them? Who cares?
It's an issue because GW is going beyond doing things like declining to put up previews on their own sites and abusing the DMCA system to get rid of posts that were entirely legal. It's yet another case of GW saying "we have more money to spend on lawyers than you, we decide what is and isn't legal", and that's a serious problem.
Peregrine wrote: [You might want to go read about what "fair use" means. Posting limited parts of a magazine (which have no financial value) for purposes of comment on an important (for the gaming industry) news event is textbook fair use.
"Textbook" fair use? Hardly. This isn't YMDC, and "fair use" is almost always a fact-based issue in copyright disputes; it's not nearly as clear-cut as you keep trying to portray it.
It really is. Look at the laws for fair use.
Thank you, I'm quite familiar with them. I disagree with your summary of the facts, and with your legal conclusions.
So yes, it has to be settled in court to be 100% sure, but Faeit 212's use of copyrighted material passes all of the tests without any real room for debate.
Except, of course, when reasonable people can disagree. That leaves an awful lot of room for debate.
So yes, it has to be settled in court to be 100% sure, but Faeit 212's use of copyrighted material passes all of the tests without any real room for debate.
Including the rumored 21 full pages photographed of the Imperial Armorer book?
If true, double digit full page images of copyrighted publications seems hard to twist into legitimate. It doesn't seem reasonable to photograph much more than the cover and ToC when reviewing a copyrighted publication.
cover would be better than the whole thing, a compromise of sorts.
nkelsch wrote: Of course this is all going by rumors and other people's comments on what was contained.
It was there. It was originally posted elsewhere and Faeit 212 just compiled it all into a single post, but it had page scans* of some of the units as well as text descriptions** of others.
*Potentially illegal use of copyrighted material.
**Perfectly legal use of material that can't be copyrighted.
Without the text in front of us, how can you decide what is a "perfectly legal use"? If there was solely a rephrasing of rules text, presented in a manner that indicated different selection criteria (or if there was solely a recitation of facts in which function dictated form), such a rephrasing may indeed have been fine. But we don't have the text in front of us; it could just as easily have been straight copied text from a book.
Janthkin wrote: Without the text in front of us, how can you decide what is a "perfectly legal use"?
Because I read the posts before they were taken down (I pre-ordered IA12 and I'm tired of waiting for it to arrive). There was no direct copy/pasting from the rulebook, all of the text was describing the rules in the author's own words (for example, describing a LRBT as "AV 14/13/12, battlecannon, hull LC, X points").
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Janthkin wrote: I disagree with your summary of the facts, and with your legal conclusions.
So lots of rules being given, but it's obviously written by someone summarizing the contents of the book in their own words, not a direct copy/paste.
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Janthkin wrote: Hit "Filter thread" by my name, and reread my earlier posts talking with Sean.
Which is just the stuff about the supposed impact on the value of WD, which, as I've pointed out, is based on the incorrect assumption that WD is the first source of that information and people buy WD to get it. In reality GW's own website is the first source for that information, and the catalog pages are just advertising, not content.
Janthkin wrote: Hit "Filter thread" by my name, and reread my earlier posts talking with Sean.
Which is just the stuff about the supposed impact on the value of WD, which, as I've pointed out, is based on the incorrect assumption that WD is the first source of that information and people buy WD to get it. In reality GW's own website is the first source for that information, and the catalog pages are just advertising, not content.
And you've got a couple of assumptions embedded in that statement as well that we've already disagreed on. 1) The images were posted before they were available on GW's website; this WAS the first look at them. That they later became available from GW's website doesn't alter the original issue, nor does it excuse wholesale copying of images even if that weren't true; pictures posted on the web are copyrighted, too. 2) Who's to say that people don't buy WD for the pictures of new models? I know people who have done precisely that.
I'm not sure where the idea that "advertising != copyrightable content" came from; it's incorrect.
Janthkin wrote: 1) The images were posted before they were available on GW's website; this WAS the first look at them.
That's not the point. The value of White Dwarf depends on whether or not White Dwarf is the first look, and it isn't. No matter what happens with leaked images White Dwarf can't be the first look because GW posts them online before WD is available. Let's look at the dates, taken directly from GW's own website:
So the earliest you could buy White Dwarf was April 27th, at which point all of the information contained in the scanned catalog pages was already available for free on GW's own website. There is no plausible argument that posting the catalog pages had any impact on the value of that White Dwarf issue.
I'm not sure where the idea that "advertising != copyrightable content" came from; it's incorrect.
I didn't say that. Obviously advertising is copyrightable, in fact fair use isn't even relevant unless it is copyrighted material. What I said was that the catalog pages are not content (as in the things you buy a product to get), they're advertising that someone put in the content to get you to buy something else. Arguing that seeing them early lowers the value of White Dwarf makes about as much sense as saying that seeing the walmart ad on page 6 of the newspaper lowers its value.
And, of course, the DMCA notice was dated April 22. The images were posted on Faeit's website before the magazine was available, and before the images were available on GW's website.
Arguing that seeing them early lowers the value of White Dwarf makes about as much sense as saying that seeing the walmart ad on page 6 of the newspaper lowers its value.
Strange you should choose that example. We used to see that precise scenario every year, when it came to Black Friday ads getting leaked before publication. A fair amount of contentious DMCA activity resulted in those situations, too.
Janthkin wrote: And, of course, the DMCA notice was dated April 22. The images were posted on Faeit's website before the magazine was available, and before the images were available on GW's website.
I edited that post to clarify: it doesn't matter whether or not Faeit 212 posted the images before a GW source, what matters is whether or not White Dwarf had commercial value as a first look at the images. And the simple fact is that it didn't, by the time anyone could buy the White Dwarf issue GW had already posted the images (or equivalent ones with the same function) on their own website. GW's own actions removed any commercial value from the White Dwarf catalog pages, so it would be impossible for Faeit 212 to reduce it.
You would have a point if WD was available before the GW website images and actually was an exclusive first look (though it wouldn't necessarily rule out fair use), but that's not the case here. GW's obsession with hiding new releases until pre-order day has completely destroyed their case.
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Janthkin wrote: Strange you should choose that example. We used to see that precise scenario every year, when it came to Black Friday ads getting leaked before publication. A fair amount of contentious DMCA activity resulted in those situations, too.
And in at least one case they backed down as soon as the target threatened to fight it in court: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-976296.html . Not that it matters, since the information only matters for a few days even an illegitimate DMCA notice gets it taken down long enough that the final outcome doesn't matter.
Also, the fact that other companies abuse DMCA notices to silence stuff they don't like doesn't justify GW's actions.
Janthkin wrote: And, of course, the DMCA notice was dated April 22. The images were posted on Faeit's website before the magazine was available, and before the images were available on GW's website.
I edited that post to clarify: it doesn't matter whether or not Faeit 212 posted the images before a GW source, what matters is whether or not White Dwarf had commercial value as a first look at the images. And the simple fact is that it didn't, by the time anyone could buy the White Dwarf issue GW had already posted the images (or equivalent ones with the same function) on their own website. GW's own actions removed any commercial value from the White Dwarf catalog pages, so it would be impossible for Faeit 212 to reduce it.
It's an argument. Another would be to note that some people do, in fact, prefer hard copy to pictures on the Internet, and copyright follows expression in a particular medium - GW has separately enforceable copyrights to their online presentation & their magazine.
I have no idea how a court would choose to rule, should GW have launched a lawsuit against Faeit & Faeit offered a "Fair use" affirmative defense. It's a nuanced area of the law, heavily dependent on the facts in each case, the case law in each circuit, and how much the judge's clerk(s) know about copyright law. But to present it as being as open-and-shut as you (and others) in the thread have been doing is to trivialize the legitimate legal issues here, and potentially give readers a skewed view of copyright & fair use.
Peregrine wrote: Also, the fact that other companies abuse DMCA notices to silence stuff they don't like doesn't justify GW's actions.
No strawmen, please. "Abuse" is a pretty strong word for a scenario never tested in court; I have no interest in "justify"ing anybody's actions.
Janthkin wrote: Another would be to note that some people do, in fact, prefer hard copy to pictures on the Internet, and copyright follows expression in a particular medium - GW has separately enforceable copyrights to their online presentation & their magazine.
You could make the argument that some people prefer hard copy to online, but then you'd have hard time making the argument that an online source could ever damage the value of a hard copy one. The kind of person that rejects GW's website pictures in favor of hard copies isn't going to care that some random blog has even lower quality images than GW.
And, of course, the DMCA notice was dated April 22. The images were posted on Faeit's website before the magazine was available, and before the images were available on GW's website.
Arguing that seeing them early lowers the value of White Dwarf makes about as much sense as saying that seeing the walmart ad on page 6 of the newspaper lowers its value.
Strange you should choose that example. We used to see that precise scenario every year, when it came to Black Friday ads getting leaked before publication. A fair amount of contentious DMCA activity resulted in those situations, too.
That's what is going on. The fact of the matter is that the WD was released to the web 5 days before it was officially released. That includes the prices (US, I think) Model pics, availability, stats, artwork etc... If GW wanted the WD to be released on the 22nd, they would have done so. GW doesn't seem to have a problem with the rumors (It helps them advertise, in a fashion) whereas the WD was specifically intended to go on sale at a fixed period. A bunch of people speculating about rumored stuff on the internet is hardly going to hurt GeeDubs, while leaked images of their property probably will.
But to present it as being as open-and-shut as you (and others) in the thread have been doing is to trivialize the legitimate legal issues here, and potentially give readers a skewed view of copyright & fair use.
Been busy the past couple days...but that is exactly the thing...
DMCA takedown notices are only to be issued when it is an open and shut case. If it is not an open and shut case (as is the case here) the lawyer has to make a false statement claiming it is open and shut case on behalf of their client...which is illegal.
Because their is a question of fair use, it is not open and shut - regardless of any claims GW might have to the contrary. There exists a substantial amount of case law that supports this issue. The only way you can argue that the DMCA notice would be valid is if you were to discount the potential news value of the posts. With fair use in mind though, the proper course of action under the law would have been for GW to file for an injunction through the courts and have a judge eveluate the nature of the amount of material versus its news worthiness. If the judge agrees that harm could be done to White Dwarf, than he would file an order pending a legal case against Faeit and with Google (the host).
That the DMCA is open to being abused and others might abuse it does not mean that we should ignore it being abused.
I see what everybody else means by the legality of the image posting. I agree with what you are saying, but I still don't think that GW should have attacked google and Natfka.
What?! When did GW attack google?! Think you have misunderstood the situation here... And besides, since BoLS wasn't taken down by a DMCA act I don't think we can assume that Faeit was either...
GW had a DCMA complaint put through to google. BoLS was unrelated, Faeit was taken down by google following the DCMA.
BoLS was possibly down because the blogger-account (!) of nafta was taken down/locked/whatever. That account had author-permissions to both Faeit212 and BOLS.
BoLS went down due to unrelated incidences. their physical server went down at the same time (coincidence, LOL) It's back up now.
You are posting that as if you know exactly what happened. That is not what Larry Vella has said, so you may want to check what you are presenting as if it is a fact. Trust me, it was not a weird coincidence.
BoLS went down due to unrelated incidences. their physical server went down at the same time (coincidence, LOL) It's back up now.
You are posting that as if you know exactly what happened. That is not what Larry Vella has said, so you may want to check what you are presenting as if it is a fact. Trust me, it was not a weird coincidence.
I seriously doubt BoLS went down for "server issues". It is Google we are talking about. They host Blogger. Isn't it strange that BoLS went down ecactly the same time as Faeit212 did? And Faeit212 is all over BoLS.
I am sure Google took down BoLS to review its content, while Faeit212 was just deleted.
Sean_OBrien wrote: DMCA takedown notices are only to be issued when it is an open and shut case. If it is not an open and shut case (as is the case here) the lawyer has to make a false statement claiming it is open and shut case on behalf of their client...which is illegal.
Because their is a question of fair use, it is not open and shut - regardless of any claims GW might have to the contrary. There exists a substantial amount of case law that supports this issue. The only way you can argue that the DMCA notice would be valid is if you were to discount the potential news value of the posts. With fair use in mind though, the proper course of action under the law would have been for GW to file for an injunction through the courts and have a judge eveluate the nature of the amount of material versus its news worthiness. If the judge agrees that harm could be done to White Dwarf, than he would file an order pending a legal case against Faeit and with Google (the host).
Citation, please? I'm familiar with OPG, but I haven't come across much else in the way of DMCA caselaw relating to this topic (and as we already discussed, I don't find OPG to be especially on-point here).
I do discount most of the "news" value of the posts. There wasn't much in the way of news - it was "look, pictures!" and a dump of a bunch of copyrighted images from WD (this time; previously, pictures of pages from IA 12, and etc.).
Janthkin wrote: Hit "Filter thread" by my name, and reread my earlier posts talking with Sean.
Which is just the stuff about the supposed impact on the value of WD, which, as I've pointed out, is based on the incorrect assumption that WD is the first source of that information and people buy WD to get it. In reality GW's own website is the first source for that information, and the catalog pages are just advertising, not content.
And you've got a couple of assumptions embedded in that statement as well that we've already disagreed on. 1) The images were posted before they were available on GW's website; this WAS the first look at them. That they later became available from GW's website doesn't alter the original issue, nor does it excuse wholesale copying of images even if that weren't true; pictures posted on the web are copyrighted, too. 2) Who's to say that people don't buy WD for the pictures of new models? I know people who have done precisely that.
I'm not sure where the idea that "advertising != copyrightable content" came from; it's incorrect.
Janthkin is very much correct to be conservative about making a call on fair use. Such a finding depends on weighing all of the facts, and we really do not have all of the facts.
Copyright Fair Use is a fact intensive inquiry typically involving the weighing of four factors, none of which is determinative on its own, nor dispositive of any other factor. Any such inquiry is naturally fact intensive as it involves a great deal of interpretation and weighing.
However, I will point out that commercial use is not determinative. I essentially said that above, but I think it is important to stress that. Just because you make money doing something does not mean that it cannot be considered fair use. Even if the sole purpose of doing something is to make money, it can still be considered fair use. Again, this is because no one factor is more important than any of the other factors, and no one factor can be used, on its own, to make a determination of fair use.
Edit: Saying that no one factor is more important than any other factor is not entirely accurate. A finder of fact could decide that given the facts a particular factor is very significant and weighs heavily in favor of one party. However, it would be erroneous to base a decision upon that factor alone, ignoring any other factor.
The point of case law like this is to force a fact finder to consider a broad range of important questions that should not be ignored because in so ignoring such a question, one might cease to be fair and/or consistent with the law.
For example, I lied to my wife last weekend. Normally, one would say that lying to one's spouse is wrong, but it might be acceptable given certain circumstances. Let's try to break it into certain factors, so we can make an objective decision about whether it was okay.
The topic of the lie The scale of the lie The timing/context of the lie The emotional impact of exposure
Let's say that the lie was about how my wife looks in a dress.
Topic: Personal Appearance. Well, on its own it could go either way. I mean, it isn't a lie about me sleeping with her sister. But it is also not necessarily a little white lie. See how we can't make a determination on only one factor? If I said the lie was okay because it was about her appearance without considering any other factors, I might get into trouble.
Scale: How badly does she look in that dress? Let's say she looks wretched, like, oh God no! Okay, well then this factor would weigh in favor of not telling the lie. It is pretty big in scale. However, the scale of the lie is also dependent on timing.
Timing: When is the lie told? In what context is it being told? Is my wife at the store picking up a dress for an important dinner party? If so, maybe I should tell her the truth. Are we shopping because she just had a crappy week? Maybe the lie would be okay. Is she pregnant and having trouble finding ANY dress that looks nice? Did she already BUY a dress on sale that could not be returned? Depending on the facts this factor might go either way.
Emotional Impact: How would the lie make her feel should it be exposed? Now, this might seem like the single determinative factor. But consider the emotional impact of the truth AT THE TIME of the lie. Maybe my wife would be very upset about me telling her that the dress she picked out makes her look fat. Maybe she was with her friends at the time of the lie, and it would have been more harmful to tell the truth then, even though if she finds out about the lie she would still pissed about buying a dress that makes her look fat. Maybe my wife would appreciate a white lie to make her feel good, but if she was picking out a dress for an important business function, my honest opinion overrides the ultimately positive emotional impact of the lie.
If I told the lie because I knew it would make her feel good at the time, and only based my decision on that factor, that could potentially cause problems. So I am required to also consider the other factors. The factors are interrelated to a certain extent, and facts can have an impact on one, several, or all factors. The key point is to make sure to walk through the exercise each time I evaluate whether to tell a lie to my wife, so that I always make a complete, objective decision that weighs consistent factors.
Peregrine wrote: To clarify the IA12 issue: there may have been slight differences, but this is pretty much what Faeit 212 posted for the text part (copy/pasting from this source): http://darogscompany.blogspot.com/2013/04/imperial-armour-12-fall-of-orpheus.html So lots of rules being given, but it's obviously written by someone summarizing the contents of the book in their own words, not a direct copy/paste.
Hmm.. False... There was a QnA and people asked for some of the rules. Some people, who shall not be named because others might get angry at them, had awesome google-skills and combined the information that could be found on other websites and fora.
That website you linked was not his source. That website actually "stole" the combined information from Faeit 212. I know that because: 1. I was following the thread. 2. The QnA-thread was a week before that blog-post. 3. I know the person who wrote much of that stuff after collecting it on other sites and combining information. He posted it on Faeit 212.
By citing breach of copyright, rightly or wrongly, they shut down a large place where rumours circulate.
In last years Investors report, it was cited that they had seen more people go for White Dwarf, to get any info on what is happening. Without Faeit 212, this can be argued to be so again.
However, the problem with White Dwarf is that if is too much a promotional item, and with very little useful stuff. I stopped buying it a few months ago, because it was an expensive advert campaign every month.
Painting guides that used to be in it, and so forth, are now being sold... iTunes only. This means that all those who use other formats either have to start buying Apple products, or be excluded.
Games Workshop is clearly being run by people who fail to grasp how things are today. In a couple of years time, they will be second or third for wargaming, and figures. In tough times, the most adaptive wins out.
In the end, you have to work out what laws have been broken. There is more than one country involved here, and the question remains... can a British company use American law to shut down a blog with a British domain name? Why not use British law instead?
In the end, all it does is make me much more apathetic to the company. Games Workshop is what got me into this hobby, but it isn't likely to keep me in it.
Peregrine (or anyone else posting on this thread), are you an attorney who specializes in IP? Just curious because you seem to speak as if you are...so I'd like to clear the air and establish either you are an attorney qualified to speak on this matter or not...
You can't simply look at the wording of just any law and simply interpret it, or come to a determination, FYI.
First, you must look at how courts have defined the language of the law by examining other cases and then compare the facts of this case with the facts of other cases to see how a court or judge will/must rule.
So with that said, I was curious what cases you were referring to in coming to your conclusions?
Non-attorneys asserting legal arguments and conclusions seldom ends well in court, or otherwise.
I seriously doubt BoLS went down for "server issues". It is Google we are talking about. They host Blogger. Isn't it strange that BoLS went down ecactly the same time as Faeit212 did? And Faeit212 is all over BoLS.
I am sure Google took down BoLS to review its content, while Faeit212 was just deleted.
Neither I believe.
Google took down Nafka's Blogger account (!). As a result, all blogs/websites/etc.. he had author permissions to went off-line, which included BOLS. Then they had to disentangle that, given that the offensive content was on only one of the sites.
Sean_OBrien wrote: DMCA takedown notices are only to be issued when it is an open and shut case. If it is not an open and shut case (as is the case here) the lawyer has to make a false statement claiming it is open and shut case on behalf of their client...which is illegal.
Because their is a question of fair use, it is not open and shut - regardless of any claims GW might have to the contrary. There exists a substantial amount of case law that supports this issue. The only way you can argue that the DMCA notice would be valid is if you were to discount the potential news value of the posts. With fair use in mind though, the proper course of action under the law would have been for GW to file for an injunction through the courts and have a judge eveluate the nature of the amount of material versus its news worthiness. If the judge agrees that harm could be done to White Dwarf, than he would file an order pending a legal case against Faeit and with Google (the host).
Citation, please? I'm familiar with OPG, but I haven't come across much else in the way of DMCA caselaw relating to this topic (and as we already discussed, I don't find OPG to be especially on-point here).
I do discount most of the "news" value of the posts. There wasn't much in the way of news - it was "look, pictures!" and a dump of a bunch of copyrighted images from WD (this time; previously, pictures of pages from IA 12, and etc.).
Sometimes the pictures are the news, and no commentary is needed - this is generally the case when the new product is graphic in nature or when there is no other method in which a news agency can confirm or relate the story, other than with pictures. In those cases, the courts do not require a transformative or further discussion by the news agent. For example, the courts have found in Nunez v. Caribbean Int'l News Corp (http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-1st-circuit/1286688.html) that the presentation of facts in copyrightable form do not preclude other sources from using those facts to disseminate those facts. In particular, the Nunez court found the following when weighed against the 4 prong test of fair use:
◾Is the purpose and character of the use commercial or non-commercial?
•The Court found that there was newsworthiness to the photos. However El Vocero was printing them mostly to titillate readers and sell more newspapers, so this factor didn't fall squarely for or against fair use.
I would say that there is less titillation and more newsworthiness regarding blurry photos of pages of a magazine versus photos of a topless beauty pageant contestant - but in any case...lets call this a draw as well
◾The nature of the copyrighted work.
•The Court found that Nunez had already published the photos and had not registered the copyright or sought to control dissemination. That goes in favor of El Vocero.
Although the images are as of yet unpublished, prior to them being published in White Dwarf, they will be published online as part of the preorder/new release section of the GW website, which would be a mitigating factor when determining how important they are to the sale of the White Dwarf magazines. This is further emphasized because the court addressed the purpose of the photographs. The GW images, while copyright by default lack any form of artistic expression and exist solely for the purpose of expressing facts - these are our miniatures, now you can buy them.
◾The amount of the original work used.
•The Court found that El Vocero used the whole photo, but they couldn't have reasonably used any less, so this factor didn't fall squarely for or against fair use.
Much like the Nunez case, Faeit uses whole pages from time to time - though quite often they are also cropped and almost every instance they are somewhat blurry and out of focus (no doubt due to the clandestine sourcing of the images). Since the whole of the copyrighted work would be the entire White Dwarf magazine and the portions being displayed on Faeit are generally just the new release section which is available for free online, this would be another mitigating factor in support of Faeit.
Again, as with the nature of the work, the amount copied is addressed in Nunez to a large extent - is what Faeit used excessive to convey the story, or is it inline with what is needed to portray the nature and character of their intended use? Since the issue at hand would be the news of the new releases - copying the whole of that section of White Dwarf would likely not be deemed as excessive. Unlike other cases, where it could be argued that that devalues the end product (the whole White Dwarf), the new release section would have already been released for free online prior to the issuance of the White Dwarf and as a result it would have a negligible impact. If they were to copy other sections which are not freely available online (say the Heavy Metal or Battle Reports) then the copied sections would likely be considered to be excessive since those are not needed to show what the new releases are.
◾The effect on the potential market.
•The Court found that consumers who might have bought Nunez' photography were unlikely to be dissuaded by seeing the photos poorly reproduced in a newspaper. If anything, the publicity would increase demand for Nunez's work. That goes in favor of El Vocero.
The real big one. As repeatedly pointed out, the new release section of the website is updated before White Dwarf ships. People have free access to the offending information, so the impact on the sales of White Dwarf specifically would be minimal. Further though, since the pages in question would be pictures of a different copyrighted work - the miniatures - the same conclusion could be followed here...if anything, the publicity generated would increase demand for the miniatures, not decrease it.
In Murphy v. Millennium Radio Group LLC which was filed under the DMCA, the courts addressed a photo of some DJs who won a "Best Shock Jocks". The radio station used a photo from the magazine of the two DJs and the photographer (an independent contractor) sued. The court found that the photo was the best way to convey the news, but in a 3rd Circuit Court ruling weighed the potential economic impact for the photographer. Because of the potential impact on the photographer, that was deemed not to be fair use - however in the Faeit case, you would be hard pressed to demonstrate that the images posted by Nafka on his website actually put at risk the job and revenue stream of GW or even the photographer.
You also have Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation in which the court weighed the issue of fair use as well. In that case, the entire image was copied (this is one of those thumbnail web search cases). Again, comparable issues are weighed and addressed and find in favor of Fair Use - with almost no transformation at all.
In Higgins v. Keuffel, one of the earliest attempts to address the issue of Catalogs and advertisements as they might be copyrightable, the Supreme Court found:
To be entitled to a copyright the article must have by itself some value as a composition, at least to the extent of serving some purpose other than as a mere advertisement or designation of the subject to which it is attached.
That standard is still used today when determining if that item in question is a genuine creative work or if it is simply meant as an advertisement and can be found cited in cases like Feist Publ'ns, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., Gates Rubber Co. v. Bando Chem. Indus., Narell v. Freeman, Nihon Keizai Shimbum, Inc. v. Comline Bus. Data, Inc., Alberto-Culver Co. v. Andrea Dumon, Inc., Kitchens of Sara Lee, Inc. v. Nifty Foods Corp. and most recently Custom Dynamics v Radiantz LED Lighting.
On the issue of the DMCA, it lies within the statute itself as well as within the laws that existed before hand and since.
Section 512(c)(3)(v) states:
(v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
That little "or the law" requires people who file the DMCA to consider affirmative uses of copyrighted material, such as fair use, as demonstrated in OPG v Dielbold, Rossi v MPAA, Design Furnishing v Zen Path, Lenz v Universal Music, Ouellette v. Viacom (note, some have won, some lost - all discussed at length the issues at hand)... In both Lenz, OPG and Design Furnishing - the court held that the filer of a DMCA takedown notice should weigh the issue of fair use in making the above quoted statement. Rossi also addressed the issue, but did so in the subjective manner - though even when viewed subjectively it is hard to ignore the possible fair use issues in the Faeit website. In each case though, they address whether or not an exception would apply under the law as noted in 512(c) and whether or not the filer of the DMCA takedown notice should have known prior to filing that 1) that exception might exist and 2) that they chose to ignore it anyway.
To further demonstrate this reality, large IP conglomerates have actually created legal backdoors with content hosts like YouTube that allow them to takedown media without actually filing a 512(c) notice that would subject them to the rules of 512(f). They are not doing this because it is easier, rather because it insulates them from the liability generated by making the specific statement required under 512(c)(3)(v).
But to present it as being as open-and-shut as you (and others) in the thread have been doing is to trivialize the legitimate legal issues here, and potentially give readers a skewed view of copyright & fair use.
Been busy the past couple days...but that is exactly the thing...
DMCA takedown notices are only to be issued when it is an open and shut case. If it is not an open and shut case (as is the case here) the lawyer has to make a false statement claiming it is open and shut case on behalf of their client...which is illegal.
Because their is a question of fair use, it is not open and shut - regardless of any claims GW might have to the contrary. There exists a substantial amount of case law that supports this issue. The only way you can argue that the DMCA notice would be valid is if you were to discount the potential news value of the posts. With fair use in mind though, the proper course of action under the law would have been for GW to file for an injunction through the courts and have a judge eveluate the nature of the amount of material versus its news worthiness. If the judge agrees that harm could be done to White Dwarf, than he would file an order pending a legal case against Faeit and with Google (the host).
That the DMCA is open to being abused and others might abuse it does not mean that we should ignore it being abused.
MASSIVE DISCLAIMER: I am a current law student. I am still quite a distance from being a lawyer. I also haven't had the opportunity to read the entire thread fully yet. (First final is in 2.5 hours.) All that said, one of my major projects this semester involved fair use, so it's an area of law I'm acutely and painfully familiar with.
I'm familiar with DMCA and the takedown notices. I'm not as familiar with the DMCA case law as I'd like to be, but I haven't been able to find any requirement that the copyright holder certify that the case is "open and shut." The requirements for the takedown notice are provided by 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A), and that section does not provide the sort of requirement that you are talking about. The closest thing to that is a requirement that the person filing the notice have a good faith belief that the use was not authorized by the copyright holder.
I'm certainly open to correction if you can point to a case that provides a more stringent requirement, however. But I'd be surprised if there is one.
Fair use is an affirmative defense to a copyright claim. In basic terms, that means that it's not really GW's job to evaluate whether Faeit's use falls within the fair use limitation on copyright. It's Faeit's job to show that it does. GW needs to show that they own the copyright (we know they do), that Faeit published their copyrighted material (he did), and that he did not have their permission (he didn't). Once GW has done that, they have presented a prima facie copyright claim. Fair use gives the infringer - in this case, Faeit - the opportunity to say, "yes, I did all those things, but I am allowed to under the law because..."
As far as the good faith requirement is concerned, a possible fair use defense does not change GW's ability to certify, in good faith, that they did not give Faeit permission. I could maybe see there possibly being a bit of an issue if there was an open-and-shut case of fair use, but fair use is almost never open-and-shut. As others have pointed out, fair use requires the court to weigh a number of factors. There's no bright line rule defining when any of those factors have been met. All of the factors are assessed based on the individual facts of the case.
My gut instinct says that Faeit probably does not have a strong fair use defense here. The facts here, particularly where the advance pictures from WD are concerned, are a relatively good fit with Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985). In that case, SCOTUS found against fair use, and the first publication rights of the original author played a large role in that determination. (There are ways to distinguish the cases, of course.)
I've got an exam in a little bit, but I'll try to find time to look at this a bit more later on today.
Y'know ever since GW dropped the GoogleHammer on BOLS, it's been quieter here, like we worried about the GoogleHammer, too.
I'm a little concerned. It's like GW is the effective yet little, petty, spiteful jerk who hired the biggest, meanest most-don't-give-a-F, thugged out jock (Google) to kick in the teeth of somebody who didn't even really do anything wrong (BOLS).
We just all hushed because we prob'ly know we not just gonna totally swear off GW... myself included I guess.
Of course if you're planning to start an IG or possibly Space Marine army I would do my best to support DreamForge as much as I could. All Eisenkern Stormtroopers for my IG infantry.
Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises is a bad fit. In that case the issue was more relating to the financial impact that that first publication gained (or lost) by the material published. In this case, the prerelease deals primarily with information that becomes freely available from GW prior to the shipment of the White Dwarf. As such, the financial losses would be minimal.
Sometimes the pictures are the news, and no commentary is needed - this is generally the case when the new product is graphic in nature or when there is no other method in which a news agency can confirm or relate the story, other than with pictures. In those cases, the courts do not require a transformative or further discussion by the news agent. For example, the courts have found in Nunez v. Caribbean Int'l News Corp (http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-1st-circuit/1286688.html) that the presentation of facts in copyrightable form do not preclude other sources from using those facts to disseminate those facts. In particular, the Nunez court found the following when weighed against the 4 prong test of fair use:
◾Is the purpose and character of the use commercial or non-commercial?
...
◾The nature of the copyrighted work.
...
◾The amount of the original work used
...
◾The effect on the potential market
(more big snipping)
1: Purpose and character
If Faeit had ads on the page, and IIRC he did, then the infringing use was probably commercial in nature. The minuscule amount of money - if any - actually raised would probably not matter.
The "transformative nature" of the infringing work is also examined with this prong. There's more wiggle room here, but the use is unlikely to be transformative enough to pass muster. He was using photographs of the work for what is arguably the exact purpose of the work itself - to inform GW fans about what is coming in the near future. The assignment I had on fair use this semester was set in the 6th Circuit, so I'm most familiar with the law there. In that circuit, excerpts of academic material in university course packets were found to be insufficiently transformative. Karaoke re-recordings of popular songs were also found to be insufficiently transformative. Unless the 6th Circuit is a very radical outlier, I think this factor will probably be found to weigh against fair use. At absolute best, it would be neutral.
2: Nature of the copyrighted work.
GW is presenting pictures of their creative work (new products) in a magazine that showcases their creative content, which is itself their own creative work. Generally speaking, the more individual creativity that goes in to the work infringed, the less likely that the factor will weigh in favor of fair use. The more the content is like news reporting, or restatements of facts, the more likely it is that fair use will be found.
There is very little chance that anything that GW produces is going to be considered to be "news" for the purposes of fair use analysis. Generally speaking, "North Korea tests nuke" is the kind of news they are talking about. As important as gaming is to us, it's not so objectively important that the public interest in learning about GW's plans would outweigh their first publication right. As far as "facts" goes, for fair use purposes we're talking about names in a phone book, or a baseball score. "Here are the game rules for this new thing" is not likely to be considered "factual." The Harper & Row case would indicate that the deliberate attempt to scoop GW, in the face of GW's first publication rights, will weigh heavily against a fair use determination here.
The court will also look at the material being infringed. The core purpose of copyright is to encourage creativity and the publication of new ideas, concepts, stories, music, art, etc. Games Workshop's material falls squarely within what copyright is intended to protect.
I don't think that there's any question that this factor will weigh against fair use here.
3: Amount of original work used.
This one is a tough call. On the surface, it looks like the limited extent would probably weigh in favor of fair use. At the same time, Harper & Row involved a case where a relatively small portion (13%) of the infringing work was used. SCOTUS still found that the factor weighed against fair use. One of the reasons for that was because the infringing article was focused entirely on the infringing work. That's broadly similar to this case.
There's a chance that this factor will be found to favor fair use, but it's more likely to be neutral or to disfavor fair use slightly.
4: Impact on market.
This is the hardest to determine, largely because the E-Bay ruling threw a big wrench into everything. Justice Thomas wasn't all that clear when he wrote the opinion, and the effect is still a bit unclear.
Probably, if Faeit's work is commercial in nature (and I think it probably is), then it probably becomes his responsibility to show a lack of market effect. Probably, GW can show that this factor favors them with a relatively minimal amount of work. I honestly don't know how to evaluate this factor.
All in all, though, even if we treat the "impact on market" factor as favoring a fair use determination, none of the other factors clearly do, and at least one argues strongly against. I really don't think that a court would be likely to find that Faeit's use of GW's materials is within fair use.
I hope I'm wrong about that, though. I really liked and am going to miss that site.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sean_OBrien wrote: Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises is a bad fit. In that case the issue was more relating to the financial impact that that first publication gained (or lost) by the material published. In this case, the prerelease deals primarily with information that becomes freely available from GW prior to the shipment of the White Dwarf. As such, the financial losses would be minimal.
I wish I could agree.
I think the impropriety of Nation's conduct played a large role in the outcome in the case, and I think it would here. Like I said, I haven't had the time to research fair use with the focus on these facts (but might over the summer, when I'll be doing a lot of IP research). That said, given everything that has been found to not be fair use (karaoke, college course reading packets, etc), I just can't see there being a really strong fair use defense available here. It would be worth a try, but I really doubt it would succeed.
There is very little chance that anything that GW produces is going to be considered to be "news" for the purposes of fair use analysis. Generally speaking, "North Korea tests nuke" is the kind of news they are talking about. As important as gaming is to us, it's not so objectively important that the public interest in learning about GW's plans would outweigh their first publication right. As far as "facts" goes, for fair use purposes we're talking about names in a phone book, or a baseball score. "Here are the game rules for this new thing" is not likely to be considered "factual."
These protections aren't just for scooping north korea. it might not be considered news in your opinion, but anyone who looks at that blog in its entirety will note that it is definitely a news blog. The fair use argument is now in the amount of photos used, which I find somewhat excessive but this would definitely need a court decision to say exactly where the line was crossed, if at all.
There is very little chance that anything that GW produces is going to be considered to be "news" for the purposes of fair use analysis. Generally speaking, "North Korea tests nuke" is the kind of news they are talking about. As important as gaming is to us, it's not so objectively important that the public interest in learning about GW's plans would outweigh their first publication right. As far as "facts" goes, for fair use purposes we're talking about names in a phone book, or a baseball score. "Here are the game rules for this new thing" is not likely to be considered "factual."
These protections aren't just for scooping north korea. it might not be considered news in your opinion, but anyone who looks at that blog in its entirety will note that it is definitely a news blog. The fair use argument is now in the amount of photos used, which I find somewhat excessive but this would definitely need a court decision to say exactly where the line was crossed, if at all.
The nature of the copyrighted work factor focuses on the copyrighted work, not the allegedly infringing work. Faeit's use is not the key issue; GW's purpose is. The reason for this is because the copyright act is explicitly intended to encourage the production of original and creative material. When the court examines the factor, they're looking to see how original and creative the copyrighted material is, to see how well that work fits with the intended purpose of copyright.
In general, GW's work is a good fit with what copyright is intended to protect, which is why this factor will almost certainly not favor fair use.
Mike Dunford wrote: If Faeit had ads on the page, and IIRC he did, then the infringing use was probably commercial in nature. The minuscule amount of money - if any - actually raised would probably not matter.
But by that standard pretty much ANY published work would be "commercial". Every single newspaper article would be commercial, any website that has even a single ad would be commercial, etc. It would be pretty much impossible to pass this test and be considered "fair use" if that kind of small and indirect "commercial" benefit was enough to fail it.
GW is presenting pictures of their creative work (new products) in a magazine that showcases their creative content, which is itself their own creative work.
But that's not true at all. The catalog pages are not creative at all, it's a straightforward listing of product names/pictures/prices. It's about as "creative" as a phone book.
"Here are the game rules for this new thing" is not likely to be considered "factual."
Interesting fact: game rules can't be copyrighted, so fair use is irrelevant in that case.
The core purpose of copyright is to encourage creativity and the publication of new ideas, concepts, stories, music, art, etc. Games Workshop's material falls squarely within what copyright is intended to protect.
Which would be true if Faeit 212 had posted the articles, painting guides, etc. But they didn't, they posted the catalog pages which are not in any way a "new idea". It's purely a factual listing of which products are available for sale at which prices.
At the same time, Harper & Row involved a case where a relatively small portion (13%) of the infringing work was used. SCOTUS still found that the factor weighed against fair use. One of the reasons for that was because the infringing article was focused entirely on the infringing work
Besides the fact that the other three factors in that case were very different from this one, the 13% was too much because it was an important part of the book. The 13% was chosen specifically to reveal something that would have been a major reason to buy the book, and giving away that key 13% meant a substantial reduction in the value of the book. That is NOT true in this case because the catalog pictures are a negligible portion of the value of WD (since by the time anyone can buy the magazine GW has already posted all of that for free on their own website).
Probably, GW can show that this factor favors them with a relatively minimal amount of work.
I would love to see how GW can show with a "minimal amount of work" that there was any non-trivial loss from having the catalog pages posted early when GW themselves already post the exact same information before WD is available to buy.
Mike Dunford wrote: 1: Purpose and character
If Faeit had ads on the page, and IIRC he did, then the infringing use was probably commercial in nature. The minuscule amount of money - if any - actually raised would probably not matter.
The "transformative nature" of the infringing work is also examined with this prong. There's more wiggle room here, but the use is unlikely to be transformative enough to pass muster. He was using photographs of the work for what is arguably the exact purpose of the work itself - to inform GW fans about what is coming in the near future. The assignment I had on fair use this semester was set in the 6th Circuit, so I'm most familiar with the law there. In that circuit, excerpts of academic material in university course packets were found to be insufficiently transformative. Karaoke re-recordings of popular songs were also found to be insufficiently transformative. Unless the 6th Circuit is a very radical outlier, I think this factor will probably be found to weigh against fair use. At absolute best, it would be neutral.
You have to first actually identify what is being infringed upon. The White Dwarf section is a portion of a larger work, as such - just trimming out the creative portions of the magazine (everything after the product pages) would be a significant transformation on its own. I say the product pages are not that creative primarily because their creative effort is not dealt with through White Dwarf - but rather through GWHQ. GWHQ sculpts the figures, they design the box art, they even write large portions of the text for use on their website catalog. Much of the White Dwarf activity for those pages is copy and paste from GWHQ work and minimally creative.
I would assume that you are probably referring to the Zomba v Panorama case in your citation on the karaoke (university course packets can be any number of things...though likely Princeton University Press). As such, the court found it was minimally transformative (as here) but that the nature of the work didn't pass the sniff test. Unlike this case which has a purpose of reporting news - the sole and exclusive purpose of the Panorama karaoke discs was to sell them...there was no purpose to inform the public on things which concern them. Panorama attempted to claim some educational aspect, but in their own filings they fell flat by defining karaoke as "entertainment that allows anyone to grab a microphone, hop on stage, and live out their [sic] fantasies of performing as famous music stars" thereby nullifying their purpose defense. Princeton ran into similar problems as the purpose of the copy house was strictly commercial with no intent to inform or discuss the copyrighted material. The fact that the end user of the infringing material did use them for course work was irrelevant.
As a result - both of those cases do not apply directly here. While the transformative aspect applies to some extent (if you ignore the blurry camera phone pictures and stripping of 80-90% of the other content) than you still have the issue of purpose. The two cases cited were entirely commercial in nature. This case is primarily news related.
While Harper & Row did address that the Nation was attempting to get the "scoop" on their competitor - that isn't exactly the case here. While GW is a publisher, they are also a manufacturer of products. Those products carry with it consumer interest and thereby create a demand for news. The attempt is not to scoop a competitor as in the case of the Nation, rather to inform the public of a new product. In fact GW will end up "scooping" WD themselves prior to the magazine ending up in the hands of most of its readers.
2: Nature of the copyrighted work.
GW is presenting pictures of their creative work (new products) in a magazine that showcases their creative content, which is itself their own creative work. Generally speaking, the more individual creativity that goes in to the work infringed, the less likely that the factor will weigh in favor of fair use. The more the content is like news reporting, or restatements of facts, the more likely it is that fair use will be found.
There is very little chance that anything that GW produces is going to be considered to be "news" for the purposes of fair use analysis. Generally speaking, "North Korea tests nuke" is the kind of news they are talking about. As important as gaming is to us, it's not so objectively important that the public interest in learning about GW's plans would outweigh their first publication right. As far as "facts" goes, for fair use purposes we're talking about names in a phone book, or a baseball score. "Here are the game rules for this new thing" is not likely to be considered "factual." The Harper & Row case would indicate that the deliberate attempt to scoop GW, in the face of GW's first publication rights, will weigh heavily against a fair use determination here.
The court will also look at the material being infringed. The core purpose of copyright is to encourage creativity and the publication of new ideas, concepts, stories, music, art, etc. Games Workshop's material falls squarely within what copyright is intended to protect.
I don't think that there's any question that this factor will weigh against fair use here.
Courts actually do not make the determination of what is newsworthy in their eye, but rather if it is newsworthy for someone. Some people want to know what is happening with the Karhdasians or on Jersey Shore. Other people are interested in technology or other news. This news is focused on miniatures. None of those make one issue more newsworthy than the other in the eyes of the law - it is simply a question of whether or not a portion of the public has a thirst for that particular news. To quote the Nunez court:
Appellee reprinted the pictures not just to entice the buying public, but to place its news articles in context; as the district court pointed out, “the pictures were the story.” It would have been much more difficult to explain the controversy without reproducing the photographs.
The issue relating to this prong though is actually the nature of the copyrighted material - in this case photographs and blurps of products. There is minimal creativity applied here, but lets say there is some. As such, the court would view the images as factual (the products) or creative. The impact on the creative aspect though is minimal - that is not done by White Dwarf...instead at GWHQ. If you were to extend the claim back to include GWHQ, the posts on Faeit have minimal impact on the creative aspects - the miniatures - which GW would be protecting with their copyright as their primary concern. That leaves the factual elements of the photographs that tell the story.
In Harper & Row v Nation - the court found that the particular portions of the manuscript quoted were some of the most important words in the manuscript. One could argue quite reasonably that the new product pages are some of the least important pages of the White Dwarf (second only to the store listings I would guess).
I see it very hard how you could not see this as fair use.
3: Amount of original work used.
This one is a tough call. On the surface, it looks like the limited extent would probably weigh in favor of fair use. At the same time, Harper & Row involved a case where a relatively small portion (13%) of the infringing work was used. SCOTUS still found that the factor weighed against fair use. One of the reasons for that was because the infringing article was focused entirely on the infringing work. That's broadly similar to this case.
There's a chance that this factor will be found to favor fair use, but it's more likely to be neutral or to disfavor fair use slightly.
Which is why it is important not to look at how much - but what, and what value it has. As stated (a dozen or more times) product information becomes freely available on the GW site for preorder before readers of White Dwarf get the magazine (before it is even shipped to many independent stores and home recipients...though it seems they are trying to make it concurrent for GW stores). In any case, because those images and descriptions are freely available, the impact on the White Dwarf as a whole is minimal. If they printed the whole of the magazine, or if they were showing other pages outside of the product pages - there would be greater grounds for it not being fair use.
In particular the three cases you cited are not in play. Panorama featured complete songs being rerecorded for their Karaoke discs. Princeton copied complete chapters and articles for the course packets that they sold. Harper & Row dealt with the most important parts - "The Nation took what was essentially the heart of the book." You can not make a serious case that the new releases are "the heart" of White Dwarf.
4: Impact on market.
This is the hardest to determine, largely because the E-Bay ruling threw a big wrench into everything. Justice Thomas wasn't all that clear when he wrote the opinion, and the effect is still a bit unclear.
Probably, if Faeit's work is commercial in nature (and I think it probably is), then it probably becomes his responsibility to show a lack of market effect. Probably, GW can show that this factor favors them with a relatively minimal amount of work. I honestly don't know how to evaluate this factor.
All in all, though, even if we treat the "impact on market" factor as favoring a fair use determination, none of the other factors clearly do, and at least one argues strongly against. I really don't think that a court would be likely to find that Faeit's use of GW's materials is within fair use.
I hope I'm wrong about that, though. I really liked and am going to miss that site.
And again - the impact on the market...none or increasing it. GW release the photos ahead of time on their website. If anything, as found in the Nunez case, this would increase demand by increase the excitement around the release. It is not like the Harper & Row case that actually resulted in a cancelled contract and lost money. It is not like the Princeton Publishing case that actually resulted in students buying the cheaper course packets as opposed to the more expensive text books. It is not like the Panorama case where they skipped on paying the licensing fees for music. No - there is no demonstrable negative impact on the market. White Dwarf sells for the stuff after the new release pages, not because of the new release pages.
Mike Dunford wrote: 1: Purpose and character
If Faeit had ads on the page, and IIRC he did, then the infringing use was probably commercial in nature. The minuscule amount of money - if any - actually raised would probably not matter.
The "transformative nature" of the infringing work is also examined with this prong. ...Unless the 6th Circuit is a very radical outlier, I think this factor will probably be found to weigh against fair use. At absolute best, it would be neutral.
...As a result - both of those cases do not apply directly here. While the transformative aspect applies to some extent (if you ignore the blurry camera phone pictures and stripping of 80-90% of the other content) than you still have the issue of purpose. The two cases cited were entirely commercial in nature. This case is primarily news related.
While Harper & Row did address that the Nation was attempting to get the "scoop" on their competitor - that isn't exactly the case here. While GW is a publisher, they are also a manufacturer of products. Those products carry with it consumer interest and thereby create a demand for news. The attempt is not to scoop a competitor as in the case of the Nation, rather to inform the public of a new product. In fact GW will end up "scooping" WD themselves prior to the magazine ending up in the hands of most of its readers.
Yes, I was referring to both Zomba and Princeton. Yes, the use there was more apparently commercial than the use here. And, yes, I do tend to be pessimistic when I'm analyzing things. Still, I think the "commercial purpose" is going to be a problem for a fair use analysis here. If there was advertising on the page, I think it's going to be difficult to convince a court that the use was not commercial.
As you said, it's important to determine exactly what is being infringed. I'm not sure that's simple, either. There's definitely something to the whole "it's news" argument, but I think that GW might be able to frame the issue as involving the copyright for the individual images within the White Dwarf, particularly where the images are GW's photographs of unannounced and unreleased GW products, and particularly when those pictures are being used for the same purpose (announcing the release of a new product) as they are within the WD.
2: Nature of the copyrighted work.
GW is presenting pictures of their creative work (new products) in a magazine that showcases their creative content, which is itself their own creative work. ...
The Harper & Row case would indicate that the deliberate attempt to scoop GW, in the face of GW's first publication rights, will weigh heavily against a fair use determination here.
The court will also look at the material being infringed. The core purpose of copyright is to encourage creativity and the publication of new ideas, concepts, stories, music, art, etc. Games Workshop's material falls squarely within what copyright is intended to protect.
I don't think that there's any question that this factor will weigh against fair use here.
Courts actually do not make the determination of what is newsworthy in their eye, but rather if it is newsworthy for someone. ...
In Harper & Row v Nation - the court found that the particular portions of the manuscript quoted were some of the most important words in the manuscript. One could argue quite reasonably that the new product pages are some of the least important pages of the White Dwarf (second only to the store listings I would guess).
I see it very hard how you could not see this as fair use.
I think there's a decent argument to be made for fair use (more after reading your responses than before), but I don't think it's the argument most likely to prevail. I certainly don't think this is a clear-cut, slam-dunk example of fair use. (To the extent that there is such a thing, of course.)
As to the rest, this comes right back to the previous discussion about what, exactly, is being infringed. If the infringement is viewed as primarily being the infringement of the magazine as a whole, fair use is more likely. If it's infringement of the photo and accompanying product announcement, probably less so.
...
In particular the three cases you cited are not in play. Panorama featured complete songs being rerecorded for their Karaoke discs. Princeton copied complete chapters and articles for the course packets that they sold. Harper & Row dealt with the most important parts - "The Nation took what was essentially the heart of the book." You can not make a serious case that the new releases are "the heart" of White Dwarf.
True. If, however, it's infringement of the photo and announcement rather than the entirety of the issue, that changes a bit.
4: Impact on market.
This is the hardest to determine, largely because the E-Bay ruling threw a big wrench into everything. Justice Thomas wasn't all that clear when he wrote the opinion, and the effect is still a bit unclear.
...
And again - the impact on the market...none or increasing it. GW release the photos ahead of time on their website. If anything, as found in the Nunez case, this would increase demand by increase the excitement around the release. It is not like the Harper & Row case that actually resulted in a cancelled contract and lost money. It is not like the Princeton Publishing case that actually resulted in students buying the cheaper course packets as opposed to the more expensive text books. It is not like the Panorama case where they skipped on paying the licensing fees for music. No - there is no demonstrable negative impact on the market. White Dwarf sells for the stuff after the new release pages, not because of the new release pages.
I think you're probably right about this point, particularly since I'm having a hard time thinking of a way to argue that there is a negative impact. I'm just not sure if that's mostly due to post-exam brain fry or mostly due to a lack of plausible argument.
Sean may have already said this above, but Mike, virtually all news is commercial in some way. Nevertheless, the law construes the commercial intent of news much differently because apart from an intention to make money, there is a public interest in the dissemination of news; which tends to largely be composed of facts. Were it otherwise it would not be news.
Arguably, Faeit's primary purpose is to disseminate information (facts), and to comment on that information, not to make money, and especially not to profit by undercutting the value of another work. As can be seen in the cases Sean and yourself have cited, Courts tend to view the purpose and character of a use within the context of the impact that the use has on the value of the asserted work.
The Princeton case is an excellent example. The copy center was selling a product that derived value chiefly by unfairly appropriating that which gave the asserted work value. Further, the principle motivation for reproducing the content was to create a marketable product, as opposed to delivering information for the purpose of academic discussion. The course packets and the text books were essentially competing products, but the course packets were much cheaper. That the course packets were cheaper goes to the impact that the use has on the value of the asserted work. But, that the course packets were principally a competing product, characterized the Court's evaluation of the purpose and character of the use.
It is not just that the use is a product that matters, but the full and complete purpose and character of that use within the context of its relationship to the asserted work. Virtually all news is a product, and someone is making some kind of money from it, but by its very nature, news has a difficult time being a competing product against anything other than other news. News is also news because it is based on facts, hence there is an implicit assumption that the information being copied is of a factual nature, i.e. if the use is news, it colors all of the other factors, and appropriately so. And on top of all of that, we have First Amendment rights in the US, and a government that considers news to be very much in the interest of the health of our society.
In other words, news gets cut a lot of slack. Hence in the case Sean has cited that was actually about news, even when there was a really important question about whether the content was indeed news, you see a finding of fair use upheld. Most of the cases were you do not see a finding of fair use do not involve news, rather commercial uses of a much different character.
I don't see how Nafta-style "leak-posts" (having posted a few myself) would ever be considered as "news", "reviews" or "commentary" in front of any judge.
States may be different, but in the UK, to be considered criticism or review or news, any material quoted must be accompanied by some actual discussion or assessment and the amount of the material quoted must be no more than is necessary for the purpose of the review.
Posting one or two leaked high-elf pics, followed by a 200 or 300 words of discussion, assessment, comparison with previous high elf sculpts, or those of other companies. Fair Game.
Posting every image you can find with barely a sentence, usually something like "Look! New Pics!" is not news. Or review. Or anything else.
I can't see how, in court, you could ever convince a judge otherwise.
Zweischneid wrote: I don't see how Nafta-style "leak-posts" (having posted a few myself) would ever be considered as "news", "reviews" or "commentary" in front of any judge.
States may be different, but in the UK, to be considered criticism or review or news, any material quoted must be accompanied by some actual discussion or assessment and the amount of the material quoted must be no more than is necessary for the purpose of the review.
Again, this is the difference between the UK and the US when it comes to journalism and the law ... which also might explain why the notice that GW served against Google was for the UK version of Blogger.
I think gw buried the hatchet with this one. First they terminate their own forum, then the ban of online sales, then the annual price hikes, then the ban of bits sales online, and finally the termination of a very popular fan blog. I have had enough - they're acting like the inquisition. Their games aren't that fun, not enough for me to spend hundreds of dollars on products that only feed a fascist greed driven machine.
I'm leaning a bit more toward fair use than I was earlier, but only a bit. The thing that would probably nudge me the farthest toward fair use would be a citation to a case where publication of leaked photographs (or similar) was held to be "news" for the purposes of the fair use analysis. I'm going to try to find a bit of time to poke around on that for myself, but won't have a lot, so any help would be appreciated.
Absent that, I'm leaning a bit more toward Zweischneid's view. US law does not require that there be some actual discussion or assessment, but courts do seem happier finding fair use where more has been done to comment on the work.
bad, wonky, quoting here...
there was so much to snip...
GW is presenting pictures of their creative work (new products) in a magazine that showcases their creative content, which is itself their own creative work.
Peregrine wrote: "But that's not true at all. The catalog pages are not creative at all, it's a straightforward listing of product names/pictures/prices. It's about as "creative" as a phone book."
sorry, but the "catalog pages" are actually presented as written descriptions with accompanying pictures...
prices have not been listed for a few years for the new releases...
it is more of a creative work than just presenting a name, pic, and price...
even if you don't think it's quality work, there is a copy writer creating a description of the model's history, what it does in the game, and how the kit goes together...
a little bit more creative than a phone book...
when those pages are scanned and leaked, the writer's work is included on the page...
i'm no lawyer, and i don't know if this gives GW a leg to stand on, but there is in fact "creative work" in the new release section of WD...
Mike Dunford wrote: I'm leaning a bit more toward fair use than I was earlier, but only a bit. The thing that would probably nudge me the farthest toward fair use would be a citation to a case where publication of leaked photographs (or similar) was held to be "news" for the purposes of the fair use analysis. I'm going to try to find a bit of time to poke around on that for myself, but won't have a lot, so any help would be appreciated.
Absent that, I'm leaning a bit more toward Zweischneid's view. US law does not require that there be some actual discussion or assessment, but courts do seem happier finding fair use where more has been done to comment on the work.
Ins't that basically what Sean cited? I mean, you can't go looking for a case that is EXACTLY on point with all of the facts. Nunez is pretty darn close.
"Appellant Núñez, a professional photographer, took several photographs of Joyce Giraud (Miss Puerto Rico Universe 1997) for use in Giraud's modeling portfolio. Núñez then distributed the photographs to various members of the Puerto Rico modeling community in accordance with normal practice. After the photographs had been taken, some controversy arose over whether they were appropriate for a Miss Puerto Rico Universe, based on the fact that Giraud was naked or nearly naked in at least one of the photos. A local television program displayed the photographs on screen and asked random citizens whether they believed the photographs were “pornographic.” Giraud was interviewed by two local television stations as to her fitness to retain the Miss Universe Puerto Rico crown. El Vocero then obtained several of the photographs through various means. Over the next week, without Núñez's permission, three of his photographs appeared in El Vocero, along with several articles about the controversy.
Núñez claimed that the reprint of his photographs in El Vocero without his permission violated the Copyright Act of 1976. The district court applied the fair use test of 17 U.S.C. § 107.1 Focusing on the “newsworthy” nature of the photographs, the difficulty of presenting the story without the photographs, and the minimal effect on Núñez's photography business, the court concluded that El Vocero had met the requirements of § 107 and dismissed the complaint with prejudice."
Janthkin wrote: Nunez has a bunch more in the way of "traditional news" interactions surrounding the use of the photographs.
Sure, but it is close enough for congress, and certainly more apropos than Princeton. Come on Janthkin, how often do you get a case that is directly on point with exactly the current set of facts?
The question in Nunez was whether the picture itself was the story, right? There was controversy surrounding the content of the picture, sure, but the picture was much more creative in terms of a work of art than promo pictures of a product. The photograph was itself the thing that had value, rather than a photograph of a thing that has value that also has value as a work of art in some capacity that is distinct from the subject of the picture.
As much as the Nunez case was more 'journalism' it was also more 'art' too. Comparatively, the Faeit case is probably less 'journalism' but also less 'art'.
But at the end of the day, the question of whether the picture is the story is what makes Nunez relevant, and far more so than the other cases referenced thus far.
weeble1000 wrote: But at the end of the day, the question of whether the picture is the story is what makes Nunez relevant, and far more so than the other cases referenced thus far.
My problem with this scenario is that there was no story. "Look, pictures!" just doesn't look like news to me, in the sense of "this speech deserves protection that supercedes someone else's copyright."
Yes, fact patterns rarely repeat exactly; that's where my colleagues in litigation make their money, after all - convincing a judge that the facts are/are not close enough to this other case. But Nunez is so obviously surrounded with the trappings of traditional news, which are completely lacking here, that distinguishing it seems fairly easy.
weeble1000 wrote: But at the end of the day, the question of whether the picture is the story is what makes Nunez relevant, and far more so than the other cases referenced thus far.
My problem with this scenario is that there was no story. "Look, pictures!" just doesn't look like news to me, in the sense of "this speech deserves protection that supercedes someone else's copyright."
Yeah, from my RSS feed:
There are even more pics of the new High Elves floating around from yesterday and today. So here they are, alongside the ones from Friday so that you can see them all together.
weeble1000 wrote: But at the end of the day, the question of whether the picture is the story is what makes Nunez relevant, and far more so than the other cases referenced thus far.
My problem with this scenario is that there was no story. "Look, pictures!" just doesn't look like news to me, in the sense of "this speech deserves protection that supercedes someone else's copyright."
Yes, fact patterns rarely repeat exactly; that's where my colleagues in litigation make their money, after all - convincing a judge that the facts are/are not close enough to this other case. But Nunez is so obviously surrounded with the trappings of traditional news, which are completely lacking here, that distinguishing it seems fairly easy.
And yet was that not the case in Nunez?
"Unauthorized reproduction of professional photographs by newspapers will generally violate the Copyright Act of 1976; in this context, however, where the photograph itself is particularly newsworthy, the newspaper acquired it in good faith, and the photograph had already been disseminated, a fair use exists under 17 U.S.C. § 107."
Were not the photographs in the Faeit case themselves "particularly newsworthy?" The reason GW disseminated the photographs was to disseminate news of a product release. The product photos themselves are news, rather than having to acquire newsworthiness through allegations of scandal, as in the Nunez case. Without the scandal, there would have been no news in the Nunez case. The scandal had to do with the nudity in the photographs vis a vis the pageant mores, hence the photographs were "particularly newsworthy." In the case of the product release photos, the photos themselves are already particularly newsworthy without having to acquire it secondarily.
The release of those products was highly anticipated in the relevant community. There had already been much discussion about the appearance of said products, the possible existence of said products, and so forth. To write a story about the existence of and appearance of those products, the photographs are rather indispensable and I think one can indeed make an argument that the photographs are virtually the entirety of the story. That an article can be posted, and consumed vociferously, that does little else but display photographs of prints of the photographs is itself an indication that the photos are in and of themselves, a story.
The photos were not disseminated as a means to use them for a profit. They were disseminated because the existence and appearance of hitherto only rumored products is news. People in the community wanted to know. They did not want to take copies of the photos as a means to avoid paying for legally obtained copies of said photos, purchased because of their inherent aesthetic value. They wanted to know what the new products were. They wanted to be made aware of the facts contained in the photos.
This is markedly different from, say, selling as yet unreleased model kits, or copies of a BL novel, or even distributing those things. The nature of the photographs makes them news. GW treated them as news. GW created them for the purpose of disseminating facts, not for being consumed as works of art in their own right.
That is a critical distinction, i.e. the photos are less 'art' than in the Nunez case. The photos did not have to acquire any "particular newsworthiness" because they were inherently newsworthy.
Janthkin wrote: My problem with this scenario is that there was no story. "Look, pictures!" just doesn't look like news to me, in the sense of "this speech deserves protection that supercedes someone else's copyright."
It's going to be a pretty bad precedent if fair use depends on being "quality" journalism, and anyone who doesn't do a good job of writing their articles is automatically guilty. Whether or not Faeit 212 is a good author is irrelevant, the post was clearly an attempt to inform the community about news-worthy events.
Janthkin wrote: Nunez has a bunch more in the way of "traditional news" interactions surrounding the use of the photographs.
Sure, but it is close enough for congress, and certainly more apropos than Princeton. Come on Janthkin, how often do you get a case that is directly on point with exactly the current set of facts?
The question in Nunez was whether the picture itself was the story, right? There was controversy surrounding the content of the picture, sure, but the picture was much more creative in terms of a work of art than promo pictures of a product. The photograph was itself the thing that had value, rather than a photograph of a thing that has value that also has value as a work of art in some capacity that is distinct from the subject of the picture.
As much as the Nunez case was more 'journalism' it was also more 'art' too. Comparatively, the Faeit case is probably less 'journalism' but also less 'art'.
But at the end of the day, the question of whether the picture is the story is what makes Nunez relevant, and far more so than the other cases referenced thus far.
Nunez is a good case, but I don't think it's remotely as favorable to Faeit as others here do:
"This is not to say that appellee's use of the photographs was necessarily fair merely because the photographs were used for news purposes, nor does it establish a general “newsworthiness” exception....Were a “newsworthy” use per se fair, journalists and news photographers would be left with little assurance of being rewarded for their work." Nunez, 235 F.3d. at 22.
"Rather, what is important here is that plaintiffs' photographs were originally intended to appear in modeling portfolios, not in the newspaper; the former use, not the latter, motivated the creation of the work. Thus, by using the photographs in conjunction with editorial commentary, El Vocero did not merely “supersede[ ] the objects of the original creation[s],” but instead used the works for “a further purpose,” giving them a new “meaning, or message.” " Nunez, 235 F.3d. at 23.
"Unauthorized reproduction of professional photographs by newspapers will generally violate the Copyright Act of 1976; in this context, however, where the photograph itself is particularly newsworthy, the newspaper acquired it in good faith, and the photograph had already been disseminated, a fair use exists under 17 U.S.C. § 107." Nunez, 235 F.3d. at 25.
I still think there's a real question regarding the purpose of the original. I think there's a very reasonable argument that the intended use of those pictures on those pages of the White Dwarf was to allow GW to announce their new products in their publication. I don't think the overall purpose of all of the issue White Dwarf is going to be nearly as important as the purpose of the individual section. I'm still not seeing much of a new meaning, message, or purpose in publishing a photo of the magazine product announcement to confirm rumors about what new products are coming, and that's why I'd like another case besides Nunez.
I also think that, even if the leaks can get past the "particularly newsworthy" prong, there's still a problem with "already disseminated," and probably a problem with "good faith."
Mike Dunford wrote: I think there's a very reasonable argument that the intended use of those pictures on those pages of the White Dwarf was to allow GW to announce their new products in their publication.
Except that argument is undermined by the fact that GW publishes the same announcement on their website before WD is available. The first look is elsewhere, and WD is just supplementary advertising to remind you that you should buy this month's new releases.
Mike Dunford wrote: I think there's a very reasonable argument that the intended use of those pictures on those pages of the White Dwarf was to allow GW to announce their new products in their publication.
Except that argument is undermined by the fact that GW publishes the same announcement on their website before WD is available. The first look is elsewhere, and WD is just supplementary advertising to remind you that you should buy this month's new releases.
Do they? I've been consistently getting my White Dwarf (the iPad version) anywhere from a few hours to a full day or more before the new release/preorder email is sent out.
In any regard, even if they make other announcements before publishing the WD, those announcements are coming after the leaks, and that will matter.
Mike Dunford wrote: Do they? I've been consistently getting my White Dwarf (the iPad version) anywhere from a few hours to a full day or more before the new release/preorder email is sent out.
The GW website was updated with the new releases the same day that WD was available. Maybe the digital one goes up a few hours earlier than the website if you're willing to wake up at 3am instead of getting your news during regular business hours, but for most customers by the time they can go into a store and buy a copy of WD they've already had access to the website pictures. And of course if they have a WD subscription then they won't get it until long after the website has been updated.
In any regard, even if they make other announcements before publishing the WD, those announcements are coming after the leaks, and that will matter.
No, it shouldn't matter because the whole question of timing is about whether or not denying the "first look" status for WD is financial harm to GW or not. And the answer is that WD isn't the first look, so no damage can be done. The leaks would deny "first look" status to the GW website, but since the GW website posts all of that information for free it would be really hard to argue that the product has been devalued at all.
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jah-joshua wrote: sorry, but the "catalog pages" are actually presented as written descriptions with accompanying pictures...
prices have not been listed for a few years for the new releases...
it is more of a creative work than just presenting a name, pic, and price...
even if you don't think it's quality work, there is a copy writer creating a description of the model's history, what it does in the game, and how the kit goes together...
a little bit more creative than a phone book...
First of all, yes, prices are posted in the catalog pages.
Second, things like "multipart plastic kit containing three crisis suits and weapons" are not creative. It's purely factual information about a product, and has no inherent value or appeal beyond its information content. Just like a phone book you would only read it if you're looking for specific information, and you wouldn't care at all about the exact form it is written in.
Finally, the "creative work" of the product description is also posted for free on GW's website. Like a phone book the catalog pages just compile the information into a single source without transforming it in any way, presenting it in a new and interesting form, etc.
i have White Dwarf mags in front of me right now, going back 3 years...
there is not a single price on any of the pics of minis....
i just grabbed the Grey Knight issue from 2011, and the only prices i see are the cover and subscription price and the Games Day ticket price...
the new release section has not shown the price for years...
there was even a big laugh over it when they dropped the prices, as it was said that GW didn't want to scare people off by showing how much the minis actually cost...
that was at least two price rises ago!!!
i'm not sure exactly what you are refering to as catalog pages...
the new release section is now presented (in the new format) as an article, not the same blurb that is on the website's pages...
it has much more text, and the author's initials (i.e., a creative writer signing his work)...
if you are refering to the page where they show the boxes of the minis, with the small blurb, even they don't show prices...
i'm not trying to get on your case here, i'm just saying there is a little more work put into the new release section of the mag (where the leaked pics come from) than you are stating...
by the way, i am a digital mag subscriber, and get mine before the pics go up on the site...
If creativity is a criterion, then as well as the page layout, photography and text there is also the creativity of sculpting the model and painting it.
While all of this legal analysis is interesting, its not like this will ever come to a trial and when things do go to trial even the accurate legal analysis and reasonable speculation about this or that circumstance may not mean a hill of beans when you throw it in front of a jury.
I dont have a lot of sympathy for faeit's site because the way he was doing things was just asking for trouble, and trouble he received.
Anyone that doesnt know not to "poke tiger with sharp stick" pretty much gets what they deserve.
strange, i haven't seen a single book or mini price in my WD issues for the last few years...
the digital issues don't have prices either, but do have links to the product web pages...
that aside, my point is that there is creative writing involved in the new release pages of the magazine, wether or not people think it is good work...
it is also more in depth than the descriptions available for free on the GW website...
even the product pages online have a little fluff in the description, not just "multipart plastic kit containing three crisis suits and weapons"...
i'm not on either side of who is wrong and who is right in this case, but the people working at HQ on the minis, the paint jobs, the photography, the layout, and all the rest actually do produce some pretty creative stuff...
why argue so hard to take that away from the staff, who love minis as much as the fans and work damn hard to give us new toys every month???
JWhex wrote: If creativity is a criterion, then as well as the page layout, photography and text there is also the creativity of sculpting the model and painting it.
But Faeit 212 didn't use the models, only a few pages from WD. And on those pages there's very little, if any, creative work.
Anyone that doesnt know not to "poke tiger with sharp stick" pretty much gets what they deserve.
Yeah, that's a great attitude to have. Why have a legal system that defines what you can and can't do when you can just let the big companies tell you what is legal?
jah-joshua wrote: i'm not on either side of who is wrong and who is right in this case, but the people working at HQ on the minis, the paint jobs, the photography, the layout, and all the rest actually do produce some pretty creative stuff...
They do a lot of creative work, sure. But that's not the part that Faeit 212 used.
JWhex wrote: If creativity is a criterion, then as well as the page layout, photography and text there is also the creativity of sculpting the model and painting it.
But Faeit 212 didn't use the models, only a few pages from WD. And on those pages there's very little, if any, creative work.
Anyone that doesnt know not to "poke tiger with sharp stick" pretty much gets what they deserve.
Yeah, that's a great attitude to have. Why have a legal system that defines what you can and can't do when you can just let the big companies tell you what is legal?
jah-joshua wrote: i'm not on either side of who is wrong and who is right in this case, but the people working at HQ on the minis, the paint jobs, the photography, the layout, and all the rest actually do produce some pretty creative stuff...
They do a lot of creative work, sure. But that's not the part that Faeit 212 used.
how so???
without the sculptors, painters, photographers, and layout artists all doing their bit, he would have had nothing to preview on his site...
honestly, i wish GW hadn't gone after the guy...
early leaks are always a treat, but when it comes right down to it, he is leaking proprietary material that he has no right to until it is officially shown by GW...
i myself have had to sign non-disclosure agreements to get into the design studios of a few mini companies, as they do like to protect the secrecy of future projects...
GW is just taking it to the extreme, and making themselves look bad....
jah-joshua wrote: i'm not on either side of who is wrong and who is right in this case, but the people working at HQ on the minis, the paint jobs, the photography, the layout, and all the rest actually do produce some pretty creative stuff...
They do a lot of creative work, sure. But that's not the part that Faeit 212 used.
how so???
without the sculptors, painters, photographers, and layout artists all doing their bit, he would have had nothing to preview on his site...
If I'm understanding the argument correctly - and I am so not a lawyer - Peregrine thinks that the applicable creativity is only that of the photographer and the person who laid out the magazine, as that is what the unauthorised photos are of. The sculptor (and concept artist, potentially) would presumably come into play is Faeit was sculpting a duplicate of the model to show a new release off; not so sure about the painter.
I'd say there isn't much in the way of creativity in the sort of layouts we see (images in one column, captions in another highlighting points), but that's another matter entirely.
jah-joshua wrote: without the sculptors, painters, photographers, and layout artists all doing their bit, he would have had nothing to preview on his site...
Please review the laws on fair use. If, say, you're copying a picture of a sculpture then the picture is the copyrighted work that you're claiming fair use of, not the original sculpture.
Also, doing work does not necessarily make something a creative work. Someone has to do a lot of work to make a phone book, but that doesn't make it a creative work.
i myself have had to sign non-disclosure agreements to get into the design studios of a few mini companies, as they do like to protect the secrecy of future projects...
The difference here is that a NDA is a contract with a specific person. GW has every right to go after whoever leaked a copy of the magazine if they signed a NDA agreeing not to, but Faeit 212 never signed a NDA so the terms GW would want to put in one are just wishful thinking.
jah-joshua wrote: strange, i haven't seen a single book or mini price in my WD issues for the last few years...
the digital issues don't have prices either, but do have links to the product web pages...
Just checked the only issue of WD I've picked up in years (October 2012, the first of the "new breed" - there's a double page spread after the pretty pictures (pages 47 & 48, I think) which lists the prices of all the new releases, in multiple currencies.
Having said that, it'd be pretty easy to miss if you were flicking through.
jah-joshua wrote: without the sculptors, painters, photographers, and layout artists all doing their bit, he would have had nothing to preview on his site...
Please review the laws on fair use. If, say, you're copying a picture of a sculpture then the picture is the copyrighted work that you're claiming fair use of, not the original sculpture.
Also, doing work does not necessarily make something a creative work. Someone has to do a lot of work to make a phone book, but that doesn't make it a creative work.
i myself have had to sign non-disclosure agreements to get into the design studios of a few mini companies, as they do like to protect the secrecy of future projects...
The difference here is that a NDA is a contract with a specific person. GW has every right to go after whoever leaked a copy of the magazine if they signed a NDA agreeing not to, but Faeit 212 never signed a NDA so the terms GW would want to put in one are just wishful thinking.
i'm not implying Faeit signed anything, or is obligated in any way to GW's terms, just that i have seen how serious GW takes their secrecy...
obviously, we will never see eye to eye on my opinion that laying out a magazine is a more creative endeavor than laying out a phone book...
jah-joshua wrote: i'm not implying Faeit signed anything, or is obligated in any way to GW's terms, just that i have seen how serious GW takes their secrecy...
Sure, but taking your secrecy seriously doesn't give you the right to abuse the legal system to keep it.
obviously, we will never see eye to eye on my opinion that laying out a magazine is a more creative endeavor than laying out a phone book...
And, once again, we're not talking about the whole magazine. Faeit 212 didn't post the articles, painting guides, etc. They posted the catalog pages which are just a straightforward list of product pictures/descriptions/prices. There's no creative work at all involved, the whole thing was probably copy/pasted into the standard catalog template in about five minutes.
jah-joshua wrote: without the sculptors, painters, photographers, and layout artists all doing their bit, he would have had nothing to preview on his site...
Please review the laws on fair use. If, say, you're copying a picture of a sculpture then the picture is the copyrighted work that you're claiming fair use of, not the original sculpture.
Also, doing work does not necessarily make something a creative work. Someone has to do a lot of work to make a phone book, but that doesn't make it a creative work.
As I've said from the start, I am not an attorney, but I am a current law student at an accredited law school. I have reviewed the laws on fair use. I spent quite a bit of time reviewing fair use (both in general and as applied in the 6th Circuit in particular) early in the semester. I spent a lot more time later in the semester applying that understanding to a particular set of facts.
I am reasonably sure that I am not the only one here with legal training of some sort, and I have a very strong feeling that most of them have vastly more overall experience in the law than I do. As far as I can tell, there seems to be about a 50/50 split among those with legal training on whether or not there is a reasonable fair use defense in this case. At a minimum, there's enough disagreement going on that it seems reasonable to conclude that this is not an open and shut case. (There aren't a heck of a lot of fair use cases that are.)
17 U.S.C § 107 provides the statute that governs fair use, and reading that statute is an important part of reviewing the laws on fair use. It's also a small part of that process. The statute instructs courts to weigh a number of factors. We need to look at cases to see how courts have done that, which factors courts consider more important, what tests courts have devised for applying these legal standards to real-world facts, and so on. That process is complicated slightly because 17 U.S.C. § 107 was really an attempt to codify a common law doctrine with quite a bit of history, and courts still will occasionally reach back into that common law past to interpret the statute.
jah-joshua wrote: i'm not implying Faeit signed anything, or is obligated in any way to GW's terms, just that i have seen how serious GW takes their secrecy...
Sure, but taking your secrecy seriously doesn't give you the right to abuse the legal system to keep it.
Like it or not, GW is operating well within their legal rights here. There is a very limited amount of precedent available to suggest that a company filing a DMCA takedown is required to assess whether the alleged infringement could be fair use, and none whatsoever to suggest that a company is not allowed to file a DMCA takedown when there is a plausible argument against fair use.
Fair use is a defense to a copyright claim. It is not the copyright holder's responsibility to show that infringement is not fair use; it is the alleged infringer's duty to show that the use in question is fair use.
obviously, we will never see eye to eye on my opinion that laying out a magazine is a more creative endeavor than laying out a phone book...
And, once again, we're not talking about the whole magazine. Faeit 212 didn't post the articles, painting guides, etc. They posted the catalog pages which are just a straightforward list of product pictures/descriptions/prices. There's no creative work at all involved, the whole thing was probably copy/pasted into the standard catalog template in about five minutes.
Phone books are copyrightable. United Tel. Co. of Missouri v. Johnson Pub. Co., Inc., 855 F.2d 604, 607 (8th Cir. 1988); Hutchinson Tel. Co. v. Fronteer Directory Co. of Minnesota, Inc., 770 F.2d 128, 131 (8th Cir. 1985)
that aside, my point is that there is creative writing involved in the new release pages of the magazine, wether or not people think it is good work...
it is also more in depth than the descriptions available for free on the GW website...
even the product pages online have a little fluff in the description, not just "multipart plastic kit containing three crisis suits and weapons"...
i'm not on either side of who is wrong and who is right in this case, but the people working at HQ on the minis, the paint jobs, the photography, the layout, and all the rest actually do produce some pretty creative stuff...
why argue so hard to take that away from the staff, who love minis as much as the fans and work damn hard to give us new toys every month???
cheers
jah
With the caveat of course that there are different levels of quality of journalism - WD used to be a damned fine read, and you could easily spend a couple of hours of an evening perusing the magazine. That time seems a long time ago now though however. I think a lot of it comes down to the style; it reads like advertising blurb, and an extended form of what you get on the back of a box. Almost like a kind of in-house business magazine (although even those can often have some articles that don't feel like they have gone through some kind of censorship department).
Re. the prices, I think that was probably a business decision. Note also that the prices were removed from the 'A tale of x gamers' the last time they came around, which kind of removed one of the main reasons for that series of articles to exist in the first place.
Please stop feeding the trolls that think they are IP lawyer professionals...lets keep it to discussing faeit in particular. FYI, I heard that faeit is coming back online either through his normal original page or he will open the page on his own domain. Looking forward to the rumors flowing again!
Please stop feeding the trolls that think they are IP lawyer professionals...lets keep it to discussing faeit in particular. FYI, I heard that faeit is coming back online either through his normal original page or he will open the page on his own domain. Looking forward to the rumors flowing again!
If you keep his site offline, the rumour signal-to-noise ratio is improved noticeably.
Please stop feeding the trolls that think they are IP lawyer professionals...lets keep it to discussing faeit in particular. FYI, I heard that faeit is coming back online either through his normal original page or he will open the page on his own domain. Looking forward to the rumors flowing again!
If you keep his site offline, the rumour signal-to-noise ratio is improved noticeably.
Using that logic, we could just wait until White Dwarf and the GW main site reveal everything and have a 100% success rate with information. Eliminate every third party site.
Absolutionis wrote: Using that logic, we could just wait until White Dwarf and the GW main site reveal everything and have a 100% success rate with information. Eliminate every third party site.
Just because the company wants to be the one to release its products first, or decide themselves through which third-party site they want to break the news (e.g. www.kickstarter.com for many miniature compnanies atm, traditionally news-sites they distribute press-releases to), wouldn't mean there'd be no room for third-party sites that write reviews, commentary, battle-reports, tutorials, etc.. .
Keeping a veil over all of their new releases until a couple of weeks before it's released accomplishes nothing. As a consumer, I like to know in advance where my money is going. I know I am buying GTA5 whenever that comes out. That money is already spent. Without knowing the new releases from GW, I might be buying a void raven for $85 in the future, but that money may already be spent on an upcoming video game or something else I have been able to plan for months in advance. I don't get worked up into a "it's brand new so I have to buy it NOW NOW NOW!" frenzy. Instead, I know the stuff will be there when I am ready to pay the discounted ebay price a mere month after the release. With the prices being what they are, every purchase must be planned in advance according to a budget, otherwise you're as good as a crackhead dishing out all of your money for your next rock....except that you're paying more for your drugs.
EYEofTERROR wrote: Keeping a veil over all of their new releases until a couple of weeks before it's released accomplishes nothing. As a consumer, I like to know in advance where my money is going. I know I am buying GTA5 whenever that comes out. That money is already spent. Without knowing the new releases from GW, I might be buying a void raven for $85 in the future, but that money may already be spent on an upcoming video game or something else I have been able to plan for months in advance. I don't get worked up into a "it's brand new so I have to buy it NOW NOW NOW!" frenzy. Instead, I know the stuff will be there when I am ready to pay the discounted ebay price a mere month after the release. With the prices being what they are, every purchase must be planned in advance according to a budget, otherwise you're as good as a crackhead dishing out all of your money for your next rock....except that you're paying more for your drugs.
If your purchases aren't time sensitive, it doesn't matter when GW pulls the veil. You can happily plan to purchase your Voidraven one year in advance, after GW revealed it, no? You can plan two, three, four years in advance to buy your next box of Tactical Marines or Vendetta, no?
GW's policy to get the "impulse-buyers" hyped for the newest release does not impede the people "planning" their next purchase carefully in any way, as far as I can see.
Peregrine wrote: Yeah, that's a great attitude to have. Why have a legal system that defines what you can and can't do when you can just let the big companies tell you what is legal?
To keep the masses in line by selling them on a fairytale of equality before the law? People with money know better.
EYEofTERROR wrote: Keeping a veil over all of their new releases until a couple of weeks before it's released accomplishes nothing. As a consumer, I like to know in advance where my money is going. I know I am buying GTA5 whenever that comes out. That money is already spent. Without knowing the new releases from GW, I might be buying a void raven for $85 in the future, but that money may already be spent on an upcoming video game or something else I have been able to plan for months in advance. I don't get worked up into a "it's brand new so I have to buy it NOW NOW NOW!" frenzy. Instead, I know the stuff will be there when I am ready to pay the discounted ebay price a mere month after the release. With the prices being what they are, every purchase must be planned in advance according to a budget, otherwise you're as good as a crackhead dishing out all of your money for your next rock....except that you're paying more for your drugs.
If your purchases aren't time sensitive, it doesn't matter when GW pulls the veil. You can happily plan to purchase your Voidraven one year in advance, after GW revealed it, no? You can plan two, three, four years in advance to buy your next box of Tactical Marines or Vendetta, no?
GW's policy to get the "impulse-buyers" hyped for the newest release does not impede the people "planning" their next purchase carefully in any way, as far as I can see.
That's entirely true but it is generally considered bad business sense not to hype up your big releases. Yes someone might by that storm raven a year from now, but odds are a year from now they won't be nearly as excited about it as when it came out. People excited about it coming out will be more likely to buy it, but not if they can't afford it that week.
This is another case of 'GW are being stupid and I like the game and want to see it do well so this annoys me' not a 'this is inconveniencing me, GW should take the less profitable path to please me'.
jah-joshua wrote: without the sculptors, painters, photographers, and layout artists all doing their bit, he would have had nothing to preview on his site...
Please review the laws on fair use. If, say, you're copying a picture of a sculpture then the picture is the copyrighted work that you're claiming fair use of, not the original sculpture.
Also, doing work does not necessarily make something a creative work. Someone has to do a lot of work to make a phone book, but that doesn't make it a creative work.
Actually, Fair Use applies only to published works. If Faeit, or whoever other site, were to post up the pictures of the magazine after release, then they would have grounds to declare Fair Use. If the magazine has not been published, then that is blatant theft of IP. Also, as another user pointed out, doing work DOES make something a creative work if it is printed material or something similar, like, I dunno, sculpting. This is actually covered under United States Copyright laws, and is among the first items that you would read about when applying for a copyright on your own work.
EYEofTERROR wrote: Keeping a veil over all of their new releases until a couple of weeks before it's released accomplishes nothing. As a consumer, I like to know in advance where my money is going. I know I am buying GTA5 whenever that comes out. That money is already spent. Without knowing the new releases from GW, I might be buying a void raven for $85 in the future, but that money may already be spent on an upcoming video game or something else I have been able to plan for months in advance. I don't get worked up into a "it's brand new so I have to buy it NOW NOW NOW!" frenzy. Instead, I know the stuff will be there when I am ready to pay the discounted ebay price a mere month after the release. With the prices being what they are, every purchase must be planned in advance according to a budget, otherwise you're as good as a crackhead dishing out all of your money for your next rock....except that you're paying more for your drugs.
If your purchases aren't time sensitive, it doesn't matter when GW pulls the veil. You can happily plan to purchase your Voidraven one year in advance, after GW revealed it, no? You can plan two, three, four years in advance to buy your next box of Tactical Marines or Vendetta, no?
GW's policy to get the "impulse-buyers" hyped for the newest release does not impede the people "planning" their next purchase carefully in any way, as far as I can see.
That's entirely true but it is generally considered bad business sense not to hype up your big releases.
Yes someone might by that storm raven a year from now, but odds are a year from now they won't be nearly as excited about it as when it came out. People excited about it coming out will be more likely to buy it, but not if they can't afford it that week.
This is another case of 'GW are being stupid and I like the game and want to see it do well so this annoys me' not a 'this is inconveniencing me, GW should take the less profitable path to please me'.
Again, I don't see what changes.
If you agree that hype can "wear off", it makes sense to build the hype as close to the actual release as possible.
If the "hype-machine" starts up a day before the pre-orders, you can get both those customers that buy on impulse right that moment, and you get those customers that need the hype to build up a week or a month or a year, because stuff will still be available for sale (oddities like Crusade of Fire excepted).
If the "hype-machine" stats up six months before the pre-orders, you may get the latter kind of customers, but certainly lose former.
The "I didn't have money in precisely that week" doesn't make sense to me. You can still by stuff the next week. On the other hand, the loss of "I-buy-stuff-on-impulse" is a rather clear type of customer that you loose by too much lead-time between announcement and actual release.
EYEofTERROR wrote: Keeping a veil over all of their new releases until a couple of weeks before it's released accomplishes nothing. As a consumer, I like to know in advance where my money is going. I know I am buying GTA5 whenever that comes out. That money is already spent. Without knowing the new releases from GW, I might be buying a void raven for $85 in the future, but that money may already be spent on an upcoming video game or something else I have been able to plan for months in advance. I don't get worked up into a "it's brand new so I have to buy it NOW NOW NOW!" frenzy. Instead, I know the stuff will be there when I am ready to pay the discounted ebay price a mere month after the release. With the prices being what they are, every purchase must be planned in advance according to a budget, otherwise you're as good as a crackhead dishing out all of your money for your next rock....except that you're paying more for your drugs.
If your purchases aren't time sensitive, it doesn't matter when GW pulls the veil. You can happily plan to purchase your Voidraven one year in advance, after GW revealed it, no? You can plan two, three, four years in advance to buy your next box of Tactical Marines or Vendetta, no?
GW's policy to get the "impulse-buyers" hyped for the newest release does not impede the people "planning" their next purchase carefully in any way, as far as I can see.
That's entirely true but it is generally considered bad business sense not to hype up your big releases.
Yes someone might by that storm raven a year from now, but odds are a year from now they won't be nearly as excited about it as when it came out. People excited about it coming out will be more likely to buy it, but not if they can't afford it that week.
This is another case of 'GW are being stupid and I like the game and want to see it do well so this annoys me' not a 'this is inconveniencing me, GW should take the less profitable path to please me'.
Again, I don't see what changes.
If you agree that hype can "wear off", it makes sense to build the hype as close to the actual release as possible.
If the "hype-machine" starts up a day before the pre-orders, you can get both those customers that buy on impulse right that moment, and you get those customers that need the hype to build up a week or a month or a year, because stuff will still be available for sale (oddities like Crusade of Fire excepted).
If the "hype-machine" stats up six months before the pre-orders, you may get the latter kind of customers, but certainly lose former.
The "I didn't have money in precisely that week" doesn't make sense to me. You can still by stuff the next week. On the other hand, the loss of "I-buy-stuff-on-impulse" is a rather clear type of customer that you loose by too much lead-time between announcement and actual release.
I disagree, videogame hype can last over a year before the hype fades due to release dates being pushed back or some other calamity. We know GW doesn't even confirm release dates internally until 6 months out, 3 months out wouldn't be too much to ask. Video game stores still get massive sales due to impulse buy.
In regards to "I didn't have money precisely that week" he is discussing his preference to have new stuff on launch day. This is important to some people. Again: VERY easy with his example of video games. very difficult to manage with GW.
jah-joshua wrote: without the sculptors, painters, photographers, and layout artists all doing their bit, he would have had nothing to preview on his site...
Please review the laws on fair use. If, say, you're copying a picture of a sculpture then the picture is the copyrighted work that you're claiming fair use of, not the original sculpture.
Also, doing work does not necessarily make something a creative work. Someone has to do a lot of work to make a phone book, but that doesn't make it a creative work.
Actually, Fair Use applies only to published works. If Faeit, or whoever other site, were to post up the pictures of the magazine after release, then they would have grounds to declare Fair Use. If the magazine has not been published, then that is blatant theft of IP. Also, as another user pointed out, doing work DOES make something a creative work if it is printed material or something similar, like, I dunno, sculpting. This is actually covered under United States Copyright laws, and is among the first items that you would read about when applying for a copyright on your own work.
You're confusing "published" with "released to the public". For him to have pictures of the magazine it has to already have been published.
In regards to "I didn't have money precisely that week" he is discussing his preference to have new stuff on launch day. This is important to some people. Again: VERY easy with his example of video games. very difficult to manage with GW.
Sure it is important to people. As is the "impulse" to buy. Hence why GW's strategy works.
Not to mention that hyping the release 3 months from now, will cannibalize the release you are releasing right now.
But the argument was that temporary liquidity shortages were - on a large scale across GW's market - a factor more important than all the others, overriding all the obvious advantages of GW's current marketing approach, which arguably works so well because the "preference to have new stuff on launch day" combined with the hype of the moment overrides the "sensible budget planning" in 999 cases out of a 1000, leading people to spend more than if they'd have time to plan their budget.
GBL wrote: I disagree, videogame hype can last over a year before the hype fades due to release dates being pushed back or some other calamity. We know GW doesn't even confirm release dates internally until 6 months out, 3 months out wouldn't be too much to ask. Video game stores still get massive sales due to impulse buy.
In regards to "I didn't have money precisely that week" he is discussing his preference to have new stuff on launch day. This is important to some people. Again: VERY easy with his example of video games. very difficult to manage with GW.
Video Games diminish in value over time. A $50 game on release could be found for $15 a year later. Wait another year and it'll be a $5 Steam Sale. GW products, and pretty much all miniatures in general do not diminish in value nor MSRP. You can usually get things for a discount, but a $7 Wraithguard model on release currently has not diminished in price over time; it actually usually goes up.
Video Games get hyped because that pre-review sales spike is crucial for them. They compete with everything on sale at the time and their product diminishes in value. Games Workshop cares about the timing of the sale almost as much as it cares about their customers.
Another comparison would be CCGs and RPG books. Games such as Magic release previews far in advance and build up tons of hype. The reasoning for that is because many of their formats cycle out older cards in favor of newer ones. Their value may not diminish over time, but their tournament structure and casual play focuses on newer and more novel cards/sets to keep things interesting. Wizards (makers of Magic) still cares about the timing of the sales because their business structure depends on Magic sets being released and for sale for only a limited time. GW, on the other hand, really doesn't have a set time for their products. The ancient Eldrad Ulthran model is still available for sale and hasn't even cycled out even though the character is dead and we've been through multiple editions. If anything, the price hikes by gW benefit them more when you buy the model later rather than earlier.
You're confusing "published" with "released to the public". For him to have pictures of the magazine it has to already have been published.
Doesn't matter.
Just because something is out there, doesn't mean you're free to plaster it onto your own website. Magazines, even online magazines and blogs, have copyright protection even after they are published.
If I go out and simply re-publish articles published by .. dunno .. the Huffington Post or NYTimes.com on my blog, I'll be in trouble soon enough. Just because they published it, or released it to the public, doesn't give me the right to take it.
I can "review" it or provide commentary, but to do that under the terms of fair use, certain conditions need to be filled. These include substantive amount of original discussion to go with it (if you go to court, the judge will have to make that call) and a convincing effort to quote no more than is necessary for a review or commentary.
seriously, unless you are an IP lawyer, you really have no idea what you are talking about people!
Its frustrating to read some posts here as some people will take the words of a law or something pertaining to the law and run with it without realizing that what matters is not necessarily the plain English meaning of the words but the specific meaning courts have given the words and law as a whole...And for that you need to go to specific, relevant (and still good) cases!
So unless you can say "according to this case at this place in the case, x, y, z" your analysis is nothing more than your opinion rather than legal fact that anyone should accept. So, no offense but the majority of people posting here have no legal basis for their positions, as well reasoned as their positions may seem...
What is more frustrating is people from other countries putting in their legal analysis that is not based on American law!
You don't need to be an IP lawyer or familiar with american IP law to know that IP can be protected, even post-publication.
Or do you want to argue that everything ever published is fair game under fair use?
No, clearly not.
If there is such a thing as IP protection for published content, there'll be criteria that distinguish between fair use of content quoted by a third-part, and not-fair use of content quoted by a third-party.
Whatever these rules may be, I have yet to see one referenced in this thread - American, British, Chinese, I don't care - that could cover Nafka-style "leak-posts".
