I just checked the GW page, and rather than simply being "out of stock", the Skyhammer Annihilation Force is no longer even listed on the site. It would appear that it was indeed a limited edition set.
So, with that in mind, why are we still letting people field it? They will never own the official printed rules. The only vestige of its existence are screenshots on rumor websites and the 200 or so people worldwide who actually bought it. For someone who doesn't frequent these websites, it effectively no longer exists. The same goes for the IK formation of 5 knights. Web/store exclusives are one thing that can be debated, but OOP ones are quite another and official rules that no longer exist shouldn't be allowed in the game any more than my custom formations or other OOP codices/dataslates.

but anyone can use it. At least amongst sane normal people anyone can.

honestly its not overpowered in normal seize game at all. We just require advanced notice if you plan to use it in our group.

The rules, word for word, are found here along with every other formation so really the rules haven't ceased to exist, you just can't buy them.

So you probably couldn't play Skyhammer in a GW store without having bought them and have the email or however it was distributed but anywhere else is fair game.

The Imperial Knight codex has two Formations with 5 Knights. The exclusive version has fluffy rules added to it, but the vanilla version in the IK codex has the same major benefits (BS and WS 5 and access to the Relic list). So complain all you like there, but you're complaining out of ignorance.

The Skyhammer is available with a friggin image search online. Type in the name, get the image, download the file. You don't have to be in the Lizard Squad to get it, and if you want to cripple yourself by actively avoiding things because you didn't think around the issue, then so be it. Saying that others can't enjoy an aspect of the game because they think otherwise or do otherwise is ludicrous. If you are able to post to the internet, you are able to search the internet. It is an image search and the one that now sits in my scanned PDF of the Space Marine Codex is from a simple Yahoo search.

The rules exist. They will always exist as long as someone somewhere has access to them or they don't become outdated. Just because they are no longer sold doesn't mean they have poofed.

tenebre wrote:but anyone can use it. At least amongst sane normal people anyone can.

Sane normal people can use any rules they want. But accepting a pickup game with "hey, I printed these off the internet" is not sane.

Frozocrone wrote:The rules, word for word, are found here along with every other formation so really the rules haven't ceased to exist, you just can't buy them.

I'm saying it sets a bad precedent. I would compare it to citing Wikipedia in a paper: your source may or may not be reliable. In this case, we all know what Skyhammer is, but what happens when there are more of these?

SharkoutofWata wrote:but you're complaining out of ignorance.

There are several other benefits to taking the Exalted court of House Terryn, but that's not the point. The point is that you either paid a lot of money for those rules and no one else has them, or you are going off of a grainy google image result with a picture of 5 Imperial Knights on it. Neither situation is good for a tournament, much less a pickup game.

Per the blood of kittens link:
Skyhammer Annihilation Force
Requirements: 2 Assault Squad Units, 2 Devastator Squad Units

Restrictions: Each Devastator Squad must take a Drop Pod as a Dedicated Transport. Each Assault Squad must be equipped with Jump Packs.

Special Rules:

Shock Deployment: All units in the Skyhammer Annihilation Force start the game in Deep Strike Reserve. Instead of using the normal deployment and reserve rules for these units, you can, during deployment, choose whether this Formation will arrive during the first or second turn. The entire Skyhammer Annihilation Force automatically arrives on the turn you chose. Ignore this Formation's Drop Pods for the purposes of the Drop Pod Assault special rule.

First the Fire, then the Blade: On the turn they arrive from Deep Strike reserve, the Devastator Squads in this Formation have the Relentless and Twin-linked special rules and the Assault Squads can charge even though they arrived from Reserves that turn.

Suppressive Fusillade: A unit targeted by this Formation's Devastator Squads in the Shooting phase must take a Morale test at the end of the phase on 3D6, regardless of how many casualties were inflicted. If the test is failed, the enemy unit does not Fall Back, but immediately Go to Ground. If the test is passed the enemy is unable to fire Overwatch for the rest of the turn.

Leave No Survivors: Assault Squads in this Formation can use their Jump Packs in both the Movement phase and the Shooting phase. If an Assault Squad from this Formation charges a unit that has Gone to Ground as the result of Suppressive Fusillade special rule, that Assault Squad can re-roll failed to Hit and to Wound rolls in the ensuing Assault phase.

Source: Datasheet: Skyhammer Annihilation Force

How long did it take you to notice that I gave the Devastators twin-linked? If you'd never seen it before, would you have? And I didn't even change Assault phase to Shooting phase under "Leave no Survivors", Blood of Kittens did that.
Not having current, verifiable rules is bad, and opens the door to both ignorance and abuse becoming a bigger factor in games.

Greyknight12 has a very strong point. Should other players have to download and print out every set of special rules GW throws out there in order to try to sell big bundles of miniatures in order to make sure an opponent isn't trying to pull a fast one?

Yes. Because our point is strong too. They are verifiable, and I don't mean Blood of Kittens. I don't trust that as a source either. A grainy scan is still a scan and you can verify it that way if you are worried about someone lying to get their win. If you're concerned about someone simply being naive about it, then yes, you have to be vigilant about knowing the rules and recognizing when one sounds wonky.

This is similar to people using Armybuilder as a rules source as well. People do it, and it's not always right. But are you also going to ban them from using a codex you don't have because you can't verify their points costs in a list? There are times, in a pick up game for instance, where you just have to relax the standards and let people play what they want to play.

In a tournament, someone on staff should have access to everything to be able to verify. I download everything I can get my hands on, even if I will never use it. Skyhammer and House Terryn are good examples. Farsight Enclaves is another. The third book of Stormclaw is another. They exist, so I downloaded them just in case I need to verify something out of them and I can guarantee I won't ever use anything from those books myself. I am worried about someone pulling a fast one on me, so I take that extra step.

Hmmm. Do I want to be in the "suppress rules and limit ways to play the game because of an imaginary boogyman who gains life-force by editing .pdf rules" camp or in the "I'll let people play the game the way they'd like to play, because they probably spent money, time, and effort to build their army the way things seem fun to them, and who am I to tell people their view of fun is wrong?" camp.

I think I'll go with the latter, and not because the latter will end up with more enjoyable games to be had by all, but because the former just seems like the most hostile, self-centered, and generally paranoid camp to live in. Expecting people to not play with current versions of the rules is like wearing Deep Woods OFF, but instead of keeping mosquitoes from biting you, it stops other players from wanting to play or become friends with you. Good luck with that.

 tenebre wrote:
but anyone can use it. At least amongst sane normal people anyone can.

honestly its not overpowered in normal seize game at all. We just require advanced notice if you plan to use it in our group.

define normal. Because everyone here plays 1500 and its is rather brutal against armies like IG.

Most of these posters are brats.. so they will rage at this hate and bitch but you're 200% right..you cannot use skyhammer without the rules.. you can't use anything in 40k without a codex in your hand.. no codex ... no using... why should skyhammer be any different.. I wouldn't turn up with a photocopy or printed out pdf scan of a codex or knock off chinese minis or whatever so why should anyone else.. I say "no" to piracy.. because it kills the hobby dead.. it is theft and piracy to use it unless you bought it..

If i didn't have imperial armour I wouldn't use hornets...

No debate.

Now cometh the hate in the face of righteousness

If it is not possible to legally acquire the rules then I think that they become an exceptional case. They are not a part of the purchasable materials any more, so should not be dropped on an opponent with the same expectation of play that a current codex would have. The onus lies on the person wishing to use exceptional rules to make sure they are acceptable to other parties.

Personally, I suppose it comes down to attitude, If an opponent was nice about it I would be a lot more accommodating than someone who acted with an air of entitlement.

What if I have a legitimate copy, kept in the back of my codex?

half a year ago I started a thread complaining about the speed and frequency of detatchments and formations, and that nobody would be able to know them all. I was ridiculed because NOBODY would be able to just make up some formation. Nobody would just buy someone elses crap and play the game with a made up rule set and be foolish enough to believe homebrew rules. Well the day this becomes all too easy is getting closer and closer, and the community FINALLY realizes this is not only possible, but likely coming soon. Some day we are going to hear about some major tournament won on the back of a misread or misconstrued rule of some wacky formation.

 Crazyterran wrote:
What if I have a legitimate copy, kept in the back of my codex?

I'd be fine playing it at least once, even with just a copy. However, drop pods are sort of my current list's worst match up (chimeras, russes and a knight) so I may not be that eager to face it a second time. As I said, it is really all about attitude. Any sense of "you have to play me" is likely to be a turn off.

greyknight12 wrote:

tenebre wrote:but anyone can use it. At least amongst sane normal people anyone can.

Sane normal people can use any rules they want. But accepting a pickup game with "hey, I printed these off the internet" is not sane.

adjective, saner, sanest.
1. free from mental derangement; having a sound, healthy mind:
a sane person.
2. having or showing reason, sound judgment, or good sense:
sane advice.
3. sound; healthy.

Here's a dictionary entry for you. Maybe next time when you're using the word you understand the meaning better. The funny thing here is that claiming that the act of printing rules to use in your games somehow makes you mentally unstable doesn't sound very reasonable either.

ConanMan wrote:Most of these posters are brats.. so they will rage at this hate and bitch but you're 200% right..you cannot use skyhammer without the rules.. you can't use anything in 40k without a codex in your hand.. no codex ... no using... why should skyhammer be any different.. I wouldn't turn up with a photocopy or printed out pdf scan of a codex or knock off chinese minis or whatever so why should anyone else.. I say "no" to piracy.. because it kills the hobby dead.. it is theft and piracy to use it unless you bought it..

If i didn't have imperial armour I wouldn't use hornets...

No debate.

Now cometh the hate in the face of righteousness

I've said this thing before and I say it again: you realistically can't prove that my copy of the rules is not authentic. The burden of proof rests on you if you make the claim and if you can't prove it you better accept the fact that people will be using this formation. I'm not sure in what form the rules came with the bundle, but one thing is certain: if you are holding a copy in your hands, someone printed it out. Would you consider it an authentic source if someone has it in their email if they didn't get a copy by mistake and GW sent it to their email afterwards? That person certainly did pay for the rules and eventually got them, not in a physical format but got them anyway. Surely printing this file to have a physical copy to show would be completely okay? I like to have a physical copy of all the source material I'm using when I'm playing a game and certainly many others do too.

And if there's some physical, laminated rulesheet sent to you with the miniatures in the bundle you're dealing with a rare item, yes? If the mentality you and some others was more widespread, then this person would have to always carry this rare sheet of which only 200 exist worldwide with them to use the rules. What if one day they lose it? Can they never again play using the rules in it? If another marine player happens to find it, can they use it because now they possess an authentic, original rules source without having originally paid anything for it? If I had such a rare item I'd certainly carry around a copy with me and not the original one.

The thing is, you're fighting windmills here. You can't expect people to carry around the original rules wherever they go and you can never be certain if a printed sheet is just a high quality copy. Most certainly you can't expect people to carry a receipt for the Skyhammer bundle with them as a proof of purchase. Nothing is forcing you to play people using the formation, even in a tournament you can just concede if your opponent's copy doesn't look hi-def enough to your eyes.

Just remember, saying that only the people who paid for the rules should be able to use such a powerful formation is supporting a pay to win-scenario.

 tenebre wrote:


honestly its not overpowered in normal seize game at all.

>_>
<_<

Except it isn't out of print. This is the internet age: there's almost certainly a free high-quality PDF file of the rules floating around somewhere.

We all know that Skyhammer is one of the only formations affected by this, so anyone who tries to make up their own formations and pass it off as legit has a rather high burden of proof.

If you can show me a physical copy of the rules, even if it's only a second- or third-hand scan of them, I will play you and accept those rules a legitimate.

Just remember, saying that only the people who paid for the rules should be able to use such a powerful formation is supporting a pay to win-scenario.

Rubbish

If you don't have a copy of the codex you don't get to play.. in every gaming club ever made.. every gaming place i've ever been to..

Questions

1) did you buy skyhammer and get the datasheet mini dex outlying the formation rules
2) if "no" what on earth gives you the right to use it, or do I have to let you because you pirate all the rules now

IF THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE WHAT ARE THE IMPERIAL ARMOUR BOOKS FOR

If you bought it I honestly hand on heart I would play you. But you didn't buy it so you can't use it

Do you really not see any difference between pirating rules that are currently in print and available to buy from GW just because you want to save money, and pirating rules that are OOP and only available if you somehow manage to convince one of the very few people who own a legal copy to sell it to you?

I would insist on the same stipulation for any codex - you have to have a copy physically in your hand to use it; i would accept it displayed on the screen of a device but i wouldn't have my opponent running it from memory because i would be very uncomfortable running any units in my own army without them.

My last game against Tau Tse Tung i forgot to bring the rules for my thanatar-calix - luckily the flgs owner loaded up the rules from the FW download service and printed me off a copy there and then.

Maximum respect to ATLANTIC GAMES in stroud for that!

As I understand it, the Skyhammer was just a one click bundle for the models contained within, and didn't cost any more than buying them would have.

So how is downloading a copy of the formation rules piracy if they were distributed for free?

 Jimsolo wrote:
As I understand it, the Skyhammer was just a one click bundle for the models contained within, and didn't cost any more than buying them would have.

So how is downloading a copy of the formation rules piracy if they were distributed for free?

Reading this thread you'd almost think that it was the other way around: you pay for the rules and get the miniatures for free. You pay for the privilege to field the mighty Skyhammer! Sounds reasonable, right?

Are these rules even copyrighted? Couldn't see anything on it that suggested that they were. I guess it doesn't count as piracy if they are not.

Lammikkovalas wrote:
Just remember, saying that only the people who paid for the rules should be able to use such a powerful formation is supporting a pay to win-scenario.

Pretty much this, though some people are just conservative A-holes that can't think outside of the box...similar to only liking the National League in baseball because of the DH rule or only listening to vinyl because that's how music SHOULD be listened to. It's fine if you believe those things, but when you start pushing those beliefs on others who don't share them and tying to kill their enjoyment of baseball or music because they are willing to look past the things you can't seem to look beyond...well...shame on you grandpa.

ConanMan wrote:
If you don't have a copy of the codex you don't get to play.. in every gaming club ever made.. every gaming place i've ever been to..

Obviously untrue, considering my FLGS isn't as strict as what you're outlining.

However, if you showed up and wanted to play a game, and thought it unfair that I had a Malanthrope in my tyranid army but did not own the Imperial Armour book that it comes out of, I'd most likely concede to your delicate sensibilities and take it out of the list, as I'm all about just having a good game and not about to start off with my opponent already all butt-hurt. If we went on to have a great game, I may even look forward to playing you again, and you'd just become "that guy that is pretty strict about what models I can use" and I wouldn't think much more about it.

Could you be as magnanimous if it was the other way around? I'd like to think so, but from the tenor of your responses thus far, I just assume you'd spend the game telling me how the DH is killing baseball is and how Vinyl is the only way to truly experience "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis.

Get it, Grandpa.

It's actually very easy to "prove" if they have an actual skyhammer force, since the rules from GW come on a 2 sided piece of paper, one side with the rules, the other with a space marine and the # / 200 on the other side.

You also get an imperial thank you card. A printed scan almost certainly won't have the picture on the other side, and definately won't have the thank you note.

These were included in the package with the models when you bought it.

On the topic of should it be available to everyone? Since you can't get it anymore, then I would have no issue with people bringing a copy, though having said that, I bought one, so I don't care either way. Technically, they're still available for purchase from GW here in Australia though, and I'd still allow people to bring a copy.

If you can't use OOP rules, then does that also mean you can't use OOP models?

Rumbleguts wrote:
Greyknight12 has a very strong point. Should other players have to download and print out every set of special rules GW throws out there in order to try to sell big bundles of miniatures in order to make sure an opponent isn't trying to pull a fast one?

If you're worried about an opponent 'pulling a fast one'... yes, frankly, it's up to you to keep up with the rules.

However, if you're playing pick-up games against unfamiliar opponents, you are always free to refuse a game, or ask them to use a different list. There is no obligation to play against someone who is using something that you don't want to play against.

 Trickstick wrote:
Are these rules even copyrighted? Couldn't see anything on it that suggested that they were. I guess it doesn't count as piracy if they are not.

Copyright isn't something that is applied through a manual process. GW wrote those rules, so they own the copyright on them. That happens regardless of whether or not there is a copyright symbol or statement on there (although such things make enforcement easier), whether or not they charge people for those rules, and whether or not they are still in print.

 Drasius wrote:


If you can't use OOP rules, then does that also mean you can't use OOP models?

I thought about that too. Banning terminators on 25mm bases is an obvious pick but what else?

OOP rules become a problem when the base rules they were predicated on change. That's where I refuse to play against them anymore.

If, say, Jump Packs get a buff with a new edition, or the points cost of one of the composing units changed, I wild consider those rules defunct, just as I consider Lyanden and Raukaan supplements defunct.

the_scotsman wrote:
OOP rules become a problem when the base rules they were predicated on change. That's where I refuse to play against them anymore.

If, say, Jump Packs get a buff with a new edition, or the points cost of one of the composing units changed, I wild consider those rules defunct, just as I consider Lyanden and Raukaan supplements defunct.

The Iyanden supplement is indeed out of date, Raukaan is not.

GW website wrote:Please note that some content ­– the Cities of Death and Planetstrike stratagems – was designed for an older edition of Warhammer 40,000 and has been included for players who still wish to use it. The rest of the rules are fully compatible with the 2015 edition of Codex: Space Marines, and the history of Clan Raukaan remains essential reading for all sons of the Gorgon.

 insaniak wrote:
Copyright isn't something that is applied through a manual process. GW wrote those rules, so they own the copyright on them. That happens regardless of whether or not there is a copyright symbol or statement on there (although such things make enforcement easier), whether or not they charge people for those rules, and whether or not they are still in print.

Not under US law, because rules can't be copyrighted. GW does have copyright on the text and images used to describe the rules, but not the rules themselves.

 Lammikkovalas wrote:

 Drasius wrote:


If you can't use OOP rules, then does that also mean you can't use OOP models?

I thought about that too. Banning terminators on 25mm bases is an obvious pick but what else?

Finally painting up my Tyranids so let me list just what I have in my list that has been 'updated' and this is just in 1000pts of Tyranids:

Tyranid 'Hunter Killer' Termagant nearly half the size of a modern one. 2nd Edition Termagant, half the length. Warrior in 40mm instead of modern 50mm. Carnifex is half the length, has some weird flat base that makes it so he doesn't fall over and the new one is even on oval and not circle. 3rd Edition Walking Hive Tyrant is on some 40mm I think, not the modern 60mm. I have no idea what the new Tyrant Guard are on but my old ones are keeping their 40mm too.

My 3rd Edition and older models are still going to see the table, and on the bases they came with, even if that squad has modern models mixed in on bigger bases.

 Peregrine wrote:
Do you really not see any difference between pirating rules that are currently in print and available to buy from GW just because you want to save money, and pirating rules that are OOP and only available if you somehow manage to convince one of the very few people who own a legal copy to sell it to you?

Not to mention the sheer absurdity of having OOP rules that are still relevant in the current edition in the first place.

 Peregrine wrote:

Not under US law, because rules can't be copyrighted. GW does have copyright on the text and images used to describe the rules, but not the rules themselves.

The rules mechanics aren't covered by copyright.

The written text is.

I can't believe that this topic is still alive. (not this thread, the fact that we're still talking about web exclusive formations and copies vs originals)

If you don't want to play with someone who uses Skyhammer or 5 Knights just don't. Why do you need an excuse for it?

If you don't mind playing against Skyhammer, then use whatever you want to use to verify it, or take the person at their word, or whatever. But sheesh, Skyhammer has been talked about to death. It would be pretty hard to fake something extra and not be noticed. And once you're caught cheating so blatantly, that's it -- a lot of people will never want to play with you again, so is it worth something as dumb as that?

Also: Blood of Kittens is an excellent source to verify rules. Since they've been around for a very long time, GW most certainly knows about them and GW hasn't sent them a takedown notice, one can only assume that they're ok with it. If not explicitly so, implicitly by their inaction.

GW doesn't send takedown notices to websites/blogs that have images of rules. I suspect it's because it has no impact (or possibly a positive impact) on sales.

I just wish GW would stop this idiocy and post any rules they come out with that not in a codex in a section on their website. Its not as if they cannot copywrite an electronic printing, not as if the writing of these cost them more then half an hour of one person's time to write, and we still have to buy the miniatures if we don't already have them. Making us pay $15 for a digital page of rules is just gouging and I have just about had it with this company. I don't mind the price of the miniatures, they are extremely high quality, more so then they need to be for the game, but I am sick of exorbitant prices for minimal rules and fluff/pictures which don't make the game any more fun or interesting to play.

Honestly I'd kinda support this idea but mainly because of this sleazy limited edition rule nonsense and it's apparently Game Breaker nonsense.

But IF it's to be allowed, then copies really do need to be allowed. It's not like someone not being arsed to buy the new Dark Angels codex or Imperial Armour 2, it's literally not available to them! And this is the sort of decision that needs to be made on at least a club/tournament-wide level.

I'm all for allowing copies of rules to be used. I want people to have rules to reference and to be able to use the full breadth of the 40k universe, and quite frankly don't want to support a "pay2play" web-bundle-exclusive rules format.

I just happen to also think this particular formation (well, formations in general, but this one especially) is absurdly broken, and as such probably wouldn't play against it regardless.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I'm all for allowing copies of rules to be used. I want people to have rules to reference and to be able to use the full breadth of the 40k universe, and quite frankly don't want to support a "pay2play" web-bundle-exclusive rules format.

I just happen to also think this particular formation (well, formations in general, but this one especially) is absurdly broken, and as such probably wouldn't play against it regardless.

I haven't had that experience myself. Maybe it's because I can't into tactics, or that I MM spammed instead of grav-spammed, but I haven't had a game where I wiped the floor with my opponent while using the Skyhammer.

Rumbleguts wrote:
I just wish GW would stop this idiocy and post any rules they come out with that not in a codex in a section on their website. Its not as if they cannot copywrite an electronic printing, not as if the writing of these cost them more then half an hour of one person's time to write, and we still have to buy the miniatures if we don't already have them. Making us pay $15 for a digital page of rules is just gouging and I have just about had it with this company. I don't mind the price of the miniatures, they are extremely high quality, more so then they need to be for the game, but I am sick of exorbitant prices for minimal rules and fluff/pictures which don't make the game any more fun or interesting to play.

Yes, this would be a wonderful thing.

On the other hand, I've never known anyone that's had a problem with Blood of Kittens.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I'm all for allowing copies of rules to be used. I want people to have rules to reference and to be able to use the full breadth of the 40k universe, and quite frankly don't want to support a "pay2play" web-bundle-exclusive rules format.

I just happen to also think this particular formation (well, formations in general, but this one especially) is absurdly broken, and as such probably wouldn't play against it regardless.

It's a little situational, and matchup-specific. The formation isn't as good as it looks (or at least as I thought it was), after we played it some. Don't get me wrong -- it's pretty good, and kinda cool. But it's not super duper broken, as I originally figured.

I think that Angel's Fury in a large game is actually more devastating.

They sent the rules, numbered on the back, printed on some kind of plastic paper in a black envelope. Mine is like, 187, or something.

I'd use it, printed or not, and let one use it ( like anyone I know outside the internet. ) If someone wouldn't play because the rules are printed on copy paper instead of whatever comes with GW's formation, then tough gak, we wouldn't play and I'd just play someone else.

So is the formation useable and verified as official to use in the game or only if you have the documents that contain the rule bought from the company?

So is it like MTG and you spend the money for that special card as well as the miniatures since they are all considered playing pieces?

If I can verify the rules are real, I cannot prevent their use.
I did not see anything saying you had to have the rule card to use the rule.
Maybe I am being too simple?

I get the idea the OP is stating and agree with it in theory.
GW shouldn't have made a set of rules with only 200 copies, especially considering their hardcore stance against rule pirating.

That being said, I have never, and will never, pay for a book of rules to go along with the $200+ models I have already purchased from them.

So, screw GW and as long as you have a copy of the rules for this formation with you, I'll play against it.

Makumba wrote:

 tenebre wrote:
but anyone can use it. At least amongst sane normal people anyone can.

honestly its not overpowered in normal seize game at all. We just require advanced notice if you plan to use it in our group.

define normal. Because everyone here plays 1500 and its is rather brutal against armies like IG.

Warhammer 40k doesn't work at all below 2500 IMO its just not balanced. We have found and experimented that at 3k anyone can pretty much take anything and its balanced.

 Talizvar wrote:
So is the formation useable and verified as official to use in the game or only if you have the documents that contain the rule bought from the company?

So is it like MTG and you spend the money for that special card as well as the miniatures since they are all considered playing pieces?

If I can verify the rules are real, I cannot prevent their use.
I did not see anything saying you had to have the rule card to use the rule.
Maybe I am being too simple?

Many tournaments require you to own a legal copy of the rules; if those tournaments adhere to their own rules they should only allow those that bought them to play it. This is no different then believing a person should have purchased a Codex to use it to play. Can you use an illegal photocopy or scan of either? -Yes you "can," but its unethical and illegal.

I love the amount of crying and bitching over this.

If someone told me I could not play my army because I did not have a physical official copy of my armies rules and only had a copy or digital scan, frankly that is not someone I want to play with.

It is a game, we play to have fun. Those people who are so butt hurt over the legality of this should just go play tight tournament level MTG.

It is a game, we play to have fun. Those people who are so butt hurt over the legality of this should just go play tight tournament level MTG.

If anything, then people are butt hurt about how unfun playing versus hammer is. And the fact that one can avoid that, by enforcing what every player should do aka play with offciial rules is a bonus.

 aka_mythos wrote:
This is no different then believing a person should have purchased a Codex to use it to play.

There's a huge difference between OOP rules and in-print codices. A codex is available to buy right now, and the only reason to pirate it is that you don't want to spend money on a legal copy. And, given that most tournaments are hosted by a store that has the codex you're pirating for sale on their shelf, it should be obvious why the TO wouldn't want to endorse piracy as a substitute for buying a legal copy. But with OOP rules there's no (practical) option to buy them legally anymore. Even if you want to buy them GW isn't selling them, the store hosting the tournament never had a chance to sell them, etc. Unless you're lucky enough to convince one of the few people who were able to buy legal copies to sell you theirs the only way you're ever going to get those rules is to pirate them.

Bought it vs Scanned it aside, if we pulled together 20-30 people for a tournament, and let them all pick a pet peeve to ban, do you think everyone would have a barebones captain, and two tac squads to play with?

 Drasius wrote:
It's actually very easy to "prove" if they have an actual skyhammer force, since the rules from GW come on a 2 sided piece of paper, one side with the rules, the other with a space marine and the # / 200 on the other side.

You also get an imperial thank you card. A printed scan almost certainly won't have the picture on the other side, and definately won't have the thank you note.

These were included in the package with the models when you bought it.

On the topic of should it be available to everyone? Since you can't get it anymore, then I would have no issue with people bringing a copy, though having said that, I bought one, so I don't care either way. Technically, they're still available for purchase from GW here in Australia though, and I'd still allow people to bring a copy.

If you can't use OOP rules, then does that also mean you can't use OOP models?

It's not easy to prove that your opponent doesn't have a legitimate copy of the rules. They could easily say that they didn't want to risk their rare, expensive and OOP GW paraphernalia to damage, theft etc and so they printed a copy on their $50 home printer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breton wrote:
Bought it vs Scanned it aside, if we pulled together 20-30 people for a tournament, and let them all pick a pet peeve to ban, do you think everyone would have a barebones captain, and two tac squads to play with?

We'd probably have two min squads of Ork boys and a pain boss since a there are some people who dislike Space Marines for being Space Marines.

 Peregrine wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
This is no different then believing a person should have purchased a Codex to use it to play.

There's a huge difference between OOP rules and in-print codices. A codex is available to buy right now, and the only reason to pirate it is that you don't want to spend money on a legal copy. And, given that most tournaments are hosted by a store that has the codex you're pirating for sale on their shelf, it should be obvious why the TO wouldn't want to endorse piracy as a substitute for buying a legal copy. But with OOP rules there's no (practical) option to buy them legally anymore. Even if you want to buy them GW isn't selling them, the store hosting the tournament never had a chance to sell them, etc. Unless you're lucky enough to convince one of the few people who were able to buy legal copies to sell you theirs the only way you're ever going to get those rules is to pirate them.

Copyright and legal protections for an out of print work last long after its out of print. No one is entitled to access the rules. Consideration has to be given to the fact that it's a limited edition; so it was out of print when it was released and out of print by design. That actually makes it far worse that someone would produce a copy of the rules for use as it diminishes the value of legitimate copies. Those are legal grounds for GW or someone with a legitimate copy to sue for damages under copyright laws. Presumably there is some value at which someone would sell their copy of the rules and while that may be more than most people are willing to pay that's what they're worth and anything that diminishes a person from being able to get that for a legitimate copy is as unethical as theft or vandalism.

I wouldn't give GW so much credit but GW by making the rules limited edition rules could be seen as imposing a degree of balance on the meta-game in preventing from too drastically shifting in favor of rules that maybe representative of fluff but not necessarily as balanced as other rules sets.

^We're not talking about the legal issues so much as game-balance/moral/etc. issues.

 Talizvar wrote:
So is the formation useable and verified as official to use in the game or only if you have the documents that contain the rule bought from the company?

Verified by whom ?

If I can verify the rules are real, I cannot prevent their use.

Of course you can. We're talking about a game here. You're never forced to play against anything you don't want to play against.

 CrashGordon94 wrote:
^We're not talking about the legal issues so much as game-balance/moral/etc. issues.

And I address the ethical issue that stems from the same place as the legal issue. I also address that their limited availability may in fact be how GW has balanced their use on a meta-level.

Anecdotal, i know, but a local GW manager has told me that they are not going to continue these formations as they do now. They may however be selling formations seperatly in the future

ConanMan wrote:

[size=18][b]
2) if "no" what on earth gives you the right to use it, or do I have to let you because you pirate all the rules now

IF THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE WHAT ARE THE IMPERIAL ARMOUR BOOKS FOR

If you bought it I honestly hand on heart I would play you. But you didn't buy it so you can't use it

Damn, my copy of the rules, which was a gift by now deceased grandmother, was burned in a fire.

So I downloaded a copy.

Are you going to tell me I can't use them?

 aka_mythos wrote:
Copyright and legal protections for an out of print work last long after its out of print. No one is entitled to access the rules. Consideration has to be given to the fact that it's a limited edition; so it was out of print when it was released and out of print by design. That actually makes it far worse that someone would produce a copy of the rules for use as it diminishes the value of legitimate copies. Those are legal grounds for GW or someone with a legitimate copy to sue for damages under copyright laws. Presumably there is some value at which someone would sell their copy of the rules and while that may be more than most people are willing to pay that's what they're worth and anything that diminishes a person from being able to get that for a legitimate copy is as unethical as theft or vandalism.

I wouldn't give GW so much credit but GW by making the rules limited edition rules could be seen as imposing a degree of balance on the meta-game in preventing from too drastically shifting in favor of rules that maybe representative of fluff but not necessarily as balanced as other rules sets.

And this raises one very simple question: why should I give a about what GW thinks about this?

(Or about some poor unfortunate collector who wants their special snowflake copy of the formation rules to be worth $9999999999999999? Or the "pay to win" guy who feels like they're entitled to be the only person in their group who gets to use the blatantly overpowered formation just because they have the biggest hobby budget?)

You don't have to care what they think.

If you have an issue with the way copyright law works, you're of course perfectly free to lobby an appropriate government representative to have the law changed to something that better suits your personal preferences.


Unless you have as much money as Disney, good luck with that, though.

Ethics is why you should care. Legality is why you have to care. Yes, at the end of the day you can ignore the law and you can be morally bankrupt but that's the same choice you have when you're in a grocery store and can contemplate shoplifting a candy bar. The grocery store isn't going bankrupt over it, but there is some intrinsict depravity to the action that is wrong.

 aka_mythos wrote:
Ethics is why you should care.

I see no ethical problem here. GW isn't losing any sales from piracy, their only "loss" is the ability to do stupid harmful things to the game I play.

Also, don't forget that game rules can't be copyrighted, so while technically it's a violation of copyright to pirate the picture of the models in the formation or the exact words to describe those rules it's not much of a moral issue.

Legality is why you have to care.

Not really. I'm more likely to win the lottery, buy GW, and print as many copies of the formation as I want than I am to suffer any legal consequences from pirating it.

Yes, at the end of the day you can ignore the law and you can be morally bankrupt but that's the same choice you have when you're in a grocery store and can contemplate shoplifting a candy bar. The grocery store isn't going bankrupt over it, but there is some intrinsict depravity to the action that is wrong.

That's a terrible analogy because the grocery store is suffering a quantifiable loss, no matter how small it is. GW, on the other hand, suffers no loss at all from pirating OOP rules because they weren't going to sell you a copy of those rules anyway. In fact, GW probably gains money from piracy in this case because people who pirate the formation are likely to buy new models to use it.

 aka_mythos wrote:
Ethics is why you should care. Legality is why you have to care. Yes, at the end of the day you can ignore the law and you can be morally bankrupt but that's the same choice you have when you're in a grocery store and can contemplate shoplifting a candy bar. The grocery store isn't going bankrupt over it, but there is some intrinsict depravity to the action that is wrong.

A certain quote springs to mind:

"I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do." - Robert Heinlein

I think if you want to equate morality and strict adherence of laws and the appropriateness of their punishments there will be much disagreement.
Whether I can be bothered with the "hassle" is a whole different matter.

So sure, copy-write is a pain in this instance, do not play others who use it or play it anyway and tell others to go look it up if unsure of the rules.
We are "free" to do what we all want.

aka_mythos wrote:And I address the ethical issue that stems from the same place as the legal issue.

No, it's irrelevant legalistic nonsense.
Yeah it's still copyrighted. So what? They're not selling it anymore so pirating it does no harm whatsoever, simple fact.
And just because a stupid, screwed-up law says something doesn't mean it's correct.

aka_mythos wrote:I also address that their limited availability may in fact be how GW has balanced their use on a meta-level.

Then that's not balance, in fact it's the literal opposite of balance. And quite frankly nobody should ever stand up for crap like that.

The most ridiculous part of this thread is the idea that if I show up to play my 2000pt BA army and forget my books at home, there are people who would refuse to play me and it would be ME who would be embarrassed by that fact.

However, in all reality, I doubt any of the people who are spouting this garbage would actually act in this extremely rude, alienating way...so what are we really doing here? I mean, there are tons of people who've replied to this thread in a manner that makes me want to get in a time machine, go back in time to the night they were conceived, and tell their parents "not tonight...just trust me...this one's gonna make a real loser." BUT...I honestly believe if we met in a store, there wouldn't be any issues and we could have a great game. Do you know why? Because gamers, by and large, aren't as big as A-holes as we're being to one another here in this thread.

I know forums are the place for insanity on the interwebs, but this argument is just the DUMBEST crap I've read in a long, long time. It's like I'm talking to my evangelical christian mother about something she just watched on FOX news...the world you're painting just doesn't exist.

 Voidwraith wrote:
The most ridiculous part of this thread is the idea that if I show up to play my 2000pt BA army and forget my books at home, there are people who would refuse to play me and it would be ME who would be embarrassed by that fact.

I'm not sure why you would be embarrassed about it, but absolutely I would refuse to play against you if you didn't have rules to hand.

I've played too many games in the past where guys had not bothered to bring the relevant rules and wound up going by memory... and subsequently getting stuff very, very wrong. That's tolerable when they'll at least entertain the possibility that their memory might be flawed... and very, very frustrating when they won't admit they might be wrong on something that they're misremembering.

As a result, I prefer to just avoid that situation entirely.


There's nothing nasty in that. I'd just prefer to get on with playing the game, rather than debating rules issues that could have been resolved in a moment if you had brought your book with you.

Yeah it's still copyrighted. So what? They're not selling it anymore so pirating it does no harm whatsoever, simple fact.

Yes it does. It harms the secondary market for players who have the rules and might sell them.

It harms the value of any future rules bundles like this as it infringes on the perceived value of an exclusive limited edition rule like this.

Elvis is dead. No, really he is. So pirating his music may not do him any harm, but it does harm his estate and heirs.

Breton wrote:

Yeah it's still copyrighted. So what? They're not selling it anymore so pirating it does no harm whatsoever, simple fact.

Yes it does. It harms the secondary market for players who have the rules and might sell them.

It harms the value of any future rules bundles like this as it infringes on the perceived value of an exclusive limited edition rule like this.

Elvis is dead. No, really he is. So pirating his music may not do him any harm, but it does harm his estate and heirs.

To be fair, copyright was never intended to cover secondary market value, and Elvis' heir's didn't have a hand in writing, producing, distributing, or performing his material and many have a problem with the existing copyright system extending protections that far.

But this is now something suited for a different thread

Breton wrote:
Yes it does. It harms the secondary market for players who have the rules and might sell them.

Who cares? I have zero sympathy for people who bought the rules just because they think they will be valuable. If see someone crying about their devalued special rules then I'll get a cup and collect their delicious tears.

It harms the value of any future rules bundles like this as it infringes on the perceived value of an exclusive limited edition rule like this.

Good. Maybe if there's zero perceived value then GW will stop making them.

Elvis is dead. No, really he is. So pirating his music may not do him any harm, but it does harm his estate and heirs.

The key difference here is that Elvis' music is still available for sale, so pirating instead of buying does harm the legitimate owner of that music. GW, on the other hand, isn't selling the drop pod formation anymore so it's impossible for piracy to cost them additional sales of it.

 Peregrine wrote:
GW, on the other hand, isn't selling the drop pod formation anymore so it's impossible for piracy to cost them additional sales of it.

Which doesn't change the fact that as the owners of that material, it's their choice whether or not to make it available.

Someone not wanting to sell or give you something they own does not entitle you to just take it.

 insaniak wrote:
Which doesn't change the fact that as the owners of that material, it's their choice whether or not to make it available.

They have the legal right to do so. I have no ethical problem whatsoever with ignoring that decision.

Someone not wanting to sell or give you something they own does not entitle you to just take it.

Why not? And let's be clear here that we're talking about a product that GW did sell, not me breaking into someone's house and taking their private possessions or ignoring an artist's desire to keep creative control of their work.

 Peregrine wrote:
Why not? .

Because it's their property. And they've chosen not to give it to you.


The fact that they used to sell it is completely irrelevant. It's their property. That means it's their choice as to where and when they sell it.

 Talizvar wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
Ethics is why you should care. Legality is why you have to care. Yes, at the end of the day you can ignore the law and you can be morally bankrupt but that's the same choice you have when you're in a grocery store and can contemplate shoplifting a candy bar. The grocery store isn't going bankrupt over it, but there is some intrinsict depravity to the action that is wrong.

A certain quote springs to mind:

"I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do." - Robert Heinlein

I think if you want to equate morality and strict adherence of laws and the appropriateness of their punishments there will be much disagreement.
Whether I can be bothered with the "hassle" is a whole different matter.

So sure, copy-write is a pain in this instance, do not play others who use it or play it anyway and tell others to go look it up if unsure of the rules.
We are "free" to do what we all want.

I acknowledge that ethics and law are two different circumstances; that's why I phrase it as two separate thoughts and continue by addressing them as two separate things. I just happen to believe there is some partial alignment in this specific instance. With these types of discussions all too often people bounce back and forth arguing partially one and then partially the other; I say both in this regard are validly in favor of the right holders. I wouldn't begin to argue the "punishments," I can only assert that there is a monetary damage of some sort afflicted by this disregard for someone's property rights.

You quote Heinlein here he talks of the intolerance of obnoxious rules and the moral indignation against unjust law but he's trying to underscore the responsibility of the individual to stand in opposition precisely because they are free. The question: Is copyright law unjust?-Is the creator of a work unfairly protected by the law or are we unfairly deprived by that law? Considering Heinlein sued for copyright infringement I find it hard to believe he thought the body of laws to unjust. Where is the moral imperative and justice in taking this and using it unduly?

I don't believe in a strict adherence but I think there is a point where they've been abandoned. For instance if someone wants to read a copy of the rules I think its arguably scholarly and thus fair use even though there isn't anything scholastic about reading them, but when they take them to play without having paid for them they wrung all possible utility and worth from that written work without due compensation. At that point there is transgression and nothing left that hasn't been taken.

 aka_mythos wrote:
For instance if someone wants to read a copy of the rules I think its arguably scholarly and thus fair use even though there isn't anything scholastic about reading them, but when they take them to play without having paid for them they wrung all possible utility and worth from that written work without due compensation. At that point there is transgression and nothing left that hasn't been taken.

Under US law game rules can't be copyrighted. The text/images/etc used to describe those rules can, but not the rules themselves. So if you're ok with pirating a copy of the rules to read and learn them then how exactly can you object to using those rules in a game? Once you've learned them you're now using un-copyrightable material (point costs, how many dice to roll, etc) and the copyrighted material is just a reference sheet in case someone else wants to study those rules.

Where is the moral imperative and justice in taking this and using it unduly?

The justice in taking the rules is that the point of copyright law, at least in the context of a for-profit business selling mass-produced rulebooks, is to allow a business to create something and sell it without some other business making a direct copy of their work and undercutting the creator's prices (since the copier doesn't have to recover the time and money invested in making something new). This gives businesses incentive to create new products, and all of society benefits. But in this case GW has abandoned their creation and is no longer interested in making money from it, so what exactly is their copyright protecting?

 Peregrine wrote:
Under US law game rules can't be copyrighted. The text/images/etc used to describe those rules can, but not the rules themselves.

You keep bringing this up as if it's something special about game rules. It's not.

The reason that the rules mechanics themselves aren't covered by copyright is simply that copyright covers the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. The rules mechanic is the idea. The written page of rules is the expression.

Sure, you can learn how the rules work by reading a pirated copy. Or by going to the library. Or by looking at a friend's book.

Good luck showing up to a game and persuading an opponent that the rules totally work the way you say they do, because you memorised them three month ago...

But in this case GW has abandoned their creation and is no longer interested in making money from it, so what exactly is their copyright protecting?

It's protecting their right to choose how and when their creation is made available.

As it should, on account of it being theirs.

CrashGordon94 wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:And I address the ethical issue that stems from the same place as the legal issue.

No, it's irrelevant legalistic nonsense.
Yeah it's still copyrighted. So what? They're not selling it anymore so pirating it does no harm whatsoever, simple fact.
And just because a stupid, screwed-up law says something doesn't mean it's correct.

You assert the law is some how unjust but then why is "no harm" even enter the equation? -If the law is unjust your ethical imperative should be to break it explicitly because it will cause harm. It diminishes the value of the limited edition and diminishes their ability to sell such future limited editions. If people can just acquire future rules for free with impunity why would they ever buy legitimately the next limited edition?

If the law is somehow "stupid" then it demands a rational argument as to how the law fails. Laws are intended to protect the mutually agreed respect we regard for each other. Something has been created and sold as a limited edition, GW enjoyed the benefits of being able to do that and the customers who bought it get to enjoy exclusivity, but GW still gets to enjoy their rights after everything is sold because we don't know what their long term intention is and even if at present they might not intend to do any more printings of the rules they have the rights so they can freely change their mind.

CrashGordon94 wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:I also address that their limited availability may in fact be how GW has balanced their use on a meta-level.

Then that's not balance, in fact it's the literal opposite of balance. And quite frankly nobody should ever stand up for crap like that.

If there are only 800 legitimate copies of the rules the statistical odd of encountering someone who is playing with them is pretty low given the number of people who play the game. So even if the rules are imbalanced they are statistically negligible in the grand scheme of all the games of 40k played everywhere and if it is negligible its indistinguishable on this level and thus balanced.

Vaktathi wrote:

Breton wrote:

Yeah it's still copyrighted. So what? They're not selling it anymore so pirating it does no harm whatsoever, simple fact.

Yes it does. It harms the secondary market for players who have the rules and might sell them.

It harms the value of any future rules bundles like this as it infringes on the perceived value of an exclusive limited edition rule like this...

To be fair, copyright was never intended to cover secondary market value, and Elvis' heir's didn't have a hand in writing, producing, distributing, or performing his material and many have a problem with the existing copyright system extending protections that far.

But this is now something suited for a different thread

While copyright doesn't protect the second hand market, damage done to it by piracy is proof of damage to right holder and their ability to release revised or new editions of a work. Take Tolkien, his books were in such high demand that they were pirated quite extensively when they were first brought over and while I'm sure some justified buying pirated copies because of the shortages in the US ultimately diminished sales of later printings. Ultimately we don't know what GW plans on doing, they may well be planing a book that compiles them, but why should they ever release it if too many people so blatantly disregard their creative rights.

Very interesting ideas posted here.
Ok so if I did not buy the Skyhammer set then I can not play them and can not use their rules? Wait I can not get some Devistators, put them in pods, and some Assault marines and say these are those. They have to be 'those exact models that came from that purchases?

Sooo I guess if I bought some Dark Angel Terminators and marines at one point and eventually repaint them because I want to change my army over to say Imperial Fists I can not... Because tough luck, I bought the Dark Angels sets and not the equivilent Space Marines sets and I can not use their rules?
Yeeeaaah ok the crazy train is at full steam...

"What! Oh hell no those are not 'SternGuard box sternguard! Those are juist bitted and painted up normal marines! Hahahaha they have normal ammunition and rules, you can not use the rules of Sternguard, lol!!"
Yeah, nooooo. Not how that works.

 insaniak wrote:
You keep bringing this up as if it's something special about game rules. It's not.

The reason that the rules mechanics themselves aren't covered by copyright is simply that copyright covers the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. The rules mechanic is the idea. The written page of rules is the expression.

Sure, you can learn how the rules work by reading a pirated copy. Or by going to the library. Or by looking at a friend's book.

Yes, I know that's what the law says, I'm just pointing out the absurdity of the situation. You can learn what the rules are, memorize them, and play as many games with them as you want. And all of your opponents can do the exact same thing to prepare for you using those rules. The only thing you can't do is print an exact copy of the formation sheet to bring to your game. So no, I'm not really too worried about the ethics of breaking a minor technicality of copyright law for the sake of convenience.

It's protecting their right to choose how and when their creation is made available.

As it should, on account of it being theirs.

That's nice. I don't give a about that right. You'd have a point if we were talking about an artist creating one-of-a-kind works that were never intended for mass production and wanting to keep them special by limiting their numbers, but we aren't. We're talking about copying a piece of mass-produced promotional material that was thrown in the box with some plastic toys. It has no creative merit, and I don't think there's any plausible argument that its creator cares about it beyond how much profit it generates. So no, I'm not going to feel one bit of regret about ignoring GW's right to choose how their rules are available.


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 aka_mythos wrote:
It diminishes the value of the limited edition and diminishes their ability to sell such future limited editions. If people can just acquire future rules for free with impunity why would they ever buy legitimately the next limited edition?

Good point. We clearly have an obligation to pirate GW's limited edition rules so they get rid of this "pay to win" insanity.

If there are only 800 legitimate copies of the rules the statistical odd of encountering someone who is playing with them is pretty low given the number of people who play the game. So even if the rules are imbalanced they are statistically negligible in the grand scheme of all the games of 40k played everywhere and if it is negligible its indistinguishable on this level and thus balanced.

Which does nothing to address the balance issue. If you happen to have one of those buyers in your group then they have access to a blatantly overpowered formation that you can't use. Why? Because they have more money than you and can afford to buy an expensive new formation as soon as it becomes available. That's just barely short of replacing all of the D6 rolls in 40k with having each player burn $20 bills and letting the person who sacrifices the most money choose the outcome of the "roll".

As to how important and 'propitiatory' those Skyhammer rules are and how important it is that only those who bought and have them in hand are to be the only ones allowed to play them... I point you to the what the Warhammer 40k rule book says on that exact subject of their own rules..
"The Spirit of the Game.
Warhammer 40,000 may be somewhat different to any other game you have played, Above all, it's important to remember that the rules are just a framework to support an enjoyable game."
It goes on from there. That is rather the opposite of 'You must have an in hand copy of the purchased rule set with GW recipe, and such rules must only be played along with that set's own models, and only in acordance to the build specified within those rules found within that play set."

Also if you want to get into it about copyright... Selling armies second hand is against copy right. As companies see it, you would have bought that company from them at full retail price so in getting that second hand army you jipped both GW and the store that you play at.. Also no sails tax was paid from said sale. Oh no another law that was broken!

So please, see that the whole idea of saying that only people who bought such can play such, is insane.

Archon Malantai wrote:
Also if you want to get into it about copyright... Selling armies second hand is against copy right. As companies see it, you would have bought that company from them at full retail price so in getting that second hand army you jipped both GW and the store that you play at.. Also no sails tax was paid from said sale. Oh no another law that was broken!

I have a really hard time believing that this is actually the case in US. Selling second hand armies is most certainly not infringing on any copyrights, you are not copying anything, you are selling. If you made 3D-printed copies of the sprues you bought and sold those for profit, that'd be against a few copyright laws, I'd imagine. Or are you seriously claiming that all flea markets are nothing but hives of scum and villainy because everything sold there is second hand? I just can't comprehend what kind of logic you must apply to this situation if you come to this conclusion.

I sure do hope that you've never bought anything significant second hand, like a used car for example, because that would make you not much better than a car thief, right?

I know most tournaments around here and some bigger cons are just fine with copies of datasheets and formations. They will not accept typed text but a laminated copy of a formation printed off the web is just fine. No different than buying the cypher dataslate, printing and using the formation sheet for games.

As far as I know, the only naysayers regarding printed copies were the ones who bought a slammer set just for the limited factor.... and who cares what those naysayers have to say anyway when tourneys and fellow gamers are what matter.

If I had bought a set I would have posted high quality scans up for the community... rules should be available for everyone!! I have seen copies on the internet that print just fine, not quite the same quality but still works well!!

Breton wrote:

Yeah it's still copyrighted. So what? They're not selling it anymore so pirating it does no harm whatsoever, simple fact.

Yes it does. It harms the secondary market for players who have the rules and might sell them.

It harms the value of any future rules bundles like this as it infringes on the perceived value of an exclusive limited edition rule like this.

Elvis is dead. No, really he is. So pirating his music may not do him any harm, but it does harm his estate and heirs.

The secondary market usually seems to be the ones who rushed to get the LE stuff just to sell it for 150-200% more as soon as it finished selling though. Some even obviously breaking 1 per customer limits GW had put in place. There's no sympathy to be left for these people.

I am glad if the secondary sellers for the LE stuff are hurt by this lack of sale because it would help encourage them not to buy a bunch of it to sell this way, which in turn leads to GW's current limited edition fetish.

Archon Malantai wrote:

Yeah, nooooo. Not how that works.

It's also not what anyone other than you was actually saying .

The sole claim being made is that you need the appropriate rules for the formation you are wanting to field.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Archon Malantai wrote:

Also if you want to get into it about copyright... Selling armies second hand is against copy right.

No, it isn't.

 Peregrine wrote:
[.....Under US law game rules can't be copyrighted. The text/images/etc used to describe those rules can, but not the rules themselves. ...

Just to clarify for those that maybe confused by this statement, printed game rules are protected under International Copyright law, and as the US is a member of the Berne convention, they are also bound by that too. Have a read HERE for clarification.
However, you can read someone else's copy of a product to get the idea for free, and then play the game from memory, however, If you are challenged to prove your assertion, how do you do it?

As I stated before, in a casual game, anything goes. Happy to play pretty much what anyone wants to throw down, as long as they show me what they have at the the beginning.
In a tournament, however, I would not accept your memory, or a photocopy, or a print out as proof. I would expect a legitimate set of the current rules for what you wish to play. Some tournaments may offer lee-way on this, and should say so at the beginning. If they do, and we all agree to play under those conditions, then fine. It would give me an opportunity to check the rules of the formations prior to the event to make sure that no interesting new buffs make an accidental appearance.

Also, If someone forgot their codex and they are participating in a tournament, they would need to find someone willing to let them borrow a set, or agree with the organisers and opponent that they can look the rules up on someone else's equipment. But if no one will let them borrow a set, or don't have access to a copy, they're boned. I wouldn't expect to sit down to play against someone who had forgotten half, or all, of his army and is proxying table mats and pennies either.
In a casual game however, I don't mind the odd proxy, and if someone forgot their codex I'd still play them, but I'd hope it was just a one off.

Breton wrote:
Yes it does. It harms the secondary market for players who have the rules and might sell them.

It harms the value of any future rules bundles like this as it infringes on the perceived value of an exclusive limited edition rule like this.

Elvis is dead. No, really he is. So pirating his music may not do him any harm, but it does harm his estate and heirs.

I will make a confession that I actually meant "no harm done to GW" and I really should've been more specific saying that.

But looking back now I stand by what I said and I'm 100% with Yaktathi and Peregrine on this one (in fact I'm pretty well 100% with everything Peregrine just said in this thread after that post too).

What's more, I'm not too convinced it'd be all that harmful to these people anyway. Even if other people can pirate those rules, they still have a fancy limited-edition thing that's really special. Back before the classic SNES RPG EarthBound was released on the Wii U's Virtual Console the original carts sold for bucketloads of dosh, even though most people who wanted to play the game just grabbed a ROM and emulator off the web! What's more, many of these people would totally buy a legit copy if they could (EarthBound's another great example, many of those people who emulated it -like me, for one example- immediately bought it when it came out on the Virtual Console), it's not like someone downloading Codex: Dark Angels for free when it's available to buy from GW or even other retailers!

@Insaniak: Yes, it's absolutely GW's right to stop printing it. And now that they have, they have absolutely no reason to object to people pirating it anymore. It's not like Skyhammer is Tom Kirby's sex tape or something.

What "entitles" us to do that? Because it's LITERALLY NOT AVAILABLE ANYMORE, because some might want it and that's the only way to get it and because saying only the rich and lucky get to use certain rules is the most ridiculously unfair crap ever. Say what you will about Superheavies, current Eldar and so on, at least anyone with a mind, budget and will to play those can do it!
Let me use another OOP GW product as an example. Let's say you read about Rogue Trader, the very first edition of 40k from the '80s on 1d4chan and you decide you want to try it. No harm in downloading a .pdf, it's been OOP for nearly 30 years! You can't get a copy from GW and thus they're not losing any sales. What's more, as mentioned above this wouldn't even do a lot of harm to those selling it second-hand. An authentic Rogue Trader book would still sell for oodles because it's a rare and valuable thingy that you can't get anymore, even though .pdfs exist.

 aka_mythos wrote:
If the law is somehow "stupid" then it demands a rational argument as to how the law fails. Laws are intended to protect the mutually agreed respect we regard for each other. Something has been created and sold as a limited edition, GW enjoyed the benefits of being able to do that and the customers who bought it get to enjoy exclusivity, but GW still gets to enjoy their rights after everything is sold because we don't know what their long term intention is and even if at present they might not intend to do any more printings of the rules they have the rights so they can freely change their mind.

Okay, stupid in this case or stupid in general?
In this case it's stupid because it's protecting something OOP that needs no protection ("long term intentions" be damned), you can't get it anymore, so those that pirate it ain't doing any harm to GW, protecting it makes no bloody sense ("Too bad you can't get that, that's still wrong even though you're doing no harm and would likely get a legitimate copy if you could!"). Same reason it'd be dumb to get up peoples' asses about circulating pirated VHS tapes of a movie that had a really short run and was never sold again.
In general, that's actually hard to explain here. Not because it's hard to see but because I wouldn't know where to start! It's all over the place, if you want to see how screwed-up copyright can be you can find it all over the place with simple searching. What's more, it's pretty damn obvious and explaining something really, really obvious is really quite hard because when you know something obvious you really take it for granted and it's hard to actually explain it properly without just going back to basically restating it and going "it's obvious!".

 aka_mythos wrote:
If there are only 800 legitimate copies of the rules the statistical odd of encountering someone who is playing with them is pretty low given the number of people who play the game. So even if the rules are imbalanced they are statistically negligible in the grand scheme of all the games of 40k played everywhere and if it is negligible its indistinguishable on this level and thus balanced.

No, that's even worse. No it's a special advantage for those handfuls of rich and lucky people who could get it that nobody else gets. At least with stuff like Decurion anyone can get it and use it if they want to. This time you can't even fall back on "well you can do it too!". What's more, that's a spectacularly screwed-up way to run a game and I really don't get how you can't see that. How is letting a handful of people get a special advantage in any way reasonable?

But this is all arguably a bit off-topic. What it comes down to is that having a special thing that only a handful of privileged players can use is ridiculously unfair and any club/tourney needs to put a stop to it. It all basically comes down to two options:
A) You make an exception to any anti-piracy rules because it's simultaneously OOP and still valid (unlike old Codexes) so the playing field is leveled and anyone can get it. Having a "club copy" ready for referencing (like some do with Codexes) optional.
B) You ban it entirely, even if it's a legit copy. Sounds harsh but it's happened before, many clubs and tourneys ban certain things and whether or not you own it is basically irrelevant.
Honestly with Skyhammer I'd lean towards B, just because it's apparently so horribly broken. If you have issues with Assault Marines and Devastators then it's probably better to enhance them with house rules rather than this broken crap, then at least you won't fall off the other end as it were.

I wouldn't use the formation, even in a tournament. My buddy's are more laid back (casual) gamers than that, and I don't think we'd have fun playing it.

However, if I wanted to play it, I'd just print out one of the many pdfs floating around the interwebs.

LE rules? feth you, GW. feth you with 20 metal dreadnoughts.

This ethical debate is not necessary - there are plenty of legal ways that a copy of copyrighted material is fine.

"Is that a copy of the skyhammer formation?"
"Yes it is."
"Did you purchase that from GW?"

(these are all acceptable answers)
"That is none of your business."
"I purchased a copy, this is a copy of my purchased copy for my own personal use."
"Nope - bought it off ebay. The guy transfered full ownership to me - he no longer has ownership."
"My friend gave this to me - don't know where he got it - I assume through legal means."

Literally the only way you are not cool with playing against a copy of actual rules is if you are an utter tool.

Is all this talk of the legality of copywrite and such really necessary when there is a picture of the official rules right on the official GW 40k Website that you can refer to, or bring up on your ipad at any time?

 Xenomancers wrote:
This ethical debate is not necessary - there are plenty of legal ways that a copy of copyrighted material is fine.

"Is that a copy of the skyhammer formation?"
"Yes it is."
"Did you purchase that from GW?"

(these are all acceptable answers)
"That is none of your business."
"I purchased a copy, this is a copy of my purchased copy for my own personal use."
"Nope - bought it off ebay. The guy transfered full ownership to me - he no longer has ownership."
"My friend gave this to me - don't know where he got it - I assume through legal means."

Literally the only way you are not cool with playing against a copy of actual rules is if you are an utter tool.

This is the crux of it for me.

How, exactly, are the anti-piracy advocates planning to enforce not playing the formation?

I go home and print off the high-quality PDF I found online, double-sided on a nice sheet of glossy. Bring it into the FLGS with my Spess Muhreens. Oh yes, I was one of the lucky ones that managed to get a copy of the Skyhammer boxed set! If I can't make a convincing replica, I just take a photocopy and say I didn't want to bring my limited edition rules sheet with me.

There is no end-game victory here. Whatever your feelings about piracy, there's no realistic way to prevent someone from using the Skyhammer formation - except of course, banning it outright, which punishes the handful of people who did actually buy the rules.

You gonna start asking people to bring their proof of purchase? What about the proof of purchase on your codex, or your rulebook? How can I know those aren't professionally-made copies of a pirated PDF? Those dataslates on your phone - what's to say they're not entirely fabricated?

You want to have trouble finding someone to play with? Definitely start enforcing DRM on your games of Warhammer.

I can understand the complaints against pirating GW's rules, but I feel avoiding a "pay to win" scenario is the lesser of two evils. In an ideal world, all the players of a game would have access to all the rules for that game. GW may have a profitable interest in keeping rules limited and behind a paywall, but in the Internet age it is largely moot. Once one person scans it and puts in on the Internet, for all intensive purposes everyone has access to the rules.

I don't mind playing any army or formation or whatever, as long as they have access to the rule in HANDS, copy or orignal. I wouldn't mind if someone have a printed version of a pirated Skyhammer, but if he don't have a printed version, I wouldn't play it.

It't a matter of trust. If you bring all your rule + army list printed or at least available, then I can trust you that you will enforce the correct rule because I could ask you at any time to double-check a rule. If you don't bring your rule or your list, I might still play you, but any rule that I'm not familiar with and sound a bit cheesy will let me a sour taste in the mouth.

I've been to a number of places where they were fairly strict about people owning the rules. You can do what you want with your friends but acceptance of a practice doesn't diminish that it's wrong.

When ever there is something like this we get to hear the "eff-the-rich" mentality as if they were Robin Hood. He was rich. This may dissapoint people's sensibility but you don't have to be rich to have afforded this set. The average American household can afford this with less than a weeks pay. Piracy the micro-victory for socialist egalitarianism, yay.

The arguments that because it's oop and thus does minimum harm is insincere because let's be honest to most people they already owned most those models and simply wouldn't want to pay that much for a whole new set. That even if they could they wouldn't buy it because they don't like the price tag or how it's bundled.

As far as game balance goes the consensus seems to be that some of the in book formations are less balanced; thus a sub par choice is really just adding flavor and not "win".

kronk wrote:I wouldn't use the formation, even in a tournament. My buddy's are more laid back (casual) gamers than that, and I don't think we'd have fun playing it.

However, if I wanted to play it, I'd just print out one of the many pdfs floating around the interwebs.

LE rules? feth you, GW. feth you with 20 metal dreadnoughts.

Xenomancers wrote:This ethical debate is not necessary - there are plenty of legal ways that a copy of copyrighted material is fine.

"Is that a copy of the skyhammer formation?"
"Yes it is."
"Did you purchase that from GW?"

(these are all acceptable answers)
"That is none of your business."
"I purchased a copy, this is a copy of my purchased copy for my own personal use."
"Nope - bought it off ebay. The guy transfered full ownership to me - he no longer has ownership."
"My friend gave this to me - don't know where he got it - I assume through legal means."

Literally the only way you are not cool with playing against a copy of actual rules is if you are an utter tool.

These guys get it!

Locrian wrote:Is all this talk of the legality of copywrite and such really necessary when there is a picture of the official rules right on the official GW 40k Website that you can refer to, or bring up on your ipad at any time?

Really? Oh wow, looks like GW isn't too concerned about keeping the rules exclusive after all!

Jambles wrote:This is the crux of it for me.

How, exactly, are the anti-piracy advocates planning to enforce not playing the formation?

I go home and print off the high-quality PDF I found online, double-sided on a nice sheet of glossy. Bring it into the FLGS with my Spess Muhreens. Oh yes, I was one of the lucky ones that managed to get a copy of the Skyhammer boxed set! If I can't make a convincing replica, I just take a photocopy and say I didn't want to bring my limited edition rules sheet with me.

There is no end-game victory here. Whatever your feelings about piracy, there's no realistic way to prevent someone from using the Skyhammer formation - except of course, banning it outright, which punishes the handful of people who did actually buy the rules.

You gonna start asking people to bring their proof of purchase? What about the proof of purchase on your codex, or your rulebook? How can I know those aren't professionally-made copies of a pirated PDF? Those dataslates on your phone - what's to say they're not entirely fabricated?

You want to have trouble finding someone to play with? Definitely start enforcing DRM on your games of Warhammer.

This is another thing too. One has to be careful not to go into "some things will slip through the cracks so let's not bother having the rule" like some do, but at the same time, this doesn't seem like it'd be feasible to enforce with any degree of success. It's one thing when it's an actual Codex and you can be reasonably sure about whether it's legit. It's another thing when it's a random piece of paper that GW handed off to a handful of rick and lucky superfans.

When you combine this with the moral and pragmatic angles of why this isn't a good thing to begin with, you end up with the sort of thing that's a waste of time even by the standards of a hobby about painstakingly painting plastic toys so you can play pretend with them.

PandaHero wrote:I don't mind playing any army or formation or whatever, as long as they have access to the rule in HANDS, copy or orignal. I wouldn't mind if someone have a printed version of a pirated Skyhammer, but if he don't have a printed version, I wouldn't play it.

It't a matter of trust. If you bring all your rule + army list printed or at least available, then I can trust you that you will enforce the correct rule because I could ask you at any time to double-check a rule. If you don't bring your rule or your list, I might still play you, but any rule that I'm not familiar with and sound a bit cheesy will let me a sour taste in the mouth.

That is truly fair. Thus why if we take the route to let everyone have it, there should be an emphasis on making the effort to have it ready to go so you're not trying to go off memory from what you saw on the website last night.

aka_mythos wrote:I've been to a number of places where they were fairly strict about people owning the rules. You can do what you want with your friends but acceptance of a practice doesn't diminish that it's wrong.

Good thing this isn't wrong for all the reasons previously listed out, then!

aka_mythos wrote:When ever there is something like this we get to hear the "eff-the-rich" mentality as if they were Robin Hood. He was rich. This may dissapoint people's sensibility but you don't have to be rich to have afforded this set. The average American household can afford this with less than a weeks pay. Piracy the micro-victory for socialist egalitarianism, yay.

It's not "eff the rich", it's "eff screwing people over unfairly", you'd know this if you listened to anything anyone said in here.

aka_mythos wrote:The arguments that because it's oop and thus does minimum harm is insincere because let's be honest to most people they already owned most those models and simply wouldn't want to pay that much for a whole new set. That even if they could they wouldn't buy it because they don't like the price tag or how it's bundled.

No, it's valid because random hypotheticals of what might've happened had the situation been different are completely irrelevant. Maybe some of these people would've pirated anyway, but that doesn't matter because THAT'S NOT WHAT THE SITUATION IS! By all means get indignant about people not ponying up the cash to buy something readily available though, you might actually have a point then. You certainly don't have one now, though.

aka_mythos wrote:As far as game balance goes the consensus seems to be that some of the in book formations are less balanced; thus a sub par choice is really just adding flavor and not "win".

A) Not what I've heard at all. Skyhammer's been made out to be a really big deal.
B) Even if it's not the BIGGEST deal, that doesn't mean it's not a big deal. The Black Knight and Darkshroud 2+ rerollable Jink from the Dark Angels Codex still put a lot of people on edge even though Decurion exists.
C) How powerful it is ultimately isn't that important. Restricting an option to a handful of privileged players might be less unfair when it's not DA BEST THING EVAR but it's still unfair nonetheless.

 aka_mythos wrote:
When ever there is something like this we get to hear the "eff-the-rich" mentality as if they were Robin Hood. He was rich. This may dissapoint people's sensibility but you don't have to be rich to have afforded this set. The average American household can afford this with less than a weeks pay. Piracy the micro-victory for socialist egalitarianism, yay.

I'm sure a ton of people here just have $611 sitting around just waiting to see if GW decides to drop something nice and LE randomly out of the blue.

But continue your poorly veiled attempt to point communism at people who think limited edition rules are stupid.

For me, an impulse buy is something five bucks or less. And even then I sometimes have to say no cause not enough money.

Certainly not 500 bucks.

Limited edition models are one thing, but limited edition RULES? The hell is this crap?

 aka_mythos wrote:
This may dissapoint people's sensibility but you don't have to be rich to have afforded this set. The average American household can afford this with less than a weeks pay.

And if you can afford to impulse-buy something that costs a week's pay for the average household then guess what, you're rich. This wasn't even a regularly-available product that you could save up for, carefully weigh the pros and cons of buying, etc. It was put up for pre-order and sold out within a week. If you don't have the kind of hobby budget that lets you immediately and without question buy every new release just in case you want to use it someday then you didn't have any realistic chance to get this.

Piracy the micro-victory for socialist egalitarianism, yay.

Why exactly is egalitarianism a bad thing in a game that is supposed to be fair?

The arguments that because it's oop and thus does minimum harm is insincere because let's be honest to most people they already owned most those models and simply wouldn't want to pay that much for a whole new set. That even if they could they wouldn't buy it because they don't like the price tag or how it's bundled.

I really don't see how this is supposed to be a convincing argument. All you're doing is saying "it's not because it's OOP, it's about some other way that GW treats their customers poorly". Even if you could still buy the package the formation came with it is still bad for the game, and I have zero sympathy for GW losing the "right" to do things that are bad for my game.

 Lammikkovalas wrote:

greyknight12 wrote:

tenebre wrote:but anyone can use it. At least amongst sane normal people anyone can.

Sane normal people can use any rules they want. But accepting a pickup game with "hey, I printed these off the internet" is not sane.

adjective, saner, sanest.
1. free from mental derangement; having a sound, healthy mind:
a sane person.
2. having or showing reason, sound judgment, or good sense:
sane advice.
3. sound; healthy.

Here's a dictionary entry for you. Maybe next time when you're using the word you understand the meaning better. The funny thing here is that claiming that the act of printing rules to use in your games somehow makes you mentally unstable..."

Don't be a douchebag. Read things in context with a colloquial understanding. Stop using Ad Hominem attacks in such a childish manner to win points in an arguement which has specific application to what many people experience as a majority of their games.

Personally I think that the entirety of 40ks rules should be free to download off of GW with physical copies available for those that want them, including this skyhammer formation, so that everyone can have free access to the rules since we are already paying exorbant prices for their models.

Unfortunately GW and the law doesn't seem to care about what I want.

Oh well, not that it matters in this case for me and my group as we have banned the formation at our LGS.

Even if you could still buy the package the formation came with it is still bad for the game, and I have zero sympathy for GW losing the "right" to do things that are bad for my game.

Your game? You're Rick Priestly? What was GW like back in the late 80s? I'll let you simmer on that one, and try and come up with some reason why you own the game, and have the "rights" to decide what happens to it, as opposed to the people who actually... you know... own it.

After that we can get back to why your opinion is the sole arbiter of what is bad for the game.

Breton wrote:

Even if you could still buy the package the formation came with it is still bad for the game, and I have zero sympathy for GW losing the "right" to do things that are bad for my game.

Your game? You're Rick Priestly? What was GW like back in the late 80s? I'll let you simmer on that one, and try and come up with some reason why you own the game, and have the "rights" to decide what happens to it, as opposed to the people who actually... you know... own it.

After that we can get back to why your opinion is the sole arbiter of what is bad for the game.

Just maybe by "game" in this case he means an individual gaming session, tournament or campaign. Not the entirety of 40k itself.

DoomShakaLaka wrote:Personally I think that the entirety of 40ks rules should be free to download off of GW with physical copies available for those that want them, including this skyhammer formation, so that everyone can have free access to the rules since we are already paying exorbant prices for their models.

Unfortunately GW and the law doesn't seem to care about what I want.

Yeah, that would be nice, though it seems GW can be a bit greedy about it. I don't even blame them for wanting to sell rules rather than give them away but the prices can be really questionable, often times they aren't as tested as a paid product should be and stuff like limited edition rules are utterly inexcusable no matter how some try to white knight it.

DoomShakaLaka wrote:Oh well, not that it matters in this case for me and my group as we have banned the formation at our LGS.

Probably a smart move, given that it's apparently quite unbalanced.

Breton wrote:Your game? You're Rick Priestly? What was GW like back in the late 80s? I'll let you simmer on that one, and try and come up with some reason why you own the game, and have the "rights" to decide what happens to it, as opposed to the people who actually... you know... own it.

C'mon man, it's clear he meant that in the sense of "my hobby" or "my favorite sandwich". Don't be obtuse.

Breton wrote:After that we can get back to why your opinion is the sole arbiter of what is bad for the game.

He's not, he's just someone who can see why handing out special rules as a privilege is a bad idea and who figured that these rules are unbalanced with careful (or not-so-careful, since it's apparently blatant) consideration. He doesn't have to be the supreme deity of Warhammer 40000 to say this.

 CrashGordon94 wrote:
@Insaniak: Yes, it's absolutely GW's right to stop printing it. And now that they have, they have absolutely no reason to object to people pirating it anymore.

Unless, of course, they plan to release it again later... at which point, all those pirated copies suddenly become lost sales again.

What "entitles" us to do that? Because it's LITERALLY NOT AVAILABLE ANYMORE, because some might want it and that's the only way to get it and because saying only the rich and lucky get to use certain rules is the most ridiculously unfair crap ever.

You realise that 'But I WANT it!!!' isn't actually a valid reason for taking something that someone doesn't want to give you, right?

Well, my quote on Heinlein still holds water:
Most people see this "pay to win scenario" and think GW can stick-it some place uncomfortable.

So the easiest method logically comes to this forum topic: I do not support this form of rules distribution both by the company or those who support it.
Moral choice says I do not choose to play the game with Skyhammer, or accept it from my opponent, so "Ban" it is.

There, no copyright laws violated.
It just feels better sometimes to give in to that anarchist urge that "information wants to be free!".
In a former life "hacking" was a fun thing due to being nosy... I am cured of it now.
Some of the most violent rebellions are sparked with perceived inequity so I can sympathize with less ethical retaliation.

 insaniak wrote:
Unless, of course, they plan to release it again later... at which point, all those pirated copies suddenly become lost sales again.

A) I don't really buy this, those who would've otherwise bought it but couldn't would happily buy it even if they pirated it earlier (see my comment on EarthBound, it was a pretty impressive hit, even among those who had emulated copies precisely because of this).
B) If they want those sales they should just sell it.

 insaniak wrote:
You realise that 'But I WANT it!!!' isn't actually a valid reason for taking something that someone doesn't want to give you, right?

Certainly not TAKING something, hence laws against real theft. But someone downloading these rules doesn't actually take these rules away from anyone else. If they don't want to sell them, they don't get those sales and no longer have any justifiable reasons to stop people getting them by other means.

Please stop trying to stand up for such abhorrent practices.

 insaniak wrote:

 CrashGordon94 wrote:
@Insaniak: Yes, it's absolutely GW's right to stop printing it. And now that they have, they have absolutely no reason to object to people pirating it anymore.

Unless, of course, they plan to release it again later... at which point, all those pirated copies suddenly become lost sales again.

Actually, that's untrue. All GW wanted to do was sell a bunch of devastator and assault Marines, and provide a fluffy reason to use them.

Whether you buy a bunch of models separately or ad a bundle, you're still buying the same models. And of you have a nice independent, they'll even order the bundled version for you and give you a nice discount.

GW never charged a premium for the bundle, so there are no lost sales.

But anyways, what am I doing posting in this thread again, LOL.

I can't believe this thread.

This is the hobby:

Buy the codex from GW buy the miniatures from GW: feel free to use those rules. Game on.

Or don't buy the codex, photocopy it, and buy the miniatures from china. don't expect anyone to play you who actually likes the hobby. You might get lucky. Ruin the game for everyone else. Feel like a winner act like a loser.

You can't ignore this black and white choice just cos piracy means you get an unbeatable list

ConanMan wrote:
I can't believe this thread.

This is the hobby:

Buy the codex from GW buy the miniatures from GW: feel free to use those rules. Game on.

Or don't buy the codex, photocopy it, and buy the miniatures from china. don't expect anyone to play you who actually likes the hobby. You might get lucky. Ruin the game for everyone else. Feel like a winner act like a loser.

You can't ignore this black and white choice just cos piracy means you get an unbeatable list

You're missing the point. The Skyhammer rules aren't in the codex that I bought for my space marines. They only made 200 copies and they're all gone, now.

So if I want to use that Limited Edition formation, now what?

Certainly not TAKING something, hence laws against real theft. But someone downloading these rules doesn't actually take these rules away from anyone else. If they don't want to sell them, they don't get those sales and no longer have any justifiable reasons to stop people getting them by other means.

You mean like laws against "theft of service" that also don't involve actual goods being stolen?

How did your justification work for Napster?

Please stop trying to stand up for such abhorrent practices.

Which abhorrent practices are those? Defending the intellectual property rights they have, thus ensuring the continued employ of their workers?

Ensuring the value of this limited edition set is maintained for the people who DID purchase it with the Limited Edition expectations?

 kronk wrote:
You're missing the point. The Skyhammer rules aren't in the codex that I bought for my space marines. They only made 200 copies and they're all gone, now.
So if I want to use that Limited Edition formation, now what?

I think the other point is copying the rules from some image on the net and that person goes "problem solved".
While we are trying to figure out the moral highground of buying our BRB and all the codex's for our armies and whatever dataslates that hit our fancy.
Considered ethical for some.
Foolish by others.

It is "just a game" so is it "appropriate" to break the law or print off something because it is "just" a game publication?

Don't care anymore.
Got friends who I can try this out on, if it is too "rude" they laugh, call it bull-pucks and threaten to put me in a headlock if I do it again.
The headlock usually follows with a wedgie, so it does not get played again.

kronk wrote:You're missing the point. The Skyhammer rules aren't in the codex that I bought for my space marines. They only made 200 copies and they're all gone, now.

So if I want to use that Limited Edition formation, now what?

Precisely, a lot of people are failing to grasp this.

Breton wrote:You mean like laws against "theft of service" that also don't involve actual goods being stolen?

I mean that since downloading the rules doesn't take them away from anyone and because they're no longer on sale, there's no damage done, pretty obvious.

Breton wrote:Which abhorrent practices are those?

Screwing people over with this limited-edition crap, and directly standing up for giving those privileged enough to get it having an unfair advantage. Along with insanely dippy copyright white-knighting. Yeah it's probably still technically illegal. So what? The law can be really stupid sometimes so that doesn't prove anything at all.

Breton wrote: Defending the intellectual property rights they have, thus ensuring the continued employ of their workers?

Nope. Notice I don't stand up for anything pirating just because they can't be arsed to buy something that's still available.
But if they're not gonna sell it, they don't get to get pissy about people getting it elsewhere.

Breton wrote:Ensuring the value of this limited edition set is maintained for the people who DID purchase it with the Limited Edition expectations?

If the value is "Yay, I have this special thing!" then it's still there. Much like the value of an authentic original Rogue Trader book from when 40k first started isn't diminished by .pdfs floating around the web.
If the value is "I get to use these rules and you don't, nya nya nya!" then screw that value, I don't put any value on that and neither would anyone with their head screwed on right.

 CrashGordon94 wrote:
If the value is "I get to use these rules and you don't, nya nya nya!" then screw that value, I don't put any value on that and neither would anyone with their head screwed on right.

Exactly. I have no sympathy whatsoever for that (possibly hypothetical) person, and if that's the "value" GW is protecting then too bad for them.

 CrashGordon94 wrote:

Screwing people over with this limited-edition crap, and directly standing up for giving those privileged enough to get it having an unfair advantage.

Sorry, but people with more money can buy things that people with less money can't.

That's not an abhorrent practice . It's just commerce .

There is no particular advantage being gained , here. If you feel that the rules that someone is trying to use are unfair, surely a more appropriate response to illegally downloading them so that you have them yourself would be to simply not play against them?

Nope. Notice I don't stand up for anything pirating just because they can't be arsed to buy something that's still available.

I'm a photographer. I release limited runs of my photographs so that the demand for them is higher than the supply. That makes it easier to sell the next set because the previous ones are still valuable and still limited. And this is ignoring the royalties for use of my work. You don't think copying them instead of competing with the other buyers to raise the value I can charge for those photographs wasn't stealing?

I don't like limited edition rules either, but I don't let that and some selfish desire to have without paying twist my way into rationalizing theft.

2 things......

I have a laminated copy of the WD Bloodthirster rules that i copied because i didn't want to cut them out or take the mag every where i go. Would anyone actually not play against me if i wanted to use it?

Also, a certain army-builder app has the rules word-for-word in its listing for the formation. Which apparently is good enough for a lot of TOs that run major tournaments.

How does that stand with regards to copyright? Not trying to argue. Serious question

 jokerkd wrote:
2 things......

I have a laminated copy of the WD Bloodthirster rules that i copied because i didn't want to cut them out or take the mag every where i go. Would anyone actually not play against me if i wanted to use it?

Also, a certain army-builder app has the rules word-for-word in its listing for the formation. Which apparently is good enough for a lot of TOs that run major tournaments

Sure I'd play you. Whether you actually own the rules or not is up to you and your conscience, or in some cases lack thereof, and not my business. As long as you've got them there so they can be read/used/etc. Its your business how you got them.

Edit: To the second part of your question, Army Builder and the like usually try and work pretty hard to avoid pasting up the rules word for word, and just notate and page ref them. Hard to do on a one page sheet.

Army builders are good enough for generating lists, but most TOs still also require you to have the relevant books on hand.

Look, we can find the rules. We can print them out and make it an official part of the roster of formation we have. Who gives a feth if we weren't one of 200 to get the bundle.

This isn't a discussion of morals. If you have a copy of the rules I'll play you (skyhammer non-withstanding) IDGAF, its a game where a little honor is expected towards the other PERSON not the company. But hey I buy their models because I like to paint, not play, I own a little of every codex. Killa-kans, Incubi, IG Commisar, Stormtroopers, FW Raven Guard squad.

Peregrine wrote:Exactly. I have no sympathy whatsoever for that (possibly hypothetical) person, and if that's the "value" GW is protecting then too bad for them.

Exactly, you hit the nail on the head! And yeah, hypothetical, but given that we have people here standing up for this crap I might have accidentally described a good number of real people...

insaniak wrote:Sorry, but people with more money can buy things that people with less money can't.

That's not an abhorrent practice . It's just commerce .

It's also not what I was talking about. Notice how it was always "rich and lucky" or "privileged". I recognize that people with more cash to spare will have an easier time building armies and getting models and books, this crosses the line because it's literally not available even if you have the dough. And that crosses the line from "by the nature of the hobby, people with more money will have more flexibility" into "this tiny handful of rich and lucky, privileged players gets an advantage over everyone else because dumb copyright technicalities are more important than fairness, common sense and a reasonable level playing field".

insaniak wrote:There is no particular advantage being gained , here. If you feel that the rules that someone is trying to use are unfair, surely a more appropriate response to illegally downloading them so that you have them yourself would be to simply not play against them?

Hence why banning Skyhammer is also an option. It just needs to be a decision on a club/tourney wide level whether everyone gets it or nobody does, the important thing is to have a level field of at least OPPORTUNITY for all players to get it. Someone might not be able to afford all the models for a Decurion but anyone could still go onto GW's website and get all those Necrons and the Necron Codex and it would all be there. Not every Dark Angels player would be able to afford a Mortis Mark V Dreadnought but anyone could still go on Forge World's website and buy the model (or the appropriate add-on gun for a normal Dread) and Imperial Armour 2 and it would all be there. Not everyone could just get Skyhammer, only a handful. It's literally not available. So like all OOP things (discontinued models, discontinued books and so on) the options are:
1) Accept piracy/proxying sometimes because it's literally not available anymore.
2) Ban it.
The only reason this decision doesn't normally need to be made is because most OOP things are no longer compatible, forcing Option 2. And most people who deliberately play old editions or abandon-ware wouldn't get stuffy about new players using pirated copies because they know it's all dead anyway and that's the only way, forcing Option 1. Something brand new and otherwise legal being OOP is virtually unprecedented.

Breton wrote:I'm a photographer. I release limited runs of my photographs so that the demand for them is higher than the supply. That makes it easier to sell the next set because the previous ones are still valuable and still limited. And this is ignoring the royalties for use of my work. You don't think copying them instead of competing with the other buyers to raise the value I can charge for those photographs wasn't stealing?

If someone wants one of your pics and they aren't available I don't blame them for copying or whatever. It's not wrong because that's their only choice and it's not stealing because they're not taking anyone else's copy of the picture away. If you wanted their sale and are mad about losing it, you should've kept it available or did a print-on-demand thing. If you can't compete without this goofy monopoly idea, you're not going to be able to compete period in an era where the internet exists and you probably never deserved it anyway.
Besides art doesn't need this crap. There's a reason why people still go still the Mona Lisa in the Louvre even though they can find it on Google Images with no problems.

Breton wrote:I don't like limited edition rules either, but I don't let that and some selfish desire to have without paying twist my way into rationalizing theft.

1) If you don't like it, DON'T STAND UP FOR IT! It's a horrible and harmful practice that should not be supported by anyone, you included.
2) It's not selfish to want Skyhammer any more than it is to want the Space Marines Codex.
3) It's not about wanting to have without paying, it's wanting or needing to have without the option any other way, thus forcing this course of action.
4) It's not theft, it's taking nothing away. GW lost no sales because they weren't selling it and nobody had their copy taken away. Stop calling it theft when it's not.

 CrashGordon94 wrote:

It's also not what I was talking about. Notice how it was always "rich and lucky" or "privileged". I recognize that people with more cash to spare will have an easier time building armies and getting models and books, this crosses the line because it's literally not available even if you have the dough. And that crosses the line from "by the nature of the hobby, people with more money will have more flexibility" into "this tiny handful of rich and lucky, privileged players gets an advantage over everyone else because dumb copyright technicalities are more important than fairness, common sense and a reasonable level playing field".

Except, again, they only gain an advantage if you choose to play against it.

Whether or not you personally have a copy of it doesn't alter that very basic premise.

Hence why banning Skyhammer is also an option. It just needs to be a decision on a club/tourney wide level whether everyone gets it or nobody does, the important thing is to have a level field of at least OPPORTUNITY for all players to get it.

It really doesn't.

If it's a tournie, then yes, rules should only be allowed if everyone potentially has access to them.

For anything else, it's ultimately up to the individual players. You don't need a club rule banning it, any more than you need a club rule banning Eldar for you to turn down a game against a scatterbike army.

If someone wants one of your pics and they aren't available I don't blame them for copying or whatever. It's not wrong because that's their only choice...

Accepting that they just can't have that thing that they want isn't an option?


Seriously?

3) It's not about wanting to have without paying, it's wanting or needing to have without the option any other way, thus forcing this course of action.

You don't need these rules. If you don't have them, the world will continue to turn. You probably won't die from lack of them.

The fact that you want them and can't get them does not force you to resort to piracy. There are all sorts of things that I want that I can't get right now. You know what I do?

I don't get them, and I get on with life without them.

This ethical debate is not necessary - there are plenty of legal ways that a copy of copyrighted material is fine.

"Is that a copy of the skyhammer formation?"
"Yes it is."
"Did you purchase that from GW?"

(these are all acceptable answers)
"That is none of your business."
"I purchased a copy, this is a copy of my purchased copy for my own personal use."
"Nope - bought it off ebay. The guy transfered full ownership to me - he no longer has ownership."
"My friend gave this to me - don't know where he got it - I assume through legal means."

Literally the only way you are not cool with playing against a copy of actual rules is if you are an utter tool.
***************************
Well said, spot on!

Also as to banning Sky Hammer because it's pay to wuin. That just gets stupid. Ok well waaa I can't afford a Wraith Knight, or Wraith Lord, or Windriders, and so just have some Guardians and a few other basic units. I also can not aford a Storm Raven, or multible Vindicators or the 10 Razorbacks for the current Space Marine book.. It's pay to win I tell you! Ban it ban it!

Ummmm how about.. Nooo.. See this is why you do not need the percice set of Skyhammer or that box of Sternguard. Are those Black Reach Marines painted up nice to look like Sternguard? And those are Blackreach marines with jump packs to be Assault marines?
Hell yes, they are my Skyhammer!
Ok cool, so they have combie weapons and which ones?
Done!

Also Copyright is all fowled up.
Ever went to a swap meet, Ebay, used book/music store and bought any sort of music/movie/book/game? Guess what.. It's all copy right protected and the copy right holder saw not a single penny.
And as to who ever said the 40k minnies are not copy righted and our trading / selling them is not protected? Ask Chapter House is A Space marine or A Wolf Lord is a protected mini and not to be sold.
We buy our minnies for personal use, not for resale, the models ARE copy retied, GW has defended that copy right repeatedly in court, and no where does it give permission for resale, trade, ect.
So if you are going to go 'aww but you did not buy that piece of paper or down load and so can not use it because you did not pay GW and it's immoral. Well then everyone who bought a 2nd hand army is in the same boat, GW not having seen a penny for that army and they believe, as corperations have stated is the case for copyright infringement, that they believe that all breaking of copyright would have been a case where the person would have bought from them at full price. Look up the arguments where they, in court, and to congress, state how they come up with the numbers for how much to fine someone.
Can't say the rules are wrong to have but the minnies are ok, you either come down on the whole community or drop the whole line of reason.

As to whoever said that 'hay you can look up the rules, take your own notes for own personal reference. Just so, awesome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The fact that you want them and can't get them does not force you to resort to piracy. There are all sorts of things that I want that I can't get right now. You know what I do?

Also this whole debate gets into higher levels of stupidity.
See realistically I run Skyhammer and you are 'Ohh no what are the rules? I don't know them but don't want to be forced into piracy to know them, what ever shall I do!?'
Ummm the same thing that you do when you have a rules question about if something I am doing with my codex, which you do not own, is correct or not... You look over at my copy, physical, digital, printed out self notes/ect and look..
And that does not make you a pirate. It's ok, you are morally clean. Big breath, it will be ok.

And if you need information of the rules, to run it. Guess what, you can actually get that information as news. Say from Bell of Lost Souls or such, who have put some of the rules up via fair usage as a news report.
You then see them, make your own notes, and then run it.

Archon Malantai wrote:
Also Copyright is all fowled up.
Ever went to a swap meet, Ebay, used book/music store and bought any sort of music/movie/book/game? Guess what.. It's all copy right protected and the copy right holder saw not a single penny.
And as to who ever said the 40k minnies are not copy righted and our trading / selling them is not protected? Ask Chapter House is A Space marine or A Wolf Lord is a protected mini and not to be sold.
We buy our minnies for personal use, not for resale, the models ARE copy retied, GW has defended that copy right repeatedly in court, and no where does it give permission for resale, trade, ect.
So if you are going to go 'aww but you did not buy that piece of paper or down load and so can not use it because you did not pay GW and it's immoral. Well then everyone who bought a 2nd hand army is in the same boat, GW not having seen a penny for that army and they believe, as corperations have stated is the case for copyright infringement, that they believe that all breaking of copyright would have been a case where the person would have bought from them at full price. Look up the arguments where they, in court, and to congress, state how they come up with the numbers for how much to fine someone.
Can't say the rules are wrong to have but the minnies are ok, you either come down on the whole community or drop the whole line of reason.

As to whoever said that 'hay you can look up the rules, take your own notes for own personal reference. Just so, awesome.

Copying means that you make a COPY OF THE ORIGINAL. Selling means that you TRADE THE ORIGINAL TO SOMEONE. Only one of these has anything to do with producing duplicates of the items and yet you insist that they are one and the same. I can't even being to comprehend how in your head suddenly 1 is 2.

Let's try this approach for a change.
Scenario 1: Alice buys a Leman Russ battle tank from a FLGS, gets home, uses her brand new 3D printer to produce a high quality copy. She sells this copy to Bruce, who now has a LRBT of his own. In this scenario, Alice COPIED THE MINIATURE and BOTH Alice and Bruce now have a LRBT of their own.

Scenario 2: Alice buys a Space Marine terminator squad from the same FLGS. Back home she reads on Dakka how termies are overpriced gak and decides to sell the box to Clive. In this scenario Alice SOLD THE MINIATURES and ONLY Clive has them now.

So, which of these two scenarios is infringing on GW's copyrights? If you still say both you are beyond any help or just trolling. In that case I wish from the bottom of my heart that it's the latter.

Archon Malantai wrote:

We buy our minnies for personal use, not for resale, the models ARE copy retied,

That's not how copyright works .

Copyright deals with copying the original work . Not buying it and then selling it on to someone else.

Copyright or in other words trade infringement law, goes vastly beyond 'making a replica of intellectual property.'

In version 2: Corporations have fought many times to have that be illegal and at various times it has and has not been legal or illegal. It was not until Mar 24, 2013 that the Supreme Court actually ruled a 'you bought it, you own it.' view. So in version 2 you are correct it is legal. And if you look back, I said that the corps are fighting it and are in court and in congress using the argument 'that Clive would have bought those terminators from them at full price and so their buisness is suffering, as an argument against piracy, and to fight for putting forrward reinforcment of physical copyright to things like cars and minnies and have the court go the other way. So this is currently legal but being fought to turn it back.

In version 1 yes this is illegal.. Unless ofcourse Alice does it like a corporation would, and changes 20% of the design and thus makes it her own similar and roughly inspired by but still her own creation, which she then uses within her own creative license to play within the structure of the game which she bought from GW, which is also legal. As to the rules for that model, maybe she saw a picture for it online via a news articular the way way she might get a cooking recipe from a copyrighted book while not getting the entirety of the book. Thus she made notes of the unit's stats for her own educational use in play. Legal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
That's not how copyright works .

Copyright deals with copying the original work . Not buying it and then selling it on to someone else.

Umm yes it is. Own a video, any movie ever? Simple test. Start watching it. Notice that under the copyright notice that it does not just mention copying but also mentions distribution and resale.


Again.. Notice that the Supreme court had to settle the matter because there were state laws on both sides.. On physical materials and reselling as they relate to copyright? Or maybe you think the Supreme court was just really really bored that day and so decided to rule on random things that were not an issue?

Better call the police then, there are so many criminals out there doing their nasty copyright crimes on the internet. Because I'm such a nice guy, I can even provide you a list of some of the illegal items being sold.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/DVDs-Movies-/11232/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=movie

There are about 3,5 million movies on sale there... I'm guessing that at least half of those are in the US. Think about it, you could prevent over a million crimes at once if you report this horrible criminal website! Not to mention all the other items being sold there, you could make your country almost crime-free in one stroke, think about it!

 Lammikkovalas wrote:
Better call the police then, there are so many criminals out there doing their nasty copyright crimes on the internet. Because I'm such a nice guy, I can even provide you a list of some of the illegal items being sold.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/DVDs-Movies-/11232/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=movie

And this is why copyright is so screwed up. Maybe it's best to stop standing up for something so screwed up, y'know?

And Insaniak, you keep pushing this "oh they should accept it", WHY should they? In this case, the circumstances mean their piracy wouldn't be doing any damage whatsoever. They would totally buy it legitimately, but they can't! Maybe "just accept it" would be fine if they physically couldn't subvert this, but they can get around this and no harm is done if they do. There is no reason why this tiny handful of people should get the exclusive privilege of using these rules and no refusing to play it on a one-on-one level is not good enough. In order for something like this hobby to work properly everyone has to have at least the same OPPORTUNITY for each thing (anyone can get Decurion even if not everyone wants it or could really afford it. Anyone could get a Wraithknight even if not everyone wants it or can afford it. And it's no unreasonable to ban unbalancing things, many clubs and tourneys make that decision with stuff like LOW units, certain formations and so on, if this is another case then it's something that should be banned. If not, the only recourse to accept people playing it that didn't get one of those tiny handful of legit copies. Those are the only two fair ways to do it and there's no reason to "accept" anything else.
Look, the very same things could all be said about someone downloading a Rogue Trader .pdf and getting generic sci-fi Dwarves from another miniature company so they can play a First Edition Squat army nowadays. It's still GW's copyright even though it's been OOP for like 30 years. If people having Skyhammer pirated lowers the value of the real sheets (which is doesn't in any serious way, but for the sake of argument...) then those .pdfs floating about lower the value of a real authentic Rogue Trader book. And if people pirating Skyhammer are lost sales for if GW puts it up again (which they aren't, but for the sake of argument...) then those .pdfs floating about would be a serious threat to GW's sales if they reprinted Rogue Trader as "Retro 40k" or something.
But would you SERIOUSLY get on hypothetical retro 40k guy's case over it? Really?
If so, this removes any doubt about this being completely absurd and ridiculous logic based on nothing but rigid adherence to flawed doctrine and a toxic "deal with it" attitude to anyone harmed by bad practices.
If not, then you should accepting people doing it with Skyhammer just the same.

i dont understand the skyhammer is listed in my codex? is this whole convo from before the release?

Rx8Speed wrote:
i dont understand the skyhammer is listed in my codex? is this whole convo from before the release?

It's a formation that is restricted to an online only bundle that was limited to 200 world wide. The issue is there is literally nothing special about that bundle other than the rules for this formation.

Archon Malantai wrote:
Again.. Notice that the Supreme court had to settle the matter because there were state laws on both sides.. On physical materials and reselling as they relate to copyright? Or maybe you think the Supreme court was just really really bored that day and so decided to rule on random things that were not an issue?

The Supreme Court settled a challenge to the law from copyright holders.

That doesn't make what people were doing prior to that illegal. It just means that some copyright holders felt that the law should be interpreted the way they wanted it interpreted.

And from my understanding, it was nothing to do with stopping people from selling their second hand copy of The Matrix. It was an attempt to stomp on parallel imports.


The Supreme Court ruling simply clarified that the law works the way everyone had up until that point been assuming it worked.

 CrashGordon94 wrote:
And Insaniak, you keep pushing this "oh they should accept it", .

No, I'm not.

I'm pushing the idea that obtaining something illegally is not the only possible action you can take when it turns out that the thing you want isn't easily obtainable legally.


Here's the thing - You want to stop GW from making limited edition rules?

Going out and sourcing them any way you can so that you can use them is not the way to do that. The only reason that GW will stop doing something that works is if it stops working. Limited Edition rules will stop being a sales hook when people stop wanting them. And people will stop wanting them if they find that they never get the opportunity to actually use them.

So, ultimately, if your goal is actually to stop GW from publishing things like this in a limited format, you'll get much closer to that goal by just refusing to play against people using those rules than you will by going out and downloading them to use yourself.

 insaniak wrote:

 CrashGordon94 wrote:
And Insaniak, you keep pushing this "oh they should accept it", .

No, I'm not.

I'm pushing the idea that obtaining something illegally is not the only possible action you can take when it turns out that the thing you want isn't easily obtainable legally.


Here's the thing - You want to stop GW from making limited edition rules?

Going out and sourcing them any way you can so that you can use them is not the way to do that. The only reason that GW will stop doing something that works is if it stops working. Limited Edition rules will stop being a sales hook when people stop wanting them. And people will stop wanting them if they find that they never get the opportunity to actually use them.

So, ultimately, if your goal is actually to stop GW from publishing things like this in a limited format, you'll get much closer to that goal by just refusing to play against people using those rules than you will by going out and downloading them to use yourself.

Exactly and it's such a demand that also fuels the reselling scene which ultimately helps fuel the issue further as the sellers buy the product as stock. Which is small so probably doesn't matter over all, but would mean a chunk of that limited release sells purely to be sold which doesn't help indicate the success as those might not even resell. What they should go for if they actually want these limited release bundles is to do what they used to and toss in a limited ed model for it. But, the rules would come much cheaper anyway. :/

 insaniak wrote:
No, I'm not.

You most certainly are.

 insaniak wrote:
I'm pushing the idea that obtaining something illegally is not the only possible action you can take when it turns out that the thing you want isn't easily obtainable legally.

It's still a perfectly acceptable action considering that it's perfectly reasonable and does no harm.
And definitely the only way to get something, when wanting that particular something is no less reasonable than wanting a Codex. There's no reason they SHOULD be barred from getting it and you've failed to establish otherwise.

So you really do need to stop pushing this point once and for all, it's a horrible point in favor of an unacceptable practice, and we don't need that.

 insaniak wrote:
Here's the thing - You want to stop GW from making limited edition rules?

Going out and sourcing them any way you can so that you can use them is not the way to do that. The only reason that GW will stop doing something that works is if it stops working. Limited Edition rules will stop being a sales hook when people stop wanting them. And people will stop wanting them if they find that they never get the opportunity to actually use them.

So, ultimately, if your goal is actually to stop GW from publishing things like this in a limited format, you'll get much closer to that goal by just refusing to play against people using those rules than you will by going out and downloading them to use yourself.

Some people randomly not wanting to deal with would never be enough. A wide-spread ban might work though.

 CrashGordon94 wrote:
. There's no reason they SHOULD be barred from getting it and you've failed to establish otherwise.

.

So , your argument ultimately is 'I want it, and therefore I am entitled to have it, regardless of the wishes of the person who owns it.'


And you seriously think that's just as reasonable as simply , you know, not having something that you don't actually need?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Regardless, I think this thread has pretty much run its course by this point.

Ultimately , the virtues or lack thereof of current copyright law are not really appropriate discussion for this forum, so I will wrap this up with the usual reminder that Dakka Dakka does not and can not endorse copyright infringement.