Steelmage99 wrote:
Assuming that the firms representing him isn't doing it entirely out of the goodness of their hearts, but for other reason, I wonder if they could temporarily "hire" Nick and give him an expense account (to keep him going).

No, paying him to continue the lawsuit would be champerty or maintenance.

Edit - unless the US has done away with that.

Steelmage99 wrote:
Assuming that the firms representing him isn't doing it entirely out of the goodness of their hearts, but for other reason, I wonder if they could temporarily "hire" Nick and give him an expense account (to keep him going).

Doing this may present a conflict of interest, I would hazard to say. GW's lawyer's would surely question the motivation CH's legal council has.

edit: ninja'd by someone who speaks legalese. Czakk wins!

I think he'd be better off just doing some sort of kickstarter or public fundraising as himself or a separate corporate entity.

There's plenty to choose from; Gofundme, Indigogo, Kickstarter, Youcaring etc.

Given the amount of "bad blood" people feel towards GW I'm sure he'd make enough to cover his costs, at least for a short while.

He did do a Kickstarter just after this whole mess started.

28mm Sci-Fi Trenches and Emplacements Terrain

He raised just shy of 30k but I would guess that actual profit from that somewhere in the 1k - 5k ballpark.(if it was even profitable) The thing was like most KS ripe with delays from the get go. including the people who chose the daemons walls still waiting on the product which thanks to the frozen assets mean we are still waiting on even though they are finished. (the last line to be done)

I am one of the few who is still waiting on this KS to complete, now over 1 year past projected delivery, but I would back another KS just to help him out. I just really hope he does not give up.

He could make a Patreon or GoFundMe setup and allow personal donations to keep him from losing his house, no? I'd send money his way in a heartbeat after seeing such egregious action being taken by GW.

Same here. I would buy whatever pseudo-service he offers to keep him going.

When i was reading the exerpt for the case I did feel like cheering toward the end...exept i realized what this "win" would mean with money cost...not many would call this a 100% win yet untill all the apeals are done...If there was something to buy I would do it just to say i supported him...

Over on Warseer there was a thread about this that was closed due to people discussing legal issues instead of the case (wat ) and someone hinted (with no proof however) that he took down the FB page due to people complaining about not hearing back from the Kickstarter, and basically accused him of shady practices for not posting an update to that.

I have said time and again throughout this litigation that it would behoove the community to support Chpaterhouse Studios. Its pretty damn late in the game now though.

If you are really interested in supporting the company and/or the appeal, maybe you should send Nick an email. Tell him how you feel. Give him some emotional support. Litigation like this is incredibly draining, and not just financially.

I really do mean this. Send the man an email if you are serious about wanting to see this case appealed.

Yeah, I bought some items earlier this year - both because they were awesome, and to help out. Even though he can't sell at this exact moment (hopefully to change soon) definitely showing him some support in this fight would be awesome!

His email is nick AT chapterhousestudios DOT com . I just sent him a message of support, too.

I want to say the FB page was taken down because of reasons besides the case. This may change relatively soon.

I appreciate all the moral support, I would not be against someone doing a "financial" support drive, but I am not interested in doing that myself, I feel bad enough about the kickstarter and not being able to complete it at this point.

 Chapterhouse wrote:
I want to say the FB page was taken down because of reasons besides the case. This may change relatively soon.

I appreciate all the moral support, I would not be against someone doing a "financial" support drive, but I am not interested in doing that myself, I feel bad enough about the kickstarter and not being able to complete it at this point.

Good to see you are still fighting the fight Sir!

Get in!

I have to say I'm genuinely happy to see that post, Nick, and while I'm in no position to make any material contribution right now, know that my sincerest best wishes are with you and yours right now.

While I'm sure those who feel differently my attempt to characterise it as such, this goes beyond simply bashing GW on the Internet and the implications of what you're doing could provide a framework for other small businesses that have been treated this way for years to come. So glad you're still in the fight, hang in there!

Fight the good fight, brother!

I was just getting ready to make a purchase from Chapterhouse when this all came down.

I would totally support a financial drive. Chapterhouse has been on the right side of this since day one and I am so sick of seeing GW's hamfisted attempts to enforce flimsy copyrights.

 Chapterhouse wrote:
I want to say the FB page was taken down because of reasons besides the case. This may change relatively soon.

I appreciate all the moral support, I would not be against someone doing a "financial" support drive, but I am not interested in doing that myself, I feel bad enough about the kickstarter and not being able to complete it at this point.

I am happy to see you are still "alive", Nick.

This may sound somewhat "sappy", but you are really fighting for all of us.
You are in the process of creating a legal precedent that will most likely be used far beyond our little niche hobby.
In the future you might very well hear a lawyer say: "Your Honour, as shown in the case of Chapterhouse v. Games Workshop.......". Keep up the good work, and do not feel unable to ask for financial support.
I will support such a drive.

What are the legal particulars here?

If we were to, for example, fundraise for Nick-the-business (perhaps via direct paypal gift to avoid "doing business") would these funds then become frozen, as a Chapterhouse "asset"?

If instead we held a fundraiser for Nick-the-Person, would the funds then be useable to pay off the 25K and keep this appeal moving? Or would that be a dangerous mixing of personal and business funds?

Does Nick-the-person even WANT to pay the 25K, or has his legal team advised him to delay on this for some reason?

Or, is Nick's greatest concern right now that his income has been stopped and he needs funds for food and mortgage?

No matter the answers, I'd be willing to donate what I could. I'd just like the details. I'm very interested in seeing the appeals go forward and would hate to see the process get short-circuited.

-S'Cipio


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry, just realized I east being too cutesy with my language. When I said "to avoid doing business", I meant we'd be giving cash for cash's sake, rather than purchasing things and thus only giving profits.

I did not mean to imply that I supported any legal shenanigans.

-S'Cipio

S'Cipio wrote:
I did not mean to imply that I supported any legal shenanigans.

-S'Cipio

I fully support shenanigans.

 aka_mythos wrote:
I think he'd be better off just doing some sort of kickstarter or public fundraising as himself or a separate corporate entity.

I mentioned something previously about him doing a patreon. It would give him a monthly living stipend, and he could send out stuff to people, as well, to compensate them.

Eric

If there was a patreon page I would support in a heartbeat. I support a few different creators at present. I don't expect to get anything but an insight into the workings of chapterhouse and the creative journey would be enough for me.

Does nick have a personal paypal account, not affected by court order?

I would also be interested in supporting Nick.

How does patreon work?

 MagickalMemories wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
I think he'd be better off just doing some sort of kickstarter or public fundraising as himself or a separate corporate entity.

I mentioned something previously about him doing a patreon. It would give him a monthly living stipend, and he could send out stuff to people, as well, to compensate them.

Eric

If he were to do a Patreon and I Patroned at a level high enough for some sort of reward, I wonder if there'd be some way to use it to get Kickstarter rewards to other people. In case that statement isn't clear enough, I don't mean a KS backer patrons to get their stuff, I mean that my "reward" would be Nick being able to ship KS rewards to some of the backers.

I know the answer will most likely be a big fat "NO" as that would then tie the Patreon to CHS rather than Nick himself, I just hate that this move by GW will most likely mean either a massive delay for the backers or that they'll never get their rewards at all.

I just wish that since I'd already be helping Nick I could also use it for helping out some screwed over fellow gamers, too. A man can dream, right?

 loki old fart wrote:
Does nick have a personal paypal account, not affected by court order?

Easy enough to get one if he doesn't have one already. Then you just have to worry about mixing money, I'd imagine.

I'd certainly send a donation to a private PayPal.

It certainly sounds like there is plenty of interest in supporting Nick, but is anyone willing to run it?

 MagickalMemories wrote:

 aka_mythos wrote:
I think he'd be better off just doing some sort of kickstarter or public fundraising as himself or a separate corporate entity.

I mentioned something previously about him doing a patreon. It would give him a monthly living stipend, and he could send out stuff to people, as well, to compensate them.

Eric

I had never heard of it, so I didn't realize that's what you meant.

 Chapterhouse wrote:
I want to say the FB page was taken down because of reasons besides the case. This may change relatively soon.

I appreciate all the moral support, I would not be against someone doing a "financial" support drive, but I am not interested in doing that myself, I feel bad enough about the kickstarter and not being able to complete it at this point.

I hope it gets back up soon, and we support you!

weeble1000 wrote:
The hearing on the 23rd has been postponed until November 11th. Apparently the asset freeze was a precursor to reopening settlement negotiations.

JOINT MOTION TO RESET CITATION PROCEEDING
Plaintiff Games Workshop Limited (“GW”) and Chapterhouse Studios LLC
(“Chapterhouse”) jointly state as follows:
1. On September 17, 2014, GW filed a Citation to Discover Assets against Chapterhouse.
The Citation commanded that Chapterhouse appear in this court October 14, 2014, at
9:30 a.m.
2. On October 8, 2014, GW and Chapterhouse agreed to postpone the Citation proceeding
to Thursday, October 23.
3. The parties have since reopened settlement negotiations. In order to provide additional
time for these negotiations, GW and Chapterhouse jointly agree to reset the Citation
proceeding for November 11, 2014, at 9:30 a.m.

Is there no public record of what happened on the 23rd?

Curious what is going to happen with this. I hope the court doesn't allow GW to bully CHS around and put them out of business when most of their complaints were ridiculous.

I find it somewhat sad that this is really the only thread I've seen on forums with a pro-CHS bent, everyplace else (especially BOLS, no surprise) has people saying how CHS are crooks and deserve what they have coming to them for trying to cash in on GW's IP, etc. etc.

The hearing was postponed until November 12th.

weeble1000 wrote:
The hearing was postponed until November 12th.

Ah, I must have misread that. But you mean the 11th, right, based on what I quoted in my post above?

I find it odd that CHS would be okay with letting their assets remain frozen for that additional amount of time... unless they are seriously considering settling? Hopefully a settlement very beneficial to them, as despite their own troubles, it would seem they have GW over a barrel in a sense here, too...

I say that because in some ways the opposite to the normal process is occurring - GW is being bled by legal fees whereas CHS has high-powered pro bono respresentation, so GW really could be looking to cut their losses here? They also risk further damaging their IP by going through with the appeal process.

I guess we'll find out in 2 weeks.

Oh ffs. Another delay? Why? Doesn't this just hurt CHS even more, delaying the hearing and prolonging the period that Nick is unable to access his finances and pay his bills?

November 11th is a federal holiday in the U.S., so the hearing will likely be on the 12th.

Now sure CH's assets have actually been frozen. GW asked that they be frozen pending discovery/disclosure of assets but not sure if the Court actually Ordered that they be frozen.

 RiTides wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
The hearing was postponed until November 12th.

Ah, I must have misread that. But you mean the 11th, right, based on what I quoted in my post above?

I find it odd that CHS would be okay with letting their assets remain frozen for that additional amount of time... unless they are seriously considering settling? Hopefully a settlement very beneficial to them, as despite their own troubles, it would seem they have GW over a barrel in a sense here, too...

I say that because in some ways the opposite to the normal process is occurring - GW is being bled by legal fees whereas CHS has high-powered pro bono respresentation, so GW really could be looking to cut their losses here? They also risk further damaging their IP by going through with the appeal process.

I guess we'll find out in 2 weeks.

Judge Kennelly granted the joint motion to move the date, but scheduled it for the 12th because November 11th is Veterans Day.

Thirdeye wrote:
November 11th is a federal holiday in the U.S., so the hearing will likely be on the 12th.

Now sure CH's assets have actually been frozen. GW asked that they be frozen pending discovery/disclosure of assets but not sure if the Court actually Ordered that they be frozen.

They have been frozen.

CHS has been unable to do anything for a number of weeks now.

PhantomViper wrote:

Thirdeye wrote:
November 11th is a federal holiday in the U.S., so the hearing will likely be on the 12th.

Now sure CH's assets have actually been frozen. GW asked that they be frozen pending discovery/disclosure of assets but not sure if the Court actually Ordered that they be frozen.

They have been frozen.

CHS has been unable to do anything for a number of weeks now.

I could be wrong, but I think assets are frozen once a party files a citation to discover assets. Were it otherwise, the opposing party could simply tank or hide its assets before discovery could commence. I am not too familiar with this area of law, but this would make sense.

I wonder if news of the postponement came before or after CHS spent money on a plane ticket for the 23rd as GW had so graciously agreed to allow them to do.

weeble1000 wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

Thirdeye wrote:
November 11th is a federal holiday in the U.S., so the hearing will likely be on the 12th.

Now sure CH's assets have actually been frozen. GW asked that they be frozen pending discovery/disclosure of assets but not sure if the Court actually Ordered that they be frozen.

They have been frozen.

CHS has been unable to do anything for a number of weeks now.

I could be wrong, but I think assets are frozen once a party files a citation to discover assets. Were it otherwise, the opposing party could simply tank or hide its assets before discovery could commence. I am not too familiar with this area of law, but this would make sense.

Found this good artical on collection federal judgments, talkes about the proceedure for freezing assets:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Collecting+on+a+federal-court+judgment%3A+here's+a+step-by-step+guide...-a0218657820

Bringing this thread back up to the top, as GW releasing a spore pod and possibly Doom of Malanti next are very interesting timing-wise.

Rumors of these kits were from a while back, but perhaps they were delayed due to the case, since Chapterhouse had made theirs before GW? Why release them now, then? I wonder if this points to settlement talks going well, or is just coincidence / GW figuring it can't hurt them and maybe only help them to release them now, if they have indeed been sitting finished-but-unreleased for some time.

I lean towards coincidence on the release timing - with the spore pod, they changed the name and so it's a "new unit" which is now more protectable (or at least, they think it will be) and not "copying" Chapterhouse's model, would be my guess.

Isn't the Doom thing some sort of altered Venomthrope-type creature?

Doom of Malantai is a unique version of a Zoanthrope (fluffwise)

If you dont call it a Doom of Malantai, and it doesnt look like one, then its not a Doom. Same with the Mycetic Spore. Its not a Mycetic Spore, its another thing.

Gragga Da Krumpa wrote:
If you dont call it a Doom of Malantai, and it doesnt look like one, then its not a Doom. Same with the Mycetic Spore. Its not a Mycetic Spore, its another thing.

I don't know how the lawbenders see it, but isn't that a bit on the obvious side? Apple and Samsung are slapping each other because of design similarities as well, though one calls them desingnthingsomething and the other one designthinsomethingelse.

 Kosake wrote:

Gragga Da Krumpa wrote:
If you dont call it a Doom of Malantai, and it doesnt look like one, then its not a Doom. Same with the Mycetic Spore. Its not a Mycetic Spore, its another thing.

I don't know how the lawbenders see it, but isn't that a bit on the obvious side? Apple and Samsung are slapping each other because of design similarities as well, though one calls them desingnthingsomething and the other one designthinsomethingelse.

This is off topic, but that is absolutely not what that litigation is about, on any level.

On Topic, there has been some motion practice in the case:

11/06/2014 508 MOTION by Defendant Chapterhouse Studios LLC to Stay Execution of Judgment, Waive or Modify Bond Requirement Pending Appeal, and Quash or Dismiss Without Prejudice the Citation to Discover Assets (Johannes, Tyler) (Entered: 11/06/2014)
11/06/2014 509 MEMORANDUM by Chapterhouse Studios LLC in support of motion to Stay Execution of Judgment, Waive or Modify Bond Requirement Pending Appeal, and Quash or Dismiss Without Prejudice the Citation to Discover Assets (Johannes, Tyler) Docket Text Modified by Clerks Office on 11/7/2014. (jh, ). (Entered: 11/06/2014)
11/06/2014 510 DECLARATION of Tyler G. Johannes in support of Chapterhouse's Motion to Stay Execution of Judgment, Waive or Modify Bond Requirement Pending Appeal, and Quash and Dismiss without Prejudice the Citation to Discover Assets 508 . (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit A-D)(Johannes, Tyler) Docket Text Modified by Clerks Office on 11/7/2014 (jh, ). (Entered: 11/06/2014)
11/06/2014 511 NOTICE of Motion by Tyler Gene Johannes for presentment of Chapterhouse's Motion to Stay Execution of Judgment, Waive or Modify Bond Requirement Pending Appeal, and Quash and Dismiss without Prejudice the Citation to Discover Assets 508 before Honorable Matthew F. Kennelly on 11/12/2014 at 09:30 AM. (Johannes, Tyler) Docket Text Modified by Clerks Office on 11/7/2014 (jh, ). (Entered: 11/06/2014)
11/07/2014 512 MINUTE entry before the Honorable Matthew F. Kennelly: Defendant's motion to stay (etc.) is taken under advisement. Plaintiff is directed to respond to the motion in writing by no later than 11/14/2014. Ruling on motion and status hearing is set for 11/17/2014 at 9:30 AM. The Court advises counsel that none of these dates is subject to change for any reason whatsoever. (mk) (Entered: 11/07/2014)

Note here that Chapterhouse has moved to stay the judgement, waive the appeal bond, and quash the citation to discover assets. Judge Kennelly has essentially accepted these motions and required Games Workshop to respond.

I do not have time at the moment to read over the memorandums. Maybe somebody else can take a look and give an overview.

Edit: I also find this bit in the minute entry interesting - "The Court advises counsel that none of these dates is subject to change for any reason whatsoever." Good ol' Matthew F. Kennelly. 'Quit footin' around!'

I'm struggling to follow that, now I know how none IT people feel when reading a technical document!

To my uneducated eye it looks like somebody is stalling, which of the following is true?

A) GW are stalling
B) Chapterhouse are stalling
C) GW and Chapterhouse are stalling

Well, at least it looks like that hearing will finally be here, after all those months of stalling.

 Looky Likey wrote:
I'm struggling to follow that, now I know how none IT people feel when reading a technical document!

To my uneducated eye it looks like somebody is stalling, which of the following is true?

A) GW are stalling
B) Chapterhouse are stalling
C) GW and Chapterhouse are stalling

This gave me a chuckle, and is exactly how I feel . Someone needs to pull back the curtain...

I'm confused again, though, as I thought Nick was flying out for an in-person court appearance on Nov 12th?

Sounds like Kennelly's had about as much of this case as he can stand and is tired of the endless waltz.

 Looky Likey wrote:
I'm struggling to follow that, now I know how none IT people feel when reading a technical document!

To my uneducated eye it looks like somebody is stalling, which of the following is true?

A) GW are stalling
B) Chapterhouse are stalling
C) GW and Chapterhouse are stalling

From these last motions, CHS is trying to have their assets unfrozen, and GW is now required to respond as to why the judge should not do that.

Then the judge told both sides that gak needs to start moving forward, likely because after 4 years he's tired of dealing with this case.

GW tried to stall so that they could then try to bleed CHS dry and force him out of the game. CHS has no reason to stall that I can see, other than perhaps sticking more fees to GW, but at the expense of the appeal case moving forward which is far more favorable to have happen.

 Aerethan wrote:

 Looky Likey wrote:
I'm struggling to follow that, now I know how none IT people feel when reading a technical document!

To my uneducated eye it looks like somebody is stalling, which of the following is true?

A) GW are stalling
B) Chapterhouse are stalling
C) GW and Chapterhouse are stalling

From these last motions, CHS is trying to have their assets unfrozen, and GW is now required to respond as to why the judge should not do that.

Then the judge told both sides that gak needs to start moving forward, likely because after 4 years he's tired of dealing with this case.

GW tried to stall so that they could then try to bleed CHS dry and force him out of the game. CHS has no reason to stall that I can see, other than perhaps sticking more fees to GW, but at the expense of the appeal case moving forward which is far more favorable to have happen.

thanks!

It's far more likely that any stalling is being done by the GW side. With CHS' assets frozen such that he cannot conduct any sort of business, CHS gains nothing by dragging things out. GW, on the other hand, has the potential to force CHS out of business by preventing them from having access to business funds; CHS closing down is exactly what GW has wanted since they first filed suit.

It is important to note that Judge Kennelly set the Plaintiff's response deadline to be quite literally 7 days after Chapterhouse's motion was filed, which is rather swift.

Although one of the dates the judge has indicated is inflexible concerns a hearing in which counsel for both parties must appear, the other deadline is only relevant to the plaintiff. Also note that the hearing date set by the judge is a mere 3 days after Games Workshop is expected to file its written response to Chapterhouse's motion, and the hearing is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on the 'third day'.

Judge Kennelly apparently thinks he will only need two days to review and consider whatever substance there might be to Games Workshop's response.

I am not a lawyer and have been known to be biased against GW these days but that interpretation suggests it could theoretically be the legal equivalent of a Judge calling BS.

I just hope Chapterhouse can get their day in court and let their big guns pro bono lawyers do their thing.

This stalling has been pointless as neither side is really going to work things out without a judgment.

 Looky Likey wrote:
I'm struggling to follow that, now I know how none IT people feel when reading a technical document!

To my uneducated eye it looks like somebody is stalling, which of the following is true?

A) GW are stalling
B) Chapterhouse are stalling
C) GW and Chapterhouse are stalling

The beauty of civil law.

weeble1000 wrote:


Judge Kennelly apparently thinks he will only need two days to review and consider whatever substance there might be to Games Workshop's response.

Ha!

Maybe the Judge HAS been paying attention to GW's 'efforts' then!

 Alpharius wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:


Judge Kennelly apparently thinks he will only need two days to review and consider whatever substance there might be to Games Workshop's response.

Ha!

Maybe the Judge HAS been paying attention to GW's 'efforts' then!

I think the best possible outcome will be for a crushing defeat to GW, both to take them down a few pegs in their hubris and also set precedent against this kind of nonsense in the future. Not to mention that they would have then spent years and who knows how much money on it, so it has to hit their bottom line.

I hope neither company is hurt badly by this case. Although I have no interest in buying anything from CH it's always a shame when a business closes.

 Sinful Hero wrote:
I hope neither company is hurt badly by this case. Although I have no interest in buying anything from CH it's always a shame when a business closes.

It's a few years too late for that. This case has undoubtedly hurt Chapterhouse (for the simple reason of litigation tends to suck both figuratively and financially, even with pro-bono representation), and massively hurt GW (rightly so, in my opinion).

GW has sunk an absurd amount of money into a case in which they lost 2/3 of the claims (not including ones they doubled-back on before judgement), and are now being hoisted upon their own petard in a risky appeals case that they cannot escape. This entire freezing of CH's assets (in the hope that CH will fold under the financial pressure) is a pretty clear sign that GW is getting desperate to get out of this case.

I'm so hoping to see chapterhouse doing something again. And see GW getting smacked too.

 Xca|iber wrote:


GW has sunk an absurd amount of money into a case in which they lost 2/3 of the claims (not including ones they doubled-back on before judgement), and are now being hoisted upon their own petard in a risky appeals case that they cannot escape. This entire freezing of CH's assets (in the hope that CH will fold under the financial pressure) is a pretty clear sign that GW is getting desperate to get out of this case.

The silliest part about this is that, as has been pointed out by people more expert than I, GW has spent more money photocopies for this case than CHS has cleared as profit during their entire existence.

GW would have been far better off talking to CHS up front and working out a "here's some money, go do something else" agreement than they have been in pursuing this case.

Saldiven wrote:

 Xca|iber wrote:


GW has sunk an absurd amount of money into a case in which they lost 2/3 of the claims (not including ones they doubled-back on before judgement), and are now being hoisted upon their own petard in a risky appeals case that they cannot escape. This entire freezing of CH's assets (in the hope that CH will fold under the financial pressure) is a pretty clear sign that GW is getting desperate to get out of this case.

The silliest part about this is that, as has been pointed out by people more expert than I, GW has spent more money photocopies for this case than CHS has cleared as profit during their entire existence.

GW would have been far better off talking to CHS up front and working out a "here's some money, go do something else" agreement than they have been in pursuing this case.

Unfortunately your suggestion is taking the short view of the problem. GW is trying to take the long view in so far as precedent is concerned.
Yes paying off CHS to shut down may have been cheep solution to the CHS problem but then what do you do about WhersMySettlement Studios, GWshouldPayMeToo Studios, and GimmeMoney Studios, who are all other companies run by different people doing the the same thing CHS was doing.

The best I can tell is GW is looking at it as, Once we have a ruling in our favor then our C&D bully tactic will carry more weight and work even more effectively, and we can just scare all the other little studios into submission without having to pay settlements.

You understand that almost the exact opposite has happened? That, while you're correct they've avoided setting a precedent for paying people off, they have exposed how little they claimed was defensible, leaving a much clearer picture of where the line is, and therefore allowing anyone wishing to produce add on and alternate parts to know what they can and can't do.

If rewinding to day one were possible, licensing was probably the best win/win for all parties, but that ship has long since sailed.

I would be more worried about that if GW showed *any* sign of being able to look at things long-term. In that regard, I think they fail spectacularly.

The Spots the Space Marine was a great example of this- when pressed by the BBC about why exactly the company was trying to claim ownership of such generic science fiction words, a spokesperson from GW came out saying the company has a blanket "no communication with the media" stance. Seriously, are they ing Exxon or BP that they need to create such an absolutely absurd policy, considering how *LITTLE* the world cares about them (and indeed, all other tabletop wargaming companies). But no, let's give the finger to people who have a casual interest in the topic, that'll definitely net us some points.

Seriously, GW deserves every monetary punishment this case can give them. They thought they could strong-arm other companies into submission, and when that didn't work they started throwing money at the project like they were building a Finecast rocket to the moon! Except, just like Finecast, the whole plan was full of holes.

I like WHFB and 40k and all but, damn, the company is shockingly deplorable for a purveyor of plastic miniatures.

They said that to the BBC because their stance was morally and legally indefensible.

That in itself supports the supposition that GW are either very badly organised or actively malicious about IP matters. (Possibly both, of course.)

 keltikhoa wrote:

Saldiven wrote:

 Xca|iber wrote:


GW has sunk an absurd amount of money into a case in which they lost 2/3 of the claims (not including ones they doubled-back on before judgement), and are now being hoisted upon their own petard in a risky appeals case that they cannot escape. This entire freezing of CH's assets (in the hope that CH will fold under the financial pressure) is a pretty clear sign that GW is getting desperate to get out of this case.

The silliest part about this is that, as has been pointed out by people more expert than I, GW has spent more money photocopies for this case than CHS has cleared as profit during their entire existence.

GW would have been far better off talking to CHS up front and working out a "here's some money, go do something else" agreement than they have been in pursuing this case.

Unfortunately your suggestion is taking the short view of the problem. GW is trying to take the long view in so far as precedent is concerned.
Yes paying off CHS to shut down may have been cheep solution to the CHS problem but then what do you do about WhersMySettlement Studios, GWshouldPayMeToo Studios, and GimmeMoney Studios, who are all other companies run by different people doing the the same thing CHS was doing.

The best I can tell is GW is looking at it as, Once we have a ruling in our favor then our C&D bully tactic will carry more weight and work even more effectively, and we can just scare all the other little studios into submission without having to pay settlements.

If GW was really concerned about that, why not pay off CHS now? There's a ruling (partially) in GW's favor on the books. GW has already shown that it is willing to litigate all the way to a jury trial.

All of GW's gains (such as they are) could get undone on appeal. GW could expose itself to millions of dollars in costs and attorney's fees. GW could see the kind of precedent set that would bind its hands in any similar litigation. Just as before the trial, GW is facing the prospect of, in Tom Kirby's own words, far too much cost for far too little gain, even if it manages to prevail in the appeal. Besides, whatever 'message' GW wanted to send to the industry has already become muddled in the extreme.

GW's behavior is merely institutional ignorance, shortsightedness, and self-righteousness. It affects all sorts of organizations. The existence of the 3rd party bits industry stuck in Tom Kirby's craw for some insane reason. GW set out on the total war path convinced of its own righteousness. It was going to burn them all down starting with Chapterhouse Studios. All those businesses were going to fold like a house of cards.

Having taken that position, GW has been, institutionally, unwilling to back down from it, regardless of the cost. PAY someone that you sued? PAY a thief for the privilege of stealing from you? Admit defeat when your righteousness should have been obvious to anyone looking at the issues?

Of course, things have gotten so bad for GW that even Tom Kirby has publicly lamented proceeding down this course. Can you imagine GW trying to file another, similar lawsuit with those words of Kirby's hanging in the air? Fiduciary duty anyone? Having said that litigation is a losing process that wastes "indecent" amounts of investors' money, Mr. Kirby is going to have a hard time being Chairman if GW goes down that path again.

So why doesn't GW slink away to lick its wounds? Pride, maybe? Could be stubbornness. But what other ammunition does GW have to prevent the appeal from going forward? Chapterhouse's motion indicates that the parties have agreed to immediately file a joint motion to lift the hold on the appellate briefing schedule if the judge finds in favor of Chapterhouse on the judgement issue.

Silly question time. Could this cost GW it's monopoly on producing 40k type space marines. If so could that drive GW prices down, as others start to produce them.?

Sorry, yes @Azreal13 and @weeble1000 you are correct. My theory was simply what they may have been thinking at the start of the whole thing. Which was the time someone would be deciding between paying off CHS and going threw the lawsuit.

Just speculation on my part.

As to why they do not settle now, weeble1000 you said it much better than I could. Honestly I believe its pride. GW apparently does not know its own fluff and is following the fall of the Emperors Children

 loki old fart wrote:
Silly question time. Could this cost GW it's monopoly on producing 40k type space marines.

Technically, they never had one.

If so could that drive GW prices down, as others start to produce them.?

Theoretically yes, but in reality, not really, plenty of companies are already making variations of armoured space soldiers, we haven't really seen much price supression as a result

 Azreal13 wrote:

 loki old fart wrote:
Silly question time. Could this cost GW it's monopoly on producing 40k type space marines.

Technically, they never had one.

If so could that drive GW prices down, as others start to produce them.?

Theoretically yes, but in reality, not really, plenty of companies are already making variations of armoured space soldiers, we haven't really seen much price supression as a result

I was thinking, or was it hoping that if GW loses this case. It could be the final nail in kirby's coffin. And his replacement might stack em high sell em low. To drive away the competition.

Anything's possible, but if it were me, I wouldn't cut prices, that has too many run-on implications financially, but finding a way of giving the consumer better VFM, or simply making a product people will be excited to pay the asking price for would both work.

But we digress, there's plenty of how to fix GW threads and this isn't one of them.

Well i hope CHS assets gets unfrozen soon, i will order some stuff just to help him/them.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Well i hope CHS assets gets unfrozen soon, i will order some stuff just to help him/them.

Seriously. I've looked over their products in the past and never been that interested in anything, but after all of this, I'm sure I can find something useful in their catalog. Anything to help the good guys in this fight.

I've been waiting for Raven Guard themed bits like shields, helmets and weapons, don't much like the current ones.

I can recommend both the Land Raider extra armour and Stormraven extension kits (although the latter does require some skill to make work)

I also have a couple of their Eagle shields which, painted up appropriately, made excellent Raven Guard Terminator Stormshields, and their magnetised weapon turrets are great and fit either Razorbacks or Stormravens.

The alien pod and space bug walls are both excellent. I also have their jump packs, and they're good, although there's a lot of competition for those at the moment (which was not the case when I got them, and so they were a lifesaver then).

I'm just dissapointed their truscale marines dissapeared, which I find ironic, since GW's claim to "space marines" went out the door with this law suit

Not really on topic, but GW has appointed a new CEO, former Chief Operating Officer/Financial Officer Kevin Rowntree: http://www.paintingbuddha.com/blogs/news/18102375-games-workshop-announces-new-ceo

Tom Kirby stays on as chairman but is no longer acting CEO.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the date of the latest hearing, so I suppose we can expect some news by next week.

 OsitioRojo wrote:
Not really on topic, but GW has appointed a new CEO, former Chief Operating Officer/Financial Officer Kevin Rowntree: http://www.paintingbuddha.com/blogs/news/18102375-games-workshop-announces-new-ceo

Tom Kirby stays on as chairman but is no longer acting CEO.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the date of the latest hearing, so I suppose we can expect some news by next week.

As I understand from the docket, the hearing tomorrow is so that Nick Villacci can testify about Chapterhouse's assets. The rulings on Chapterhouse's motion to stay execution of the judgment, waive the bond requirement, and quash the citation to discover assets won't come until at least the 17th.

 Guildsman wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Well i hope CHS assets gets unfrozen soon, i will order some stuff just to help him/them.

Seriously. I've looked over their products in the past and never been that interested in anything, but after all of this, I'm sure I can find something useful in their catalog. Anything to help the good guys in this fight.

I've been getting more and more models to paint for friends that have CHS parts on them.

If anything this case has probably helped CHS more than hurt them, at least I think it will in the long run when it's all over.

Apparently GW didn't learn anything from the 2 Live Crew incident of the early 90's.

 loki old fart wrote:
Silly question time. Could this cost GW it's monopoly on producing 40k type space marines. If so could that drive GW prices down, as others start to produce them.?

I think whatever the exact ruling will be, GW wont like it. Even today you can just crank out interchangeable bits or come pretty close designwise. I think once the gunsmoke has cleared on this one, even without companies being able to produce original warhammer parts or name them thus, there will be more of them making stuff you can use for warhammer. However, there are two roads this can go from here:
A: Other competitors pricing themselves close to GW. This allready happens. Look at Kromlech. The stuff is nice and I'd have ordered quite a lot of stuff from them allready if they were at least a little bit cheaper than GW.
B: Other competitors start producing WH-usable stuff for cheap. If I can get a box of 40 soldiers for less than 35€ in other systems (hello bolt action), it sure as hell is possible with Space Marines and Astra Mutilarium... I mean Kosmos Paratroopers and Imperial Guard, lol.

We need all other companies to side with A for A to happen. We need only one or two going the B route for all others to adjust their attitude and their prices. Now, I don't have much faith in any company, but I do believe we'll have at least some good guys.

As for why GW does not want to settle - maybe they do, by now. However, seeing as how chapterhouse has them by their balls, why should they agree to a settlement? They'll squeeze lawyer fees, compensations and all the other stuff out anyways AND have the moral satisfaction to see GW crying for mommy. Plus, if there is a ruling on what is ok and what not, that is still something very much desirable for the whole industry, so wasting that chance would be disappointing for all concerned (except GW, but who's asking them, right?).

keltikhoa wrote:
Yes paying off CHS to shut down may have been cheep solution to the CHS problem but then what do you do about WhersMySettlement Studios, GWshouldPayMeToo Studios, and GimmeMoney Studios, who are all other companies run by different people doing the the same thing CHS was doing.

This is the reason why such agreements include non-disclosure agreements as part of the settlement. In that way no one outside the two parties necessarily knows if someone was paid or how much.

I imagine behind closed doors GW are trying to settle and be done with this, but they are still trying to settle from a position of power they no longer have.

Before the case they could have said "We'll give you $x to shut down and never speak of this again" because back then they seemed like a threat. I imagine they are making that kind of offer now and CH has absolutely no reason to take it. I also imagine his lawyers would advise him against that as they want to stop precedents from being set here.

 jonolikespie wrote:
I imagine behind closed doors GW are trying to settle and be done with this..

I really don't believe this. I think they want to grind Chapterhouse into the ground and win on default. Even with weakened IP, they'll have demonstrated a willingness to crush anyone that even thinks of doing this in the future. I expect Kirby and friends think that's well worth the cost.

Yeah this is a battle of attrition and Kirby has probably calculated (quite accurately) that GW can outlast its opponent, if they can freeze CHS assets.

 jonolikespie wrote:
I imagine behind closed doors GW are trying to settle and be done with this, but they are still trying to settle from a position of power they no longer have.

After all this time and everything Nick has had to go through why would he settle now?

Unless it's because of the frozen assets and how badly that mey be affecting his personal finances I can't see a reason for CHS to settle.

 prplehippo wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
I imagine behind closed doors GW are trying to settle and be done with this, but they are still trying to settle from a position of power they no longer have.

After all this time and everything Nick has had to go through why would he settle now?

Unless it's because of the frozen assets and how badly that mey be affecting his personal finances I can't see a reason for CHS to settle.

With no ability to conduct business, even if his personal finances aren't compromised, he's still under financial siege. All GW has to do is outlast him. It's common enough of a legal practice to not be shocking at this point.

 Jimsolo wrote:
With no ability to conduct business, even if his personal finances aren't compromised, he's still under financial siege. All GW has to do is outlast him. It's common enough of a legal practice to not be shocking at this point.

I'm surprised a tactic like this is still allowed by judges.

It's basically GW saying "Your Honour, we know we can't really "win" this case and have no ground to stand on many of our claims; so we're going to just freeze his assets and outlast him so he goes out of business. Oh, and we'll probably do that to anyone else making parts compatible with our games."

Really? This is still allowed?

 prplehippo wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
With no ability to conduct business, even if his personal finances aren't compromised, he's still under financial siege. All GW has to do is outlast him. It's common enough of a legal practice to not be shocking at this point.

I'm surprised a tactic like this is still allowed by judges.

It's basically GW saying "Your Honour, we know we can't really "win" this case and have no ground to stand on many of our claims; so we're going to just freeze his assets and outlast him so he goes out of business. Oh, and we'll probably do that to anyone else making parts compatible with our games."

Really? This is still allowed?

Since the judge said he'll unfreeze the finances if they don't submit a good reason why he shouldn't within a week, I think it's kind of not allowed. Some light at the end of a tunnel here...

I hope so, because CHS deserve their time in court for appeal, that would be just. GW shouldn't win by strangling their opponent through legal means denying them the opportunity to get to court, where's the justice in that? Big companies do this to little ones all the time, it's one of a number of ways that the big guys nearly always win.

Even if the asset freeze is lifted, CHS will have taken a blow and it will have cost GW almost nothing to have applied another underhanded stalling tactic. GW and their legal team have done far worse during the last four years and received little consequence.

 prplehippo wrote:

If anything this case has probably helped CHS more than hurt them, at least I think it will in the long run when it's all over.

Apparently GW didn't learn anything from the 2 Live Crew incident of the early 90's.

Probably OOT but what was this incident?

 keltikhoa wrote:

Saldiven wrote:

 Xca|iber wrote:


GW has sunk an absurd amount of money into a case in which they lost 2/3 of the claims (not including ones they doubled-back on before judgement), and are now being hoisted upon their own petard in a risky appeals case that they cannot escape. This entire freezing of CH's assets (in the hope that CH will fold under the financial pressure) is a pretty clear sign that GW is getting desperate to get out of this case.

The silliest part about this is that, as has been pointed out by people more expert than I, GW has spent more money photocopies for this case than CHS has cleared as profit during their entire existence.

GW would have been far better off talking to CHS up front and working out a "here's some money, go do something else" agreement than they have been in pursuing this case.

Unfortunately your suggestion is taking the short view of the problem. GW is trying to take the long view in so far as precedent is concerned.
Yes paying off CHS to shut down may have been cheep solution to the CHS problem but then what do you do about WhersMySettlement Studios, GWshouldPayMeToo Studios, and GimmeMoney Studios, who are all other companies run by different people doing the the same thing CHS was doing.

The best I can tell is GW is looking at it as, Once we have a ruling in our favor then our C&D bully tactic will carry more weight and work even more effectively, and we can just scare all the other little studios into submission without having to pay settlements.

That's why you have a non-disclosure agreement on the settlement. GW announces that they pursued legal action and CHS agreed to shut down, and that's all any of those other potential companies know.

Stuff like this happens every day.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

 prplehippo wrote:

If anything this case has probably helped CHS more than hurt them, at least I think it will in the long run when it's all over.

Apparently GW didn't learn anything from the 2 Live Crew incident of the early 90's.

Probably OTT but what was this incident?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_v._Acuff-Rose_Music,_Inc.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

 prplehippo wrote:

If anything this case has probably helped CHS more than hurt them, at least I think it will in the long run when it's all over.

Apparently GW didn't learn anything from the 2 Live Crew incident of the early 90's.

Probably OOT but what was this incident?

2 Live Crew was a rap band that was pretty much unknown, and probably would have stayed that way, until parents and other groups started complaining about the foul nature of their music on the news and made a huge deal out of trying to ban their albums and live performances.

IIRC this is also why we now have "explicit lyrics" stickers now.

But due to all the publicity it gave the band they wound up getting more popular than ever.

Negative publicity can be just as useful ad good publicity and those groups protesting 2 Live Crew didn't understand that.

Al Gore's wife, Tipper, was instrumental in the drive for the "explicit lyrics" advisory. This was her baby:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center

Stay on topic. It's been a good thread so far.

Agreed - let's return to discussing the Chapterhouse case... Thanks.

In the beginning there was no law, save the big dude with the even bigger club. That was not very good. Then there was some dude who thought that making some fixed laws would clean up the mess. That was better. Then there were some who thought that these laws should apply to everyone, that was even better. Then someone had the bright idea that judges have to abide by the word of the law, not the spirit of the law. And then everything went downhill again...

I'm not sure why there's no limit on how long a case might be processed. I feel like there should be some set timeframe whithin which a descision is made, so that these stalling tactics can't be used to put the opponent on hold. Is there some fixed date when the judge is going to decide something by now?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

Probably OOT but what was this incident?

Games Workshop described units in their codex but never made models for them. CH made these models and GW got all mad and self-righteous and tried to shut them down for copyright infringement. Chapterhouse said "how can we copy something that you never did". Rest is legal mudslinging, lawbending and siege tactics.

That is in addition to the fact that CHS made things that were sized to fit onto and/or convert GW models... which GW did not like, either.

Eric

PDF copies of CHS' memoradum and supporting affidavit. Didn't see them posted before.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Summary: CHS can't get a bond or a loan. Business is too small for banks to be interested. Has proposed that GW accept / asks the Court to fashion an alternative form of security using an escrow account into which net profits from sales will be deposited and CHS inventory / equipment as security.

Also looks like no settlement was reached and they intend to ask the 7th circuit to reinstate the appeal briefing process. (page 43 -emails between Mr. Johannes and Mr. Keener.)

That looks pretty straightforward from CHS; they own more stuff than the bond would be for (though I'm sure GW won't like that most of it is in product - to get their money back they'd need to sell off CHS minis). Continuing the freeze will likely cause CHS to go under without being able to appeal, and GW won't get their remaining $23k.

Can GW refute any of that whilst still looking reasonable?

Herzlos wrote:
Can GW refute any of that whilst still looking reasonable?

I think GW does not look reasonable as it is and there's little they can do to change that.

Honestly, if I were GW, i'd just have bought CHS, enjoyed the new models, necessary tools and equipment for the existing range and avoided this mudslinging that's gonna cost them a metric crapton in lawyer fees.

Not that I necessarily think they should be using it for paying off the fine (or whether they should be a fine at all),

but what has happened to the money from the chapterhouse KS ?

(or has it already been converted into minis?)

They've come to an arrangement.

And from the appeals court


Let the speculation on the settlement terms begin!

Waiting on the people that are learned in legal jargon to explain in full.

Does this mean the legal battle is over?

 RivenSkull wrote:
Waiting on the people that are learned in legal jargon to explain in full.

Does this mean the legal battle is over?

Yes. The appeals were withdrawn with prejudice, so they can't come back. At the trial level the only thing left is the injunction forbidding CHS from selling certain models. The 25k damages are gone (but could have been dealt with in a private settlement). The asset freeze is gone as well as a consequence.

--

We don't know the terms of the settlement (who really won) obviously.

czakk wrote:

 RivenSkull wrote:
Waiting on the people that are learned in legal jargon to explain in full.

Does this mean the legal battle is over?

Yes. The appeals were withdrawn with prejudice, so they can't come back. At the trial level the only thing left is the injunction forbidding CHS from selling certain models. The 25k damages are gone (but could have been dealt with in a private settlement). The asset freeze is gone as well as a consequence.

--

We don't know the terms of the settlement obviously.

Well, there's hope that CHS came out and survived, will keep on selling, and GW has a pair of black eyes when it comes to their IP legal crap.

Wow, after such a long time waiting this kind of feels like an anti climax.

So, in essence, GW lost?

They, apparently, haven't received damages, as Nick is on record as saying CHS can't afford to pay it, but might have negotiated a payment plan?


But otherwise, by percentages, and by virtue of their own stated aims, they have not achieved what they set out to?

So it seems like GW won a battle but lost the war and agreed to a stalemate.

CRAP. Don't like the sound of this.

I was hoping for GW to crash and burn.

 Azreal13 wrote:
But otherwise, by percentages, and by virtue of their own stated aims, they have not achieved what they set out to?

If Chapterhouse is still doing business in the near future then no, they didn't. That was the only thing they originally set out to do, shut down Chapterhouse.

And then, presumably, every other third party company that sells bits or models that can be used on their models or in their games, because if I'm not mistaken they said they had a list of other companies they were "keeping an eye on" besides Chapterhouse.

Agreed, it feels a bit anticlimactic to not get to know the actual outcome of all this. Hopefully the chapterhouse website will be up the next few days and say something about their plans for the future.

Seems like someone at GW decided that this was more a thorn in the side than anything else. Could be there was concern that CHS might prevail on certain items during appeal and wanted to prevent that?

If there was a settlement, wouldn't there be evidence of that, even if the details were under NDA?

On the other hand, the CHS website is still down. If it comes back and business resume as normal that would tell us the agreement was favorable?

 Breotan wrote:
Seems like someone at GW decided that this was more a thorn in the side than anything else. Could be there was concern that CHS might prevail on certain items during appeal and wanted to prevent that?

I think that's likely; the lost enough without a sucessful appeal from CHS. I wonder if they hoped they could bury it under the news about the new CEO?
I'm a bit surprised that CHS agreed to settle though, but it's likely that the asset freeze hurt pretty badly and he wanted it over for his and his customers sake (since there was a lot of orders that couldn't be shipped).

If there was a settlement, wouldn't there be evidence of that, even if the details were under NDA?

We'll be able to get hints, based on what happens with the CHS site (when it comes back, what's on it, what they do next) but I doubt we'll get a statement from either side or get to the bottom of it.

At least on the plus side, it's weakened GW and hopefully put them off trying such nonsense again.

 Shandara wrote:
On the other hand, the CHS website is still down. If it comes back and business resume as normal that would tell us the agreement was favorable?

I was going to say, that's probably the clincher; let's wait and see if the website re-opens, and if it carries most of the stock that it held previously.

Hopefully the settlement does not mean the end of CHS. That will really be the test of who actually 'won' because GW's clear goal was to put them out of business. I can't see why CHS would agree to something that wasn't fairly favourable, Nick lasted this long with the asset freeze and it would likely be lifted very soon. Clearly GW put him in a very difficult spot by freezing all his assets, but that's what a corporate bully can do. Surely he was able to use the lifting of the assets freeze as leverage against GW? Or had it just bled him so much that he was forced into agreement?

I'm thinking the best that can be hoped for is that he's agreed to drop the appeal, which out GW at some risk, and accept the damages which will be paid off at some miniscule rate. Or the damages may have been brushed away, if GW want to avoid taking the case further. See it from their view, it'll cost them far more than those damages will recover to press on with this case which puts more of their IP at risk. A settlement to kill the appeal and an NDA to spare embarrassment is ideal. Someone said that GW may try to bury this with the news of a new CEO, maybe it was the new CEO that decided to kill this?

I wonder how GW will spin this in their next investors report? It's not a win, it's a settlement. After pouring an 'indecent amount' of investors money into this case over four years, they've settled rather than press the point home and prove the strength of their moat and wall against an ant, like CHS.

Given that GW was given a hard deadline for things to move forwards to the appeal just before this happened, and that a couple of days ago CH seemed to be ready to go to appeal, could this be GW seeing they can't stall anymore and win through attrition so they panicked and caved in to CH's requests?

 jonolikespie wrote:
Given that GW was given a hard deadline for things to move forwards to the appeal just before this happened, and that a couple of days ago CH seemed to be ready to go to appeal, could this be GW seeing they can't stall anymore and win through attrition so they panicked and caved in to CH's requests?

More a called bluff than a panic I would say. It appears that GW applied their last tactic, the court had enough and hemming and hawing and set the final ball rolling.

My guess here is that GW dropped their claim to judgement and possibly agreed to cover some costs and CH agreed to something that I can't guess yet. I agree whether the website comes back up or not will be the telling indicator.

While I'm not thrilled with how this ended (settlement versus a judgment) I am glad that it is finally over so that he can move on with his life without it looming over his head.

 FacelessMage wrote:
While I'm not thrilled with how this ended (settlement versus a judgment) I am glad that it is finally over so that he can move on with his life without it looming over his head.

Just hopefully it doesn't result in CHS closing, because then for all intents and purposes GW "won" and will probably try these strongarm tactics with others in the future, and they will have learned nothing.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 FacelessMage wrote:
While I'm not thrilled with how this ended (settlement versus a judgment) I am glad that it is finally over so that he can move on with his life without it looming over his head.

Just hopefully it doesn't result in CHS closing, because then for all intents and purposes GW "won" and will probably try these strongarm tactics with others in the future, and they will have learned nothing.

They would have learned that millions of dollars spent to slowly strangle the competition works. That the competition, one by one, would unlikely ever touch that monetary figure through 'stolen' sales is not the point. It's the principle of the thing.

Actually, assuming the worst, what other Mom 'N' Pop competitor would willingly want to go through the same crap as CHS? More to the point...afford to?

Edit: I'm musing here. I'm hopeful that things are less bleak than I allude to.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 FacelessMage wrote:
While I'm not thrilled with how this ended (settlement versus a judgment) I am glad that it is finally over so that he can move on with his life without it looming over his head.

Just hopefully it doesn't result in CHS closing, because then for all intents and purposes GW "won" and will probably try these strongarm tactics with others in the future, and they will have learned nothing.

But it seems that even if they settled now, the agreement (that we know of) acknowledges that every claim that GW lost is now a loss as far as established court decisions are concerned. So even if he settled, the precedent is set, or at least that's how it looks to me.

 d-usa wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

 FacelessMage wrote:
While I'm not thrilled with how this ended (settlement versus a judgment) I am glad that it is finally over so that he can move on with his life without it looming over his head.

Just hopefully it doesn't result in CHS closing, because then for all intents and purposes GW "won" and will probably try these strongarm tactics with others in the future, and they will have learned nothing.

But it seems that even if they settled now, the agreement (that we know of) acknowledges that every claim that GW lost is now a loss as far as established court decisions are concerned. So even if he settled, the precedent is set, or at least that's how it looks to me.

Agreed, regardless of what's in the future for CHS now, there are still dozens of items on record that GW claimed ownership of that have been shown to be false.

You would think GW would just mold the products CH produces just to save fill the coffers. Stick a bunch of icons on it and throw it in the Dwarf. Instead, we go through this embarrassing temper tantrum reminiscent of my 3 year old.

Not to put them on the radar (although in 235 pages I'm sure it has been) Puppets war does the same.

Just wish GW would look at it as, "Look at all the ideas people are putting out to risk their resources so we can view if they are popular so now WE can cast them with OFFICIAL fluff...."

My $0.02

What a waste...

 Sidstyler wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
But otherwise, by percentages, and by virtue of their own stated aims, they have not achieved what they set out to?

If Chapterhouse is still doing business in the near future then no, they didn't. That was the only thing they originally set out to do, shut down Chapterhouse.

And then, presumably, every other third party company that sells bits or models that can be used on their models or in their games, because if I'm not mistaken they said they had a list of other companies they were "keeping an eye on" besides Chapterhouse.

I've used Anvil Industries before. I'd go ballistic if GW tried to sue them out of existence. They have Space Marine and Imperial Guard compatible bits, like guns, melee weapons, shields and heads. They have great looking some not-Space Marines, but they've also come up with their own IP and game with Afterlife.

I'm actually happy about this. The losses from GW are on record, and they removed the penalty (at least through the courts, settlement unknown).

Sure, they won a few things too, but this harmed and cost GW a lot, and hopefully they've learned from it. Personally, I bet the settlement was quite pro-CHS... GW did Not want to face the appeal.

I'm waiting for the definitive list of what a 3rd party producer can and can't do as determined by this whole mess.

It must have really gotten GW's goat to learn that the company that has caused them so much trouble these past years could not even pay the $25,000 penalty. Chapterhouse was a real life troll to GW in the end.

 Kimchi Gamer wrote:
It must have really gotten GW's goat to learn that the company that has caused them so much trouble these past years could not even pay the $25,000 penalty. Chapterhouse was a real life troll to GW in the end.

I doubt it, unless trading gold bullion for sand dollars was their intent from the get go.

I have suspicions that there's been some real egg on face for the 'legal sledgehammer' brigade inside GW. I'm hopeful we'll see a shift in behavior following this long and expensive PR disaster, especially with a new CEO. This is sort of a monument to the folly of focusing on legal aggression and ignoring the game and business.

I keep hoping against hope they'll shift tack and get around to tight rules, putting a halt on prices and bringing us back, at least, to the early days of 5th. Less 'Wayland Yutani' and more 'GAMES' workshop...

If you really do make the best model soldiers in the world, you've nothing to worry about and should have realized if these little 'cottage industries' are cropping up around your business, it's because your business had become large enough to sustain them, that's not someone 'stealing' from your plate, that's an indicator your business is doing well and you should have ignored it or looked into licensing...

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

If you really do make the best model soldiers in the world, you've nothing to worry about and should have realized if these little 'cottage industries' are cropping up around your business, it's because your business had become large enough to sustain them, that's not someone 'stealing' from your plate, that's an indicator your business is doing well and you should have ignored it or looked into licensing...

Or that the products they produce to plug holes in your own lines indicate there is a demand that could/should be filled by GW...

Thirdeye wrote:
I'm waiting for the definitive list of what a 3rd party producer can and can't do as determined by this whole mess.

Definitive list? Hire an ip lawyer. Anything else will just be internet opinion.

If GW's IP lawyers are anything to go by, that won't net you a "definitive list" either

Rusty Trombone wrote:
Actually, assuming the worst, what other Mom 'N' Pop competitor would willingly want to go through the same crap as CHS? More to the point...afford to?

GW have always been winning to grind companies down by attrition, but all this case has done is weaken GW's position (there's so much that can be referenced) and shown GW that pro-bono support is available for their victim. Since both CHS and the author of Spots The Space Marine got pro-bono support, and GW now has a much bigger reputation of being a legal troll, it'll be much easier for any new target to secure pro-bono representation.

So yes, they've maybe shown the can do it, but they've also made it an awful lot harder for themselves at the same time and really hurt their bottom line into the bargain.

 Kimchi Gamer wrote:
It must have really gotten GW's goat to learn that the company that has caused them so much trouble these past years could not even pay the $25,000 penalty. Chapterhouse was a real life troll to GW in the end.

They knew from the start that CHS would never be able to afford the $25k; they were just hoping the $25k would either force them to go bust or force them to settle.

First I hope the settlement was in CHS favour. I really feel for the poor guy going through all of this legal BS for 4 freaking years!

With the money GW spent on this case they could have redone the sob line in plastic....twice...

Priorities man...priorities...

 MrFlutterPie wrote:
With the money GW spent on this case they could have redone the sob line in plastic....twice...

They could probably have redon the SOB line for less than they spent on paperwork for this case.

Do investors get to find out how and what was settled?

Since GW threw everything at this case and was found out more often than not shouldn't a question be asked of the board?

'What the feth have we lost on you pursuing a small operation for $25k.

is it even worth those institutional investors finding out? I doubt GW is a big player in their portfolios?

Herzlos wrote:

 MrFlutterPie wrote:
With the money GW spent on this case they could have redone the sob line in plastic....twice...

They could probably have redone the SOB line for less than they spent on paperwork for this case.

Shhh... you'll make people cry.

The Auld Grump, yes, this was money well spent, Mr. Kirby....

Hope they get going again soon. I was all set to buy some golden chalice shoulder pads for my soul drinkers.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 MrFlutterPie wrote:
With the money GW spent on this case they could have redone the sob line in plastic....twice...

They could probably have redone the SOB line for less than they spent on paperwork for this case.

Shhh... you'll make people cry.

The Auld Grump, yes, this was money well spent, Mr. Kirby....

The decision to go after companies like wouldn't lie with Kirby, it would fall to the Head of Intellectual Property. Just like the blood bowl fansites being shut down, just like the C&D carpet bombing of various websites, blogs and fansites. In face the entire current 'relationship' the community has with the company, short of the prices, lies at that door.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 MrFlutterPie wrote:
With the money GW spent on this case they could have redone the sob line in plastic....twice...

They could probably have redone the SOB line for less than they spent on paperwork for this case.

Shhh... you'll make people cry.

The Auld Grump, yes, this was money well spent, Mr. Kirby....

The decision to go after companies like wouldn't lie with Kirby, it would fall to the Head of Intellectual Property. Just like the blood bowl fansites being shut down, just like the C&D carpet bombing of various websites, blogs and fansites. In face the entire current 'relationship' the community has with the company, short of the prices, lies at that door.

And as we saw in this case, Allen Merritt has no fething clue about Intellectual Property. Not what it is, not what the laws are regarding it.

With how much was spent on this shambles, I'd be surprised if Kirby isn't removed from the board and Merritt shown the door. They both flubbed this, at the expense of the shareholders money.

Thing is, Kirby is the shareholders, at least he is the only (allegedly) sentient being who holds a meaningful stake in the company, any stockholder with a greater interest is just a faceless institution that is more likely to dump the shares and reinvest than take action. Given the changes in fund ownership over the last year or so, we don't even really have the hope that someone feels compelled to step in to try and improve the share price to recover their investment, given the size of GW and the duration of ownership, nobody has been badly burned in wider stock market terms.

weeble1000 wrote:




What a waste...

I'm with weeble here... I was really hoping for something some clear-cut that made it a lot less likely that GW would continue to bully the rest of the gaming world with their, uh, expansive view of what "belongs" to them.

I'm sure GW will think at least a bit about taking this route again, but without the type of excellent (and fortunate) pro bono representation that Chapterhouse got, I'm thinking the little guys would still probably fold rather than fight. The stars lined up for Chapterhouse and the whole thing was, I'm sure, still hugely painful.

Plus, after Kirby's inane, and utterly self-serving, comments about the legal system, I'd've loved to see him really take it in the proverbial shorts.

I certainly understand if Nick wanted this all to be over, but I somehow suspect that all his pro bono help was also looking for something more concrete than a settlement. Wonder if we'll ever get the terms of the agreement. That, at least, would be interesting to see...

Valete,

JohnS

GW / Kirby may well have "taken it in the proverbial shorts" and paid off Chapterhouse, but we won't get to know the details of the settlement... I think it very possible we'd have still had a bit of a "mixed decision" after appeal, and this settlement puts the already "mixed decision" on record.

If Chapterhouse resumes business, I think that's all pretty good. If they don't, I could only guess that they were compensated handsomely for no longer selling the items they won the right to continue selling in the first trial.

 RiTides wrote:
GW / Kirby may well have "taken it in the proverbial shorts" and paid off Chapterhouse, but we won't get to know the details of the settlement... I think it very possible we'd have still had a bit of a "mixed decision" after appeal, and this settlement puts the already "mixed decision" on record.

If Chapterhouse resumes business, I think that's all pretty good. If they don't, I could only guess that they were compensated handsomely for no longer selling the items they won the right to continue selling in the first trial.

Might end up seeing something as some form of exceptional cost in the annual reports - actual big companies normally have enough expenses that they can hide payoffs fairly well...little companies like GW? If it is anything over 6 figures it should show up in some way, shape or form. Anything less than 6 figures...well, I couldn't imagine any real reason to take that deal (unless Nick was in exceptionally poor financial state after all this - which may well have been the case).

Though as someone with somewhat more than a passing interest in this, I have to second Weeble's opinion on the outcome. While there is some benefit to having this case in the record - there is also plenty of issues with where it was left. A large number of the claims that were decided in GW's favor are far too broad and many of those which were decided in CHS's favor should have been dealt with handedly by the judge without even letting them go to trial (seriously - as if there almost 25 years of precedent that allows for nominative use in regards to trademarks...even longer than that, they just coined the term then).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 MrFlutterPie wrote:
With the money GW spent on this case they could have redone the sob line in plastic....twice...

They could probably have redone the SOB line for less than they spent on paperwork for this case.

Shhh... you'll make people cry.

The Auld Grump, yes, this was money well spent, Mr. Kirby....

The decision to go after companies like wouldn't lie with Kirby, it would fall to the Head of Intellectual Property. Just like the blood bowl fansites being shut down, just like the C&D carpet bombing of various websites, blogs and fansites. In face the entire current 'relationship' the community has with the company, short of the prices, lies at that door.

Considering it was his diatribe in the Annual Report about his laughable castle...no. It is directly at Kirby's feet. Just like 99% of everything else that occurs - he is the epitome of a micromanager, and surrounds himself with nothing but yes men. The Head of IP is a warehouse monkey who has managed to survive longer than most and inherited the position due to attrition (and brown nosery). Assuming someone with absolutely no formal training in intellectual property law would be the one who will make the determination as to what will be the corporate legal stance regarding anything IP related is laughable.

Agreed.

One of the things this case has shown up is the complexity of IP law and the amount of misunderstanding among the public for example of the differences between trademarks, copyrights and patents, let alone the factors involved in each of these themes.

Merritt, despite having been Head of IP clearly demonstrated a very loose grasp of the subject. His basic stance was that of GW as a whole -- any ideas we put into 40K become ours, and anyone who makes a variation of those general ideas is a rip-off merchant.

Which of course is bollocks in itself, also GW's claims to have invented the whole of SF out of their heads are blatant rubbish.

We were also presented with an IP based company that not only did not own the copyright releases on some of its commissioned artwork but did not even know it did not own them. A fundamental concept of publishing that I was taught as a rookie editor 25 years ago.

Frankly this is a major embarrassment.

 RiTides wrote:
GW / Kirby may well have "taken it in the proverbial shorts" and paid off Chapterhouse, but we won't get to know the details of the settlement... I think it very possible we'd have still had a bit of a "mixed decision" after appeal, and this settlement puts the already "mixed decision" on record.

If Chapterhouse resumes business, I think that's all pretty good. If they don't, I could only guess that they were compensated handsomely for no longer selling the items they won the right to continue selling in the first trial.

If Chapterhouse were not able to resume business, the law would be a travesty. The original claim by GW was to put CHS out of business. GW lost 75% of the items that eventually went to trial, and were stuck with only the $25,000 fine.

It's strikes me the CHS could diversify into advisory work for other companies attempting similar projects. Depending on the exact outcome obviously.

With this finally wrapping up it would be nice to have some choice quotes of embarrassment from the proceedings

Is it ever possible for a defendant to demand settlement terms be made public as a condition of settlement? One would think if CHS had GW by the balls it appeared they did, that would be something to do in recompense for this 4 year fiasco. Unless GW threw money at CHS to have them not do that.

One side or the other usually makes the concessions required to keep it private. CHS could have demanded it be made public but Im not sure what would be in it for them and an agreement would be unlikely to be made.

Legal cases like these end in non-disclosure settlements all the time, how it just doesn't always 'slip out' somehow through an anonymous comment made somewhere surprises me. It would only take a disgruntled employee on either side to let it out.

Usually NDA's are formulated so that if any of it comes out it will hurt the part spilling it very much. I think they guard the content very tightly by just letting the board, ceo and litigators know the full content.

Charax wrote:
With this finally wrapping up it would be nice to have some choice quotes of embarrassment from the proceedings

On tshirts?

We could all get one and descend on our local stores.

 cygnnus wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:




What a waste...

The stars lined up for Chapterhouse and the whole thing was, I'm sure, still hugely painful.

Stars did not line up by themselves. It was a load of work.

weeble1000 wrote:

 cygnnus wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:




What a waste...

The stars lined up for Chapterhouse and the whole thing was, I'm sure, still hugely painful.

Stars did not line up by themselves. It was a load of work.

I meant that the stars lined up in that CH got some very high caliber pro bono help. Without that help, this case would have been over, with a defacto GW win, years ago as a small producer like CH couldn't possibly afford to directly bear the full costs of litigation like this. The odds of the "next guy" getting that type of help have got to be fairly small.

Don't for one second mean to disparage the work that must have gone into this case... Just ticked that GW didn't get the slap down they so obviously deserved. Instead we end up with a muddle under an NDA...

Valete,

JohnS

Do we know why the work was done pro bono? Was that a firm who are hoping to become the de facto go to guy for miniature wargaming IP issues? Is that even worth it at the pace the industry is growing?

Just out of interest, and you never know when your going to need a lawyer who knows the industry.

 cygnnus wrote:
The odds of the "next guy" getting that type of help have got to be fairly small.

The odds of the next guy getting help are a lot higher now, since non-gamers have become aware of GW trolling.

 Casey's Law wrote:
Do we know why the work was done pro bono? Was that a firm who are hoping to become the de facto go to guy for miniature wargaming IP issues? Is that even worth it at the pace the industry is growing?.

It's got nothing to do with the wargaming industry. The precedent set by GW would have impacted all manufacturing and design industries, including aftermarket parts for everything. If GW had a slam-dunk win then it'd open the gates for all sorts of bogus claims.

I cannot imagine the kind of pressure Nick has been under. I am very happy for him that this whole thing is coming to an end.
It must be an enormous relief and a great weight off his shoulders.

Having said that; this is THE worst possible outcome of this case for the industry and the community.
No lines are clearly drawn. GW can easily go on deluding itself.
No real hard precedent has been set.

In a way Nick's sacrifices and hard work (and those of his legal council) has amounted to.....nothing.
A waste of time, resources and emotional investment (on behalf of Nick obviously).

I am so sad.

Silver lining? I am very happy that Nick can resume a semblance of a normal life.
Thank you for your efforts, Nick.



---

Herzlos wrote:

 Casey's Law wrote:
Do we know why the work was done pro bono? Was that a firm who are hoping to become the de facto go to guy for miniature wargaming IP issues? Is that even worth it at the pace the industry is growing?.

It's got nothing to do with the wargaming industry. The precedent set by GW would have impacted all manufacturing and design industries, including aftermarket parts for everything. If GW had a slam-dunk win then it'd open the gates for all sorts of bogus claims.

That's a fair point but really isn't in anyway attached to what I asked. I'm interested in who the firm are that are doing the work and I'm interested to see if they get anything out of it. For instance will they start to circulate their name in this industry, which would be nice. I'd like to know there was someone with their finger on the button.

Charax wrote:
With this finally wrapping up it would be nice to have some choice quotes of embarrassment from the proceedings

Filter the thread for weeble1000's posts- I remember him a few others pulling them put as they went along. Perhaps check around page 100 or 170. I forgot who else was pulling some funny quotes, but start with weeble.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Casey's Law wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 Casey's Law wrote:
Do we know why the work was done pro bono? Was that a firm who are hoping to become the de facto go to guy for miniature wargaming IP issues? Is that even worth it at the pace the industry is growing?.

It's got nothing to do with the wargaming industry. The precedent set by GW would have impacted all manufacturing and design industries, including aftermarket parts for everything. If GW had a slam-dunk win then it'd open the gates for all sorts of bogus claims.

That's a fair point but really isn't in anyway attached to what I asked. I'm interested in who the firm are that are doing the work and I'm interested to see if they get anything out of it. For instance will they start to circulate their name in this industry, which would be nice. I'd like to know there was someone with their finger on the button.

They were just high-end IP lawyers- they had no interest in wargaming besides the precedent this case might have set.

 cygnnus wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

 cygnnus wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:




What a waste...

The stars lined up for Chapterhouse and the whole thing was, I'm sure, still hugely painful.

Stars did not line up by themselves. It was a load of work.

I meant that the stars lined up in that CH got some very high caliber pro bono help. Without that help, this case would have been over, with a defacto GW win, years ago as a small producer like CH couldn't possibly afford to directly bear the full costs of litigation like this. The odds of the "next guy" getting that type of help have got to be fairly small.

Don't for one second mean to disparage the work that must have gone into this case... Just ticked that GW didn't get the slap down they so obviously deserved. Instead we end up with a muddle under an NDA...

Valete,

JohnS

That's what I meant too. Those stars did not align by themselves.

And now to see one of the best intellectual property and appellate law firms in the world shepherding a settlement on the doorstep of a really important appeal because GW made a stink about seizing an indigent defendant's personal assets...

It is a waste. It is a waste of the firm's efforts and a waste of the efforts of all those people who worked to make it possible in the first place.

Nick stuck through this thing for a long, long time and wound up fumbling the ball at the 1 yard line. He's certainly got his own interests to protect, and if he wanted to settle, that's that. But Chapterhouse Studios would have been out of business by March 2011 if those stars had not been purposefully aligned for his benefit.

That's a fact.

Anything from GWs IP supremo is pure gold. And should be taught at business school as who or what not to employ in that role.

@Casey's Law I think Winson and Strawn were part of council could be wrong but if they were we are talking about a huge legal firm.

 Casey's Law wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

 Casey's Law wrote:
Do we know why the work was done pro bono? Was that a firm who are hoping to become the de facto go to guy for miniature wargaming IP issues? Is that even worth it at the pace the industry is growing?.

It's got nothing to do with the wargaming industry. The precedent set by GW would have impacted all manufacturing and design industries, including aftermarket parts for everything. If GW had a slam-dunk win then it'd open the gates for all sorts of bogus claims.

That's a fair point but really isn't in anyway attached to what I asked. I'm interested in who the firm are that are doing the work and I'm interested to see if they get anything out of it. For instance will they start to circulate their name in this industry, which would be nice. I'd like to know there was someone with their finger on the button.

AS IP lawyers, they avoided a precident being set that would make their lives hellish. I doubt they've got any more interest in gaming now than when they started, they just saw a multinational trying to hammer a garage manufacturer into providing a dangerous precident through attrition. I believe there's some requirement to take on some amount of pro-bono, so this might also have been something a bit more interesting or they felt they were preventing an injustic, but I really don't think they care about GW or wargaming.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Anything from GWs IP supremo is pure gold. And should be taught at business school as who or what not to employ in that role.

@Casey's Law I think Winson and Strawn were part of council could be wrong but if they were we are talking about a huge legal firm.

Counsel for Chapterhouse Studios directly involved:

Winston and Strawn
Marshall, Gerstein, and Borun
WilmerHale

Pro-bono expert testimony was provided by:

Dr. Carl Grindley - Eugenio María de Hostos Community College
William Brewster - First Division Museum at Cantigny
Professor Lionel Bently - University of Cambridge

Additional testimony by non-GW employees was provided by:

Gary Chalk
Bob Naismith

And that's what is on the docket.

Four years of litigation, probably more than 10,000 man hours, millions of dollars spent.

Settlement...the day before GW was required to file a response to Chapterhouse's motion to stay the judgement, waive the bond requirement, and quash the citation to discover assets.

It is painfully obvious what happened, and it is bull.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Do investors get to find out how and what was settled?

Since GW threw everything at this case and was found out more often than not shouldn't a question be asked of the board?

'What the feth have we lost on you pursuing a small operation for $25k.

is it even worth those institutional investors finding out? I doubt GW is a big player in their portfolios?

Depends on the structure of the settlement, but i'd be willing to bet investors will not receive anything more than the barest of bare updates ("The case has now been settled". I would be willing to bet GW's board, legal staff, and executive staff all have to sign NDA's, as does any party to the litigation or having any knowledge thereof at CH, and their counsel. You can pretty much bet on this settlement's specifics being under lock and key for a good long while, if not permanently, because they settled out of court.



There's lots of questions about public and private disclosure : usually there's a very specific (and long!) series of clauses about non-disclosure that all material parties to the settlement must sign. Usually the settlement is null and void if that disclosure is breached. This can be termed (meaing # of years the NDA) but usually is permanent. I.e> company pays you 10 million, but insists on an NDA at settlement. You go blabbing to the news on video camera that they paid you and they were negligent. Company can now sue you for breach of contract (which is what the settlement is - a contract) for not only the 10 mil actual damages, but probably also claim slander, and seek further punitive damages. Etc. etc.

Typically speaking the party with the "upper hand" has more sway on whether or not the disclosure will be private or not. In out of court settlements even if they are public, they basically never talk about the specific tenets, and most parties insist on "no admission of fault or wrongdoing" being part of any public disclosure.


Remember : out of court settlements (in case this isn't obvious) are not court decisions. There's no obligation to make them public and they decide no issue or rule of law. Due to that very fact, usually the paying party wants to keep it very quiet and will take legal steps to do so.

Thanks everyone for all that info. Really interesting stuff.

Don't want to draw things off topic but if there happens to be some lawyers who know our industry well and have dealt with it before I'd be very happy to have their contact information for my own records. PM if you know anything thanks.

weeble1000 wrote:

Settlement...the day before GW was required to file a response to Chapterhouse's motion to stay the judgement, waive the bond requirement, and quash the citation to discover assets.

It is painfully obvious what happened, and it is bull.

Does this suggest that the settlement was favourable to CHS? i.e. GW caved in and agreed to pay them off?

What I'm more concerned with is the implications for my army list and if I'm going to have to do business with Russian recasters to get my bits.

Nick getting a big smelly wad of cash from GW is all well and good, but not if it comes with the price of CHS still closing anyway, since we don't have any information about what the terms were, but his webstore still has not fired back up.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

Settlement...the day before GW was required to file a response to Chapterhouse's motion to stay the judgement, waive the bond requirement, and quash the citation to discover assets.

It is painfully obvious what happened, and it is bull.

Does this suggest that the settlement was favourable to CHS? i.e. GW caved in and agreed to pay them off?

No, not at all. It suggests that it was a terrible settlement for Chapterhouse. It is not hard to imagine the likely scenario.

"Hey, I'm going to take your house if you don't settle out!"

"Seriously, I'm going to take your house!"

"If you don't settle out now, the offer is off the table and I am going to take your house!"

GW's last bullet, its LAST gambit to stop the appeal was to scare the out of Nick Villacci, and it apparently worked.

GW might have had a crappy offer on the table and then sweetened it up a bit, but that's not in the style of Jonathan Moskin. My guess is that there was a crummy offer on the table, for the purpose of communicating that GW's position was strong, when in reality it was on its last, desperate gambit. Moskin wouldn't have wanted to telegraph weakness by improving GW's offer.

The mere fact that Chapterhouse was even considering settlement after the citation to discover assets suggests that Nick was scared, and GW must have either guessed that or seen it. Ergo, the likely move by Moskin would have been to capitalize on that fear by threatening to walk away from the negotiation table as if GW was holding all of the cards instead of none of them.

Chapterhouse was holding all of the cards, and folded because GW made an obvious bluff.

The risks though...the risks...if I call the bluff...if I call it...am I going to personally go bankrupt? That's the fear GW was playing on.

How many bites at the apple did Chapterhouse have to protect Nick's personal assets? Lots. Judge Kennelly - bite number one. Then there's the seventh circuit court of appeals. Chapterhouse cited a favorable decision by Judge Easterbrook in its motion. One of the seventh circuit appellate judges. That's at least two bites. There's probably one or two more legal shenanigans that I am unaware of after a failed appeal to the seventh circuit, but at the end of the day, you also have another bite at the apple in front of the bankruptcy court...IN TEXAS! What, is GW going to fight an appeal in Chicago and get hometowned by a Dallas bankruptcy judge at the same time?

Bull

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

Settlement...the day before GW was required to file a response to Chapterhouse's motion to stay the judgement, waive the bond requirement, and quash the citation to discover assets.

It is painfully obvious what happened, and it is bull.

Does this suggest that the settlement was favourable to CHS? i.e. GW caved in and agreed to pay them off?

That's the assumption because they really had no reason to settle what with Pro-Bono counsel and a judge tired of GW's stall tactics.

weeble1000 wrote:
No, not at all. It suggests that it was a terrible settlement for Chapterhouse. It is not hard to imagine the likely scenario.

"Hey, I'm going to take your house if you don't settle out!"

"Seriously, I'm going to take your house!"

"If you don't settle out now, the offer is off the table and I am going to take your house!"

GW's last bullet, its LAST gambit to stop the appeal was to scare the out of Nick Villacci, and it apparently worked.

Isn't the entire point of incorporation to avoid just such shenanigans?

@Ouze
If chapterhouse was Nick's only source of income, it probably doesn't matter if he had his accounts seperated or not.

I find it humorous that the settlement can be framed as both for and against GW/Nick. I guess it's achieved it's aim. Only Nick and GW will know how it all went down.

 Ouze wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
No, not at all. It suggests that it was a terrible settlement for Chapterhouse. It is not hard to imagine the likely scenario.

"Hey, I'm going to take your house if you don't settle out!"

"Seriously, I'm going to take your house!"

"If you don't settle out now, the offer is off the table and I am going to take your house!"

GW's last bullet, its LAST gambit to stop the appeal was to scare the out of Nick Villacci, and it apparently worked.

Isn't the entire point of incorporation to avoid just such shenanigans?

I think Weeble's inferring that Nick may have put his house up as collateral for a business loan under the LLC.

 agnosto wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

Settlement...the day before GW was required to file a response to Chapterhouse's motion to stay the judgement, waive the bond requirement, and quash the citation to discover assets.

It is painfully obvious what happened, and it is bull.

Does this suggest that the settlement was favourable to CHS? i.e. GW caved in and agreed to pay them off?

That's the assumption because they really had no reason to settle what with Pro-Bono counsel and a judge tired of GW's stall tactics.

No it is not. See the above post.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sinful Hero wrote:
@Ouze
If chapterhouse was Nick's only source of income, it probably doesn't matter if he had his accounts seperated or not.

The company was bringing in less than $100K in revenue per year. If Nick was living off of that, he'd need to either have another job or be looking for one.

So basically...Gamesworkshop won.

weeble1000 wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 Sinful Hero wrote:
@Ouze
If chapterhouse was Nick's only source of income, it probably doesn't matter if he had his accounts seperated or not.

The company was bringing in less than $100K in revenue per year. If Nick was living off of that, he'd need to either have another job or be looking for one.

A modest living perhaps? I believe Nick is married isn't he? Only having one spouse's income can be enough to start missing payments.

So.. reading between the lines here, am I correct in assuming that the implications are that we will not hear the true outcome of this case, and that GW will now be free to re-align its sights on other 3rd party bit producers? i.e. the likes of Maxmini now have to start expecting legal notices?

My impression from this whole nasty business is that the pro bono work for the legal defence of Chapterhouse was intended to draw a line in the sand in front of GW's voracious legal claims, and that was why it was important that they were defeated. What will be the upshot of all of that, looking beyond Chapterhouse's specific circumstances?

Can we, the community, make any use of the Freedom of Information Act to gather information together. It might be worth doing even if there is nothing new disclosed.

So essentially GW won in the end?. Do we at least get to keep the rulings about their "supposed ip" or are those also made none existent with the settlement?.

 Pacific wrote:
So.. reading between the lines here, am I correct in assuming that the implications are that we will not hear the true outcome of this case, and that GW will now be free to re-align its sights on other 3rd party bit producers? i.e. the likes of Maxmini now have to start expecting legal notices?

My impression from this whole nasty business is that the pro bono work for the legal defence of Chapterhouse was intended to draw a line in the sand in front of GW's voracious legal claims, and that was why it was important that they were defeated. What will be the upshot of all of that, looking beyond Chapterhouse's specific circumstances?

Well, it did draw a line in the sand on a a great number of things. There is an actual court decision on what GW currently actually owns. The appeals could have gone either way but the assumption is that the appellate court would have overturned a number of rulings that went against CHS, if not all of them, and thus further defined what 3rd party bit makers can do in the U.S.


Even in danger of losing a house, I would have continued fighting but I'm boneheaded like that and there is no way that I will second-guess Nick's decisions for himself and his family; I hope that he can continue in business but looking at Paulson Games' decline, I think we can see the writing on a wall for what occurs with a GW brokered settlement.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
So basically...Gamesworkshop won.

Not entirely. The previous findings regarding what GW actually does and does not own are still in effect, right?

 Casey's Law wrote:
Can we, the community, make any use of the Freedom of Information Act to gather information together. It might be worth doing even if there is nothing new disclosed.

Just in case this gets missed on the last page.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
So basically...Gamesworkshop won.

Not entirely. The previous findings regarding what GW actually does and does not own are still in effect, right?

I think this is paramount, otherwise at the end of the day, GWs tactics worked.

 Casey's Law wrote:

 Casey's Law wrote:
Can we, the community, make any use of the Freedom of Information Act to gather information together. It might be worth doing even if there is nothing new disclosed.

Just in case this gets missed on the last page.

Unless someone blabs we won't find out what the settlement was. Maybe, maybe something might come up in a financial report, but even that would just end up being a wild guess at the end of the day. Unless you were wanting to find something else out?

The previous rulings stand.

The settlement only applied to the fine against CHS. It is all on the books now.

GW had no cause to settle unless they thought they were going to lose. And we all know that GW was never going to quit while they were ahead. They don't have it in them.

In addition to the NDA the settlement probably also includes the provision to close CHS.

Nick can come back but it probably will not be under the name CHS.

 Sinful Hero wrote:

 Casey's Law wrote:
Can we, the community, make any use of the Freedom of Information Act to gather information together. It might be worth doing even if there is nothing new disclosed.

Unless someone blabs we won't find out what the settlement was. Maybe, maybe something might come up in a financial report, but even that would just end up being a wild guess at the end of the day. Unless you were wanting to find something else out?

Not really for me it just crossed my mind that this could be a useful asset if the community wanted a copy of all of the information held.

I totally disagree with weeble's take. We have no idea who the settlement favored. Given GW wanting to just get this over with, it could have been a favorable one for CHS that would go off the table at the next hearing. We have no idea who it favored, and as CHS had an excellent position as you yourself pointed out, imo it is much more likely to favor CHS.

Regardless, the 75% of GW's claims lost is on the books, and the penalty against CHS removed. This is all good for the industry, along with the pro bono defense making GW not want to face this again. If it was indeed a favorable settlement, I'm very happy for Nick, and he deserves to be finally done with this!

In a nutshell, even if the settlement sees CHS close, it was a massively Pyrrhic victory for GW. as several people have pointed out, this case was a massive blow to GW's IP claims, and, as some of you may have noted before, led to the rebranding of an entire line of their products, and showed where the line really was in the US court system.

 Casey's Law wrote:
Do we know why the work was done pro bono? Was that a firm who are hoping to become the de facto go to guy for miniature wargaming IP issues?

The work was done "pro bono" because the firm was pretty sure (and correct!) that they could get a "win" and make law in manufacturing IP, not miniatures wargaming IP.

Manufacturing is a very broad category, with a lot of IP in it, so scoring a win against a multinational corporation is a nice feather in your cap.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
In a nutshell, even if the settlement sees CHS close, it was a massively Pyrrhic victory for GW. as several people have pointed out, this case was a massive blow to GW's IP claims, and, as some of you may have noted before, led to the rebranding of an entire line of their products, and showed where the line really was in the US court system.

Exactly!

So, while it might have been nice to see CHS carry it all across the finish line, this case as made it clearer and easier for 3rd party model manufacturers to operate in their chosen areas.

 RiTides wrote:
I totally disagree with weeble's take. We have no idea who the settlement favored. Given GW wanting to just get this over with, it could have been a favorable one for CHS that would go off the table at the next hearing. We have no idea who it favored, and as CHS had an excellent position as you yourself pointed out, imo it is much more likely to favor CHS.

Sure, we don't know who the settlement favored, but to believe that the settlement is somehow favorable to Chapterhouse Studios would require one to believe that GW would be willing to put together a juicy, tempting settlement package when it has otherwise been seemingly unwilling to do so.

The narrative is pretty easy to discern. GW stalled, delayed, threw up roadblocks, and finally did what it could have done all along in order to kill the appeal: demand payment of a judgment it knows the judgement debtor can't pay, freeze the assets of a small business, and attempt to pierce the corporate veil to go after the owner's personal assets.

That is not a precursor to a friendly settlement. That is a boot-on-neck approach. GW might have attempted to let the boot up a bit in order to get a settlement through, but given GW's behavior throughout four long years of litigation, I think it is much more likely that GW followed up its boot-on-neck approach by threatening to grind its heel into the ground.

GW's boot-on-neck approach was held to the last because it is inherently risky. If GW lost the argument, the appeal would go forward unimpeded and would be impossible to stop from that point forward.

GW got Nick to blink. After all of this, GW finally got Nick to blink. He had some of the best lawyers in the world at his back and he blinked. How did he get such first class pro-bono representation? Do you think some folks at WilmerHale called him up one day out of the blue and offered him million dollar legal services? Do you honestly think Chapterhouse Studios randomly stumbled into three first class law firms willing to take on such a complex, expensive case?

Regardless, it is over now, and while one can understand Nick's reasons for blinking, we'll never know how Judge Kennelly would have ruled. Three days... That's all it would have taken...three little days and Judge Kennelly would have been in a position to make a decision. And that was only the first bite at the apple.

How did GW get Nick to not wait three little days? Was it because they suddenly offered an unprecedented sweetheart deal, or was it because they threatened to walk away from the table and gun as hard as they could to pierce the corporate veil?

Fear and uncertainty have always been GW's weapons...always. How reasonable is it to think that they suddenly stopped using them?

But why would CH have folded under the day before GWs bluff was going to be called? Maybe the overall field of play suggests strength in GW's court, but the timing certainly suggests that it was GW that blinked first.

Of course, we probably won't find out for certain, but the Asset Freeze, motion of discovery, et. al. were probably going to end up gone, because GW couldn't legitimately back them up, right? Whereas prior to this settlement, Nick was already dealing with the asset freeze- unless the deadline the Judge gave to GW somehow coincidentally fell on the day Nick's house would be foreclosed (or whatever) and GW was all 'papa nurgle-y' and included paying off his house in the settlement or something, I don't see how a single extra day would have been at all negative for CH- in fact, it seems as though waiting that extra day would have instead been a positive for CH- giving him back his assets- and a negative for GW- their last tactic failing. Unless you're saying that the Asset Freeze, or the procedures surrounding it, somehow were going to come out in GW's favour- in which case, why did GW wait for so long to comply with the court order? Why wait for the deadline?

Anvildude wrote:
why did GW wait for so long to comply with the court order? Why wait for the deadline?

Could that be because they have time to waste and money to burn and Nick had neither? Wringing him out over time only weakens him, he's the one that has to take it home at night and lie there thinking about it, they clock off and get on with their lives. That undeniably gives them an edge even if it's wrapped up in cotton wool.

It also seemed like there was a lot of writing on the wall that the judge was getting pretty tired of GW, so wouldn't that be suggestive of GW sweetening the deal?

Anvildude wrote:
But why would CH have folded under the day before GWs bluff was going to be called? Maybe the overall field of play suggests strength in GW's court, but the timing certainly suggests that it was GW that blinked first.

You guys do not understand litigation, do you?

That a plaintiff would ever offer to pay the defendant to get out of a case is incredibly unlikely in any circumstance, regardless of whether or not it would make good sense to do so. Human behavior is often irrational, and litigation tends to make people angry and irrational, especially when one or both parties take it so personally as the parties in this case did.

Nothing changed about who was involved in the case on GW's end. No change of lawyers, no change in management.

We know that GW did just about absolutely the most aggressive thing it could have possibly done given the circumstances. Do you think GW would have telegraphed that it was scared of losing by suddenly shifting its tactics of persuasion?

I certainly don't think so. But if it makes you feel better to think that GW got scared, blinked, and gave Nick a nice, fat check with five zeros on it, go right ahead.

Like I said, GW may have put an abysmal offer on the table and then thrown a proverbial bone in at the last minute. That sort of behavior would also fit. But I don't think that is what happened.

GW likes to double down. We all know that. Jonathan Moskin likes to say the same idiotic thing over and over again, seemingly getting more and more upset about it until you start believing that it just might be true. That's his MO. That's his entire litigation strategy. So when he takes the position that he is going to make you homeless, he aint backing down from that. He's going to act like the result is simply a foregone conclusion and that the only way to get out of it is to stop the process from going forward.

GW blinked alright. GW blinked when it filed its citation to discover assets. It was a desperate gamble, and that's why GW waited until the very last opportunity to do it. Apparently Nick thought that it wasn't worth the risk to call GW's bluff. That's his call, but a lot of work went into getting him to that point.

And I really do mean a lot of work. The amount of time, effort, and money that was thrown into the GW v Chaperhouse Studios case is staggering. Now, it was all ultimately for the best interests of Chapterhouse Studios, and Nick Villacci is the one who makes the final call about what is in his/the company's best interests. That's the way the cookie crumbles...

But at the end of the day, Nick's decision has impacted the entire market. We'll never get to see the appeal. Judge Kennelly's crazy rulings will stand untested. Go open one of your TTG books. Flip to the middle and pick out the smallest piece of artwork on the page. According to Judge Kennelly, you just found a valid trademark in use in commerce. Because of Nick's decision, we'll never get to see what the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has to say about decisions like that.

His pro bono counsel may have advised him to settle. They may have felt they got what they needed from the settlement. You say the offer "may" have been abyssmal, or they "may" have thrown him a bone, but it's just a guess like everyone else's. GW's annual report indicated they did not think the litigation was worth continuing, so they could very possibly have made a good offer to get out of it. They did not want to be stuck in this case for next year's report.

 RiTides wrote:
His pro bono counsel may have advised him to settle. They may have felt they got what they needed from the settlement. You say the offer "may" have been abyssmal, or they "may" have thrown him a bone, but it's just a guess like everyone else's. GW's annual report indicated they did not think the litigation was worth continuing, so they could very possibly have made a good offer to get out of it. They did not want to be stuck in this case for next year's report.

Counsel does not advise you to settle. Lawyers simply give you information. It is one of the worst, and most understandable, habits of a lawyer.

The client makes the decision. The lawyer only provides the client with information, and lawyers never tell you that there is a guarantee. It is in a lawyer's interest to be conservative and to not over promise.

Put yourself into the shoes of a client.

You are worried about a particular result. It is keeping you up at nights. Your lawyer explains all the ins and outs of the rules, tells you what the options are, and maybe gives you a rough guess as to the odds. Your lawyer makes sure to tell you that it is definitely possible that the undesirable result will happen. That thing keeping you up nights, it could happen. Now, there's X, Y, and Z to do about it. There's A, B, and C things to do to stop it from happening. But it might happen. It might happen for reasons D, E, and F. You know that reason F that you did back when, well that makes the undesirable thing more likely to happen. For future reference, doing thing F is not a good idea.

And by the way, Mr. Opponent also communicated settlement proposal Alpha last night. It includes terms Beta, Gama, and Omega.

If you are nervous already, is that going to make you less nervous? But like I said, that's how lawyers tend to communicate, and there are good reasons for that.

 Casey's Law wrote:

 Casey's Law wrote:
Can we, the community, make any use of the Freedom of Information Act to gather information together. It might be worth doing even if there is nothing new disclosed.

Just in case this gets missed on the last page.

IANAL but FOIA is pretty much geared towards citizens getting info about govt activities.
Since this is a civil matter with a closed outcome, I doubt FOIA would apply.

Hopefully Nick will pop in soon to say whether or not he's going to be back up and running with Chapterhouse.

weeble1000 wrote:
But at the end of the day, Nick's decision has impacted the entire market. We'll never get to see the appeal. Judge Kennelly's crazy rulings will stand untested. Go open one of your TTG books. Flip to the middle and pick out the smallest piece of artwork on the page. According to Judge Kennelly, you just found a valid trademark in use in commerce. Because of Nick's decision, we'll never get to see what the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has to say about decisions like that.

How likely is it GW will go after another bits maker, since they did way there were several they had been keeping an eye on? Would the lack of appeal make it easier or more difficult for GW to "win" on the claims that were thrown out with the appeal?

 mechanicalhorizon wrote:
How likely is it GW will go after another bits maker, since they did way there were several they had been keeping an eye on? Would the lack of appeal make it easier or more difficult for GW to "win" on the claims that were thrown out with the appeal?

GW is crazy and irrational. Predicting GW's behavior is nearly an exercise in futility.

That said, Tom Kirby made a blanket characterization that litigation involves far too much cost for far too little gain.

GW's in house counsel, Gill Stevenson, was let go, and she might have been the personality partly driving the new wave of aggressive litigation.

The GW v CHS case was, if anything, severely emotionally damaging to the folks at GW HQ. GW now better understands the high risk of litigation.

The various bits companies are generally better prepared now than they were previously, and GW knows that too.

GW might want to follow up the conclusion of the CHS litigation by making a new assertion of dominance, but there's always the specter of another 4 years of litigation, another million dollars down the drain, and all in front of a less favorable judge in potentially a less favorable venue with less favorable facts.

GW is also partially wedded to some of the statements it made in the CHS litigation, and any potential defendant has a great deal of expensive work already done for them. If GW sues a company in the UK, for example, it costs virtually nothing to trot out Professor Bently's expert report, and Hell, you could give him a call too. Now GW is back to fighting whether its products are toys or artwork.

In sum, it is much less attractive for GW to litigate further, the stakes are naturally higher, and the risks are demonstrably greater. That doesn't mean GW won't do it though.

But GW should always remember this. It was no accident that Chapterhouse Studios got representation from three powerful law firms. It was no lightning strike, and it would be foolish for GW to believe that it can't happen twice.

 Casey's Law wrote:


We could all get one and descend on our local stores.

If ChapterHouse resumes buissiness they should pack one of these free in each order of $50 or more

weeble1000 wrote:

 mechanicalhorizon wrote:
How likely is it GW will go after another bits maker, since they did way there were several they had been keeping an eye on? Would the lack of appeal make it easier or more difficult for GW to "win" on the claims that were thrown out with the appeal?

GW is crazy and irrational. Predicting GW's behavior is nearly an exercise in futility.

That said, Tom Kirby made a blanket characterization that litigation involves far too much cost for far too little gain.

GW's in house counsel, Gill Stevenson, was let go, and she might have been the personality partly driving the new wave of aggressive litigation.

The GW v CHS case was, if anything, severely emotionally damaging to the folks at GW HQ. GW now better understands the high risk of litigation.

The various bits companies are generally better prepared now than they were previously, and GW knows that too.

GW might want to follow up the conclusion of the CHS litigation by making a new assertion of dominance, but there's always the specter of another 4 years of litigation, another million dollars down the drain, and all in front of a less favorable judge in potentially a less favorable venue with less favorable facts.

GW is also partially wedded to some of the statements it made in the CHS litigation, and any potential defendant has a great deal of expensive work already done for them. If GW sues a company in the UK, for example, it costs virtually nothing to trot out Professor Bently's expert report, and Hell, you could give him a call too. Now GW is back to fighting whether its products are toys or artwork.

In sum, it is much less attractive for GW to litigate further, the stakes are naturally higher, and the risks are demonstrably greater. That doesn't mean GW won't do it though.

But GW should always remember this. It was no accident that Chapterhouse Studios got representation from three powerful law firms. It was no lightning strike, and it would be foolish for GW to believe that it can't happen twice.

At the same time, GW has been making a specific effort to rebrand what they sell from gaming pieces to collector's pieces. That may well be indicating that the next go around they want to try thing out in the UK as opposed to out in the colonies. That alone is enough to make me suspicious of where they might go next. It is a very target rich environment for them - and if CHS made them as upset as they did...I can only imagine how twisted up they must be about any of a dozen companies in their own backyard.

While it might have been Gill who was the one who spear headed these cases - I would also remind that GW hires for attitude, not ability. No doubt, they hired her for her attitude regarding fear mongering and other tactics. Her actual depositions always struck me as her not really having much of a clue when it came to...well, much of anything in regards to this case. I would guess that when CHS didn't turn off the lights and go away, she was clueless as to what to do next.

Personally - now that this has ended as it has, I would like to see someone (anyone...takes almost no effort) in the UK to go ahead and apply for a "License of Rights" on GW's figures. Force their hand now before they have a chance to regroup. If they end up trying to ignore/deny - you go into pretty straight forward mediation with a lackey from the IPO. All you need to do is find a figure that was created between 5 and 9 years ago. Since GW doesn't register the designs - they have an unregistered design right of 10 years. In the last 5 years of that term though, they must agree to license the design (for a reasonable fee) to anyone who wants to make and sell copies of the design.

They say no. IPO says they have to. Precedent for them being designs not art is set. Everything in GW's catalog opens up to anyone who wants to make them (or parts to go with them, or pretty much anything else...).* No expensive court cases, no long drawn out discovery and deposition periods. Simple, simple.


* And by everything, I do really mean almost everything. Anything that is older than 10 years. Anything that is based on a design that is older than 10 years. Anything that is based on a design that is older than 15 years that never went to market (so all of those Jes Goodwin/Blanche sketches and other concepts that have been languishing for decades). Titans, tanks and everything from the Specialist Games.

@Sean_OBeien
If it's that simple, why don't you try it? Have to be a UK citizen?

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I have suspicions that there's been some real egg on face for the 'legal sledgehammer' brigade inside GW. I'm hopeful we'll see a shift in behavior following this long and expensive PR disaster, especially with a new CEO. This is sort of a monument to the folly of focusing on legal aggression and ignoring the game and business.

I keep hoping against hope they'll shift tack and get around to tight rules, putting a halt on prices and bringing us back, at least, to the early days of 5th. Less 'Wayland Yutani' and more 'GAMES' workshop...

If you really do make the best model soldiers in the world, you've nothing to worry about and should have realized if these little 'cottage industries' are cropping up around your business, it's because your business had become large enough to sustain them, that's not someone 'stealing' from your plate, that's an indicator your business is doing well and you should have ignored it or looked into licensing...

The really silly thing is any sales diverted to CH, must pale in comparison to those redirected to pirate recasters.

So GW hit a company that was actually sculpting and making new models, and ignored the pirates.

Not sure what they could do to pirates based in China & Russia, but it does make this look even more pointless.

 Sinful Hero wrote:
@Sean_OBeien
If it's that simple, why don't you try it? Have to be a UK citizen?

Yep. Or own a business based in the UK. I have actually already looked into doing it myself and actually gotten to the point of requesting mediation. They wouldn't let me pass go though.

privateer4hire wrote:

 Casey's Law wrote:

 Casey's Law wrote:
Can we, the community, make any use of the Freedom of Information Act to gather information together. It might be worth doing even if there is nothing new disclosed.

Just in case this gets missed on the last page.

IANAL but FOIA is pretty much geared towards citizens getting info about govt activities.
Since this is a civil matter with a closed outcome, I doubt FOIA would apply.

FOIA has nothing to do with civil litigation, only government records. There's nothing here to FOIA.

Not a lawyer, but have had to deal with FOIA requests in the past...

Valete,

JohnS

privateer4hire wrote:

 Casey's Law wrote:
Can we, the community, make any use of the Freedom of Information Act to gather information together. It might be worth doing even if there is nothing new disclosed.

IANAL but FOIA is pretty much geared towards citizens getting info about govt activities.
Since this is a civil matter with a closed outcome, I doubt FOIA would apply.

I am by no means versed in law or government systems but surely the information on this case has been recorded in public records? Not everything but at least a simple sequence of events. Maybe someone knows otherwise.

Any of these bodies possibly hold records?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bet me to it. Thanks.

weeble1000 wrote:

You guys do not understand litigation, do you?

That a plaintiff would ever offer to pay the defendant to get out of a case is incredibly unlikely in any circumstance, regardless of whether or not it would make good sense to do so. Human behavior is often irrational, and litigation tends to make people angry and irrational, especially when one or both parties take it so personally as the parties in this case did.

Nothing changed about who was involved in the case on GW's end. No change of lawyers, no change in management.

We know that GW did just about absolutely the most aggressive thing it could have possibly done given the circumstances. Do you think GW would have telegraphed that it was scared of losing by suddenly shifting its tactics of persuasion?

I certainly don't think so. But if it makes you feel better to think that GW got scared, blinked, and gave Nick a nice, fat check with five zeros on it, go right ahead.

Um, Weeble, actually they removed the counsel that got them into this. For 'reasons unspecified'. Remember?

Also, just a few pages ago, the judge stating that unless GW gave a damn good reason for the freeze, he was unfreezing it.

I do think GW did blink and made some sort of compromise offer. What that offer was, i have no idea. I don't think Nick threw up his hands and quit with at best a few days to go before his assets were unfrozen, since we all know GW's game there was every bit as flimsy as their IP claims.

Surely the point of settling out of court is that it doesn't have to go through the court and be recorded? FOI doesn't apply to private bodies making agreements with each other. I think a private body only has to abide by a FOI if it's on matter involved with a public body or funding.

Maybe weeble1000 can clarify but I though the existence of a settlement was public record even if the terms are not.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

You guys do not understand litigation, do you?

That a plaintiff would ever offer to pay the defendant to get out of a case is incredibly unlikely in any circumstance, regardless of whether or not it would make good sense to do so. Human behavior is often irrational, and litigation tends to make people angry and irrational, especially when one or both parties take it so personally as the parties in this case did.

Nothing changed about who was involved in the case on GW's end. No change of lawyers, no change in management.

We know that GW did just about absolutely the most aggressive thing it could have possibly done given the circumstances. Do you think GW would have telegraphed that it was scared of losing by suddenly shifting its tactics of persuasion?

I certainly don't think so. But if it makes you feel better to think that GW got scared, blinked, and gave Nick a nice, fat check with five zeros on it, go right ahead.

Um, Weeble, actually they removed the counsel that got them into this. For 'reasons unspecified'. Remember?

Also, just a few pages ago, the judge stating that unless GW gave a damn good reason for the freeze, he was unfreezing it.

I do think GW did blink and made some sort of compromise offer. What that offer was, i have no idea. I don't think Nick threw up his hands and quit with at best a few days to go before his assets were unfrozen, since we all know GW's game there was every bit as flimsy as their IP claims.

Changing in house counsel is not the same as changing outside counsel. And GW simply removed Gill without hiring someone else. Also, you are referring to an implication drawn from the way in which I framed the Court's minute entry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Breotan wrote:
Maybe weeble1000 can clarify but I though the existence of a settlement was public record even if the terms are not.

Yes and no. Mostly a settlement can be inferred from a joint motion to dismiss a case. Sometimes such a motion will mention that the parties were able to reach a settlement, other times it won't. Sometimes various aspects of settlement negotiations will appear in publicly available court filings. For example, the fact that Jonathan Moskin was personally sanctioned for a material misrepresentation made during settlement negotiations in the E & J Gall v Cantine Rallo case is in a publicly available document.

Most of the time settlement negotiations and the specifics of settlement deals are not a matter of public record. There are times, however, when the exigencies of various circumstances can give the public a glimpse behind the curtain, so to speak.

Next windmill for GW, suing the entire country of China for recasting.

 agnosto wrote:
Next windmill for GW, suing the entire country of China for recasting.

Lol, GW aside, if companies in general keep pushing this IP scam, i really see casting and data banks in general moving to China and good luck trying to push this BS ever again.

GW does pursue recasters by going after their websites, when they can. It won't acutally stop the recaster, but it diminishes their ability to reach customers, and demolishes whatever street cred they had built as a recognizable name.

GW shut down LowPriceWarhammer and CoolCastOrNot by contacting/threatening their web hosting providers.

 adamsouza wrote:
GW does pursue recasters by going after their websites, when they can. It won't acutally stop the recaster, but it diminishes their ability to reach customers, and demolishes whatever street cred they had built as a recognizable name.

GW shut down LowPriceWarhammer and CoolCastOrNot by contacting/threatening their web hosting providers.

and bazilion more apeared on aliexpress 2 weeks later.

xxvaderxx wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
GW does pursue recasters by going after their websites, when they can. It won't acutally stop the recaster, but it diminishes their ability to reach customers, and demolishes whatever street cred they had built as a recognizable name.

GW shut down LowPriceWarhammer and CoolCastOrNot by contacting/threatening their web hosting providers.

and bazilion more apeared on aliexpress 2 weeks later.

Yeah, I'd love to see GW sue Alliexpress.

Let's not discuss (at least active) recasters by name here lest we unintentionally send business their way, as this is against Dakka's rules... thanks.

Yaaaaaaay! I found weeble again! I've been sorely lacking in my CH v. GW weeble fix. After everything got shut down over at WS, I didn't think to check here... and lo, there is quite the discussion. I clearly am out of the loop with some of the details, and don't have the time to catch up reading just yet... so sorry if I come off as ignorant...

All I can say is WOW... HOLY gak! First, strong arm tactics by GW would likely have ultimately failed, but the settlement? Why? At that point? What the Hell?

I would have LOVED to be a fly on the wall to see what was up, because you know as well as I this was certainly NO WIN for GW... at all. No matter what anyone thinks or says... This was a Pyrrhic victory at best. the judgment really was paltry, given all of what GW was claiming, and they could have clearly come out even worse after the appeals process, given that there seemed to be a lot of procedural errors IIRC...

But, as you have so clearly articulated, this was damaging on so many levels to GW. I've seen a lot of civil cases, where wheeling and dealing is the cornerstone of what is going on. But, IDK... to jointly settle in this case... You clearly know the players better but...why fold? It makes me wonder if GW really wanted this to go away ASAP and preserve as much as they could. I really think the appeals process could/would have gone poorly for them.

But, its still bs. esp. for the people involved. I'd be pissed. Anything from the firms/people working with him? They upset or on board with this? Do you think the firms that represented him get what they wanted/anything from him settling?

Oh, and Hi everyone (waves). Apparently this is my first post here. I could have sworn I've posted before... Long time Warseer member, there when it was called "portent"... new to Dakka.

I do agree that further litigation, in general, will be a loosing battle for GW.

I think your post (even the question parts) sums up a lot of our feelings here well! I think we'll never know the answer to some of them, but hopefully a trajectory has been altered here.

And welcome to Dakka

 adamsouza wrote:
GW shut down ... CoolCastOrNot by contacting/threatening their web hosting providers.

Hehehehe.

Sure they did...

I hope Nick can pop in and shed some light on the matter or could the settlement cause that he may not talk about any of it?

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
I hope Nick can pop in and shed some light on the matter or could the settlement cause that he may not talk about any of it?

Nick, set up a personal Dakka account.

Post once for: its all groovy baby and twice for: Its great news!

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
At the same time, GW has been making a specific effort to rebrand what they sell from gaming pieces to collector's pieces. That may well be indicating that the next go around they want to try thing out in the UK as opposed to out in the colonies. That alone is enough to make me suspicious of where they might go next. It is a very target rich environment for them - and if CHS made them as upset as they did...I can only imagine how twisted up they must be about any of a dozen companies in their own backyard.

I hope they have a much higher bar to clear on home soil with that regarding copyright/design rights. I think it'll take some amount of logical gymnastics and weasling to get anyone to accept that they are art/collectors pieces when they have rules and points values for a game, whatever they are branded as. If they were to produce busts or pieces that can't be used in a game it'd be a different matter though.

Is Nick the person that has posted under the 'Chapterhouse' profile name in this thread a few times?

The thread covering this on Warseer got shut down? Haha, "this is a forum, BUT, you're not allowed to talk about anything!" Jesus wept...

For my part this whole episode has been a waste of time and effort. There are a few bright points though, Allan Merrits star within GW has dimmed substantially, and the company should now actually have a better grasp of how to protect its IP and prevent episodes like this in the future.

Alternative part makers are still as safe as they ever were, assuming they play it smart and don't try to claim parts of someone elses IP, as they have done for decades before this. I did bring this up at the beginning of this sorry episode, being smarter could have saved CHS all this unwanted hassle. Despite some users bravado, nobody would want their home threatened and I could think of little else worse in this scenario.

On balance, GW legal did need a shake up and some of the directors needed a bloody nose to wake them up to the fact that their assumption of the law was wrong, it's just a pity it has cost so much to do it.

If we weren't interested in plastic crack from GW then most would not be bothered with this, but we are. We need GW to be strong, not a bully but strong so that people who would not necessary be into gaming as a whole get an insight. What other gaming systems out there provides a large stream of potential customers to the niche games we now know and play?

For me personally, I feel that with this case we have all lost a bit. GW being cast, yet again, as the bully because of a legal system that demands action be taken or you loose your rights. The assumption of invulnerability of a small retailer hiding behind a foreign (to main GW) legal system. I understand wholeheartedly that all multinationals have to do this, before anyone starts.

The upshot is that the other parts makers are still being smart and are making themselves an impossible target by marketing themselves reasonably. Every one knows what they are doing, but accepts it because they are not challenging in the manner that CHS did.

You can bet that GW legal is tightening its grip on the IP so this doesn't happen again, and you can bet your bottom dollar that this case has had a big hand in shaping the changes to the release system we currently have. Gone are the days where there are gaps in a codex for modellers to create there own while getting excited over what the official release is going to be like. I miss that, even though it didn't always deliver.

weeble1000 wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
His pro bono counsel may have advised him to settle. They may have felt they got what they needed from the settlement. You say the offer "may" have been abyssmal, or they "may" have thrown him a bone, but it's just a guess like everyone else's. GW's annual report indicated they did not think the litigation was worth continuing, so they could very possibly have made a good offer to get out of it. They did not want to be stuck in this case for next year's report.

Counsel does not advise you to settle. Lawyers simply give you information. It is one of the worst, and most understandable, habits of a lawyer.

The client makes the decision. The lawyer only provides the client with information, and lawyers never tell you that there is a guarantee. It is in a lawyer's interest to be conservative and to not over promise.

Just to clarify, Counsel advises clients on if/when they should settle all the time. It's actually one of the biggest decisions most parties to a claim have, as nearly all cases settle at some point.

The rule is that Lawyers, who are normally allowed to make a lot of binding decisions on behalf of the claimant such as trial strategy, venue, etc., cannot accept or reject a settlement offer. All such offers have to be taken to the client, who has the final say.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
I hope Nick can pop in and shed some light on the matter or could the settlement cause that he may not talk about any of it?

Do not expect Nick to weigh in on this. Settlement NDAs are very common, and usually are bargained for by the parties.

I haven't followed this too closely, but it seems there are a few things that could be swapped in a settlement. You have the $25,000 penalty, you have CHS as an ongoing concern, and you have the legal precedents against GW. In terms of "leverage," while GW was getting quite aggressive in their attempts to reach Nick's personal assets, they were also bleeding money in legal fees for, at most, a mixed bag of results.

My gut is telling me that the biggest piece of info going forward is if CHS resumes operations. If they stay dark, I would bet that Nick walked away with something, as he could point to huge swathes of his product range that he can legally produce and sell in order to come up with the cash. You can fight and delay anything, and $25k is a lot of money, but it's not so much that you'd pull the plug on a reasonably successful ongoing concern over.

In short, my completely blind, shot in the dark guess is that GW did what they should have done at the beginning: bought him out. Now, admittedly, they got him into a position where he was more amenable to sell, but it's still a pretty mild "win" for GW.

 Polonius wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
His pro bono counsel may have advised him to settle. They may have felt they got what they needed from the settlement. You say the offer "may" have been abyssmal, or they "may" have thrown him a bone, but it's just a guess like everyone else's. GW's annual report indicated they did not think the litigation was worth continuing, so they could very possibly have made a good offer to get out of it. They did not want to be stuck in this case for next year's report.

Counsel does not advise you to settle. Lawyers simply give you information. It is one of the worst, and most understandable, habits of a lawyer.

The client makes the decision. The lawyer only provides the client with information, and lawyers never tell you that there is a guarantee. It is in a lawyer's interest to be conservative and to not over promise.

Just to clarify, Counsel advises clients on if/when they should settle all the time. It's actually one of the biggest decisions most parties to a claim have, as nearly all cases settle at some point.

The rule is that Lawyers, who are normally allowed to make a lot of binding decisions on behalf of the claimant such as trial strategy, venue, etc., cannot accept or reject a settlement offer. All such offers have to be taken to the client, who has the final say.

Not to be excessively contrary, but that is not my experience Polonius. I think that our difference of opinion comes down to a definition of "advise."

I have never heard a lawyer say, "you should accept this settlement offer." I have heard lawyers characterize a settlement offer as fair, or reasonable, or explain that a deal is the best that they can work out given the circumstances. I have seen lawyers characterize settlement offers as unreasonable. I have heard lawyers estimate what the fair settlement value for a case probably is.

I have never heard a lawyer advise a client to accept or reject a settlement offer. Now, I work in civil litigation. My pro-bono experience in criminal litigation has suggested that such advisory behavior is more common in criminal cases, but my limited experience with it is related to public defenders railroading defendants into plea deals. I don't think that's a fair characterization of either public defenders in general or the behavior of lawyers writ large.

I'm not saying that lawyers don't give advice. All I am saying is that when lawyers give advice, they tend, in my experience, to provide information that assists a client in making a decision as opposed to recommending a specific course of action, and this behavior is most pronounced with respect to settlement offers. This has often led, again in my experience, to a discernible gulf between what a lawyer says and how a client interprets what the lawyer said. The less sophisticated/experienced the client, the more pronounced the gulf.

I totally expect Nick to be silent now and for us not to hear any more. Not just because of an NDA but because I would imagine he is heartily sick of GW and the horse it rode in on.

I am amazed he kept CHS going and trading as long as he did. I certainly would have folded and sought employment doing something, anything that didn't take me within a 100 miles of GW or anything that stank of it. I know that's not easy with a family to support, I've been there, stuck in a job I hated and made me ill and brought on depression, simply because I had bills to pay. It is a horrible place to be. But, ultimately, now the case is settled he has every incentive to do anything he can to get the putrid stench of GW out of his nose. I imagine that would involve doing something that did not involve. toy soldiers in any way, shape or form.

I for one wish Nick all the best whatever he decides. Sure it sucks we don't know the details, and sure he (may have) let down some folks who batted hard on his side and it is a pity he couldn't have held out for 3 more days, but ultimately I suspect he did what he had to do to survive.

In the end I have nothing but sympathy for the man. He went a whole country mile further than any other small business has done in facing off GW, and it has poisoned his dream, and given him an unbearable level of grief and aggro

 Captain Jack wrote:
For my part this whole episode has been a waste of time and effort. There are a few bright points though, Allan Merrits star within GW has dimmed substantially, and the company should now actually have a better grasp of how to protect its IP and prevent episodes like this in the future.

Alternative part makers are still as safe as they ever were, assuming they play it smart and don't try to claim parts of someone elses IP, as they have done for decades before this. I did bring this up at the beginning of this sorry episode, being smarter could have saved CHS all this unwanted hassle. Despite some users bravado, nobody would want their home threatened and I could think of little else worse in this scenario.

On balance, GW legal did need a shake up and some of the directors needed a bloody nose to wake them up to the fact that their assumption of the law was wrong, it's just a pity it has cost so much to do it.

If we weren't interested in plastic crack from GW then most would not be bothered with this, but we are. We need GW to be strong, not a bully but strong so that people who would not necessary be into gaming as a whole get an insight. What other gaming systems out there provides a large stream of potential customers to the niche games we now know and play?

For me personally, I feel that with this case we have all lost a bit. GW being cast, yet again, as the bully because of a legal system that demands action be taken or you loose your rights. The assumption of invulnerability of a small retailer hiding behind a foreign (to main GW) legal system. I understand wholeheartedly that all multinationals have to do this, before anyone starts.

The upshot is that the other parts makers are still being smart and are making themselves an impossible target by marketing themselves reasonably. Every one knows what they are doing, but accepts it because they are not challenging in the manner that CHS did.

You can bet that GW legal is tightening its grip on the IP so this doesn't happen again, and you can bet your bottom dollar that this case has had a big hand in shaping the changes to the release system we currently have. Gone are the days where there are gaps in a codex for modellers to create there own while getting excited over what the official release is going to be like. I miss that, even though it didn't always deliver.

There is nothing unreasonable with informing customers of the fact that the parts you are making will fit on GW models.

Imagine trying to buy an alternative car part if none of the manufacturers could say what model of car they would fit on. Sound fun?

 Osbad wrote:
I totally expect Nick to be silent now and for us not to hear any more. Not just because of an NDA but because I would imagine he is heartily sick of GW and the horse it rode in on.

I am amazed he kept CHS going and trading as long as he did. I certainly would have folded and sought employment doing something, anything that didn't take me within a 100 miles of GW or anything that stank of it. I know that's not easy with a family to support, I've been there, stuck in a job I hated and made me ill and brought on depression, simply because I had bills to pay. It is a horrible place to be. But, ultimately, now the case is settled he has every incentive to do anything he can to get the putrid stench of GW out of his nose. I imagine that would involve doing something that did not involve. toy soldiers in any way, shape or form.

That's exactly how I feel. After all of this I'm not sure how he can look at an over-sized shoulder pad without feeling physically sick, he has certainly had a lot more fortitude than I could have had in this situation.

Please forgive my total ignorance of the law, but here's a question for people: Why didn't the community rally round and give the CHS guy some cash to see him through the tough times until the appeal was over?

Ok, I'm not familiar with asset freezes, so I don't know if it applied to the business or the individual (or both) but couldn't people have posted money through his letterbox, or gave him food, or started a kickstarter or whatever?

And another thing, If the guy has been battling this for 4 years, then 3 days won't make a difference. Something must have happened behind the scenes...

 agnosto wrote:

xxvaderxx wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
GW does pursue recasters by going after their websites, when they can. It won't acutally stop the recaster, but it diminishes their ability to reach customers, and demolishes whatever street cred they had built as a recognizable name.

GW shut down [REDACTED FOR MOD ] and [REDACTED FOR MOD ] by contacting/threatening their web hosting providers.

and bazilion more apeared on [REDACTED FOR MOD ] 2 weeks later.

Yeah, I'd love to see GW sue [REDACTED FOR MOD ].

What is funny is that while GW goes after small studios like Chapterhouse - which really do not take away any finances from GW, they rarely go after recasters. Yes they go after the small sites, but larger sites, not going to name names, are still up and running. What is even more saddening is that while GW pushes harsher against small businesses like this, and strong arm others, and then continue to essentially raise the price, more and more people I know are going to trusted recasters.

Now is that right - meh I do not know. Will I lie and say I haven't bought from recasters - no - but I kind of feel somewhat bad. On one hand, I love to support businesses and small local hobby stores by buying local or by buying from source (AKA Dropzone Commander from Hawk Wargames) because I agree with their system of business or their product - but the more GW acts this way the more I say "feth it" and just purchase it from somewhere else where it is.... cheaper.

I don't know though, its a grey line. What is funny is that I have heard the arguments saying "well if you purchase from others then duh their going to raise the price..." where as my counterargument is if they promoted better business practices and better community I wouldn't care what the price was in the first place.

Bah but again.... I don't know. New world we gamers live in - its not like the 80's or 90's anymore - god I feel old.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Please forgive my total ignorance of the law, but here's a question for people: Why didn't the community rally round and give the CHS guy some cash to see him through the tough times until the appeal was over?

Ok, I'm not familiar with asset freezes, so I don't know if it applied to the business or the individual (or both) but couldn't people have posted money through his letterbox, or gave him food, or started a kickstarter or whatever?

I think the asset freeze made that pretty much impossible, as even handing him food would need to be declared. He also had no way of paying any bills even if he had cash.

And another thing, If the guy has been battling this for 4 years, then 3 days won't make a difference. Something must have happened behind the scenes...

He was allowed to trade until recently, when the asset freeze left him stuck. 3 days might have been the difference between paying the mortgage final reminder or not.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Captain Jack wrote:
For my part this whole episode has been a waste of time and effort. There are a few bright points though, Allan Merrits star within GW has dimmed substantially, and the company should now actually have a better grasp of how to protect its IP and prevent episodes like this in the future.

Alternative part makers are still as safe as they ever were, assuming they play it smart and don't try to claim parts of someone elses IP, as they have done for decades before this. I did bring this up at the beginning of this sorry episode, being smarter could have saved CHS all this unwanted hassle. Despite some users bravado, nobody would want their home threatened and I could think of little else worse in this scenario.

On balance, GW legal did need a shake up and some of the directors needed a bloody nose to wake them up to the fact that their assumption of the law was wrong, it's just a pity it has cost so much to do it.

If we weren't interested in plastic crack from GW then most would not be bothered with this, but we are. We need GW to be strong, not a bully but strong so that people who would not necessary be into gaming as a whole get an insight. What other gaming systems out there provides a large stream of potential customers to the niche games we now know and play?

For me personally, I feel that with this case we have all lost a bit. GW being cast, yet again, as the bully because of a legal system that demands action be taken or you loose your rights. The assumption of invulnerability of a small retailer hiding behind a foreign (to main GW) legal system. I understand wholeheartedly that all multinationals have to do this, before anyone starts.

The upshot is that the other parts makers are still being smart and are making themselves an impossible target by marketing themselves reasonably. Every one knows what they are doing, but accepts it because they are not challenging in the manner that CHS did.

You can bet that GW legal is tightening its grip on the IP so this doesn't happen again, and you can bet your bottom dollar that this case has had a big hand in shaping the changes to the release system we currently have. Gone are the days where there are gaps in a codex for modellers to create there own while getting excited over what the official release is going to be like. I miss that, even though it didn't always deliver.

There is nothing unreasonable with informing customers of the fact that the parts you are making will fit on GW models.

Imagine trying to buy an alternative car part if none of the manufacturers could say what model of car they would fit on. Sound fun?

You missed my point. The reasonable bits makers, those that use their own naming and nudge nudge wink wink the community are fine. Use the official name before that kit comes and the brown is going to hit the fan.

I'm all for alternative parts makers, as long as they play the game smart.