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Cursed Earth? Been reprinted many, many times. With the exclusion of a single episode which basically involved Col Sanders.

With regard to Damnatus, if memory serves the issue was indeed German IP Laws. I’m far from expert, but my understanding was that if it was released, the creator would get more than just the IP for their work, and couldn’t even sign it over to GW?

Certainly something in that ballpark, if the chatter at the time was to be believed.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

With regard to Damnatus, if memory serves the issue was indeed German IP Laws. I’m far from expert, but my understanding was that if it was released, the creator would get more than just the IP for their work, and couldn’t even sign it over to GW?

German/Austrian IP Law is very creator friendly, if you create something, you own the IP
you cannot sell or give it away, you can only license it (yet it is restricted to this work alone)

Germans creating a 40k movie, the Copyright of that movie belongs to the creators, no matter if it is released or not
GW gave them the allowance to make a movie and could take it away anytime,

so without GW they were not allowed to show it in public, and the Damnatus Crew could demand money from GW if they wanted to use it

they never had the idea of making any money or wanted something from GW, they would handed the stuff over to them free to use
but GW panicked as the realised that German IP Law is different and they would never own the IP and shutted down anything fan made they could find in Germany

 kodos wrote:


the one movie that was made by German Fans and advertised in White Dwarf, and than banned/forbidden to released as GW read the German Copyright Laws right before it should be released

this was also the time when GW removed any community based content from their website, closed all fan-zines and wanted people to add "copyright by GW" to all pictures of painted models because they did not knew that stuff made somewhere else does not follow UK Copyright and they have no control over it

...and not to forget that 14 year old boy using unofficial models at a GW store.

It seems to me the GW are pretty jerk about their works. I don't want to know what would be happened if I would have created the faction of the Men of Iron using the Battletech models, like I was thinking to do.

The_Grim_Angel wrote:
It seems to me the GW are pretty jerk about their works. I don't want to know what would be happened if I would have created the faction of the Men of Iron using the Battletech models, like I was thinking to do.

For your own use? Nothing.

To try to sell? All of the companies involved would be completely in their rights to come down on you like a hammer.

There isn't anything odd about someone defending and maintaining control of their IP.

 Matt Swain wrote:
I'll say that i finally watched cruise's "the mummy" remake and was pleasantly surprised.

That's a great shout. I put it on not expecting much and when it had finished I had enjoyed it more than a good portion of the Marvel movies. I still don't understand the scathing reviews. But then, Edge of Tomorrow initially got horrid reviews and I liked that a great deal.

A lot of it comes from Cruise being much better at playing contemptible gits than heroic heroes. Collateral, War of the Worlds, Mummy, Edge of Tomorrow - he plays the role of someone you wouldn't personally like very well.

Voss wrote:

The_Grim_Angel wrote:
It seems to me the GW are pretty jerk about their works. I don't want to know what would be happened if I would have created the faction of the Men of Iron using the Battletech models, like I was thinking to do.

For your own use? Nothing.

To try to sell? All of the companies involved would be completely in their rights to come down on you like a hammer.

There isn't anything odd about someone defending and maintaining control of their IP.

Are you suggesting to sell models that are already on the market?
No, I was thinking what it would happens in that time, if I had used the Battletech models to create the codex of the Men of Iron (for my own use) and then I have reported my battles on the forums, like others do and/or if I created a fanfiction about that faction.

Voss wrote:

The_Grim_Angel wrote:
It seems to me the GW are pretty jerk about their works. I don't want to know what would be happened if I would have created the faction of the Men of Iron using the Battletech models, like I was thinking to do.

For your own use? Nothing.

To try to sell? All of the companies involved would be completely in their rights to come down on you like a hammer.

There isn't anything odd about someone defending and maintaining control of their IP.

This is very true, but a lot depends on what kind of impact a company can create on its fans by how it chooses to wield that hammer (or warhammer TM in this case I guess)

People forget how *bad* the climate was amongst internet/fan communities around 8-9 years ago, I think reached it's zenith around the Chapterhouse and Finecast release period.

A lot of guys who were small time casting for friends in the community (not even advertised for general sale) got shut down. There were 'informers' (I am not joking here) writing to GW legal directly, from certain forums (not this one, AFAIK) and informing them of what was going on.
I know of at least one forum/site that was effectively ruined because it had banned any negative discussion around finecast for instance, with posts insta-moderated and proclamations (lost of bold type and capital letters as a notice on the front page).
Fun it was not, and the site withered and died soon after that.

The fear of being hit by a 'cease and desist' I think was worse than what GW were actually doing in most cases, but it did mean that a climate of fear pervaded a lot of the community sites. It put everyone's backs up and meant there was a lot of bickering between members.

Thank God, whoever is in charge now, has backed off a bit and calmed down a little. You need to give fan communities a bit of room to breath as long as it's not causing you any financial impact, and GW lost an awful lot of good will during that period.

I have no problem with GW going after recasters, but yes GW did get very out of hand. They even started getting very daft, issuing orders that 3rd party retailers couldn't use GW box art/product shots for sales (I think this one might even have lasted); shutting down fan or news sites and sending them threatening letters for releasing details on leaks and rumours which led to several to outright stop showing any GW content what so ever.

GW Basically went through a very odd phase when most other companies were starting to latch onto the idea of the internet being a really big product sales method and community building system; GW was almost stead fast in its hate/fear of the internet and all it could bring.



Chapterhouse I think started to break GW's back on that front as they realised some/all of their "legal" team weren't as well informed as they thought they were. Though we never really lost the internet fear culture until the CEO changed and some of that underlaying management structure got changed. It's hard to imagine now when GW puts out articles 7 days a week including Christmas; makes youtube videos; heck when they get a leak now they roll with it as marketing (I'm sure heads might roll in the background, but that's internal company rules and policies etc..)


GW's attitude today is far more healthy than it was and whilst there was damage done in the past, they are sort of improving their general attitude.

I agree, there's FAR more for GW to gain by having some flexibility and allowing fan communities to have some freedom; than there is being draconian. I'm sure GW still shuts down recasters if they can, but at the same time they aren't going after media content creators like they used too; nor are they hostile toward the internet.

There’s also the requirement to actively defend your IP.

Now, now zealous you need to be there? I do not know. It may be a sliding scale (for instance, if I create an original piece of 40k art, and sell it on t-shirts etc is different from creating my own models and using a name GW have claimed as a trademark).

Oh, while we're talking about recent original sci fi movies that surprised you with how good they were, I gotta mention Annihilation.

I saw Natalie Portman as the lead initially on a trailer and immediately went 'nope' but when I actually sat down to watch the movie I loved every moment of it. She definitely does not repeat her "I am too cool for this nerd gak" performance from the star wars prequels.

Personally, I have always loved abstract sci-fi that uses the genre to explore emotional themes and the ways that different individuals deal with a given situation, and I've also always loved the setup of a government/military organization just beginning to question whether the situation they're in is totally futile, whether that's in Evangelion, Pacific Rim, Edge of Tomorrow, whatever.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
There’s also the requirement to actively defend your IP.

As far as I understand, not in the way people typically invoke it. Trademarks yes, copyright or patents no.

If GW trademarks 'Astartes' and doesn't aggressively defend it, then it may become genericized if eventually challenged in court. But you can't lose a copyright by not defending it. GW is free to let companies A, B, and C make carbon-copies of their models if they want, then sue company D when they do the same. That's the core of licensing agreements, when it comes down to it.

GW going after the publisher of a children's book over the term 'space marine' was an issue of trademark. You could argue that GW had to do it to protect their IP, but I think the general takeaway was that GW really doesn't have any legitimate basis to trademark 'space marine' in the first place.

GW going after Chapterhouse was an issue of copyright. And there they absolutely chose to enforce copyright, and had no legal 'need' to do so.

I saw Natalie Portman as the lead initially on a trailer and immediately went 'nope' but when I actually sat down to watch the movie I loved every moment of it. She definitely does not repeat her "I am too cool for this nerd gak" performance from the star wars prequels.

To be fair, no one does well in the prequals - She is normally a good actress (and very pretty )

 catbarf wrote:
GW going after Chapterhouse was an issue of copyright. And there they absolutely chose to enforce copyright, and had no legal 'need' to do so.

...and then they find out that what they think they have copyrights on, in the vast majority of cases the US legal system disagreed with them on - off the top of my head, either 2/3 or 3/4 of the overall claims were either dismissed or ruled in CH's favour. Not sure what the split there was between trademark, copyright, etc, though - been far too long sine I've looked into the details.

 Mr Morden wrote:

I saw Natalie Portman as the lead initially on a trailer and immediately went 'nope' but when I actually sat down to watch the movie I loved every moment of it. She definitely does not repeat her "I am too cool for this nerd gak" performance from the star wars prequels.

To be fair, no one does well in the prequals - She is normally a good actress (and very pretty )

Whilst I'm not a fan of Ms P I think she, understandably, stopped even trying after the first prequel being lumped with manakin didn't help ( which was mostly on George rather than Haydn)

I'll add Lego Batman, was expecting a harmless kiddy fodder but it was way smarter and like Bane left me feeling warm and fuzzy

 Mr Morden wrote:

I saw Natalie Portman as the lead initially on a trailer and immediately went 'nope' but when I actually sat down to watch the movie I loved every moment of it. She definitely does not repeat her "I am too cool for this nerd gak" performance from the star wars prequels.

To be fair, no one does well in the prequals - She is normally a good actress (and very pretty )

That is true, the star wars prequels did manage the superhuman feat of making Sam Jackson a boring character.

I think I really appreciated two things about Annihilation. First that it was a story with an incredibly un-rehashed concept (in my opinion, anyway) and second that it was that rare, rare gem of a movie that managed to have a lot of female characters without needing them to be one dimensional #girlpower #strong #brave.

The characters are allowed to be women, and they're allowed to be competent and effective and good at their jobs, and later on they're allowed to crack under the stress of an impossible situation and to deal with that situation in a variety of different ways.

 catbarf wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
There’s also the requirement to actively defend your IP.

As far as I understand, not in the way people typically invoke it. Trademarks yes, copyright or patents no.

GW going after Chapterhouse was an issue of copyright. And there they absolutely chose to enforce copyright, and had no legal 'need' to do so.

In the US (insofar as my MBA education has given my understanding of it), it isn't so much that you must protect trademark/copyright, because that in itself is not enough in the courts. . . In the US, businesses hold all kinds of trademarks/patents/copyrights, the sticking point oftentimes is the phrase "intent to use".

Now, in GW's case, they had clear intent to use the term Space Marine(s), even if that in itself is a generic term. On the flip side, Xerox got hit in the business practices big time because so many people began using the term "xerox" as a catch-all meaning "to use a photo-copier", similar in the way that people are beginning to use the term Google as a verb, regardless of whether that search engine is being used at the time. Because of the issues Xerox faced (due mostly to other companies poor practices), the trend has been for mega companies to be hyper-aggressive in defending their names, to prevent another xerox from happening. But, for it to work, those companies have to show that their [term] is non-generic and that they have intent to use the IP.

In a movie sense, it would be like, if Marvel owned the rights to a character named Lord of Thunder, but had not made any comics, comic appearances, film/tv/streaming appearances, merchandise appearances, etc. for the length of their ownership, and then after 30 years, a studio makes a DC movie with a villain named Lord of Thunder to fight Batman. In all likelihood, Marvel would lose the case because despite a lengthy ownership, the argument would be made that there was no effort to show intent to use the IP.

This is in part why so many record labels often put out 50+ year old songs under a new artist, to prevent that song from becoming part of the public domain.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Now, in GW's case, they had clear intent to use the term Space Marine(s), even if that in itself is a generic term. On the flip side, Xerox got hit in the business practices big time because so many people began using the term "xerox" as a catch-all meaning "to use a photo-copier", similar in the way that people are beginning to use the term Google as a verb, regardless of whether that search engine is being used at the time. Because of the issues Xerox faced (due mostly to other companies poor practices), the trend has been for mega companies to be hyper-aggressive in defending their names, to prevent another xerox from happening. But, for it to work, those companies have to show that their [term] is non-generic and that they have intent to use the IP.

Yep, those are all instances of trademarks. Trademark protection is based on use; if a term can be demonstrated to be generic, then it loses trademark status.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
In a movie sense, it would be like, if Marvel owned the rights to a character named Lord of Thunder, but had not made any comics, comic appearances, film/tv/streaming appearances, merchandise appearances, etc. for the length of their ownership, and then after 30 years, a studio makes a DC movie with a villain named Lord of Thunder to fight Batman. In all likelihood, Marvel would lose the case because despite a lengthy ownership, the argument would be made that there was no effort to show intent to use the IP.

That's a copyright issue, and it's not quite the same. Marvel would lose if the new character was sufficiently distinctive not to be considered a copyright violation despite the identical name (see: Black Sabbath not paying Marvel a dime to use the name 'Iron Man', because the song has no relation to the character), or if the defense can convince the jury that the creator was unaware of the original and thus it constitutes independent creation. If the character was sufficiently similar to the original and/or created with awareness of the original, then DC would be in the wrong. Whether the Marvel 'Lord of Thunder' was ever actually used would only be relevant to establishing whether or not DC could credibly claim to have been unaware of its existence.

You can write a book, submit a manuscript to a publisher, ultimately not have it published, wait thirty years, and still retain full copyright over your book- no intent to publish or market it is necessary; the fact that you created it is sufficient to establish copyright. You only lose copyright if it becomes public domain as you noted, but that doesn't seem relevant to GW and Chapterhouse.

Going back to the topic that started this- the reason projects like Astartes can exist is because GW is free to be lax about their copyright if they wish, and 'new GW' seems to be a lot more gun-shy about aggressive litigation than pre-Chapterhouse GW was. You'll see GW go after people who use their trademarked sales copy, but casual copyright violations like fan projects seem to be fine. Just don't try to sell it or you're going to be up to your ears in lawyers.

 catbarf wrote:

Going back to the topic that started this- the reason projects like Astartes can exist is because GW is free to be lax about their copyright if they wish, and 'new GW' seems to be a lot more gun-shy about aggressive litigation than pre-Chapterhouse GW was. You'll see GW go after people who use their trademarked sales copy, but casual copyright violations like fan projects seem to be fine. Just don't try to sell it or you're going to be up to your ears in lawyers.

Which is fair, its one thing to create fan content, its another to profit from it.
I think as well as legal changes, I think GW's marketing has realised that there's more to gain in allowing fans to promote the GW brand themselves. Allowing more freedom for fan creations means that fans are spreading the GW brand and its costing GW nothing at all to achieve that. GW is much more brand aware and clearly wants to sell their brand as much as they possibly can. Realising that they more they sell it the more customers they reach and the greater chance more of them will take up the GW hobby and buy some models.

 Henry wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
I'll say that i finally watched cruise's "the mummy" remake and was pleasantly surprised.

That's a great shout. I put it on not expecting much and when it had finished I had enjoyed it more than a good portion of the Marvel movies. I still don't understand the scathing reviews. But then, Edge of Tomorrow initially got horrid reviews and I liked that a great deal.

A lot of it comes from Cruise being much better at playing contemptible gits than heroic heroes. Collateral, War of the Worlds, Mummy, Edge of Tomorrow - he plays the role of someone you wouldn't personally like very well.

Never understood why Edge of Tomorrow was so panned. I thought it was one of Cruise's best and deep films.

Maybe because I'm biased, because if any actor can pull off Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder, they get a perpetual "bad film mulligan" from me:


As for other films I really dug:
7 Psychopaths
Usual Suspects

...and Sucker Punch.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Cursed Earth? Been reprinted many, many times. With the exclusion of a single episode which basically involved Col Sanders.

With regard to Damnatus, if memory serves the issue was indeed German IP Laws. I’m far from expert, but my understanding was that if it was released, the creator would get more than just the IP for their work, and couldn’t even sign it over to GW?

Certainly something in that ballpark, if the chatter at the time was to be believed.

Mcdonalds and burgerking and the jolly green giant, and they were censored for nearly 40 years until britt copyright law changed.

https://www.howtolovecomics.com/2016/08/17/judge-dredd-cursed-earth/

And yes given the attitude of mdconalds and the way it treats employees i can see how on the mark this page was.

 whembly wrote:


...and Sucker Punch.

It's funny. . . I enjoy this film. It's not great. The story isn't particularly engaging. . . Its just fun.

And the kicker is, anytime I put it on, the wife invariably does the same thing every single time:

She comments "OMG, this a 13 year old boy's wet dream" . . . . 2 hours later she's still sitting there watching the movie with me.

Isn't it being an adolescent fantasy more or less the whole point of Sucker Punch, which as that's about Zacks limit, a series of essentially MTV music video was something even he couldn't mess up (likewise 300 being a film stylised like a video game flipping between cut scenes and fighty bits)

300 is a 2 hour metal Video with cut scenes between written by Miller

nothing wrong here

 kodos wrote:
300 is a 2 hour metal Video with cut scenes between written by Miller

nothing wrong here

The only problem I had with 300 was how utterly dumb the inciting event that created the pivot point in the movie was.

"you can't fight with us, for your shield cannot guard your brother on the flank from -"

"Sir?"

"What?"

"Sir, we fight in a line sir."

"What of it?"

"Well lines have two ends on them, usually, quite notorious for that fact. Couldn't we just put him on the end, where he hasn't got anyone to protect? Or maybe even just..not in the line, and allow him to die a heroic death with us?"

"Oh yeah good point. Form up Quasimodo!"

the_scotsman wrote:

 kodos wrote:
300 is a 2 hour metal Video with cut scenes between written by Miller

nothing wrong here

The only problem I had with 300 was how utterly dumb the inciting event that created the pivot point in the movie was.

"you can't fight with us, for your shield cannot guard your brother on the flank from -"

"Sir?"

"What?"

"Sir, we fight in a line sir."

"What of it?"

"Well lines have two ends on them, usually, quite notorious for that fact. Couldn't we just put him on the end, where he hasn't got anyone to protect? Or maybe even just..not in the line, and allow him to die a heroic death with us?"

"Oh yeah good point. Form up Quasimodo!"

I can not seem to recall where Ephialtes was lame came from. I am pretty sure it is not mentioned in Herodotus, but I could have sworn a different ancient historian made this claim. However, I can not recall who at the moment.....

Am I just being crazy or does someone else recall it?

the_scotsman wrote:

 kodos wrote:
300 is a 2 hour metal Video with cut scenes between written by Miller

nothing wrong here

The only problem I had with 300 was how utterly dumb the inciting event that created the pivot point in the movie was.

"you can't fight with us, for your shield cannot guard your brother on the flank from -"

"Sir?"

"What?"

"Sir, we fight in a line sir."

"What of it?"

"Well lines have two ends on them, usually, quite notorious for that fact. Couldn't we just put him on the end, where he hasn't got anyone to protect? Or maybe even just..not in the line, and allow him to die a heroic death with us?"

"Oh yeah good point. Form up Quasimodo!"

Eh I saw it more that he's using it as one key example. If you're in a line fighting you need to use your shield and the guy can't even raise it properly. If he's out on a wing then its a wing that's got no defence which means the next guy along isn't just protecting himself, but has to protect the guy on the end as well as himself and the next guy as well. So it creates a weak point. At best it means your weak link dies early; at worst he dies early, the next guy fumbles trying to protect him and suddenly you've got an end of the line breaking.
If he's behind then he's no use again; if the line breaks and you have to retreat he's going to get in the way; if the line is pushing in a scrum then he can't lend his weight to it much and might trip up those behind who are trying to push in.

Plus even if we ignore his physical limitations, he's also never trained in a team to fight. He doesn't know how to right in a team with the 300 who are trained and have worked together and in teams expertly in combat. They don't just raise their shields; they know how to shield the person next to them and how their companions will react to the fight. They know who will block and who will charge; who will do daring feats; they know the doctrines and how to behave when an order is given.
Again this newcomer just doesn't know any of that, by his very nature he's likely never been in a team situation let alone a battle situation.

It's so many unknowns that in a situation where every man counts he's just not going to hold up his end. If it was the end of film battle with thousands upon thousands taking part he might have fit in; but in an army of only 300 he stands out as a huge point of weakness.

 Easy E wrote:

I can not seem to recall where Ephialtes was lame came from. I am pretty sure it is not mentioned in Herodotus, but I could have sworn a different ancient historian made this claim. However, I can not recall who at the moment.....
Am I just being crazy or does someone else recall it?

this is from the Frank Miller Comic, it wasn't a thing before that

the_scotsman wrote:

 kodos wrote:
300 is a 2 hour metal Video with cut scenes between written by Miller

nothing wrong here

The only problem I had with 300 was how utterly dumb the inciting event that created the pivot point in the movie was.

"you can't fight with us, for your shield cannot guard your brother on the flank from -"

"Sir?"

"What?"

"Sir, we fight in a line sir."

"What of it?"

"Well lines have two ends on them, usually, quite notorious for that fact. Couldn't we just put him on the end, where he hasn't got anyone to protect? Or maybe even just..not in the line, and allow him to die a heroic death with us?"

"Oh yeah good point. Form up Quasimodo!"

yet that Ephialtes was unable to fight within the Spartan Phalanx and did not want to fight with the Auxiliaries was one of the legit things in the movie
the original betrayal was for money only and would not have made a good story point but the rejection because he was not able and trained to fight with them is valid

 Easy E wrote:


I can not seem to recall where Ephialtes was lame came from. I am pretty sure it is not mentioned in Herodotus, but I could have sworn a different ancient historian made this claim. However, I can not recall who at the moment.....

Am I just being crazy or does someone else recall it?

I'm not exactly sure where it comes from but it wasn't contemporary. I think Miller invented it to add an extra layer of tragedy to the story of 300. In the record Ephialtes wasn't Spartan. He was a local and not described as crippled or deformed. It's also not entirely clear if he was the one who betrayed the defenders. Herodotus records two other men as being accused of revealing the existence of the bypass to the Persians and I've read at least one book that notes that the Phocians who lived in the area and were not overly fond of the other Greeks would probably be aware of the area and might have revealed it.

 whembly wrote:

 Henry wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
I'll say that i finally watched cruise's "the mummy" remake and was pleasantly surprised.

That's a great shout. I put it on not expecting much and when it had finished I had enjoyed it more than a good portion of the Marvel movies. I still don't understand the scathing reviews. But then, Edge of Tomorrow initially got horrid reviews and I liked that a great deal.

A lot of it comes from Cruise being much better at playing contemptible gits than heroic heroes. Collateral, War of the Worlds, Mummy, Edge of Tomorrow - he plays the role of someone you wouldn't personally like very well.

Never understood why Edge of Tomorrow was so panned. I thought it was one of Cruise's best and deep films.

Maybe because I'm biased, because if any actor can pull off Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder, they get a perpetual "bad film mulligan" from me:

The only criticism I could make of Edge of Tomorrow is that they didn't go with the original title (of the comic?) "All you need is kill", which was vastly cooler

Loved Tropic Thunder! Probably one of the most underrated comedy films, it's just got so many brilliant moments in it (of which Grossman is one!)