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Texas Instrument wrote:If you'll excuse me I'm going to cast chocolate nids.

Yeah and if can send me a few

And so the moral of the story is thus: Go forth and recast, cause if you don't tell everyone it's a recast, use similiar materials, and paint it up nice then more power to you.

KingmanHighborn wrote:

Texas Instrument wrote:If you'll excuse me I'm going to cast chocolate nids.

Yeah and if can send me a few

And so the moral of the story is thus: Go forth and recast, cause if you don't tell everyone it's a recast, use similiar materials, and paint it up nice then more power to you.

I agree. I just get pissed off when people spout about it being legal for personal use. By all means recast, but be aware that it's the same as speeding, it's only illegal if you get caught.

Texas Instrument wrote:If you'll excuse me I'm going to cast chocolate nids.

Rigth behind you ^_^. Just got my casting kit so just need the chocolate now.

Texas Instrument wrote:Guys, here's the thing. Insaniak knows what he's talking about 95% of the time, at least.
Its not the best idea to sass a mod even during the other 5%.

The GW legal team has what you can/cannot do with their models sewn up pretty damn tightly.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?community=&catId=&categoryId=&pIndex=3&aId=3900002&start=4

Quoting from their legal page,
Photos of Painted Models

We encourage fellow hobbyists to show off their painting skills by taking photos of their miniatures and putting the on the site. Please remember to correctly credit the IP - "miniature © Games Workshop 2003. All rights reserved. Used without permission - model painted by xxxxxxx"

Now, besides the fact that the GW lawyers cannot do basic proofreading ("putting the on the site"), they're explicit in how even pictures of their products may be used. You can only post pictures of models on the GW site, legally. You have to do an AP style works cited for the damn thing, and even say you did it without permission. Basically, they reserve the rights of GOD when it comes to minis. Should they so desire, they could make the entire Painting/modeling section of Dakka go away. They do not pursue this because Dakka IS breaking their rules on it, but do so in a fairly responsible way that does not harm GWs bottom line.

Basically, everyone here has broken GWs IP rules. You're in a forum thread discussing activities described as illegal by GWs legal page. By reading this sentence, you have broken IP law.

So you're already a criminal. Don't flaunt it and you won't be prosecuted for it.

Time for some semantics.

They used the word "encourage". Meaning that they support it, but does not make it mandatory. See the difference in wording when they state that you cannot use their logos: it's "please don't use" and not "we strongly discourage". This may indicate that well, they do not have power over how you post your photos of their product, but they would pretty much would like it if you credit them.

Okay, hold the phone.

What the heck are people talking about Chocolate for in a Casting forum?

Cause you can cast chocolate.

And people do that. Do they eat the models afterwards?

insaniak wrote:

Texas Instrument wrote:Sweet. So there it is. Even though gw says that I cannot recast for personal use, the general fair use laws say I can.

Except the Fair Use clause says nothing of the kind.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
People seem to want to take 'fair use' to mean that anything they do for personal use is ok. But that's not at all what the Fair Use clause does. It just gives guidelines for certain personal usages that are ok.

It's actually almost 100% allowed under fair use. Title 17, section 107 of the big big rule book lists 4 considerations of determining fair use.
Recasting for personal use only is :
1- educational, not for profit.
2- not of the same nature as the copyrighted work. It's in new material, different in every measuable quantity.
3- portion of the copyrighted work used is very small. Gw does not have copyright on each part. Only copyright listed is for the assembled figs. So even though I'm copying 100% of a part, I'm copying maybe 5% of the copyrighted work as a whole.
4- recast without sale has zero impact on the market in most cases. Especially since gw proving that they lost money by me making something I had no intention of buying is a really hard sell.

So how does that not fit fair use guidelines, at least here in the states?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

stardawn wrote:

Time for some semantics.

They used the word "encourage". Meaning that they support it, but does not make it mandatory. See the difference in wording when they state that you cannot use their logos: it's "please don't use" and not "we strongly discourage". This may indicate that well, they do not have power over how you post your photos of their product, but they would pretty much would like it if you credit them.

Further semantics:
They use encourage in the sentence describing that they want you to take pics. The next sentence, which dictates how those are used, does not contain this language. Not pretty much, but explicitly.

Texas Instrument wrote:Recasting for personal use only is :
1- educational, not for profit.

Not selling it doesn't make it educational.

2- not of the same nature as the copyrighted work. It's in new material, different in every measuable quantity.

Casting in a different material doesn't make it 'not of the same nature'... If you're casting a gaming miniature for use as a gaming miniature, it's very much the same nature.

3- portion of the copyrighted work used is very small. Gw does not have copyright on each part. Only copyright listed is for the assembled figs. So even though I'm copying 100% of a part, I'm copying maybe 5% of the copyrighted work as a whole.

That one's down to the lawyers to argue out. But the lawyers I've seen comment on it over the years (those who have been willing to actually comment one way or the other) have pretty exclusively said that it's not enough in itself.

4- recast without sale has zero impact on the market in most cases. Especially since gw proving that they lost money by me making something I had no intention of buying is a really hard sell.

No sale means that it's harder to prove damages. Again, though, not a solid counter in and of itself.

Fair Use is intended to allow for limited copying for educational or backup purposes. Copying a miniatures so that you don't have to buy more does not fit into that intention.

Ultimately though, it's going to come down to lawyers fighting it out, because it's never been tested where miniatures are concerned.

insaniak wrote:

4- recast without sale has zero impact on the market in most cases. Especially since gw proving that they lost money by me making something I had no intention of buying is a really hard sell.

No sale means that it's harder to prove damages. Again, though, not a solid counter in and of itself.

Fair Use is intended to allow for limited copying for educational or backup purposes. Copying a miniatures so that you don't have to buy more does not fit into that intention.

Ultimately though, it's going to come down to lawyers fighting it out, because it's never been tested where miniatures are concerned.

Yeh this one is a tricky one in the US. Thsi is because of a 1942 supreme court ruling (Wickard vs Filburn). Basically the government wanted to know how much it could regulate farmers growing wheat. A law in 1938 said that the government could limit the acreage a farmer could grow of wheat if a surplus was projected (violation would cause the extra wheat to be confiscated of fined). Wickard challenged the law saying that the extra wheat he grew he would use himself therefore not affecting the market. He ultimatley lost the case as the supreme court decided that by him growing extra wheat just so he didnt have to buy it would have a significant effect on the market if enough people adopted th practice.

Texas Instrument wrote:
Further semantics:
They use encourage in the sentence describing that they want you to take pics. The next sentence, which dictates how those are used, does not contain this language. Not pretty much, but explicitly.

I stand corrected.



.....and this is the greatest bullcrap invented by mankind. WHAT THE HELL GAMESWORKSHOP?! I mean, this is bad rep for them: they just called a huge part of their customers criminals.


Can anyone point out if these restrictions are legal in any way, or if it's just GW's word with no binding whatsoever?

I disagree on points one and two actually.
I think you'll agree that a caster new to the craft has a pretty steep learning curve to attack. If the stated goal was to learn how to make a part in a cast, how is that not educational?

Point two you would most likely win, but three and four both lean toward my case. Since all 4 points get considered, it looks like recasting should be allowed under fair use, especially if just for display & painting.


More talk of wheat? To make hotdog buns, right?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Stardawn, yes.
A similar situation: you're making a movie and film my face without permission.
You'd have to pixelate it in the movie because otherwise I could sue for not liking the way you used my image.

How about people taking photos of their iPads, iPods, Mcdonald's fries (with the logo on the container)? Does that count as illegal? You are using their intellectual property.

Depends. Do they have something that says otherwise or are they a company with a vested interest in free advertising?

As the OP of this subject, can I just say thanks to everbody who's contributed so far. It's been informative and entertaining, with some great links. I had no idea the subject would envoke such fury in some of you! For those of you who've joined this a bit later on and don't want to read all seven pages of it I'll try and summarise:

1) Casting mini's (and let's face it whilst I never mentioned GW in my original post they are getting all the stick) is illegal . People who know much more about it than me have said it is so, and I've no reason to doubt them. It doesn't matter if it's for personal use or whatever - you still can't legally do it.

2) Nobody actually seems to care! In fact many posters who have been adamant about the illegality of it, seem quite open about the fact that they recast things themselves! So if you do feel the need to recast stuff (for personal use only of course), nobody is likely to find out as long as you keep it low key. Just don't take your finely recast army into a GW, set up for battle, then boldly announce "Look at my army I recast! It cost me a fraction of the price it would if I'd got them legitimately (legally)" In this instance you will probably be asked to leave immediately and never darken their door again.

3) A few posters have even mentioned about recasting the models in chocolate so opponents can kill and eat at the same time. This gets my full support.

4) IMO, GW or anybody else for that matter are not likely to prosecute if they catch you recasting - unless you're doing it on a huge scale, making loads of money out of it and blatently not for your own personal army - as making an example of a few individuals is probably gonna do more harm to their (let's face it - not great) reputation than good to their bottom line. However - this is just my opinion.

5) I think GW are missing a trick here , they could probably make a lot of money if they produced a bits kit for each army, with all the goodies we would love to see. I again hark back to the good old days when you could order literally anthing. If you just wanted a terminator arm - no problem - need a few extra heavy weapons or the chassis for an ork buggy? - no problems - order as many as you like. Obviously more difficult now as most stuff is plastic and on a sprue, but I'm sure they could make more of this.

Warms my heart monkeyh!
I lurked on dakka a long time before starting to post, and it's very rare to see such a post as yours.
On point five, if you ask, gw will tell you it is because the two part metal molds they use are expensive to make, and producing extras would wear out the molds faster. On this I call shenanigans because of the volume of people doing it in their garage on 50 dollar budgets. Surely there is something amiss with that.

I would like to point out that casting Chocolate requires plastic molds that are food safe. Silicone Rubber molds are NOT food save and can cause illness(to what degree I can't say).

You'd have to look into chocolate mold kits to find the right product to make the minis edible.

I also agree that GW should look into doing Finecast bits sprues(which with how secretive they are may very well be the case). Since they now have the facilities to do resin, Forgeworld is really obsolete save for the fact that they have "unique" models, which GW could easily integrate into their own lines of production.

The day I no longer need to recast because GW offers what people need will be a happy day, but I"m not holding my breath. That and I don't foresee them bringing back my beloved Empire infantry, so I'll still have to do that.

Here is a food safe (FDA approved) mold material that can be reheated to make different molds.
http://www.compositherm.com/cooz.html

Bring on the chocolate bugs already

Hello everyone,

I would like to make a few points in bringing this thread to a close.

1. Recasting, and other types of copyright violation, are against the law in all countries signatory to the Berne Convention.

The following circumstances do not provide a legal loophole

Fair Use/Fair Dealing
OOP models
Small quantities
Home use only

Backing up licensed software is a different circumstance, so is time-shifting TV programmes.

With regards to all the above, no-one is likely to find you out and prosecute you if you do it. So it will usually be a matter between you and your conscience. You should recognise that copyright violation is nearly always immoral and unethical.

However DakkaDakka has a robust attitude to intellectual property. We do not allow the hosting of links to torrents, or advice about recasting. We also do not approve of encouragement of recasting.

We therefore ask all users not to promote recasting or other copyright violations by example or encouragement.