Copyright Question

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**Commander Endova**

Does GW own the copyright to the Imperial Aquilla? To my knowledge it's the same as the Roman Eagle, so I'm not sure if they cold or not.

**Kanluwen**

The "Imperial Aquila" as we see it is most often stylized enough that they trademarked it.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Games Workshop's Legal Brief which you can get from hitting "Copyright" at the bottom of their main page wrote:
Copyright © Games Workshop Limited 2010 excepting all materials pertaining to the New Line theatrical productions: The Watcher logo, The Fellowship of the Ring; The Two Towers; and The Return of The King which are © MMVIII New Line Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Lord of The Rings, The Fellowship of The Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of The King and the names of the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks of The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Tolkien Enterprises under license to New Line Productions, Inc. and Games Workshop Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo, Warhammer, the Warhammer 40,000 device, the Double Headed/Imperial Eagle device and all associated products, marks, logos, places, names, creatures, races and race insignia/devices/logos/symbols, factions, vehicles, locations, weapons, units, characters, illustrations and images from the Warhammer World and Warhammer 40,000 Universe are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2000-2010, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world. All Rights Reserved.

**Kid_Kyoto**

They do not own 2 headed eagles (they are on the Albanian flag among other things) but GW's own varient is theirs. You can alter it but you have to alter it to the point no one would confuse the two.

**Kilkrazy**

It is probably sufficiently changed from the many classical double-headed eagles (e.g. Albania) that GW can claim original copyright of the specific version they use in the game.

The only way that claim can be challenged is in court and who really wants to bother about something so trivial?

**Davor**

As said before, anybody can make a 2 headed eagel symbol. But if it looks too much like the GW Aquila then yes GW can challenge it in court if it wants.

There has to be enough distinction to say it's not a copy. Does it look similiar? If you compare for example the Albanian flag and the Aquila, it is similiar but you will no way say it's a completely the same.

If you made your 2 headead eagel, with straight lines and V shaped and the groves match the same with the Aquila but has squiqly lines on it, then GW can say you coppied them, but if you put in different textures, style, boldness etc then no, GW can't say you are using their IP and be forced to remove it.