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So there seem to be lots of sellers on Amazon selling stuff with pics and everything.

I thought GW would come down on that. Is amazon too big?

Sorry if this is the wrong forum

Amazon themselves are GW suppliers. Well Black Library at least, so I wouldn't imagine they have a problem.

Cheapest Horus Heresy books online (That I could find anyway) with free postage.

Amazon is a portal. It's like blaming the Simon Mall Management company because there is a guy in Boise Idaho that isn't charging sales tax on the sunglasses he sells off of a cart near the food court.

Same way pictures on ebay appear.

You can't always enforce every single list.


More like - GW hasn't hounded them yet.

They don't come down on Amazon's resellers because of the fact that it's the same idea of eBay or Craigslist.

It's not an "official" storefront doing the sale, it's someone selling through a third party.

They're a retailer?

fullybakedbear wrote:Amazon is a portal. It's like blaming the Simon Mall Management company because there is a guy in Boise Idaho that isn't charging sales tax on the sunglasses he sells off of a cart near the food court.

Not really. The entire business is controlled by a huge database containing all the ISBN and other product codes of the stuff on sale. It's very simple for them to search and relate product records with checksummed images and decide if the images are kosher or not.

Rant on.

Better question..

Why does it seem so many people are so concerned with GWs IP rights? I mean its not like they pay you guys (or even reward such efforts) to be hounds for them.

Wierd, you dont see this with other companies.

Trollforge had some nitwit acting like GW Attorneys and hounding them about stuff.

We get same sort of crap from wanna-be lawyers.

What gives?
Rant off.

Chapterhouse wrote:Rant on.

Better question..

Why does it seem so many people are so concerned with GWs IP rights? I mean its not like they pay you guys (or even reward such efforts) to be hounds for them.

Wierd, you dont see this with other companies.

Trollforge had some nitwit acting like GW Attorneys and hounding them about stuff.

We get same sort of crap from wanna-be lawyers.

What gives?
Rant off.

Destroying is easier than creating. Since GW's been aggressive in this realm, everyone likes to pick on things. Also, GW has a lot of 'conspiracy theories' about the company's operation, in part fueld by the company's admittedly erratic behavior with some things.

Chapterhouse wrote:Why does it seem so many people are so concerned with GWs IP rights? I mean its not like they pay you guys (or even reward such efforts) to be hounds for them.

I don't think it's so much that people are concerned about it, as simply curious as to why it sometimes seems to be applied a little inconsistently.

You see it more for GW than for other companies partly because of GW's size, and partly because GW are a little more public and aggressive about their IP protection.

Trollforge had some nitwit acting like GW Attorneys and hounding them about stuff.

That's a bit of an unusual incident, but isn't somebody being worried about protection GW's IP. It's just someone having a laugh. Annoying and infantile, but some people find that sort of thing amusing, for some reason.

We get same sort of crap from wanna-be lawyers.

If you're referring to the (seemingly growing less common) posts about GW's IP in your news posts, I think the general intention is not so much to police GW's IP policy as to discuss it. Many of us have seen the same stories play out more or less identically over the years, so when a new company comes along doing the same sort of thing, it's natural that someone's going to either question it, or point out where it's gone wrong in the past.

You've done a little more homework than most, but posters don't see that... they just see something that they know has caused issues elsewhere. So they mention it... generally (I would like to think) in an effort to be helpful, rather than through any sort of sinister motive.

I can appreciate all those points.

Just so I'm clear, is this thread about Amazon selling books themselves and using pics, or just the resellers? Or both?

Amazon itself doesn't sell GW miniatures or hobby supplies.

Resellers that use Amazon do.

Amazon only stocks their novels and the like.

Because some of GWS's policies are legally unenforceable - such as refusing to allow a shopping cart in the US, or allow images of what you are selling - and they're afraid if they try to bully a larger retailer who will not hesitate to call them on their BS, it's going to set a precedent that will make it difficult to continue acting anti competitively towards smaller retailers in the future.

Chapterhouse wrote:Rant on.

Better question..

Why does it seem so many people are so concerned with GWs IP rights? I mean its not like they pay you guys (or even reward such efforts) to be hounds for them.

Wierd, you dont see this with other companies.

Trollforge had some nitwit acting like GW Attorneys and hounding them about stuff.

We get same sort of crap from wanna-be lawyers.

What gives?
Rant off.

To be honest I think it's partly trolling and partly just misguided people.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ouze wrote:Because some of GWS's policies are legally unenforceable - such as refusing to allow a shopping cart in the US, or allow images of what you are selling - and they're afraid if they try to bully a larger retailer who will not hesitate to call them on their BS, it's going to set a precedent that will make it difficult to continue acting anti competitively towards smaller retailers in the future.

This. For example, some governments frown on suppliers price fixing.

Chapterhouse wrote:Rant on.

Better question..

Why does it seem so many people are so concerned with GWs IP rights? I mean its not like they pay you guys (or even reward such efforts) to be hounds for them.

Wierd, you dont see this with other companies.

Trollforge had some nitwit acting like GW Attorneys and hounding them about stuff.

We get same sort of crap from wanna-be lawyers.

What gives?
Rant off.

This board is primarily about GW games, secondarily about other wargames.

It would be most strange if the IP discussion revolved around Malaysian pirate radio or Colombian knockoffs of designer handbags.

Meanwhile, since this isn't news, or a rumour, I'm moving it over to Dakka Discussions...

Mr-_-Flidd wrote:Amazon themselves are GW suppliers. Well Black Library at least, so I wouldn't imagine they have a problem.

Cheapest Horus Heresy books online (That I could find anyway) with free postage.

Try www.play.com i got a second hand flight of the Eisenstein for £4.45 including postage... not sure if play are world wide by great for UK users and fans of Black library

The key thing is that Amazon is bigger and has more money. They would burn, maim, kill GW in court.

Pipboy101 wrote:The key thing is that Amazon is bigger and has more money. They would burn, maim, kill GW in court.

It might even be more that Amazon is a really good store to be in. They have a lot more reach than GW's stores, online store, or FLGSs. And that means at least occasional players who grab a novel to read and get sucked into the whole game.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I got the idea that the OP was referring to the fact that that the sellers are using GW images in their sales.

I think he's wondering how they get away with THAT.

IIRC, that IS something Amazon would have to enforce, if GW requested that they remove them. Yes?

Eric

No, GW cannot force Amazon to do anything. Amazon would decide if what GW is requesting is reasonable and take appropriate action. IE: Ignore it, threaten to sue GW if GW threatens them*, take it down, etc.

*Don't think of counter suit, per sae. For example; Amazon could have some IP somewhere they can use to sue GW in court.

the only way GW can enforce this policy is by not selling to offenders as I understand it. since Amazon isn't buying product GW can't do anything to amazon directly, they would have to enforce it through the third party vendors who are doing the selling.

I'd have thought it was reasonable use of IP to have pictures for illustrative purposes when selling products. I can't see many courts upholding a company demanding that retailers can't show pictures of the products.

I don't think the court has anything to do with it. At least as I understand it the restriction is part of the agreement between GW and the retailer. So if the retailer violates the agreement GW no longer sells them product.

Howard A Treesong wrote:I'd have thought it was reasonable use of IP to have pictures for illustrative purposes when selling products. I can't see many courts upholding a company demanding that retailers can't show pictures of the products.

GW doesn't have problems with retailers showing pictures of their products for advertisement purposes. They have issues with them using GW's images of the products. Their stance is that they own the rights to the images, so the retailers/resellers should not be using them.

Imagine if I took a picture of YOU, for example.
I can't use it commercially, because you own the rights to your own image.
(I realize there can be gray areas... that my point isn't, though. Iit's the one that follows)
YOU can't use that image, either. Since *I* took it, I own the rights to it.

It's sort of like that. GW owns the rights to the images and, (IMO) to make it harder for people to compete with their online presence, they try to keep others from using those images.

Eric

^^Correct.

If GW want to enforce their image rights against Amazon they will have to sue them for copyright violation.

Maybe Amazon obtained permission from GW to show the images. GW would have to be pretty stupid to want to stop the world's biggest online retailer from selling their stuff.

It is weird how people in the GW communities bring up IP/copyright a lot, a lot of the time it feels almost like they take pleasure in the potential to ruin somebody else's day... Maybe thats just a cynical view but in other hobby communities I don't see the sort of vindictiveness I often see in this hobby.

Chapterhouse wrote:I can appreciate all those points.

Another point is perceived fair play. Many of us have seen companies and individuals be attacked for having stuff even remotely close to GW IP including fan sites that might have a logo or whatever on them. We then find it odd that an entity can theoretically sell Space Marine compatible sunglasses in heroic 28mm scale or what have you without feeling similar wrath.

I know if I sold Ork compatible trukk wheels and labelled them as such, for example, I'd have a handy dandy C&D delivered shortly after news reached the web.

Hmmm, image copyright is a sticky wicket, I deal with it almost every day.

It's kinda wierd, the whole 'I take a photo of you and sell it' thing. Whilst it is -and isn't- true (Paparrazzi for instance are always taking photos without permission and selling them to news rags - a quick Wiki-Fu tells me that only in Germany, Norway and France do the photographers need permission, everywhere else is fair game), you can get in a lot of heated copyright arguments, with no real legal hardline.

You can always argue that the image is for educational or illustrative purposes, and can therefore come under the Fair Use Policy.

Like I said, it's a sticky wicket, and one that is certainly not going to actually reach a sensible conclusion any time soon.

It's my theory that copyright law is intentionally kept 'wooly', so companies and courts can make case-by-case decisions, so as not to 'open the floodgates' so to speak.

But the short answer is; if you photograph it (and there are no specific laws preventing it; ie the MI5 building) you can sell that photograph.
If someone else photographed it, you can't.

There are exceptions, and there are exceptions to the exceptions. GW is very unlikely to get their knickers in a twist about me using one of their images to sell my copy of Soul Drinker for 99p though.