Would you play against someone who is using recast models?

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**Hivefleet Oblivion**

Saw this, this morning, and it made me think of this thread...

**H.B.M.C.**

Thanks, Mr. Moral Compass.

**The Home Nuggeteer**

This why i would

**Yonan**

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
Saw this, this morning, and it made me think of this thread...

I assume by linking that image that you think GW pays their sculptors and writers 50% of the proceeds of their model and book sales? I hate to say it mate but that's not actually the case, they get paid a smidge less. It's almost as though GW aren't some small indie company, but are in fact one of the large ones that abuses the greatly distended copyright law that yes, people are right to want changed.

**Hivefleet Oblivion**

Yonan wrote:
Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
Saw this, this morning, and it made me think of this thread...

I assume by linking that image that you think GW pays their sculptors and writers 50% of the proceeds of their model and book sales? I hate to say it mate but that's not actually the case, they get paid a smidge less. It's almost as though GW aren't some small indie company, but are in fact one of the large ones that abuses the greatly distended copyright law that yes, people are right to want changed.

Your assumption is incorrect, mate.

By linking this image I'm addressing those who reckon that, in general, copying stuff and abusing copyright is cool.

As I've mentioned frequently, I'd not necessarily have a problem with someone fielding recasts; but the notion of people supporting counterfeiters, over a legitimate company, is dubious, and sure ain't sticking it to The Man.

**Yonan**

Your inability to distinguish beyond generalities doesn't aid your perception of the issue. Ignoring GWs copyrights *is* sticking it to the man - electronic civil disobedience:

"Blatant disregard of copyright law by millions of Internet users every day on file sharing networks might also be considered a form of constant ECD, as the people doing it have decided to simply ignore a law that they disagree with."

**Hivefleet Oblivion**

The ability to argue beyond posting a few hackneyed wikipedia links might make this thread more stimulating and informative.

Even wikipedia doesn't assert that counterfeiters are promoting "electronic civil disobedience." Counterfeiters are simply after a fast buck and don't, in most cases, care how they make it.

They're not picking on GW 'cos they're so right on, they're picking on GW, as well as smaller companies like kromlech (whose meganobz seems especially popular with recasters), in order to make $$$$ without bothering to do their own design work.

azreal13 wrote:
I've spent enough time browsing those sites to be a tad skeptical that you've looked at the right thing or in the right places..

I hadn't meant that it was wargaming product that was available legitimately, but there ARE legitimate sellers of wargames product on at least some, but the price is comparable with domestic, as you'd expect.

Some of the morality over this debate is indeed a grey area; it's for that reason that I've posted I'd likely play against someone with recasts. But this post is entirely and demonstrably wrong; look at the main site selling recasts, and you'll find five different suppliers for kromlech's klanking destoyers, without even scrolling past the first page for "Ork'. At around $30 including postage, I have the feeling they're not legit.

**Yonan**

Because obviously I should pt the same effort into a forum post that I would a report, right? Notably more than put forth by some others, but anyway...

The counterfeiters are out for money sure, but they're merely the means by which we choose to ignore copyrights just as torrent trackers are the means by which you pirate media. We're the ones choosing to pick on GW here. If someone chooses to pay for kromlech recasts that's on them - most (all?) people in this thread have said they're much more selective with the products they buy recasts of, just as they are the media they pirate. Without numbers on how much kromlech stuff recasters sell it's hard to say how much it impacts them but with virtually no start up costs to recasting them, it's easy enough to offer the product even if there's a fraction of the demand for a recast GW product.

**agnosto**

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
The ability to argue beyond posting a few hackneyed wikipedia links might make this thread more stimulating and informative.

Even wikipedia doesn't assert that counterfeiters are promoting "electronic civil disobedience." Counterfeiters are simply after a fast buck and don't, in most cases, care how they make it.

They're not picking on GW 'cos they're so right on, they're picking on GW, and kromlech, in order to make $$$$ without bothering to do their own design work.

Pot, meet the kettle that posted an image that is just as ,if not more so, irrelevant. As was pointedout by another poster, your apples/oranges contribution isn't pertinent to the business model pursued by GW.

The music industry artist who is paid in royalties has nothing to do with a miniature designer who is paid a salary. The only possible correlation would be the oft stated concept that "pirating" reduces corporate earnings which will eventually put companies out of business and the designer out of work. I'll continue the apples/oranges with one of my own about computer games as pirating sure has killed them with 9% growth year on year... http://www.statista.com/statistics/201093/revenue-of-the-us-video-game-industry/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/21/does-online-piracy-hurt-the-economy-a-look-at-the-numbers/

The reason that the entertainment industry hasn't been destroyed by pirating? People who pirate most likely would not have purchased any way so sales are not necessarily lost.

**Azreal13**

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

By linking this image I'm addressing those who reckon that, in general, copying stuff and abusing copyright is cool.

Yeah, well, GW kind of invaded Poland on the whole "abusing copyright" issue.

**Yonan**

agnosto wrote:
The reason that the entertainment industry hasn't been destroyed by pirating? People who pirate most likely would not have purchased any way so sales are not necessarily lost.

The gaming industry - the parts still around at least - also adjusted its business model as necessary, which ties in to your point - if they didn't adjust, people wouldn't have bought the products. Gaben is praised as the saviour of PC gaming which whilst a little overblown isn't far off - steam was a great compromise that most pc gamers were happy to settle on. We buy a license, steam itself is DRM but it's unobtrusive. In return we get value added over the initial purchase, ie. a product superior to the pirated version, and we get it at a good price (ie. steam sales).

GW does nothing of the sort. Far from adding value to their products, they actively cripple them by putting advertising sections in the middle of their rules which pirates don't have to deal with as they just delete the segment from their pdf. Dataslates, supplements and day 1 white dwarf releases fix your codex? No problem, merge it into your pdf rather than carrying around 4 books and a tablet!

**wufai**

I believe purchasing recasts are wrong, but its important to understand WHY people are purchasing recasts instead of the official GW models. If GW is doing everything right 100% I'm sure no one will even think of recasts as an option. The reason we are concern about recasts is evident that something is wrong. Please also note that even though it is recasts and 'fake' unlike movies and music we still 'pay' for the recasts items. It is a purchasing decision nonetheless and similar to buying from 3rd party alternatives or ebay.

I have only recently purchased a few recasts items, in the past 5 years I only purchased new products from GW and FLGS, here are some observations.

1. Costs - Obviously recasts are cheaper, and GW hates it. GW wants us player to buy direct from them. But high costs have driven players to look for cheaper 3rd party alternatives and second hand sales. These affect GW just as much as recasts.

2. Bits - GW Kits have tons of bits! The good side is the hugh amount of customization, the bad side is you are left with a lot of bits you paid for but can't use. Or you only have 1 bit in a box when you needed 5. Recasts can fill out those missing bits that you are missing when GW refuse to provide the means for you to affordiably purchase those bits.

3. Shipping - A lot of recasts sites offer free shipping regardless of value purchased, GW Canada offers free shipping for over $80CAD, orders under you pay $24 shipping. Its not the main factor for going recasts but man. GW needs to provide better customer services to compete!

4. Quality - Recasts quality varies upon on what and who you purchased from, it is a risk of purchase, I have seem sub par quality but at the same time I have seen better than expected quality from recasts. Recasts or not, I can see some recaster acturally put in extra effort to make the recast appealing to the purchaser.

Am I proud of purchasing recasts? No, but I'm not proud of myself purchasing offical GW boxsets either as there is always a feeling of being ripped off. $94CAD for that 3 model centerioun kit when a similar 3 killa kan is $55.5CAD? In the end I think it is up to GW to get rid of recasts by making their products enticing. The Stormclaw starter set was a great idea and sold out in hours. I'm pretty sure if it is widely avaliable noone will buy recasts from those kits right?

**daedalus**

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
Saw this, this morning, and it made me think of this thread...

http://streetlightmanifesto.com/streetlight-manifesto-proudly-boycotts-itself/

Hello all

For the sake of keeping things emotion-free and legal, we’ll cut straight to the chase and forgo the insults and accusations:

It is and has been for quite some time our position that Victory Records is an artist-hostile, morally corrupt and generally dishonest company, with whom we have had the displeasure of being associated due to a contract that was signed years ago. We’re not writing this today to air grievances, of which there are many; numerous bands’ struggles with Victory are well-documented (and many more are sealed by a court of law), so we figured we’re going to skip the allegations and try to solve the problem, as we see it.

We’re writing today to ask you to please boycott all Streetlight related items by not purchasing any of our records or merchandise from Victory’s website, any traditional CD stores, online third party retailers or any digital distribution service (iTunes, Amazon etc). Victory has a long-time reputation of pocketing all of the proceeds from a band’s music and merch, with shady accounting and generally bully-ish behavior. If you want to support Streetlight, our music and our ability to tour and continue to release music, please make all SM related purchases from our own webstore, The RISC Store (www.riscstore.com), or come out to a show and buy a shirt or cd from us directly. In regards to getting the music we make, you can buy directly from us, or, alternately, we’re sure you can find a way to get the tunes onto your computer that may not be, ahem, traditional… Speaking a Bit metaphorically, there is a Torrent of methods to accomplish this, and Google is your always loyal friend…

As many of you know, we are in the final stages of recording our new album. It will be out and available this summer, whether via Victory, or some other method. We refuse to let our constant battles with our own record label hold back the album’s release (we can take nearly forever to finish an album on our own, thank you very much) and we look forward to being free from Victory’s clutches once our contract with them ends this summer.

We wish Victory Records no ill will or harm. Ok, that’s not entirely true. But what we want more than seeing the bad guy get his comeuppance, to see the villain get bitch-slapped by karma, is freedom from a company we abhor. We want the money made by our record and merch sales to help fund the band, not a company we’re ashamed to be associated with. We don’t care about SoundScans, or charts, or success as it’s measured by an industry we can’t stand; we just want our hard work to go towards something better than the record labels that destroy the spirit of independent music.

Thanks for your time and support and we’ll see you soon.

**Furyou Miko**

If you don't like a company and don't want to support it, but still want their product, you have a choice:

Buy their product and hang your morals.

-or-

Don't buy their product and keep your morals.

Attempting to circumvent this choice by stealing from the company is a self-defeating action, because a) stealing is wrong and you've hung your morals, and b) you're still supporting the company by showing off their products, even stolen.

**Azreal13**

Except that clearly isn't the decision, because there aren't just two options.

That's a fine theoretical debate, but without spending any great time I can add two real world options to that list

Buy a legitimate competing product from another company (admittedly depends on how narrow your definition of 'product' is) and keep your morals

Buy an illegitimate product from a non-official producer and "hang" your morals, assuming you consider it an immoral action in the first place (which has been mentioned can have cultural and personal factors affecting that consideration)

**lord_blackfang**

Furyou Miko wrote:
If you don't like a company and don't want to support it, but still want their product, you have a choice:

Buy their product and hang your morals.

-or-

Don't buy their product and keep your morals.

Attempting to circumvent this choice by stealing from the company is a self-defeating action, because a) stealing is wrong and you've hung your morals, and b) you're still supporting the company by showing off their products, even stolen.

Your morals are not my morals. I don't feel any guilt when I buy GW recasts.

**Furyou Miko**

lord_blackfang wrote:

Your morals are not my morals. I don't feel any guilt when I buy GW recasts.

So, are you denying that it's stealing, or denying that stealing is wrong?

**daedalus**

Furyou Miko wrote:
lord_blackfang wrote:

Your morals are not my morals. I don't feel any guilt when I buy GW recasts.

So, are you denying that it's stealing, or denying that stealing is wrong?

I'm still offended by your presumption of anyone possessing morals to begin with.

**Azreal13**

Furyou Miko wrote:
lord_blackfang wrote:

Your morals are not my morals. I don't feel any guilt when I buy GW recasts.

So, are you denying that it's stealing

Yes.

Nobody is taking anything from anyone.

IP infringement is not stealing, so unless you think people are flying to Beijing, breaking into someone's garage and loading themselves up with recast models, it isn't stealing.

IP infringement is a civil matter, theft is criminal.

It is breaking the law (potentially) but it isn't theft.

**Ralis**

As long as they looked good, and not like cheap plastic army man, thats been the target of a magnifying glass super weapon... GO for it.

**lord_blackfang**

Furyou Miko wrote:
lord_blackfang wrote:

Your morals are not my morals. I don't feel any guilt when I buy GW recasts.

So, are you denying that it's stealing, or denying that stealing is wrong?

The former, although I also believe that not all stealing is wrong, and there's a lot of taking-people's-stuff going on in the world that is very wrong indeed but isn't classified as stealing because the rich write their own laws.

**wufai**

Furyou Miko wrote:
lord_blackfang wrote:

Your morals are not my morals. I don't feel any guilt when I buy GW recasts.

So, are you denying that it's stealing, or denying that stealing is wrong?

It really depends on your moral ruler. Everyone's different. To some they believe buying recasts fits their moral compass becuase they did 'pay' for it. Maybe for you its only buying models made by GW. As for GW their moral compass is also different. They will say buying second hand official models from ebay is just as bad as recast because GW is not profiting for the sale, also Online retailers selling kits at a discount or break up the kits to sell bits are bad also becuase 'they are taking advantage of the hard work of GW and local game stores.'

So how will you define your own moral compass? by your own stick or with GW's, whom created the game?

**jhe90**

Bitz stores had to buy them first. Then cut them up for bitz, sort them and then send them out so they are buying the kits and extra work too

**Hivefleet Oblivion**

azreal13 wrote:

IP infringement is a civil matter, theft is criminal.

As has been mentioned here many times before, a lot of IP infringement - most notably counterfeiting - is indeed a criminal offence in both the US and UK.

The same US and UK government sites that state it's a crime also point out the link between counterfeiting and other criminal and gang activities.

I also believe that not all stealing is wrong, and there's a lot of taking-people's-stuff going on in the world that is very wrong indeed but isn't classified as stealing because the rich write their own laws.

I think most people buy into a moral continuum like this. I guess I do. But what I think is dodgy is saying GW are bad guys and it's OK to steal from them because their toys cost more than people like to pay.

There are so many companies who rip us off -utility companies, banks, who pocket profits but expect us to underwrite their risk, or Nestle who believe that people have no right to clean water - that it seems ludicrous to tar a toy soldier company with the same brush. We might not like all of what they do - I certainly don't - but to steal from them, and assume you're morally superior, is a big stretch.

**Furyou Miko**

azreal13 wrote:Except that clearly isn't the decision, because there aren't just two options.

That's a fine theoretical debate, but without spending any great time I can add two real world options to that list

Buy a legitimate competing product from another company (admittedly depends on how narrow your definition of 'product' is) and keep your morals

Buy an illegitimate product from a non-official producer and "hang" your morals, assuming you consider it an immoral action in the first place (which has been mentioned can have cultural and personal factors affecting that consideration)

How are those 'two real world options added'? Your first option of going to a competing company is just "not buying the company's product and keeping your morals." And the other option is just saying that my second option is dependent on personal morality, which... frankly, is crap.

azreal13 wrote:
Yes.

Nobody is taking anything from anyone.

IP infringement is not stealing, so unless you think people are flying to Beijing, breaking into someone's garage and loading themselves up with recast models, it isn't stealing.

IP infringement is a civil matter, theft is criminal.

It is breaking the law (potentially) but it isn't theft.

I don't really care about the fancy words of lawyers. Stealing someone's brain work is stealing just as if you were stealing the notebook it was written down in.

**Xerics**

Once you paint a recasted model nobody can tell its recasted unless you tell them it is. The only way you would know is if they told you. I have a few recasted models and saved more then 70% off retail (which is actually a lot due to the models i bought). I challenge you to look through my gallery and tell me which models are recasted?

**Azreal13**

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
azreal13 wrote:

IP infringement is a civil matter, theft is criminal.

As has been mentioned here many times before, a lot of IP infringement - most notably counterfeiting - is indeed a criminal offence in both the US and UK.

The same US and UK government sites that state it's a crime also point out the link between counterfeiting and other criminal and gang activities.

Except that counterfeiting and IPA infringement are separate offences.

Interestingly, I had a quick Google with regard to the specifics of counterfeiting and discovered this..

The process of fraudulently manufacturing, altering, or distributing a product that is of lesser value than the genuine product.

Counterfeiting is a criminal offense when it involves an intent to defraud in passing off the counterfeit item. The law contains exemptions for collector's items and items that are so obviously dissimilar from the original that a reasonable person would not consider them real. However, making a poor copy is no defense if the intent to defraud exists.

Emphasis mine.

Most of the listings I've seen for recasts explicitly state, in pigeon English at least, that they aren't originals, and they are offered for sale at a substantial discount, and as has often been said, the end product is often of superior quality.

Difficult to make an argument that they're counterfeits from this layperson's POV.

**agnosto**

According to United States law, I am not stealing or committing any crime by purchasing counterfeit goods. That said, I believe New York City is the only place in the US where purchase is illegal.
So no, I'm not stealing from anyone.

**lord_blackfang**

Furyou Miko wrote:
I don't really care about the fancy words of lawyers. Stealing someone's brain work is stealing just as if you were stealing the notebook it was written down in.

No, it's really not. I'm not taking anything from anyone. Nobody is losing out on anything if I copy something, as long as I wasn't going to buy it in either case.

**Hivefleet Oblivion**

azreal13 wrote:

Most of the listings I've seen for recasts explicitly state, in pigeon English at least, that they aren't originals, and they are offered for sale at a substantial discount, and as has often been said, the end product is often of superior quality.

Difficult to make an argument that they're counterfeits from this layperson's POV.

This argument has repeated itself for so long that I'm hallucinating : I'm imagining all those words like "Forge World" and "GW" I can see on the main recast site, right in front of me. (It's the same recast site where I'm hallucinating five Kromlech recasts on one page). ALso I'm hallucinating that a huge number of listings use GW (or Kromlech) photos to sell their product.

Gotta say I admire your front for posting that there's no attempt to pass a recast off as an original, right next to a post that boasts you're fine with recasts, as no one can tell them from an original!

.