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Ok, new scenario.
What if I made molds of every part of a tyranid warrior, and then cast those parts in chocolate.
Could I sell those chocolate models claiming them as foodstuffs, and technically a noncompete with GW's model industry?

Kilkrazy wrote:

winnertakesall wrote:I believe that is the copyright roughly, so yes. Reproducing something won't get you arrested though, but it could get you sued if you do it on a large enough scale for the company to take notice.

Anyone can commit as many crimes as they like without being prosecuted until they get caught. It doesn't make the crimes legal.

What I mean is, can you point me to the US Copyright Office's web pages which say it's legal to recast stuff as long as you don't sell it? Everything is online.

You won't find anything in copyright law allowing rappers to "remix" samples of music from other songs, either. That stuff is in common law rulings from the courts. It is extremely convoluted and often rulings contradict one another. In the end, it's all going to come down on what the current thinking is regarding the limits of "fair use".

Texas Instrument wrote:Ok, new scenario.
What if I made molds of every part of a tyranid warrior, and then cast those parts in chocolate.
Could I sell those chocolate models claiming them as foodstuffs, and technically a noncompete with GW's model industry?

I don't really know about legality, but I am going to do this. just because it would be horrifying and delicious.

mmmm tastey tastey copyright infringement.....

I also love the idea of eating the nids that the enemy kills.

Texas Instrument wrote:I also love the idea of eating the nids that the enemy kills.

my buddy and I are bringing in food hammer.

we are just going to Proxy models with food. to the victor go the spoils!

I still start a new thread for this though (unless I find one already made)

Texas Instrument wrote:Ok, new scenario.
What if I made molds of every part of a tyranid warrior, and then cast those parts in chocolate.
Could I sell those chocolate models claiming them as foodstuffs, and technically a noncompete with GW's model industry?

errrrrrrrrrrrrrrm... That's a delicious good question, actually.

Ouze wrote:
errrrrrrrrrrrrrrm... That's a delicious good question, actually.

Indeed. I would posit that the various moderators, chiefly Killkrazy, have it spot on the nose when they say, "It's complicated."
I brought up that situation as a fairly absurd complication to the issue, so allow me to bring it back on topic.

Assume I was running a company where what I did was take in items and recast them. Rings, wood molding, models. Whatever.
Would it be legal to make a mold and cast a customer's model that they sculpted themselves? Absolutely.
Would It be legal to make copies of Games Workshop models that they sent in? No, because that cuts into GW profit and copyright.
Would it be legal to cast a GW model and display it on my company website to showcase the level of detail I can recast, using the model as an example? Yes, because I'm not recasting it for the customer/ my own profit. Now, I cannot say that it is a GW model, as they own copyright on both the GW name and the individual model.

If I cast a Tyranid Warrior in chocolate, and sold it as a chocolate Tyranid Warrior (white chocolate carapace, milk chocolate feathering)? Lawsuit. I said Tyranid, and therefore used GW's product and marketing already in place to sell my product.
If I called it a Yum Yum Alien, and never mention to you that its based on a GW product, well then its tasty treat time for everyone.

Texas Instrument wrote:Ok, new scenario.
What if I made molds of every part of a tyranid warrior, and then cast those parts in chocolate.
Could I sell those chocolate models claiming them as foodstuffs, and technically a noncompete with GW's model industry?

Okay as I've established before recasting...legal. selling...illegal, and GW has the right to bar your recasts from their premises regardless. These are facts ladies and gentlemen

Now foodstuffs of intellectual properties are a horse of a different color and this is how that works. YOU HAVE to contact GW via a letter or e-mail and REQUEST to sell the product. If they say yes, they are intitled to an agreed upon percentage and they will negotiate with you over. If they say no, however, you can not sell them. However, you can make them and GIVE AWAY to anyone you see fit, so having a chocolate battle between cast nid's and space marines, where the casualties are eatten...GW can't say or do anything to you. The other caveat is if you make the effort to contact them, IIRC and you do not get a responce in 60 days you may sell them. But if they found out, they can't charge you for copyright, but they can make you cease and desist. At which point you have to stop making them. And you can go the Alien Yum Yum route as mentioned before, though it's treated like the chinese toys you get at a flea market.

Im definitley gonna do research into making moulds to make a small chocolate army. Its be so cool.

I would say the same as what most already have. If your doing it to reproduce models as a whole, then I would frown on that as an outside player. If you were doing it to make more insignia or some other accessory, then I wouldnt see a problem with it.

I cast bitz such as legs, swords and other "only 1 in the kit" bits

If someone makes chocolate Tyranids, this will easily be the best recasting thread in the history of Dakka.

I am totally making Chocolate nids. Even found a mold making kit for food

http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Mold-Silicone-Molding-Casting/dp/B003CHMZXI

Ill post my results when i manage to get em done

KingmanHighborn wrote: insaniak though your example is wrong, your not taking two extra buns from another package in this, in fact the closest comparison would be buying the bread mix, a bread maker, and making two more hot dog buns at home on your own time.

It wasn't meant to be a direct comparison. It was drawing attention to the lack of logic behind the idea that recasting is ok if the company making the product doesn't give you as many bits as you personally think should be in the package.

keisukekun wrote:I am totally making Chocolate nids. Even found a mold making kit for food

http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Mold-Silicone-Molding-Casting/dp/B003CHMZXI

Ill post my results when i manage to get em done

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing these! For all those who've suggested it, I see the beginning of a whole new way of gaming - make all your troops out of chocolate and when your oppo kills them they get to eat them - this could make for some highly competetive games! Although you may defenitely need to team up with someone if you're playing apocalypse!

So, far, I see a lot of people making definitive statements without qualifying their expertise.

Just because you THINK something is legal or illegal, that doesn't make it fact.

How about qualifying your experience? Joe Schmo saying "Yes. It's definitely legal," means jack-all.

Someone like Polonious who, while not an IP lawyer *is* an actual lawyer and does his homework before chiming in is someone worth listening to.
Additionally, someone who IS a trained IP lawyer is worth listening to, as well.

My point? If you're not trained to deal with matters of legality, stop issuing opinions and stating them as facts. You're only risking getting someone in trouble. Stick to addressing his questions on morality.

Eric

KingmanHighborn wrote:

Texas Instrument wrote:Ok, new scenario.
What if I made molds of every part of a tyranid warrior, and then cast those parts in chocolate.
Could I sell those chocolate models claiming them as foodstuffs, and technically a noncompete with GW's model industry?

Okay as I've established before recasting...legal. selling...illegal, and GW has the right to bar your recasts from their premises regardless. These are facts ladies and gentlemen

GW will not only ban your recasts from the store, they can and will ban you. we also didn't let non GW models as proxies in the store unless it was part of a GW product.

while I didn't exactly agree with that, I understood it and enforced it, heavily.

this whole "GW is an evil empire" thing is out of hand. they are a manufacturer, and they are artisans who have managed to turn a profit in a VERY VERY niche market. and we should be happy about it. its why the game has survived for as long as it has.

Stealing two more buns is morally and legally wrong.

But this is more like baking two more buns. If you buy the flour from the same store and it happens to be even the same flour manufacturer that makes the buns then it becomes even less morally ambiguous...

...as long as you eat the buns yourself and don't try to sell your nasty homemade buns at your kid's lemonade stand.

No making the buns would be buying the sculpting material, casting equipment and paying a sculpter and designer to come up with a sketch for the peice and make the bit's from scratch.

All this food talk...

...So hungry.

*chocolate models*

Breotan wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

winnertakesall wrote:I believe that is the copyright roughly, so yes. Reproducing something won't get you arrested though, but it could get you sued if you do it on a large enough scale for the company to take notice.

Anyone can commit as many crimes as they like without being prosecuted until they get caught. It doesn't make the crimes legal.

What I mean is, can you point me to the US Copyright Office's web pages which say it's legal to recast stuff as long as you don't sell it? Everything is online.

You won't find anything in copyright law allowing rappers to "remix" samples of music from other songs, either. That stuff is in common law rulings from the courts. It is extremely convoluted and often rulings contradict one another. In the end, it's all going to come down on what the current thinking is regarding the limits of "fair use".

So, "No" is the word you are looking for.

If you catch up with music sampling law you'll find it is extremely restrictive nowadays.

Kilkrazy wrote:If you catch up with music sampling law you'll find it is extremely restrictive nowadays.

But we can still edit quotes from Tim Powers, right? (love that quote, btw)
^ This was going to be a stand alone statement at first, poking fun at people sampling things from music and books all the time.
But then I started thinking, what if you sculpted a reasonable facsimile of a GW model, taking heavily from the design, but changing it just a little bit?
For example, tac marine arms. If I sculpted an exact copy of the arm, using calipers to measure exact distances, but left out the elbow pad. Legal?

MagickalMemories wrote:So, far, I see a lot of people making definitive statements without qualifying their expertise.

Just because you THINK something is legal or illegal, that doesn't make it fact.

How about qualifying your experience? Joe Schmo saying "Yes. It's definitely legal," means jack-all.

Someone like Polonious who, while not an IP lawyer *is* an actual lawyer and does his homework before chiming in is someone worth listening to.
Additionally, someone who IS a trained IP lawyer is worth listening to, as well.

My point? If you're not trained to deal with matters of legality, stop issuing opinions and stating them as facts. You're only risking getting someone in trouble. Stick to addressing his questions on morality.

Eric

What about having a friend you can readily bug who is studying to be a lawyer and thus has the books on hand? Though he did give me one evil look when I brought up the food issue.

In all honesty, I don't care who your source is, provided it's being accurately quoted.

People saying it's, "legal if you're only doing it for personal purposes," with no legal training are misleading those who are looking for facts. That statement should be preceded by "I think is is" or "I think it should be."

In your case, if you're bugging a budy who's studying law and you prefaced your statement as such... or even if you were just stating your opinion and qualifying it as being one... would be totally cool.

Eric

MagickalMemories wrote:My point? If you're not trained to deal with matters of legality, stop issuing opinions and stating them as facts. You're only risking getting someone in trouble. Stick to addressing his questions on morality.

I don't mean to interrupt your appeal to authority, there, but I think I think a well reasoned opinion is worthwhile even if don't have the requisite piece of paper saying you are duly qualified to proffer it.

The fact you got certified means f-all, frequently. For each and every single case being argued around the world, fully 50% of the lawyers involved will have presented legally "wrong" opinions at the resolution of the case. I quite remember every single Chapterhouse jihad thread where every single person that argued that their work would likely lead to a lawsuit being told how naive they were and that they should leave legal opinions to professionals.

Most professionals that generate advice as their main purpose, are, generally speaking, prostitutes, for lack of a better word. The cigarette industry has failed to prove a link between smoking and cancer for nigh on 40 years now with no success despite hiring expert scientists, with impeccable credentials. Similarly, the best climate research scientists in the world can't agree at all on if man is changing the climate, or if it's even actually changing. Every day I help support software engineers, who have masters in computer science or programming, having computer problems because of some stupid thing they did, like a syntax error or a missing argument.

tldr; just because you have a degree doesn't mean you're right. You could still be a shill or incompetent or just freaking wrong.

Sorry if I was not clear.
I don't really have a problem with people sharing their opinions. I have a problem with people stating their opinions as if they're fact.

Eric

Take a moment to look at why recasting happen, if GW (for instance) models were not hyper over costed then there would not be a real market for garage recasters, much less recast-resellers.

For instance to set up a simple 1 or 2 model gravity pour white metal mold you will need the following.
A hotpot, ladle, mold, mold vulcanizer tool, mold clamps, heat resistant gloves, white metal, and of course the original 1 or two models to be recast
conservatively this is around $200.00 + shipping and or taxes, not counting the models to be cast.
In addition if you mess up the mold a new blank is $20.00. Spin casting is unbelievably more expensive as the spin machine and mold blanks are very costly.

So around $250.00 to have a workable mold to cast 1 or 2 28mm models in metal does not make sense unless the models have a hyperinflated cost. If GW were to push their product line to plastics and keep the pricing in reason recasting would no longer be an option for most home hobbyists.

Using Instamold and Procreate on bitz is much cheaper at $13.00 for the mold and $10 for the putty, plus its reusable. BUt it is really only suitable for small bitz like guns and legs.

Resin casting done right is even more expensive than white metal.

GW is a victim of their own bad pricing choices. Eldar wraithguard come to mind in this situation, along with Terminator models. being prime targets for recasters. WHen you need 10-30 wraithguard at $15.00 each you get to a point where recasting for personal use is more economical than $450.00 plus tax or shipping.

I agree they could do a lot to reduce recasting- offer bits services, reduce costs, add the right number of equipment to make each unit- but this their buisness and they have the choice to do so. However don't take this is me arguing against recasting. I personaly have no issue with it and am certainly not going to buy a whole vehicle kit to get enough pegs to be able to switch between the weapon choices.

MagickalMemories wrote:Sorry if I was not clear.
I don't really have a problem with people sharing their opinions. I have a problem with people stating their opinions as if they're fact.

Reasonable enough, surely.

Recasting saves money. As a hobbyist a good amount of your income goes to Gw (for the stuff you don't recast). Ie, there is a good chance that the money you saved will go back to Gw anyway. Plus, without recasting, to keep converting somewhat affordable, many people turn to different distributors or bits sellers who can afford to sell the models for less and make a bigger profit than Gw (they are terrible at business). So really as long as you are buying the originals from Gw they are most likely losing no money. And besides the merchandise they make themselves, they are entitled to jack as long you aren't making a profit off of their IP.