Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm going to go against the grain and say I'm totally fine with scans.

Actual 3D prints? Not fine with that. But just the digital scan? That seems okay to me, it's a different medium to what GW are selling.

We're not far off people being able to scan miniatures to a decent quality with their phones anyway.

What people then do with those scans is where we start to have issues. Like, 3D printing them identically to the originals, yeah, that's a problem, but what about rescaling them? If someone wants to do a 15mm scale 40k army and scans 32mm scale models, resizes them and edits them so that they print well at 15mm, is that then a problem? If that is a problem, is it also a problem if someone fires up Blender and makes a 15mm Space Marine from scratch instead of starting with a scanned model?

I'm not sure if copyright law is advanced enough to account for things like scanning, editing and printing tools being in the hands of regular consumers.

Where is anyone saying that you should only support GW? Yes if you want GW terrain or GW models or products then YES you support GW.

However if you want Warmachine go support PP; if you want Infinity go support Corvus; if you want Kings of War... etc....


It's not about just GW, its about all the firms that are part of wargaming. As I said its also about the shops and retail outlets that might well be local to you that support those games and might even be local gaming hubs. Heck that even touches on the aspect that whilst you are free to spend your money at whatever store you want, there's good justification to spend locally to support the local store; not just spend online hunting the biggest bargins you can find.



And in general if you want out of print stuff the second hand market exists. Yes you aren't now supporting the original firm, but you are at least not supporting the recast market. You are recycling money around the hobby (chances are many selling secondhand might well be using it to fund new purchases); but importantly its not being leached out of the community and hobby into recasters/etc....

Again its about the attitude and the tolerances we have within the social network. If we tolerate and encourage behaviour and purchasing patterns that will hav ea net negative impact on the hobby then, whilst it might not hurt today, it might setup the ground work to harm the hobby in the future. Even if just a local level - eg you buy from recasters and encourage your friends to do so and suddenly your local wargame store closes or stops supporting wargames (GW closes - indie just end up supporting board and card games); suddenly you stop getting new people to play (or it becomes much harder) and the local scene suffers.

Hairesy wrote:The point is to make people feel okay with doing their own thing.

So they should do their own thing, and not wholesale steal and resell from others.

Want to do your own thing? Design, market, and produce your own thing, simple as that.

Why should GW have the monopoly on gaming?

They don't. They have a monopoly on their games. If you want to support other games and designers, you can, and should.

Should I refuse games against people who built their own terrain, because GW sells some nice factorum stuff.

Unless you're identically copying GW's existing designs, of course not.

The issue isn't "I'm not allowed to do this because GW already sells something kinda similar", it's "I'm going to identically reproduce what someone else has already made, and make a profit off it myself".

But again, I'm sure you know that.

 Overread wrote:

Again its about the attitude and the tolerances we have within the social network. If we tolerate and encourage behaviour and purchasing patterns that will have a net negative impact on the hobby then, whilst it might not hurt today, it might setup the ground work to harm the hobby in the future.

And yet we have tolerated GW for so many years and allowed them to actively monopolize and harm the gaming community to the point where if you don't play one of their games, your options are limited. How many fantastic games are out there that go unplayed because 40k or MtG has a stranglehold on the gaming tables? I can tell you I had a hell of a time running a gaming club when service is catered to those two crowds. I was always butting heads with the store owners for table time, despite the fact that I alone had created a burgeoning gaming scene and made them a ton of money. It was simply not enough to be able to compete with GW and WotC who can pack stores on every release. So you're right, a big part of it is mentality. The mentality that you stick with what sells, and corporations like GW have been browbeating the consumer with it for ages. IP infringement, really? Okay, lets talk about Tyranids, Necrons, Eldar and every single other faction that is LITERALLY based on media tropes! Like, I don't know how we went from writing articles about making your own terrain and taking very liberal amounts of inspiration from the movies and trends of our time to renaming things so you can have copyright... on the thing you stole!

People can cry about copyright law all they want, but when it comes right down to it companies can and do steal whatever they want and they've been doing it for ages. Harmony Gold should ring a bell for anyone who is a fan of the other, other toy robot game; Battletech. HG is not a creator, they do not make things. They exist solely to buy the rights to things with which they think they can make money. That's it. That company plagues Battletech to this day! And all because some dildeau figured out they could buy the rights to an image of an imaginary robot, so yeah - pretty low opinion or regard for copyright law. GW has low regard for copyright law and has done nothing but make money off of "inspiration" while doing their utmost best to protect that same "inspired" IP from guys in basements making shoulder pads. I have zero sympathy for GW, they made the bed they lie in.

That's more down to the community than the companies themselves. It's down to the community to leave the mold and play and grow these "fantastic" games themselves. GW, Magic, they just create and sell a product, same as any other business. Spouting off about monopolies or community harm just speaks of ignorance.

Heck GW went for many years under Kirby doing far less outreach and marketing than historically and they didn't even do any online marketing beyond putting products up for sale on their website.


Yes if you want to play other games YOU have to put a lot more work into marketing that game locally; into building up a playerbase. It CAN be done. Heck until 3rd edition and a series of issues, PP was ruling the roost second place and very healthy after GW.

Thing is it takes skill and dedication to grow a game locally. You need at least 2 well painted different armies for playtesting games; you need to bring playtest games to the weekly meetings regularly; you need to work at it like a job to grow the game locally. Because in the end most of those firms rely on that. GW even relies on it heavily too. It's just easier because they've got 30+ years of groundwork paving the way.



Again there are so so so many options outside of GW that you can support. YES it means more work and more effort if you want local games. Yes it means you might have to do way more training games for a year or more to build up a playerbase; heck it might even mean bringing in new people to gaming and the club who aren't already invested into 40K or AoS or MTG.

Depends on whether you buy the models to play the games, just play the games, or just buy the models I would think.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
That's more down to the community than the companies themselves. It's down to the community to leave the mold and play and grow these "fantastic" games themselves. GW, Magic, they just create and sell a product, same as any other business. Spouting off about monopolies or community harm just speaks of ignorance.

If you think GW is the idle spectator who does nothing but create and sell a product then it is not I who speaks ignorantly. GW has and continues to take predatory action to "defend their IP", to the point that now if you want to watch Astartes without a subscription you have to go on bitchute and watch gakky low-res versions. Spouting off, indeed.

 Hairesy wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
That's more down to the community than the companies themselves. It's down to the community to leave the mold and play and grow these "fantastic" games themselves. GW, Magic, they just create and sell a product, same as any other business. Spouting off about monopolies or community harm just speaks of ignorance.

If you think GW is the idle spectator who does nothing but create and sell a product then it is not I who speaks ignorantly. GW has and continues to take predatory action to "defend their IP", to the point that now if you want to watch Astartes without a subscription you have to go on bitchute and watch gakky low-res versions. Spouting off, indeed.

That's not predatory that's normal.

Every company protects their IP, trademarks and copyrights.


Also don't forget the fan scene online has changed over the last years. Back in the 90-2000s you couldn't earn money off fan content online. There was no easy donation system setup so fan stuff was purely fan stuff.
Today you can setup a Patreon or any one of a number of other similar services overnight to get donations. Astartes was earning something like £20K per month from the video work. That isn't just fan work that's serious business at that stage. The fact GW allowed this to continue for so long was actually the most abnormal element of the whole thing


Again we can't blame GW for doing what you'd expect of most firms and individuals. You can bet if you start going to make Witcher fan-films and profiting off them that you'll get letters from the Witcher author/rights holders to media.




Of course nothing stops you making a video about heavily armoured gothic space warriors fighting in the future. You can go do that right now. You just can't go copy GW's space marines and expect to not get legal challenge. Same as Snoopy or Marvel or DC or basically most stuff. It's actually rare to abnormal for companies not to protect what they have. Heck Trademarks can even be lost under the US system if the company isn't seen to be taking active measures to prevent their unapproved use.




HOWEVER all this has no impact on your ability to go out right now and buy some Infinity models and play Infinity. Or Warmachine, Starwars Armada (hey SW protect their IP, Trademarks and copyrights too - and SW is FAR bigger than GW and is owned by the MOUSE who is even bigger still); or Battletech (who also do defend their stuff in the miniature world too);

I think going after Chapterhouse was in bad form, they were making bitz. There was a level of mutual benefit there. Astartes making 20K a month, is that the makers fault or is that just what happens when you hit a vein? That was a damn good animation and it captured the feel of the subject matter perfectly, but did he go out of his way to make something to make money? I think if his motives fell along those lines it was more to get the attention of GW, and nothing proves proof of concept better than a profit. But as I understand it, he's on the team now, and where is the new content?

And you know, really this desire to not have to pay to play toy soldiers hasn't had much effect on the hobby, or community. Dakka is still here, the shops still have nerds in them and pretty much all the games are still in town. And I still haven't even bought any 3d printed stuff. Or recasts for that matter. But dammit, I want that option! Besides, I'm getting older now and there is really no point kicking up a fuss about prints and recasts. A persons money is so much wiser spent than on $90 models, I can in no way fault anyone who doesn't want to pay that. The bare minimum to play, 1 HQ and 3 troops, how much is that off the shelf these days? $40-50 for the HQ, at least that each for your troops. $200 out of your fun budget should not be nothing, if it is you're not well off you're bad with money. Even a starter box with a codex is sitting at around $200, more if you need the rules. What kind of entry point is that? That can't all be business as usual.

Edit: I should add that I've never knowingly played against anyone using recasts or prints either. I only ever met one person who was getting recasts from China I think, and they were pretty good. We never ended up playing a match though.

GW going after Chapterhouse was a mess because at the time GW had a very poor legal grasp of what they could and could not defend. Partly as a result of their legal guy basically not being a copyright lawyer by training and, until that point, GW had basically thrown their weight around being big enough against smaller firms who didn't really have the resources to even risk going to court.

GW was being abusive in those days; those were the days of GW sending out nasty letters to news sites just for posting rumours and leaks and such.



GW also didn't lose Chapterhouse entirely. They did win on many points, and they lost on some too. They lost more than they should have because they went in with very bad advice on what they could legally protect.





The thing is GW does have things they can protect and there's no reason they shouldn't protect them. Far as I'm aware they are more aware now than in the past, many of the CD letters sent to 3D print creators are very specific in aspects of the designs that are in breach. It's not just "no space marine" its very specific things like design elements, icons and names and such.

 Hairesy wrote:
I think going after Chapterhouse was in bad form, they were making bitz.

It wasn't just bad form, it was incredibly stupid. If the court had ruled in favor of GW, Brembo wouldn't be allowed to advertise brake pads as "for a 2022 Chevy Corvette". We have a very specific carveout in our copyright laws for selling aftermarket parts that are compatible with someone else's original IP. That's the only way the entire aftermarket for car parts exists. That's also why CH got the best IP law firm in the country to work for them pro bono, because GW winning that case would've set an awful precedent for an entire industry that's worth billions of dollars to our economy every year and offers essential things to consumers.

Frankly, I am of the ‘don’t do it for a living’ opinion re the OP.

Does anyone here NOT use a YouTube to mp3 type conversion site online to put tunes on the player for the gym, or news shows or audio books? What about zlibrary?

I guess everything is information when coordinates plus chemistry equals unique physical things.

I was a fan of Napster.

GW is basically a dinosaur, in the same way that record producers were and are, but the industry wrote laws and finance their enforcement to protect their own entrenched interests and as a result society doesn’t actually advance with tech and people are unable to benefit.

40k was a clearinghouse of sci fantasy tropes. Period. The best of it still is. GW went wrong thinking they could claim some sort of ownership over what was really just a way to package ideas that had been common culture forever. In the effort, we get restartes, nusquats, and so on but imho gw as a company should be just a hub for independent creator activity, just as any large food production company should be a hub facilitating trade between small local farmers and suppliers. Granted, this is not the world as it is but this is due to bad leadership for many generations and knowing that, I do not feel compelled to live accordingly just because bad leadership has delivered us to the present state of affairs.

Long story short, I would not support a person who makes his or her living scanning and printing someone else’s stuff. I would have zero problems making such copies for personal use, not for profit otherwise.

That said, gw is not someone else.

There is a famous old book by a forgotten dead guy named Abby Hoffman, Steal This Book iirc. Message is similar. Taking from corporations is not theft. Taking from private individual persons is theft.

GW deserves no protections because it is not a person, its investors create no value, and the world would be better if operating under a different political economic status quo. I feel no compulsion to defend or support the current suboptimal status quo.

In the end, I do not care.

Do no steal from individuals but do steal from companies is kinda strange when you consider that companies are made up of - you know - people.


Just where do you draw the line? Because a company, a business, can be just 1 person. I'm pretty sure you won't find a point at which to draw the line in the sand for that; or if you do it will have an insanely complicated reasoning behind that that will break almost every time you look at a different company or individual or group of individuals working together.

Oh well that point is quite simple, corporations are not people and thus cannot claim individual rights. The fact that they can is one of the major stumbling blocks of modern society.

One thing that I keep seeing in this thread is that some posters seem to support a "thou shall not scan" position that I find reasonable because no matter what I think from an ethical PoV the law is on GWs side, but on the other hand there are some posters that go further, and decry the copying of the themes used by GW. The fact that GW has a sculpt called Krieg cannot be grounds to send C&D letters to Patreon or other websites to shut down the accounts of people doing ww1 infantry with long coats, gas masks, and vagely German looking helmets. And that's what their legal department has been doing last year, and probably is still doing by the look of things.

As stated above my post, GW raided to their heart's content all major sci-fi themes of the 80s to the point where I've read some people complain that book based movies made after the coming of 40k copy GW's IP while ignoring that those books were written decades before GW came to be. Now we are in a similar place with 3d printing. Ghamak selling pin up "eldar" babes online does not violate any of GW's copyrights, because they don't make pin up eldar, and they don't hold the exclusive rights to the themes used on that sculpt no matter what GW wishes, or some posters might think. I don't know if Ghamak already received a C&D letter fro GW, but I know of other 3d sculptors doing the same were shut down on IP violations grounds by Patreon as mentioned in this sub-forum.

That's unacceptable to me, yet some keep defending GW no matter what it does.

M.

Ghmak is a good example of GW's current policies because chances are he might well have had letters from GW, but they will have been specific elements of sculpts he's done whcih would have got pinged, not the whole concept of the sculpt itself.


I suspect the bulk of tickets on his stuff are not toward him, but where people selling the prints on etsy get hit with takedowns due to them using GW copyright names on the product descriptions/tags - which might even not be fully legal, but it is how GW fast-finds things through search engines and it is how etsy polices their site. So the issue isn't with GW or the law but more likely etsy's own internal policies, policing and moderation of content.


Again there's a good many 3D designers who don't just go close to the mark but outright copy a GW design and perhaps the change the pose a little; or make outright carbon copies. Even if they didn't use a scanner, they've copied the design outright. They are the ones that get the letters.

So far the few that I've seen post letters from GW had letters that were very specific in what breached the copyright aspects. In addition GW makes the offer within the letter that if the designer changes the elements that are breaching, GW will review the model. Yes you could, in theory, challenge and try going to court, but if its something like a symbol on a shoulderpad its a LOT easier to change it and move forward.

Heck even physical cast models do the same - I believe Wearhouse Exclusive will send designs to GW for pre-approval; which makes a lot of sense for them because they are dealing in cast models so really don't want to get all that way before being shut down.




In general GW is behaving as well as you could expect any firm in their primary market dealing with copyright issues. And that's an important fact to remember, this isn't a side business for GW, this is their absolute bread and butter money. It's the core of their whole business. Take the models away and GW would fold very quickly.

 Hairesy wrote:
Oh well that point is quite simple, corporations are not people and thus cannot claim individual rights. The fact that they can is one of the major stumbling blocks of modern society.

Many businesses in the TTG sphere are very small companies, often fewer than 10 people total. Often they're barely making ends meet doing the thing they're most passionate about. Is it OK to copy their stuff too?

Slipspace wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:
Oh well that point is quite simple, corporations are not people and thus cannot claim individual rights. The fact that they can is one of the major stumbling blocks of modern society.

Many businesses in the TTG sphere are very small companies, often fewer than 10 people total. Often they're barely making ends meet doing the thing they're most passionate about. Is it OK to copy their stuff too?

Heck get down to 3D printing or things like 6-20mm gaming and they are 1 person companies.

Thing is legally speaking, its advantageous to form a company rather than remain an individual because it gives you a layer of financial protections and such

 Miguelsan wrote:
One thing that I keep seeing in this thread is that some posters seem to support a "thou shall not scan" position that I find reasonable because no matter what I think from an ethical PoV the law is on GWs side,

There is no difference regarding the law, whether you create a "clone" by scan, mould or manually in an 3d program. And rightly so, because all those methods result in the same clone.

 Miguelsan wrote:

but on the other hand there are some posters that go further, and decry the copying of the themes used by GW. The fact that GW has a sculpt called Krieg cannot be grounds to send C&D letters to Patreon or other websites to shut down the accounts of people doing ww1 infantry with long coats, gas masks, and vagely German looking helmets. And that's what their legal department has been doing last year, and probably is still doing by the look of things.

I do not expect them to send the C&D letters to any company doing WWI miniatures, but only to companies that are doing miniatures with German helmets, gas-masks, french coats, is this British footwear ? and lasguns. Probably calling the miniature series something like Krieg or Kreig. Let's face it, those companies wouldn't create those miniatures in that style if GW hadn't used that design first and they do not target any market but 40K. They could do a different style - let's say British helmets - or do miniatures for WWI games. But they do not. They decide to copy miniatures and target them at this one market. If they do sell the miniatures for Infinity there would most likely be no complaint.

 Miguelsan wrote:

As stated above my post, GW raided to their heart's content all major sci-fi themes of the 80s to the point where I've read some people complain that book based movies made after the coming of 40k copy GW's IP while ignoring that those books were written decades before GW came to be. Now we are in a similar place with 3d printing. Ghamak selling pin up "eldar" babes online does not violate any of GW's copyrights, because they don't make pin up eldar, and they don't hold the exclusive rights to the themes used on that sculpt no matter what GW wishes, or some posters might think. I don't know if Ghamak already received a C&D letter fro GW, but I know of other 3d sculptors doing the same were shut down on IP violations grounds by Patreon as mentioned in this sub-forum.

That's unacceptable to me, yet some keep defending GW no matter what it does.
M.

If you do a goblin wolf rider for a different game but AoS/Warhammer, you will be quite save. But selling it as AoS Wolf Rider and looking like the GW one will.
What's unacceptable to me is that some people think something is wrong morally or legally just because GW does it. Or that somebody automatically defends GW, just because he's only defending a fact or concept. Do you think companies like Rolex, Benetton, Mercedes or Apple do defend there IP only because they are GW fanboys and do so because GW does ?

Over-here there is the concept of personal creative contribution in copyright law. If you can proof this in your design you're good to go. There is not much personal creative contribution in doing a model with a German helmet, French coat and Lasgun that looks like a Krieg model and selling it to 40k players/painters.

If you want to be sure that your song is not plagiarism, give it a unique melody and lyrics.

Here we go again. A company, any company not just GW, that creates XYZ only has the rights to that XYZ, not to something that looks like the XYZ, not to a diferent interpretation of the XYZ that happens to be ZYX..

The issue with GW raiding exisiting imagery is not a question of GW bad because they stole stuff, but rather a question that the general idea of skeleton robot is not theirs, just their view of it in the form of necrons. And the same happens with Krieg, GW only holds the rights to the combination of a certain helmet, a certain gas mask, a certain gun, and so on. They cannot claim copyright on a different artist's view of the same items, no matter what their legal department thinks, as seen in the Chapterhouse suit, suit that might have ended in a total defeat for GW on appeals if not for GW's lawyers had placed a lien (I think that what's it's called) on the guys house to cover possible indemnity.

But several good things came from that suit, and one was that suddenly everybody making 3d party bits could say compatible with GW's Space Marines, or Eldar Because the second good thing that came from the debacle was that GW did not have the rights to about 60% of the things it claimed. That's why we got all these fancy names nowadays.

And that brings me back to your examples. I can mix German helmets' with longcoats, and lasguns to my heart's content as long as it's not a carbon copy of the Krieg guardmen, I also can use a similar name as long as it's not the one GW has registered, and even further I can say my bits are compatible with GW products as long as I make clear I'm not the owner of the things GW produces.

Same with the wolf rider. Goblin wolf rider is a term common enough that GW cannot claim it (Brumbaer Wolf Riders could be protected on the other hand) so I can make a goblin that looks in general terms like GW's as long as I don't include symbols exclusive to GW, call it generic wolf rider, and say it fits nicely in AoS if I make clear that it's not a GW product in anyway, or that I'm somehow the owner of AoS.

Ofc all of the above is worthless if the creator folds the moment GW threatens to take them to court. And while according to Overread GW has been conciliatory on the terms of the letters they send, surely a result of trying not to get dragged into court just in case, I've also heard that they were outright hostile in others.

M.

TL;DR: The fact that GW has created a concept first doesn't make them the owners of that concept, only of the expression GW saw fit of it. Recasting Krieg = No Good. Creating a so called 3d printable Valour Korps that happens to use the same themes than Krieg = Good

it is not that simple, because if you create a similar model, call it Kreig instead of Krieg and sell it as "for 40k"

you still will have problems as in a lot of countries this falls under scam as you trick people into buying something that is not the original

so you have to make clear in your advertising that this is a 3rd party product and it has to be different enough

and what is different enough is a case by case bases in court and nothing that we can settle here

 kodos wrote:
it is not that simple, because if you create a similar model, call it Kreig instead of Krieg and sell it as "for 40k"

you still will have problems as in a lot of countries this falls under scam as you trick people into buying something that is not the original

so you have to make clear in your advertising that this is a 3rd party product and it has to be different enough

and what is different enough is a case by case bases in court and nothing that we can settle here

I did oversimplify, that's true. But the opposite argument is getting close to "GW put a Greek letter on a pauldron, all the Greek letters on a pauldron now beling to GW, and using them is akin to cloning"

M.

well, if they have a Trademark for it, you would need to fight the trademark first

and it is easy for a Trademark to get it, if you the officials think this is unique enough, no matter how stupid it is, and you need to fight the trademark first

and a trademark for greek letters on a pauldron is not the most stupid thing I have seen
in Berlin a company trademarked the colour combination of Red and Black for their brand, and went to court against everyone who used the same colour combination in logos etc.

and one of the problems with GW is, that they act as Trademarks and Copyright are the same

PS: and we don't have to pretend that 90% of 3D "artists" are creating 40k knock offs intentional to make money
they don't do it for the benefit of the community or because they love sculpting, they want to make easy money and found this to be the easiest way
hence why we see such low prices, for the 40k stuff, there is a lot of competition and they hope to sell more by undercutting each others prices for low effort copies

while those that really sculpt, make sure that their products work with different printers etc are way more expensive and are not close to the original

PPS: selling carbon copies are a no go, no matter what is copied or how (giving it away for free and we can start talking)

 Miguelsan wrote:

Ofc all of the above is worthless if the creator folds the moment GW threatens to take them to court. And while according to Overread GW has been conciliatory on the terms of the letters they send, surely a result of trying not to get dragged into court just in case, I've also heard that they were outright hostile in others.
.

The line between "hostile" and "legal" tends to be more one of interpretation. My interpretation of the letters GW has sent out (which I admit I've only seen second hand when creators have chosen to share them); and which are based only on those sent out in the last few years (ergo since the CEO change - so nothing Kirby era or earlier); is that they are within the law and as legally far as GW could expect to take them. I generally interpret them as "fair".

I know that many creators do not, some are very hostile about it and dislike it greatly. I've seen more than a few throw their patreons into hidden mode to keep doing what they do whilst insulting/shouting at GW at the same time. Some of this is purely people who were making near copies or outright copies; got caught; and did not like that fact. Some have little to no understanding of copyright and thus does seem to vary country to country as well - some countries seem to have a less general developed understanding. However many people have a poor grasp and most of their issues with it are when companies claim copyright and stop people doing what they want to do.

So broadly speaking to many copyright in general is seen as a bad thing because "big companies use it to bully" even though those exact same laws protect ever so many small firms. So even when a company is acting purely in sensible good faith to the law and isn't trying to abuse it; many will interpret it badly.



Plus GW still carries the baggage of drama caused during the Kirby era. Even though they've clearly changed attitudes and legal angles on how they respond and interact, GW still has that legacy which is likely going to take a fairly long while to move past. Heck I know a few news sites that still don't carry GW news after they stopped when the Kirby era management got into a pattern of sending nasty letters to news sites posting rumours. Though these days they tend to argue that GW has their own news site and there isn't much point them copy-catting what the GW site shows, esp when it shows articles 7 days a week,

As you point out IF they have a trademark. I'm guessing that GW is running a tighter ship nowadays with TMs but my stance in all this issue is that just because GW has a trademark for space marines with Greek letters (TM), not every space marine under the sun belongs to them, no matter how hard they, or their fans decry it. Pre Chapterhouse GW seemed to believe otherwise. Hell, in the initial moves GW tried to claim Chapterhouse as their property because they used the words Space Marine Chapters (spoiler: GW didn't have a registration for the word)

I'm not blind not to see that most 3d prints are doing it for the money, but I will keep defending that there is a difference between copying the aesthetics of 40K, and copying GW's legitimate, and protected IP.

M.

I agree GW were foolish during chapterhouse and right now they seem to have a might tighter grasp over what they can and cannot enforce legally speaking. Trademarks/IP/Copyright also vary in specific laws and what can/cannot be protected and how - though in general terms its enough for casual conversation to lump them roughly together even if in reality they will vary.

my problem here is just that those who carbon copy or make close to cc 3d models and sell them do not hurt GW, they hurt other artists who are trying to make their own and make a living from it

those want to make money on the back of GW while at the same time supporting GW as a company as without the popularity of 40k and GWs prices they won't make money

while those that try to make their own fall flat

I'll also point out that while we're arguing about 3d printing and whether or not that affects the hobby, Miguelsan has a closet full of no-nonsense GW kits. I think GWs bottom line will be fine if I go buy some recasts one day.

Edit: Also, the top thread in P&M tuts is a guy building Rhinos out of paper, so... people are going to play IP protected games for free or very cheaply no matter what the medium is, hell I've been playing Chapter Master all week and GW killed that game.

Yes GW might be fine.

But if the culture establishes itself as ok then steadily over time GW might not be fine in some countries/regions/areas.


Furthermore the local game shops in some areas might no longer stock wargames if they see zero sales because everyone in the club is using the cheap recasts/3d copies.


And when everyone decides to try Infinity why spend so much money on their models when you can get copies of them too?
That's the real risk; that the attitude spreads and suddenly smaller and smaller firms are impacted. Because you can bet many recasters (or those who only copy 3D designs) will be happy to chase the money. They are purely in it for the money and nothing else, they copy other peoples work and undercut the price to get sales with no re-investment to further the hobby.

So yep they are bound to follow the money. Even if individually they might move on; the culture will be there to support that kind of market. That suddenly REALLY hurts smaller and middlesized firms.



In the end this mostly comes down to people wanting to spend less and get more. Which in a luxury product line is a risk that the product line can die if everyone chases the illegal copies.