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hi guys, i've been learning to sculpt using milliput and have attempted some ultramarine logo's. They're not perfect but I thought what if you press moulded an existing icon from the plastic range or etched brass from forge world, and use them on my models. Here's the thing though, is this "legal" i.e. is it infringing GW's IP? I know it's wrong to recast an entire model, but is it wrong to copy an existing icon in the way described as opposed to sculpting an icon which won't look as good due to the lack of sculpting skills? I'll still be practising my skills with chapter icons as it will help in the future with custom chapter icons or chapter icons GW don't supply on pads,transfers or etched brass.

Any input on this would be great, it may sound silly/trivial to a lot of people who will read this, but I respect company's IP's and I don't believe in illegally downloading films and music etc, so i'm making sure i give this particular issue some thought and respect

cheers
LS40k

It's a grey area - but I do this all the time

Paint the model to a high standard, base it well, only you know it was casted. Give it some battle damage, I've casted dozens of bits and full models. However simply using the symbol? People do that all the time. the grey area is when you start duplicating all of the melta guns and FW bits in your army.

The issue comes with - you cant actually sell the army if you have recasts in them. I've recasted the majority of one of my armies, but I have no intention to sell it.

thanks for the reply, yeah i was thinking about the reselling bit (especially as ive returned to the hobby and may go off them again at some point and think of selling them) but didn't put it in. Ive seen a company, which i think it was called chapter house studios or something similar, in trouble with GW for selling an exorcist shoulder pad. However with it being such a small part of a model is it that big of a deal? Also the ultramarines logo looks like the omega logo flipped upright, has GW infringed on the greek alphabet lol

cheers

It's a big deal to GW, but on a smaller scale? It's fine for your own use

Just don't sell recasted bits over the internet. To a few friends is still iffy. An ebay sale can go south when they file that the army was fake and keep it, or a client flags you as a shady caster. Situations can happen down the road.

fair enough, thanks for the replies

Press moulding iconography for personal use? Absolutely fine.

Press Moulding entire parts for personal use? Should be absolutely fine.

Doing either of these for the express purpose of resale? Not good.

If you sold an army that happened to have some replicated parts - just a few sprinkled around? Not entirely sure, but err on the side of caution. In the strictest terms of the law it's probably the same as the above.

thanks for the reply. it's really the iconography i thought of doing, as £6 for 10 shoulder pads which don't have the pronouncement/size that i like or £9/10 for etched brass that are also limited is a bit steep considering the money ive spent on the models.....plus they're all glued anyway, and have been for 8-10 years, so i can't put the pads on anyways :(

plus i buy my bits from bitzbox, and spent over £30 recently

are you selling the bits you make? no? them who gives a damn? hardly like GW are gonna boot down your door and serve you is it?

i don't know with their financial trouble, they'll be sending out all kinds of spies lol

Heh you never know - watch your back!

But yes as others have said for personal use you've got quite a bit of leeway. Copyright law is mostly enforced to protect commercial interests. So as long as you're only using it for your own personal use you should be fine - heck if you make a handful for a few friends* chances are that is also not going to land you in trouble. It's when you're distributing to the public (and remember that includes giving away for free) that you get in trouble.




*careful here; I'm fairly sure that this would count as distribution; however its a grey area as its practically not sane to enforce for most companies. Of course if you jump on a forum and are making these things for friends and posting them out - yeah chances are that will land you in hotter water.

thanks for the reply. Problem is how would GW know any way, if someone cast an ultramarine logo as opposed to sculpting it from scratch (which they allow) how could they prove it if the cast and sculpt are made with the same material. really impressive sculpts would be suspect due to the complexity of some of the icons available from forge world. Ive also seen videos on youtube where a guy openly says he press moulded the front piece of abaddon and applied it to the plastic terminator lord amongst other pieces for other projects.

i just brought this up on the forum as it's something that ive been wondering in general for a while now. plus if i was head of gw, i'd be more p***ed with people doing full model recasts and a certain website that sells recasts (we all know which one i'm thinking of lol)

A well made copy is often hard to impossible to tell from the original.

Which is the crux of your question. The other part is actually expecting to look for it. Most GW staff at stores won't look for it nor would they have the years of training needed to spot forgeries (I suspect for miniatures the only way would be to test the material its cast from to see if it conforms to the same recipe(s) as what GW uses for the original(s)). So yes if you're not telling anyone chances are not a single person will guess.

Heck if you're just using it to apply details to an otherwise totally GW model most of the staff would likely be impressed (at that point its just a conversion).

Recasting a whole model for your own personal use - eh you can do it and chances are you can do it well enough to not get spotted so long as you used a similar material (metal models of something only cast in finecast/plastic would stand out). That said there's a moral ground element there for most people - I know I'd have no problem press moulding details onto a model; but I'd not go down to the GW store and play with fully recast models.

thats pretty much how i see it. The chapter icon is a tiny detail which could even be painted on, where as casting a whole model will definitely impact GW's finances. As i put in my first post i'm sculpting the icon from scratch, but came up with the idea that would save time and look better than what i'm currently sculpting, It's also a thought on the subject ive had for a while before the sculpting and would like to know the legality and peoples opinions on the subject.

Legally, no you can't. It is copyright theft plain and simple. You are copying an icon which is copyright of GW. (A plain shoulderpad is too generic to be copyright, however, as Chapterhouse have proved.)

In the real world, however, there are things like 'fair use' to take into concideration.

Generally, if you are copying something for your own use only, it's just not worth a companies time and money to track you down. If you are making 20-50 for your own use, you could probably even wave the fact in front of their face and they'll do nothing about it as the costs outweigh the benefits.

I have directly moulded the lights on a Comet miniatures Dalek kit with absolutely no problems - because a) it was only for my own personal use, and b) the items supplied with the kit are solid, grey plastic and mine are transparent. I have not damaged the company in any way, I still had to buy the kits in the first place, so in fact they may have got extra sales from me because I could correct this feature.

So you will be safe if you are sticking to personal use, even if you sell the army some day in the future.

a) who's going to know?
b) once it's on the model, the law gets even hazier. There are people I knbow who are making (or have made) replicas of a space craft seen in an old SF series. That craft contains parts from the Airfix Saturn V rocket, yet any infringement of copyright ends with the TV production company, Airfix can't complain that it contains their parts as once it has been put together in a way other than that which it was designed for, it becomes something else and they lose all copyright on the new design.

OK, in this case, you are copying something to extend the number of that item you have, which doesn't change the design, but any fan activity which is purely for personal use is generally looked upon by the companies as not effective use of their money in fighting copyright theft. Even GW understands it happens - do you seriously believe that every GD winner was completely GW made parts? I don't.

GW would risk being fined by the courts for pursuing frivolous prosecutions if they took someone who is simply copying a small part of one of GW's own kits to unify the look of their models, and was not doing so except for their own personal use.

Make the moulds, make as many as you need, with a few left over, destroy the moulds.

Frankly, no-one would probably know, and even if they did, they wouldn't care enough or have enough benefit to do anything about it.

 Conrad Turner wrote:
Legally, no you can't. It is copyright theft plain and simple. You are copying an icon which is copyright of GW. (A plain shoulderpad is too generic to be copyright, however, as Chapterhouse have proved.)

The icon would be a trademark, not a copyright. The copyright applies to specific manifestations of a work, so the copyright infringement comes from duplicating that specific icon on that specific shoulder pad. recasting an entire shoulder pad, even a blank one, would be a copyright infringement, as you are copying that specific pad, which is a work created by GW. Even if you were to sculpt your own pad, if it was a perfect or near perfect copy of an actual particular shoulder pad from a a model, that would be illegal. (If you made a copy of a novel by re-writing the entire novel by hand on legal pads, it's still making a copy.) GW was not able to trademark the shape of the shoulder pad, so if you made a pad that was similar but had specific differences (a different pattern of studs, or a panel groove shape and location that isn't on any other GW pad) you'd be fine.

The Ultramarines symbol could not be protected by copyright, since it is a Greek letter (though upside down.) They could possibly own a trademark on it, though, barring anyone from using that specific looking version of omega in that particular typeface. But as long as you don't use said symbol for miniatures or gaming, you'd likely still be fine. Upside Down Omega Troopers for a minis game would be infringement, but If you wanted to market Upside Down Omega Cola, with what is clearly an Ultramarine symbol, you'd likely be okay, as trademarks have to apply to specific types of products, and nobody is going to buy a can of soda and then be upset because it's not a space marine.