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Maybe the earlier 'negotiations' between S-D and Cadwallon weren't do friendly after all?

And maybe (!) S-D just came into a large sum of money, and felt like spending some of it to 'protect their brand' or some such nonsense?

Who knows!

Its also been pointed out in the KS comments that the C&D was filed on 9th May!

Whilst I support the motion of preventing recasting, in fairness Cadwallion did shut down their sale of Confrontation miniatures and their own line is a totally separate game. SD might be able to get them on retrospective recasting (which isn't a bad thing) but using KS money to take out legal action like that sounds very suspect.

Heck maybe they somehow hope to get a huge amount of money out of CD and use that for their future funding (highly unlikely as I doubt the recasting made serious money and if that company comes under enough pressure the recaster might be able to put the company through administration - though that might result in a loss of machines for production.

It's tricky as on the one hand recasters shouldn't be supported as typically they only harm the industry; whilst on the other if SD are using Kickstarter funds for this then it seriously puts big question marks over their background finances and any potential actual power to achieve what they've set out too - esp as legal cases across international boundaries can be very slow and difficult - and thus also expensive.

Right… way to spend backers money! FInal nail in the coffin really.

The cynic in me thinks maybe they kew about cadwallons project. (no way it didn't come up during negotiations between the two companies.) and decieded "hey, if we wait and then sue them, We can settle for possession of their existing stock and moulds! then we can tell our backers they'll all be getting lovely resin casts without having to do the work!"

...with the pickle here being that Cadwallon is in...Russia?

Or some equally inhospitable place, in terms of lawsuits and enforcing them there?

 Mysterio wrote:
...with the pickle here being that Cadwallon is in...Russia?

Or some equally inhospitable place, in terms of lawsuits and enforcing them there?

I mean..Have SD shown themselves to be smart up to this point?

 nicromancer wrote:

 Mysterio wrote:
...with the pickle here being that Cadwallon is in...Russia?

Or some equally inhospitable place, in terms of lawsuits and enforcing them there?

I mean..Have SD shown themselves to be smart up to this point?

Well so far they’ve gotten a few 100K with nothing to show, so calling them stupid wouldn’t be exactly correct.

Statement from the LoS FB:

I like that little swipe near the end "We have stages of development for our models from ideas and concepts to 3d or sculptures."
I read it as "well at least we actually have something to show for our campaign!

I hope they get back up and running, This feels needlessly cruel and petty on the part of SD.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
...but weren't SD supposed to be working in collaboration with Cadwallon/ the Signum guys?

I just don't get it.

I didn't heard about collaboration (appart from people whishing that they would).

The only thing I think they have any ground to stand on is in cases where Cadwallon sell figures based on old Confrontation artwork, that were never actually sculpted.

I know they've sold a few pieces before that Legendarion's sculpted based on preexisting artwork, but never had any actual figures in Rackham's catalog before. Maybe that's where they're taking issue?

Thinking about that more though, wouldn't the issue be more with sculptors like Legendarion rather than Cadwallon? Legendarion wasn't running a KS campaign for a rival game though...

Anyone remember when Cadwallon stopped selling Confrontation recasts? I feel like it was a while before their campaign started. I could be wrong though.

This is simply ridiculous. Going after Cadwallon for the recasts is one thing, stopping their Kickstarter is another.

IP lawsuits are incredibly difficult to resolve and in this case I doubt they have the grounds if Cadwallon rescultped his own miniatures. The fact they might look similar to confrontation ones is not enough to stop them. Not to mention that with Cadwallon being in Russia, there is very little chance of getting money from them.

However, Cadwallon should stop using the protected names on their shop and products. Whereas IP on miniatures is almost impossible to enforce, brands, logos and names are easier to protect.

astrilux wrote:
Not to mention that with Cadwallon being in Russia...

Somebody should call Putin. This joke may very well become even worse.

But seriously, it is reminding me of the GW versus Chapterhouse, part two. GW claimed copyright on halberds and pauldrons, now we are about to see the copyright on giant towering werewolves! I can see SD winning small skirmishes like obstructing a kickstarter or two, but they are likely to be damaged so much more if they go for a more court-side action.

They're probably just doing it just to stall the KS and hopefully cost Cad funding, rather than to get any actual gain out of it. SD has very little chance of making anything stick but if they believe they are a bigger company with more funds then they can try these types of tactics to bleed Cad of money until they have to relent, even if they have no real ground to stand on.

Has it been said by SD anywhere that they are going to use funds from the Confrontation kickstarter to pay for legal fees? I would like to know because I am a backer, but I have not found this anywhere which leads me to believe it is just wild speculation. As for the claims about showing off figures, SD said that they have all the originals and the kickstarter would be used to make plastic molds. They said they had not started on those because they wanted to see how many of the figures would be unlocked so they could do mold layouts with efficiency. .LoS was warned that all of this would happen, but they forged ahead anyway, seems to me that their backers should be mad at them.

It has not been stated anywhere that SD will use the KS funds for legal fees, nor will there ever be an official post about it even if it was true that they were going to use the KS funds for it.

I dont understand the logic that backers should be mad at the LoS-team. There is nothing as far as I really can see that is an IP-infringement from the LoS current project. If they do have any ties to a site that recasts Confrontation figures outside of the kickstarter doesn't matter as it is only what is on offer on the Kickstarter page that actually bear any merit to the claim. This is just an attempt to damage them, which they likely will accomplish, but to what price? The SD/Stellar team is taking an equal beating from this petty behaviour.

Skaorn wrote:
They're probably just doing it just to stall the KS and hopefully cost Cad funding, rather than to get any actual gain out of it. SD has very little chance of making anything stick but if they believe they are a bigger company with more funds then they can try these types of tactics to bleed Cad of money until they have to relent, even if they have no real ground to stand on.

This is most likely their goal but if LoS get a decent lawyer they can easily sue them back for unfair competition and obstruction to a business activity (not sure about the exact legal term in English).
Whereas an IP lawsuit is hard to win and I doubt they will pursue, obstruction to someone else's activity is much easier to prove. LoS had 100k$ and they lost them all.

SD has a solid claim on the sale of the recast figures, but I am not sure how will they be able to prove how much money they lost due to that. However, they just shot themselves in the foot, since now LoS can claim damages too.

Depending on the incorporation of the various legal entities they might end up paying LoS without getting a dime on the recast figures.

Smellingsalts wrote:
As for the claims about showing off figures, SD said that they have all the originals and the kickstarter would be used to make plastic molds. They said they had not started on those because they wanted to see how many of the figures would be unlocked so they could do mold layouts with efficiency. .LoS was warned that all of this would happen, but they forged ahead anyway, seems to me that their backers should be mad at them.

FIY the figures in LoS kickstarter were sculpted by a Russian sculptor (Legendarion as far as I recall), so SD has no rights over them.

As for SD claiming to do the mold layout efficiently...well...let's just say that it is a very poor excuse to run a project without any real effort. C'mon, they show miniatures with a mix square and round bases on their KS page. It takes a few minutes to replace the bases in Photoshop so that they are coherent in the project page. They did not even bother to do that!

Smellingsalts wrote:
As for the claims about showing off figures, SD said that they have all the originals and the kickstarter would be used to make plastic molds. They said they had not started on those because they wanted to see how many of the figures would be unlocked so they could do mold layouts with efficiency.

They don't have all the originals.
'd even doubt they have the range of resin masters to cover the ?250? or so miniatures unlocked in the KS.

Hekal Xul wrote:

Smellingsalts wrote:
As for the claims about showing off figures, SD said that they have all the originals and the kickstarter would be used to make plastic molds. They said they had not started on those because they wanted to see how many of the figures would be unlocked so they could do mold layouts with efficiency.

They don't have all the originals.
'd even doubt they have the range of resin masters to cover the ?250? or so miniatures unlocked in the KS.

They should buy the ones they are missing on Cadwallon.com

@Astrilux: It then becomes a case of "is it worth it to us" to counter sue. SD might be right in thinking that they have the financial upper hand. They at least seemed pretty confident they didn't need all the money they bled in the KS. For all we know Cad might have a lot of capital tied up in producing their models that all the legal fees from two suits might be too much. I doubt SD could pull the old sue them until they run out of money though.

Eh, probably easier to not include whatever art, sculpts, and fluff that are the most contentious for IP. Signum has their own miniatures that are not as close to Confrontation material and it's not hard to rewrite background material. The LoS game itself is an entirely different game system, anyway. Maybe Signum has some sentimental or emotional ties to "their" Confrontation worldbuilding but it's not like modelers care about the background than they do the quality of the miniatures. I also haven't read backers complaining that LoS isn't based on the Confrontation ruleset.

ced1106 wrote:
Statement from the LoS FB:

Spoiler:

"We respect the copyrights."

 .Mikes. wrote:

ced1106 wrote:
Statement from the LoS FB:

Spoiler:

"We respect the copyrights."

Undeniably, there is a close line. But seriously, can anyone show anything from the LOS campaign that is a direct violation of any copyright? Not "this is similar" or "this is the influence/inspiration", but a direct violation of the copyright. If not, it will be hard to prove the IP-infringement. It would be like anyone doing any barbarian would be a violation towards the Conan-ip, just because they sort-of look the same. Is it morally or ethically right? Probably not, but that is beside the point.

grefven wrote:
Undeniably, there is a close line. But seriously, can anyone show anything from the LOS campaign that is a direct violation of any copyright? Not "this is similar" or "this is the influence/inspiration", but a direct violation of the copyright. If not, it will be hard to prove the IP-infringement. It would be like anyone doing any barbarian would be a violation towards the Conan-ip, just because they sort-of look the same. Is it morally or ethically right? Probably not, but that is beside the point.

For the United States, IP rulings handed down by judges are historically inconsistent, and, if the IP blogs by American lawyers I've read are correct, a judge will consider the IP challenge *as a whole*. Thus, if someone has a barbarian, no, the Howard estate doesn't have a case. BUT if there's a barbarian... and there's half naked lady with a spear... and there's a half naked dark skinned guy... and there's a magic-using guy in a cloak... and there's an ape-man... and there're some Indian-like bad guys... *then* there might be a case. CM and I have been discussing exactly this on the BGG forums, and he's noted that much of the LoS fluff (eg. Wolfen, guilds) have similarities to Confrontation. LoS's game system is definitely *not* similar to Confrontation, and Signum has added their own background, so, IMO, all Signum has to do is get rid of these background similarities to Confrontation. Of course, I'm only familiar with the United States, so French and EU IP law may behave differently (ie. Stellar may not be able to protect Confrontation against LoS outside of French and EU jurisdiction).

But, since you're in Sweden, you should know more about EU IP court cases than I do. So link me to any EU IP articles of interest.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1995926/frozen-kickstarter

Honestly considering all the alternate Warhammer model companies out there (and considering that GW actually has resources to take people to court) and considering the Chapter House case I doubt that SD has a leg to stand on. At best they can delay the KS and mess up Cad's plans for a bit; but honestly they are unlikely to win; and that's before getting into the complex mess that is international crime (SD might only be able to get their practical reach to affect the French market).

Overall neither company is smelling of roses, Cad has been casting illegal recasts for years whilst SD has a very shoddy current status of information and viability (although thus far SD hasn't done anything illegal).

That said Cad did stop selling the Confrontation models and haven't restarted and instead are focusing on their own game. Could be that they've turned a corner and want to go legit now that Confrontation might be coming back.



Both have their downsides and in a way we shouldn't want to reward a recasting company (although this is one of the rare cases where the recaster appears to want to actually engage with the market directly as opposed to just recast and cream off the profit)

Skaorn wrote:
@Astrilux: It then becomes a case of "is it worth it to us" to counter sue. SD might be right in thinking that they have the financial upper hand. They at least seemed pretty confident they didn't need all the money they bled in the KS. For all we know Cad might have a lot of capital tied up in producing their models that all the legal fees from two suits might be too much. I doubt SD could pull the old sue them until they run out of money though.

I had my share of experience with lawyers and IP protection. The first issue is to establish jurisdiction. It might be US for LoS and France for Stellar. In Europe it is not trivial to establish copyright violation. Guilds and Big wolfmen and some vaguely familiar figures are not going to fly, IMHO. Another example is game design. The game mechanic is hardly protected and if you pay close attention you realize that many new games are based on the mechanics of older ones + a small new addition. Background is also hard to protect. The stories and settings of many novels, comics and so on are VERY similar. Names can be protected but I doubt this is the issue with LoS.

On the other hand, Stellar blocked LoS kickstarter, which is an objective and quantifiable damage. This part of the story at least is clear.

Anyway, without the details there is no way we can figure out how this mess will evolve.

Hekal Xul wrote:

Smellingsalts wrote:
As for the claims about showing off figures, SD said that they have all the originals and the kickstarter would be used to make plastic molds. They said they had not started on those because they wanted to see how many of the figures would be unlocked so they could do mold layouts with efficiency.

They don't have all the originals.
'd even doubt they have the range of resin masters to cover the ?250? or so miniatures unlocked in the KS.

Doesn't matter if they don't have the originals when they aren't going to be making anything of quality anyways lol.

Message from the Cadwallon website:

"A little announcement that we would like to make in the light of the current situation.

In the last month we were closely following Confrontation’s KickStarter campaign.

As much as everyone else we were happy that Confrontation is finally getting resurrected.

When “Steller-Licensing?” has acquired licensing and announced that they will “resurrecting” Confrontation universe , we were really happy and couldn’t wait to see what a new company will bring in on the table for all the die heart fans around the world as well all new players that it will attract.

A dream come true.

Our overwhelming happiness was overturned as soon as <SANS-DETOUR> has launched their KickStarters campaign, it became very clear to us that they are not interested in reviving this amazing universe.

Since we didn’t want to harm their campaign in any way, we decided to postpone our comments. But, now since their campaign has ended, we cannot help but express our educated opinion.

When their campaign launched, we were among the first supporters that rushed in to back the project. However after looking through their pledge page, where they were promising unbelievably huge variety of miniatures at a suspiciously low price, we decided to look into this a little bit closer, only to find some photos with a cleverly placed “fine print” at the bottom that says “not contractual pictures”.. no examples of real miniatures or even a whiff of promised that they can deliver anything that they promised.

It’s at this point in time we became concerned and decided not to back this project.

As a miniature manufacturer with more then a decade of experience, we know that its almost impossible to produce such a huge variety of miniatures at such a low price without a great scarifies to the quality and the detail of the miniatures.

Even if they somehow able to fulfil their orders in time, it will most likely leave us the die heart fans empty hearted and disappointed.

We really hope that “Steeler Licensing” will change the direction they are heading. We understand that its a business, but for many of us, we take our hobbies seriously and hate to see such a great game go down in history just because “someone wanted grab a quick buck”."

That's pretty savage. A lot of the guys at Cadwallon must feel completely heartbroken over the direction things are moving right now.