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He really let that happen again? And then didn't send the required notice to the copyright office until the actual trial had started?

czakk wrote:
He really sat on another letter for months? And then didn't send the required notice to the copyright office until the actual trial had started?

Yes. Yes he did. I'm sure that Mr. Moskin has some 'excuse' such as, "my dog ate it," or "aliens abducted me and I was replaced by a pod person." But regardless of the excuse, he did the EXACT thing he was already sanctioned for doing. The only salient thing that is different is that THIS registration was for a shoulder pad with an ARROW on it instead of a shoulder pad with a CROSSED ARROW on it. Big surprise the USCO felt similarly about it...Big surprise Moskin managed to somehow not tell anyone about it...

 Miguelsan wrote:

But Mr Merrel said that GW sculptors never ever need resources outside GW. They even created Tau from scratch, from their minds and stuff...

Personally, as son as he said that, I would have shown the Jury that album cover with the very Tau fire warrior looking helmet on it.

Hmmm.

Given the summary judgment on the issue (shoulder pads copyrightable), as far as the actual trial goes, the fugitive letter doesn't do much. CHS was precluded from introducing the copyright letters into evidence iirc?

----

There are some side issues, ethics for one (and the can of worms that opens as far as discovery goes) , and failure to give proper notice to the copyright office.

Double post error.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Miguelsan wrote:

But Mr Merrel said that GW sculptors never ever need resources outside GW. They even created Tau from scratch, from their minds and stuff...

Personally, as son as he said that, I would have shown the Jury that album cover with the very Tau fire warrior looking helmet on it.

Or any Japanese anime type cartoon/comic/manga/whatever dealing with gundam/robots/armore suit soldiers.

What album cover is that? Is it by a decent band

In the original designer notes of the Tau, they were stated to have taken inspiration from mediaeval Chinese and Japanese armour designs. The similarities are very obvious to anyone who has ever looked at samurai armour, for instance. The lamellar appearance of the armour plates. The large shoulder guard.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In the original designer notes of the Tau, they were stated to have taken inspiration from mediaeval Chinese and Japanese armour designs. The similarities are very obvious to anyone who has ever looked at samurai armour, for instance. The lamellar appearance of the armour plates. The large shoulder guard.

You mean the same design elements that Dr. Grindley mentioned in his testimony about armor in general?

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In the original designer notes of the Tau, they were stated to have taken inspiration from mediaeval Chinese and Japanese armour designs. The similarities are very obvious to anyone who has ever looked at samurai armour, for instance. The lamellar appearance of the armour plates. The large shoulder guard.

You mean the same design elements that Dr. Grindley mentioned in his testimony about armor in general?

I've been busy and haven't had a chance to read GWs latest motion in detail, but I think they try to discredit his testimony again. This is what, their fourth kick at that cat?

He may well have mentioned Japanese shoulder armour in relation to the general concept of large shoulder armours, however the Tau thing was that the designers specifically used Chinese and Japanese armours for reference material. This was discussed in the articles put out by GW when the Tau were new.

I thinkpeople don't realize that as of wright now gw has a monopoly and their way over inflated prices show that.
If chapterhouse wins then 3rd party material will come out and gw will be forced to compete for our money.
Why would I buy 5 terminators for 50, when there's an equally nice equivalent for 35 or 40.
I love how GW is saying its to protect their HIGH quality.....you know its just to protect their insane profits.

GW have a monopoly of official GW models for 40K.

There are plenty of competing models on the market if you want cheaper models.

tanker19 wrote:
I thinkpeople don't realize that as of wright now gw has a monopoly and their way over inflated prices show that.

Well, they DO have a monopoly on their game system. Which makes sense. Monopolies generally allow the producer to dictate prices to the consumer because they are the sole source of supply.

What is hilarious, and represents the ineptitude of GW in this sphere, is that even in spite of their monopoly on items within their game system, they have allowed other companies--mostly studios much, much smaller than they--to create a cottage industry supplying models that GW does not make or allow easy access to.

GW has used its monopolistic power to ... charge $0 for models/production that it decided not to make. This is just 'Derp-face'. It's like having a 10 point Terminator option in your codex as a troop choice and not taking it in any lists.

But they dont have a monopoly... There are other game companies that produce miniature based games. GW just owns the 40k Universe and that is where I think people get crossed up.

 Ammobunkerdean wrote:
But they dont have a monopoly... There are other game companies that produce miniature based games. GW just owns the 40k Universe and that is where I think people get crossed up.

Which is why people were saying that they own the monopoly on their own game .

Holy Cow! Reading the transcript!

Does Alan Merrit know what perjury is? I've talked to GW sculptors going way back to the early 90's at GW events. WAY before all this started. They were all given reference materials, medieval arms books and tons of other stuff.....He is absolutely lying his ass off.....

That level of lying in an American court room is not all that common by a corporate functionary.

There might have been some uncomfortable questions about the reference materials from the sculptors workshop that we haven't seen.

So was it meant to be this weekend that they deliberated and gave a verdict? I thought someone said there was only this week to go earlier this week. My memory may be off though.

STUCARIUS wrote:
Holy Cow! Reading the transcript!

Does Alan Merrit know what perjury is? I've talked to GW sculptors going way back to the early 90's at GW events. WAY before all this started. They were all given reference materials, medieval arms books and tons of other stuff.....He is absolutely lying his ass off.....

That level of lying in an American court room is not all that common by a corporate functionary.

I'm loving where they try to NOT admit that GW figures are multi-pose and convertable (page 425 I believe)

 judgedoug wrote:

STUCARIUS wrote:
Holy Cow! Reading the transcript!

Does Alan Merrit know what perjury is? I've talked to GW sculptors going way back to the early 90's at GW events. WAY before all this started. They were all given reference materials, medieval arms books and tons of other stuff.....He is absolutely lying his ass off.....

That level of lying in an American court room is not all that common by a corporate functionary.

I'm loving where they try to NOT admit that GW figures are multi-pose and convertable (page 425 I believe)

Tournaments don't award prizes for army appearance!

Q. Going back to -- just a second. I think we can move on.
4 You're familiar with the concept of a conversion kit in
5 the world of miniatures, right?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. And that means making changes to a miniature to be different
8 from the standard model that's sold, right?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And in order to do that, you need to make sure that whatever
11 you're adding to it is the right size to fit, correct?
12 A. It kind of depends, but yes, I suppose.
13 Q. You talked a bit about how Warhammer 40K is played. We had
14 a little demo. It's true that one aspect of the game is
15 personalizing parts for use in the game, right?
16 A. Oh, yes.
17 Q. And it's accurate that during competition players are
18 awarded points for the appearance of their army?
19 A. It varies from competition to competition. It's certainly
20 not a standard feature of competitions, and it's certainly not
21 universal.
22 Q. But in some competitions points are awarded for appearance?
23 A. That may very well be true. For some competitions, that is
24 one of the things that you get points for.

 Alfndrate wrote:
What album cover is that? Is it by a decent band

I've been trying to remember what the band was to post it here. You used to see it posted every now and then when someone would start on how 'original' GW is...

Monopoly is a bad word to use for this situation. The do not have a monopoly at all. What they do have is years of ingrained behavior, by causing the customer to believe that GW games cannot be played with anything, but GW official miniatures and terrain. This, as many of us know, is a falsehood. Some who did not know are now learning it as well.

GW used to enforce this with the official tournament rule of "ONLY GW MODELS". They no longer have an official tournament circuit. ALL tournaments and Cons, except Gamesday are independently run now. Most, if not all, get no prize support from GW. So GW has created a false belief, through years of dominating the hobby, that if they do not make it then you cannot use it.

Many IGuard players now use minis from another company, Many ork players now use models and bits from another company AND now that Chapterhouse has threaten GW's cash cow, SPACE MARINES, with producing LARGE amounts of bits and accessories, GW jumps up and down and throws a tantrum.

All the other stuff didn't even cause GW to flinch, but as soon as CH started producing more and more space marine stuff, GW jumped into action and now that is going to bite them in the hind end, I hope.

More variety can never be a bad thing. People do not want to sit opposite of the same army that they have and most people do not have the time or skill to convert stuff from scratch. If GW actually listened to their customer base, they would know this and act accordingly. As it is, I hope they loss this lawsuit and it causes more companies to produce more bits and accessories.

And it is laughable to hear GW employees claim that all inspiration comes from a designers head. I honestly hopes GW losses just to see some of the arrogance of that company get smacked out of them.

czakk wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

STUCARIUS wrote:
Holy Cow! Reading the transcript!

Does Alan Merrit know what perjury is? I've talked to GW sculptors going way back to the early 90's at GW events. WAY before all this started. They were all given reference materials, medieval arms books and tons of other stuff.....He is absolutely lying his ass off.....

That level of lying in an American court room is not all that common by a corporate functionary.

I'm loving where they try to NOT admit that GW figures are multi-pose and convertable (page 425 I believe)

Tournaments don't award prizes for army appearance!

Q. Going back to -- just a second. I think we can move on.
4 You're familiar with the concept of a conversion kit in
5 the world of miniatures, right?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. And that means making changes to a miniature to be different
8 from the standard model that's sold, right?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. And in order to do that, you need to make sure that whatever
11 you're adding to it is the right size to fit, correct?
12 A. It kind of depends, but yes, I suppose.
13 Q. You talked a bit about how Warhammer 40K is played. We had
14 a little demo. It's true that one aspect of the game is
15 personalizing parts for use in the game, right?
16 A. Oh, yes.
17 Q. And it's accurate that during competition players are
18 awarded points for the appearance of their army?
19 A. It varies from competition to competition. It's certainly
20 not a standard feature of competitions, and it's certainly not
21 universal.
22 Q. But in some competitions points are awarded for appearance?
23 A. That may very well be true. For some competitions, that is
24 one of the things that you get points for.

Name a single GW official tourney that didn't have a "Best Painted" or "Best Army" category? Hell Golden Daemon is ONLY about conversions and appearance.

He said that GD is mainly about painting, not converting. He wouldn't lie under oath...

I also wonder if they dug a little bit more into this:

Now, Ms. Stevenson, as you recall, you testified that
this chart was put together at your direction by Games
Workshop's hobby team, and they painted and posed the Games
Workshop figures on the right column to look like the colors
and poses of the Chapterhouse products, is that right?
A Almost. The hobby team didn't put the chart together, but
they did build and paint the model.
Q And you said that you found this confusing when you see
them side by side like this?
A I find it compelling.
Q You said you found it confusing, correct?

I don't have any big legal insight into it, but telling the jury that you posed and painted your product to look similar to the product you think is infringing has got to have them scratching their heads a bit.

If anyone has serious beliefs GWs designers lied and has proof like a statement in WD written by that individual to the contrary... I think it'd be nice for them to post some references.

As far as monopoly goes, I think GW effectively had a monopoly and just in the narrowness of their game and setting. GW's business averages in the hundreds of millions of dollars, meanwhile until more recently the rest of the industry combined would have been less than 1/2 of that. In many teachings on the subject depending on distribution a monopoly is possible with a little as 60% of market control and that it really depends on how the dominating company carries itself... And simply GW acts like it has a monopoly.

 aka_mythos wrote:
If anyone has serious beliefs GWs designers lied and has proof like a statement in WD written by that individual to the contrary... I think it'd be nice for them to post some references.

Merritt admitted to not being a designer and that he can't actually testify that there are no outside influences ever used, just that the designers are under instructions to stick to internal sources for ideas. So I hardly see an actual lie (much less one by a designer) here, just proof that Merritt doesn't know that sometimes you need to take ideas from outside when doing things like building a new race from scratch. He comes off as out of touch with what is done with the company honestly more than anything.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
What album cover is that? Is it by a decent band

I've been trying to remember what the band was to post it here. You used to see it posted every now and then when someone would start on how 'original' GW is...

I thought it was a book cover, not an album.

Eric

 aka_mythos wrote:
If anyone has serious beliefs GWs designers lied and has proof like a statement in WD written by that individual to the contrary... I think it'd be nice for them to post some references.

As far as monopoly goes, I think GW effectively had a monopoly and just in the narrowness of their game and setting. GW's business averages in the hundreds of millions of dollars, meanwhile until more recently the rest of the industry combined would have been less than 1/2 of that. In many teachings on the subject depending on distribution a monopoly is possible with a little as 60% of market control and that it really depends on how the dominating company carries itself... And simply GW acts like it has a monopoly.

I think Monopoly is the wrong term. Market Dominance is more appropriate. Of course different jurisdictions define it in different ways and getting anyone to agree what a specific and clear definition is, very hard.

 MagickalMemories wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
What album cover is that? Is it by a decent band

I've been trying to remember what the band was to post it here. You used to see it posted every now and then when someone would start on how 'original' GW is...

I thought it was a book cover, not an album.

Eric

Is this it?



Cover art made for an Atari game called Brataccas.