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I can remember several GW staff happily admitting that Tau were an attempt to cash in on the popularity of anime and manga, at the time of their release. Not that any design elements were borrowed from other art, obviously.

Shoot Ms. Stevenson an email, ask her how the trial went.

You have to forgive X. He has a big crush on GW, and didn't even join Dakka until after this whole case had been going for a while. I doubt he's bothered to read the 193 preceeding pages, and doesn't have any real idea as to how this case has played out.

PhantomViper wrote:

I find it entirely amusing that in every single one of your posts that I read, you manage to be completely and utterly wrong on each and every thing that you say... Amazing!

I can't recall anyone in this thread saying anything other than "GW will lose every single thing in this case", that's all I'm saying. So I actually have a better record than most of the regular posters in this thread.

I'll bow out now anyway before I get flamed to death. I was just making a passing comment...I'll be back to gloat when CHS is bankrupted by costs


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Saldiven wrote:
I doubt he's bothered to read the 193 preceeding pages, and doesn't have any real idea as to how this case has played out.

I have read most of the legal postings from the past few dozen pages. There is a gross discrepancy between their contents, and their contents as discussed in this thread.

xruslanx wrote:
I'll bow out now anyway before I get flamed to death. I was just making a passing comment...I'll be back to gloat when CHS is bankrupted by costs

Will you be back to apologize if the appeal makes GW lose everything they asserted?
Or if Chapterhouse is awarded costs?

Or are you just here to troll?

rigeld2 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
I'll bow out now anyway before I get flamed to death. I was just making a passing comment...I'll be back to gloat when CHS is bankrupted by costs

Will you be back to apologize if the appeal makes GW lose everything they asserted?
Or if Chapterhouse is awarded costs?

Actually yes, I will. If the judge tells GW they were wasting everyone's time then I'll admit that I was wrong. However I think that's unlikely, some sort of boring compromise is the most likely outcome.

Saldiven wrote:
You have to forgive X. He has a big crush on GW, and didn't even join Dakka until after this whole case had been going for a while. I doubt he's bothered to read the 193 preceeding pages, and doesn't have any real idea as to how this case has played out.

Oh I think you'll find he has been here a lot longer than his joining date would suggest, in one form or another. It's strange how the posters who complain most vociferously about how anti-GW and negative Dakka is, seem to be the ones who can't stay away

xruslanx wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
I'll bow out now anyway before I get flamed to death. I was just making a passing comment...I'll be back to gloat when CHS is bankrupted by costs

Will you be back to apologize if the appeal makes GW lose everything they asserted?
Or if Chapterhouse is awarded costs?

Actually yes, I will. If the judge tells GW they were wasting everyone's time then I'll admit that I was wrong. However I think that's unlikely, some sort of boring compromise is the most likely outcome.

The judge already said that, more than 40 times. When Judge Kennelly repeatedly dismissed claims with prejudice he did so because, as he stated, it was inappropriate to bring claims for years and drop them at the 11th hour. This is because doing so is in fact a waste of everyone's time.

So, you gonna admit you was wrong, friend-O?

xruslanx wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

I find it entirely amusing that in every single one of your posts that I read, you manage to be completely and utterly wrong on each and every thing that you say... Amazing!

I can't recall anyone in this thread saying anything other than "GW will lose every single thing in this case", that's all I'm saying. So I actually have a better record than most of the regular posters in this thread.

I don't think anyone's ever said that. Plenty of people have said they should lose every single thing, and it'd be great if they did lose every single thing. But so many decisions have been a bit odd so far, and there's a chance that GW will walk away from this with some minor claims upheld.

But there's no way GW can honestly claim it's been anything other than a disaster for them. Their sole aim was to shut down CHS, and 3 years and millions of dollars later they've succeeded in removing almost nothing from CHS's inventory whilst giving them much greater protection on almost everything else. At appeal level they stand to potentially lose some of what they did manage to get, as well as millions more in expenses.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

weeble1000 wrote:
[
GW asserted a giant case against Chapterhouse, forced Chapterhouse to go through ridiculous amounts of discovery wherein GW's counsel deliberately or at least recklessly withheld relevant documents, dropped claims left and right that the Court dismissed on the principle that you can't drag a party through two years of costly discovery and then abandon a claim without consequences, and now says that Chapterhouse Studios needs to face the threat of paying costs to prevent Chapterhouse's unreasonably litigious behavior?!?

Ah I see what you mean, on re-reading it it does look like GW are saying CHS need to be prevented from continuing litigious behaviour (which is mind bending on it's own). It just makes me thing they're pulling a legal version of "I don't like what they're doing. They shouldn't be arguing with us. Make them stop."

I take it there's no sanctions for claims as inaccurate as that, and that worst case is that it makes them look bad?

Stay on topic.

weeble1000 wrote:
'We sued a defenseless company and tried to bury it in legal fees, but because our case was such a pile of abusive BS, three of the finest, most well-respected firms in the country have taken on the case pro-bono. We've put this Nick guy through three years of Hell, beginning with when we blitz filed the lawsuit on Christmas Eve to scare the crap out of him, but it was his choice to be involved in this suit. I mean, he could have just done what we said and gone out of business. We were also characterized by the Magistrate judge as having the desire to completely obliterate Chapterhouse Studios to the point of making discussions of a settlement moot, but the real reason we are here is because this little turd has been deliberately orchestrating the acquisition of pro-bono counsel in a mad genius scheme to blatantly infringe our IP with impunity forever. He needs to be taught a lesson about getting sued by an 800 lbs. gorilla and having the incredible luck to find pro-bono representation in spite of the fact that he makes enough money to pay a lawyer for a week and a half. '

What the Hell GW. This is over the line, even for GW. This is way over the line. If anyone should be thinking about the costly consequences of their litigious activity it is GW.

But if every little kid is constantly protected by parents and teachers, how will they ever learn to bow to the bully

 filbert wrote:

Saldiven wrote:
You have to forgive X. He has a big crush on GW, and didn't even join Dakka until after this whole case had been going for a while. I doubt he's bothered to read the 193 preceeding pages, and doesn't have any real idea as to how this case has played out.

Oh I think you'll find he has been here a lot longer than his joining date would suggest, in one form or another. It's strange how the posters who complain most vociferously about how anti-GW and negative Dakka is, seem to be the ones who can't stay away

You beat me to it filbert!

I've lost track - anyone have the important dates for the upcoming milestones?

Thanks!

There was a status hearing on the 7th. This was the result:

This docket entry was made by the Clerk on Thursday, November 7, 2013:
MINUTE entry before the Honorable Matthew F. Kennelly: Status hearing held on
11/7/2013. The Court will rule on pending post−trial motions at a later date.Mailed
notice.(pjg, )


So, looks like no oral argument. He'll rule (injunction, jmols, and costs), then the clock starts ticking on the appeal.

Unless I've missed something out there.

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
I can remember several GW staff happily admitting that Tau were an attempt to cash in on the popularity of anime and manga, at the time of their release. Not that any design elements were borrowed from other art, obviously.

So obvious as to be a triviality. I can't imagine anyone having looked at that at the time, and thought that they could be anything other than a reference to Manga/anime? Even the timing was correct, during an attempted expansion into Eastern markets.

You can draw similar lines through much of GW's stuff - but, funnily enough, it's something that most people wouldn't have had a problem with, in that so many fantasy conceptions are echoes of earlier offerings. Rogue Trader, and early Fantasy, were absolutely chock-full of it (in fact.. some of the artists were freelancers who worked on a variety of material) and the book's authors unapologetic fans of that other material.

The problem is that now big business, not the artistic originators of GW's work but the kind of sycophants and company drones you get in the form of people like Merrett, are trying to build an iron wall around ideas that were not their own to begin with.

Am glad the case has gone the way it has - anything other would have set a dangerous precedent, not just as far as GW is concerned, but for the rest of the industry and possibly beyond.

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
I can remember several GW staff happily admitting that Tau were an attempt to cash in on the popularity of anime and manga, at the time of their release. Not that any design elements were borrowed from other art, obviously.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?122972-Real-Tau-imagery-came-from-RIFTS

Bickering on this forum won't affect the final outcome of the case, for which we just have to wait.

What interests me about this case is the scope of Games Workshop's intellectual property claims. Let me explain.

GW has a lot of properly registered, indisputable and valuable IP, for instance the texts of every book it has published, artwork (where GW paid the artist to transfer the copyright), The specific forms of all the miniatures that it has produced, and trademarks like Warhammer (but only in the context of wargaming and roleplaying - they can't stop someone opening a Warhammer café or Warhammer plumbers, unless they used the GW Warhammer logo).

All of this IP is unassailable, and no-one can legally make copies of these products (although presumably the books are all available on file-sharing sites).

GW also makes some IP claims that could be disputed, like the term 'Space Marine' which (it has been shown) they didn't originate as a science-fiction trope or even make first use of in tabletop wargaming. It remains to be seen whether anyone can successfully challenge GW over Space Marines within their core business, and it seems unlikely for now.

Then there are the more controversial IP claims by GW, such as owning the rights to the 'Chaos Device', a variation on the eight-pointed cross of medieval heraldry by sci-fi and fantasy writer Michael Moorcock. Another example are the various sci-fi versions of historical armies and vehicles. These things are generic.

Why does GW defend these tenuous IP claims so aggressively? I can't help drawing the conclusion that the company is abusing IP law in an attempt to restrict legitimate competition.

Games Workshop prospered in its early years (from the late-70s to the mid-80s) partly because it was able to use the IP of others (Michael Moorcock, 2000AD, the BBC's Doctor Who, TSR and Chaosium spring to mind) in its products. One could argue that GW wouldn't have survived until Warhammer and its other games really took off without those licensed products.

So it seems deeply hypocritical of GW to try to brush over that part of their history while suing other companies for making miniatures compatible with their games.

Of course, other members of this forum have made the same points earlier. But to me this is the broader significance of the case: Can one company use IP law in this way to exclude other companies from the market?

If they think they can get away with it an unscrupulous company will do this, to extend market place dominance and squeeze out competition, they hope it will lead to greater profits. GW are showing themselves to be quite a nasty company that uses intellectual and actual dishonesty to attack their opponents. Dishonesty in their attempts to deceive the court of their patent office communications and attempts to trick artists into retroactively signing away their rights to certain works. Dishonesty in claiming that all their stuff is original and studio artists just pulled stuff out their heads, whereas the inspiration for things is clearly obvious and staff have said in many interviews over the years that their direct inspiration was X or Y and how they had piles of reference books sitting around when working on projects. Further deceitful behaviour is the manner in which they attempt to move the goal posts after the trail to claim they did better than they did. Then trying this dirty trick that CHS are abusing pro-bono to needlessly drag the case out and hurt GW. WTF?! GW seriously think CHS should just roll over and take it to save them money.

They make me sick. They are a monster in this hobby that needs taking apart because unchallenged they will put the pressure on anyone they can. Or does the boast of the many hundreds of 'files' they claim to be building on certain individuals/companies they feel are infringing them not seem worrying to anyone else? This is why I don't buy GW any more, not for some years. I'm not funding them destroying the hobby so that the only thing you can buy are space marines in corporate GW stores.

A Wise man once said: "stay on topic".

Every time I log on to dakka something has happened in this thread, and every time it is something off topic... Except a court update that says: "no update"

 reds8n wrote:

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
I can remember several GW staff happily admitting that Tau were an attempt to cash in on the popularity of anime and manga, at the time of their release. Not that any design elements were borrowed from other art, obviously.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?122972-Real-Tau-imagery-came-from-RIFTS

Wow, I knew they borrowed the Tau imagery--but that's pretty much a direct copy. Good link.

Back in 1998-1999 I worked for Hot Topic in Columbia Mall (part-time), during the day I worked for GW at the Glen Burnie HQ.

I remember one day, around Christmas, we got in a shipment of stickers I had to inventory and put out for sale at Hot Topic.

I thought it was really cool when I pulled out a stack of stickers of the Imperial Aquila (the two headed eagle), the Crux Terminatus and another stack of a skull (the skull was clearly a GW designed skull pulled from one of the books, but I cannot remember the artist).

On each sticker was the "©" symbol and it said "© 1998 Hot Topic". NOT GW or anything mentioning GW. I had brought some of them in to show some of the guys at GW. Instead of having any legal action towards HT they instead went and bought most of the stickers for themselves.

As far as they knew HT didn't have any type of license to sell them, but GW never did anything about it. Later on we even had a t-shirt for sale at HT with the Crux Terminatus.

Maybe that as the difference between the US and UK GW headquarters, or maybe at the time GW wasn't as litigious as they are now, but nothing was ever done about it as far as I could find out.

Sorry if you think this is going off topic, but if this was just about whether ChapterHouse Studios stays in business and keeps making its models, perhaps the thread would never have reached 195 pages. Obviously there is a question of justice and fair play, and whether the big boy in the industry is bullying the underdog, but other members' post show that it goes beyond that.

As others have pointed out over and over again, many of Games Workshop's products are based on ideas lifted from popular works of fiction and historical sources, so they've got a bare-faced cheek suing others for doing the same thing.

The copyright, trademark and patent laws of various nations are what they are, and are not going to be altered by this case, or in response to this case. That said, I think it's reasonable to reflect on the state of these laws.

IP laws seem to have a lot of good sense in them. You can't copyright an idea, only a particular and unique expression of that idea, which means you can't copyright genre or general fiction 'tropes'. You can't patent something that everybody already knows about: just because no-one ever patented the wheel, it doesn't meant that you can and charge everyone royalties for making them.

However, there is a disparity in duration between different forms of IP. In some jurisdictions, trademarks cease to valid if they are not used for more than five years Patents are only valid for 20 years from the first date of filing in the EU and the USA, and perhaps in most of the world. Copyright generally endures for the life of the creator plus 50 to 100 years after their death, meaning that the author's 'estate', whoever owns the rights to it, retains the copyright.

What if the copyright holders of a work, such as a book, film or record, decide not to publish or release that work, making it unavailable to the public? J R R Tolkien died in 1973. Under current British copyright law his family have rights to his books for 70 years after his death (until 2043). What if they decide to stop all publication of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and the rest? This is obviously detrimental to human culture as a whole (even if only to a small degree), but they would be perfectly within their rights under current copyright law.

Arguably there should be a change in copyright law so that works which are out of publication or release for longer than a certain period of time (say, 10 or 20 years) would become public domain, so anyone would be able to reproduce them. In the age of the internet (and of 3-D printing) that would effectively mean free access to those works.

 mechanicalhorizon wrote:

Maybe that as the difference between the US and UK GW headquarters, or maybe at the time GW wasn't as litigious as they are now, but nothing was ever done about it as far as I could find out.

It's more likely that it was because HT had more income after taxes at the time than the entire net worth of Games Workshop. Big companies don't sue each other unless they have (or think they have) something to gain. In this case they both only stood to lose, so they just embraced the status quo.

 OsitioRojo wrote:
...
...
...

Games Workshop prospered in its early years (from the late-70s to the mid-80s) partly because it was able to use the IP of others (Michael Moorcock, 2000AD, the BBC's Doctor Who, TSR and Chaosium spring to mind) in its products. One could argue that GW wouldn't have survived until Warhammer and its other games really took off without those licensed products.

...
...

To be fair to GW, they legally licensed those IP properties in order to make “official” games and localised versions.

My point was that those individuals and companies agreed to licence their IP to Games Workshop, which allowed them to produce some of their early products and get started as a business (at least, producing something other than the Fighting Fantasy game books).

GW HAS in fact licensed Fantasy Flight Games to produce the old Talisman board game, which is great. I think someone is also making a posh version of Battle for Armageddon under licence. However, GW doesn't want anyone else making miniatures compatible with Warhammer 40K, which is understandable since that's a core part of their business. This is arguably an anti-competitive attitude and this court case has shown that GW may have difficulty in stopping people from doing so.

I say that GW is being hypocritical because it benefited in its early days from a somewhat laissez-faire attitude towards copyright and trademark in the industry in those days, an attitude that the company no longer shares.

I was surprised that GW sued over Chapterhouse's Lizard Ogre, because WFB is so much more generic than 40K. Lizardmen appeared in the AD&D first edition Monster Manual in 1977:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lizard_Man_(D%26D).JPG

Making a giant lizardman or giving it an Aztec or Mayan culture hardly makes GW's product unique, does it?

 OsitioRojo wrote:

Making a giant lizardman or giving it an Aztec or Mayan culture hardly makes GW's product unique, does it?

That is exactly what GW says. In fact, GW says that this combination of "elements" is what constitutes protected expression in its work, and that any other bipedal lizard with mesoamerican material culture therefore infringes its copyright in, well, in sort of Lizardmen in general as GW seems okay with asserting a mad amalgam of disparate works of art as a frankenstein monster of an original work of authorship. Sadly, Judge Kennelly allowed this to happen.

If the case goes on appeal, we'll see what the appellate court thinks about asserting a photograph of a painted set of three miniatures and a drawing of three different weapons (none of which the miniatures are wielding) as a single work of art. GW's entire claim chart was like this. You should look it up in the exhibits attached to the recent filings. Every entry in the table is a single claim, a single claim asserting an alleged work of original authorship that has allegedly been infringed.

Gw literally argued that its Croxigor was unique because it was a bipedal lizard with aztec-like weapons and gold jewelry. That's it. Anything that combines those elements, however it is expressed, is an infringement according to GW, because GW "uniquely" combined the common elements of bipedal lizard and mesoamerican material culture. No one else can do this, ever, in any way, because it belongs to GW now.

It strikes me that GW does not quite understand the idea/expression dichotomy. This case has the potential to shift copyright law. If the lower court's rulings are allowed to stand, copyright law will be changed as it is. If not, it will help to bring clarity to issues that have pretty much never been raised before.

weeble1000 wrote:

Gw literally argued that its Croxigor was unique because it was a bipedal lizard with aztec-like weapons and gold jewelry. That's it. Anything that combines those elements, however it is expressed, is an infringement according to GW, because GW "uniquely" combined the common elements of bipedal lizard and mesoamerican material culture. No one else can do this, ever, in any way, because it belongs to GW now.

I know you're aware Weeble, but just to chime in for the benefit of those who aren't, that's gold jewellery on an unpainted model as sold.

 azreal13 wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

Gw literally argued that its Croxigor was unique because it was a bipedal lizard with aztec-like weapons and gold jewelry. That's it. Anything that combines those elements, however it is expressed, is an infringement according to GW, because GW "uniquely" combined the common elements of bipedal lizard and mesoamerican material culture. No one else can do this, ever, in any way, because it belongs to GW now.

I know you're aware Weeble, but just to chime in for the benefit of those who aren't, that's gold jewellery on an unpainted model as sold.

Exactly! So what the Hell infringes? Not that GW won this claim, but it won similar claims, like the Doomseer and the Dark Elf Arch Torturess. But Kennelly ruled the website photos to be part of the works, even over mountains of testimony that the products of both parties are sold unpainted and unassembled. Color was a part of most of GWs claims. But the color was only in essentially advertising photos displaying what might arguably be derivative works. But should they rather be considered compilations?

Think about the implications for figure painters. Are their works the property of the model sculptor? Kennelly's ruling could be interpreted that way. I think he ruled based on the relationship of the photos to the commercial value of the products. But does the use to which someone puts a work implicate ownership? And what of injunction? If the products infringe in combination with the website photos, should CHS be enjoined only from that combination?

This case is a darn big mess that touches on scores of fundamental issues for the miniatures industry and beyond. In a few years people may be citing the Games Workshop case.

 mechanicalhorizon wrote:
Back in 1998-1999 I worked for Hot Topic in Columbia Mall (part-time), during the day I worked for GW at the Glen Burnie HQ.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-D-2KaPlgM

(Sorry, couldn't help it.)

So, what is the time frame we should expect before we know anything more on this case?

It all depends on how quickly the judge renders his decisions. Could be a week. Could be months.

 azreal13 wrote:
I know you're aware Weeble, but just to chime in for the benefit of those who aren't, that's gold jewellery on an unpainted model as sold.

Funny. I painted mine to look like Jade.