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 H.B.M.C. wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
Although the judge made that decision not knowing about the denial, and then GW sent the copyright examiner the judge's opinion trying to overcome the rejection, all without telling anybody that GW was communicating with the copyright office, which was explicitly the subject of a standing discovery request.

Surely they got smacked for that? The idea that you can do something, found out to be wrong, and then just withdraw it without repercussions is stupid. It rings of someone taking hostages in a shopping mall and then going "Psyke! I'm totally letting them go. No desire to hold hostages now!" and getting away with it and the police going "Well, he's not holding any hostages now, so we can't do anything to him.".

Jonathan Moskin was personally sanctioned for that and required to pay Chspterhouse's expenses to pull the files at the copyright office. A slap on the wrist honestly, and a sad, sorry excuse for maintaing ethical standards in the legal profession, but that's what it was. Now, Nick Vilacci hasn't posted anything about getting paid that sanction, so I don't know if Moskin has actually paid it yet. I can say that if it hasn't been paid, you can look and see just what the American Bar Association's position on that is...

Is there potential for that sanction to be reviewed and/or increased in the appeal?

 Alpharius wrote:
Is there potential for that sanction to be reviewed and/or increased in the appeal?

Not in the appeal, no. Not so far as I am aware. One would have to make a complaint to the state and national bar associations. Nobody is going to do that. See, lawyers tend to feel that they could wind up on the business end of those types of situations, so they tend not to press issues like that. I can dig up the ABA's recommendations for sanctions tomorrow (I am traveling today), and the list of aggravating factors is very interesting. Not the least of which is that I believe the ABA's position is that sanctions should be fulfilled in a timely manner.

Is the "That may Be Me One Day!" excuse the reason why the judge didn't hit him harder?

It seems like that was some seriously unethical behavior after all, and more than a single instance too!

That thing with the artists was a particularly dirty blow, in a case that has seemed full of crawling around in the mud and punching people (and by people, I mean Chapterhouse) in the balls.

The hilarious thing about all of this, and I remember thinking about this at the time when Rogue Trader was out, is that so much of GW's 40k universe borrows heavily from other franchises and sources of inspiration. The game was positively dripping with Dune, 2000AD, Moorcock-style references. Andy Chambers just mentioned this in a recent interview (see other thread), but TBH it is so obvious as to be a triviality as rain coming from the clouds. Yet, Merrett is claiming it isn't so, and would have us believe that GW's designers are deaf, dumb and mute, locked up in a cell away from the outside world.

I'm now waiting for him to say that Space Hulk wasn't based on Aliens - I'm amazed the jurors/legal people can even see each other in that court room with the amount of smoke coming out of that guy's trousers.

Not to mention the STEN series of books - there's even an 'eternal Emperor' in there - although he's a lot more active, and also...

Well, just go read those books - they're a little dated, but still awesome, and you can really see whole sections being lifted by GW as well!

The funny thing about reading all this is how clear it is that the guys running GW who decided to pursue "protecting their IP" as a strategy are clearly overestimating how original (and correspondingly how valuable) their 40k IP is, and they're getting burned in the courtroom for it. They thought they had all this great, original content because they aren't familiar with the world of SciFi, but the truth is their whole company's success is based on a series of borrowed ideas that they just happened to manage to produce on and market better 20 years ago, and their legal strategy is essentially invalid.

As far as I'm concerned: good. This is what should happen to a company, particularly one as niche and small as GW, is run as a cold, callous business with nothing but the bottom line considered. A company that appeals to this small of a consumer segment should be run with love and respect for its customers in order to be successful.

 Pacific wrote:
That thing with the artists was a particularly dirty blow, in a case that has seemed full of crawling around in the mud and punching people (and by people, I mean Chapterhouse) in the balls.

The hilarious thing about all of this, and I remember thinking about this at the time when Rogue Trader was out, is that so much of GW's 40k universe borrows heavily from other franchises and sources of inspiration. The game was positively dripping with Dune, 2000AD, Moorcock-style references. Andy Chambers just mentioned this in a recent interview (see other thread), but TBH it is so obvious as to be a triviality as rain coming from the clouds. Yet, Merrett is claiming it isn't so, and would have us believe that GW's designers are deaf, dumb and mute, locked up in a cell away from the outside world.

I'm now waiting for him to say that Space Hulk wasn't based on Aliens - I'm amazed the jurors/legal people can even see each other in that court room with the amount of smoke coming out of that guy's trousers.

Hahaha, all of this with the further fact that 40k is literally Fantasy in Space (they even dubbed it that in the beginning!), so most of the races are *again* derivatives of Tolkien and other references (D&D, etc.).

On the subject of what's original, just a little
summary of what you've heard. You heard Bob Naismith explain
how he created the original Space Marine character back in
1985. And he did this with no references in front of him. He
drew some inspiration very loosely from things like Napoleonic
blanket rolls and Roman helmets and American infantry
backpacks, but then these were all combined into something
very new and very different that doesn't look like any of
those things. And among the other things he did was to add
the enormously oversized shoulder pad design, which, as he
said, was done for no other reason than to give the figures
presence or charisma on the gaming table.

In the same way, Mr. Merrett explained to you in his
capacity for almost 30 years as head of IP at Games Workshop
that in those early years the company had no reference
materials whatsoever and that in the ensuing years he oversaw
the development of all these products and these books and the
story and the game to ensure that it remained original.

A said in Mr Moskin's closing statement. Do we believe this is an accurate description of the creativity of GW from early times? That they had no reference materials at all and simply pulled everything from a vacuum of creativity?

They've contradicted by their own magazine. All Chapterhouse needs to do is produce copies of early White Dwarf issues and point to all the game designer notes and interviews in which Andy Chambers, Rick Priestley etc discuss and acknowledge their sources of inspiration and influences.

Then accuse Merritt of lying in court.

Wouldn't that be lying under oath and therefore committing perjury?

EDIT: Ninja'd by Captain Edithae. Sneaky Raven Guards!

WayneTheGame wrote:
Wouldn't that be lying under oath and therefore committing perjury?

EDIT: Ninja'd by Captain Edithae. Sneaky Raven Guards!

We strike from the shadows.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
Wouldn't that be lying under oath and therefore committing perjury?

EDIT: Ninja'd by Captain Edithae. Sneaky Raven Guards!

We strike from the shadows.

But Merrett did not say or write those things... He would probably have been stupid enough to authenticate those documents, but you are also stuck in trial with what you got in discovery. For the most part. Perhaps if the community had helped out more with the defense of Chapterhouse Studios...

But for the most part people sat on their hands. To this day Chapterhouse Studios is something of a dirty word among miniatures companies. This case is going to decide a lot of important issues for this for this industry and beyond. And yet few did much of anything about it.

So every time you think about how could this have happened or how could GW have said this and gotten away with it, remember that the lawyers donating their time and money did not know what a space marine was when they took the case. Who'd they get help from?

Well for one, is that even legal? Members of the public chipping in, forwarding evidence and other unsolicited materials to a defendant in an on going court case?

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Well for one, is that even legal? Members of the public chipping in, forwarding evidence and other unsolicited materials to a defendant in an on going court case?

Why wouldn't it be?

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Well for one, is that even legal? Members of the public chipping in, forwarding evidence and other unsolicited materials to a defendant in an on going court case?

Absolutely, 100%. There's nothing wrong with that, assuming that the information being provided doesn't violate some sort of law, such as privacy laws.

There's nothing stopping some, for example, of reading through back issues of white dwarf and providing useful references, such as those pointed out above.

The larger point is that the community and influential figures in the industry weren't leaping off their feet to get involved in the Chapterhouse case, or even to offer statements of support, or even about the case. It's understandable, as folks probably wanted to keep out of the line of fire, but fist, Andy Jones's testimony shows that other companies are certainly not off of GW's radar, and second, whether anyone likes it or not the case and the issues raised are a reality. Personally, I wouldn't want important issues like the ones at stake in this case decided without throwing my weight behind the side of the scales I'd prefer to see prevail.

It is no secret what participants in this market stand to gain out of this case, and more importantly, what they stand to lose. It's been that way for the past three years. The case is on appeal now, and there's nothing left to do but wait and see what happens, at least as far as the outcome of the case is concerned.

But look how fast GW got stomped in the Spots case when influential authors started to take an interest. Didn't hear anything from Andy Chambers about the Chapterhouse case did we? Gary Chalk was willing to swear an affidavit, and Bob Naismith was willing to testify and be honest. Other than that there were GW employees who would say anything and people with no connection to the industry, such as Bill Brewster and Dr. Carl Grindley.

Didn't hear a peep from Cavetore, Ronnie Renton had nothing to say about it. Got no word from MaxiMini, Scibor, HighTech, Victoria, etc. etc. Jon Paulson has been willing to talk about the case, but he was a named defendant.

It felt to me like there was a lot of "ain't my problem" and "ain't my business" going around, even though objectively this case will affect anyone in this market, and is everyone's business.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Well for one, is that even legal? Members of the public chipping in, forwarding evidence and other unsolicited materials to a defendant in an on going court case?

There were a number of 'names', many recognisable as they were listed as their forum alias name, from within the internet forum community that provided details to GW about Chapterhouse. There was a list somewhere or other (perhaps 2-3 years ago).

Personally, I think in terms of the way GW has tried to behave about this, about trying to make ridiculous claims of ownership of all kinds of commonly used iconography and concepts, and their plans for other companies should they be successful, I'm all for people putting any kind of weight against GW that they can.

 Pacific wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Well for one, is that even legal? Members of the public chipping in, forwarding evidence and other unsolicited materials to a defendant in an on going court case?

There were a number of 'names', many recognisable as they were listed as their forum alias name, from within the internet forum community that provided details to GW about Chapterhouse. There was a list somewhere or other (perhaps 2-3 years ago).

Personally, I think in terms of the way GW has tried to behave about this, about trying to make ridiculous claims of ownership of all kinds of commonly used iconography and concepts, and their plans for other companies should they be successful, I'm all for people putting any kind of weight against GW that they can.

Oh, don't mistake me. I'd be all for it too, I'm fully backing Chapterhouse in this.

I was just under the impression that outside interference in an on-going court case is frowned upon, legally. You know, the Press undermining proceedings by running headlines that scream "GUILTY!", documents being forwarded from pseudo-anonymous internet sources to the interested parties mid-trial etc.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Pacific wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Well for one, is that even legal? Members of the public chipping in, forwarding evidence and other unsolicited materials to a defendant in an on going court case?

There were a number of 'names', many recognisable as they were listed as their forum alias name, from within the internet forum community that provided details to GW about Chapterhouse. There was a list somewhere or other (perhaps 2-3 years ago).

Personally, I think in terms of the way GW has tried to behave about this, about trying to make ridiculous claims of ownership of all kinds of commonly used iconography and concepts, and their plans for other companies should they be successful, I'm all for people putting any kind of weight against GW that they can.

Oh, don't mistake me. I'd be all for it too, I'm fully backing Chapterhouse in this.

I was just under the impression that outside interference in an on-going court case is frowned upon, legally. You know, the Press undermining proceedings by running headlines that scream "GUILTY!", documents being forwarded from pseudo-anonymous internet sources to the interested parties mid-trial etc.

Ongoing jury trial, yes, there are some things that are sort of frowned upon, and somethings that are explicit no-nos. But the jury is not supposed to be looking at case-related media anyway. In a jury trial (and to an extent before the trial begins) jury tampering/tainting the jury pool is a potential concern. But these are things that matter to the parties in the case.

There's a reason trials and documents related to litigation are public. The public has an abiding interest in the transparency of legal proceedings. We can read entire trial transcript start to finish. But during the discovery process? How do you think Chapterhouse Studios got Gary Chalk's affidavit when GW had not produced his contact info? Someone had to either find his contact info or someone had to give it to Chapterhouse, possibly even Mr. Chalk. GW certainly didn't produce it.

And that's really the point, isn't it. Gary Chalk got a letter from GW asking him to retroactively assign his rights to the Mantis Warrior artwork. Mr. Chalk obviously realized that this was a bunch of BS (you can read about what he thought about on his blog, though I do not have a link), somehow Chapterhouse Studios or its agents or representatives got in touch with Mr. Chalk, and he agreed to swear an affidavit about what he knew. Thank you Gary Chalk.

Ronnie Renton ran the GW design studio, for example. His testimony would have trumped Alan Merrett's testimony, and possibly torpedoed swaths of GW's case. Now, Mr. Renton had no responsibility to do so and I am only using him as a high profile example here. But Ronnie Renton could have called up Nick Villacci and said, "Hey, Mr. Villacci, I was reading these discovery documents and the depositions of Merrett. I'd be willing to be deposed to correct a few things." Again, how do you think Bob Naismith wound up being deposed? He did not work for GW at the time. His deposition was taken pretty late in the discovery process too.

weeble1000 wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Well for one, is that even legal? Members of the public chipping in, forwarding evidence and other unsolicited materials to a defendant in an on going court case?

Absolutely, 100%. There's nothing wrong with that, assuming that the information being provided doesn't violate some sort of law, such as privacy laws.

There's nothing stopping some, for example, of reading through back issues of white dwarf and providing useful references, such as those pointed out above.

The larger point is that the community and influential figures in the industry weren't leaping off their feet to get involved in the Chapterhouse case, or even to offer statements of support, or even about the case. It's understandable, as folks probably wanted to keep out of the line of fire, but fist, Andy Jones's testimony shows that other companies are certainly not off of GW's radar, and second, whether anyone likes it or not the case and the issues raised are a reality. Personally, I wouldn't want important issues like the ones at stake in this case decided without throwing my weight behind the side of the scales I'd prefer to see prevail.

It is no secret what participants in this market stand to gain out of this case, and more importantly, what they stand to lose. It's been that way for the past three years. The case is on appeal now, and there's nothing left to do but wait and see what happens, at least as far as the outcome of the case is concerned.

But look how fast GW got stomped in the Spots case when influential authors started to take an interest. Didn't hear anything from Andy Chambers about the Chapterhouse case did we? Gary Chalk was willing to swear an affidavit, and Bob Naismith was willing to testify and be honest. Other than that there were GW employees who would say anything and people with no connection to the industry, such as Bill Brewster and Dr. Carl Grindley.

Didn't hear a peep from Cavetore, Ronnie Renton had nothing to say about it. Got no word from MaxiMini, Scibor, HighTech, Victoria, etc. etc. Jon Paulson has been willing to talk about the case, but he was a named defendant.

It felt to me like there was a lot of "ain't my problem" and "ain't my business" going around, even though objectively this case will affect anyone in this market, and is everyone's business.

One major difference is that in the publishing industry GW is a very small fish.

They were a kipper playing at being a shark.

In the gaming industry... they are big enough to pass as a shark, at least under poor light.

So the smaller fish were willing to let GW stomp on the Chapterhouse goldfish, in the hopes that GW wouldn't try to stomp them next.

Forgetting that maxim 'we must all hang together, or indeed we will all hang separately' - GW was preparing for quite a round of stomping on goldfish. Chapterhouse was only supposed to be the first one dumped out of its bowl, then squished.

Instead GW tipped over the bowl, and wondered what that foot shaped shadow was that was pausing over them.... (Okay, I think that I have tortured the fish stomping metaphor enough.)

I do think that it is fair to say that GW would have been best served by dropping the suit as soon as they saw that Chapterhouse was going to be defended.

Instead they were shown to be a much smaller fish than they had been presenting themselves as.

The Auld Grump

But only because a very few people stepped in to help Grump, mostly lawyers who saw the manifest injustice that would result.

As I said, a few prominent names, just a few, would have trashed GW quickly and decisively. A little cooperation amongst bits makers would have been equally effective.

You're right. People were afraid. And they kept their heads down and let Chapterhouse make the best of it without any help from fellow players in the market. If people fully appreciated the resources expended on behalf of Choaterhouse Studios, maybe they would have been more willing in cooperating to see that such an unprecedented allocation of resources had the most impact it could possibly have beyond one little Dallas accessory company.

What really gets to me is that Chapterhouse gotten a great deal of blame and scorn even while going through a huge ordeal essentially for the principle of it; a principle that lots of other folks will and have seen the benefits of defending.

Wishful thinking now but wouldn't it have been awesome if there had been an alliance of ex-GW people or whatever to stand against them? To basically state that no, what GW is saying is a bunch of bullgak.

WayneTheGame wrote:
Wishful thinking now but wouldn't it have been awesome if there had been an alliance of ex-GW people or whatever to stand against them? To basically state that no, what GW is saying is a bunch of bullgak.

Yea. It would have taken the stuffing out of GW pretty much forever.

I assume it is too late to start some sort of movement like that? Even for the appeal?

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I suppose, seems like there was poor justification for the numbers GW cane out with.

I can't believe Merritt tried to claim the Tau were completely original. In the last year or so they've just released a huge Gundam robot for Tau for feths sakes. Apparently this was all creatively invented and designers didn't look at robot pictures or anything else, despite the obvious genre Tau was buying into.

I know for a fact (having been there on multiple occasions) that the Forge World design team have at least one Japanese Gundam artbook (IIRC one of the "Design Works" ones) on their reference shelf, or did circa 2010-11. FW =/= the GW design team proper, but I'd be amazed if there wasn't a similar reference shelf somewhere else in that building.

Like I said, hes a liar.

Someone should bring a pile of old White Dwarf issues into court and slap him on the head with them.

 azreal13 wrote:
I assume it is too late to start some sort of movement like that? Even for the appeal?

I just have the vision of like all the good old people from GW banding together. Andy Chambers, Alessio, Rick Priestly, Fat Bloke, etc. just saying how GW is full of garbage and just completely damning testimony against them, to drive the stake through their heart and topple the empire of lies. Or in 40k parlance, the 13th Black Crusade. Rick Priestly for Warmaster

weeble1000 wrote:
But only because a very few people stepped in to help Grump, mostly lawyers who saw the manifest injustice that would result.

As I said, a few prominent names, just a few, would have trashed GW quickly and decisively. A little cooperation amongst bits makers would have been equally effective.

The question becomes: Who has a name prominent enough to make GW back off?

Hell, even in the face of a massively[ successful firm taking over Chapterhouse's defense - pro bono! did not deter GW from pouring money into their attack.

I would go so far as to say that part of the reason that GW backed down from the Spots case was that so much was tied up in the Chapterhouse case.

That if they were not already pouring money down a very large drain they might well have tried their luck against the EFF and company. (It would have been stupid... but stupid seems to be what GW has most of at the moment.)

You're right. People were afraid. And they kept their heads down and let Chapterhouse make the best of it without any help from fellow players in the market. If people fully appreciated the resources expended on behalf of Chapterhouse Studios, maybe they would have been more willing in cooperating to see that such an unprecedented allocation of resources had the most impact it could possibly have beyond one little Dallas accessory company.

What really gets to me is that Chapterhouse gotten a great deal of blame and scorn even while going through a huge ordeal essentially for the principle of it; a principle that lots of other folks will and have seen the benefits of defending.

I have nothing but respect for Chapterhouse - I had never even heard of them until this mess, and I responded by purchasing enough jetbikes from them to create a squad.

I spent more on Chapterhouse last year than I had on GW in the past three years.

(Also - I really like those bikes. )

If I weren't now completely dropping WH40K then I would be buying more of their material - they are being hurt by my scorn for GW, not any scorn for them.

So... I am planning to buy some of their 'not Tau' walls, for use in other SF games (Enclave in Fallout).

GW chose to completely ignore the fact that third party parts are legal, as is advertising what those parts are used for.

GW deserved to lose this case, and I really hope that the appeals turn the tide even further against them.

Also... what the hell is a guy that does not know Copyright from Trademark doing in charge of IP for any business? Good gods, even if he didn't know anything when he got the job, why the Hell hasn't he bothered learning anything since?!

When you know that you are going to be on the stand... shouldn't you at least try to learn something about the subject?

The Auld Grump

Given any one of these writers could be contacted again by GW and paid to write, I don't think these people are about to step forward and end their careers. That's kind of damning high risk stuff. It impairs future employment pretty hard when you're in such a niche market. I'm not surprised some of these wigs didn't step forth, and who knows what other contracts bind them to keep their mouth shut or GW can take them to court on violating other non-disclosures that have no bearing on this case. It doesn't matter if those non-disclosures are empty pieces of trash and no violation occurred, GW has proven itself to be willing to engage in malicious litigation if only out of spite.

So, I'm curious from reading all of those narratives/cross (Thanks Weebles, great stuff!)--if GW legal was 'making user files' on all of these websites---what has taken them so long to take action?

I mean, if my job duty was finding companies possibly infringing on my company's intellectual property, then cross referencing that with the trade dress we had on file--perhaps I'm overly self assessing my skills--I would imagine that's a week or two worth of work and Google. Hell, Dakka has thread aggregates on most of the information I would need to compare to our claims.

So, is most of the work of an internal IP litigation team navigating international IP law--or did CH getting proper representation cause such a ripple, that GW put the brakes on other pending litigation? Because, other than cease and desists--I do not know of any other suits ongoing and I can think of several other companies that would be on their radar (Especially considering the ridiculous nature in many of their claims).