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I disagree with recasting when its to create multiple models because someone is to cheap to just buy a second model. It takes money away from the company who originally created the model and in doing so slows down further developement from that company. I love this genre of gaming and i want it to prosper to the point that new minis of better quality are always being produced.

In short, the more money we spend on miniatures the more money miniature companies can spend on developing better minis. First and foremost i care about mini wargaming and the companies that keep it going.

rigeld2 wrote:

xxvaderxx wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

xxvaderxx wrote:
While i am certainly no lawyer, and i can not speak for all countries, i would be surprised if there is a law that would tell me what i can or can not do with something i buy when i am doing it for my self. Again this is personal use, no selling no nothing.

You'll be surprised then, because a lot of countries do exactly that. For artistic works, you buy the physical item, but the right to reproduce it remains with the creator.

To my mind, whether or not I have an issue with recasting is kind of irrelevant... the laws of my country say that I'm not allowed to do it, so I don't.

The right to reproduce it for what purpose?, if you are going to sell postcards, i certainly see why you should not be allowed, do you happen to have a link to the law in question?.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Argentina
If you don't own it (which that law says you don't) you can't legally reproduce it.

That is only for Argentina. The USA law, is different. If you purchase a physical product, as in the case of a GW model, you own it (license, or lease purchases are different beasts). And under USA law you can make back up copies for personal uses, and you can do limited copies for artistic expression, such as model modification or base bashing. Mass cloning of models to populate an army with no artistic modification of the models would probably not fly under the Fair Use laws. Copying for purpose of resale is not. In fact should you sale the original you are obligated to destroy the back up copies.

barnowl wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

xxvaderxx wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

xxvaderxx wrote:
While i am certainly no lawyer, and i can not speak for all countries, i would be surprised if there is a law that would tell me what i can or can not do with something i buy when i am doing it for my self. Again this is personal use, no selling no nothing.

You'll be surprised then, because a lot of countries do exactly that. For artistic works, you buy the physical item, but the right to reproduce it remains with the creator.

To my mind, whether or not I have an issue with recasting is kind of irrelevant... the laws of my country say that I'm not allowed to do it, so I don't.

The right to reproduce it for what purpose?, if you are going to sell postcards, i certainly see why you should not be allowed, do you happen to have a link to the law in question?.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Argentina
If you don't own it (which that law says you don't) you can't legally reproduce it.

That is only for Argentina. The USA law, is different. If you purchase a physical product, as in the case of a GW model, you own it (license, or lease purchases are different beasts). And under USA law you can make back up copies for personal uses, and you can do limited copies for artistic expression, such as model modification or base bashing. Mass cloning of models to populate an army with no artistic modification of the models would probably not fly under the Fair Use laws. Copying for purpose of resale is not. In fact should you sale the original you are obligated to destroy the back up copies.

Yeah in fact, as i mentioned before, that is how the law was written almost 100 years ago, not how it is actually enforced or "jurispruded" (if this were a word) today.

 NoQuestionzAsked wrote:
I disagree with recasting when its to create multiple models because someone is to cheap to just buy a second model. It takes money away from the company who originally created the model and in doing so slows down further developement from that company. I love this genre of gaming and i want it to prosper to the point that new minis of better quality are always being produced.

In short, the more money we spend on miniatures the more money miniature companies can spend on developing better minis. First and foremost i care about mini wargaming and the companies that keep it going.

Understandable, if you feel you would rather support the company through purchasing multiples of the same model i can certainly see the logic behind that.

Personally i used to think the same way, i am not going to flat out drop them, but i don't think they deserve all the support i used to give them. My status current status quo until they change some of their policies is to buy 1 and make the copies i want to use in the game.

barnowl wrote:
That is only for Argentina.

He posted the link to the Argentina law because the OP is from Argentina. Or at least the Dakka software thinks he is...

And under USA law you can make back up copies for personal uses,

Making a back up and making multiple copies to avoid having to buy more are not the same thing.

 insaniak wrote:

barnowl wrote:
That is only for Argentina.

He posted the link to the Argentina law because the OP is from Argentina. Or at least the Dakka software thinks he is...

And under USA law you can make back up copies for personal uses,

Making a back up and making multiple copies to avoid having to buy more are not the same thing.

To be fair, he posted a link, to an English written interpretation of the law from Wikipedia. Which is cool, i respect wiki i use it a lot to eyeball things.

In the US, the owner of a copyright has a list of exclusive rights. Now, there are limitations to those rights, and the limitations are many and varied, but this is the list:

(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to
the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or
lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works,
pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform
the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual
images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission

Only the owner of a copyright has the right to reproduce the work and prepare derivative works (which by definition are copied in substantial part from the root work). Therefore, recasting a sculptural work for private use likely infringes on an exclusive right of the author or owner of said work.

However, as a practical matter, enforcing a copyright against an individual reproducing a work for personal use is not feasible. It would be like trying to press charges on your neighbor for walking into your yard. Has a right been violated, probably, but the violation is so insignificant that causing a fuss about it is in many ways harmful to the public good and a waste of one's time and money.

I recast miniatures on occasion. I press molded hundreds of purity seals for my Imperial Guard army. I also have little press molds of aquilas and winged skulls from the tank accessory sprue that I use when I have excess green stuff. I have also made recasts of body part bits to squeeze a few extra models out of extra bits.

I would have absolutely no problem with someone recasting an entire army of miniatures for personal use, as long as those miniatures were kept out of the market. It is not something that I would personally do because it is simply easier, more efficient to purchase professional casts.

I do what I personally consider to be fair and reasonable, and a big line for me is something that starts causing significant harm to the owner of a copyright. If person A is not going to buy company B's products anyway, I could give a crap if he plays with recast miniatures. Does that violate someone's rights? Probably. Does it cause appreciable harm? No. In fact, it could actually be beneficial if person A draws other players into a game which encourages purchases of company B's products.

People need to keep the ultimate purpose of copyright laws in mind. These rules are intended to promote artistic expression by protecting the ability of an author to benefit from displaying or distributing a piece of property that, once distributed, could easily fall outside of the author's control.

Does at home personal use recasting take control of an author's work away from the author in a meaningful way? Not really, and that is why it is impractical and insensible to try and prevent it.

I recast bits for conversion, or bits of models that aren't in production any more. Examples..

- I made some souped up Suppression Shields for my Arbites, based on the original GW shield with extra stuff moulded on. I need ten, but don't want to buy ten sets and convert ten shields, doing all the work ten times. I will recast my two converted ones until I have enough.

- I converted some Arbites bikers from Scout bikers, and recast the heads and shoulder pads of metal Enforcers to use in the biker conversions. The other option was cutting up 5 metal Enforcers to get the heads and shoulder pads, which would have been a nightmare.

- I have a Squat army with 12 Exo Squat bodies, but only enough arms for 7 or 8. When I get around to building them, I'll be recasting some arms so that I can build all 12.

I think all of those are pretty fair uses of recasts. Would anyone have a problem? They're all quite labour intensive, and if I just wanted more models I'd rather just spend the money on more sets...

These are all along the lines of the types of recasting I would be performing personally, and as such are obviously things I wouldn't feel the least bit guilty about doing.

I'm not about to search the world over for several copies of a component that stopped being sold years ago to go with the one I already own. I will recast it. It's not like I am "stealing", especially in the case of OOP bitz or models. If GW has given up the effort of making money from a model, affecting them with a recast on my part is impossible.

And obviously if i have kit-bashed something together out of several types of bitz, I am not repeating that work over and over again, it's not an effective use of my time and effort.

Hell, there are actual Privateer Press approved and published articles about making greenstuff molds of small bitz and details off from models to use on others.

I have no issue with recasting of any kind. Law and morals aren't the same thing.

I wish the law was such that companies had to decide whether they're selling a physical item or a license, and not cherry-pick the best of both worlds for them, the worst of both worlds for the end customer.

You are allowed to have a perfect copy of something as long as you don't intend to redistribute for profit. If you copy something, give it your buddy-no legal issues. If you copy something and use it yourself, no issues. If you copy and sell..people get mad. I personally know folk who have stepped into GT s with entire recast models/army. Nice biker army, they all said. Not a single one knowing that at least half of them were copied, with all the extra fancy blood angel bits. Oh yes, its GW alright! just not paid for from gw. I have no problem with a pretty army.

I might recast certain bitz like weapons (meltas/plasma) and older model parts (2nd edition cadians that are out of print for example) but that'd be about it.

Anything more just feels really sketchy.

In the US, as long as you don't sell the copies, or claim any IP of the copies, they are legal.

IMO:

Recasting the occasional small part (I need two of the same arm, the box only has one) or multi-part conversion (I make a custom lasgun out of several different parts, I cast ten more copies instead of doing all the work of making them from scratch) for use in conversions: ok, since the goal is convenience not saving money, and you're still buying the vast majority of your models legally.

Recasting OOP stuff: ok ethically speaking since you'd buy a legitimate one if you could. And TBH I think that, while what they're doing is clearly illegal, for-profit recasters of OOP models are doing the community a very useful service and I only hope that they expand their inventory of OOP models.

Recasting entire models to save money: not ok, you're clearly violating the law, and you have no excuse besides being too cheap to do the right thing.

 cormadepanda wrote:
If you copy something, give it your buddy-no legal issues.

No. GW probably won't bother to sue you because it's such a small scale thing, but it's still illegal.

Recasting doesn't save money - unless you are going high volume production.

If you're only doing it to make a handful of copies, it's usually cheaper just to buy them. I know this from personal experience.
Just the cost of mouldmaking and casting material alone makes it not cost effective at less than 20 units (and unless you know how to make the moulds properly, you won't get more than this out of the moulds).

Format shifting/backing up digital media is allowed under limited rights here - this does not apply to physical product, though - like models.

Without getting too into it, and without reading 2 pages of what I'm sure is misinformation:

PERSONAL USE RECASTING IS NOT LEGAL. Never has, never will be.

I don't have a problem with it, I even do it. But dammit don't kid yourselves into thinking it's legal. You won't likely ever get caught or suffer some punishment for it, but it's still illegal.

Personally, I have zero problems with it. Life's too short, and (from my own personal experience) it's actually a tricky process to recast something well, so I can still respect the effort put into it. I also don't believe in IP, and I say that as a programmer.

Do I recast GW stuff at the present? Not really. I tried it one time, but as little free time as I have compared with the amount of effort it takes to actually get a good mold, it's worth more to me to just go out and buy the stuff.

 Peregrine wrote:

No. GW probably won't bother to sue you because it's such a small scale thing, but it's still illegal.

Well, illegal, but the likely reason why GW won't come after you isn't because it's small scale, but because it's impossible to track.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Aerethan wrote:
I don't have a problem with it, I even do it. But dammit don't kid yourselves into thinking it's legal. You won't likely ever get caught or suffer some punishment for it, but it's still illegal.

This one, reiterated for truth.

Very true. While it may be technically "illegal", someone please tell me exactly how GW or anyone capable of passing judgement is going to be able to judge whether a painted model is a re-cast, especially if the recast is a weapon or other conversion bit.

And yes, the amount of effort to recast often outweighs the pay off.

The only stuff I'm currently casting are OOP items that I need on a large scale. Even then the models are costing me a pretty penny after the amount of time and materials I've spent getting the molds right. If I only cast the amount that I need, I'll end up having spent about retail value for them. I'd have to keep making them for no reason to claim any kind of real savings on them. And if I could just buy them still then I'd rather do that as casting takes time and has errors that plastic injection generally doesn't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Very true. While it may be technically "illegal", someone please tell me exactly how GW or anyone capable of passing judgement is going to be able to judge whether a painted model is a re-cast, especially if the recast is a weapon or other conversion bit.

They won't unless the original part was metal and the recast is not or vice-versa.

And with parts that are already resin it's almost impossible to spot naked fakes if the caster got the resin color close to the original.

 Peregrine wrote:
IMO:

Recasting the occasional small part (I need two of the same arm, the box only has one) or multi-part conversion (I make a custom lasgun out of several different parts, I cast ten more copies instead of doing all the work of making them from scratch) for use in conversions: ok, since the goal is convenience not saving money, and you're still buying the vast majority of your models legally.

Recasting OOP stuff: ok ethically speaking since you'd buy a legitimate one if you could. And TBH I think that, while what they're doing is clearly illegal, for-profit recasters of OOP models are doing the community a very useful service and I only hope that they expand their inventory of OOP models.

Recasting entire models to save money: not ok, you're clearly violating the law, and you have no excuse besides being too cheap to do the right thing.

 cormadepanda wrote:
If you copy something, give it your buddy-no legal issues.

No. GW probably won't bother to sue you because it's such a small scale thing, but it's still illegal.

I feel the same way about recasting.

 washout77 wrote:
In the US, as long as you don't sell the copies, or claim any IP of the copies, they are legal.

Not true.

They won't unless the original part was metal and the recast is not or vice-versa.

And with parts that are already resin it's almost impossible to spot naked fakes if the caster got the resin color close to the original.

It's still virtually impossible to look at two (painted) figures with meltaguns, and pointing out the re-cast. So impossible that it'll likely never even be thought of as a possibility by someone who can pass judgement unless you call attention to it.

Thread terminated.

While it is theoretically possible to have a calm, rational discussion of these matters, history shows that most threads discussing the legality, ethics, and morality of recasting devolve into people shouting past each other.