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I saw this weird and random post on the internet talking about how the reason why Wargames Factory put up the rules for War and Conquest on their webstore is so that they can "legitimize" their business of selling miniatures and someone like GW cant sue them for their Sci Fi greatcoats for being IG proxies.


Which is strange because how would a historical ruleset that you dont technically own (its more of a partnership with Scarab) make your sci fi line un-sueable. And not to mention WGF had several years of no advertised rulesets on their webstore. And I'm not sure you can sue someone for selling sci fi humans unless they looked exactly like your own products

Unless this really is a sound business practice and I'm not thinking straight?

I think it has to do with GW being a dick about it's IP and this gives WGF something to fall back on to try and clearly differentiate it's IP from GW's. It should be unnecessary, but GW could still tie them down in court either way.

 kenshin620 wrote:
I saw this weird and random post on the internet talking about how the reason why Wargames Factory put up the rules for War and Conquest on their webstore is so that they can "legitimize" their business of selling miniatures and someone like GW cant sue them for their Sci Fi greatcoats for being IG proxies.

feth, you better tell Perry Miniatures and Wargames Foundry and Empress Miniatures and Front Rank Miniatures and about 5000 other historical miniatures manufacturers that they better quick become the distributor for a ruleset so GW doesn't sue them for... wait.. what now?

While GW has a nice record of starting lawsuits with no evidence of even owning their own trademarks, suing someone for soldiers wearing greatcoats is ridiculous.

Wait, I guess they DID try to tell a judge that they owned the term "halberd".

 judgedoug wrote:

 kenshin620 wrote:
I saw this weird and random post on the internet talking about how the reason why Wargames Factory put up the rules for War and Conquest on their webstore is so that they can "legitimize" their business of selling miniatures and someone like GW cant sue them for their Sci Fi greatcoats for being IG proxies.

feth, you better tell Perry Miniatures and Wargames Foundry and Empress Miniatures and Front Rank Miniatures and about 5000 other historical miniatures manufacturers that they better quick become the distributor for a ruleset so GW doesn't sue them for... wait.. what now?

While GW has a nice record of starting lawsuits with no evidence of even owning their own trademarks, suing someone for soldiers wearing greatcoats is ridiculous.

Wait, I guess they DID try to tell a judge that they owned the term "halberd".

And 'Space Marine'.
And shoulder pads.
And....

Yeah, it makes no sense, but if it keeps the Greedy Weasels from your door....

The Auld Grump, so, how are the rules?

So someone believed some sort of Internet lawyer that if they had their own game they would be free of infringement issues?

Being free of infringement issues is what makes you free of infringement issues. If they want to release rules, that's cool, but the idea that rules make you immune to prosecution, or somehow this is an issue because GW *might* send a C&D is silly.

Maybe they just wanted to make a game? Practically half of people who "game" have come up with their own rules set. If you make miniatures, then use your minis as a platform to get people to try your game. Good for them.

 kenshin620 wrote:
I saw this weird and random post on the internet talking about how the reason why Wargames Factory put up the rules for War and Conquest on their webstore is so that they can "legitimize" their business of selling miniatures and someone like GW cant sue them for their Sci Fi greatcoats for being IG proxies.


Which is strange because how would a historical ruleset that you dont technically own (its more of a partnership with Scarab) make your sci fi line un-sueable. And not to mention WGF had several years of no advertised rulesets on their webstore. And I'm not sure you can sue someone for selling sci fi humans unless they looked exactly like your own products

Unless this really is a sound business practice and I'm not thinking straight?

One has nothing to do with the other. Works of art are protected (to the extent that they can be) in severality, and only very very rarely have works been considered in aggregate. For example, there has been a case (I do not recall which specifically at the moment) wherein many photographs of a dance sequence was found to potentially infringe the performance. Again, this type of thing is rare in the extreme.

If I recall correctly, this goes back to the birth of Warzone back in the '90s. When Warzone and Chronopia came out there was talk about GW shutting them down because at the time GW was just about the only sci-fantasy rule set of the type. THEREFORE...GW was arguing that the WZ/CH minis were made solely to be used with their game. The makers of Warzone minis were advised (or at least rumor had it) that by making their own rules they could "prove" that they weren't treading the same waters that CHS is now. I don't know the accuracy of this, but that is what the few industry insiders I knew back then (in the FLGS level) were all saying.

 judgedoug wrote:

 kenshin620 wrote:
I saw this weird and random post on the internet talking about how the reason why Wargames Factory put up the rules for War and Conquest on their webstore is so that they can "legitimize" their business of selling miniatures and someone like GW cant sue them for their Sci Fi greatcoats for being IG proxies.

feth, you better tell Perry Miniatures and Wargames Foundry and Empress Miniatures and Front Rank Miniatures and about 5000 other historical miniatures manufacturers that they better quick become the distributor for a ruleset so GW doesn't sue them for... wait.. what now?

Try and understand the issue.

Those companies making historical miniatures have nothing to do with GW's games. Places like Wargames Factory, Chapterhouse, Puppets War, Anvil Industries make no qualms about the fact that their products are designed to be used with Citadel miniatures. When they design a bunch of legs in Cadian stylings as Greatcoat legs, or 'robot arms' that look suspiciously like Dreadnought arms with Autocannons but with no robot body to attach them to, it's fairly obvious who their intended market is and what their peices are intended to fit with.

So they're making their own ruleset (and some are even filling out the gaps in those models like torsos) to try to distinguish their models from GW's models to avoid what happened to Chapterhouse happening to them - afterall, they might not be lucky enough to get a good law firm offer them pro bono work. When its all settled, they have their own game and artwork to show their models are their own concepts for their own game. What you use them for is up to you.

And, sometimes, it even leads to a good set of rules - I am not certain that Kings of War was created for a like reason (in fact I only think it about 30-40% likely), but I like those rules a lot more than the current version of Warhammer. (I actually prefer 3rd edition WHFB, but KoW is a lot easier to explain, plays faster, is better balanced... it just does not have the atmspher of 3rd ed. WHFB.)

Now, if they were to do something akin to Mordheim....

The Auld Grump

Note that GW can sue you for anything they want. They might not succeed, but they can still try, and their main goal is to get you to stop because you can't afford to pay for a lawyer and fight GW's demands even though what you're doing is perfectly legal.

What law prevents someone from making a set of models that could be used with someone else's rules?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
What law prevents someone from making a set of models that could be used with someone else's rules?

None that I know of but if you advertise that those models can be used in GW games GW will (poorly) argue that you're hurting their business and/or infringing on their copyright/trademark and they will sue for that.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
What law prevents someone from making a set of models that could be used with someone else's rules?

The law of "I have more money to spend on lawyers than you do".

I doubt a judge would countenance such a claim going into court. When he heard the specifics he would throw it out as being no case to answer.

And seeing as most companys state that there minis/bits are "Compatible with other SCI-FI games" and not mention GW at all, makes GW's actions a joke

 -Loki- wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

 kenshin620 wrote:
I saw this weird and random post on the internet talking about how the reason why Wargames Factory put up the rules for War and Conquest on their webstore is so that they can "legitimize" their business of selling miniatures and someone like GW cant sue them for their Sci Fi greatcoats for being IG proxies.

feth, you better tell Perry Miniatures and Wargames Foundry and Empress Miniatures and Front Rank Miniatures and about 5000 other historical miniatures manufacturers that they better quick become the distributor for a ruleset so GW doesn't sue them for... wait.. what now?

Try and understand the issue.

Those companies making historical miniatures have nothing to do with GW's games. Places like Wargames Factory, Chapterhouse, Puppets War, Anvil Industries make no qualms about the fact that their products are designed to be used with Citadel miniatures. When they design a bunch of legs in Cadian stylings as Greatcoat legs, or 'robot arms' that look suspiciously like Dreadnought arms with Autocannons but with no robot body to attach them to, it's fairly obvious who their intended market is and what their peices are intended to fit with.

So they're making their own ruleset (and some are even filling out the gaps in those models like torsos) to try to distinguish their models from GW's models to avoid what happened to Chapterhouse happening to them - afterall, they might not be lucky enough to get a good law firm offer them pro bono work. When its all settled, they have their own game and artwork to show their models are their own concepts for their own game. What you use them for is up to you.

I do understand the issue, but I don't think you understand it at all.

Wargames Factory has become the distributor for War & Conquest, which is a historical miniatures ruleset.

Wargames Factory makes, primarily, historical miniatures; they also makes generic sci fi infantry in greatcoats.

Explain to me how you think GW has any standing to "sue" Wargames Factory for producing 28mm scale miniatures.

What about Pig Iron Productions?
What about Hasslefree Miniatures?
What about Rebel Miniatures?

Do you honestly believe the requirement to release miniatures is that you have to have a legitimate ruleset to go with them?

Not having standing to sue is no bar to filing a lawsuit. Merely the act of responding to a complaint requires a significant amount of legal fees.

Also, stating a prima facie case of copyright or trademark infringement is not so terribly difficult, especially when most Judges would be woefully unfamiliar with the relevant industry.

That said, GW's "shoot first and ask questions later" policy (described in that manner by defense counsel in the GW v CHS case - doc 336 ~IV) may be nearing an end. It is too early to tell, of course, but note that since GW filed a lawsuit against Chapterhouse Studios on December 22nd, 2010, GW has filed no lawsuits against any other 3rd party accessory companies.

GW has likewise only issued one C&D since December 2010, and that was to Raging Heroes 'roundabouts May 2011, or about 5 months after filing the lawsuit against Chapterhouse.

Since then GW legal has been relatively quiet excepting the Spots the Space Marine debacle, and that was technically a different industry. Notably GW also did not press the issue at all, and merely let it roll over and die.

Even if GW secures a big win over the Defendant at trial, I think that the company will remain a healthy bit 'gun shy' going forward. Estimating GW's legal fees is incredibly tough as there is no real way to know what GW's arrangement is with counsel. However, according the the 2010-2011 United States Attorney Fee Survey Report, the average hourly rate of a New York area attorney with 21-25 years of experience is $456/hour, 26-30 is $237/hour, and 31+ is $447/hour average. Jonathan E. Moskin got his JD in 1983, which would put him at ~30 years out of law school. Jason J. Keener graduated in 2003 so ~10 years out of law school, and the average for 6-10 years experience is $225/hour.

Let's generously assume that Mr. Keener is doing most of the workload to reduce cost, and estimate that between Mr. Keener, Mr. Moskin, and various expenses such as flights, hotels, court fees, etc. that GW is paying about $300/hour. I think that is a low-ball estimate. The case has been ongoing since December 22nd, 2010. If we assume 28 months of litigation, and assume that the attorneys have collectively put about 1,000 hours into the case per year (this would equate to about 3 hours per day and is, I think, a reasonable estimate), that would get you a total of 2,333 billable hours. 2,333 hours at $300/hour would be about $700,000.

Now, let's be really conservative and assume only 500 hours per year. That would be less than 1.5 hours per day on average. 1,166 hours at $300/hour is still $350,000.

If you want to dig deeper to guestimate a more accurate number of hours, you can check the total hours of deposition times that are available in the public record, or assume 8 hours of depo per witness. you could see what lawyers were at what depositions. You could count up all of the status conferences indicated on the docket and assume, say 1 hour per conference. You could check the time notations of every hearing transcript that is in the public domain and see what attorneys were at those hearings. You could also count up the number of hearings indicated on the docket, and the number of motion presentments and assume, probably, 1 hour for each. You could count up all of the pages written by counsel and assume an average amount of time per written page. You could also go through e-mail communications between counsel attached as exhibits and both assume a certain amount of drafting time per page and extrapolate a number of known meet and confers, and maybe even the likely duration of said conferences. Then you can tack on a guestimate for the review of the hundreds of thousands of pages of produced documents and estimate a time per page to review those. If you assume 200,000 pages of documents and an average of 5 seconds per page (average adult reading speed is 200 words/minute, conservatively assume 200 words/page, assume counsel only actually read 8% of the total documents) that would still, on its own, require 277 billable hours (or $83,100 at $300/hour).

I postulate 1,000 hours per year, but in any case, even conservative estimates of time, fees, and expenses would get you somewhere between $350,000.00 and $700,000.00. It could be more than that.

1,000 hours per year would mean that one attorney is spending about half of his billable time per year working on the case. That also assumes 2,000 billable hours per year, and I can tell you that associates at a major law firm like Foley and Lardner that do not bill more than 2,000 hours per year won't be around long. Lawyers at large firms tend to work very hard and very long, and billable hours reaching as high as 2,500 and 3,000 would not surprise me. It would be like working 10 hours per day every day of the week, but those people work like that. Now, there's at least two lawyers on the case, Mr. Moskin and Mr. Keener. Even if Mr. Moskin only billed for 1/8 of the time, it would mean that Mr. Keener (assuming he is the only other person working on the case) would be spending only 875 hours/year on the case. Obviously, attorneys may be working on multiple cases at the same time, but quite often associates grind on only one or two cases at a time. Also, as to my $300/hour estimate, if Mr. Keener were slightly above his industry average at 250/hour and Mr. Moskin was ringing in at $450/hour, and Mr. Moskin only billed for 1/8 of the time, those fees alone would average out to $275/hour, and that would not take any out of pocket expenses into account.

 kenshin620 wrote:
I saw this weird and random post on the internet talking about how the reason why Wargames Factory put up the rules for War and Conquest on their webstore is so that they can "legitimize" their business of selling miniatures and someone like GW cant sue them for their Sci Fi greatcoats for being IG proxies.

Your main issue is the folly of taking "weird and random posts" at face value. The ruleset has little or nothing to do with liability or litigation. Having a free ruleset simply gives your customers one more way to interact with your miniatures, and another way to encourage them to buy more.

It does "legitimize" your company a bit in in the eyes of your own customers in that it makes you look a bit more serious and forward thinking if you have rules to go with your figs, but it isn't done to stave off litigation.

 Peregrine wrote:
Note that GW can sue you for anything they want. They might not succeed, but they can still try, and their main goal is to get you to stop because you can't afford to pay for a lawyer and fight GW's demands even though what you're doing is perfectly legal.

Even GW will usually have at least a fig leaf of a reason for a suit, or risk sanctions.

Still, there is more truth to this than most people understand.

Eilif wrote:

 kenshin620 wrote:
I saw this weird and random post on the internet talking about how the reason why Wargames Factory put up the rules for War and Conquest on their webstore is so that they can "legitimize" their business of selling miniatures and someone like GW cant sue them for their Sci Fi greatcoats for being IG proxies.

Your main issue is the folly of taking "weird and random posts" at face value. The ruleset has little or nothing to do with liability or litigation. Having a free ruleset simply gives your customers one more way to interact with your miniatures, and another way to encourage them to buy more.

It does "legitimize" your company a bit in in the eyes of your own customers in that it makes you look a bit more serious and forward thinking if you have rules to go with your figs, but it isn't done to stave off litigation.

War & Conquest is not a free ruleset; it's a historicals ruleset written by Rob Broom and has an MSRP of $44.95 (the army lists, however, are free). Wargames Factory is basically the US distributor for it. Their sci-fi greatcoats can't even be used with it (unless you have regiments of sci-fi greatcoats fighting persions or something)

 Kyrolon wrote:
If I recall correctly, this goes back to the birth of Warzone back in the '90s. When Warzone and Chronopia came out there was talk about GW shutting them down because at the time GW was just about the only sci-fantasy rule set of the type. THEREFORE...GW was arguing that the WZ/CH minis were made solely to be used with their game. The makers of Warzone minis were advised (or at least rumor had it) that by making their own rules they could "prove" that they weren't treading the same waters that CHS is now. I don't know the accuracy of this, but that is what the few industry insiders I knew back then (in the FLGS level) were all saying.

I'm pretty sure this isn't close to accurate. The Mutant Chronicles and Chronopia RPGs came out before the minis and games.

 judgedoug wrote:

Eilif wrote:

 kenshin620 wrote:
I saw this weird and random post on the internet talking about how the reason why Wargames Factory put up the rules for War and Conquest on their webstore is so that they can "legitimize" their business of selling miniatures and someone like GW cant sue them for their Sci Fi greatcoats for being IG proxies.

Your main issue is the folly of taking "weird and random posts" at face value. The ruleset has little or nothing to do with liability or litigation. Having a free ruleset simply gives your customers one more way to interact with your miniatures, and another way to encourage them to buy more.

It does "legitimize" your company a bit in in the eyes of your own customers in that it makes you look a bit more serious and forward thinking if you have rules to go with your figs, but it isn't done to stave off litigation.

War & Conquest is not a free ruleset; it's a historicals ruleset written by Rob Broom and has an MSRP of $44.95 (the army lists, however, are free). Wargames Factory is basically the US distributor for it. Their sci-fi greatcoats can't even be used with it (unless you have regiments of sci-fi greatcoats fighting persions or something)

My bad, I must have been thinking about the "Alien Suns" ruleset that was in the pipleline for the greatocoats until WGF divorced from Tony Reidy.

In that case, the idea of legitimizing the company or greatcoats via selling a ruleset makes no sense at all and it sounds like the person you saw quoted on the internet was simply talking out of their hindquarters.

More likely WGF is simply selling the ruleset to folks who might want a ruleset for the figures they are buying. Folks are more likely to buy figures if they know there's a game they can use them in, and any chance for a miniatures company to make a few extra bucks by selling rules as well is probably worth the effort.

 judgedoug wrote:
Explain to me how you think GW has any standing to "sue" Wargames Factory for producing 28mm scale miniatures.

What about Pig Iron Productions?
What about Hasslefree Miniatures?
What about Rebel Miniatures?

Well I know they send Hasslefree C&Ds for some figures GW didn't like. GW sees anything they don't like and you'll get a letter from them regardless of any legal standing. GW think they can bully any small company into compliance. The very act of standing up to them if they decide to take it beyond the C&D is expensive and many can't afford it, so they just have to give in early on. It's for this reason I hope they get kicked in with the CHS case because, as I've said several times, their attitude is toxic to this hobby.

weeble1000 wrote:...
I postulate 1,000 hours per year, but in any case, even conservative estimates of time, fees, and expenses would get you somewhere between $350,000.00 and $700,000.00. It could be more than that.
...

So, you're saying that because Chapter House selfishly defended themselves against GW's noble accusations, we're all stuck paying higher prices for our new models?

 Redbeard wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:...
I postulate 1,000 hours per year, but in any case, even conservative estimates of time, fees, and expenses would get you somewhere between $350,000.00 and $700,000.00. It could be more than that.
...

So, you're saying that because Chapter House selfishly defended themselves against GW's noble accusations, we're all stuck paying higher prices for our new models?

I do not think that legal fees from the case made a direct appearance in the prices of any particular GW products. The likely costs are, however, far from insignificant. How does that cost balance against any possible benefit the company could possibly derive from the suit? How does it balance against any possible harm the suit could cause to the company?

Even if GW 'wins' the lawsuit, the company may decide that the costs of the litigation outweigh the benefits of engaging in it. Faced with a similar decision in the future, what happened in the case will be impossible for management to ignore. If GW 'loses' the suit, well, I would have trouble seeing the company engaging in any similar litigation in the future. The specter of such a monumental disaster would undoubtedly haunt the halls of the Lenton HQ for a long time.

For example, consider the fact that a large amount of groundwork for the defense of any future defendant has already been laid. The instant GW files a similar suit against an English defendant, there is a bought and paid for opinion in the public domain that says GW's "toys" are not protected by copyright under English law. There are experts in the US who have done considerable research on the scope and protectability of scores of the company's works of art. Those reports are not only on record, but those individuals all worked pro-bono in the first place, and opining in another lawsuit would require far less work. If the Defendant succeeds, any future Defendant not only has case law on the books to reference, but would also have a roadmap to a successful defense laid out.

What GW has gotten itself into is objectively unprecedented for the company. It will leave a mark, and it could leave a disfiguring scar.

Was actually thinking the OP might have been being hyperbolic, as no one could really think that, but...

 Kingsley wrote:

 lord marcus wrote:
Kings of War and Warpath by Mantic games. Both mass combat wargaming, with the encouragement to make your army your own. Hell Mantic has even left space in the game world deliberately so people can make up background!

Those rules (if you can call them that) are largely made as a cover to prevent Mantic from being sued. I've never seen a single person play them and every review I've encountered has been negative.

Weeble covered the important aspects of the law well enough, but much further than that there are decades of history of other companies selling fantasy, historical and sci-fi figures without any attached rules.

Citadel began that way themselves, and for their first several years weremjust producing neat miniatures...some used for games like Chainmail while others were used by RPG players. Ral Partha did the vast majority of thier entire catalog independent of a particular set of rules. They also did some official lines for D&D, Battletech and the like. Gamezone does WFB better than GW does and they have been around fora decade or so. Reaper has a couple game lines, but their generic miniature lines are several times larger than their game related lines. Companies like Old Glory and Eureka have been cranking out miniatures without rules for decades and likely resulted in more than a couple mountains being strip mined on their own with how much metal they move. Foundry has some licensed lines, but most are independent ofmlicense or lines.

Dozens of other companies produce miniatures without rules, in fact just doing a rough survey in my head...there are more lines of figures without rules than there are with rules (and that doesnt even include historical figures...the majority of which are without a supporting set of rules).

GW...a case study in what happens when everything thats wrong with big corporate policy comes to an industry...

weeble1000 wrote:

I do not think that legal fees from the case made a direct appearance in the prices of any particular GW products.

While my post was largely tongue-in-cheek, when you show a million dollar cost on your balance sheet, you have to make that up somewhere.

(Watch me go way off topic here...)

The likely costs are, however, far from insignificant. How does that cost balance against any possible benefit the company could possibly derive from the suit?

What are the possible benefits that they derive? I'm not seeing it. Even if they win, so they stopped one small independent entity that really didn't threaten them from making his models, and probably define the exact line that every other company can approach without being in trouble. I can't help but think that this being a grey area was more in their best interest. Plus, if they win, can they recoup their court costs? The other guy is being represented pro-bono, so I doubt he's rolling in cash, and even if they're awarded costs, couldn't he just declare bankruptcy and move on?

Even if GW 'wins' the lawsuit, the company may decide that the costs of the litigation outweigh the benefits of engaging in it. Faced with a similar decision in the future, what happened in the case will be impossible for management to ignore. If GW 'loses' the suit, well, I would have trouble seeing the company engaging in any similar litigation in the future. The specter of such a monumental disaster would undoubtedly haunt the halls of the Lenton HQ for a long time.

So, let's say they win, but it does cost them a lot. C&D letters are relatively cheap though. Could they still send those, or would they be essentially neutered, daring people to fight them? What if they lose? Do their future C&D letters carry any weight at all?

weeble1000 wrote:

I postulate 1,000 hours per year, but in any case, even conservative estimates of time, fees, and expenses would get you somewhere between $350,000.00 and $700,000.00. It could be more than that.

One thing to remember is that the legal fees don't immediately affect profits. They only affect cash flow. If successful, the money spent on defending intellectual property is considered an intangible asset and is written off over many years (I believe 20-30.). The affect on the 'bottom line' would be negligible.

Of course, an unsuccessful case is written off immediately. Under accounting standard practices, only if the company believes that an ongoing case will be successful will the expenses be classed as an asset. It speaks massively that GW hasn't included the costs as an intangible asset in their financial statements

Kind of ironic that removing Wells from the corporation the saving will be close to the amount of the court cost