Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

To complicate things, Airfix later sold models of the Eagle Transporter.

 Ouze wrote:
I don't think CHS is going to win.

I say that based not on any evidence, not on any merits of the case at all (I think CHS has a very, very strong case).

I say that because I think the courts will never allow an entity as large as Games Workshop to have their business so damaged by what are essentially 3 or 4 guys in a garage, regardless of how right they are. I don't think the courts really do much to serve justice, so much as just continue the status quo, especially when that status quo benefits large corporations.

Maybe Czakk or Weeble or Dogma or Polonius or someone like that will tell me I'm equal parts jaded and wrong, and indeed, I hope I am.

But that's my gut feeling.

Wouldn't the courts want to protect a US based company?

 Kroothawk wrote:
To complicate things, Airfix later sold models of the Eagle Transporter.

True, but they paid a licencing fee for that. I'm not sure if it was Carlton who owned the rights at that point.

I said earlier though, if it comes down to "Industrial design" copyright, rather than "Artistic" copyright, then GW could lose control of every model over 15 years old. On further research, and assuming that the design is a registered design rather than an unregistered design, the duration is actually 25 years. I don't believe this limit has been legally tested in the case of the Eagle in the UK, it may be that it gets an artistic patent as it is a ficticious spacecraft design used as part of a TV show. That could make it an offense to make a copy for 50 years from first transmission or it could be as much as the life of the artist plus 70 years.

For a GW part, I doubt anyone could protest for the life of the designer plus 70 years, as it would not be the copyright of the individual who first sculpted a space marine, for example. He would have been working for GW and they wil claim that the copyright is theirs, therefore it is an industrial design copyright and limited to 25 years. GW cannot therefore stop anyone producing an RTB01 era rhino or land raider - which could be a serious setback given their current fixation on the Horus Heresy. They cannot claim copyright on anything they produced over 25 years old, if I'm correct and they can only protect it under 'industrial design', as it will be by now "Public Domain" so anyone out there who can produce exact copies of the RTB01 space marines, rhinos and land raiders without having to strike up a licencing deal - as is possibly the case with the Eagle/Carlton by now.The only other thing to remember is that industrial designs actually run from January 1st of the year following, not the date of the firstpublic access. So if GW released RTB01 space marines on January 1st, they've effectively have 26 years of protection.

The only case I know of which falls outside of this in England is the book "Peter Pan" by J. M. Barrie. The copyright actually ran out in 1987, but the copyright law was ammended in 1988 to give the work an indefinate copyright. All new copies still pay royalties, which are paid to the trustees for the hospital for sick children, Great Ormond Street, London, for as long as the hospital exists.