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 Kilkrazy wrote:
Nonetheless, GW presented it as if it was a convincing piece of evidence.

They've also presented Finecast as a flawless product, the shutting down of social media presence as "a good thing", 6th edition 40k as the finest ruleset the world has ever seen and the Khornemower as anything other than a joke, so at least they're consistent.

 Raesvelg wrote:

 Evil Lamp 6 wrote:
Are you Chris 'Other List Maintainer' Bickford?

No, but thank you for playing.

Like I've said before, the whole winners vs losers aspect of this is up in the air until we see a detailed set of rulings, and most importantly the actual final judgement on the case.

GW not being able to stop fair use of their trademarks isn't a "loss" for GW in any real sense; it was going to happen the first time they got challenged on it and they must have known it. It makes for a decent threat to hang over people's heads when you're handing out C&D letters though.

You'd think that, wouldn't you. So why not settle out? Why spend all of that money to completely undermine what GW tells people they are not able to do? Why spend the money to see that happen publicly, and risk having it affirmed on an appeal to advance towards becoming solid precedent?

No, GW was either deluded about the law, or deluded that they could lose. I suspect it is the latter, and they were dead wrong.

Raesvelg wrote:
Not really, everything I've seen from CHS is amateur-hour sculpting. Better than most people can manage themselves, certainly, but nowhere near the quality of FW material. You can attempt to debate that if you like, but objectively speaking, it's an inferior product for the most part.

I'd suggest that you take a more extensive look around their catalog. A lot of their stuff stands up against GW's stuff just fine, quality-wise. Compare apples to apples though. GW's main lines don't compare to FW either... Also, everything you said above is Subjective. Period.

Raesvelg wrote:

 spaceelf wrote:

I have seen some bad forge world stuff as well. CH was making a part that was superior to GWs solution of having a generic shoulderpad with a decal on it.

Everyone will have production issues occasionally, even FW. Had a bubble in one of them myself, it happens, and it happens to CH too from all accounts.

The last part, that I'll grant. The market exists, and GW should service it, failure to do so represents a bad business decision.

It doesn't represent an excuse for a third party to do so in violation of IP laws.

Emphasis mine.

You are asserting that aftermarket parts are illegal and in violation of IP Laws despite the mountains of evidence (and case law) to the contrary?

Raesvelg wrote:

 spaceelf wrote:

GW used to issue such licenses. Armorcast had one. I assume the deal they made with Milton Bradley was also similar. It is not direct competition if both companies are not producing the same product.

Yes, Armorcast had one. They also collaborated with Marauder back in the day, and the early-years GW was rife with such deals.

It's irrelevant to what we're discussing today.

I've said this before, and others have said it before me. Games Workshop is not the market. GW failing to produce a given piece is not an excuse for a third party to step in and do so, and your freedoms are not being trampled by their attempts to control their own IP.

I fail to see that an historical fact (GW used to issue licenses for miniature production) has nothing to do with the discussion here. You two (and now we three) are in fact discussing the existence of a market segment that GW could service via licensing since they choose not to service it directly. Seems pretty relevant to me.

Raesvelg wrote:
It's difficult to produce market research for things like this. You're pretty much reliant on anecdotal evidence, when you get right down to it, the guy who shows up to play with someone else's bits on their mini and someone asks them if that's something that GW makes, and/or where they got it. If you threw a bunch of pictures of Marines with CHS shoulder pads up there in front of people who didn't know about CHS, hell yes there'd be some confusion. GW was put in an invidious position there; in order to conduct proper market research on whether or not customers would be confused about the origin of a product, they'd have to expose customers who didn't already know about CHS to something that they'd prefer didn't exist in the first place.

[i]And of course they're greedy. Precisely as greedy as the guys at CHS, and every other group that makes a living off of GW's IP.

Emphasis mine.

If you did what is outlined above it would be deception. Which would lead to confusion. The confusion likely wouldn't have existed without the deception though.

Is GW greedy for making "a living off of" others' IP? Because arguably they are doing just that.

Raesvelg wrote:

 spaceelf wrote:

Most of GWs TM are taken from other sources. You do not see Disney suing them for using Kruellagh the Vile.

The funny thing about trademarks is part of the reason why GW defends them so vigorously; if you don't, someone else can grab them up. Typically after 5 years, unless you've got it registered and defend it, it's fair game for someone else to register.

As for Kruellagh, that would almost certainly fall into the category of a transformative work, ie a parody. Disney probably took a look at it and said "meh, there's no possibility of confusing that with our character, just a similarity in names used in a punning fashion, and it doesn't affect any of our markets in any fashion, not worth the effort to pursue."

I sincerely doubt that Disney even knows about the existence of that miniature. I also seriously doubt that it falls under any kind of parody protection.

They may indeed take issue with the use of a similar name if they were made aware of it. Especially as the name is assigned to this miniature.

Raesvelg wrote:
And again, of course they're greedy. Everyone is greedy. You think CHS is out there doing this out of the goodness of their hearts? Of course not, they're doing it to make money on a proven market without having to do any work in establishing it. Their entire business model is parasitic, which is practically the definition of greed.

Emphasis mine.

You're showing your bias. I'm certain that they guys at CHS did have to do some work to get their piece of the pie. They may not have had anything to do with "establishing the market" but then again neither, arguably, did FW.

Wargaming, and miniatures manufacturing existed before GW. So, is GW "parasitic" because they are profiting (massively) when they didn't do any work in establishing the market? Do you feel that any company who makes add-on or compatible parts for another companies' product is "parasitic"? Or are those feelings strictly limited to "creative" works?

I would call the relationship "symbiotic" since both benefit.

Raesvelg wrote:
Like I said, the situation is analogous to fanfics. 99% of authors have no interest in handing out licenses to other people to write books in their universes, unless those people are proven quantities, and that's typically done on a work-for-hire basis, "write a story for this anthology and we'll pay you x amount of dollars up front if we approve it, and then we'll publish it. Or not. Whichever we decide." For the most part they tolerate the existence of fanfics so long as nobody is selling them, but the notion of handing down C&D letters to people who try to profit from it?

I don't think your fanfic analogy holds water. I'll mull it over some more, but my initial thought is that it is flawed.

~Eric

 Taarnak wrote:

Raesvelg wrote:
It's difficult to produce market research for things like this. You're pretty much reliant on anecdotal evidence, when you get right down to it, the guy who shows up to play with someone else's bits on their mini and someone asks them if that's something that GW makes, and/or where they got it. If you threw a bunch of pictures of Marines with CHS shoulder pads up there in front of people who didn't know about CHS, hell yes there'd be some confusion. GW was put in an invidious position there; in order to conduct proper market research on whether or not customers would be confused about the origin of a product, they'd have to expose customers who didn't already know about CHS to something that they'd prefer didn't exist in the first place.

[i]And of course they're greedy. Precisely as greedy as the guys at CHS, and every other group that makes a living off of GW's IP.

Emphasis mine.

If you did what is outlined above it would be deception. Which would lead to confusion. The confusion likely wouldn't have existed without the deception though.

Is GW greedy for making "a living off of" others' IP? Because arguably they are doing just that.

I'd also like to point out that GW did exactly what was bolded:

Now, Ms. Stevenson, as you recall, you testified that
this chart was put together at your direction by Games
Workshop's hobby team, and they painted and posed the Games
Workshop figures on the right column to look like the colors
and poses of the Chapterhouse products, is that right?
A Almost. The hobby team didn't put the chart together, but
they did build and paint the model.
Q And you said that you found this confusing when you see
them side by side like this?
A I find it compelling.
Q You said you found it confusing, correct?

 Janthkin wrote:

czakk wrote:
Does anyone know if CHS offered to settle the case early on?

Also, does rule 68 operate the way I think it does? If CHS offered to settle for $50k back in 2010 for instance, does this displace the 'American Rule' and make GW liable for CHS's legal costs? Or does 'costs' have a defined meaning in the federal rules (like only court fees, or disbursements, and no attorney fees)?

http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_68

Making an Offer; Judgment on an Accepted Offer. At least 14 days before the date set for trial, a party defending against a claim may serve on an opposing party an offer to allow judgment on specified terms, with the costs then accrued. If, within 14 days after being served, the opposing party serves written notice accepting the offer, either party may then file the offer and notice of acceptance, plus proof of service. The clerk must then enter judgment.
.....

Paying Costs After an Unaccepted Offer. If the judgment that the offeree finally obtains is not more favorable than the unaccepted offer, the offeree must pay the costs incurred after the offer was made.

Given that settlement discussions are privileged, we're unlikely to know what terms, if any, were put forward before the trial (unless there is a rule 68 motion). That said, defining what terms are "more favorable" in a case this complicated is going to be a fun game - if even one of the terms that GW won on wasn't on the list CHS could have presented, is the ruling "more favorable," even if the financial terms quantitatively aren't?

I don't think I've ever seen a rule 68 motion succeed, but my practice is fairly narrow.

On 17 U.S.C. 505. The usual use of 505 is for the sorts of cases that don't survive summary judgment motions; by letting it go go trial, the judge has pretty strongly indicated that GW's case was not "objectively weak."

Thanks for the info. We have a similar settlement rule here, but it is used frequently (but that goes hand in hand with our greater willingness to shift costs to the loser). Arguably it promotes settlement and lowers the amount of frivolous lawsuits, but it can also prevent someone from bringing a meritorious but risky / novel suit. Different legal cultures

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

timd wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
That 200 companies claim had me raised an eyebrow, are there even that many related companies in the industry?

The number probably includes lots of small time ebay recasters...

I thought so myself, but still looks as a really big number.

I'm starting to wonder if GW thinks that literally every other miniature company is infringing their IP in some way. I'm not even exaggerating, that's the only way I can imagine the 200 companies claim making any sense.

 Sidstyler wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

timd wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
That 200 companies claim had me raised an eyebrow, are there even that many related companies in the industry?

The number probably includes lots of small time ebay recasters...

I thought so myself, but still looks as a really big number.

I'm starting to wonder if GW thinks that literally every other miniature company is infringing their IP in some way. I'm not even exaggerating, that's the only way I can imagine the 200 companies claim making any sense.

I doubt 200 small companies can get pro bono representation all at once. If you have the bandwidth to submit 200 lawsuits at once with the threat of "25% chance we can make it stick and cost you tens of thousands" a lot of them won't be able to defend themselves, let alone risk losing.

It will be interesting to see what GW does next as they are clearly not done.

 Sidstyler wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

timd wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
That 200 companies claim had me raised an eyebrow, are there even that many related companies in the industry?

The number probably includes lots of small time ebay recasters...

I thought so myself, but still looks as a really big number.

I'm starting to wonder if GW thinks that literally every other miniature company is infringing their IP in some way. I'm not even exaggerating, that's the only way I can imagine the 200 companies claim making any sense.

Imagine the number of folks who have a GW image on t-shirts, mousepads, or what-not at any one time.
Two hundred isn't that hard to imagine and many of them would likely be legitimate beef.

Was it really 200 companies, I read it as 200 case files for IP infringments. In which case it could be a file on a website posting GW logos and pictures of figures without the relevant disclaimers.

Cheers

Andrew

 AndrewC wrote:
Was it really 200 companies, I read it as 200 case files for IP infringments. In which case it could be a file on a website posting GW logos and pictures of figures without the relevant disclaimers.

Cheers

Andrew

I believe cases Andrew

nkelsch wrote:
It will be interesting to see what GW does next as they are clearly not done.

The only question left, in my mind, is the next thread title.

Games Workshop vs _____: The Revenge

or

Games Workshop, Episode 2: GW Strikes Back

Hang on Ouze, GW is a British company, so it's;

Episode 2, Games Workshop, The Empire Strikes Back.

Hey, if CHS wants a fundraiser, a limited edition figure of a games geek standing on the body of a 800lb gorilla might be appropriate.

Cheers

Andrew

PS Nick, my idea, I'll licence it to you for a free model.....

 Taarnak wrote:

I'd suggest that you take a more extensive look around their catalog. A lot of their stuff stands up against GW's stuff just fine, quality-wise. Compare apples to apples though. GW's main lines don't compare to FW either... Also, everything you said above is Subjective. Period.

We are comparing apples to apples. FW releases resin upgrade kits to existing GW products. GW doesn't really make too many should pad variants for Marine chapters last time I checked in their official lines, but those they do are better sculpted than the CHS equivalents. And honestly, I don't put FW sculpts on a pedestal here either, I don't have much love for most of their older work. They've gotten a lot better over the years, but their early Eldar vehicles... meh.

I have looked extensively at CHS's catalog. I was not impressed. The sculpts aren't sharp, lines are wavery, castings are mediocre at best. It's competent, but nothing better than that. The Farseer Jetbike kit is just nightmarishly hideous.

 Taarnak wrote:

You are asserting that aftermarket parts are illegal and in violation of IP Laws despite the mountains of evidence (and case law) to the contrary?

What case law are you referring to? Auto parts?

I'm referring to the part where CHS tacks existing GW iconography onto things like Rhino doors and thinks they can get away with it. You want to pull that kind of move, you'd be vastly better served to do it with your own homebrew chapter, you might actually sneak it by. We don't know precisely what rulings are going to come down from this, but I'd wager that anything that CHS made for an existing "canon" chapter is gonna be on the list of things they have to stop making.

Don't get me wrong, the market for aftermarket car parts is also inherently parasitic. You can say that Ford made $35k when you bought a Mustang from them, and Company X made $1k when you bought a hood scoop from them, but the ultimate truth of the matter is that you were going to buy a car anyway. These aren't things that motivate you to buy the car, they're things that you add on once you have one. It's parasitic, and that's also legal. A bit sleazy at times, but legal.

And that's the sort of product that probably passed muster in this suit. The stuff that is sufficiently vague that GW can't prove it infringes on an established IP. You can make a spoiler that fits a Honda Civic Si, after all, but you probably couldn't get away with duplicating a Honda Civic Si spoiler. You couldn't call it a Honda spoiler, but you could say it fits Hondas. That's the sort of fine line that aftermarket parts have to tread; a lot of CHS's stuff is in that realm.

A lot of it is not.

 Taarnak wrote:

I fail to see that an historical fact (GW used to issue licenses for miniature production) has nothing to do with the discussion here. You two (and now we three) are in fact discussing the existence of a market segment that GW could service via licensing since they choose not to service it directly. Seems pretty relevant to me.

It's not relevant. Chrysler used to have a collaborative line of automobiles with Mitsubishi, that doesn't mean that they have to now. Just because they did something once, doesn't mean they have to do it again because you want them to.

Besides, the 3000GT looked cooler than the Stealth anyway.

 Taarnak wrote:

If you did what is outlined above it would be deception. Which would lead to confusion. The confusion likely wouldn't have existed without the deception though.

The definition of market confusion is when you put something up in front of the customer and they don't know that it's not one of your products. That's what they're talking about when they discuss IP violation. It's not deception, it's proving the point.

Haven't you been following the ongoing drama between Samsung and Apple?

 Taarnak wrote:

Is GW greedy for making "a living off of" others' IP? Because arguably they are doing just that.
...
You're showing your bias. I'm certain that they guys at CHS did have to do some work to get their piece of the pie. They may not have had anything to do with "establishing the market" but then again neither, arguably, did FW.

Wargaming, and miniatures manufacturing existed before GW. So, is GW "parasitic" because they are profiting (massively) when they didn't do any work in establishing the market? Do you feel that any company who makes add-on or compatible parts for another companies' product is "parasitic"? Or are those feelings strictly limited to "creative" works?

I would call the relationship "symbiotic" since both benefit.

Editing some bits together here, rather than doing this repeatedly when the topics touch on each other rather heavily.

Have you missed the part where I've said GW is greedy multiple times? I just don't assign any particular onus to the fact; everyone in business is greedy, it's just expressed in different ways at times. People go into business to make money; GW jumped on the Tolkien-esque fantasy setting early, gave it a twist of their own by injecting a healthy dose of Michael Moorcock, and then cross-bred it with an equal mixture of Dune and Starship Troopers and called it 40K.

FW is a subsidiary of GW, your point is irrelevant.

And no, CHS had almost no work to do, in the real world. It's the same reason why the aforementioned auto parts business has a thousand suppliers which go in and out of business very quickly, but the people that actually make automobiles are limited to a scant handful of corporations across the entire planet, and those entities tend to last considerably longer.

If CHS had, say, designed their own rule system, created an entire line of their own miniatures, established their own player base, built it up over several years, and all the crap that Privateer and other companies had to do... well, then they wouldn't be operating as a parasite off of GW's business.

As for GW capitalizing on the market for miniatures gaming... Name a game other than Little Wars that predates Warhammer (Chainmail, in case you're wondering, is an option there). Then name a successful game that's still around. The modern miniatures market, the one where you've got a variety of successful games each carved into their own niche? That really started with Warhammer, not before. Most of the games that predate it were small products, operating in small niches, and typically forgotten and neglected by their creators over time, or never successful enough to survive. GW did more to establish that market than anyone else did. It doesn't give them the right to profit from it exclusively, obviously, but comparing them to a company like CHS that exists solely to service GW's clientele is disingenuous.

The line between symbiotic and parasitic is a fine one, no doubt. Ultimately the issue here is one of consent. Did GW profit from people buying kits to alter the appearance of their Stormravens, for example? The answer there, incidentally, is "maybe". Any evidence that can be presented there is anecdotal at best, on either side. But if they didn't want to give consent for that derivative work, they shouldn't be forced to just because you want it.

Part of the reason I'm not overly fond of these companies, incidentally, is because for me at least they represent wasted talent. The idea of endless retreading someone else's work is about as appealing as the idea of rechewing someone else's food. It is, however, an easy way to make money, if you're not particularly ambitious.

 Taarnak wrote:

I sincerely doubt that Disney even knows about the existence of that miniature. I also seriously doubt that it falls under any kind of parody protection.

They may indeed take issue with the use of a similar name if they were made aware of it. Especially as the name is assigned to this miniature.

Remember that comment earlier about confusion? Yeah, zero chance of that. It's like Bored of the Rings, if you've ever read that, and frankly you should.

"Pity stayed his hand. 'Pity I've run out of bullets', he thought."

The Kruellagh mini is ugly (also discontinued), but there's no grounds for Disney to make any ground there. The figure doesn't look like Cruella, so other than a pun off of the name, they've got nothing to go on. And puns certainly fall within the realm of parody. Disney might try to make a case of it, but if it really offended them and they wanted to make an issue of it, they could just issue GW a C&D letter.

Which I'd wager they didn't. Not unless it took over a decade for that particular letter to arrive.

 Taarnak wrote:

I don't think your fanfic analogy holds water. I'll mull it over some more, but my initial thought is that it is flawed.

How so?

If I write a fanfic where, say, detailing Frodo's adventures in Valinor, I'd be extending and expanding on another person's work. They couldn't understand my work without reading Tolkien's work, so both parties profit, right? They've got to buy the Lord of the Rings before they buy my book, after all.

Doesn't that make us symbiotic?

It doesn't, incidentally, because my work doesn't stand on its own. I didn't write LotR, I just tacked on a little extra bit because hey, someone wanted it, and now I get to profit off of Tolkien's work. Symbiotic would be if I were paying a portion of the proceeds of each sale to Tolkien's estate, representative of the work that he did in establishing the universe I was writing in. He gets something, I get something, everyone wins.

But what if my fanfic sucks?

Is the Tolkien estate somehow obligated to let me write it anyway, because you want it? What if it's not even that horrible, but it's still something that they don't want written, something that they feel the story can do without?

What then?

That's what we've got here, incidentally, but it's occurring in an arena beyond the purely metaphysical, and that's where it gets complicated.

And by this point we've pretty thoroughly veered off into the morality of the current situation, rather than the consequences of it. So, to get back on topic:

The outcome, as it stands, was largely inevitable. Once someone went to trial, the likelihood of stopping a company like CHS from making optional bits for GW kits was functionally nil, but it wasn't a legal issue that had ever really been explored in this exact arena. Sure, there have been model kits designed to piggyback on other people's model kits before, but that was depicting real things, tanks and cars and whatnot, existing works (themselves in some cases licensed) where permission was either given in advance, or the lineage of the source material was sufficiently clouded that nobody could lay claim to it as IP.

GW didn't know for certain what the outcome would be. They've tried very hard to protect their IP, as is their right, and while in the past it's typically been enough for them to send out a C&D letter, this time someone took them up on it, and now we have to consider the fallout. The problem, of course, is that we don't really know what the situation actually is, other than vague, until we get a proper list of what products got axed, what terms got upheld, and so on.

As I mentioned, my money is on anything that is obviously GW-canon IP, things like symbols for specific Marine chapters, and pretty much all the stand-alone miniatures that were obviously derivative are gonna get the axe. The more generic bits like shoulder pads for non-canon chapters, generic weapons, and fiddly bits will probably survive. The "Tau" superheavy supposedly gets to live, probably because it doesn't really bear all that much resemblance to existing Tau pieces, though they might have to revise a few bits on it. The big GW terminology will remain their trademarks, but vaguer things like "jetbike" will probably be considered common usage.

That's my guess.

Assuming I'm right, what's the fallout gonna be? Well, minor bits are going to be pretty much open season, and the labeling of such bits will be more permissive, as labeling something as "Compatible with X" is fully within the boundaries of fair use. It's something that other corporations have challenged in the past, incidentally, which is why we know it's fair use, but again, never in this arena so it didn't really hurt GW to try.

As for what GW is going to do going forward?

Well, they've got some options. The easiest one would be to restart an official tournament system, regulated by their people, and simply ban the use of non-GW minis. Basically what Privateer does. It's fairly cheap, it grows the hobby, and it would quickly curtail the market for alternate pieces. From GW's perspective, there are relatively few downsides to it, though if they consider themselves to be sufficiently advanced in market penetration, then the cost doesn't reap commensurate reward. But, maybe they'd be willing to do it anyway. Most of their store managers in my experience are already pretty adamant about not letting any third-party pieces in the store, though minor bits can typically slip by.

The next one would be to just start making upgrade bits kits of their own, but that's... less likely. They could do it, but they'd likely do it the same way that it's been done by GW in the past; a single sprue with a variety of options on it, and you get to buy the whole thing if you want any individual pieces on it. Better than nothing, but not quite the same as getting 5 plasma guns or some such. Though they could just make a sprue with 5 plasma, 5 melta, 5 flamer, etc, stick 'em all in the same mold and just pop 'em out on different sprues. I suppose somewhere in GW there's someone with the logic that if they don't produce such an item, they force people to buy entire kits, but those people are stupid and probably won't be around much longer. They'll probably choke to death trying to tie their ties or something. This is one of the situations that would constitute a clear win for the consumer, incidentally.

Another option is to simply alter the way they put pieces together in such fashion that makes it difficult for the current set of add-on bits to work. That's... vanishingly unlikely, in my opinion, but it could happen. It's implausibly difficult for one, and too easy to get caught up on, but it's possible that they'll consider it an option.

The last one is one that I expect they will be pursuing. We're told a few specifics about pieces in what little I've seen so far; the Tau superheavy can stay (it's pretty vague whether it's a real Tau piece, after all), but the "Doomseer" and "Torturess" models got the axe.

This is not good news for Avatars of War.

It's more difficult to prove in a fantasy setting than Sci-fi, admittedly. But if GW is serious about going forward with more suits now that they've done it once and they've got a good idea of what they can expect, they'll probably start doing more than issuing C&Ds and hoping for the best. And let's be honest, a number of AoW's pieces are pretty blatant copies of GW's work. I expect that they'll be targeting their next suit more carefully, mind, but they're probably still going to have at least some shotgunning in there to be sure.

What is it with armchair lawyers' willingness to re-try the case in their heads even after tje jury has returned a verdict? It's over, bro. Cope.

 Raesvelg wrote:
I have looked extensively at CHS's catalog. I was not impressed. The sculpts aren't sharp, lines are wavery, castings are mediocre at best. It's competent, but nothing better than that. The Farseer Jetbike kit is just nightmarishly hideous.

Did you feel as if you gaze upon it for too long, you'd slowly slip into insanity? That this... un-thing had no place in the realm of men, and that the unknowing fools who summoned it upon us should never have tinkered with the volume bound in human skin they discovered in those cursed ruins?

 Raesvelg wrote:
Part of the reason I'm not overly fond of these companies, incidentally, is because for me at least they represent wasted talent.

I see no conflict between these 2 ideas in the same post.

 Raesvelg wrote:

The last part, that I'll grant. The market exists, and GW should service it, failure to do so represents a bad business decision.

It doesn't represent an excuse for a third party to do so in violation of IP laws.

So we agree that the market exists. GW does not service it fully, as we see with their lack of bits and things like the Warlock of jetbike. The market must be substantial for CH to gross 100k per year.

I agree about IP violation. However, in many instances we are not dealing with GW IP. Lizard heads, cogs, roman numerals, etc. are not GWs IP.

Thus, GW was in the position to cooperate with other companies and grant licenses so that the bits market would be satisfied. They did not do this, and are no longer in that position, as it has been shown that what they thought was their IP is actually not their IP. Thus third parties are free to make such bits and miniatures.

By cooperating they could have made money, and satisfied the market. By being greedy they lost money and IP. You would think that even though the corporate folks at GW are not exactly stellar MBA types, they would have at least gotten the message from fables and kids books.

 Raesvelg wrote:

Like I said, the situation is analogous to fanfics. 99% of authors have no interest in handing out licenses to other people to write books in their universes, unless those people are proven quantities, and that's typically done on a work-for-hire basis, "write a story for this anthology and we'll pay you x amount of dollars up front if we approve it, and then we'll publish it. Or not. Whichever we decide." For the most part they tolerate the existence of fanfics so long as nobody is selling them, but the notion of handing down C&D letters to people who try to profit from it?

Yeah, that's what pretty much everyone does. It doesn't make them greedy, or evil. It makes them interested in protecting their livelihood.

It looks like you have not heard of Amazon's Kindle Worlds. They know how to make money, as do Warner Bros.

 Raesvelg wrote:

I have looked extensively at CHS's catalog. I was not impressed. The sculpts aren't sharp, lines are wavery, castings are mediocre at best. It's competent, but nothing better than that. The Farseer Jetbike kit is just nightmarishly hideous.

Deodorant Tank
Origami Baneblade

Have a nice day.

Of course the quality of CHS is really immaterial to whether they were infringing on IP.

 Raesvelg wrote:
I'm referring to the part where CHS tacks existing GW iconography onto things like Rhino doors and thinks they can get away with it.

I'm going to hit the pause button at the very beginning of your lengthy rant.

What is GW iconography? The GW corporate logo? I don't see any CHS rhino doors with 'Games Workshop' sculpted onto the side. If you're talking about the amalgamation of various historical symbols that constitutes what GW uses as Space Marine heraldry, then a couple things:

1. GW does not 'own' this stuff. The trial showed that. If GW did actually own this stuff they'd be able to present a piece of paper that shows actual ownership in the form of a legally defensible document.

2. CHS did actually 'get away with it' because it turns out producing resin mininature sculptures with open-source iconography is not actually against the law.

 AustonT wrote:
Deodorant Tank
Origami Baneblade

I get the first one, but what's the second one?

 Ouze wrote:

 AustonT wrote:
Deodorant Tank
Origami Baneblade

I get the first one, but what's the second one?

Heresy.

@Raesvelg: I hope your posts don't contain relevant info. I have other big books to read first

Play nice Kroothawk... he's new here....

It seems that a lot of white knights just do not get the fact that

The
Aftermarket
Parts
Business
Is
Legal.

And in some cases is required to say what the part is to be used for - if you make a muffler that only works for a Ford Prefect then it needs to say that it is for a Ford Prefect. Doing so does not challenge the trademarks of either Ford nor the Ford Prefect.

And, yeah - the fact that GW never bothered registering these TM was.... kind of a surprise.

Most of the iconography could have been challenged in any event, but not bothering....

And, at the end of the day, it does not matter if the models look bad, or worse than they actually do - that is not what the trial was determining.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

It seems that a lot of white knights just do not get the fact that

The
Aftermarket
Parts
Business
Is
Legal.

Nobody has ever disputed that, the question is whether specific trademarks or copyrights were violated. People bring up car & guns aftermarket business - but there too manufacturers can and DO stomp on the aftermarket parts makers if they thing the parts are too reminiscent of their own designs, just like GW does.

 Ouze wrote:

 AustonT wrote:
Deodorant Tank
Origami Baneblade

I get the first one, but what's the second one?

White Dwarf 132 I will PM you a link because it contains content not allowed on Dakka.

Backfire wrote:
Nobody has ever disputed that

Actually a lot of people have said that they don't dispute that, but then they go on to create an argument that is basically 'I dispute that CHS can produce aftermarket parts for GW models because opinion".

the question is whether specific trademarks or copyrights were violated.

And the answer to this question, as we now have it, is 'No'. GW generally did an abysmal job of showing ownership to any of the things that they aggressively claim to have owned.

Raesvelg, I have to ask; why the flag of Bastok? I played myself an' got my Elvaan of San'D to 75 on rdm, sam, rng, and thf. Cor was up and coming, but they turned around and proclaimed Rapture as XIV, thats when I quit. Oh yea, my rng was boss on the Dlord, 13k in 10 seconds (damn lag!) Haha!


As to the topic... heh, glad to see the initial outcome looking heavily in favor of CHS. Someone really needed to assert GWs stance as incorrect and the IP cudgel isnt always going to work as it has in the past. :3

I think it's a bit early to truly predict what the fallout will be for GW. However, I think once the dust settles, GW got paid 25K to do the following:

- Provide a list of terms that can and cannot be used when advertising 28mm miniatures and miniature parts which compatible with GW miniatures.
- Provide a box around how close items can and cannot be produced to the GW original. This is a big deal because items can be the same theme as a GW model, but not be a GW model.
- Open the door for the above being done without contacting GW in any way.

With the rapid technological leaps in 3D printers, this is going to be a big deal in the near future. Not only can a guy spin caste the parts in his garage, but any random guy would be able to print out parts in their own home.

Barfolomew wrote:
However, I think once the dust settles, GW got paid 25K to do the following:

Had a thought this morning - GW actually only nets out with 15k so far. They got hit with a 10k fine earlier.

the question is whether specific trademarks or copyrights were violated.

And the answer to this question, as we now have it, is 'No'. GW generally did an abysmal job of showing ownership to any of the things that they aggressively claim to have owned.