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Do they have a MORAL right to say no to OOP recasting?

They (GW) aren't a person, it is a company. Morality is irrelevant to them.
Morality is a set of HUMAN socio-religious rules to allow the greater part of human society to function. Mostly through fear of something. A good man does good because it is the right thing to do, not for an eternal reward that may or may not ever eventuate.

IP law isn't concerned with morality either, just legal technicalities (although it can be said that the entire practise of law - in its civil/criminal aspects - is all about the technicalities anyway).

They DO, however, have a LEGAL requirement to do so and MUST do so at the risk of forfeiture of said rights (protect your IP or lose it) if they don't.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
OK, if that's the case, show me where in the EU the law permits individuals to ignore copyright for the purpose of making personal copies not for sale/distribution.

Because, what I see at a high level suggests that that is not the case. Further, I see EU law moving toward US law with greatly expanded copyright protection and lengthened copyright term following the US Mickey Mouse trail.

For your example, please use current law, not stuff that's obsolete. The fact that the UK exception was obsoleted is direct evidence of harmonization, BTW...

The two being co-incidentally in agreement in a particular point is not harmonization - harmonization would be a deliberate process to synchronize the two. The overturning of the 2014 personal use copyright act (which referred specifically to recordings of performances) was done on it's own merits - not to make it more similar to EU or US law.

You also keep referring to "EU law" but there is no consensus on copyright law across the EU - it is actually one of the areas which has the least harmonization.

No, it wasn't mere coincidence that the UK extended their copyright terms to match US terms across the board. That is a counterfactual there.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
No, it wasn't mere coincidence that the UK extended their copyright terms to match US terms across the board. That is a counterfactual there.

So what is the standard that the UK, US, etc. are harmonizing with?

There is a harmonization process in place for electrical safety regulations, for example, and a standard exists against which the subscribing countries are harmonizing.

There is no such harmonization standard for copyright.

That would be the US standard, which Disney bought and paid for.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That would be the US standard, which Disney bought and paid for.

There is no "US standard", just current US law. No standard, no harmonization.

Of course copyright law is similar across major western countries - this tends to be case for things that affect international trade.

This is not nearly the same as harmonization which is something that has a very specific meaning.

When other countries adopt US copyright norms, the US law *is* the standard.

Also, the EU itself states that it is harmonising the law.

Economic rights which enable rightholders to control the use of their works and other protected material and be remunerated for their use. They normally take the form of exclusive rights, notably to authorise or prohibit the making and distribution of copies as well as communication to the public. Economic rights and their terms of protection are harmonised at EU level.

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/copyright

As someone who's actually gone back through Hansard and read the drafting of multiple original laws around intellectual property protection in the 19th century, the arguments in Parliament for and against it, and several subsequent iterations/modifications within it, I'm fully aware that it hasn't always been considered a black and white moral issue.

Strictly speaking also, as I posted several months ago, in legal terms, certain GW models are actually technically legal to recast in the UK through a legal loophole until it closes in 2020.

More generally speaking, I believe in the moral primacy of intellectual property protection within certain limits. That limit being predicated upon the parties and time limit involved. I think intellectual property should expire at a certain point, and dislike the constant extension of the law at the behest of certain mouse eared franchises. I also have little sympathy for companies which submit claims in court for owning the concepts of things like 'grenade launchers' or 'halberds'.

So my answer on GW? It depends. I'd consider the recasting of anything they currently or have recently sold as immoral. But that consideration is tempered by the fact GW are a massive gang of IP thieves and liars themselves, and one rarely feels concern for a burglar who has their own house burgled. It doesn't necessarily make the act of the second burglar moral, but the poetic justice involved certainly makes you care less.

Asterios wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
But does that apply to products based outside of the US

pretty much any copyrighted material anywhere, as it goes if you are doing it for yourself in a non-commercial situation you are legally right, but now say you do some artwork that is copyrighted and put it in a business per se, then it gets sketchy like the preschools in Florida which had painted large Disney characters on their wall was threatened by Disney the case never went to court, but it would have brought to light what is considered fair use or not, it is a very fine line and if it could be proved you are making any form of profit or such from the work then it is illegal.

As GW Is a UK company it would be under the gambit of Fair Dealing, rather than Fair Use. And it definitely isn't Fair Dealing to copy for your own use. The only categories in Fair Dealing are: "Research and Study", "Criticism or Review", "Parody, Caricature and Pastiche" and "Reporting of Current Events". Copying something for your own use is none of those, so if sued in a UK court you couldn't use Fair Dealing as a defence and a US defence would not be applicable.

Thread is being locked due to thread necromancy.