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 Gert wrote:
Latham knew his channel was going to be taken down about a year ago, he even posted about it.

We don't know what's in Latham's contract with GW though....

 JB wrote:
Hmm, I was hoping to see a thread about Warhammer + and its pros and cons. This thread seems to be about something else entirely.

Don't you mean its plusses and minuses?

 JB wrote:
Hmm, I was hoping to see a thread about Warhammer + and its pros and cons. This thread seems to be about something else entirely.

Welcome to the party!

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Latham knew his channel was going to be taken down about a year ago, he even posted about it.

We don't know what's in Latham's contract with GW though....

Wow its actually gone .. :(

I'm very glad I managed to download his entire library of content for posterity before it got pulled.
His video on painting black armour has elevated my scheme to the next level. By far the best videos on painting in my opinion. I still see him post on FB though from time to time which is great.

 JB wrote:
Hmm, I was hoping to see a thread about Warhammer + and its pros and cons. This thread seems to be about something else entirely.

Well, one nifty thing is that the fee includes the army builder part of the app.

BaronIveagh wrote:

 kodos wrote:

IP rights have nothing to do with DMCA Strikes and Youtube removing Video

You do know that DMCA stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act, right? It's right there in the name.

There's a difference between the actual DMCA and DMCA strikes on Youtube (or other platforms) that host so much content that they can't do it the official way and have processes which are mostly automated system (using digital fingerprints) where people can additionally report infringement (or "infringement", or trolling). It's too much data to handle normally so they act proactively due to DMCA issues. I think it's about legal penalties if they didn't take real DMCA requests seriously so everybody gets thrown under the bus if somebody only asks via their process.

The point is that however youtube is handling this, it's not about the rights. People got all kinds of odd issues with it, like videos of nature/bird singing being blocked by the algorithm or some musicians who get their own songs taken down by random people (sometimes licensor or remixer, or again the algorithm not knowing who the original creator is). The system seems to be rather opaque, confusing, and not intuitive. Youtube creators are complaining for years now about how arbitrary it is, the lack of clarity, and how the lack of customer service people is making it harder to contest false claims against their videos. I think three DMCA strikes, no matter their validity, can take down your whole youtube channel (even if every other video is clear) until it's resolved so creators tend to become paranoid after two strikes because it takes youtube a long time to clear it all up. Youtube's connection to actual copyright laws is lacking until you work through a few layers of it (the first few being automated or algorithmic) and not everybody has the stamina to go through this maze because it can take quite a bit of time.

The hyperbole in the comment you replied to was most probably about something like people fearing that GW might try to get rid of potential competition if, for example, their WH+ numbers after a few months don't look well (like how the animation channels seem to have had issues and how Darren Latham's channel is gone). People are extrapolating from what they see happening in adjacent categories of WH+ content. The question then, if something similar were to happen to battle reports too, would be how many youtube creators would have the stamina to work through the mess that is the youtube system just to get their stuff back online.

Actual copyright shows up somewhere at the very end of all of this, thus the hyperbolic statement (for emphasis, probably) of "IP rights have nothing to do with DMCA Strikes and Youtube removing Video". Yes DMCA has copyright in the name but that's essentially irrelevant because actual copyright is a bit like an afterthought to the whole youtube DMCA process. It's a "guilty until proven innocent" system that hits you in the face with automated systems and general bureaucracy. GW could, if they wanted, cause quite a lot of damage to these channels without actually suffering real DMCA repercussion for false DMCA claims (as they are going through youtube's DMCA system).

All things considered, the initial comment was probably more correct than your correction… despite you being technically correct.

They probably couldn't win an actual court case against most battle rep channels. But there's no doubt that what a lot of battle rep channels do directly contravenes GW's own instructions to the community about what is and isn't allowed re: use of their IP. Now those guidelines are ridiculous nonsense that would never hold up in court...but it's what GW purports to tell people the rules are, what GW hopes people will be fooled into thinking the rules are, and what a sizable portion of the community (see previous threads on this topic) seems to think the rules are. And even if GW couldn't get the channels taken down completely (and youtube is notorious for always taking the side of big companies), they could certainly make their lives difficult by striking them for little violations here and there.

I would be surprised to see them go after batrep channels, right now they have a very cozy relationship with most of them and keep them on side with freebies and insider access, and the free advertising they produce makes GW millions of dollars a year in plastic sales. But GW has surprised me in the past with the stupid things they do...like, you know, shutting down fan animation channels that were basically just free advertising for GW.

yukishiro1 wrote:
They probably couldn't win an actual court case against most battle rep channels.

But they also don't have to - Chapterhouse won the lawsuit GW threw at 'em, and yet went bankrupt because of all the money they spent during the case.

Indeed. None of the bat rep channels out there have the resources to really survive a court battle. And GW doesn't have to even take them to court, it could just get youtube to do its bidding, which youtube is usually only too happy to do, and then the onus is basically on the channel itself to bring the court case.

Again, that doesn't mean they will. It would be a monumentally stupid thing for GW to do, the definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face. And while it's GW and therefore we can't rule it out...it's hard for me to believe even they would do something so brainless. I've been wrong before, though.

 Argive wrote:

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:

 Gert wrote:
Latham knew his channel was going to be taken down about a year ago, he even posted about it.

We don't know what's in Latham's contract with GW though....

Wow its actually gone .. :(

I'm very glad I managed to download his entire library of content for posterity before it got pulled.
His video on painting black armour has elevated my scheme to the next level. By far the best videos on painting in my opinion. I still see him post on FB though from time to time which is great.

Any chance you'd be willing to share the lord of blights masterclass?

JWBS wrote:
Yes we all knew his channel was being culled to make room for WH+, the question was whether the paid successor would retain the quality of the unpaid predecessor. The answer is a clear "Oh fk no" and I for one am greatly disappointed by this.

But doesn't this kinda say it all re: how little confidence they have in their own premium product? If their videos are good...why would they need to "make room" by culling prior videos? It's basically an admission that they new product isn't offering value.

It's worth noting that many of the bigger channels have their own behind paywall content which is the actual money earner for them.

MWG make their money from their vault membership, now being victim to youtube processes would sting, as it is essentially their marketing, but it wouldn't stop them producing content for their vault and continuing to earn from it.

It's smaller channels that only have youtube that would be hurt by it. To stop MWG they'd most likely have to go into a messy legal battle, that would need to be followed up with other creators after.

As big as GW is, they aren't as big as the music and film industry who can afford multiple legal battles over IP.

 Gert wrote:

In the context of the discussion, yes. GW hasn't gone after BatRep channels before and as someone has just said several have checked and been told by actual lawyers that GW would find it very difficult to get such a case going.

Yeah, mine told me that GW didn't have a legal leg to stand on when they threatened me, but also pointed out that I didn't have the one quarter to one half million dollars laying around to fight the case, no matter how good it was. When dealing with GW, it doesn't matter if you're right or not, only if you can take that sort of hit and keep going. That's what it takes to force people like GW to follow the same rules as the rest of us, fething up and picking a fight with someone who can actually fight back.

 Gert wrote:

We know GW hasn't gone after BatRep channels because none of the big BatRep channels or even smaller ones have been C&D'd.

Except you don't know that. Unless they announce it, most of the just quietly disappear.

 kodos wrote:

So why were they sending out free advance copies of Kill Team to content creators mere days before the launch of Warhammer+?

because this way they have control over the review

No they don't. Go watch Uncle Atom's Kill Team review on Tabletop Minions, or Goobertown Hobbies review of Dominion. The creators can say whatever they like with the product they receive and are under no obligation to play nice and blow kisses at GW product.

 JB wrote:
Hmm, I was hoping to see a thread about Warhammer + and its pros and cons. This thread seems to be about something else entirely.

This is the thread for it. However, you are like 8 pages too late in.

 MonkeyBallistic wrote:


Do people use “Kleenex” as a generic term? I’ve not come across that.

In spanish, Kleenex has pretty much replaced the word "pañuelo". We (not me) use it to call paper tissues of every brand because Kleenex is a monopoly here, and it is so ingrained to our daily life that it appears on our dictionary as "clínex".

tneva82 wrote:

 CMLR wrote:

Take a photo with your phone FROM you computer...

Computer isn't even involved with me and warhammer+.

It's been almost week since i have even touched computer. I used warhammer tv app on my phone to view videos.

Not talking about your case, specifically.

yukishiro1 wrote:

JWBS wrote:
Yes we all knew his channel was being culled to make room for WH+, the question was whether the paid successor would retain the quality of the unpaid predecessor. The answer is a clear "Oh fk no" and I for one am greatly disappointed by this.

But doesn't this kinda say it all re: how little confidence they have in their own premium product? If their videos are good...why would they need to "make room" by culling prior videos? It's basically an admission that they new product isn't offering value.

This is the weirdest thing to me. He built up a 60K subscriber base with a few dozen videos! People clearly responded to his work. Why not have Louise record a new intro and outro for the videos with some expert commentary so the thumbnails all feel similar, but make the really popular content available at the same time. In a world where they're putting up years-old Blood Bowl "How to Play" videos and cinematics to bulk up their library, why not showcase the stuff made by your employee? Masterclass could be an opportunity to showcase a wide variety of talent – film a David Soper project, repurpose one of Richard Grey's videos, use Darren's library etc. – with permission/compensation, of course. Louise's stuff is interesting, and her winged Tzeentch beast was wicked, but her style is so idiosyncratic it's hard to imagine it being the backbone of the entire series.

I just received notice to take down my video of Necron bugs overwhelming a space marine. The problem is that I own no space marines by GW so I used a Lego version. Lego made me take it down for the reason that GW game design and models are inferior to Lego.

I can see this is clearly the wrong place, but just wanted to comment on Warhammer+.

Watched a reasonable amount of the content so far and generally liked it. Enjoyed the first episode of Hammer and Bolter and Angels of Death. Animation could be better, obviously both are pretty stylized, the H&B stuff looked a little cheap but generally worked, I think the battle between the retinues was the low-point as it didn't really flow at all. AoD looks pretty nice but the movement seemed off, especially the lip-sync and general character movements, thinking maybe too few key frames, everything had a slightly jerky\robotic look or something. I enjoyed the stories of both though.

I found the face-painting tutorial interesting, maybe very little there that I wasn't aware of but thought it gave really nice clear demonstrations of how to put it into practice (if I could see well enough these day to actually do that!).

The two battle reports were fine, nice and clear and I thought they explained what was going on really well, certainly far better than the reports in WD these days. Whether I'll watch many more of them in the future, I don't know, think it will depend on what they do to make each report worth watching. If it's just two armies turn up and fight a standard battle each time I suspect it could get pretty repetitive, but if they try and make them more unique and show off particular aspects of the game for each one then could be more interesting. Also, hope they branch out into reports for other games.

Overall though, seemed a positive start, but will have to see how it develops over time. Certainly didn't regret the £4.99.

Tavis75 wrote:
I can see this is clearly the wrong place, but just wanted to comment on Warhammer+.

Watched a reasonable amount of the content so far and generally liked it. Enjoyed the first episode of Hammer and Bolter and Angels of Death. Animation could be better, obviously both are pretty stylized, the H&B stuff looked a little cheap but generally worked, I think the battle between the retinues was the low-point as it didn't really flow at all. AoD looks pretty nice but the movement seemed off, especially the lip-sync and general character movements, thinking maybe too few key frames, everything had a slightly jerky\robotic look or something. I enjoyed the stories of both though.

I found the face-painting tutorial interesting, maybe very little there that I wasn't aware of but thought it gave really nice clear demonstrations of how to put it into practice (if I could see well enough these day to actually do that!).

The two battle reports were fine, nice and clear and I thought they explained what was going on really well, certainly far better than the reports in WD these days. Whether I'll watch many more of them in the future, I don't know, think it will depend on what they do to make each report worth watching. If it's just two armies turn up and fight a standard battle each time I suspect it could get pretty repetitive, but if they try and make them more unique and show off particular aspects of the game for each one then could be more interesting. Also, hope they branch out into reports for other games.

Overall though, seemed a positive start, but will have to see how it develops over time. Certainly didn't regret the £4.99.

Having the animations and the battle reps on the same service would be a great opportunity to link the two, maybe do animated series for "fluff" and link to actual batreps (obviously the time it takes to do an animation would mean you would have to record batreps months in advance)

On the value in general, agree that its probably worth the £5 a month if you are already paying for the Ap anyway. Just wish they would let you do power level lists and track crusade stuff in it.

 GaroRobe wrote:

 Argive wrote:


Wow its actually gone .. :(

I'm very glad I managed to download his entire library of content for posterity before it got pulled.

Any chance you'd be willing to share the lord of blights masterclass?

And indeed the rest of the archive?

I fell out of the loop, what's up with this latham guy?

Tavis75 wrote:
but if they try and make them more unique and show off particular aspects of the game for each one then could be more interesting.

There are Battle Reports planned for actual battles from the fluff which should be quite interesting. (Starting with the Battle of Iax next Wednesday I believe.)

 JB wrote:
Hmm, I was hoping to see a thread about Warhammer + and its pros and cons. This thread seems to be about something else entirely.

Well basically it depends on what you want. For now you get access to 4 episodes of animated series of medium-low quality (I enjoy Hammer and Bolter, but YMMV), 2 painting tutorials, a battle report (quite bland and corporate), a "library" with ~50 publications half of which are Warhammer Visions, 10 White Dwarf, the rest are supplements for AoS, 40k and Underworlds (Somewhat recent, but no usable rules that I've seen), and acess to WH40k app (but you still have tu buy the physical codex to access most rules).

In the state it is now I see it more like buying a limited edition model with some moderately useful/entertaining stuff attached to it. Only time will tell if the rest grows to be worth it by itself.


TLDR; want one of the 2 models? Get the subscription. Otherwise it might be wiser to wait and see.

For those talking about Darren's channel, we knew those videos were coming down quite some time ago.

However, I have heard that Darren's videos were used as the basis for Louise's practice videos and that Darren advised on the masterclass videos.

So, it's possible that Louise has simply used the scripts and techniques and Darren's content will be re-release as Louise's videos.

The pale skin tutorial for example was pretty much identical to Darren's. The difference was she didn't use contrast paints for the glazes.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I fell out of the loop, what's up with this latham guy?

He created a Youtube channel to teach advance painting techniques, most in the 'Eavy Metal style, great production, entertaining and informative. He also works at GW HQ, so he was "encouraged" to shut the channel down. Probably GW believed he was breaching NDA or exclusivity clause from his contract, or his workload changedand was unable to maintain the channel. Anyway, a bit before Warhammer+ was announced he published a video saying he would stop creating new content and close the channel down soon, and he has done when Warhammer+ went live.

We are quite a few to believe there is a link between this and the Masterclass content in WH+ Was it closed down to protect Masterclass? Will he be taking over/collaborating in that instead? In any case his videos will be missed.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I fell out of the loop, what's up with this latham guy?

Darren Latham works for GW, used to be a 'eavy metal-painter but is now a mini-designer. He had a youtube-channel with painting tutorials that he stopped updating early 2020. Never said why as far as I can recall, but people speculated it had to do with his employer.

The channel was recently taken down completely.

While I understand that some are underwhelmed by the animation quality, I find it just fine in an "old school" kind of way, and the story makes up for it, IMO.

If it was just that and the bonus model, I'd be OK. The BatReps and painting stuff is gravy at that point.

There's precedent for going after fan films and animations. Not necessarily legal precedent, but people have done it before, and it's sort of been accepted - it's making content based on someone elses' universe.

You guys talk about "bat reps" like they're some special thing. They're not. They're videos of people playing games. There are millions of such videos all across the gaming space: board games, RPGs, CCGs, minis games... including games owned by companies far bigger and with far more clout than GW. And as far as I'm aware, to date no company has ever gone after someone for posting footage of them playing a game. I can't imagine for a second GW want to be the first to try that. They'd very much be out on their own, and face a backlash not just from their own community (god knows, they get one of those every three days) but the entire physical gaming playthrough community on Twitch and YouTube and elsewhere.

As someone already mentioned, it's like when Nintendo first went after video game let's plays. And I think they had far more of a point, as a playthrough of a narrative led, on rails video game is arguably closer to a film, in a way that video of a board or minis game isn't. It doesn't spoil anything. It doesn't impact their brand (unless they're doing something weird like playing another system using GW minis).

It would be a hell of a flex to go after bat reps, in a way that going after fan animations and even video game mods is not.

Plus, Battle Reports are using your product as you intended it to be used - for playing battles.

Fan animations and films are different, because as we found with the German ones, different IP laws in different countries can mean very different things.

There’s also the risk that a fan film can damage your IP. Hypothetically, and absolute not saying anyone came even close to this? Imagine a 40K fan film with exceptionally graphic violence of An Adult Nature, and the sort of Pearl clutching One Million Moms might attempt off the back of such?

Battle Reports can’t really do that sort of damage. Even if the players are foul mouthed, that’s just them being foul mouthed, rather than an indictment of the game or it’s manufacturer.

deano2099 wrote:
There's precedent for going after fan films and animations. Not necessarily legal precedent, but people have done it before, and it's sort of been accepted - it's making content based on someone elses' universe.

You guys talk about "bat reps" like they're some special thing. They're not. They're videos of people playing games. There are millions of such videos all across the gaming space: board games, RPGs, CCGs, minis games... including games owned by companies far bigger and with far more clout than GW. And as far as I'm aware, to date no company has ever gone after someone for posting footage of them playing a game. I can't imagine for a second GW want to be the first to try that. They'd very much be out on their own, and face a backlash not just from their own community (god knows, they get one of those every three days) but the entire physical gaming playthrough community on Twitch and YouTube and elsewhere.

As someone already mentioned, it's like when Nintendo first went after video game let's plays. And I think they had far more of a point, as a playthrough of a narrative led, on rails video game is arguably closer to a film, in a way that video of a board or minis game isn't. It doesn't spoil anything. It doesn't impact their brand (unless they're doing something weird like playing another system using GW minis).

It would be a hell of a flex to go after bat reps, in a way that going after fan animations and even video game mods is not.

Except as you yourself mention, Nintendo did go after Let's Plays for a time. By the same token, if there's a company who would be stupid and petty enough to take aim at batrep channels because they thought it would redirect their audiences towards subscribing to Warhammer+ For Exclusive Warhammer(tm) Battle Reports(tm) it would absolutely be GW. Hell, if there was a fanbase would who go along with it and find a way to justify the decision, it would be Games Workshop's hordes of cultists.

As people have said, it's not so much the legal precedent so much as fighting Youtube strikes and the willingness to actually bother taking GW to court. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't really see what the difference is between a fan-film maker having a Patreon and battle report youtubers having one? Hell, at least the fan films have all been free for public consumption, whilst a few of the bigger batrep channels actually hide half of their reports behind paywalls. The white knight like to shriek that the fanimators were making money off someone else's IP via donations, but isn't that exactly what battle report channels are doing playing with GW's toys?

In the short term I think the influencers still getting their freebies suggests they're safe. If those dry up however, that's when I'd start looking for a new job if I ran one of those channels.