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 Arbitrator wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:

 Gert wrote:
GW stores not allowing old editions or different games isn't necessarily a new thing.
Playing Horus Heresy in store was a huge point of contention between some of the staff and customers at my local GW just before Betrayal at Calth was released. Some tried to argue that since it wasn't a core GW game that we weren't allowed to play it despite people using plastic vehicles or conversions from regular GW stuff. Heck, even when Calth came out one of the guys tried to argue that we still couldn't because we weren't playing BaC but still a non-GW game. The store manager wasn't on their side since they were a huge 30k fan and told them to stop in case the regulars all got driven away to a different game store.

Which is kind of my point. Those are the actions you'd take if you're actively trying NOT to create a fanbase or community that engages with your games. This downward pressure that GW exhibits on its managers, content creators, and players all sends a message that disincentivizes creativity and engagement.

Or they want the engagement to focus on the stuff they're actually selling. Having 30k night at the local GW, which seem chronically short of board space, cuts into the games that are on the shelves. So even if people walk in, and want to start a Lunar Wolves army, they can't!

Again, GW wants to engage with buying customers, not just fans.

They're selling Aeronautica!!! They're selling 30k!!! It seems self defeating to me.

It comes down to the individual manager. A lot of GW stores don't allow Forge World because you can't buy it via the store (except Warhammer World). They don't want someone to see a Heresy game or a Leviathan, ask about it, have to tell them they can't grab it off the shelf and will need to go online. That'd still be a sale for the company, but not the store itself. "Well I know I'm a few thousand pounds short of my target, but it's because a lot of my customers are 30k players and all their money went to the Forge World website" probably won't go over well on a performance call.

If they start releasing a lot of plastic Heresy kits that may change.

My point is that GW applies undue pressure which hurts both them and their customers.

 Arbitrator wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:

 Gert wrote:
GW stores not allowing old editions or different games isn't necessarily a new thing.
Playing Horus Heresy in store was a huge point of contention between some of the staff and customers at my local GW just before Betrayal at Calth was released. Some tried to argue that since it wasn't a core GW game that we weren't allowed to play it despite people using plastic vehicles or conversions from regular GW stuff. Heck, even when Calth came out one of the guys tried to argue that we still couldn't because we weren't playing BaC but still a non-GW game. The store manager wasn't on their side since they were a huge 30k fan and told them to stop in case the regulars all got driven away to a different game store.

Which is kind of my point. Those are the actions you'd take if you're actively trying NOT to create a fanbase or community that engages with your games. This downward pressure that GW exhibits on its managers, content creators, and players all sends a message that disincentivizes creativity and engagement.

Or they want the engagement to focus on the stuff they're actually selling. Having 30k night at the local GW, which seem chronically short of board space, cuts into the games that are on the shelves. So even if people walk in, and want to start a Lunar Wolves army, they can't!

Again, GW wants to engage with buying customers, not just fans.

They're selling Aeronautica!!! They're selling 30k!!! It seems self defeating to me.

It comes down to the individual manager. A lot of GW stores don't allow Forge World because you can't buy it via the store (except Warhammer World). They don't want someone to see a Heresy game or a Leviathan, ask about it, have to tell them they can't grab it off the shelf and will need to go online. That'd still be a sale for the company, but not the store itself. "Well I know I'm a few thousand pounds short of my target, but it's because a lot of my customers are 30k players and all their money went to the Forge World website" probably won't go over well on a performance call.

If they start releasing a lot of plastic Heresy kits that may change.

Not that I'm disagreeing with you (I've had that same conversation plenty of times in the past with GW staffers when trying to play Epic or something roughly a decade ago...), but any FW/BL (even GW site online exclusive) purchases can be made in store on the store's touch screen and you pay for it at the till just like any other purchase.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:
Getting a real sense of Deja vu from all this.

GW have always been this way, they just managed to convince people that they were 'friendly' with their Social Media presence.

THIS.

Guys, this is GW. They didn't change, they just pretended to play nice for a while to get you all buying their gak again. As someone who was on the receiving end of this last time, I've been sitting here posting that GW's behavior was becoming more and more like the Bad Old Days of ten years ago when they were threatening their fans for supporting them.

Now, low and behold, I knew what I was talking about, and here we are again.

Just what is it those against this whole thing want? For GW to let anyone do anything they like with their IP?

For GW to not stop people from being creative. For GW to stop punishing people from being fans of the game. For GW to not treat the hobby as their personal monopoly where the filthy customers only exist at the behest of the GW overlords.

GW don't make a Carcharadons upgrade kit. They have no intention of ever doing so, so if someone wants to provide that for people the person making it shouldn't be slapped with the threat of legal action for making something GW has no intention if making themselves. Its not protecting their IP, they just don't want anyone else making money from it. It's just a crap way to treat people who love the setting and want to support it in a way that GW doesn't.

TBH, it is very difficult to enforce GW's rules given the nature of social media platforms, innumerable fan content, the ubiquity of manufacturing tech and yup...camera phones. Everyone who is anyone wants to be an influencer and will do whatever it takes to get known through content (bad or good).

The only way to enforce these measures is with gobs of money with their GW lawyers. Good luck with that. For every person you sue, ten more will pop up.

The smarter move, which I have seen many brands do, is to embrace 3rd parties with interesting content builds. Of course, it must be reasonable. I can see how GW wishes to avoid outright product infringement. But fan films? C'mon, such a rich area for them to explore and promote. Mattel, J&J, Paramount, WB, Universal, AMC, and other Interbrand companies encourage fans to join the conversation.

I deal with company IPs all day long. Company over reach almost always leads to disaster with your fan base.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

Just what is it those against this whole thing want? For GW to let anyone do anything they like with their IP?

They could start with allowing people to do what they are allowed to do under the law, without the threat of legal action.

 Mentlegen324 wrote:

Just what is it those against this whole thing want? For GW to let anyone do anything they like with their IP?

First of all: 'Their IP' as defined by GW, or 'Their IP' as defined under the law? Because the two things are not the same, as we found out last time. And to be blunt, calling most of it 'GW's IP' is questionable at best, considering how much of it is openly stolen from other IPs.

Second: I don't speak for everyone, but I'd appreciate policies ''less' draconian than, say, Marvel or LucasFilm. Or just plain learn the lessons of other companies failures when they tried similar gambits.


At least they appear to have dropped the claim that they own the copyright and trademark on you, as a person, if you have a chaos star tattoo.

By the logic of them arbitrarily deciding that fan films and animations are now infringing on their copyright, we as a community can reasonably assume they could at any time choose to consider any and all of the following infringement as well:

cosplay

fan art

Batreps/strategy guides

Painting and modeling videos

Lore videos

So basically, GW has now sent the message that they can and will arbitrarily decide that the thousands of hours of content made that provides free advertisement for their products is in conflict with their IP rights.

No, they haven't, stop fear-mongering. It hasn't worked for any other company and it won't work for GW.

To add to the post I made earlier as some people seem to be confusing certain things, the disagreement over whether 30k was allowed was pre-Calth by about a year and it wasn't until Calth that the issue was resolved. At that time we were using things like Spartans, Glaives, Sicarans, and Primarchs, all products not sold by GW. If we had stuck to very basic stuff that was present in the GW SM range there might have been less of an issue. There was one specific incident of a new start dropping about £500 on 40k Ultramarines then after seeing our group playing 30k for two weeks in a row, declared to the staff they were going to start 30k.
Games like Titanicus weren't a thing and 30k was still very much viewed as a specialist game to many, however, I do want to make it clear we were never banned from playing and staff would be difficult regardless of what game was being played. If they needed to push Shadow War they pressured us to play Shadow War, if they needed to push Skirmish they would pressure us to play smaller games of AoS. That was just how sales went at the time.

Some of these are not at all enforceable. They clearly just want to scare smaller scale operations away and hope enough people are put off.

The worst of them is the one that says you can not 'imitate' their models, art etc. They are going to lay claim on as many things as they can with that, which is ridiculous as they 'imitated' almost every design of both fantasy & 40k over the years. They are going to have a tough time enforcing it, but its going to put strain on small cottage industry outfits.

The real trouble comes from the addition at the end of each section that really hurts the community. 'not be prejudicial to the goodwill, reputation or integrity of Games Workshop or its intellectual property'
Slag a model off when reviewing it on youtube? Say goodbye to your channel.
Say anything negative and have enough people complain loudly- say goodbye to your blog/fourmposts/accounts.

Its like they threw that in to cover all the eventuality that the actual law doesn't cover.

'not post or display rules or stats copied...' Post up an army list on a battle report or 'review' a new book- have a c&d for showing points? That one is ridiculous tbh.

I suspect this to cause another 'community funded' witch-hunt, as people start pointing out all the companies, 3d Print shops etc that are 'imitating' GW and telling people their armies/rules/games are 'illegal'.

I also noticed that this appears to have come out at the same time that the first real news for the old world came out in a new article, so social media is flooded with WFB/Oldworld talks and memes. It honestly feels like they hide behind the WarCom post on this one.

I think most would like to think that GW are doing this to just as a 'just in case we need to' protection, but sadly most of us have seen more than one incident of the company being heavy handed, oblivious to the fact that they broke all their own rules during the last 40 odd years for creating warhammer.

Did they inform Russia ?

Russia is the go-to for anti-capitalist corporate sentiment satisfaction. I am a fan.

This move is aggressive on GW’s part. I have never wanted a 3D printer or some Kromlech orks more than I do now.

I was excited about new Heresy plastics and new KT, new ork battle force… now, well,we are moving and my models are all boxed up for shipping but I could save a couple hundred euros if I just ditched these things. GW does stuff like this, and it makes me sad that I spent so much of my life modelling and painting in the Old World and the original 40k universe. I hardly recognize the game, the context, the purpose of the hobby anymore. Profits over all… ruins everything beautiful.

Arise, ye wretched of the earth...

 Mallo wrote:
Some of these are not at all enforceable. They clearly just want to scare smaller scale operations away and hope enough people are put off.

Personal experience, they will actually try to enforce these, the actual law be damned. And people with YouTube channels are going to have a hell of a time of it, since YouTube will keep taking your videos down as long as GW keeps making those copyright claims.

All that's really left is to see who's left in the end.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Mallo wrote:
Some of these are not at all enforceable. They clearly just want to scare smaller scale operations away and hope enough people are put off.

Personal experience, they will actually try to enforce these, the actual law be damned. And people with YouTube channels are going to have a hell of a time of it, since YouTube will keep taking your videos down as long as GW keeps making those copyright claims.

All that's really left is to see who's left in the end.

I suspect a lot of people saying GW won't enforce this are people that 8th brought back, so they don't remember GWs old ways. Still gutted we never got to see Damnatus.

 Blastum wrote:
….Company over reach almost always leads to disaster with your fan base.

Not with this fandom.

They weren't enforcing most of those rules. They changed the rules to put a ban on the thing they just started a streaming service for. It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots on that one and see why they changed the rules for that specific thing.

I'm no GW fanboi by any stretch of the imagination. But I'd wait to see if they're actually going to start doing anything besides what they've already been doing - shutting down 3rd party animation producers in order to kneecap the competition to Warhammer+ - before acting like this heralds any big change in their IP enforcement strategy beyond the animation issue. Literally three weeks ago they were sending "guy who reads book on youtube" a free copy of the GHB2021 to, well, read on youtube. This directly violates their rules re: reproducing GW text and rules. And yet they've been not only tolerating this, but actively sending him the stuff for free so he can read it on youtube. Do we really think they've done a complete 180 degree pivot in the last three weeks?

yukishiro1 wrote:
They weren't enforcing most of those rules. They changed the rules to put a ban on the thing they just started a streaming service for. It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots on that one and see why they changed the rules for that specific thing.

I'm no GW fanboi by any stretch of the imagination. But I'd wait to see if they're actually going to start doing anything besides what they've already been doing - shutting down 3rd party animation producers in order to kneecap the competition to Warhammer+ - before acting like this heralds any big change in their IP enforcement strategy beyond the animation issue. Literally three weeks ago they were sending "guy who reads book on youtube" a free copy of the GHB2021 to, well, read on youtube. This directly violates their rules re: reproducing GW text and rules. And yet they've been not only tolerating this, but actively sending him the stuff for free so he can read it on youtube. Do we really think they've done a complete 180 degree pivot in the last three weeks?

Prior GW History says YES

delete

 Theophony wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
They weren't enforcing most of those rules. They changed the rules to put a ban on the thing they just started a streaming service for. It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots on that one and see why they changed the rules for that specific thing.

I'm no GW fanboi by any stretch of the imagination. But I'd wait to see if they're actually going to start doing anything besides what they've already been doing - shutting down 3rd party animation producers in order to kneecap the competition to Warhammer+ - before acting like this heralds any big change in their IP enforcement strategy beyond the animation issue. Literally three weeks ago they were sending "guy who reads book on youtube" a free copy of the GHB2021 to, well, read on youtube. This directly violates their rules re: reproducing GW text and rules. And yet they've been not only tolerating this, but actively sending him the stuff for free so he can read it on youtube. Do we really think they've done a complete 180 degree pivot in the last three weeks?

Prior GW History says YES

Like I said, it's not a prediction; it's a spoiler. Mark my words, you'll see old GW rear its head in the coming months and the proverbial curtain will fall down to reveal the real wizard.

 jeff white wrote:


This move is aggressive on GW’s part. I have never wanted a 3D printer or some Kromlech orks more than I do now.

I was excited about new Heresy plastics and new KT, new ork battle force… now, well,we are moving and my models are all boxed up for shipping but I could save a couple hundred euros if I just ditched these things. GW does stuff like this, and it makes me sad that I spent so much of my life modelling and painting in the Old World and the original 40k universe. I hardly recognize the game, the context, the purpose of the hobby anymore. Profits over all… ruins everything beautiful.

So go buy some Kromlech orcs. Get a 3d printer. Go hog wild, play older editions of 40k with your buddies and make up some homebrew rules for a better version of Kill Team. Nobody's stopping you. You can build an entire orc army out of Kromlech's various lines and nothing whatsoever is stopping you from using that army anywhere except maybe in an official GW store or at Warhammer World(for obvious reasons).

GW is a publicly traded company, of course they're going to want to make profit on new releases and all of their various miniatures, paints, brushes, books, terrain, whatever. That's kind of how business works. You don't like it, you're always welcome to stop participating and step away from the GW bubble.

 Theophony wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
They weren't enforcing most of those rules. They changed the rules to put a ban on the thing they just started a streaming service for. It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots on that one and see why they changed the rules for that specific thing.

I'm no GW fanboi by any stretch of the imagination. But I'd wait to see if they're actually going to start doing anything besides what they've already been doing - shutting down 3rd party animation producers in order to kneecap the competition to Warhammer+ - before acting like this heralds any big change in their IP enforcement strategy beyond the animation issue. Literally three weeks ago they were sending "guy who reads book on youtube" a free copy of the GHB2021 to, well, read on youtube. This directly violates their rules re: reproducing GW text and rules. And yet they've been not only tolerating this, but actively sending him the stuff for free so he can read it on youtube. Do we really think they've done a complete 180 degree pivot in the last three weeks?

Prior GW History says YES

So we should put you in the "yes, they completely changed their approach in the last three weeks for <reasons>" camp?

I'm not saying it's impossible. But why would a company that was happy to send a free review copy to the guy who reads the book page by page on youtube suddenly decide three weeks later that it was a big deal if people reproduced even a tiny bit of rules text on their websites? What changed?

We have years of prior history of GW not enforcing these rules. Then before that we have years of history of the opposite re: the Chapterhouse debacle. And we know that as little as three weeks ago, they were still in the "not enforcing" camp. So why do you think that they suddenly had another personality swap? Isn't the much more reasonable explanation that the changes they made specifically to boost the debacle called Warhammer+ are just, well, specifically to boost the debacle called Warhammer+?

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Theophony wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
They weren't enforcing most of those rules. They changed the rules to put a ban on the thing they just started a streaming service for. It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots on that one and see why they changed the rules for that specific thing.

I'm no GW fanboi by any stretch of the imagination. But I'd wait to see if they're actually going to start doing anything besides what they've already been doing - shutting down 3rd party animation producers in order to kneecap the competition to Warhammer+ - before acting like this heralds any big change in their IP enforcement strategy beyond the animation issue. Literally three weeks ago they were sending "guy who reads book on youtube" a free copy of the GHB2021 to, well, read on youtube. This directly violates their rules re: reproducing GW text and rules. And yet they've been not only tolerating this, but actively sending him the stuff for free so he can read it on youtube. Do we really think they've done a complete 180 degree pivot in the last three weeks?

Prior GW History says YES

Like I said, it's not a prediction; it's a spoiler. Mark my words, you'll see old GW rear its head in the coming months and the proverbial curtain will fall down to reveal the real wizard.

Theres always a positive side to things... I remember the days that GW was making life difficult for forums, blogs etc. Many forums closed for many reasons ( one of the reasons was the absolute draconian mods and overall fan paranoia regarding leaks and IP whatever). Some sites went down, mine dedicated to tyranids surely was, I could just not find the time anymore but my heart was not with GW, in fact I was annoyed of the gatekeeping so I let it die.
But competitors were growing, we talked and followed many other companies instead. The fact that GW was dropping the ball others were picking it and scoring too.

Today GW is stronger than ever and if we take the new emergents 3d printers out of the forums... not many other companies are talked about, they have become almost invisible if not extinct...

So I say let the ball be dropped again...

On “evil GW vs Nu GW”.

It’s just GW being GW. Like many other companies, they’re in the business of making as much money as they can within entirely legal measures.

It doesn’t matter if us plebs disagree with their handling of their IP. It belongs to them. Not us.

Them setting out their position clearly and trying to leverage a little extra elbow room does not equate to evil, or heavy handedness at all.

It’s no different to other IP owners staking out their stall. Sure, we know in terms of income GW are no Disney. But that is a bogus argument. They’re the owner of their IP. Whether that’s worth 5p or £5,000,0000,0000,000,000,000,000,000,000 doesn’t come into it. At all. Theirs to defend.

And now they’ve set out their stall? If they and their lawyers come a-knocking, whether it turns out to be justified or not? Don’t come crying to me. They told you what they’d do.

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Theophony wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
They weren't enforcing most of those rules. They changed the rules to put a ban on the thing they just started a streaming service for. It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots on that one and see why they changed the rules for that specific thing.

I'm no GW fanboi by any stretch of the imagination. But I'd wait to see if they're actually going to start doing anything besides what they've already been doing - shutting down 3rd party animation producers in order to kneecap the competition to Warhammer+ - before acting like this heralds any big change in their IP enforcement strategy beyond the animation issue. Literally three weeks ago they were sending "guy who reads book on youtube" a free copy of the GHB2021 to, well, read on youtube. This directly violates their rules re: reproducing GW text and rules. And yet they've been not only tolerating this, but actively sending him the stuff for free so he can read it on youtube. Do we really think they've done a complete 180 degree pivot in the last three weeks?

Prior GW History says YES

So we should put you in the "yes, they completely changed their approach in the last three weeks for <reasons>" camp?

I'm not saying it's impossible. But why would a company that was happy to send a free review copy to the guy who reads the book page by page on youtube suddenly decide three weeks later that it was a big deal if people reproduced even a tiny bit of rules text on their websites? What changed?

We have years of prior history of GW not enforcing these rules. Then before that we have years of history of the opposite re: the Chapterhouse debacle. And we know that as little as three weeks ago, they were still in the "not enforcing" camp. So why do you think that they suddenly had another personality swap? Isn't the much more reasonable explanation that the changes they made specifically to boost the debacle called Warhammer+ are just, well, specifically to boost the debacle called Warhammer+?

Person A who reads out books for a living "The new book is awesome, this is the best edition of the 'old age of 40khammer' ever!

Person B who reads out books for a living "The new book sucks. They didn't even bother to correct the mistake that makes the newly released Bork Boizzz™ under-costed just to sell new models which also suck as they don't come with enough guns, only have 5 models in a box with a minimum unit size of 16. I'm going to continue to play 6th Ed WFB even though they sent this to me for free"

Which one of them are they going to use the new rules against? Of course they are going to let channels that lean towards being sterile hobby content that shine a good light on the new hype.

Now yes, I'm not a fortune teller and can't see the future, but this is repeated behaviour from GW and it can be predicted from that. It was 'new' GW after all that went after the company 'War Banner' and forced them to change their name as it was too close to 'warhammer'. This was only in 2019 as well. They will stamp out the folk that don't tow the company line. I honestly think that we will see the days of 'honest' reviews of their products gone or at least seriously depleted.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On “evil GW vs Nu GW”.

It’s just GW being GW. Like many other companies, they’re in the business of making as much money as they can within entirely legal measures.

It doesn’t matter if us plebs disagree with their handling of their IP. It belongs to them. Not us.

Them setting out their position clearly and trying to leverage a little extra elbow room does not equate to evil, or heavy handedness at all.

It’s no different to other IP owners staking out their stall. Sure, we know in terms of income GW are no Disney. But that is a bogus argument. They’re the owner of their IP. Whether that’s worth 5p or £5,000,0000,0000,000,000,000,000,000,000 doesn’t come into it. At all. Theirs to defend.

And now they’ve set out their stall? If they and their lawyers come a-knocking, whether it turns out to be justified or not? Don’t come crying to me. They told you what they’d do.

Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's good. May their lawyers eat gak in life at every turn.

I’m surprised they haven’t tried to shut down companies like Wargames Atlantic, who make obvious and effective Imperial Guard proxies.

Which is a non-argument.

Imagine you wrote a book, or made a short film etc entirely off your own back.

A major publisher picks it up, crediting A.N.Other, or Hollywood clearly takes your story. Both make millions and/or billions off your work.

How pissed off would you be?

That GW have taken their IP and made it successful doesn’t change the principle you’d be pissed off on.

There's a lot of "the sky is falling" hyperbole that shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how IP laws work, both in how much they can cover (pretty much everything GW stated in their list) and also what it won't cover (pretty much everything not stated).

GW can't go after cosplayers, or review channels, or battle reports. Sure, they could strong arm YouTube, but that's a YouTube TOS issue, not an IP issue. And even then, I doubt that's the case. Fan made movies are actual creative works that deliberately slot along side canon works. That's very different from an unboxing or painting tutorial.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Which is a non-argument.

Imagine you wrote a book, or made a short film etc entirely off your own back.

A major publisher picks it up, crediting A.N.Other, or Hollywood clearly takes your story. Both make millions and/or billions off your work.

How pissed off would you be?

That GW have taken their IP and made it successful doesn’t change the principle you’d be pissed off on.

Is this satire? It has to be.

 Mallo wrote:

Which one of them are they going to use the new rules against? Of course they are going to let channels that lean towards being sterile hobby content that shine a good light on the new hype.

Now yes, I'm not a fortune teller and can't see the future, but this is repeated behaviour from GW and it can be predicted from that. It was 'new' GW after all that went after the company 'War Banner' and forced them to change their name as it was too close to 'warhammer'. This was only in 2019 as well. They will stamp out the folk that don't tow the company line. I honestly think that we will see the days of 'honest' reviews of their products gone or at least seriously depleted.

Again, they aren't new rules. The only thing that's really new is the change purporting to completely ban fan animation/movies. So why do we think they're suddenly about to start enforcing rules they haven't been enforcing up to now, just because they changed a different part of the document to address a different issue?

I'll be the first to hold up my hand if I'm wrong, but to me this reads 100% as about Warhammer+ and trying to make sure there are no free alternatives, not as some big change in their general IP strategy.