If the Emperor had a Text to speech device on indefinite hiatus

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**Sarouan**

Jarms48 wrote:
Not sure if anyone has shared it here but the folks on Grimdank made a petition to voice their displeasure about GW’s recent changes. Here’s the link:

http://chng.it/vSLXvJQjK2

It could use more support, sign, comment, share it if you can. Maybe if there’s enough support we can get someone to listen.

Bah, there's another one here :

https://www.change.org/p/games-workshop-tell-games-workshop-to-rescind-their-zero-tolerance-fan-animation-policy?recruiter=false&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_medium=whatsapp&utm_content=washarecopy_30127987_en-GB%3A4&recruited_by_id=9020ab80-f12b-11eb-98f6-7be83e654b3e

I'm suspicious of sites asking you to create an account and having such a big list on how they use your personnal information other than for the petitions themselves...and turns out it's pretty fishy indeed :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change.org

Criticism
Allegation of fake signatures

In 2018, Anne Savage, the CEO of Bicycle Queensland, claimed that a massive Australian–based anti-cycling petition on Change.org was full of false names. She said Bicycle Queensland had received information that many of the names were created by electronic “bots”. A spokesperson for Change.org denied that the signatures were fake, saying that the organisation's engineering team had double-checked the petition and confirmed they had not detected any unusual activity.[64]
Visibility of personal information

Under certain conditions,[65][vague] signatures and other private information including email addresses can be found by search engines. Change.org operates a system for signature hiding, which works only if the user has an account on Change.org.[66] Conversely, the platform has been criticized for not providing enough information on who has signed a petition; for instance a means of verifying that a petition protesting a politician has been signed by his or her constituents or that the signatures are genuine at all.[67]
Nonprofit status and .org versus .com

Change.org is a Delaware General Corporation Law organized benefit corporation and certified B corporation.[68] This has resulted in debate and criticism[69][70] of its use of the .org domain suffix rather than the commercial .com. The site has been accused of fooling its users and hiding the fact that it is "a for-profit entity that has an economic incentive to get people to sign petitions".

Change.org is being deliberately deceitful through the use of the change.org name. I'd suspect that the average change.org user does not know that Change.org is a for-profit corporation, and that the corporation plans on using the contact information being provided to them to earn revenue.
— Clay Johnson[70]

Change.org spokesperson Charlotte Hill countered this criticism in a September 2013 article in Wired, saying, "We are a mission-driven social enterprise, and while we bring in revenue, we reinvest 100% of that revenue back into our mission of empowering ordinary people. It's not just that we're not yet making a profit – it's that we are decidedly not for-profit."[71] Some motivation for Change.org's legal status was given by its founder Ben Rattray:

Rattray originally planned to build a nonprofit, but that changed when he started talking to funders. "People kept telling me: 'We love your vision, but you don't necessarily need to be a nonprofit,'" he remembers. "They said that businesses have a couple advantages: speed and scale."[71]

Advertising policy

In 2012, the site dropped most of the restrictions it previously placed on paid content. Internal documents began referring to "clients" and "partners" as "advertisers" and stated that "only advertisers strictly identified as 'hate groups' are to be banned."[72][73] As a result, Change.org was accused of encouraging astroturfing and abandoning the progressive user base from which it initially gained traction. Additional controversy arose when the employee who initially leaked the documents was fired.[73] Of the users who lost interest in the site after this change, a number of them expressed difficulty in being removed from Change.org mailing lists.[72]
Selling of personal data

Change.org has also been accused of selling the personal data provided by the users to third-party companies that hire its services.[70]
Use for trending topics

Topics for Change.org petitions have grown to include disagreement with the Academy Awards and removing milk from certain types of coffee.[74][75] The authors of these petitions have been criticized for focusing on “first world problems”.[76] Further debate over the content of petitions came in November 2014 when Martin Daubney called some of them "bizarre" and stated that the site was being used to promote censorship.[77] In response, the Change.org communication director John Coventry defended the wide range of petitions, saying that "people make an informed choice in what they want to support."[78] The following week saw criticism alleging that petitions about the media receive more attention than petitions about "saving 'actual' lives."[79]
Donations

Change.org solicits signers to also donate money upon signing the petition. Although the donation is optional, it can be misleading to users who may believe the donations are used to fund petition organizers, or to advance that particular petition. The donations are "unrestricted" according to its FAQ. As further reported, "Change.org keeps the money and uses it to 'circulate' petitions more widely and pay for its own operating costs."[80]

Over 140 former employees of Change.org published an open letter noting "these contributions serve to market the petition and Change.org itself via billboards and digital ads" and, following the death of George Floyd and consequent Black Lives Matter uprisings in June 2020, that "these actions constitute Change.org profiting from the death of Black people."[81][82]

Yeah no thanks. Not surprised there are no signatures so far...

**Lord Kragan**

Sarouan wrote:

Besides, I'm not saying he's a moneybag. You think I do, but you're blinded by your emotions here. I'm just stating the facts from his patreon accounts, that's all.

Let's go step step by step.

>I'm not saying his a money bag.

Yet you did. Obliquely and with plausibility of denial, for sure. But when you say:

"So with just the video, you'd assume he's barely earning money, right ?

By the way, if you feel you want to support him, please do so. After all, he's a poor fan animator being bullied by GW. "

And then *wink*, you're making it pretty clear you think the opposite. This, my friend, is a textbook case of dogwhistling.

Plus, I gotta say that your allegations that he doesn't pay the people that work with him and pockets all the money, which again, you did throw with this line.

As for the rest and how he really paid other people helping him on his videos...well, we don't have his bills so we can't say anything for sure.

Don't help much the argument that you are not claiming that the guy is getting rich and such.

**Sarouan**

Lord Kragan wrote:
Sarouan wrote:

Besides, I'm not saying he's a moneybag. You think I do, but you're blinded by your emotions here. I'm just stating the facts from his patreon accounts, that's all.

Let's go step step by step.

>I'm not saying his a money bag.

Yet you did. Obliquely and with plausibility of denial, for sure. But when you say:

"So with just the video, you'd assume he's barely earning money, right ?

By the way, if you feel you want to support him, please do so. After all, he's a poor fan animator being bullied by GW. "

And then *wink*, you're making it pretty clear you think the opposite. This, my friend, is a textbook case of dogwhistling.

Plus, I gotta say that your allegations that he doesn't pay the people that work with him and pockets all the money, which again, you did throw with this line.

As for the rest and how he really paid other people helping him on his videos...well, we don't have his bills so we can't say anything for sure.

Don't help much the argument that you are not claiming that the guy is getting rich and such.

Still not a proof of me saying he's a moneybag in these sentences, dude. You just have a "personnal feeling" that I did, but that's just what you think. That's the difference between facts and assumptions.

I actually tend to think he genuinely didn't expect of such a surge on his patreon account. Yet, can't deny the fact of the total of money he now received thanks to this situation. He may not have intended it all, I do agree...but in retrospective, it turns out he did gain money from making this video and having that whole buzz about his channel. Even when unexpected, a profit is still a profit.

And yes, he's technically richer than before his video. Though I'll be frank : he still did earn more than me and by far in his previous situation on his patreon. So I wouldn't call him "poor" in terms of money in any case. Good for him, though, and I wish him the best.

It's just to point that all people spitting on GW from the start of this topic should also open their eyes about what some fan animators can actually gather as amount of money by using GW's IP without their permission. It's not necessarily such a small number as you may tend to think.

And it's still true than from the video, you're not aware of that at all.

The wink was just that : a wink.

**Cronch**

Removed - Rule #1

**NAVARRO**

Analysing only a portion of the facts relating to a particular activity (because we only have access to a limited part of it), does not give you the full scope and is only speculative after that.

So yeah stop claiming high ground, we are all speculating here.
The fact is both sides of these arguments are loaded.

Heres mine... Not familiar with the content cant comment on quality, complexity or money needed to pull it off. Looks IP linked with GW so yep find another Partime job to cover your bills.
Everyone loses here so not sure why some of you seem so eager to score internet points.

Good luck to the fella a shame really since many seem to like the content, he sounded happy doing it and was bringing people to GW.

**deano2099**

MaxT wrote:

What is odd is that he’s left all his videos up. Not creating any more doesn’t give you a free pass on all your old content, if he was genuinely worried that he’s about to be taken to court he’d take down all old content too. As it is, he’s not reduced his exposure at all. Which makes the entire thing pointless.

I think that's crucial to understanding what's going on here. The guy is doing well, he's making a lot of money, no he's not getting 18K a month himself but even if he is taking just a third of that, it's 72K a year for doing a job he loves. And he can afford to take extended paternity time with his kid too. And bloody good for him, he's made it, I'm happy for him. The content isn't my sort of thing but he's done the graft, built it up, and it's a success.

Quick side-note: lots of people have been talking about how other creators have been offered jobs at GW. Back in the day that was the holy grail of fan works, that's why you did it. That's not the case now. The guy making 18K a month on Patreon is not going to want to relocate to Nottingham to make 18K a year working for GW. He is a million miles past the point where a "job at GW" is an end goal.

His end goal now is to ensure he can keep doing this until he can retire, so he never needs to go do a job he doesn't love for less money. If you're in that position, and you know you're working with another company's IP, and you're doing sort-of-parody but it's both legally grey and you have close to zero chance of actually getting a license... it's a sticky situation. You've got that Sword of Damocles over your head knowing that you could be out of business on the whim of GW at any point.

So he's made a pretty shrewd move. He's announced he's stopping doing GW content, which is getting him a bunch of press and interest, and also trying to transition people over to work on his own IP. Because that has to be the end goal: can I get people to give me a similar amount of money for stuff where I own the IP. He's not taking the existing videos down because they are still what will drive people to discover his work. And he's not talking to GW because the longer he can keep them up, the longer he has that content driving people to his channel. So why draw attention to himself?

He's also dangling the carrot that he fully intends to finish telling the existing story: hopefully when things settle down with GW, and it becomes clear they're not going to come after him, but if necessary he'll figure a non-IP infringing way to do it. So stick around, we'll get there eventually.

It's a shrewd business move. It's what I would do. And it's not because he's scared GW will sue him to the ground, but it is because he's scared GW will take away his job. So he's trying to secure his income.

I don't really know about all the rights and wrongs about it. But I do think the creator's position is being misrepresented on both sides.

**Sarouan**

BrianDavion wrote:

I doubt he was attacking it but it was useful pointing out that if you sign that petition it likely gets nothing done and sees your name on a mailing list somewhere

Also it means if the petition fails, it doesn't especially mean people don't care, but maybe that the part of having to sign on a dubious site is also playing a big part in not signing the petition...

Automatically Appended Next Post:

deano2099 wrote:

It's a shrewd business move. It's what I would do. And it's not because he's scared GW will sue him to the ground, but it is because he's scared GW will take away his job. So he's trying to secure his income.

The interesting part is that he said his channel on youtube is on hiatus. For people having a patreon, most of the time the patreon's revenues are way higher than the Youtube's ones (well...don't get me wrong, it's a nice extra but it's not really the most of it). While it seems his youtube channel isn't that active, he also produces content on patreon and that's the point here. Often in that case, the Youtube channel serves mainly as "free window" to eventually welcome more people on the patreon. Like Miniwargaming is doing the same to invite more people paying on their own website and acceeding their full content.

I think he did that simply to protect his patreon account first.

There's nothing wrong in wanting to secure his income. It's very understandable.

But yeah, if he didn't want to catch GW's attention with his video, his plan has failed spectacularly. With all the buzz and clever people making not so subtle comments on their FB page or maybe even send physical letters like other clever people suggest to do, if GW wasn't aware of him, now they are.

**Tiennos**

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I haven't really watched his content in a while, but isn't it pretty much parody?

My understanding was that people doing parody / review / commentary work don't generally pay royalties to do so.

Yes, parody is one of the cases where copyright doesn't apply (there are other cases like critiques, reviews or quoting for educational purposes, for example). But you can't simply say "it's parody" and be done with it. If it was that simple you could basically get away with plagiarism by adding one or two snarky comments into someone else's work.

In the end, it comes down to the courts to determine whether there is or isn't copyright infringement. That's assuming there's an actual lawsuit, of course. To make things more complicated every country has its own set of laws on the subject, but let's look at US law for example. The factors to consider are:
1.the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2.the nature of the copyrighted work;
3.the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4.the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

I'm not a lawyer and even if I was, there'd be a ton of things to consider so take all this with a big grain of salt, but let's take a quick look at this. Hypothetical lawyering can be fun!
1: it seems hard to affirm that TTS has no commercial purpose at this point, but maybe that could be argued somehow.
2: basically, is the original work actually copyrightable? We're talking mostly about art and trademarked names, so there's probably very little room for argument there.
3: how much of the original work does the parody use ? (Basically, using 90% of a work makes it harder to call it parody than using 10% of it, but it's not a mathematical rule.) TTS uses a lot of pictures that are straight copies of GW's pictures, with some animation or details added to it, so not a great point for TTS's case.
4: it's hard to get a clear answer here. On one hand, GW isn't really in the comedic animation business so TTS doesn't really take any of their market shares. Some might argue that it even helps GW's sales by giving them free publicity. This might be the strongest argument for TTS's case. But GW could argue that it's bad publicity and hurting their business instead.
Note that none of these points on their own make or break the case, it's the whole thing that the court would have to consider.

tldr - There are arguments to make that TTS is a parody and thus protected from copyrights, but there are also arguments against that. It's far from being clear-cut. If it actually went as far as a lawsuit, it's very hard to tell what side would win.

**BaronIveagh**

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
[
Technically it's GW that has to prove damages of some sort if it went to court, and I think if pressed GW wouldn't get too far with it, and even though GW are tightening up their IP "rules" I'd be surprised if they want another Chapterhouse or Spots the Space Marine. I appreciate he doesn't want it to go to court, but at the same time I reckon he could have at least pushed until he got a C&D out of it.

Depends on what court they take it to, since, due to youtube, they could theoretically make the case that any court in the world is the proper venue. This could be stretched out for decades if GW really wanted.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tiennos wrote:

2: basically, is the original work actually copyrightable? We're talking mostly about art and trademarked names, so there's probably very little room for argument there.

This one might actually be interesting to see go to trial. GW have been caught in theft and plagiarism before, and their claims of copyright declined.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

deano2099 wrote:

Quick side-note: lots of people have been talking about how other creators have been offered jobs at GW. Back in the day that was the holy grail of fan works, that's why you did it. That's not the case now.

It wasn't the case then either. I was furious when GW just 'announced' *after* submissions were required to be submitted, that all our submissions to FFG's design an adventure contest were now GW property.

Oh, and GW no longer actually requires some positions to relocate to the UK.

**AllSeeingSkink**

BaronIveagh wrote:
AllSeeingSkink wrote:
[
Technically it's GW that has to prove damages of some sort if it went to court, and I think if pressed GW wouldn't get too far with it, and even though GW are tightening up their IP "rules" I'd be surprised if they want another Chapterhouse or Spots the Space Marine. I appreciate he doesn't want it to go to court, but at the same time I reckon he could have at least pushed until he got a C&D out of it.

Depends on what court they take it to, since, due to youtube, they could theoretically make the case that any court in the world is the proper venue. This could be stretched out for decades if GW really wanted.

Are there any Western legal systems where that wouldn't be the case?

I doubt there'd be any point taking him to court anywhere other than the US, UK, or wherever he lives, which I assume is a western country.

**Gert**

I love all the people coming in saying they went and watched the first episode of TTS (which is about 3 mins long and 8 years old) and declaring the entire series terrible.

JohnnyHell wrote:
If I recall correctly the Emperor called Guilliman a homophobic slur, and is pissed the Custodes are all camp gay charicatures who came out in his absence. It’s in the dialogue and on the screen, not exactly buried away. I didn’t watch any more because if this was the creator’s best efforts then they were crap, unfunny and I simply wasn’t interested.

Wanna nab a specific episode there chief for the slur used to describe Guilliman?
And for the record, the Emperor is annoyed that Custodes got rid of their gear and became more interested in *ahem* personal pleasure than defending the palace and the Imperium. His only derision is that the Custodes based on the Pillar Men from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure are overtly sexual (basically can't say anything without an innuendo) and not very smart (just don't know anything).

**Catulle**

Like I mentioned, it was redone in response to feedback - it happened and the guy was *responsive* to criticism (yay!) but it's totally legit to have gone in, heard that and noped out.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just, you know, worth re-evaluating in light of the current facts on the ground.

**Quasistellar**

This whole thing is blown way out of proportion.

Honestly it feels like maybe a bit of a stunt to bring even more attention in the short term, but it's more likely he's doing a bit of a self evaluation to be sure he really thinks he's OK with his parody animations.

And really that's what it is: parody. I could be wrong, but I think there's no distinctly drawn line where parodies use too much of the original material -- it's one of those things that would have to be defended in court. It's one of those "you know it when you see it" type of things with parodies, but that unfortunately means litigation can happen, and that's expensive if you're not anticipating it.

He may just be slowing his roll to make sure his ducks are in a row if it comes to that.

Anyway, most of vitriol against GW in this case is a bit misplaced--people should be wary when they take copywrited (or, especially trademarked) material and re-use it for profit.

**Gert**

Catulle wrote:
Like I mentioned, it was redone in response to feedback - it happened and the guy was *responsive* to criticism (yay!) but it's totally legit to have gone in, heard that and noped out.

So my point would still stand then. If the creator recognised a mistake, apologised, and then corrected said mistake, the rest of the 8 year-long series is still trash and it's good that it's gone?

Just, you know, worth re-evaluating in light of the current facts on the ground.

What facts?

**BaronIveagh**

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Are there any Western legal systems where that wouldn't be the case?

I doubt there'd be any point taking him to court anywhere other than the US, UK, or wherever he lives, which I assume is a western country.

Oh, yes. In fact, the UK has laws against vexatious litigation, as does most of the former British Empire, but they only apply to courts in those countries.

And, yes. There are countries that are not signatories to Bern (Kosovo is the only European one, IIRC), so you could,in theory, make the argument that because both parties do a 'significant' (for a given value of the term, it varies) amount of business there, that it would be the proper venue, and thus be subject to their version of copyright, if such even exists. International copyright law can be a real odd place.

**PaddyMick**

@Sarouan

I don't think your trying to say man isn't genuine, and I can't see anyone in this thread urging anyone else to give him more money, so I am kind of struggling to see your point, if I may ask you to clarify what you are trying to say? Is it just a general warning to be cynical? Or a defence of GW's actions?

**Catulle**

Gert wrote:
Catulle wrote:
Like I mentioned, it was redone in response to feedback - it happened and the guy was *responsive* to criticism (yay!) but it's totally legit to have gone in, heard that and noped out.
So my point would still stand then. If the creator recognised a mistake, apologised, and then corrected said mistake, the rest of the 8 year-long series is still trash and it's good that it's gone?

Just, you know, worth re-evaluating in light of the current facts on the ground.

What facts?

The course correction above, precisely. For me that's a plus, to others it'll be liberalsjwpanda-ing (they will not be missed).

I was agreeing with you, but acknowledging that other people may have different thresholds. Personally, I'm re-evaluating once I get the space to re-watch. I remember the Centurion 'bit' being pretty funny frex.

ETA: My initial interjection was purely to address the citation-or-it-never-happened dialogue that was looming.

**Gert**

Catulle wrote:

The course correction above, precisely. For me that's a plus, to others it'll be liberalsjwpanda-ing (they will not be missed).

I was agreeing with you, but acknowledging that other people may have different thresholds. Personally, I'm re-evaluating once I get the space to re-watch. I remember the Centurion 'bit' being pretty funny frex.

ETA: My initial interjection was purely to address the citation-or-it-never-happened dialogue that was looming.

Ok, now I understand what you are saying.
The citation request was simply because TTS has been going on for a long time with many "specials" as well as main episodes and as much as I enjoy watching TTS, trawling through 50ish videos to find a slur isn't something I want to do.

**JohnnyHell**

Gert wrote:
I love all the people coming in saying they went and watched the first episode of TTS (which is about 3 mins long and 8 years old) and declaring the entire series terrible.

JohnnyHell wrote:
If I recall correctly the Emperor called Guilliman a homophobic slur, and is pissed the Custodes are all camp gay charicatures who came out in his absence. It’s in the dialogue and on the screen, not exactly buried away. I didn’t watch any more because if this was the creator’s best efforts then they were crap, unfunny and I simply wasn’t interested.

Wanna nab a specific episode there chief for the slur used to describe Guilliman?
And for the record, the Emperor is annoyed that Custodes got rid of their gear and became more interested in *ahem* personal pleasure than defending the palace and the Imperium. His only derision is that the Custodes based on the Pillar Men from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure are overtly sexual (basically can't say anything without an innuendo) and not very smart (just don't know anything).

If season 1 of a show is slow but OK I might watch if my friends tell me season 2 is good.

If episode one of low effort fan gak includes homophobia forgive me if I don’t feel the need to continue or revisit it “oh it’s better now it just has the dancing charicatures and they took out that one joke so it’s fine now” nahhhhh “chief” it was just bad and if that was what they saw fit to put out to begin with the rest of it can get in the bin. Just not worth my time. I dipped into other episodes and it’s boring and unfun as well as the homophobic content so there are other things I can occupy my time with YOLO YMMV etc.

**BaronIveagh**

JohnnyHell wrote:

If season 1 of a show is slow but OK I might watch if my friends tell me season 2 is good.

If episode one of low effort fan gak includes homophobia forgive me if I don’t feel the need to continue or revisit it “oh it’s better now it just has the dancing charicatures and they took out that one joke so it’s fine now” nahhhhh “chief” it was just bad and if that was what they saw fit to put out to begin with the rest of it can get in the bin. Just not worth my time. I dipped into other episodes and it’s boring and unfun as well as the homophobic content so there are other things I can occupy my time with YOLO YMMV etc.

So, in a nutshell, you didn't actually watch it, but they had a bad joke once, so its ok to hate them for opposing GW.

**Kanluwen**

But they're not actually "opposing" anything?

**Gert**

JohnnyHell wrote:
If season 1 of a show is slow but OK I might watch if my friends tell me season 2 is good.

If episode one of low effort fan gak includes homophobia forgive me if I don’t feel the need to continue or revisit it “oh it’s better now it just has the dancing charicatures and they took out that one joke so it’s fine now” nahhhhh “chief” it was just bad and if that was what they saw fit to put out to begin with the rest of it can get in the bin. Just not worth my time. I dipped into other episodes and it’s boring and unfun as well as the homophobic content so there are other things I can occupy my time with YOLO YMMV etc.

Yeah, you're perfectly within your rights to not go back to it ever but at the same time coming on a forum and saying the series is homophobic because of one joke that was then removed and apologised for, as well as what you believe to be caricatures of gay men isn't exactly fair when you have watched maybe 5 videos of a series that has 50ish videos and is nearly a decade old.

BaronIveagh wrote:
So, in a nutshell, you didn't actually watch it, but they had a bad joke once, so its ok to hate them for opposing GW.

TTS isn't opposing GW, that's not what's happening here.

Kanluwen wrote:
But they're not actually "opposing" anything?

^Exactly.

**AllSeeingSkink**

BaronIveagh wrote:
AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Are there any Western legal systems where that wouldn't be the case?

I doubt there'd be any point taking him to court anywhere other than the US, UK, or wherever he lives, which I assume is a western country.

Oh, yes. In fact, the UK has laws against vexatious litigation, as does most of the former British Empire, but they only apply to courts in those countries.

And, yes. There are countries that are not signatories to Bern (Kosovo is the only European one, IIRC), so you could,in theory, make the argument that because both parties do a 'significant' (for a given value of the term, it varies) amount of business there, that it would be the proper venue, and thus be subject to their version of copyright, if such even exists. International copyright law can be a real odd place.

I never said they couldn’t take it to some random court in some random country, but is there any point in suing someone in a country where you don’t reside, they do t reside, the server doesn’t reside and the company that owns the server doesn’t reside?

Like, is that something that happens in reality and not just theory, and has it ever actually been successful for a company to sue an individual in an unrelated country with significantly different legal systems?

It sure sounds like a “this could happen” rather than a “this is something he should actually be concerned about”.

**BobtheInquisitor**

I’ve seen a handful of episodes so far and it reminds me of the earliest DBZ Abridged episodes in the crudity of the added animation and humor. DBZ Abridged evolved into a high quality comedy series by its final episode, so I’m willing to give TTS a bit more of a chance.

It does get better, right?

**Gert**

It got a lot better about halfway through.

**BaronIveagh**

Kanluwen wrote:
But they're not actually "opposing" anything?

That doesn't matter. I've been watching these guys (the GW White Knight brigade) posts across four forums and reddit. The mindset is that GW says 'they're bad' and now we must hate on them as hard as we can. Anyone who doesn't agree with that is also 'the enemy'. Some of the harder core have been claiming that Alphabusa is just committing fraud and their ideas for what to do about it have brought mod attention to say the least.

As insane as the world is getting, one must wonder what GW PR will do with a 'Thomas Becket' situation?

**BrianDavion**

BaronIveagh wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:
But they're not actually "opposing" anything?

That doesn't matter. I've been watching these guys (the GW White Knight brigade) posts across four forums and reddit. The mindset is that GW says 'they're bad' and now we must hate on them as hard as we can. Anyone who doesn't agree with that is also 'the enemy'. Some of the harder core have been claiming that Alphabusa is just committing fraud and their ideas for what to do about it have brought mod attention to say the least.

As insane as the world is getting, one must wonder what GW PR will do with a 'Thomas Becket' situation?

I don't think it's going to be the people who support GWs right to manage their IP going off and killing people.

No one has accused Alphabusa of being a pedophile, nazi, etc yet. people HAVE been making that comparison to GW though.

**Eumerin**

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Like, is that something that happens in reality and not just theory, and has it ever actually been successful for a company to sue an individual in an unrelated country with significantly different legal systems?

It sure sounds like a “this could happen” rather than a “this is something he should actually be concerned about”.

On the one hand, if the laws are more sympathetic to the plaintiff, then there's a reason to do it. On the other hand, many judges take a dim view of those sorts of shenanigans absent a very legitimate reason why that particular venue should be the one for the case, as opposed to venues more relevant to the plaintiff and/or the defendant. Judges have better things to do with their time, for the most part.

And on the gripping hand, it doesn't hurt for someone who's worried about being a defendant in such a situation to be at least prepared for the possibility, and figure out the best way to get the judge to agree with the idea that the plaintiff is just trying to game the system.

Also, I know the US has laws against "libel tourism", which is where a writer publishes a book in the US that doesn't violate US libel and slander laws, but gets sued for libel in a country where the protections aren't as strong. IIRC, the US laws basically make it impossible for the foreign plaintiff to collect from the American defendant. There might be similar laws for a plaintiff that decides to go court shopping in foreign countries.

**Sarouan**

BaronIveagh wrote:
The mindset is that GW says 'they're bad' and now we must hate on them as hard as we can. Anyone who doesn't agree with that is also 'the enemy'. Some of the harder core have been claiming that Alphabusa is just committing fraud and their ideas for what to do about it have brought mod attention to say the least.

As insane as the world is getting, one must wonder what GW PR will do with a 'Thomas Becket' situation?

Hard to blame GW here, since they didn't contact in any way TTS. Alfabusa did it to himself, no matter you try to rewrite the narrative here. Just because he got afraid of some clearer lines on GW's guidelines ('cause, let's say it again, it didn't really change from the old ones - so Alfabusa was aware of that too when he started his channel).

Funny how when you try to point facts that don't go in your way, you immediately go to attack those you name "GW White Knight Brigade". Rather than trying to look at them that are not painting GW as bad as you want to be, you'd rather shift the blame to people like me.

That's not how you debate things on a fair base. Think before hating.

**Not Online!!!**

Sarouan wrote:
BaronIveagh wrote:
The mindset is that GW says 'they're bad' and now we must hate on them as hard as we can. Anyone who doesn't agree with that is also 'the enemy'. Some of the harder core have been claiming that Alphabusa is just committing fraud and their ideas for what to do about it have brought mod attention to say the least.

As insane as the world is getting, one must wonder what GW PR will do with a 'Thomas Becket' situation?

Hard to blame GW here, since they didn't contact in any way TTS. Alfabusa did it to himself, no matter you try to rewrite the narrative here. Just because he got afraid of some clearer lines on GW's guidelines ('cause, let's say it again, it didn't really change from the old ones - so Alfabusa was aware of that too when he started his channel).

Funny how when you try to point facts that don't go in your way, you immediately go to attack those you name "GW White Knight Brigade". Rather than trying to look at them that are not painting GW as bad as you want to be, you'd rather shift the blame to people like me.

That's not how you debate things on a fair base. Think before hating.

Fair? And yet here we are and you use again: Narrative, Fakenews, etc.

Verifyable hard fact is that now there's a chilling effect going on, are you also denying that?
So yes it is on GW's shoulders to a large part.
Should Alfabusa atleast have tried to contact GW? Probably, at the very least its parody so he would've been quite well protected.
Otoh, why should he bother with GW? GW has and we know this from the past a tendency to artificially expand court times to just use its financial weight to kill off opposition despite they technically being in the right?