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It seems GW has dropped the hammer on a large number of eBay sellers using VeRO take down notices. There's a good number of 3rd party bits sellers who have had their entire inventory up and vanished overnight.

I’m their typical fashion the overreach is strong and they are claiming IP ownership over the entire warhammer and 40k listing category. eBay’s policy is that you can list 3rd party items as “compatible, fits, or made for x brand” however GW is trying to use a round about claim via category ownership.

Ebay policy:
- Brand names cannot be used in listings if the product isn’t manufactured by, or compatible with, that brand. You may use "compatible with", "fits", or "for" before a brand name, if the item described is specifically designed to be compatible with the products of that brand


GW VeRO email :
Dear Sir, Your auction has come to our attention on the basis that we believe it represents an infringement of Games Workshop Limited's intellectual property rights. Specifically you are using trademarks belonging to Games Workshop Limited in relation to a product that is not of Games Workshop origin. The title of your auction is using the following trademarks and/or the items are being sold under categories using the following trademarks: 'Warhammer' CTM reg.000022525. US reg.2718741.'40k' CTM reg.003543113. US reg. 1202134. We do not allow use of our trademarks in the title or category headings of an auction that is selling a product that is not of Games Workshop origin. Games Workshop views any trademark within the title or category headings of a non-Games Workshop product auction as an infringement of its rights. We have requested that eBay remove this listing. We reserve all rights in this matter. Please read Games Workshop's Intellectual Property Policy at http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Intellectual-Property-Policy. Yours faithfully,Group Legal Department - Games Workshop Group plcFor and on behalf of Games Workshop Limited

I am no GW defender but it's not really overreaching much to go after use of trademarked terms, I can't see a reason why non GW products need to use the word Warhammer in the title and all the established third parties skirt around trademarked terms already and seem to be doing just fine

The vast majority of the listings didn't have 40k in the title, they were simply listed in the category. It akin to Good Year coming in and claiming they own the entire tire category on ebay.

 RedDogMinis wrote:
The vast majority of the listings didn't have 40k in the title, they were simply listed in the category. It akin to Good Year coming in and claiming they own the entire tire category on ebay.

Sounds more like it's akin to people listing other brands inside a "Goodyear tyres" category.

People have the duty to inform their customers what it is that they're selling. If I am selling a Warhammer 40K Mudslinger then I should be stating that in my ad. GW has no right to restrict the use of an honest identifier of a product that someone purchased and seeks to resell. GW does not have any legal right to stop people from selling their models. And those people have the right and obligation to correctly identify those models.

Ebay is a lot bigger than Chapter House and GW is probably better off just letting things go.

Amendment added: GW does have the right to restrict a person from using their brand names if the product being offered is not a genuine GW product (like a knock off, 3D print or, a recast). Then they have a legitimate right to protect their brand.

I mean, if it's not GW product then it can't be using the Warhammer branding to sell. The popular alternative miniature or bits companies don't do it so why should eBay sellers?

So this isn’t people selling official GW bits, it’s 3rd party people, breaking eBay rules and impinging on trademarks, god dang GW evil stopping that kind of thing.

It's legal to sell them, that was the entire basis of the Chapterhouse lawsuit, but it's also complicated and really boils down to how clearly they were marked as "compatible with". Here's a relavent article on automotive 3rd party (Aftermarket) parts regarding how much of the OEM trademark can be used. Basically, you can sell a fender for a 2016 Toyota Camry SE, using all of those words and letters, even including OEM part#s in the description, and it's OK so long as you make it abundantly clear that it's a 3rd party replacement and not actually made by Toyota.

If your listing doesn't clearly and immediately let people know that it's not made by GW, they have the right to take it down. There's still a bunch of Puppetswar and Zinge resin listings in the 40k category as of 5 minutes ago, so I'm wondering if OP just wasn't clear enough with their title and description

Lots of companies do this. When sellers sell things that are "for" something but leave out that critical 'for' tag, then it can come across to consumers as being a part that the main company manufactures.

It's called brand dilution and it's why trademarks exist in the first place, to make sure that customers know what they are buying.

GW customer service gets plenty of calls and e-mails about "Warhammer bits" that they bought from e-bay or 3rd party sellers that don't fit or aren't made of the same material as their GW kit, and GW has to explain 'that wasn't our product'. You can imagine how a confused customer would really not appreciate that sort of reply.

GW also doesn't maintain an Amazon or Ebay storefront directly, so when people buy from those sellers, even if they ARE GW kits, but they are busted up or missing pieces or things like that, often they have to explain "we do not maintain a storefront through those sites" which causes more confusion.

Again, many companies struggle with the same customer confusion, such as people selling romhacks of games on ebay, or 3rd party sellers trying to push LEGO stuff that's not actually LEGO brand.

This went from:
"GW is overreaching on eBay!"
to:
"Ok, the seller might have not been selling their stuff properly."
remarkably fast.

 Gert wrote:
This went from:
"GW is overreaching on eBay!"
to:
"Ok, the seller might have not been selling their stuff properly."
remarkably fast.

It's easy to jump on the "GW is bad!" narrative, but sometimes you gotta point it out when you smell the BS in the reactionary junk.

Given that I was one of the defendants in the CH case I had my stuff labeled properly and also had disclaimers explicitly stating it was not GW brand. Title likewise stated proxy/alternative to avoid any confusion, but of course you are free to assume I never figured how to list things after getting actual legal counsel, the same one that helped slap down GW in court.

as much as i totally super dislike (corporate) GW and their offensive pricing, sounds pretty fair. they actually could go a lot further with the concept of "derivative" in legalese and de facto "ban" a whole lot of 3rd party stuff by scaring people with letters.

still not going to buy your $50 tacticals GW feth you


edit: also they have a legal dept, i guess game in their STL hunting (poaching?) is getting slow lately, so employees got to show for those hours on the timecard

That policy you've quoted doesn't say anything about categories, though. If these were items in other categories that had something like "Warhammer Compatible ___" as the title, then I'd say that does seem wrong of them to take down, but if they're non-GW items that are listed in the Warhammer categories with nothing clearly showing they're not official, then that's a different matter and I don't see the problem with stopping that.

Some specific examples would help, though.

Billicus wrote:
I am no GW defender but it's not really overreaching much to go after use of trademarked terms, I can't see a reason why non GW products need to use the word Warhammer in the title and all the established third parties skirt around trademarked terms already and seem to be doing just fine

The same reason autoparts companies use the word "Ford" or "Chevrolet" in their titles, it's to identify compatibility or design intent. There's nothing wrong with making bits for Warhammer models, or indeed making entire models intended to be used with Games Workshop's rules.

The idea with trademarks isn't that no one else can use the word at all, it's that they can't use the word in a way that might cause brand confusion and make a customer think they're buying from you when they're actually buying from someone else.

I doubt anyone thinks they're buying a Games Workshop product when buying aftermarket bits.

But of course if GW issues takedown requests, they're a big company with lots of resources, so they'll likely get stuff taken down without much pushback from the creators who don't have the resources or desire to fight it.

Well they could mark title properly to avoid the issue.

I haven't sold in a while but I did have a notice when I was selling one of the 3d printed superheavies that look remarkably like a Baneblade.

I did use proxy Baneblade in the title. I simply relisted as 3d printed superheavy.

In the description I added Proxy as a Baneblade.

That's the important part. One can add more detail in description and searches for items from buyers will look at the description box not just auction titles.

Avoid Warhammer and suchlike for non GW items in the title and list the item in 'Other Wargames'.

If your description states 40K proxy, buyers can still see it if they search for '40K'.

That's how I was selling left over Wargames Atlantic Death Fields heads and bits and I did OK with those.

Has anything happened on the horde of 3rd-party things on Etsy?

That seems a lot more egregious in trademark infringements than eBay, with tons of listings of things that are quite obvious copies of actual GW miniatures. With the quality of 3D printing now this is only going to increase, so I'm not surprised at all that GW has started to target sellers. But, speaking selfishly, I hope they leave the 6/8mm sellers alone!

 Pacific wrote:
Has anything happened on the horde of 3rd-party things on Etsy?

That seems a lot more egregious in trademark infringements than eBay, with tons of listings of things that are quite obvious copies of actual GW miniatures. With the quality of 3D printing now this is only going to increase, so I'm not surprised at all that GW has started to target sellers. But, speaking selfishly, I hope they leave the 6/8mm sellers alone!

I dunno about Etsy, but some of the 6/8mm STLs I use have been removed in the past few weeks. Had someone ask me about a couple of models I had downloaded just before Christmas and painted up and was showing off, was going to link them to the files but they've been removed after having been up for quite a while.

Hopefully GW don't make it impossible to play Epic. If they actually sold the models themselves I wouldn't mind so much.

GW's legal department need to justify their existence. It's unlikely that they are being "directed" by GW higher-ups to pursue third party sellers or something, they've simply identified an example of (very real) infringement and are pro-actively pursuing that so they can stick something more interesting on their timesheets for January.

That's it. That's the story.

It's unfortunate that those third party sellers will have had to pull a load of eBay listings in which they had become increasingly comfortable with using trademarked terms, sure, but they WERE breaking copyright rules, sooooooo..... ehhhh.


But yeah, that's pretty much it. This thread can basically be put to bed now, surely?

 ekwatts wrote:


But yeah, that's pretty much it. This thread can basically be put to bed now, surely?

As the topic crops up semi-regularly, should we have a e.g. 'GW corporate and legal action news 2023' thread that collects stuff such as news about licensing deals, investor/financial reports, changes in independent retailer policy etc.?

 RedDogMinis wrote:
The vast majority of the listings didn't have 40k in the title, they were simply listed in the category. It akin to Good Year coming in and claiming they own the entire tire category on ebay.

Not really. If Goodyear was a genericised trademark like Biro or Hoover or Band Aid then that could be a de facto category. Instead they are just tyres.

Warhammer is a subcategory of wargaming based on product brand not product category. GW has the right to be upset if counterfeit products are listed as 'Warhammer', and furthermore has an obligation to defend its trademark to avoid genericity.
There must be a legal distinction between selling licenced GW products and unlicensed add ons. The categories themselves need to reflect that a third party manufacturer is not making a 'Warhammer' product.

GW are in the right here, but the problem is not the third party sellers but eBay itself. eBay is falsely listing the third party components as genuine by its listing category system, not the manufacturers of those third party goods who are almost always very clear that they are not official GW licencees.

GW has every right to demand the removal of those items, from the listing category, no eBay itself, though the latter must occur until a solution is arrived at. The solution is for eBay to create a new category for 'Warhammer compatible' products separate to 'Warhammer' products. eBay is so big it doesn't give a feth, but they have no right to genericise GW's trademarks and frankly should not get away with it.

This is a new first for me, defending GW legal team on one of their C&Ds. What they ask is reasonable and important to their brand longveity, brand genericity is something to be avoided.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Has anything happened on the horde of 3rd-party things on Etsy?

That seems a lot more egregious in trademark infringements than eBay, with tons of listings of things that are quite obvious copies of actual GW miniatures. With the quality of 3D printing now this is only going to increase, so I'm not surprised at all that GW has started to target sellers. But, speaking selfishly, I hope they leave the 6/8mm sellers alone!

I dunno about Etsy, but some of the 6/8mm STLs I use have been removed in the past few weeks. Had someone ask me about a couple of models I had downloaded just before Christmas and painted up and was showing off, was going to link them to the files but they've been removed after having been up for quite a while.

Hopefully GW don't make it impossible to play Epic. If they actually sold the models themselves I wouldn't mind so much.

That is my fear too. 28mm I can understand, as those miniatures are competing with GW's own lines and are quite obvious copies of GW's designs. But, no official Epic or BFG miniatures have been released in 20 years, so are really not hurting anyone.

I am hoping the likes of Vanguard and Onslaught will be left alone, as they've been very careful to make their ranges look similar, but not exactly the same, while using their own product names. John at Vanguard won't even put painted examples of things that look like the GW ranges for example, which is why you only see brown-coloured 'orcs' in the display pics. But, is GW fancying itself getting back into the ring after the Chapterhouse defeats?

I can see both sides. It depends what the category of "Warhammer" is actually defined as. Either it's a brand, in which case non-branded items shouldn't be included. Or it's a system, in which case they should be.
I err towards the former, but just having a quick look around, the "Sony PlayStation 4 Accessories" category is full of unofficial accessories.
Whereas if I look at mobile phone accessories, the categories are "cases" "chargers" etc. And I have to click in then filter by "compatible brand" and then by "brand" to differentiate official and unofficial ones. It's not consistent at all.

I beleive that the inconsistency occurs because of eBay not caring about classification, only listing fees and IP holders not complaining to eBay and defending their trademarks.
This is a long time coming, but should be swiftly resolvable if eBay can be stirred to take the correct action.
eBay is under no obligation to refuse a market to unlicensed products for Warhammer, but has an obligation not to facilitate counterfeit branding. Ironically this is occurring by default rather than seller fraud. I cannot see any problem with a clearly demarked Warhammer compatible product subcategory.

The eBay category section goes as follows:
Toys and Games > Wargames and Roleplaying > Warhammer.
However, it does also specify Mech Warrior, Heroclix, Confrontation, and Warmachine as other categories.

I must admit I do find it frustrating when I search for "Warhammer" or "Necromunda" on eBay only to have 3rd party products come up that are not what I'm looking for.

However, this is often quickly resolved simply by filtering the manufacturer to Games Workshop. I can understand why GW would want to tighten this up though as your average Joe might not know the difference.

But this issue doesn't just happen on eBay - it also happens a lot on Amazon, but I'm not sure GW would tackle that?

TL,DR... So was it 3D printed parts or bitz clipped off of a GW cast sprue that were removed from eBay by the request of GW?

StraightSilver wrote:
I must admit I do find it frustrating when I search for "Warhammer" or "Necromunda" on eBay only to have 3rd party products come up that are not what I'm looking for.

However, this is often quickly resolved simply by filtering the manufacturer to Games Workshop. I can understand why GW would want to tighten this up though as your average Joe might not know the difference.

But this issue doesn't just happen on eBay - it also happens a lot on Amazon, but I'm not sure GW would tackle that?

You inevitably have to narrow your search anyway, as searching for "warhammer" on Ebay will throw up huge numbers of genuine GW items. Not great if you are really just looking for IG tanks, or blood bowl elves, or whatever, and you have to wade through a million different skaven or chaos marines etc etc.

 Gert wrote:
The eBay category section goes as follows:
Toys and Games > Wargames and Roleplaying > Warhammer.
However, it does also specify Mech Warrior, Heroclix, Confrontation, and Warmachine as other categories.

Given the subcaterogies to that are "Warhammer 40K", "Warhammer Fantasy Battle" etc. the category should probably be called "Games Workshop" anyway. Not that that solves the problem.