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The Pirate Bay, a well known resource for folks who care nothing for copyright laws, has recently added a new section allowing people to upload 3d schematics for use on 3D printers. Complaints have been made by GW (allegedly), that some of the 3D plans are infringing on their IP.

You can read more of the story here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/01 ... 31061.html

Given that the Movie industry and the Music industry cant get TPB shut down, I wonder what GW hope to accomplish?

I dunno - reading between the lines of that article GW didn't even know about it until huffington told them, at which point they just shrugged their shoulders and said "no comment". (it says "But just hours after launching its new service the website was subject to claims of copyright infringement." but it doesnt say who filed the complaints or what the complaints were about.)

How common place are 3d printers anyway? I can't see it being a huge problem for GW for a good few years yet...

I guess GW wants to nip any potential new avenue for immitation of their products before it begins to challenge their ownership of it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was partly an attempt to quell the growth of 3d printing by clamping on any possible copyright infringement. I bet the US closure of Megafile also feeds into their thinking.

While I can understand the very mercantile rationale of GW, why don't they try innovation instead of aggressive harassment of this new technology? They have the ability to actually exploit this technology and they might be able to create a new way of distributing their products.

Oh well.

I say again:

me_in_japan wrote:I dunno - reading between the lines of that article GW didn't even know about it until huffington told them, at which point they just shrugged their shoulders and said "no comment". (it says "But just hours after launching its new service the website was subject to claims of copyright infringement." but it doesnt say who filed the complaints or what the complaints were about.)

How common place are 3d printers anyway? I can't see it being a huge problem for GW for a good few years yet...

I wasn't directly responding to your post MiJ.

As for GW not knowing, it would probably make more sense if they did. Who else would have issued the take down notice.

But my question isn't referring to whether GW did or did not know, but why can't GW embrace new waves of tech and assimilate it rather then resist it? Why not the sale of PDFs along with other productions? While there are certainly business rationales (ease of illicit distribution, etc.) but it would be nice to support an innovative company.

It doesnt really matter if GW know or not. TPB get legal claims off much bigger companies and happily ignore them.

Who else would have issued the take down notice.

coulda been anybody - the article didn't say what item the claim was made against.

But this...

Why not the sale of PDFs along with other productions?

is a damn fine question. GW shoulda been doing that years ago. Yeah, folks can copy em easier, but it's not like they don't get copied anyway.

Primarch wrote:It doesnt really matter if GW know or not. TPB get legal claims off much bigger companies and happily ignore them.

Well I think prior knowledge is a big issue if you want to protect IP rights. If you knowingly permit an activity you may lose all rights to its ownership.
Also I think with the legal changes in the US there may be different definition of the culpability of file sharing sites.

How many people here would purchase a PDF version of a codex?

job wrote:

Primarch wrote:It doesnt really matter if GW know or not. TPB get legal claims off much bigger companies and happily ignore them.

Well I think prior knowledge is a big issue if you want to protect IP rights. If you knowingly permit an activity you may lose all rights to its ownership.
Also I think with the legal changes in the US there may be different definition of the culpability of file sharing sites.

How many people here would purchase a PDF version of a codex?

In my opinion, a PDF is not particularly useful when playing an actual game or for keeping your fingers in several pages at once while you design an army list. There might be some money to be made from selling them, but then you've got to have extra infrastructure for maintaining accounts of people's purchases for re-downloading, and people still need to get the book for convenience' sake. Incidentally, you can download nearly all the codices in PDF form for free in Japanese straight from GW.

I suspect that tabletop gamers in particular will appreciate the aspects of possessing physical objects.

I prefer to have the real book myself. I dont like reading rules from a screen. Though I can see the appeal for some.