GW loses IP case; neckbeards everywhere point and laugh

[Miggy Smallz]

http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/ ... ing-eldar-
tyranids-space-wolves.html

Tl;Dr?

The whole Chapterhouse fiasco turned out to be a major over-reach by GW, and they were not expecting the courts to side with a tiny little company in the U.S.

Instead of every last aspect of what they write being protected, only their miniatures are protected. Don't have a miniature when you release info about it in a codex? You don't get jack if a third party company releases the figure with that name while GW sits on the property and does nothing with it. In short, you can't copyright a book you haven't written, or a photo you haven't taken.

Here's the item that Chapterhouse made, that GW didn't:
http://chapterhousestudios.com/index.ph ... on&product_
id=203

GW's response is dictated by legal and financial teams, who screamed like children, and suggested that all of the nid and eldar minis be put on hold until the end of the legal process. Meanwhile Chapterhouse keeps building and selling.

Moral of the story? If you're a bully to everyone around you, don't expect sympathy when your teeth get knocked out and your nuts kicked in by the new kid on the block.

[Spevna]

Cheers for this Miggy. You have just made my year


I hope that every indy miniatures company on the planet jumps on the bandwagon and produces EVERYTHING that GW has yet to make.

Xmas has come early for me.

[AndrewGPaul]

First of all, how about some links that work?

Secondly, Where in that 11-page thread does it tell me that CHS have won their court case? A link to an individual post, please - or even better, a link to the source that said post will almost certainly be referencing?

weeble1000's second post dated 2011/12/14 18:35:16 on that page of the dakkadakka thread on the subject indicates that the trial has not yet begun, so how can they have lost it?

[AndrewGPaul]

Cheers for this Miggy. You have just made my year


I hope that every indy miniatures company on the planet jumps on the bandwagon and produces EVERYTHING that GW has yet to make.

I really don't. Plenty of it is unmitigated crap; Scibor and Hi Tech Miniatures are the worst offenders, churning out badly-designed s***e (particularly galling considering Scibor's original designs are usually half-decent), and then there's Kromlech, Titan Forge, Maxmini and others all running for that bandwagon. Some decent sculpting skills, but a terrible dearth of interesting designs.

We need more miniatures companies like Taban, Smart Max, Vesper-on, Red Box Games and the like, instead.

[Spevna]

I agree with most of what you said. There is a lot of bad stuff out there, especially Hi Tech (what do you expect from a company named after shite trainers). Scibor has the odd nice piece though they are far and few between.

Kromlech and Maxmini make good stuff in my opinion, stuff that fill little gaps and caters to gamers quite nicely.

We do need more companies making original stuff. But we also need companies to make stuff that GW either won't make or don't want to make. I'm sure lot of people want to run a Blood Pact army and Maxmini make that possible with alternate heads. That is just one amongst many.

By inventing units and characters and not making the minis for them shows either stupidity or hubris on the part of GW.

[Primarch]

Sorry Miggy, dont believe everything you read on 4chan, especially when it uses a 3 month old link that was incorrect to support it.

Personally I think that Chapterhouse had it coming as unlike all the other third party companies, they used GW terms to describe their products rather than more generic ones. When anyone asked them about it on a forum, the owner was generally abusive and replied with something along the lines of "what are the going to do about it?"

As the legal team for CH is working pro-bono it doesnt matter to them if they win or lose, but if they lose CH may have to pay some of GWs legal fees which would bankrupt them immediately.
If CH win, expect to wait twice as long for any new books as GW only have a certain amount of time money and resources to draw upon to produce new models. But first there will be a new version of the Nid codex with a few pages removed.

[me_in_japan]

Have to agree with prim here. Whatever the repercussions of this case may be for GW inc., for GW game players if Chapterhouse win then gamers lose. There will be a flood of cheap, shite minis (and the occasional diamond, too, no doubt) and all the kiddie gamers who don't give a toss about quality mini design or aesthetics will flock to buy em. This will cause a huge reduction in GWs key revenue, resulting in staff layoffs, and rushed panic production. (eg finecast). In addition to this, GW will get super cagey with new codex releases, and nothing will be put in that doesn't already have a model ready for production. This will slow things down hellaciously.

That, and the fact that chouse are acting the arse on this one makes me hope they lose. I'm not a fan of GW corporate as a rule, but on this one I think they have both the legal and the moral high ground.

*edit* Obviously, this case has huge repercussions for other companies too. PP, wyrd, anybody that has a distinctive IP is in the firing line here. This case is basically a contest of people who create fictional worlds and people who just want to make money out of them.

[Spevna]

CH are producing something that GW doesn't produce.

People arent buying from CH instead of GW. They are buying from CH because they are the only ones that produce it.

Your comment about kiddy gamers couldn't be more wrong. The kiddy gamers are the consumers that want the new fangled GW stuff because they want the proper stuff. It is the marginalized veterans like us, who GW have proved time and time again they don't care about, that will be drawn to the Indies and knock off shops. The younger noobs want all the shiny nice stuff with the GW seal of approval on it.

As I see it, companies can make minis that GW haven't they themselves made yet. If a company tried to make a copy of a pre existing mini they would be in seriously deep doodoo.

If all the indies are doing is producing stuff that GW haven't made, and in the case of nids, eldar, and space wolves they have had ample time to do so, and it is mainly being bought by veterans, who GW don't give a fig about , I fail to see the problem.

[Primarch]

No-one is saying that they shouldnt release conversion kits (blood pact heads)or original pieces (jetbikes). But releasing a model and saying this is the Doom of Malantai (an official unit in the nid book), its not so good. For starters it could prevent GW from releasing their own, nicely sculpted version. Whilst not everybody likes every model GW do, their sculptors are far superior to the guy at CH.
Heck, you could produce a mis-shapen blob and call it The Doom of Malantai and screw the possibility of ever getting a proper model.
So, GW have to either defend their IP or change the way they release models.
Looking at their current rate of production, it normally takes 3 waves to release all the plastics. This is probably down to the time it takes to produce moulds rather than to sculpt the minis. If they do a full run for a codex and nothing else, it wouldnt slow the rate at which we get new books but it would hurt their bottom line.
E.g.
They release a new book with new models. Customers buy 1500 points of what is available.
Next wave with cool new minis. Customers buy 500 points worth of new toys.
Last wave. Customers get 500 points more.
In total they sell 2500 points of models.

In one go, they sell 1500 points of the models.
Thats it.

The net result is a 40% drop in sales.

Given how expensive plastic moulds are (I've seen prices of 100,000 pounds quoted for a kit.) They would have to cut the new stuff by a large amount or risk not breaking even for a very very long time. If the company doesnt break even, the investors pull out and sell off bits of the company piecemeal.

Now, I know a lot of folks here - myself included - dislike GW, but I would like to see them change, not go out of business. A dead company doesnt do much for me. How about you?

[Primarch]

P.s. Yes, the above is a simplified and extreme view of things and yes, I know PP do things differently. I dont think PPs style would work for GW as PP games require you to buy single models for the most part and most of those are easily cast up in metal.