Can I go slightly of topic for a moment?

[Urbanus]

I was reading up on the AoS fluff today and after all the "Sigmar, Sigmahorn, sigmarite" amd lets not forget Aelfs I suddently realised I never heard what happened with the GW vs Chapterhouse lawsuit?

Now this thread should in no way develope into a big round of GW-pinata-bashing, but could someone sumerise how it all ended?

[Kramer]

Quick google search gives me this (just copy pasted it from https://1d4chan.org/wiki/ChapterHouse_Studios ):

The lawsuit went on for years, but finally ended mostly in ChapterHouse's favor -- since Games Workshop had never actually produced any depiction of many of the units in question, it was ruled that ChapterHouse (and anyone else) weren't violating any copyrights by making their own models (it would be like Games Workshop trying to bring a lawsuit against every person in the world who made conversions for Warhammer).

However on balance, GW took around 200 specific articles of alleged copyright infringement to court with them, and won about 30% of those. Forcing ChapterHouse to retire many of their own models, as simply making "variations" (such as female versions of existing GW models like Farseers & Aspect Warriors) still counts as infringment. Plus ChapterHouse was ordered to pay damages for these breaches of copyright and pay court costs, which they were still appealing as of early 2014.

In October 2014 Chapterhouse shut down their website after having their assets frozen by Games Workshop.

On 14 November 2014[[1]] the case was settled between the companies. The appeals from both sides were dismissed "with prejudice" (cannot be re-litigated) in a "Joint Dismissal" (meaning they both agreed to it): The $25,000 damages sought by GW were waived and the asset freeze was lifted. Each side has to pay its own legal fees (Chapterhouse was represented pro bono, of course).

On 18 November 2014 Chapterhouse announced via Facebook that "the web store will be up and going by the end of the week and I will ship out any orders that were not disputed this week as well. Hopefully the site will be able to stay profitable and I am hoping the defense lines will sell as well as some new products as well."

[Lucio]

Overall summary is that GW suffered significant losses when defending specific IP's, but it did also clarify what they do own and thus have clearer limits on what can be covered under copyright / trademarks.

 

The race renaming in AoS is suspected to be for that very reason, to clearly define boundries for the US legal system.

[Urbanus]

Very interesting reading! Thanks to both of you

[RuneBrush]

Nobody really won from this, although as @Kramer said, it helped to define what could and couldn't be done in the US.  Chapterhouse actually had a lot of support initially, but general opinion changed when they went back to court to contest the items they weren't successful on.  It's made GW really tighten up on how they deal with releases too and I doubt we'll ever see rules for a unit come out without a supporting model fairly soon after.

[Kramer]

2 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

although as @Kramer said,

To be honest I never said anything. I just copy-pasted it. 

[CoffeeGrunt]

Worth noting that while CHS is operating, the guy doesn't actually seem to ship anything. There are many, many threads complaining about lack of responses and ignored emails. Quite clearly they were brought low.

Personally, and some may call me vindictive, I feel they brought it on themselves. I have tonnes of 3rd party models quite clearly aimed at 40K from Puppetswar, Kromlech, Maxmini, Scibor, Anvil Industry and many more. Each of these vendors is smart enough to not tread on the bear by not directly using GW IP and instead naming their models things like "Astral Combatant Techna-Soldier," so that everyone knows what it is, but not a single bit of GW IP is directly infringed.

CHS insisted on being the David facing down Goliath in order to make a name for themselves, and in the end their sling snapped and Goliath stomped them into the dirt for their troubles.

[AGPO]

One thing I've noticed is that the never ending stream of cease and desist orders from GW legal towards third party producers and communities has eased considerably in the last couple of years. I'm not sure if this is a result of the law suit our a change of tack to deliberately ditch the scare tactics. 

[BaldoBeardo]

I think GW had a steep learning curve on just how aggressive US copyright law is.

I think the drop in C&D is probably more due to 3rd party producers (and GW) now being a lot more savvy on what is and isn't permissible.

I doubt it's down to GW 'going easy' - one of the issues for GW from the CHS case was the basic US principle of "you snooze, you lose" - they *have* to fight potential infringements.

Us Europeans are apparently far more civilised when it comes to nicking ideas. ?

[RuneBrush]

Another contributory factor is that people are a lot more switched on with what's acceptable and what isn't, not just on the third party product point of view, but also people who run blogs and similar.  At one point it was pretty common to hear that GW had sent out a C&D because somebody had posted up every page from a brand new publication on their blog - it's one of the reasons I'm really cautious about putting official warscrolls on my warscroll designer app, whereas a few years ago we'd likely have found copies of warscrolls all over the place.  I have also heard that GW will contact people & companies before sending out a C&D.

[Arkiham]

41 minutes ago, BaldoBeardo said:

I think GW had a steep learning curve on just how aggressive US copyright law is.

I think the drop in C&D is probably more due to 3rd party producers (and GW) now being a lot more savvy on what is and isn't permissible.

I doubt it's down to GW 'going easy' - one of the issues for GW from the CHS case was the basic US principle of "you snooze, you lose" - they *have* to fight potential infringements.

Us Europeans are apparently far more civilised when it comes to nicking ideas. ?

Us brits are always more civilised

[CoffeeGrunt]

Isn't hard when it's the Yanks, mind. The silly beggars need those draconian copyright laws since they tipped all that wonderful tea in the Boston drink.

I mean, how does one resolve a snafu without a good tea duel anyway?

[Riavan]

Copyright and trademarks, or trade marks as we call them in Australia, are my jam. Copyright and trademark laws are pretty similar in the UK, USA and AUS. The key difference is with usa's copyright "fair use" exception to copyright which allows people to get away with a lot more than what the UK or AUS are cool with. If anything USA has laws favouring the infringer more than the UK or AUS. Design laws on the other hand are a whole different story.

The renaming of races without a doubt gives them a stronger copyright and trademark claim against anyone infringing it. And yeah any rules pages would fall within their copyright, including warscrolls.

Now I'm wondering if the actual minis would fall under copyright or designs law though. Likely a bit of both I'm thinking. The original sculpt would fall into copyright, the later cast minis would be designs. The copyright would last for longer though so you wouldn't want to register it as a design, especially if the countries laws force you to give up your copyright to do so.

[Sleboda]

4 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

it's one of the reasons I'm really cautious about putting official warscrolls on my warscroll designer app, whereas a few years ago we'd likely have found copies of warscrolls all over the place.  I have also heard that GW will contact people & companies before sending out a C&D.

Yeah, years ago things like your builder and the unofficial TK book would have been crushed.  Now they are positive contributions to the growth of our hobby - or at least not troublesome enough to GW for them to chase down and destroy.