Petition for more fan creativity

[Sarouan]

5 hours ago, GrogTheGrognard said:

Wow, just wow.

1. How does the amount of Patreon money matter for this discussion? If he was making $1 billion every month versus $10 every month would that change who's in the right and who's in the wrong? Would it change how GW is currently throttling the fan creativity like TTS or SODAZ?

2. You do realize he actually is leading a small team of animators, voices actors, and editors to make TTS right? TTS isn't free to make you have to pay a lot of people for the production work they put out. I'm not saying he's making nothing but you are taking the full $19k per month and acting like it's pure profit when it is nowhere close to that.

3. He shouldn't have to buy a GW license as TTS is clearly a parody of the 40k universe as a whole. That being said UK parody law is a joke because they literally say that the caricature, parody, or pastiche must be 'fair dealing', but there is no agreed definition of 'fair dealing'. This allows GW to sue anybody making a parody claiming it's not 'fair dealing' no matter what.

4. Maybe you should launch your own fan animation channel talking **** about GW and maybe after around EIGHT YEARS of putting out quality content you can finally make around what TTS is making currently as well. 

1. It matters because it points out fan animators aren't just using GW's IP in their works for free or a meaningless amount of money - they can earn a pretty more than decent amount of money out of it, and what happens with Alfabusa is proof of that. Which means creativity alone isn't the only thing in mind. Here, what I can have as conclusion is that it seems pretty profitable to announce you're putting your channel on hiatus and lay low for a while because you're afraid of big bad GW's legal team and have a whole load of new backers on your patreon account that explode your monthly donations thanks to the sympathy and buzz created by it. So...money begins to have its weight as well. And creativity can easily become second. Is that what you want ?

2. Yes. That means he earns enough he can pay others people to work with him - like a small business. Which further supports point 1 above.

3. Yet he decided to put his own channel on hiatus without contacting or being contacted by GW. And in his video, he talks about his fears / justifications to do that. Looks like he's not as convinced as you are. And it has more to do with using someone else's IP without their permission, TBH. That it's fine because it's GW makes no sense.

4. Well I guess I could if indeed the question of using someone else's IP without their permission for money or even asking them if it's fine out of politeness wasn't something bothering in one corner of my head. Also...quality content's value may vary by the viewer. Sure, a fan will think it's a masterpiece, but honestly...I'd rather support Matthew Shezmen as an animator for the amount of work put into this.

No need to get angry about that, though.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Sarouan

[zilberfrid]

One good thing is that I see a few people do more non-GW content (Kirioth I saw today, but I think there were more), and diversity in exposure of miniature companies is always good for the hobby.

It might even mean enough competition between mini companies that they start paying their designers fairly (20k annual for lead designer when 17k is minimum wage isn't fair compensation).

Edited August 2, 2021 by zilberfrid

[The Red King]

1 hour ago, zilberfrid said:

One good thing is that I see a few people do more non-GW content (Kirioth I saw today, but I think there were more), and diversity in exposure of miniature companies is always good for the hobby.

It might even mean enough competition between mini companies that they start paying their designers fairly (20k annual for lead designer when 17k is minimum wage isn't fair compensation).

I'm hopeful that WotC dipping their toes into "models on sprues" might cause legitimate competition for this particular skillset. Like that one guy who's name I don't know because I didn't see Godzilla versus King Kong said; "let them fight.'

[Kadeton]

1 hour ago, The Red King said:

I'm hopeful that WotC dipping their toes into "models on sprues" might cause legitimate competition for this particular skillset. Like that one guy who's name I don't know because I didn't see Godzilla versus King Kong said; "let them fight.'

It would be honestly surprising if a company with the resources of WotC (and its juggernaut parent, Hasbro) and an IP like D&D weren't eyeing off Games Workshop's year-on-year successes and strategising how to take a piece of the wargaming market for themselves.

A game system where you can take your favourite D&D character and include them at the head of an army? Seems like such an easy home run. I already know people whose collections of D&D minis vastly outnumber my AoS and 40K armies, and I have no idea what they do with them all.

[Kodos der Henker]

this is how Warhammer was created

back than were GW was just the European distributor of D&D, they had an idea on how to make more money by selling people an army around their RPG characters and creating a hybrid wargaming/RPG system

and now GW more or less dominants that niche between wargaming and full RPG with their systems, there is no real reason to try to compete with GW here

yet with GW slowly removing the RPG part from their games (by removing options and customisation) someone else might start filling the gab (or already did by looking at Stargrave/Frostgrave)

[RuneBrush]

16 hours ago, GrogTheGrognard said:

Wow, just wow.

1. How does the amount of Patreon money matter for this discussion? If he was making $1 billion every month versus $10 every month would that change who's in the right and who's in the wrong? Would it change how GW is currently throttling the fan creativity like TTS or SODAZ?

2. You do realize he actually is leading a small team of animators, voices actors, and editors to make TTS right? TTS isn't free to make you have to pay a lot of people for the production work they put out. I'm not saying he's making nothing but you are taking the full $19k per month and acting like it's pure profit when it is nowhere close to that.

3. He shouldn't have to buy a GW license as TTS is clearly a parody of the 40k universe as a whole. That being said UK parody law is a joke because they literally say that the caricature, parody, or pastiche must be 'fair dealing', but there is no agreed definition of 'fair dealing'. This allows GW to sue anybody making a parody claiming it's not 'fair dealing' no matter what.

4. Maybe you should launch your own fan animation channel talking **** about GW and maybe after around EIGHT YEARS of putting out quality content you can finally make around what TTS is making currently as well. 

It matters because that amount of income each month makes TTS a commercial venture and no longer something fan based - in the UK a turnover of £85k+ needs to be VAT registered so based purely on Patreon subscriptions TTS is considered a business.

Within both the US and UK fair use rules, the commerciality of created content plays a huge part on if its creation is considered fair use or not.

 

[Enoby]

For those more legally versed than I am, how would this stand up to IP laws:

A content creator has a very popular Warhammer animation series which gets hundreds of thousands if not millions of views. They do not monetise this nor advertise their Patreon. Is this okay?

Assuming it is, this same content creator produces a much less popular animated series using their own characters. They do have a Patreon for this and they do monetise these videos. The Patreon makes more than would be expected of an animation series this small, and it's likely that the fans of the Warhammer animation are donating here. Is this okay? 

[Kadeton]

23 minutes ago, Enoby said:

For those more legally versed than I am, how would this stand up to IP laws:

A content creator has a very popular Warhammer animation series which gets hundreds of thousands if not millions of views. They do not monetise this nor advertise their Patreon. Is this okay?

Assuming it is, this same content creator produces a much less popular animated series using their own characters. They do have a Patreon for this and they do monetise these videos. The Patreon makes more than would be expected of an animation series this small, and it's likely that the fans of the Warhammer animation are donating here. Is this okay? 

This really depends on what you mean by "okay".

Is this content creator breaking the law? No, not in either case. Not even if they monetise the videos or directly advertise their Patreon or solicit donations. These are "derivative" or "transformative" works, which are protected under most IP laws - you can't copyright a "setting", or a "theme", or anything other than the specific form of a work.

Does this "protection" make the content creator safe from a civil suit? No, not remotely. If you can afford to defend that suit, you might win the case after a few years in court... got a few million bucks lying around? Most likely you don't, but GW certainly do.

Will "fair dealing" IP protection stop GW from getting the creator's YouTube account demonetised, suspended or banned without recourse? Definitely not. Google responds almost immediately to copyright disputes from large corporations without question, and the creator is then forced to go through a potentially months-long process of appeals to get the strike overturned, during which any money their content makes goes to the corporation.

From the creator's perspective, GW can choose to annihilate them at any time regardless of whether the IP laws "protect" them. GW don't need the law on their side - they have money, which is much more powerful and relevant. Creators are gambling their livelihood purely on the hope that GW either doesn't notice them, or doesn't care. So no... it's not really "okay".

[Kodos der Henker]

one point people should not forget that in some countries (like UK) you lose the IP (or parts of it) if you are not defending it (while in the US you just need to do something with it)

If GW never acts against 3D printing or fan-films, the lose the right to act against them in future even if those than break the law

in this case, GW cannot copyright 40k animations without making them on their own, same way they cannot copyright models they never made, but with making them and defending their IP in those cases they make sure to have a strong position if another company ever steps in

[Beliman]

1 hour ago, Kadeton said:

These are "derivative" or "transformative" works, which are protected under most IP laws - you can't copyright a "setting", or a "theme", or anything other than the specific form of a work.

I want to add some points here:

• Copyright is an international service that tries to throw a legitimate protection over an IP. It's used to prove that you have the rights over your "creation".
• Only things that are "tangible" are allowed to be registered under IP rights. There are some exceptions like music, and there is a fun anecdote from an spanish woman that tried to register the Sun...
• All books, stories and even concept arts can be registred. That means that you can't register "Emperor of Mankind", but you can register a concept art depicting him, their story (books and codex), etc... and it can be used to stop other people to "create" exactly the same character (btw, it's a lot harder than it seems).
• Revenue that comes from donation is a bit tricky to take in consideration. I'm not used to Patreons, so I'm not sure how they work.
• Humor, fan-made content, new comments, diffusion, etc.. are regulated by the same exploitation laws that the court will issue the veredict, even if they don't recieve any money.

[GrogTheGrognard]

19 hours ago, Sarouan said:

1. It matters because it points out fan animators aren't just using GW's IP in their works for free or a meaningless amount of money - they can earn a pretty more than decent amount of money out of it, and what happens with Alfabusa is proof of that. Which means creativity alone isn't the only thing in mind. Here, what I can have as conclusion is that it seems pretty profitable to announce you're putting your channel on hiatus and lay low for a while because you're afraid of big bad GW's legal team and have a whole load of new backers on your patreon account that explode your monthly donations thanks to the sympathy and buzz created by it. So...money begins to have its weight as well. And creativity can easily become second. Is that what you want ?

2. Yes. That means he earns enough he can pay others people to work with him - like a small business. Which further supports point 1 above.

3. Yet he decided to put his own channel on hiatus without contacting or being contacted by GW. And in his video, he talks about his fears / justifications to do that. Looks like he's not as convinced as you are. And it has more to do with using someone else's IP without their permission, TBH. That it's fine because it's GW makes no sense.

4. Well I guess I could if indeed the question of using someone else's IP without their permission for money or even asking them if it's fine out of politeness wasn't something bothering in one corner of my head. Also...quality content's value may vary by the viewer. Sure, a fan will think it's a masterpiece, but honestly...I'd rather support Matthew Shezmen as an animator for the amount of work put into this.

No need to get angry about that, though.

 

1. So your conclusion is to assume that Alfabusa is trying to pity scam his Patreon backers with a sob story? You do realize that those backers can stop donating at any time for whatever reason they want to? Also, if we're assuming that money being involved means that creativity takes second place wouldn't it logically follow that GW themselves are focusing on money first and foremost since they are making more than Alfabusa? Wouldn't this mean you'd have MORE creativity from Alfabusa since the money he's making is less than GW? Who's more creative GW or Alfabusa? If you try to argue GW then explain why they can be creative while making MORE money than Alfabusa, but Alfabusa can't be creative while making LESS money than GW.

2. So you concede that Alfabusa isn't making the full $19k per month. Thank-you for admitting that.

3. I'm not sure what you are even trying to argue here. Alfabusa admits that he's ignorant of the law here and  is erring on the side of caution. What's wrong with that and how does that even contradict my point that UK parody law is a joke? Alfabusa doesn't know that so somehow I'm wrong? If you are making a parody of something you do not, I repeat do not need the original IP holders permission as long as the work is transformative and is 'fair dealing'. Once again UK doesn't define what 'fair dealing' is so GW can sue anybody making a parody claiming it's not 'fair dealing' when it might just qualify, but who's going to fight a very expensive legal battle with GW or any UK company just to prove that?

4. First things first. PRESS X TO DOUBT. X Sure thing mate I totally believe you could make something on the level of TTS but it's just that dang conscience of yours preventing you from doing it. I'm sure you have the animation ability, connections, voice acting, editing skills, and imagination to make another TTS (but not enough imagination to make your own IP or else that conscience excuse would fly right out). Also, I find it funny that Matthew Shezmen literally does what TTS does, that is making a parody of an IP, but because Shezman does it for multiple IPs somehow that's okay while TTS doing it for one IP is bad.

I may have been angry in the first response post but now I'm just giggling like a school girl. Thank-you for that hot take because my sides are now in freaking orbit XD.

5. I've also seen a lot of people saying why didn't TTS contact GW first and check to see if it was okay for them to keep going, and I feel the need to offer an answer to this. Let us jump into a hypothetical world for a second. A world where everything is the same but GW is both benign and competent (Shocking I know. What is this strange and foreign world and what have they done to my GW ;P) Let us assume that GW does know about TTS because they are competent, and let us assume they are fine with TTS because they are benign. UK copyright law says that you have to defend you IP at all times or else you lose the right to defend it. If TTS was infringing upon their copyright or maybe just close enough that GW would have to sue to keep their IP safe even if they would lose the case how could GW allow TTS to continue? By pretending they don't know about TTS. See if it can be proven that GW does know about TTS then they would have to send cease and desist letters and then sue just to protect their IP, but if they pretend that they don't know about TTS they can allow it to continue and if they get taken to court they could argue 'we never knew about them and if we did we would have sent cease and desist letters immediately'. If TTS contacts GW then this defense goes away because it can be pointed out that TTS contact GW, so GW should have known that TTS was a thing and then acted upon that.  Now let's leave this hypothetical world back to our much sadder reality. 

5.5. TLDR: GW could be playing dumb to protect TTS and if TTS contacts GW then GW can no longer play dumb.

Edited August 3, 2021 by GrogTheGrognard

[edmc78]

On 8/2/2021 at 8:56 AM, Sarouan said:

It's interesting to see the patreon account of the creator of "If the Emperor had a text-to-speech device". Look at what he gains per month :

https://www.patreon.com/alfabusa

That's...quite a lot. It's not a question of "surviving". He's at the stage of leading a small team and still living comfortably.

He sure sounds very nice and all, no problem...but wow...right now, he earns nearly half my annual salary a month...

I'm pretty sure he could pay GW a license if he wanted to as well.

 

Maybe I too should launch my channel with fan animations talking ****** about GW...it looks like a very profitable business nowadays.

Wow - 150k p.a income. Hmm.  Enough to live  well and employ 2-3 others in the UK. 

[ian0delond]

And that doesn't include the income from youtube, but that's way harder to give an estimate. 

Alfabusa is employing people and patreon is taking is cut, but him being this is terrible I might have to take a part time job is clearly telling this is much more than a hobby or fan project. 

At some point TTS should be regarded for what it is, a lucrative professional production creating jobs, and there is rule applying to an animation studio. 

[The Red King]

15 minutes ago, ian0delond said:

And that doesn't include the income from youtube, but that's way harder to give an estimate. 

Alfabusa is employing people and patreon is taking is cut, but him being this is terrible I might have to take a part time job is clearly telling this is much more than a hobby or fan project. 

At some point TTS should be regarded for what it is, a lucrative professional production creating jobs, and there is rule applying to an animation studio. 

Yes and the rule is "it's a parody so it SHOULD be fine. "

 

The issue here is that it doesnt matter who's legally in the right (it's TTS) because he can't afford the fight anyway and he's a pretty well established entity. GW knows this and the problem here is that their overly aggressive stance is stifling creativity and fan involvement for no good reason. 

[ian0delond]

There is a reason, Warhammer+.

[Kodos der Henker]

1 hour ago, The Red King said:

GW knows this and the problem here is that their overly aggressive stance is stifling creativity and fan involvement for no good reason. 

but this did not change in the last 15 years, the situation now is not different to the situation when TTS made their first video

except that GW offered other creators a job, yet no one received a C&D

nothing changes, GW is as aggressive and restrictive regarding its IP as it was over the past 15 years

[ArkanautDadmiral]

On 8/2/2021 at 3:30 PM, GrogTheGrognard said:

1. How does the amount of Patreon money matter for this discussion? If he was making $1 billion every month versus $10 every month would that change who's in the right and who's in the wrong? Would it change how GW is currently throttling the fan creativity like TTS or SODAZ?

What did GW do to Sodaz? They offered him a partnership which he initially accepted. Then he got a tonne of hate from the community for doing so and changed his mind, turned down GWs offer and moved away from the Warhammer community because of the harassment.

GW did exactly nothing to TTS either… they made no contact at all with TTS… 

To date, how many animators has GW actually sent a c&d to?

[The Red King]

2 hours ago, ian0delond said:

There is a reason, Warhammer+.

I didn't know how to say that was the reason without sounding like it was some kind of conspiracy but yes. That is why and that's a very bad reason for the community.

[Overread]

1 hour ago, ArkanautDadmiral said:

To date, how many animators has GW actually sent a c&d to?

To date they've not sent any takedown requests. They've only made an offer to work for them or take monetizing down on any fan works. Which honestly is a very fair move. They are not removing fan content in the least, simply reinforcing that they own copyright over the IP material and that fan works must be just that - fan works without any earning attached to them. But if the creator wants to they can choose to earn from the video by working for GW and then their video will appear on Warhammer + - and lets face it Warhammer + is likely to get a huge viewership from GW fans alone. 

In fact GW was very lenient allowing fan works to profit for as long as they have done and its only the rise of youtube paid ads and services like patreon which have even changed the fanworks region to something that can casually be made to turn and income and even profit. Normally most fan videos are like fanfiction - its fun hobby stuff that never earns a penny

[The Red King]

With respect that we really have a difference of opinion of what constitutes fair use as far as parody, as a genuine unloaded question, how do supporters of these moves feel about people posting battle reports or painting videos with their miniatures and how do they personally feel it differs from TTS in the amount of GW intellectual property it uses. 

 

My personal take is that the writing and animation and such that went into TTS far exceeds the amount of fair use that goes into recording yourself using GW official minis to play a game following GW official rules, but I assume nobody here is advocating that it would be correct, or beneficial to the community/game/bottomline, to disallow those kinds of videos that drive players to the game.

Edited August 3, 2021 by The Red King

[ArkanautDadmiral]

7 hours ago, The Red King said:

With respect that we really have a difference of opinion of what constitutes fair use as far as parody, as a genuine unloaded question, how do supporters of these moves feel about people posting battle reports or painting videos with their miniatures and how do they personally feel it differs from TTS in the amount of GW intellectual property it uses. 

 

My personal take is that the writing and animation and such that went into TTS far exceeds the amount of fair use that goes into recording yourself using GW official minis to play a game following GW official rules, but I assume nobody here is advocating that it would be correct, or beneficial to the community/game/bottomline, to disallow those kinds of videos that drive players to the game.

I don’t think painting videos or battle reports will be targeted at all and right now there’s 0 evidence that any have been.

Why do people feel the need to preemptively complain about something that has not and may not happen?

I signed the petition, I would like TTS to keep going but let’s not ignore the fact GW did not even contact TTS. TTS are the ones that decided to stop.

On the painting channels and battle report channels. They’re all posting videos and comments about the bad, bad GW but they’re the ones with ability to bring about some change. They should put their money where their mouth is and make more content that’s not GW centric, push some other game systems, introduce their audiences to other options, try to grow the communities of GWs competitors. Once GW sees the money flowing somewhere else you’re likely to start seeing some change.

Be the change you want to see.

[ArkanautDadmiral]

8 hours ago, Overread said:

To date they've not sent any takedown requests. They've only made an offer to work for them or take monetizing down on any fan works. Which honestly is a very fair move. They are not removing fan content in the least, simply reinforcing that they own copyright over the IP material and that fan works must be just that - fan works without any earning attached to them. But if the creator wants to they can choose to earn from the video by working for GW and then their video will appear on Warhammer + - and lets face it Warhammer + is likely to get a huge viewership from GW fans alone. 

In fact GW was very lenient allowing fan works to profit for as long as they have done and its only the rise of youtube paid ads and services like patreon which have even changed the fanworks region to something that can casually be made to turn and income and even profit. Normally most fan videos are like fanfiction - its fun hobby stuff that never earns a penny

I agree with everything you said. It was more a question for those claiming GW is shutting people down.

[Gaz Taylor]

16 minutes ago, ArkanautDadmiral said:

I agree with everything you said. It was more a question for those claiming GW is shutting people down.

You do have to remember there are a lot of people who seem to enjoy moaning about stuff like this. I’ve been in the hobby for about 25 years and this happens all the time. I think these people think they are defending the small business person or protecting somebody who makes cool content and are sticking it to “the man”. So there is loads of talk about boycotts and things become toxic. We don’t want that on TGA because it’s not nice to read about and in the grand scheme of things, GW aren’t evil. They do lots of things wrong and it seems they need some work to do internally as a business but they aren’t evil. It’s interesting some people on social media have been talking about not playing GW games and buying stuff, due to TTS shutting up shop but none of this in the previous discussion about staff.
 

As I’ve mentioned, GW also haven’t done anything yet and in my opinion are in their rights to protect their business. So unless you are in direct competition of Warhammer plus, I think a lot of content creators will be fine. Plus it means some of them may need to up their game as well.

 

[ArkanautDadmiral]

13 minutes ago, Gaz Taylor said:

You do have to remember there are a lot of people who seem to enjoy moaning about stuff like this. I’ve been in the hobby for about 25 years and this happens all the time. I think these people think they are defending the small business person or protecting somebody who makes cool content and are sticking it to “the man”. So there is loads of talk about boycotts and things become toxic. We don’t want that on TGA because it’s not nice to read about and in the grand scheme of things, GW aren’t evil. They do lots of things wrong and it seems they need some work to do internally as a business but they aren’t evil. It’s interesting some people on social media have been talking about not playing GW games and buying stuff, due to TTS shutting up shop but none of this in the previous discussion about staff.
 

As I’ve mentioned, GW also haven’t done anything yet and in my opinion are in their rights to protect their business. So unless you are in direct competition of Warhammer plus, I think a lot of content creators will be fine. Plus it means some of them may need to up their game as well.

 

I think the trend will continue that creators who are on top of their game will get offered partnerships too. It’s just a shame that when one of them does accept they’re suddenly the enemy in many’s eyes.

[Sarouan]

To be honest, it's not just about Warhammer +. Team Radious, a team modding for Total Warhammer the video game, has made that statement on their Steam workshop's mod page :

It's from a communication on their Steam workshop mod's page (see the comments) :
 

Quote

 

Hello Everyone, Team Radious here.

Today we have important news for you, so please take the time to read the announcement below.

In line with the recent change of Games Workshop policy on their Intellectual Property (IP) rights management, particularly in relation to the monetisation of fan-made content, we have been respectfully asked to remove links to our Patreon Links from the Warhammer and Warhammer II Workshop pages, as well as to make other associated changes to our Patron reward/goal system related to Warhammer IP. In compliance to this request we have now deleted, or will delete very soon, all links and references to our Patreon and PayPal on our Warhammer I and II Workshop mod areas. Those remaining, and leading to our Social Media, will remain unaffected until we are told otherwise. The changes requested in other areas have also either already been made or will also be rendered shortly.

Radious [créateur] Il y a 12 heures
We will continue to deliver highest quality mods to you and operate within these new bounds. These changes currently only affect the Warhammer Trilogy. We remain committed to our mission of making your TW games more interesting and varied. We already have 8 complete Overhauls under our belt since 2011 and the release of Shogun 2, and we shall continue in this manner thanks to great support and feedback from our awesome community. Our work always was and always will be available entirely for free for everyone. We have never paywalled anything and we never will. By supporting our work, you do not buy anything but our gratitude and the easing of some of our real-life burdens. Modding is our passion, not a full-time job, we do this for longer than anyone in Total War history and we are still here because of You, our great fans!

Radious [créateur] Il y a 12 heures
While we are deeply disappointed by such a turn of events, we also recognize the importance of IP in modern society. It is a sad day for mod creators, and others who engage in the creation of fan content for Warhammer, but such a move is well within the remit of the holders of such rights, and we can’t do anything about it. We shall say no more on the matter, there are others who cover the matter in far more depth. We ask you for any discussion in the comments to be civil and respectful.

Yours,
Team Radious

 

Again, it's mostly the patreon links on their Steam workshop's mod page and references to be "paid" for Warhammer's IP linked work that seems the main target.

 

And again, they were contacted first and "asked respectfully".

 

Their patreon page is still up and working.