GW IP issue - and an exclusive OR mini

Dagorlad · **Posted:** Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:45 am

I just read this news item on Tabletop Gaming News: http://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/2009/11/03/31143

Basically, the owner of www.talkbloodbowl.com has been contacted by GW's legal department demanding that he close down his website because it infringes their intellectual property and that he is making a profit from the donations that the site attracts.

What a bunch of *******s.

What are the effects for us here? Not much hopefully, but I can't be sure. We don't infringe on their Intellectual Property in our name, so we are probably safe in that regard. But the fact of the matter remains that GW's corporate lawyers are acting beligerantly towards a fan-site that poses no threat to them and in fact promotes and supports their products.

One thing this will do though is kill off a special project I had in mind - I was going to commission a sculptor to do a one-off special LOTR themed miniature for our membership. But if GW are being such (Oooh, naughty word) about it, then I'm afraid that project is sunk.

BrightLance · **Posted:** Thu Nov 05, 2009 3:31 am

It boggles the mind that a company fully based in person to person advertising would want to shut down a legitimate fan-run website...

But I do see the reasoning for the name/ip infringements, especially if a website goes south and the GW brand name takes the hit, not the website. It would be insane for GW to have oversight over every single site that has any reference to their products, so they simply take an ax to the ones that could be easily connected to them.

But they could at least give fair notice, especially in the case of Turn Signals on a Land Raider, who after like two years of comics got a email one day and had to close shop.

Quote:

special LOTR themed miniature for our membership

As long as you use generic titles and unspecific iconography, you should be fine, like "Elf Prince" for legolas, or "High King of Men" for Aragorn. It takes away from the aesthetics of the model, but hey you get your model and the tolkien estate and GW aren't in your back yard with a siege tower and 250,000 angry orcs.

Haldir_Strikes · **Posted:** Thu Nov 05, 2009 4:06 am

BrightLance wrote:

It boggles the mind that a company fully based in person to person advertising would want to shut down a legitimate fan-run website...

Quote:

special LOTR themed miniature for our membership

As long as you use generic titles and unspecific iconography, you should be fine, like "Elf Prince" for legolas, or "High King of Men" for Aragorn. It takes away from the aesthetics of the model, but hey you get your model and the tolkien estate and GW aren't in your back yard with a siege tower and 250,000 angry orcs.

I don't think GW has a problem with LOTR themed minis, I just think it would be more of a problem if the miniature borrows off either New Line or GW design specifications.

As BL said, titling of the miniature is more often the easy part; as all you need to do is give a brief description of what it is. Even making it as simple as "Human Warrior", or "Dwarf" won't get you into any trouble at all.

It would mean that you would most likely need to use an alternative design for armour etc, but that really isn't much of a problem in hindsight - you have a forum of people who would be (well I would) willing to help you with character conceptualisation and development.

Additionally you could probably use some of the movie designs as well, as I think Miniatures de Castillo (the place that made the Axeman, Elf heroes and Orc/Moria hero) utilised them as well.

Anyways, don't scrap the custom sculpt! That would be awesome, and I would easily love to help with character development/design.

Kalatha · **Posted:** Thu Nov 05, 2009 9:36 am

After the excellent dice you organised for us earlier in the year Alan I'd love to see what you would come up with for a OR figurine!

Please, please reconsider!

Kalatha

Dagorlad · **Posted:** Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:16 pm

Ebob was told by New Line to stop selling his Lone Wolf character as well as his 'dead gladiator' figures and yet they were given quite generic names. he figured it was easier to comply than to fight them.

This whole episode has me a little spooked though (and I didn't know about Turn Signals being crushed either). Our site is fine I believe and isn't under threat but I don't want us to pop up on their radar by releasing a LOTR-compatible mini.

If we do it though, it'll be quite a while away. I do know a few very talented sculptors, but I have yet to approach any of them with the idea.

BaruKhazad · **Joined:** Mon Mar 30, 2009 5:56 pm **Posts:** 249

hm, Dagorlad, you could do something like this: if you donate to the site you get this figure-gift (instead of us letting buying the figure). it is basicly the same and it's like what all charity-organisation do (just like wildlifeorganisation: you get a free plushie if you donate)

anyway, it's just a suggestion^^

Corsair · **Posted:** Thu Nov 05, 2009 5:10 pm

It does sound cool Daggy.

You can't sell them right. So is there away around this? i.e trades or something :/

James

Phantom_Lord · **Posted:** Thu Nov 05, 2009 5:26 pm

Dagorlad wrote:

One thing this will do though is kill off a special project I had in mind - I was going to commission a sculptor to do a one-off special LOTR themed miniature for our membership. But if GW are being such (Oooh, naughty word) about it, then I'm afraid that project is sunk.

i really hope there is a way around this, i would love to see such a miniature and defenitly get one, or 2 :-D

BrightLance · **Posted:** Thu Nov 05, 2009 9:23 pm

Quote:

Don’t blame GW for this, I was the one who decided to use their IP. They are well within their rights to allow or not allow any use of their property. I was hoping that since Turn Signals has always been an advocate of Games Workshop and their products that a mutually-beneficial arrangement could be made. That did not happen. If someone at GW wanted to make it happen tomorrow I would be all ears, but for now I’m moving on. They let me live for almost 6 years when they could have really shut me down any time they wanted to and for that I must thank them.

-TSOALR

Captain Ingold · **Posted:** Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:49 pm

Corsair wrote:

You can't sell them right. So is there away around this? i.e trades or something :/

Hey Alan, I'll trade you some money-things for your custom-sculpts. :-D

Seriously though, I do hope that the forum isn't forced to close. We practically advertise for GW here, discussing their new models and people saying "Ooh, didn't see that, I'll buy it." They probably don't even realise how much money they indirectly earn off us, and all we do is talk. If they do tell you to close the site Alan, we'll start an internet petition.

"You have my sword."

Haldir_Strikes · **Posted:** Fri Nov 06, 2009 12:00 am

Dagorlad wrote:

Ebob was told by New Line to stop selling his Lone Wolf character as well as his 'dead gladiator' figures and yet they were given quite generic names. he figured it was easier to comply than to fight them.

Well then it's easy to rule out movie-specific imagery. The Lone Wolf miniature seems a little strange though - I thought it was a totally generic character? Or did he rip-off directly from what Aragorn/Gondorian ranger costumes were?

The worst thing that could happen is that you won't be able to use DIRECT movie imagery then. That's not that bad, it's not like GW or NL have property rights over leather jerkins etc!

Dagorlad · **Posted:** Fri Nov 06, 2009 5:28 am

We use no imagery from Games Workshop, no copyrighted terms in our URL and no reference to their games or New Line's movies in any of our banners etc, so I can't see that they would complain about us.

And GW has publicly endorsed fan sites like OR and TLA in the past, so for them to turn on us now would be hypocritcal and could be challenged in court. But they won't turn on us because we aren't called www.waroftheringstrategygame.com or www.lotrsbg.com or similar, and we don't have any implied association with Games Workshop on our site (not even a link to their website).

So we're safe.

And as for the custom sculpt, we'll see how things go. I'd never promote the mini as a LOTR figure, just a generic wizard, warrior, dwarf or elf. And we'd do it the same as the dice - donate to the site and get a gift in return.

BilboOfTheWhiteTower · **Posted:** Fri Nov 06, 2009 11:21 am

Dagorlad wrote:

One thing this will do though is kill off a special project I had in mind - I was going to commission a sculptor to do a one-off special LOTR themed miniature for our membership. But if GW are being such (Oooh, naughty word) about it, then I'm afraid that project is sunk.

I don't think that GW would mind terribly, Tolkien Estates might depending on how it is put. If this is something that we pursue then naming the miniature might be difficult...however if the miniature is something generic like a 'halfling' or some kind of 'ranger' or some such, then GW won't have a legal leg to stand on.

gaarew · **Posted:** Fri Nov 06, 2009 1:10 pm

Captain Ingold wrote:

"You have my sword."

And my axe. And chainsaw, and sledge hammer, and wrecking bar, and golf club.

Anduril Blade of Kings · **Posted:** Fri Nov 06, 2009 1:23 pm

You have my nuclear missiles :-D

I'd really like to see that OR-unique figure, I wasn't a member in time to get the dice so I'd really like this.

I hope it can be done without GW and NLC breathing down our necks.

Dagorlad · **Posted:** Fri Nov 06, 2009 11:56 pm

Well, you've talked me back into it.

I've contacted a (well known) sculptor to see if he is still interested and I'm awaiting his reply. Watch this space.

Haldir_Strikes · **Posted:** Sat Nov 07, 2009 2:31 am

Dagorlad wrote:

Well, you've talked me back into it.

I've contacted a (well known) sculptor to see if he is still interested and I'm awaiting his reply. Watch this space.

A gentleman's agreement then! Huzzah!

I assume you are asking either Ebob or UKFreddy, but if they don't have the time; perhaps you could look into either Kev White (of Hasslefree fame: he does a nice little 'not'-Gandalf dwarf i.e. Grimdalf here: http://www.hasslefreeminiatures.co.uk/pack.php?pack=945 and a 'not'-Eowyn here: http://www.hasslefreeminiatures.co.uk/pack.php?pack=688) otherwise Tre Manor (from Red Box Miniatures) would also be worth looking into - he has some fantastically characterful sculpts.

You could also look into Sebastian Archer from Guild of Harmony? (I think that's his name, he did some not Jedi sculpts), but he asks for quite a lot, on the upside he is Australian

Another person you could look into is Andrew Rae, from Khorosho Productions (http://www.khorosho-productions.blogspot.com/).

They're all fairly well established sculptors (and are all rated highly on Frothers, which is an achievement if anything), so you should take a look into those guys as well

Anyways I should get back to study :oops:

Cheers!

tidoco · **Posted:** Sat Nov 07, 2009 9:27 am

I think an OR figure would be cool though I wouldn't want to see the site jumped for it, I would think very carefully before going into it Alan as GW are fickle at best and can jump on the slightest thing that most people wouldn't even see as infringement.
That said I wouldn't complain at being able to paint an OR mini so I will watch with hope.
Maybe you could go back further in time than anyone else has as yet, there are still alot of areas not covered by GW or Newline that could be explored if carefully renamed.

King Elessar the Uniter · **Posted:** Sat Nov 07, 2009 11:34 am

tidoco wrote:

I think an OR figure would be cool though I wouldn't want to see the site jumped for it

I totally agree.

Corsair · **Posted:** Sat Nov 07, 2009 1:25 pm

King Elessar the Uniter wrote:

tidoco wrote:

I think an OR figure would be cool though I wouldn't want to see the site jumped for it

I totally agree.

Ditto.

James

GW IP issue - and an exclusive OR mini

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