Talk Fantasy Football

Out of sheer curiosity (rather than any desire to exploit any loopholes!) I was wondering about a few BB-orientated issues from a legal point of view, not knowing an awful lot about copyright and the like...


If someone was to use BB miniatures as the basis to create rubber moulds and then produce his own miniature clones, is this act against GW copyright in itself, or would it only become a copyright breach if that person was to go and sell these miniatures to others? (there was a guy i knew of back in London who did this with Star Wars miniatures once, and then sold onto independent stockists..the miniatures in that situation were not exactly top notch though, and so were easily identifiable as copies) How about if these miniatures were identified with the word 'FAKE' etched into the base tab? (or were altered in some small way so as to differentiate them from official figures..would either of these measures serve to legalise the process?

If someone was to make available to public viewing (on his own BB fanpage for example) his own set of house rules, which included DIRECT quotes from the LRB or other official source, is this again a copyright infringement? At what point would quote/ reference use within the text be considered unauthorised reproduction?

Was looking through the readme file for one of the BB online programs, and at the end it says something to the effect of ' you must own a copy of the boardgame to legally use this program'... was this the preference of GW? or simply a courtesy extended by the programmers, or is it really a legal issue? If so, what other examples of this exist (external to Bloodbowl)... i haven't encountered such a clause before, although this is undoubtedly due more to my plain old ignorance)


Anyone reading this would think i was considering a career move into piracy... Obviously it goes without saying that making a profit from other people's /companies creativity and output is morally despicable, but was interested purely in the legalities, as it's a field i know very little about. As i am thinking of submitting some of my own game concepts to various companies in the New Year, issues such as copyright are something that i really need to brush up on if i don't want to risk getting stung...

Cheers, John

I'm not entirely up to speed on the law but with regards to casting minis for personal use I would say it is probably against the law. I say this because home casting deprives Citadel and GW of further sales, and therefore the copying is directly affecting the profitability of their product. Now you could say but we are allowed to copy CDs, tapes, computer games as backups for personal use. However in the instance of music or games you do not need multiple copies of the product, and so are unlikely ever to purchase further copies. Therefore the distributors cannot claim any loss of profitability due to personal exploitation of there product. However, with minis we often do need replicas of the same model, and therefore do need to buy multiple copies. Any reproduction, even for home use infringes the viability of the product.

With regards quoting the LRB, it is covered by the laws pertaining to published material. These allow copying of parts of a book, magazine article, text from a website etc. so long as what is quoted remains below a certain percentage of the total text. (Dunno the exact percentage though). All material needs to be referenced as well to show the original source. Therefore so long as the LRB is not reproduced in full on a personal website GW shouldn't have a problem, and so long as credit is given even if they did have a problem they couldn't do anything about it.

valedictor wrote:If someone was to use BB miniatures as the basis to create rubber moulds and then produce his own miniature clones, is this act against GW copyright in itself, or would it only become a copyright breach if that person was to go and sell these miniatures to others?

I remember this same discussion took place in GW's boards maybe a year ago. None of the GW staff took part in the conversation however. Anyway, I think this was the outcome of that discussion also, ie. you can make clones of the models you have bought, but only for your own usage. It's a bit like making a backup copy of your purchaged computer application, or audio CD (even though it doesn't make too much sense when it comes to models). There was someone in the discussion who knew quite alot about legal stuff concerning piracy etc, and this was his opinion also.

However, different countries certainly may have different laws about this, so it may not be that simple. The fact that none of the GW staff took part in that conversation could imply that making copies for your own use is legal (they'd rather just shut up about it than telling everyone it's okay). Then again, they didn't take part in too many discussions anyway, so who knows.

You brought up many other issues also, from which I have no clue whatsoever. Compilcated stuff, that's for sure.

the law varries depending upon what country you live in... i'm pretty sure that in the US it's still technically a copyright violation even if you are making them for personal use, whereas in some parts of europe is isn't (or wasn't, i'm not sure how the EU has affected this)...

in the end, it comes down to "who will know?" if you happen to have adequate casting facilities on hand, you can probably spin space marines until your arms fall off and as long as you keep them to yourself, and don't go arounf telling other people about it, no one will know or care....

the likelyhood of ever getting a reputable caster to spin them for you is miniscule, however...

Galak

well said that man...

As someone capable of re-casting any part GW makes, I would say a big no to anyone that wants me to make a whole mini for them.

Now, I have been known to make a bit or 20 for conversions if asked nicely, and I know exactly what they will use them for.

Also, I have had to mak a bunch more balls for the local Blood Bowl players, because they keep losing them.

Generaly, however I limit copying anything to oop bits or cut up parts of minis, like the weapons or banner peices.


As for posting quots from GW copywrited matirial, think of it like a reserch paper that will be publised. Make shure you use quotes, credit the quots, and annotate. It might be helpfull to go get a guide book to writing advanced collage papers and follow it for quoting.


Generaly, puting the you must own the original into a computer program is an attempt to pacify the original companys copywrite lawyers. However, it seldom works if they want to take you out.

As Lucien said, it highly depends about the country you're livin' in... Even if th emost part of firms put copyrights or equivalent stuff in the main countries, under the local law.

IMHO, I think you should make your own mould for your personal use... But not resell it ... the arm is too obvious (you would make them lost sales, if the copies are good, or make them lost their general feedback, if your copies are bad.

It should be interesting i you play warhammer, for your tournaments, or hobby. But with blood bowl, the interest is low, except by selling them (and so IMO being under copyrights law violation): a team isn't identically casted, there are too many players' position to make the deal interesting... But I'm not a caster!

I am not sure about the act of duplication being illegal, but I am sure that you wouldn't really be able to do what you are suggesting.
I worked for Wizards of The Coast in the miniatures foundry that produced all the recent AD&D miniatures and much of the Chainmail miniatures. Typically, to make a mold (for spin casting at least) the miniatures used are made of a much harder metal than that metal used for production. We experimented strictly for the sake of learning and found that if we made a mold using production miniatures as masters, a lot of detail was lost due to the partial melting of the miniature.

I'm pretty familiar with Intellectual property issues, so what I offer is merely information, a restatement of the rules, so to speak. No legal advice is given or warranted.

The rules for copyright, while there are distinctions among jurisdictions, are becoming more streamlined b/c of international conventions. The rules I speak of are the U.S. rules, but their genesis is from British law, so there should be some overlap. However, I am not familiar with british law, and so only the British statutes can tell you exactly how copyright is defined, how infringement is defined, and what liabilities exists for potential infringers.

Generally, though, once one has purchased a copyrighted material, one has the right of personal use. In the U.S., this means you can do what you want with your purchases. If it is miniatures, you can paint them, you can improve them via flocking, these being generally encouraged. But you can also melt them down and make candlesticks, if you want, and you have the right to resell. (such as is done through Ebay, garage sales, etc.). This right is usually, however, asserted only as a defense. Now for my continental friends, there is a qualification called "Moral Rights of the Creator." The creator is, in this instance, not the almighty, but likely to be the corporation that employs the sculptor, the sculptor or molder having assigned his creator's rights to the corporation in exchange for employment. Moral rights dictates that even if you buy the work, you cannot do anything that materially alters the artists' creation. You couldn't buy the mona lisa and add a moustache for a nice improvement. Moral rights are not recognized in the U.S. as of now. As far as your hypothetical of adding "fake" and selling, this wouldn't really protect you, because your intent is to infringe the copyright by making exact copies of the miniatures, and selling on the market. The legal presumption is that you are trying to displace the copyright holder's interest in the market with his own goods that you've wrongfully misappropriated from him. In addition, at least in the U.S., those that encourage or help could be liable via a theory of "inducing infringement." I don't know if this is so in U.K, or if it is under another name. Now, one way around a copyright in the U.S. is through "Parody." Again, not sure if this is accepted in the U.K. But theoretically, one could take a miniature, and make it completely absurd, by making fun of the copyright holder's original work product, and you could get away with this. We see these all the time, i.e., Wierd Al Yankovic is the ultimate example of parody. To qualify, "Parody" must be somewhere on the item. This way around the copyright will likely fail if it is just a replica of the item with "Parody" stamped on it. It has to be intended to make fun of the parodied item.

As to references to the LRB, again, one generally has the right of personal use. House Rules might be qualified as fan fiction, and so long as one isn't selling for profit, these will likely be ok. Fanatic, from what I've seen, expressly encourages this. One may quote from another work, provided due credit is given. Think back to papers in school, or any other work where quotes are given. But you can't plagarize. A webpage with pics and other fanfiction generally seems proper in this context, but the legal status can be tricky. There is something called "derivative works" and the copyright holder, at least in the U.S., (and I think in the Byrne convention, the internationl standard for copyright), the copyright holder has a property interest in these too. So I know some holders go after those who create their own stories with copyrighted characters, (i.e., Paramount is pretty vicious when it comes to individuals using Star Trek characters in new stories posted on the net). I wouldn't be suprised if Fanatic/GW went after someone who usurped Bob and Jim and put them in a new story. There are alot of arguments that could go both ways.

Finally, as to submitting ideas to the company, this can be contentious. Cases upon cases abound in which individuals make suggestions to companies, and when companies use the ideas, and not pay for them, suits ensue. Generally, because these ideas are submitted uncopyrighted, or if they are mechanisms, unpatented, it is like giving the company a free give away, and whether one is compensated or not depends upon the discretion of the company, which, I'm sure most will not be surprised, usually decline to offer money for the generous idea.

Whew! Hope that helps with information. Again, jurisdicitons will differ as to time of protection (highly contentious in our Supreme Court this term in the U.S.), scope, and liabilities. But the general rules, if I remember correctly, are generally these.