ChapterHouse Studios: Difference between revisions
1d4chan>Dark Angel 2020 |
1d4chan>Dark Angel 2020 |
||
| Line 15: | Line 15: | ||
Games Workshop took out their anger at the ruling on the Tyranids (by stripping out the Mycetic Spores as well as the Doom of Mal'antai and the Parasite of Mortrex, which also had models made for them), and if the renaming of the [[Imperial Guard]] to the far more copyright-friendly "Astra Militarum" (not to mention the removal of several other ICs and units which never had models from their codex) is any indication, GW's lawyers are still bitter about it. (Of course, all of that could have been avoided if they were a little less lazy about giving characters both rules and models, but that would involve too much effort for them.) | Games Workshop took out their anger at the ruling on the Tyranids (by stripping out the Mycetic Spores as well as the Doom of Mal'antai and the Parasite of Mortrex, which also had models made for them), and if the renaming of the [[Imperial Guard]] to the far more copyright-friendly "Astra Militarum" (not to mention the removal of several other ICs and units which never had models from their codex) is any indication, GW's lawyers are still bitter about it. (Of course, all of that could have been avoided if they were a little less lazy about giving characters both rules and models, but that would involve too much effort for them.) | ||
All in all, this is generally a good example of Intellectual Property Law at work: If you want to earn a profit by using someone else's IP, then you have to either have to License it from the owner ''(which GW won't give to competitors)'' or find a way to release original products that the owner has never released or depicted in the same media. | All in all, this is generally a good example of Intellectual Property Law at work: If you want to earn a profit by using someone else's IP, then you have to either have to License it from the owner ''(which GW won't give to competitors)'' or find a way to release original products that the owner has never released or depicted in the same media. Also, if the owner doesn't want to find someone filling a niche they themselves could be filling, then they shouldn't create gaps in their own product range. | ||
[[Category:Publishers]]<!-- Are they really a publisher? Should we make categories for different kinds of companies? --> | [[Category:Publishers]]<!-- Are they really a publisher? Should we make categories for different kinds of companies? --> | ||
Revision as of 14:19, 27 April 2014
 This article is a stub. You can help 1d4chan by expanding it |
 This page is needs images. Help plz. |
| ChapterHouse Studios | ||
|---|---|---|
| Website | http://chapterhousestudios.com/ | |
ChapterHouse Studios is a miniatures company that produces miniatures and bits meant to be used with Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy lines. Rather than dancing around the issue and saying "compatible with major brands of 28mm miniatures (wink, wink)", ChapterHouse's products are directly named and organized by what GW factions and models they're meant to go with.
Lawsuit from Games Workshop
Games Workshop got fed up with this and filed a lawsuit against them when they started making models for units that GW had named in their codexes but not depicted in any art or models, most notably the Tyranids' Mycetic Spore. 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.
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.
Games Workshop took out their anger at the ruling on the Tyranids (by stripping out the Mycetic Spores as well as the Doom of Mal'antai and the Parasite of Mortrex, which also had models made for them), and if the renaming of the Imperial Guard to the far more copyright-friendly "Astra Militarum" (not to mention the removal of several other ICs and units which never had models from their codex) is any indication, GW's lawyers are still bitter about it. (Of course, all of that could have been avoided if they were a little less lazy about giving characters both rules and models, but that would involve too much effort for them.)
All in all, this is generally a good example of Intellectual Property Law at work: If you want to earn a profit by using someone else's IP, then you have to either have to License it from the owner (which GW won't give to competitors) or find a way to release original products that the owner has never released or depicted in the same media. Also, if the owner doesn't want to find someone filling a niche they themselves could be filling, then they shouldn't create gaps in their own product range.