How does copy right work?

[Token]

How does copy right work? Can you make a warhammer game if you dont charge anything for it?

[TheTrans]

They'll ding you if you use any of their artwork, text etc even if you aren't charging for it.

 

Also depends on how 'seen' it is. 

 

Apparently GW can unofficially know about stuff, but of they don't think it's too bad they may just let it kick along. 

 

The issue is if you get a "yes daddy GW **plug glug" white knight who officially reports it, they are then forced to act. 

 

It's a real shame that people schill and report fan-works to a the corporate hobby Overlord, but some humans are weirdly natural sycophants haha. 

 

So broadly no you can't, but you can until you can't haha. 

Edited July 24 by TheTrans

[Valkyrion]

You can't make money from it, or use it in a public setting, or advertise it or market it in any way, or trademark it, or youtube it or instagram it and all the rest of the social media platforms.

 

If you want to call your cat Skreech Verminking there won't be a cease and desist order knocking at your door, but no, you can't make a warhammer game for use outside your own private setting. 

 

Same applies the other way round too. If you wanted to monetise using GW models whilst playing chess, or using AoS models to recreate the Culling of Stratholme from World of Warcraft, then you'd swiftly be told to stop. 

[slitth]

That is a hard legal question to answer. Because there are many overlaps that can only be answered in a court of law.

 

But here is the safe version.

Copyright and trademark apply now matter if a product is sold or given way for free.

So you cannot copy something GW makes and give away for free!! 

 

Now you can make your own rules from scratch and use GW models for it. Because GW cannot tell you what you may use the models for after you have bought them legally.

And you can make your own models from scratch and use them to play Warhammer.

**And by scratch I mean that you have to make sure that is does not take any element from something GW made.

 

Imported note even if you follow the rules and make everything from scratch, you may still be hit by a Copyright claim if someone thinks that your 100% original idea it to close to theirs.

Edited July 24 by slitth

[Xenith]

54 minutes ago, Token said:

Can you make a warhammer game if you dont charge anything for it?

 

Basically (and not being a lawyer) if it's for your own personal use, among friends and family that's fine. But if you advertise it, promote it or try to sell it in any way (even free downloads can be advertisement for the quality of your work) then this doesn't fly. 

 

You'd be better off making a generic space super soldier game. If you want some examples, look at Rebel Moon on Netflix, and notice how that is definitely not a 'Star Wars' film. No way. Absolutely not. 

[Token]

ah, to bad. Been doing some game maker stuff, think it would be cool to do a warhammer 40k game.

Thanks anyways.

Edited July 24 by Token

[Brother Tyler]

https://www.gov.uk/copyright

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Please note, I am not a copy right lawyer, and what knowledge I do have may be out of date and restricted to the Canadian context.  Also note, I use the term "copy right" to also include the term "trade mark" - similar rules apply to both, but there are differences that I don't think are that relevant here.

 

With legal matters (and copy right especially) there are essentially two takes on the law - what you can legally do, and what you can do that won't get you sued.  So, even if what you do falls on the side of the line that is legal, it is often useful to consider whether you could still be sued - litigation is expensive (and risky), and often you have to bare some of that cost even if you win, so it can be the right decision not to do something that might risk litigation.

 

While the various trappings of 40K may be copyrighted (the names of things, the visual identity of models, etc) or trade marked, rules kind of fall outside of that.  Copy right law is fairly clear that you can't have a copy right for a game mechanic (so, you couldn't copy right an "armour save" for example - there was a case a decade or so back where someone tried to copyright the use of a "meaple" (a vaguely person shaped token used in many "euro" style games and other places) and lost) but one can copy right or trade mark a gaming system as a whole.  So, the 40K rules, even divorced of their distinctly 40K elements (so artwork, unit names, and examples showing GW models) would be copy righted.  That said, there would be at some point where, if you were to change the rules, that a court would find that they were not the 40K rules but were their own thing, which wasn't covered by the copy right or trade mark.  Where that line is between GW rules and not-GW rules is, I have no clue - I'm not sure GW does either.  And that uncertainty is highly likely to bring you into the "I'm going to be sued even if its legal" territory.

Edited July 24 by Dr_Ruminahui