Ghamak raising a GoFundMe for legal defence against GW lawsuit

[Orange Knight]

1 minute ago, Silas7 said:

Has anyone heard of other model companies having legal disputes like this?

 

That's the wrong way of looking at it.
 

GW are the biggest model company with the most sought-after range of models. By virtue of this, their stuff will be the most copied and infringed upon in the miniature wargaming space.

[Matcap86]

25 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

As has been repeated ad nauseam at this point, unfair competition has a legal definition in Italian court and the GW legal team appear to be operating within those confines, regardless of whether people agree to them doing so or otherwise.

 

Isn't that just because they're sueing someone that's based in Italy? 

[Mogger351]

3 minutes ago, Matcap86 said:

 

Isn't that just because they're sueing someone that's based in Italy? 

Yes, but people see "unfair competition" and apply all sorts of subjective colloquial interpretations of the words.

Edited 10 hours ago by Mogger351

[Matcap86]

1 minute ago, Mogger351 said:

Yes, but people see "unfair competition" and apply all sorts of subjective colloquial interpretations of the word.

Oh yeah totally agree on that one. The wording made me think you implied it was a tactical move by GW to specifically sue someone in Italian jurisdiction. Just a misread on my end. 

Edited 10 hours ago by Matcap86

[Mazer Rackham]

15 minutes ago, Silas7 said:

Because an algorithm is trained on peoples data, of course it isn't going to show you pictures of rocks because no one is using rocks; the point being that it's so broad anything could be used as a physical substitute.

 

Er....I feel pretty attacked, here. 

 

Edited 10 hours ago by Mazer Rackham

[SvenIronhand]

5 hours ago, Osteoclast said:

Wonder how many of the “AI art is theft!” people are defending these sort of knockoffs. 

The same people who benefit from AI art benefit from intellectual property.

[Pacific81]

11 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

Because it is. GW's existence or even success is not threatened by Ghamak. They do not stand to lose out by simply leaving him be. The only reason they're doing this is if they succeed they stand to gain the ability to monopolize the entire 28mm tabletop market. That is not a good thing. Maybe you like the idea of GW being able to do that. I don't.

 

This is my worry from this, that it will be a litmus test for further monopolisation. Which will benefit no-one but GW shareholders.

 

Quite interesting to see that I think the broader support is for GW over Ghamak. I remember it was very similar in the Chapterhouse case; in that instance some of Chapterhouse's minis were very obvious direct copies of GW minis, I would say much more so than anything from Ghamak.

Where I think then public opinion began to sway was when info on the GW legal challenge (about ownership of things like skulls and halberds) came out into the open, which was patently absurd.

 

It will be interesting if GW's legal challenge in this case is more focussed. If we end up with Bob Naismith (main creator of the space marine) getting called to the stands again and saying, sorry GW, it was based off of WW1 infantrymen..

[Norman Paperman]

Having taken my first ever glance at Ghamak's models, some of them are pretty clearly outright ripping off GW models. On their own webpage, the biggest model in the top left is extremely easily understood as Chaos Knight. Flipping through their webstore, plenty of other stuff is an outright knock-off, while other material (such as some Samurai) is fairly easily generic enough that GW would have no standing for a claim on it.

 

At the end of the day, some of this stuff isn't really any different than what we'd understand as cheap Chinese knockoffs. Get your Niké shoes for $15! That you can manufacture them in your own home doesn't really make much of a difference. I'm not a lawyer with any sort of understanding on intellectual property, but all of this Warhammer 3D printing stuff is very obviously a grey market by design. It generally tries to operate within the laws and fly as close to the sun as possible, but the simple fact that we're talking about it on this website in the context of 40K shows how it is actually used. If people weren't using these models as 40K proxies, it wouldn't be an issue here. 

 

As long as there are market juggernauts like GW, there will be grey markets that try to nibble at pieces of the pie. Players want cheap alternatives and businesses like Ghamak want to make a living in the grey zone. If Ghamak gets sued out of business, GW will eventually go after the next one in an endless game of whackamole. But at the end of the day, I think the argument of how these miniatures don't take anything from GW is demonstrably false. People print these because they don't want to pay full price for a Chaos Knight. Dang dude, I ain't buying Knights either, and losing a few purchases from one customer isn't going to sink GW, especially a customer who can't afford to pay their prices, but I also think that people need to be honest about what the grey market is. I don't blame GW for whacking this mole and I don't blame people for printing proxies. 

 

Copyrighting imagery like bulky soldiers, skulls, or guns isn't really ever going to go further than other public domain copyrights like Taco Tuesday or "you're fired!". Again, not a lawyer, but I expect discussion about skulls, guns, and big soldiers is about trying to draw a circle around what a Space Marine is without just pointing at one. 

[TheVoidDragon]

3 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

All I'll say is that in my experience situations like this are rarely as one sided or as black and white as one party might present them.

 

 

 

This seems to usually be the case, but many act otherwise and try and make out it's always just "EVIL GW" who never have any grounds to do something, and even if they do, they're still wrong no matter what. They aren't some perfect company by any means, but neither are they this ultimate bad guy that some try and claim they are. The past few "gw bad" situations like this that I can recall had more to them than initially presented, but you don't see anyone who jumped on that bandwagon even consider that and decide to wait for the facts next time, they either find some absurd reason to make out that that doesn't matter and dismiss it, or yet again eagerly go straight to making out they're 100% in the wrong with no proof needed and no further thought required the next time something happens. 

 

It comes across as a nonsensical irrational contempt when it's saying things that come across as "I don't care who's right or wrong, GW are the bad guys regardless" or "I refuse to even consider GW might have a legit reason, how dare you disagree and defend them?!" because they aren't bothered about what's really going on, it's just looking to spout that disdain towards them without a care to if it's actually justified or not. 

 

if someone wants to criticize and call out the bad things that happen, then whether or not it's actually something that's as claimed is a pretty significant factor. Just parroting a stance that they're always in the wrong automatically, that anyone/anything saying otherwise is also wrong for daring to even suggest GW aren't, and claiming the facts don't matter all kind of weakens what's being said as it shows it's not sincere at all rather just blind scorn. It kind of invalidates the point and somewhat comes across as disingenuous really.

 

Edited 7 hours ago by TheVoidDragon

[phandaal]

1 hour ago, Pacific81 said:

Quite interesting to see that I think the broader support is for GW over Ghamak.

 

Agreed. Also not too surprising. B&C is a 40k board for Warhammer fans. This is where you would expect to see more benefit of the doubt for Games Workshop.

 

What is also interesting and also not surprising is the opposite reaction on pretty much any 3D printing or general sci-fi wargaming board/discord. The reaction in those places ranges from "darn, hope Ghamak comes through" to "sons of es must pay!" There is as always a strong desire to see Games Workshop hoisted with their own petard.

 

Ghamak also seems to be getting support from other proxy makers who (rightly) view this as a threat that will hit them next.

 

I am interested to see where this all goes. Likely with some kind of settlement, and Ghamak further modifying some of his kits to be even more different than what they are supposed to proxy.

[sairence]

15 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

"Economic damage" is such an incredibly vague and loose term that it holds zero weight. GW cause economic damage to themselves by making poor decisions that drive away customers- are you suggesting GW should file lawsuits against individuals within their company responsible for poor decisions that contribute to this?

 

Bit late to the party, but I'm pretty sure your scenario falls under fidcuiary responsibility. 

 

GW shareholders can absolutely sue the company, or the management board, if they believe that decisions taken led to a loss in value of the share price. This goes for any publicly traded company.

 

This may even go so far that GW could get sued by shareholders if the company doesn't actively protects its business and IP against infringement, copy cats, whatever you want to call it.

 

On another note, a lot of people here talk about the dangers of precedent setting.

 

The case is handled in an Italian court. Italy, to my knowledge operates under civil law, unlike the UK or US, which operate under case law.

 

It's been a long time since my Intro to Econ Law classes, but in my memory civil law cares much less about precedent. Each law suit has to be argued on the merits of the civil code it's based on. Whereas in case law it's a lot more about "because Silly Buggers vs Clowns et al was deciced this way, my law suit now should have the same outcome." So I'm not majorly concerned about precedent myself.

 

I may be misremembering stuff here of course, happy to be corrected.

 

Regardless of all that...there's a lot of handwringing and definitive opinions going on for a situation where no one seems to have seem the actual details of the law suit (or if there even is one filed yet??). And for which there is information only from one source, which is incidentally asking for money.

 

Bit odd, that.

[DemonGSides]

It is pretty funny that a poorly editted GoFundMe is all it takes to rile up some people.

Edited 7 hours ago by DemonGSides

[Focslain]

After seeing the large amount of kits Ghamak has ripped. I'm holding until we seeing an actually filing. This entire situation smells fowl and not from the megacorp side for once.

 

Let's see what happens and wait for another source to add in to at least confirm some of what he has said.

[AenarIT]

We'll see how it ends up in due time. 
But for certain:

- if GW wins, Ghamak will probably go out of business and the other sculptors will be much more worried about touching anything GW-related;
- if GW does not win, or not decisively at least, it could mean third party sculptors can continue doing what they do nowadays (similar proxies with some differences here and there). But more importantly GW could go ham on making the games more "closed", by trying to impose restrictions on TOs, stores, ...

 

I really don't see how they can get a big win out of this, though.
They're trying to pick a fight they can't really win, since it's not just Ghamak but the whole 3d printing ecosystem that is a (partial) threat to their own business.
If people settle for a proxy because they don't want or can't afford to buy an original kit, trying to put some of the proxy sculptors out of business does not really solve the underlying problem that sees customers flocking to 3d printing.

[TheMawr]

1 hour ago, Silas7 said:

 Has anyone heard of other model companies having legal disputes like this?

 

Not filing this response into any argument or side of the topic at hand, just to answer that question in a vacuum.

 

Yes, I know of several. Small companies among each other, sometimes one bigger and one smaller. 

Usually it doesnt go further than C&D equivalents, sometimes deals are made. Suddenly you see part of range Y under the branch of company X as customer, sometimes there have been disputes in the background in those cases, naturally not always. But most of those things remain in a need-to-know basis.

 

Its a competitive market among each other as well, its not just GW vs the rest of them, its mostly friendly, but there are some bad apples and also some unfortunate coincedence situations that needed resolving. However, most of the time,  these come and go silently in the background. 

 

The market has likely changed since I last had any "inside info" though. We are talking handsculpted metal miniatures golden age. When CAD resin miniatures spread out beyond france, my client catalogue in the miniature games was already smaller as I had moved to bigger commissions in boardgames and computergames.  and this was long before the 3d printing/stl era.  But I see no reason why there wouldnt be any small company vs small company disputes anymore. As any of the possible underlying reasons havent changed.
 

GW ofcourse also changed alot since then too. ( I dont think "just make sure to pretend its for your own game to ease legal department" is an advice that would come from them nowadays, though I did hear that one third hand, so I dont know if this really was GWs exact stance. )

 

But ( and this part is slightly more relevant to the topic.) a general consensus I remember very well back then by many proxy makers was, you will be fine as long as you "dont touch spacemarines".. coincidentally, all the bigger cases I can think of did touch spacemarines.

 

[Bryan Blaire]

Even if GW wins a case in Italy (if there even is an actual lawsuit filed here, and not still wrangling through letters, etc., instead), then it will only apply insofar as Italian trial results impact the wider legal realm.

 

A win may certainly be looked to by other EU member countries’ legal systems as a basis of legal interpretation or even a decision they must abide by, depending on how the legal recognition as precedent setting works throughout the EU.

 

A win in Italy is likely meaningless from a precedent setting standpoint in other jurisdictions, such as Russia, China, the U.S., or Madagascar, unless those jurisdictions already have some recognition of precedent for legal cases determined outside the jurisdiction.

 

The legal standing of what GW actually sues over (again, if there even is a suit) may not even have corresponding legal ground/statute to be used in other jurisdictions, so a win may have no standing at all. Within the United States itself, the “unfair competition” statutes vary from state to state, so a win under California’s more broad laws may have no or limited corresponding impact on business dealings in Kansas, New York, Washington state, or Florida, because it will depend on what the actual arguments made turn out to be and their applicability under the law in each jurisdiction that deals in precedent/case law. To get things to stick nationally in the U.S., you typically have to win under a statute that is widely recognized as similar in all states such that precedent would apply (if not, you often end up filing suit with variations on the issues/arguments in multiple jurisdictions), specifically subject to reciprocity between states, or in a federal court under a federal statute.

 

The devil is truly in the details here, and we have very few of them, and even when we have them, it will still be up to GW to argue for their view, and Ghamak to argue against it, and an Italian judge will determine the validity of the claims.

 

What I know right now means I can’t throw my weight in behind either party, because I don’t even really know what they are  arguing about or how - the GoFundMe doesn’t provide enough clarity into what is actually happening and what the legal claims are, so I can’t toss my own funds into that fight.

 

Other people’s mileage will vary and I support any Frater’s right to support those they feel called to do that for.

 

I don’t think there’s much good done by arguing over case merits when we don’t even know what the true legal case is.

Edited 6 hours ago by Bryan Blaire

[Focslain]

21 minutes ago, AenarIT said:

But more importantly GW could go ham on making the games more "closed", by trying to impose restrictions on TOs,

They already do this for GW sponsored Tournaments. Models have to be from their range or have most of their parts from GW kits. Same goes for their stores. So that won't change anything. 

[Dr. Clock]

EDIT - draft posted accidentally when my coffee exploded on my laptop.

Edited 6 hours ago by Dr. Clock

[Mogger351]

I think if people want to see an end to both sides of the discussion they should immediately discontinue 40k. A good chunk of the 3d printer market would die overnight and GW would be crippled. Then everyone can be equally let down.

[phandaal]

5 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

I think if people want to see an end to both sides of the discussion they should immediately discontinue 40k. A good chunk of the 3d printer market would die overnight and GW would be crippled. Then everyone can be equally let down.

 

Ha! What if I print myself a new hobby?

 

Checkmate, Corpos.

[MoriyaSchism]

13 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

I think if people want to see an end to both sides of the discussion they should immediately discontinue 40k. A good chunk of the 3d printer market would die overnight and GW would be crippled. Then everyone can be equally let down.

Would that really end Warhammer 40K as a hobby? Lack of official support certainly didn't kill Inquisitor, Necromunda or Mordheim back in the day. Sure it would be smaller and a lot of things out there would scale down, but I feel Warhammer as a thing could possibly outlive Games Workshop. Don't get me wrong I'm not calling for the dismantling of Games Workshop or the Warhammer intellectual property, I'm just saying that plenty of "dead" games and systems have some semblance of a fanbase out there. 

[AvePicante]

17 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

I think if people want to see an end to both sides of the discussion they should immediately discontinue 40k.

 

*Monkey's Paw curls* 40k End Times starts, Age of the Emperor releases instead of 11th edition

[Dried]

I don't know for Italy but in France we have a "parasitism" law which fall under Unfair Competition too:
 

Quote

Parasitic competition consists of following in the footsteps of a competitor. It is constituted when a company tries to divert to its profit the notoriety or the efforts and investments of its competitor, without untying its purse. Such behavior may be reflected in practice, for example, by the use of packaging that is identical or very similar to the packaging used by a leading competitor.

And more especially in this case:
 

Quote

In a recent case, the French Court affirmed that marketing an entire range of products designed to imitate a competitor’s can constitute acts of both unfair competition and parasitism. These acts are distinct from infringement, particularly when deliberate efforts create a likelihood of confusion for consumers. This decision highlights the courts’ focus on the “effect of range”, where the imitation of an entire line magnifies the competitive harm.

Victims of such practices now have dual recourse—an action for infringement alongside unfair competition claims—provided they can establish distinct facts supporting each claim. This dual strategy strengthens the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

https://www.dreyfus.fr/en/2025/01/21/unfair-competition-and-parasitism-developments-in-case-law/

I don't know Italian law, but I suppose it's quite similar, and clearly Ghamak copying entire ranges of GW armies doing the same would fall under this imho.

[Mogger351]

2 minutes ago, MoriyaSchism said:

Would that really end Warhammer 40K as a hobby? Lack of official support certainly didn't kill Inquisitor, Necromunda or Mordheim back in the day. Sure it would be smaller and a lot of things out there would scale down, but I feel Warhammer as a thing could possibly outlive Games Workshop. Don't get me wrong I'm not calling for the dismantling of Games Workshop or the Warhammer intellectual property, I'm just saying that plenty of "dead" games and systems have some semblance of a fanbase out there. 

Not completely, no. But people like Ghamak and many other creators who's business is built off people buying not-40k would probably dry up to only a few small individual creators. GW would have to reconsider what they did and find a new product or alternate way to apply the setting.

 

It's a very round about way of trying to higlight that the 3d artists sort of need GW to survive in the first place a the bulk of their income will depend on siphoning GW revenue.

 

Which is why GW are in the position of challenging it in the first place, it's also why when people bang on about the death of 40k or GW via 3d printing, they often haven't really considered the fact they got into 3d printing because of GW quite often.

[Wispy]

4 hours ago, Silas7 said:

Because an algorithm is trained on peoples data, of course it isn't going to show you pictures of rocks because no one is using rocks; the point being that it's so broad anything could be used as a physical substitute.

All I know is that greed is involved; Has anyone heard of other model companies having legal disputes like this?

Someone is using "Space Marine Leviathan dreadnought" keywords to sell Ghamaks models as if they are official and offering them as the first result. There should be no keyword associating a GW product with Ghamaks if this was above the line.  a problem for any product maker would sue over and would actually put GW in the Gucci protection knock off territory that this law is designed to protect.