Reply To: GW Takes Ghamak To Court!

[limburger 22339xp 0]

I’d say part of the problem here is that :
(a) he is selling digital products instead of physical ones
(b) laws have yet to adapt to that concept which creates loopholes for both sides to abuse …

Part of what probably helped the ALDI case was that you had to physically walk into that store and buy the product.
You were therefor acutely aware that you weren’t buying a fancy high end cake, but an imitation.

That sort of thing is not as obvious with a digital good being sold on a digital market place.

And while he may avoid mentioning GW or related trademarks. The issue is that once he sells those STL’s he can’t prevent others from re-selling them as GW models. It also is real easy to remove any traces of the original creator from such files, compared to actual physical items.

You have to be pretty blind to not see that this guy is attempting to see how far he can push the legality of the product he is producing. As such GW have every right to want to stop him from doing so.

To me there are two dangerous aspects of this situation :
– how much creative freedom do creators really have and where does one draw the line between honest inspiration and malicious infringing ? This is something that is likely to be along the lines of “is it porn or is it art ?” and very difficult to nail down as the intent and experience of the consumer need not always be the same. An answer to this question is needed, but the amount of grey area it creates (or doesn’t allow for) is what is going to cause problems down the line as it could affect companies like Mantic who happen to create minis for things that are similar to but never meant to be related to concepts that GW has.

– what unintended consequences will flow from the legal tactics that GW has chosen to use ?
Will this expand to situations where anything that a corporation deems a threat to its business to be an acceptable target instead of regular competition ?

What I really don’t want to happen is for 3D printing to start enforcing DRM. It’s bad enough that printers/copiers have had to be re-designed to stop them from literally printing money.
a 3D printer that can only print ‘approved’ designs is a terrible concept.