GW Takes Ghamak To Court!

[nightrunner 11450xp 3]

Hi everyone,

After reading @somegeezer ‘s post on GW’s IP claim on Kev Adam’s Space Orcs, I thought it would be a good idea to bring attention to the fact that GW has taken Ghamak to court for ‘unfair competion’ by creating STL files that are being used in their games.

I swear this company has no shame.  In my country we say that people like this have their face covered in sh*t!

Personally, I will support GW as little as possible going forward.  I will keep what I have but spend my money elsewhere.  My friends and I will be starting Horus Heresy next year, but we will not be using GW rules, and where possible I will use Ghamak miniatures, especially for my Imperial forces.

If you can help Ghamak out in this fight against the Evil Overlord, please do.  On Esty there are many licensed companies that sell and print 3D Ghamak models.  Buying a couple will go a long way to help him out.

[solar 2845xp 0]

I buy GW minis but ethically as a company they are awful and have been for some time. They are also on the one hand a massive contributor to the hobby through their IP and reach but on the other hand id argue they are also a cause of stagnation and destruction of smaller creators, perhaps wargaming in some ways would be more healthy if GW were not so dominant

[somegeezer 18480xp 3]

I wasn’t familiar with Ghamak but IMO he’s not ripping off GW – not copying their models, merely using a similar aesthetic. This could be the start of another crusade against 3d designers.

Shame on them

[blinky465 17175xp 3]

As an early adopter of (resin) 3d printing, I’ve followed Ghamak for a long time.
In the early days of expansion (as it became a group of sculptors working under a single banner) there was some controversy about (some of them) stealing other peoples parts and incorporating them into their own designs (which the main guy behind Ghamak denied for a long time, then finally admitted). So some people have always looked down on Ghamak a little bit.

Before the 3d printing market got totally saturated, he (the original sculptor) was knocking out some pretty decent GW-adjacent stuff. As the team expanded, quality control was “variable” at best. Sometimes it was very, very close to GW. Sometimes – and in more recent years especially – it was generic enough to see the influence but not be a direct copy.

But, tbh, there are plenty other  sculptors out there, creating “better” miniatures that are more “in the style” of GW.
Ghamak has been surpassed in sculpting quality a long time ago – at least, specifically, their 40k stuff – and their (40k style) miniatures feel almost dated these days (last time I looked, he appeared to have pivoted more towards 30k anyway?).

I’m surprised that, after all this time, GW have decided to go after one of the early sculptors who, although he has a large back catalogue of work, is now one of the least-GW-like-in-style sculptors out there.

I’d be both very surprised and very disappointed if GW win this particular case.
I’ve chipped in – even though I don’t particularly rate Ghamak’s models any more.
(there’s no need for a link, just Google “Ghamak GW” if you also want to join in)

It really does feel like GW know they haven’t got a case here, but are using litigation and the threat of trying to bankrupt someone through the courts in order to shut them down.

I’ve been done with GW for a long time now.
If I wasn’t, I think this would be the final nail for me.

[blinky465 17175xp 1]

@solar – curious as to why you both recognise that GW are awful, and still buy stuff from them?

Is it the Amazon effect? (I hate everything Evil Jeff stands for, but still love the convenience of being able to go click-click and get hobby junk delivered to my door by the next day). Is it just convenience?

Or are there ranges that you just can’t find proxies for from other creators?
Or is it the hassle of 3d printing and handling all the nasty sticky resin that puts you off 3d printing?

No criticism or judgement here.
I’m genuinely intrigued as to why people don’t just sink the cost of a couple of GW-boxed sets into a 3d resin printer to access an entire world of alternative minis, or buy ready-printed (and, let’s be honest, much cheaper) alternatives from stores like ebay or etsy.

Is it convenience?
It can’t be cost!
Is it just that GW genuinely make the most interesting minis and everyone else is still playing catch up?

 

[Lazagram 48xp 1]

Me – Finding it hard to stomach the price rises and the recent harsher stance on many community creators across all formats. (Based, I suspect, in part on the recent fake GW 3D models leak, leaving them feeling slightly burned and a little spicy. Or Bored Legal Department even worse.)

Also Me –

[waywarddarkwolf 1223xp 0]

GW are no strangers to this type of tactic. IMO they bring actions like this not to necessarily win, but to bully small creators out of business and maintain their monopoly. GW have millions to spend on legal resources. I dare say Ghamak has nothing to spend on his legal defence. Faced with a few years of legal wrangling at the cost of at least tens of thousands and combined with the inevitable ultimatum from GW – go away now and it will all stop –  most creators would crumble and quit. Its a practice GW has used many times over the years and has worked well to their advantage.

You just have to look at the lawsuit they brought earlier this year in Florida against nearly 300 online sellers, many of whom should never have been targeted. GW had all the defendant’s assets frozen, effectively preventing them from trading. As a result many of them ended up either having their business damaged or going out of business altogether. Then GW ended up quietly dropping many of the cases against companies who had be “incorrectly targeted”. A vey effective and totally legal way of shutting down the competition.

[pagan8th 13126xp 2]

Big companys always to control the market to increase their profits. I’m not just talking GW, I mean in general.

They don’t see others as ‘healthy competition’ that forces them to improve.

They see them as rivals taking a slice from their profits.

Rich people always want to have more. It’s their way of judging their worth. More money = more important.

If a working class person wins a million they retire. Rich person get 100 million and wants 200 million.

[grantinvanman 5718xp 1]

[grantinvanman 5718xp 2]

I’ll add this: I painted three Falcon/Wave Serpents earlier this year for my Harlequin commission. One of the three was a real GW model, two were 3D prints. The prints were SO CLOSE, you can only tell minute differences.

You be the judge:

Finished! Gems done. On to troupers…

Now, at the time, GW was sold out of the new combined Wave Serpent/Falcon kit. Had been for a while. Also sold out of many models. This has been a LONG STANDING issue with GW. The demand is so high, their supply chain so poor, that 3D prints are filling the void.

[blinky465 17175xp 3]

@grantinvanman – I think this is a big part of it now; the difference between a print-at-home 3d resin mini and a “genuine” plastic mini is almost imperceptible. You have to look really hard, and know what you’re looking for, to tell them apart these days.

For me, it’s not even about “filling the gaps”.
There are some great creators out there (many of whom actually worked/contracted for GW in the past) who are creating some amazing alternative-but-recognisable alternatives to GW established characters.

There are some sculptors on myminifactory and Patreon and Cults3d who are straight up ripping off GW designs.
I can understand GW shutting those down. Breach of copyright and, more likely, “passing off” means buyers might genuinely be confused between “rogue” and “genuine” miniatures.

But creators who are creating generic-similar-but-different-enough-to-tell-the-difference miniatures should be safe from this kind of litigation. It’s encouraging to hear that – so far – these platforms have also resisted GW pushing too hard to get anything and everything banned (though they have also complied, where GW has a legitimate complaint).

There are lots (and lots) of poor quality GW proxies on sites like myminifactory and Patreon.
But there are also some incredible creators, producing stuff at least as good as GW out there, and I’m all for supporting the little indie teams (some, it turns out, not so little either!)

Some are even now “coming after” GW themselves – creating their own worlds and lore. Check out One Page Rules.
They’re going full-on with their own ecosystem – no longer is their stuff GW-adjacent; it stands up on its own, as an entire, new (and complete) gaming system. You don’t play GW Kill Team with OPR minis. And you don’t play OPR Firefight with GW minis. You play OPR Firefight, in the OPR world, following OPR lore, with OPR minis.

Maybe this (and the recent “leak” of thousands of GW minis onto Telegram) is what has got GW so riled up at the minute.
I don’t think GW can keep fighting it.
They need to accept that print-at-home digital files are important for the future of the hobby and join in.
Or they need to shut down every single outlet for GW-alike-STLs.
And so far, the crazy fools look like they’re going to try exhausting the latter option first.
By which time, they may well lose so much goodwill and customer loyalty that by the time they implement the former, they’ll be almost irrelevant in their field. Like the AOL of tabletop gaming – a massive behemoth of their day, that simply failed to keep up.

[grantinvanman 5718xp 1]

@blinky465 – I absolutely agree – the stuff coming out is so good ; apart from the resin not being cured properly (someone rushed), luckily I knew how to cure it, the models were so close. If you look in the photo in the link, the far right is the only real GW model. The intakes stand out as smaller on the prints, but other details … so minute.

GW is like playing whack-a-mole, and not doing themselves any favours, despite I do understand trying to protect IP. It’s just too far gone – in my opinion – for GW to stop it.

 

[frankelee 1475xp 0]

The ironic thing is GW’s suing a guy for making somewhat similar models, when a lot of 3D printers are getting their stl models straight from the source. At least with Chapterhouse they were pursuing a means to actually tamp down on an entire 3rd party industry, as people know they actually won on quite a few of their accusations but lost the war, which is why they treated the whole affair as a loss. Suing Ghamak in Italy isn’t going to tamp down on the industry even if they win a total victory in court. And it’s going to do less than nothing in terms of stopping scanners, though I can’t wait to see their legal teams hop on that plane to China and Russia to try.

[redscope]

I sub to Ghamak tribe monthly but I am not a moron when it comes to understanding his business is ripping off models from GW design. Not sure how anyone can be outraged at GW taking legal action against him when near 90% of his models are clearly ripped straight out of the GW catalogue with either zero or minor changes.

I take this position not because it is GW but you cannot go just ripping off other companies designs like that and expect to get away with it. It is not legal in law to do so hence why GW are taking him to court. That needs to be true of any hobby company big or small if they cannot protect their designs they dont exist as a business. That also should apply to other 3D printing companies. It has to be the same law for everyone companies big or small.

They are hitting him with unfair competition by claiming his whole business is based on  intellectual property infringement. It is not just 1 or 2 models but 100’s its basically near all he does as a business. Just look at his website and compare the models to GW. Anyone seriously going to sugget they dont have a case against him ?

The law covers an number aspects to protect other business and IP is listed in some those cases. The two likely GW are going to be using are :-

Passing off: Misrepresenting one’s goods or services as being those of another business to take advantage of their reputation and goodwill.

or they may have a case for

Counterfeiting of trademarks or other distinctive signs is sanctioned with imprisonment of six-months to three-years and a fine of 2,500 to 25,000 EUR

The claim is likely to be the business as a whole is based on using GW IP. This is not some copyright strike. Clearly Ghamak seems to believe this is some youtube copyright strike style. That they have to provide him with details of the models to be removed.

He is running a business in the EU / Italy and has to run that within EU laws and is subject to them. He clearly does not understand how serious this is. He needs to get a commerical lawyer pretty damn quick and wise up the reality.

He knows fully well what he has been doing. He just expected GW will file a civil IP claim against him. He removes those models and keeps getting away with it. We all know 100% what the game is here. I get we all want cheaper minis to print that match GW designs but we have to accept illegal to do so. He cannot expect to run a business ripping of other companies IP nobody should be able to.

Ghamak has franky in my view not got a snowballs chance in hell of winning this case and I dont think that is a bad thing.

Companies can make a lot of new exciting IP designed models which are unique to them without the whole scale ripping off of other companies.

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by redscope.

[blinky465 17175xp 0]

@Redscope – I’m not entirely sure that his entire business model is “ripping off GW designs”.
In his early days, he was very, very close to doing exactly this.
And I think even he (and his band of collaborators) acknowledge this, when he talks about identifying about 30% of his catalogue. 1 in 3 is a lot. But it’s not his entire output for the last 5 years or so.

Looking through his entire back catalogue on MyMinifactory, it’s absolutely without doubt that his designs are heavily influenced by 40k

But a heavily-armoured-futuristic-space-soldier is always going to look like a Space Marine.
There are skull motifs everywhere (which feature very heavily in GW minis) and oversized shoulder-pads and a big fist and a massive sword with a chainsaw on it…. it looks like and is heavily inspired by a Space Marine.

But it’s not a GW/40K Space Marine.

GW have, in recent years, gone out of their way to make their IP different enough from the sources that they initially ripped off (Orc/Orruks, Elves/Aelves anyone) and it’s only right that if they want to protect their IP, it needs to be unique and not a re-hash of someone else’s work, and different enough to be distinguishable. Which they’ve done.

But it looks like Ghamak has done the same – his Space Marines don’t have blood-drops-with-wings on them, or eagles on the chests or fists-in-a-circle embossed onto the shoulder pads. The initial influence is still clearly visible – in the same way nobody can deny that Space Marines and Genestealers are basically just board game variants of the file Alien/s.

How close to the original influence do you need to get before you’re “passing off” ?
In some of his early designs, I agree that Ghamak was literally re-creating GW designs and selling them as alternative poses for GW miniatures. But I don’t think that’s the case any more.
And for those items that do infringe on someone else’s IP, he should remove them from his catalogue (which he has offered to do). The big problem with this particular lawsuit is that GW has insisted that he just shuts up shop and removes everything he (and his collaborators) have ever created because it’s “unfair competition”.

And that’s not right.

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