zuzul said:

I disagree. We NEED more action cards, more careers, more career special abilities and more talents, and those don't need to be picked randomly, and therefore don't need the exact same back as the original cards. More criticals and miscasts would be nice, but is not nearly as necessary as actions and careers.

Besides, if you want your new criticals and miscasts to be indistinguishable, you'll have to print them on the same card stock as the official ones. Otherwise you'll immediately notice the different texture, the lack different shine, etc.

mcv said:

I agree on this one. (would add "more group templates", but that I think was included in the thought.) For these cards it would be enough to get the same general "feel" on the card and not use any of the FFG Art.

I hope they allow to use the icons of the dice and the icons used on the cards for the Action Type and general icons from the Warhammer FRP like signs of the gods and so on.

vendolis said:

To the best of my knowledge, they have yet to ask any of us who have used the icons in freely published modules/content to take them down. It's only been stuff containing use of art assets.

HedgeWizard said:

I am not sure how much they are covered by copyright. Or if they are protected as specific trade marks like the signs of Magic that WotC registered. At least to describe dice rolls this should be no problem at all and not a infringement of any kind. As it come to the action types, the icons are so general 8cept the book with sigmar sign and the flame ball) that they will have a hard time to argue the creative process of the icons used.

I think there will be no discussion that any direct art taken fromt he card is a infringement. With art I mean any picture, background and graphical element that is no sign or text. Even the wood texture or the parchment texture, even the red and green top of the card are, if scanned might be a infringement. Definitly a no-go are the backsides of the cards they contain just art, so you can not use that. Well they can still give us limited permissions to use part of the art, what I hope they will do. Not the pictures but the background art.

It gets intesting when it comes to the card layout. Which means the general structure of the card. If I recreate the card using just areas that are colored close to the original color and are arranged like the original card. Do I have a problem with that? I would guess not, but not sure.

I hope they soon make a statement to this.

Till then I will try to make a SE plugin without any of the art and only recreating the cards using minimal coloring and the symbols. Might look for some CC-by licensed stuff to beef them up a little. Sadly I only have an older version of the SE plugin that did not have all the cards in it. Realy like to keep the programming of it. Not yet worked with SE so I have to take a look at the file structure first how to exchange the graphics.

hope there will be a way at some point to create nice looking cards for the game, since two friends already said that they will definitly not buy this game because of the cards as a limited and moneymaking rescource. They are burned by MtG and dont touch games that are 'collectable' of any kind (means you need two of the same boxes to play for real or add another person).

macd21 said:

Really? WotC protects their IP as much as GW? So this is why if you are a member of DDI you can download and use any piece of art? Their ENTIRE art gallery is available for use and download from their website.. I don't see GW doing that. I agree that if you made a fan made piece of work and used all wotc art and posted it on RPGdrivethru.com you are probably going to raise eyebrows but I can tell you right now, using generic art in a fan made dnd power card won't bring down the hasbro lawyers upon you, they just understand that it helps them, instead of hurting them, otherwise that gallery would not be available.

GW spends more time, money, and resources policing their own art, than creating new art.

Now, I admit that Magic art is an entirely different beast. That's because there's rengage programs cutting into profits, and the art becomes more than just art, it's the IP representing the card that some people are making illegal copies of. But as I stated before there's a BIG difference between making fan made material and reproducing the exact same content in order to get around people having to own the original content.

There is a problem with the 'Its British Law' case as put forward. If this was the sole reason for more ridged enforcement wouldn't we see the same behaviour from companies like Cubicle-7, Mongoose, Box Ninja, Contested Ground Studios and Triple Ace games?

I believe this is a specific Games Workshop policy and we cannot attribute the decision to UK law. Having said that they are well within their rights to treat their IP any way they choose. I just wish they were more open.

I'm going to hold off on purchasing either the GM Toolkit or the Gathering Storm until I see which way this goes - not because I want to make any sort of statement, but because as a consumer I don't want to be stuck with a product that doesn't have decent fan-base support.

R00kie said:

Care to show where Doctor Who has had its tradedress, art and text directly copied and reprinted in fan supplements? Or where fan-produced pdfs of a/state are which incorporate its artwork and copy/paste from its text?

Not one of those companies has had a direct parallel with the Strange Aeons system and the reproduction of artwork/text within such a product. As such you cannot draw a conclusion based on irrelevant comparisons.

Sinister said:

Exactly. You can download their entire art gallery from their website. You subscribe to DDI and gain access to their IP - they distribute their IP on their terms. Legally this counts as protecting their IP - they've given you permission to use it. They come down hard on anyone who crosses the line. In fact they are probably the most aggressive RPG company when it comes to protecting their IP - GW usually just sends out C&D letters, but I'm not sure they've ever taken anyone to court over it (all bark, no bite).

FFG sent C&D letters to people who were putting up GW IP without permission online. To fail to act would have left GW's control over their IP vulnerable. They lost control of their IP, they stop producing WH40k products and we end up with no game. The fansite guidelines should let fans produce new material without threatening GW's IP.

macd21 said:

Yeah, so you agree that wotc is doing something for their fans while GW is fighting fans. There's a better option. Follow WotC's lead.

Bindlespin said:

That's pretty crazy. I was going to be up there President's day weekend, and hoping that I could pick something up...the two stores around me that carried it JUST closed as well...like just recently. Some of the WH40K guys here are moping and wondering what to do. That's a double whammy.

Evilref said:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/29127/unauthorized-dr-who-ccg

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/36092/dr-who (from 2001 even so it's been...8 years?)

@greylord: I will go to the mall tomorrow and double check for you just to be sure. Maybe Discovery MIlls still has their Games Workshop, it is not too far from here.

I seem to be unable to post in this thread. Is that normal?

Hm, apparently it works now. Here's yet another attempt. Let's hope it works now:

..And i think that is part of the problem, with the current plug in, i could just about re-create every card in the tool kit, and they'd end up looking pretty much like the real thing. Now lets for arguments sake say I use completely new art for action cards, but re-type in all the relevant text.

Who now has copyright on those cards? Me? FFG? GW?

FFG (or possibly GW, depending on their license) owns the text of the official cards. They own the text, not the physical card. If you type that text somewhere else, you're violating their copyright.

Games Workshop is a British company. Their copyrights, intellectual property, and trademarks are registered under UK law, which does NOT have "Fair Use". The closest approximation it has is something called "Fair Dealing", which pretty much covers professional reviews, academic research, and nothing else.

Not true. I'm sure there are subtle differences between Fair Use rules in various countries, but UK Fair Dealing is not particularly restrictive compared to similar rules on other countries, as far as I can tell. Have a look at www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law.

Thus, they have to protect their IP with a degree of vehemence that an American company would not have to resort to. Strange Eons hasn't been shut down because Lovecraft's copyrights are in the USA, and therefore, whoever FFG got the license from is bound by US copyright law and its provisions for fair use.

First of all, "IP" doesn't legally exist. Because it's a government-granted monopoly rather than actual property, but also because copyright and trademarks are two very different things. Copyright is (in almost all jurisdictions, as far as I'm aware) completely automatic, and doesn't need to be protected. Trademarks do need to be protected (the extent varies a lot per jurisdiction, I think), which is why Xerox and Kleenex are now common words in the US (but not in many other countries). For this reason, GW has to protect the names "Warhammer" and "WFRP", but they don't need to actively protect artwork, because that falls under copyright. I'm not sure about logos. I think the actual logo is copyright, but even a different logo can violate trademark if it just looks too much like the original.

I think it's important to remember the legal implications of these things - White Wolf once had to do something similar simply because if they didn't actively protect their copywrited material their claims to it could be declared forfeit.

As far as I'm aware, even in the US, you don't have to sue to protect copyright. And even for trademarks, which have to be explicitly protected, you can also choose to give explicit permission instead. Consider the Second Life/First Life situation. (A guy made a Second Life pardy site called "First Life", and included a link for C&D letters from Linden Labs (the owners of Second Life). Instead, he got an angry letter in which Linden Lab lawyers claimed that contrary to popular belief, some lawyers do have a sense of humor, and since it's a parody, he doesn't need permission from Linden Labs at all. But just to be on the safe side, they granted him permission for his parody site anyway. Linden Labs lawyers are pretty cool.)

It isn't lawful to take copyrighted material and reprint it, however modified you feel it is, without their expressed consent.

Note, though, that they can give that consent, and in the case of useful fan-made material that enhances the value of the game, it would be wise of them to do so.

That's the same crap GW has done with me time and time again. First they remove support for chaos dwarves, then you'd rebuy an rmy like dogs of war, then they discontinued that army, then they enforced low maxium discounts for internet dealers, then they stopped people from selling on the internet altogether, then you had to wait 5 years for an army book like wood elves, then they turned around and published the next edition, just a few months after getting your book for the old edition. Then they refuse to update and sell necromunda, mordhiem, blood bowl, etc. So you have to get the current rules support and find the old game. Then the closed their forums. They are very very good and be a constant pain.

GW is a company that makes amazingly cool games, and then either abandons them, or completely messes them up.