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Deathwing

2017-07-29T11:30:14Z

2001:8003:38E4:8100:DC85:D2E1:E74:CE62: Doubling in wounds is irrelevant, as most anti-terminator weapons deal twice as much, if not more, damage.

[[File:Spacehulk_deathwing_final02.jpg‎|right|400px|thumbnail|If Stubbornness had a physical form, then it would've looked like the Deathwings.]]

The '''Deathwing''' is the [[Dark Angels]]' name for their First Company; currently led by [[Belial]]. Unlike the First Companies of [[Codex Astartes]]-compliant Chapters, the Deathwing exclusively fights in bone-white [[Terminator]] armor, and never forms [[Power Armour|power-armored]] [[Veteran Squad]]s.

==Origin==
[[File:SHDeathwing.jpg|left|thumbnail|The Deathwing, back when they had that whole Native American schtick going on.]]
Like the Ravenwing, the Deathwing have a different colour scheme from the rest of the Dark Angels, wearing bone white Terminator armour. Deathwing armour originally retained the black and white colour scheme of the Dark Angels Legion, but according to Chapter legend, a group of Terminators under Captain Ezekiel (birth name Cloud Runner, no relation to the [[Ezekiel|Chief Librarian]]) returned to the Dark Angels ancient recruiting world of Plains World to find that the planet had been overrun by [[genestealer]]s. Rather than subject the planet to [[Exterminatus]], at the urging of Librarian Lucian (real name Two Heads Talking), the Terminators, all natives of Plains World, decided to fight off the genestealers and save the native humans. They proceeded to undergo Plains World's death ritual, where warriors would paint themselves in ashes, but since they didn't have that, they repainted their armour white. Succeeding at the cost of everybody but Captain Ezekiel, the Dark Angels later returned and reclaimed the Terminator, which would be kept white as a remembrance of the Terminators sacrifice.
*The story was written way back in 2nd edition, and doesn't really gel with current 40k canon (especially the parts where 300-year-old veterans are worried about dying of old age). It's also speculated in story that the legend was just made up by the Inner Circle to as a means to prepare the Dark Angels for eventually learning about the Fallen (warriors long gone from their homeworld returning to find outside influences corrupting it bears more than a little similarity to [[Lion El'Jonson]] coming back from the [[Horus Heresy]] to find [[Luther]] had fallen to [[Chaos]]).

==Function and Strength==
They are part of the Dark Angels' Inner Circle, the secretive cabal that hunts the [[Fallen Angels]], members of the Dark Angels Legion who (allegedly) fell to [[Chaos]] during the [[Horus Heresy]] -- in fact, the ''traditional'' way to join the Inner Circle (and thus earn promotion to a [[Brother-Captain|Company Master]], [[Librarian]], or [[Chaplain|Interrogator-Chaplain]]) is to be inducted into the chapter's secrets during their time in the Deathwing. It should be mentioned that [[Azrael]] was inducted directly into the '''Deathwing Knights''' without passing through the "lower" ranks of Deathwing, meaning that there are exceptions.

The [[Ravenwing]] are the exception to the promotion rule, having their own Inner Circle in the Black Knights where their veterans are gathered, taught the truth and from which their new captain is chosen. It also explains how [[Sammael]] became captain without ever donning the old bone white blast suit.

The old 6e Dark Angels codex was sketchy about how many members make up the Deathwing, though heavily implied that it's more than just a "mere" 100.

The newer 7e codex plays with this even more, on one page stating an exact number of squads that the Deathwing is reported to have while openly contradicting that number on other pages; [[Just as Planned|leaving just as much open to debate and assumption...]] The "official" list for 999.M41 denotes twenty regular squads and up to three squads of Deathwing Knights, plus the Command Squad. So if assumed to be at full strength could total around 235+ members, but the book also goes on to state that the <u>true number</u> is a carefully guarded secret and that: ''"as with Deathwing squads"'' the numbers of Deathwing's support assets are deliberately obfuscated to outsiders. By the way, this applies to the Ravenwing and Inner Circle too.

With the fact that each of the Unforgiven chapters also appears to include a similar formation (though under different names) implies that the original Dark Angels Legion had a metric butt-ton of terminator armour lying around that no-one else knew about, which is ''"a luxury few chapters can match"'' and in fact other chapters like the [[Novamarines]] and [[Minotaurs]] are considered exceptional in that they can muster that many suits or Terminator armour for their veterans when the Unforgiven do it as a matter of course. I guess the Lion decided to run off with all the terminator armor because Leman [[Space Wolves#Other Assets|took all the Dreadnoughts and Ships.]]

===Deathwing Knights===
[[File:Deathwing Knight.jpg|right|300px|thumbnail|Fucking Deathwing Knights...]]

You thought normal Deathwings were bad. Oh boy, you do NOT want to meet these badass bro-force into battle, ''ESPECIALLY'' if you are part of the <s>[[Fallen Angels|Fallen]]</s> DISHONORED BATTLE-BROTHERS FROM OTHER DISGRACED CHAPTERS WHO DEFINITELY HAVE NO RELATIONS TO THE DARK ANGELS! AT ALL! YES REALLY!

Deathwing Knights are fierce warriors with ridiculously over-the-top armor that it loops all the way back to [[Awesome]]. These are the elites of the elites who are part of the fighting organization of the Dark Angels and their successors' Deathwing units. It is said that in them lives on some semblance of [[Lion El'Jonson]] himself and they embody his silent strength. These veterans are the most trusted and experienced warriors of the Deathwing and make up the Company's own exclusive Inner Circle, learning the some of the hidden truths of the Unforgiven.

Deathwing Knights are garbed in long robes, hold huge storm shields, and are most commonly armed with Maces of Absolution. The squads are themselves led by a Knight Master, who wields the Flail of the Unforgiven. Deathwing Knights are also frequently accompanied by [[Watchers in the Dark]].

Deathwing Knights are considered as the Dark Angels answer to close combat superiority. As most Dark Angel players should tell you, it is essential to have at least a couple of Deathwing Knights to cover the rear as the rest of your forces spray a unholy amount of [[Dakka]] and plasma from far away.

==Tabletop==
Deathwing Terminators are not very different from Terminators available to Codex Chapters, but are loaded up with a plethora of special rules. The fluff states that very few Dark Angels forces ever travel without being accompanied by at least one squad, because they never know when evidence of the Fallen might turn up. But when they have their mind set on something they go all out. This is represented in-game by a Deathwing Strike Force detachment, allowing up to 123 terminators to take the field '(<s>generally a poor tactical decision</s> NO WAY! WHO DOESN'T LOVE HAVING 123 TERMINATORS when your opponent has 1230 ORK BOYZ? 10 to 1? Deathwing eat those odds for BREAKFAST.)'.

===7th Edition===
Ever since the 6th Edition Codex by [[Jeremy Vetock]] (praise be his name) the Deathwing now [[rape]] [[Chaos Space Marines]], which makes perfect sense considering it is their primary duty to take down <s>[[the Fallen]].</s> HERETICS and this has carried on into the 7e codex.

The regular Deathwing have some handy new rules: they are Fearless and Stubborn, have Hatred (Chaos Space Marines), Overwatch on BS2, have the ability to Split-Fire, have all of their guns Twin-Linked the same turn they arrive from Deep Strike, and have access to [[Plasma]] Cannon, which while not entirely useful, on a terminator is [[awesome]]. Furthermore, individual Deathwing terminators can choose their weapon selection rather than having it relatively fixed as in other chapters. This is all before you squeeze them into a formation.

They also have a unique unit: the '''Deathwing Knights''' who are the the Elite-within-the-Elite; each armed with an [[Awesome|AP3]] [[Power weapon|power mace]] and storm shield. Nothing says repent like a WS5/T5 [[Terminator]] with a mace the size of a man charging at you with the hammer of wrath!

As before; [[Dreadnought]]s can also be members of the Deathwing gaining the same bonuses against <s>[[the Fallen]].</s> HERETICS, as their terminator armoured brothers.

===8th Edition===

Deathwing LOVE 8th edition. With regular terminators retaining all bonuses over vanilla terminators and now being able to Deep Strike them AND charge them is something that they've always been wanting. Deathwing Knights are still badass as they now have super powerful maces and a flail that spills its damage over. 5-wound Apothecaries, Ancients and Champions are now a thing so they can go around separately doing what they need to do. Ven Dreadnoughts are still here as well, so, Deathwing enjoy kicking lots of ass this edition. Also, they're some of the last Fearless units in the game, so, good on them!

==Trivia==
*The "-wing" suffix has come to be used as shorthand to refer to other all-Terminator armies, like Draigowing, where [[Kaldor Draigo]] allows a [[Grey Knights]] army to take Paladin (super-Terminator) squads as Troops, or Loganwing, where [[Logan Grimnar]] (of the [[Space Wolves]]) causes Wolf Guard (which may be Terminator-armored) to count as Troops. As of 7th edition, most codices let you run -wing armies through ways other than force chart position manipulation, but Pepperidge Farm Remembers. {{BLAM}} /tg/ remembers.

==Space Hulk: Deathwing==
Streum On Studio, the developers behind E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy, is currently developing a first-person shooter featuring Deathwing Terminators in a Space Hulk setting. Not a lot is known about it yet, except that it's being made in the Unreal Engine 4 (meaning pretty damn good graphics) They recently released a trailer, which looks fucking awesome (Aside from the serious crashing issues.) . Deathwing will be released on December 14th 2016.

*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNT8LQnImiI| You can watch it here]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YROOgLD-wtU| And here is the second official trailer with extra-TROLLING pop-mariachi music, who needs bland gothic chants anyway? (Ah! The RAGE!) ]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyfId5ukbwI| And here is the better edition, a little editing by some fans]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XghbKVJZNLY|And some FAGGOT with no inspiration decided to make a more GRIMDARK cookie cutter action movie trailer version.]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MERJhTprNpw|'''ACTUAL''' gameplay trailer.]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzsDLpNMZq0 The Gamescom teaser - we now have a release date! And no backflipping terminators!]

==Gallery==
<center>
<gallery>
File:1st Company.jpg|Follow me you assholes! 'n pray to the [[Emprah]] We don't [[Space Hulk|run in to any fucki'n genestealers!]]
File:DeathwingKnights.jpg|The Models of the Deathwing Knights Are as [[awesome]] as you'd think.
File:Deathwing Squad.jpg|You pray to be on the good side of these guys when they're around.
File:Deathwing badassery.jpeg|Showing how much they would take on anything, <s>but seriously how big is that fucking genestealer!?</s> Scything talons, crusher claws, those things on its back... thats a carnifex.
</gallery>
</center>

{{Marines-Forces}}

[[Category:Dark Angels]]

ChapterHouse Studios

2017-07-29T08:27:59Z

2001:8003:38E4:8100:DC85:D2E1:E74:CE62: Only Adeptus Astartes, Adeptus Ministorum and Ad Mech existed already in the fluff, the other names are new to 8th Edition.

{{Publisher Infobox
|name=ChapterHouse Studios
|website=http://chapterhousestudios.com/
}}
'''ChapterHouse Studios''' is a miniatures company that produces miniatures and bits meant to be used with [[Games Workshop]]'s [[Warhammer 40,000]] and [[Warhammer Fantasy]] lines. Rather than dancing around the issue and saying "compatible with major brands of 28mm miniatures (wink, wink)", ChapterHouse's products are directly named and organized by what GW factions and models they're meant to go with. Needless to say, this led to [[Blam|less than desirable consequences]] when Gee Dubs found out about this.

= Lawsuit from Games Workshop =
[[File:spore.jpg|right|thumb|300px|GW chose to remove several units rather than let ChapterHouse make a model for them. In other words, GW cares more about hurting ChapterHouse than they care about having a quality tyranid codex.]]
Games Workshop got fed up with this and filed a lawsuit against them when they started making models for units that GW had named in their codices but not depicted in any art or models, most notably the [[Tyranids]]' [[Mycetic Spore]]. The lawsuit went on for years, but finally ended mostly in ChapterHouse's favor -- since Games Workshop had never actually produced any depiction of many of the units in question, it was ruled that ChapterHouse (and anyone else) weren't violating any copyrights by making their own models (it would be like Games Workshop trying to bring a lawsuit against every person in the world who made conversions for Warhammer).

However on balance, GW took around 200 specific articles of alleged copyright infringement to court with them, and won about 30% of those. Forcing ChapterHouse to retire many of their own models, as simply making "variations" ''(such as female versions of existing GW models like Farseers & Aspect Warriors)'' still counts as infringment. Plus ChapterHouse was ordered to pay damages for these breaches of copyright and pay court costs, which they were still appealing as of early 2014.

Games Workshop had to update their codexes to reflect this, stripping out the Mycetic Spores from the Tyranid codex, as well as the Doom of Mal'antai and the Parasite of Mortrex, which also had models made for them, while presumably renaming the [[Imperial Guard]] to the far more copyright-friendly "Astra Militarum", ''(not to mention the removal of several other ICs and units which never had models from their codex)'' , and eventually remembering that their beloved Space Marines had the formal (and more easily trademarked) name of Adeptus Astartes, likely due to the 'Spots the Space Marine' situation.

All in all, this is generally a good example of Intellectual Property Law at work: If you want to earn a profit by using someone else's IP, then you either have to License it from the owner ''(which GW won't give to competitors)'' or find a way to release original products that the owner has never released or depicted in any media ''(that also goes for creating models based on drawings ie: "Derivative Works")''. Also, if the owner doesn't want to find someone filling a niche they themselves could be filling, then they shouldn't create gaps in their own product range.

==Result==
In October 2014 Chapterhouse shut down their website after having their assets frozen by Games Workshop.

On 14 November 2014[[https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CC4QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dakkadakka.com%2Fdakkaforum%2Fposts%2FdownloadAttach%2F203680.page&ei=KfNoVOH5MdTasAS6-4HoBA&usg=AFQjCNFYJrz-tAZimprelIjxCpWNv2F7CA&sig2=FUMkGA2kVaeUX7jO3foNhA&bvm=bv.79142246,bs.1,d.d2s]] the case was settled between the companies. The appeals from both sides were dismissed "with prejudice" (cannot be re-litigated) in a "Joint Dismissal" (meaning they both agreed to it): The $25,000 damages sought by GW were waived and the asset freeze was lifted. Each side has to pay its own legal fees (Chapterhouse was represented pro bono, of course).

On 18 November 2014 Chapterhouse announced via Facebook that "the web store will be up and going by the end of the week and I will ship out any orders that were not disputed this week as well. Hopefully the site will be able to stay profitable and I am hoping the defense lines will sell as well as some new products as well."

Additionally, after the Chapterhouse decision, GW began renaming factions and units from their original and well-loved names to names that can be defended as trademarks in court, with the new name often being [[Fail|impossible to take seriously.]] It can be assumed that this is an attempt to prevent bits manufacturers from using words that GW is also using when naming their products. The most infamous example of this is [[Age of Sigmar]], in which ''every goddamn name'' was changed to be completely fucking stupid for this purpose, even basic fantasy terms like "[[orc]]" and "[[elf]]." [[Transformers]] fanboys may compare this to [[Hasbro|Hasbro's]] issues with "[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Blastification blastification]" and prefix/suffix abuse, but the situation with the Transformers franchise is far removed from GW's. First, in several cases Hasbro has actually been forced to change a name because ''another toy company'' claimed the trademark for a classic toy before Hasbro did; this is why several toylines in the early 2000s passed by without a Bumblebee. Second, the market in which Hasbro operates is fucking bananas, with a metric shitload of toy companies competing for shelf space and the threat of bootleg toys from the Walmart bargain bin damaging your company's reputation looming in the background. In this environment, changing a toy's name to be a little goofy is actually a smart business move. Games Workshop's position in the miniatures wargame market is [[Privateer Press|almost]] entirely unchallenged, giving them strong claims on the names they were already using for decades, and [[Casting|bootleggers of GW miniatures]] are all using the same quality process as GW and don't give a fuck about trademarks anyway. So not only is the proliferation of nounverbers and dog Latin passed off as the High Gothic names pointless, it's also completely unnecessary even if it ''did'' work.

In the 8th Edition, Warhammer 40k has also seen the new renaming trend:
*Imperium
**Imperial Guard - ''Astra Militarum''
**Imperial Knights - ''Questor Imperialis''
**Titan Legions - ''Titanicus Imperialis''
*Chaos
**Chaos Space Marines - ''Heretic Astartes''
**Renegade Knights - ''Questor Traitoris''
**Renegade Titans - ''Titanicus Traitoris''
*Xenos
**Eldar - ''Aeldari''
**Dark Eldar - ''Drukhari''
**Tau - ''T'au''
Presumably this means we will soon be seeing [[Dark Mechanicum|Mechanicus Tenebrae]], [[Chaos Daemons|Heretic Daemons]], [[Lost and the Damned|Militarum Traitoris]], [[Orks|Oruks]], [[Eldar Corsairs|Aeldari Cursarii]], [[Harlequins|Aeldari Ridicularius]], [[Deathwatch|Xenos Venatores]], [[Blood Angels|Angeli ex Sanguinus]], [[Dark Angels|Angeli Tenebrae]] and [[Space Wolves|Vlka Fenryka]].

==Discussion==

Some would argue that Chapterhouse should have seen the lawsuit coming, since they based a huge portion of their business model as "aftermarket bits" specifically for GW products, using GW models/components in their advertising and even using GW names such as ''"pre-heresy terminator"'' for their products, which was an incredibly risky venture - akin to playing with fire - especially considering that most people know how litigious GW is over their IP.

The earlier rulings regarding specific instances of infringment still stand, since this was only an agreement on the damages appeal (and not the original case); therefore GW still cannot "own" a copyright on something that they have never depicted or produced themselves, so still don't expect the recent attitude of ''"no model = no rules"'' to lessen off any time soon.

Ultimately whether this is bad or good is up to you the reader, since it means that GW from now on will at least have models for the things that they present in their books rather than leaving giant gaps for over a decade ''(eg: [[Kheradruakh|Decapitator]])''.

Some fear that it will now be more difficult to find alternative parts for GW models anymore ''(meaning you'll have to go to them exclusively for your kit-bashing needs)'' unless you can find something in another range that fits your chosen model "coincidentally" *wink wink* . In fact even saying it fits with specific third-party products is actually fine ''(like modified car parts)'', you still can't advertise your own products using someone else's products and trademarks, the product has to stand on its own, but that's not really any change in IP law at all, so things continue as normal.

One notable result of this affair resulted in two new policies from GW; "If it doesn't have a model, it doesn't have rules" and "If it's in the artwork, it needs a model". The former rule prevents other companies from make profit by creating models for model-less codex entries. The latter rule means that all new artwork features the same five or six models over and over again, making it very repetitive and uninspiring. Thanks Chapterhouse.

==Stopping this from happening to YOU==
You CAN be sued for creating your own conversions of anyone's models, but so long as they are for non-commercial use, the lawsuit will in practice be thrown out by the judge once it reaches that step of the lawsuit. This is universal (Western) tort law; you can be sued by anyone for anything, but unless there are potential damages to award, the suit cannot go anywhere.

If you ARE making money off of your conversion, this leads to questions about the nature of the conversion and the nature of the money, which means the lawsuit will go farther.

====Idea-Expression Divide====

This was ChapterHouse's defense (when it succeeded): Facts, ideas, and processes are not copyrightable, only specific expressions of facts and ideas. If someone writes down a description of a model, they have a copyright on what they just wrote - NOT on the model described. If you make the model before they do (copyright is about whoever makes it first), you own the copyright to that model. In other words, the model is not actually a conversion - it is your original work. It's why model less options like the Mycetic Spore went away.

====First Sale====

This is what lets retail stores exist. If you buy a thing, you may sell that thing, because it is yours. This is object specific, meaning that if you buy a Land Raider model, you may then sell that specific model - the First Sale doctrine has no bearing on you then producing more models on your own. You may also modify that thing before selling it, of course - for example, you may build and paint the model, *then* sell it, which is why people selling off their old models on e.g. [http://ebay.com ebay] is fundamentally protected. This absolutely means you can buy GW models on an item by item basis, converting them as you go and then selling them off - this is exactly what people do when they, as just mentioned, sell off their armies on [http://ebay.com ebay].

====Fair Use====

[http://tsoalr.com/ Turn Signals On A Land Raider] was a web comic parodying WH40K, and hence was as quintessential an example of "'''Fair Use"''' as exists anywhere - Fair Use is the primary active defense in copyright lawsuits (remember, it's active - if it's coming up, you've been sued and are defending yourself in court with it, so you're playing with fire). TSOALR was threatened by GW with a lawsuit, and it was making money - it had ads on its site - and was using WH40K IP to do so, so the lawsuit would not have been thrown out. Unfortunately, Fair Use has not been rigorously or objectively defined in any jurisdiction on the planet, so it's the judge's call, based on the case at hand and any relevant precedent. TSOALR would still easily have won (parody is a subset of criticism, which is the most heavily enshrined kind of Fair Use), but it would have been expensive to do so, since it would have had to pay a lawyer to raise the defense in court - money TSOALR did not have. If you intend to protect yourself with Fair Use, familiarize yourself beforehand with the relevant cases you're going to claim as precedent and why you think it's fair use, and be prepared to shell out gobs of money to deal with GW shitting all over you. TSOALR folded rather than go to court, and so we lost one of the mainstays of WH40K fandom.

====Public Domain====

If no one holds the copyright to the model you're converting, no one can claim damages against you in court. There aren't many models in the public domain, but if you do find one, do with it whatever you like - that's the whole point of it.

However, historical items are, or at least seem to be to this untrained editor's eyes, in the public domain. Or else why would Flames of War, Warlord Games, Trumpeter, Tamiya and other be able to all make Sherman tank models without Sueing each other? It's also why Games Workshop changed the name of the "Imperial Guard" and "Storm Troopers", both terms used by real world military units, to the more trade markable "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions."

====Not All IP is Copyright====

The above defenses work against *copyright* lawsuits; trademark infringement (and patent, but odds are incredibly slim you'll run up against patent law for this) is an entirely different discussion. Trademark infringement is trivial to defend against, if you want to play it really safe, because trademarks apply only to incredibly specific expressions of ideas, like 'Astra Militarum'. If you just don't use those terms, trademark isn't relevant and can't be successfully brought against you. Trademarks are usually where it becomes relevant to get a license from the owning company, because trademarks serve as an indication of the origin of the good or service.
:For example: if you sell female Imperial Guard you made yourself, but call them Astra Militarum, customers might get confused about where the models are coming from, and conclude that GW is the original source of the models; or in other situations, even if the customer is completely aware of the third party source, they might believe due to the use of the name that the models are officially sanctioned or licensed by GW. If you did this to intentionally mislead them, it would be considered fraud.

There is no surer trademark defense than not using the trademark anywhere, if you want to go into some sort of business based off of someone else's IP. There are other defenses - for example, it is by definition not a trademark violation to simply use a trademarked expression to identify the owner of the trademarked expression, so while you could for example: put out ads saying that your paint schemes are totally better looking than Games Workshop's, and GW's attempt to sue you over your use of their trademarked name will ultimately fail, you might then fall foul of legislative advertising standards in your jurisdiction by making unverifiable comparisons or unfairly using the reputation of another company ''(which is why you don't see GW, Privateer Press or Wizards of the Coast referencing each other in adverts)'' - therefore trademarks are iffy enough that you should consult a lawyer before doing *anything* with a trademarked expression. You're better off keeping it generic, like: ''"conversion kits compatible with most 28mm models"'' or ''"painting services for tabletop wargaming models"''.

So while GW's new trend of changing names ''(Imperial Guard > Astra Militarum, Space Marines > Adeptus Astartes and others)'' makes sense, since not having enforceable trademarks for things practically invites other manufacturers to invent their own models and call them by similar names. So by putting their unique and legally protected signature all over it is something they should have actually started their business with, since other producers cannot '''legally''' sell their products using a GW trademark and create market confusion ''(bootleggers/re-casters don't care however)''. But since Trademark and Copyright remain two totally '''separate''' issues of IP law, just because you're not infringing trademarks don't think you're automatically protected from copyright infringement. Even if you call your new third party model by completely generic names ''(or even names you believe are original)'', you may still have to demonstrate on a model-by-model basis that it is an original and distinct design and form of artistic expression and run the risk of a lawsuit if your new model is too similar to something that has come before.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:CH Heresy-Era Terminator.jpg|[[Original character, do not steal|'''Exhibit A''']]: Actually marketed as "Heresy Era Terminator". Something like this was a lawsuit waiting to happen, due to trademark (not copyright) infringement.
File:CH mongolian heads.jpg|[[White Scars|Mongolian]] heads, "compatible" with most 28mm brands; this is how it should have been done.
</gallery>

{{Model Manufacturers}}

[[Category:Model Manufacturers]] [[Category:Publishers]]

ChapterHouse Studios

2017-07-29T03:46:11Z

2001:8003:38E4:8100:DC85:D2E1:E74:CE62: /* Result */

{{Publisher Infobox
|name=ChapterHouse Studios
|website=http://chapterhousestudios.com/
}}
'''ChapterHouse Studios''' is a miniatures company that produces miniatures and bits meant to be used with [[Games Workshop]]'s [[Warhammer 40,000]] and [[Warhammer Fantasy]] lines. Rather than dancing around the issue and saying "compatible with major brands of 28mm miniatures (wink, wink)", ChapterHouse's products are directly named and organized by what GW factions and models they're meant to go with. Needless to say, this led to [[Blam|less than desirable consequences]] when Gee Dubs found out about this.

= Lawsuit from Games Workshop =
[[File:spore.jpg|right|thumb|300px|GW chose to remove several units rather than let ChapterHouse make a model for them. In other words, GW cares more about hurting ChapterHouse than they care about having a quality tyranid codex.]]
Games Workshop got fed up with this and filed a lawsuit against them when they started making models for units that GW had named in their codices but not depicted in any art or models, most notably the [[Tyranids]]' [[Mycetic Spore]]. The lawsuit went on for years, but finally ended mostly in ChapterHouse's favor -- since Games Workshop had never actually produced any depiction of many of the units in question, it was ruled that ChapterHouse (and anyone else) weren't violating any copyrights by making their own models (it would be like Games Workshop trying to bring a lawsuit against every person in the world who made conversions for Warhammer).

However on balance, GW took around 200 specific articles of alleged copyright infringement to court with them, and won about 30% of those. Forcing ChapterHouse to retire many of their own models, as simply making "variations" ''(such as female versions of existing GW models like Farseers & Aspect Warriors)'' still counts as infringment. Plus ChapterHouse was ordered to pay damages for these breaches of copyright and pay court costs, which they were still appealing as of early 2014.

Games Workshop had to update their codexes to reflect this, stripping out the Mycetic Spores from the Tyranid codex, as well as the Doom of Mal'antai and the Parasite of Mortrex, which also had models made for them, while presumably renaming the [[Imperial Guard]] to the far more copyright-friendly "Astra Militarum", ''(not to mention the removal of several other ICs and units which never had models from their codex)'' , and eventually renaming their beloved Space Marines to Adeptus Astartes and Heretic Astartes for Loyalists and Traitors respectively, likely due to the 'Spots the Space Marine' situation.

All in all, this is generally a good example of Intellectual Property Law at work: If you want to earn a profit by using someone else's IP, then you either have to License it from the owner ''(which GW won't give to competitors)'' or find a way to release original products that the owner has never released or depicted in any media ''(that also goes for creating models based on drawings ie: "Derivative Works")''. Also, if the owner doesn't want to find someone filling a niche they themselves could be filling, then they shouldn't create gaps in their own product range.

==Result==
In October 2014 Chapterhouse shut down their website after having their assets frozen by Games Workshop.

On 14 November 2014[[https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CC4QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dakkadakka.com%2Fdakkaforum%2Fposts%2FdownloadAttach%2F203680.page&ei=KfNoVOH5MdTasAS6-4HoBA&usg=AFQjCNFYJrz-tAZimprelIjxCpWNv2F7CA&sig2=FUMkGA2kVaeUX7jO3foNhA&bvm=bv.79142246,bs.1,d.d2s]] the case was settled between the companies. The appeals from both sides were dismissed "with prejudice" (cannot be re-litigated) in a "Joint Dismissal" (meaning they both agreed to it): The $25,000 damages sought by GW were waived and the asset freeze was lifted. Each side has to pay its own legal fees (Chapterhouse was represented pro bono, of course).

On 18 November 2014 Chapterhouse announced via Facebook that "the web store will be up and going by the end of the week and I will ship out any orders that were not disputed this week as well. Hopefully the site will be able to stay profitable and I am hoping the defense lines will sell as well as some new products as well."

Additionally, after the Chapterhouse decision, GW began renaming factions and units from their original and well-loved names to names that can be defended as trademarks in court, with the new name often being [[Fail|impossible to take seriously.]] It can be assumed that this is an attempt to prevent bits manufacturers from using words that GW is also using when naming their products. The most infamous example of this is [[Age of Sigmar]], in which ''every goddamn name'' was changed to be completely fucking stupid for this purpose, even basic fantasy terms like "[[orc]]" and "[[elf]]." [[Transformers]] fanboys may compare this to [[Hasbro|Hasbro's]] issues with "[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Blastification blastification]" and prefix/suffix abuse, but the situation with the Transformers franchise is far removed from GW's. First, in several cases Hasbro has actually been forced to change a name because ''another toy company'' claimed the trademark for a classic toy before Hasbro did; this is why several toylines in the early 2000s passed by without a Bumblebee. Second, the market in which Hasbro operates is fucking bananas, with a metric shitload of toy companies competing for shelf space and the threat of bootleg toys from the Walmart bargain bin damaging your company's reputation looming in the background. In this environment, changing a toy's name to be a little goofy is actually a smart business move. Games Workshop's position in the miniatures wargame market is [[Privateer Press|almost]] entirely unchallenged, giving them strong claims on the names they were already using for decades, and [[Casting|bootleggers of GW miniatures]] are all using the same quality process as GW and don't give a fuck about trademarks anyway. So not only is the proliferation of nounverbers and dog Latin pointless (see below), it's also completely unnecessary even if it ''did'' work. Additionally, as stated below, all the new "trademark friendly" factions are still recognised by their old name among the community, so third party companies can just use the old names and actually have a better chance in court as said name is [[Fail|no longer a trademark.]]

In the 8th Edition, Warhammer 40k has also seen the new renaming trend:
*Imperium
**Imperial Guard - ''Astra Militarum''
**Space Marines - ''Adeptus Astartes''
**Sisters of Battle - ''Adeptus Ministorum''
**Imperial Robots - ''Adeptus Mechanicus''
**Imperial Knights - ''Questor Imperialis''
**Titan Legions - ''Titanicus Imperialis''
**Imperial Assassins - ''Officio Assassinorum''
*Chaos
**Chaos Space Marines - ''Heretic Astartes''
**Renegade Knights - ''Questor Traitoris''
**Renegade Titans - ''Titanicus Traitoris''
*Xenos
**Eldar - ''Aeldari''
**Dark Eldar - ''Drukhari''
**Tau - ''T'au''
The general rule, at least with Imperial vs Chaos, appears to be:
*Imperial - ''Imperialis/Adeptus/Officio/Astra''
*Chaos - ''Heretic''
*Renegade - ''Traitoris''
*Imperial Guard - ''Militarum''
*Space Marines - ''Astartes''
*Sisters of Battle - ''Ministorum''
*Adeptus Mechanicus - ''Mechanicus'' (Duh)
*Knight - ''Questor''
*Titan - ''Titanicus''
*Assassin - ''Assassinorum''
Presumably this means we will soon be seeing [[Dark Mechanicum|Mechanicus Tenebrae]], [[Chaos Daemons|Heretic Daemons]], [[Lost and the Damned|Militarum Traitoris]], [[Orks|Oruks]], [[Eldar Corsairs|Aeldari Cursarii]], [[Harlequins|Aeldari Ridicularius]], [[Deathwatch|Xenos Venatores]], [[Blood Angels|Angeli ex Sanguinus]], [[Dark Angels|Angeli Tenebrae]] and [[Space Wolves|Vlka Fenryka]].

==Discussion==

Some would argue that Chapterhouse should have seen the lawsuit coming, since they based a huge portion of their business model as "aftermarket bits" specifically for GW products, using GW models/components in their advertising and even using GW names such as ''"pre-heresy terminator"'' for their products, which was an incredibly risky venture - akin to playing with fire - especially considering that most people know how litigious GW is over their IP.

The earlier rulings regarding specific instances of infringment still stand, since this was only an agreement on the damages appeal (and not the original case); therefore GW still cannot "own" a copyright on something that they have never depicted or produced themselves, so still don't expect the recent attitude of ''"no model = no rules"'' to lessen off any time soon.

Ultimately whether this is bad or good is up to you the reader, since it means that GW from now on will at least have models for the things that they present in their books rather than leaving giant gaps for over a decade ''(eg: [[Kheradruakh|Decapitator]])''.

Some fear that it will now be more difficult to find alternative parts for GW models anymore ''(meaning you'll have to go to them exclusively for your kit-bashing needs)'' unless you can find something in another range that fits your chosen model "coincidentally" *wink wink* . In fact even saying it fits with specific third-party products is actually fine ''(like modified car parts)'', you still can't advertise your own products using someone else's products and trademarks, the product has to stand on its own, but that's not really any change in IP law at all, so things continue as normal.

One notable result of this affair resulted in two new policies from GW; "If it doesn't have a model, it doesn't have rules" and "If it's in the artwork, it needs a model". The former rule prevents other companies from make profit by creating models for model-less codex entries. The latter rule means that all new artwork features the same five or six models over and over again, making it very repetitive and uninspiring. Thanks Chapterhouse.

==Stopping this from happening to YOU==
You CAN be sued for creating your own conversions of anyone's models, but so long as they are for non-commercial use, the lawsuit will in practice be thrown out by the judge once it reaches that step of the lawsuit. This is universal (Western) tort law; you can be sued by anyone for anything, but unless there are potential damages to award, the suit cannot go anywhere.

If you ARE making money off of your conversion, this leads to questions about the nature of the conversion and the nature of the money, which means the lawsuit will go farther.

====Idea-Expression Divide====

This was ChapterHouse's defense (when it succeeded): Facts, ideas, and processes are not copyrightable, only specific expressions of facts and ideas. If someone writes down a description of a model, they have a copyright on what they just wrote - NOT on the model described. If you make the model before they do (copyright is about whoever makes it first), you own the copyright to that model. In other words, the model is not actually a conversion - it is your original work. It's why model less options like the Mycetic Spore went away.

====First Sale====

This is what lets retail stores exist. If you buy a thing, you may sell that thing, because it is yours. This is object specific, meaning that if you buy a Land Raider model, you may then sell that specific model - the First Sale doctrine has no bearing on you then producing more models on your own. You may also modify that thing before selling it, of course - for example, you may build and paint the model, *then* sell it, which is why people selling off their old models on e.g. [http://ebay.com ebay] is fundamentally protected. This absolutely means you can buy GW models on an item by item basis, converting them as you go and then selling them off - this is exactly what people do when they, as just mentioned, sell off their armies on [http://ebay.com ebay].

====Fair Use====

[http://tsoalr.com/ Turn Signals On A Land Raider] was a web comic parodying WH40K, and hence was as quintessential an example of "'''Fair Use"''' as exists anywhere - Fair Use is the primary active defense in copyright lawsuits (remember, it's active - if it's coming up, you've been sued and are defending yourself in court with it, so you're playing with fire). TSOALR was threatened by GW with a lawsuit, and it was making money - it had ads on its site - and was using WH40K IP to do so, so the lawsuit would not have been thrown out. Unfortunately, Fair Use has not been rigorously or objectively defined in any jurisdiction on the planet, so it's the judge's call, based on the case at hand and any relevant precedent. TSOALR would still easily have won (parody is a subset of criticism, which is the most heavily enshrined kind of Fair Use), but it would have been expensive to do so, since it would have had to pay a lawyer to raise the defense in court - money TSOALR did not have. If you intend to protect yourself with Fair Use, familiarize yourself beforehand with the relevant cases you're going to claim as precedent and why you think it's fair use, and be prepared to shell out gobs of money to deal with GW shitting all over you. TSOALR folded rather than go to court, and so we lost one of the mainstays of WH40K fandom.

====Public Domain====

If no one holds the copyright to the model you're converting, no one can claim damages against you in court. There aren't many models in the public domain, but if you do find one, do with it whatever you like - that's the whole point of it.

However, historical items are, or at least seem to be to this untrained editor's eyes, in the public domain. Or else why would Flames of War, Warlord Games, Trumpeter, Tamiya and other be able to all make Sherman tank models without Sueing each other? It's also why Games Workshop changed the name of the "Imperial Guard" and "Storm Troopers", both terms used by real world military units, to the more trade markable "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions."

====Not All IP is Copyright====

The above defenses work against *copyright* lawsuits; trademark infringement (and patent, but odds are incredibly slim you'll run up against patent law for this) is an entirely different discussion. Trademark infringement is trivial to defend against, if you want to play it really safe, because trademarks apply only to incredibly specific expressions of ideas, like 'Astra Militarum'. If you just don't use those terms, trademark isn't relevant and can't be successfully brought against you. Trademarks are usually where it becomes relevant to get a license from the owning company, because trademarks serve as an indication of the origin of the good or service - to continue with our example, if you sell female Imperial Guard you made yourself, but call them Astra Militarum, customers might get confused about where the models are coming from, and conclude that GW is the original source of the models. If you did this to intentionally mislead them, it would be considered fraud.

There is no surer trademark defense than not using the trademark anywhere, if you want to go into some sort of business based off of someone else's IP. There are other defenses - for example, it is by definition not a trademark violation to simply use a trademarked expression to identify the owner of the trademarked expression, so you can e.g. put out ads saying that your paint schemes are totally better looking than Games Workshop's, and GW's attempt to sue you over your use of their trademarked name will ultimately fail - but trademarks are iffy enough that you should consult a lawyer before doing *anything* with a trademarked expression. You're better off keeping it generic, like: ''"conversion kits compatible with most 28mm models"'' or ''"painting services for tabletop wargaming models"''. Ironically, this makes GW's new trend of changing names to be more trademarkable (Imperial Guard > Astra Militarum, Space Marines > Adeptus Astartes, Chaos Space Marines > Heretic Astartes, Tau > T'au, Eldar > Aeldari, Dark Eldar > Drukhari, etc) completely useless as third party companies can just title their models with the old name and thus [[Rules Lawyer|no trademark is infringed]].

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:CH Heresy-Era Terminator.jpg|[[Original character, do not steal|'''Exhibit A''']]: Actually marketed as "Heresy Era Terminator". Something like this was a lawsuit waiting to happen, due to trademark (not copyright) infringement.
File:CH mongolian heads.jpg|[[White Scars|Mongolian]] heads, "compatible" with most 28mm brands; this is how it should have been done.
</gallery>

{{Model Manufacturers}}

[[Category:Model Manufacturers]] [[Category:Publishers]]

ChapterHouse Studios

2017-07-29T03:45:54Z

2001:8003:38E4:8100:DC85:D2E1:E74:CE62: /* Result */

{{Publisher Infobox
|name=ChapterHouse Studios
|website=http://chapterhousestudios.com/
}}
'''ChapterHouse Studios''' is a miniatures company that produces miniatures and bits meant to be used with [[Games Workshop]]'s [[Warhammer 40,000]] and [[Warhammer Fantasy]] lines. Rather than dancing around the issue and saying "compatible with major brands of 28mm miniatures (wink, wink)", ChapterHouse's products are directly named and organized by what GW factions and models they're meant to go with. Needless to say, this led to [[Blam|less than desirable consequences]] when Gee Dubs found out about this.

= Lawsuit from Games Workshop =
[[File:spore.jpg|right|thumb|300px|GW chose to remove several units rather than let ChapterHouse make a model for them. In other words, GW cares more about hurting ChapterHouse than they care about having a quality tyranid codex.]]
Games Workshop got fed up with this and filed a lawsuit against them when they started making models for units that GW had named in their codices but not depicted in any art or models, most notably the [[Tyranids]]' [[Mycetic Spore]]. The lawsuit went on for years, but finally ended mostly in ChapterHouse's favor -- since Games Workshop had never actually produced any depiction of many of the units in question, it was ruled that ChapterHouse (and anyone else) weren't violating any copyrights by making their own models (it would be like Games Workshop trying to bring a lawsuit against every person in the world who made conversions for Warhammer).

However on balance, GW took around 200 specific articles of alleged copyright infringement to court with them, and won about 30% of those. Forcing ChapterHouse to retire many of their own models, as simply making "variations" ''(such as female versions of existing GW models like Farseers & Aspect Warriors)'' still counts as infringment. Plus ChapterHouse was ordered to pay damages for these breaches of copyright and pay court costs, which they were still appealing as of early 2014.

Games Workshop had to update their codexes to reflect this, stripping out the Mycetic Spores from the Tyranid codex, as well as the Doom of Mal'antai and the Parasite of Mortrex, which also had models made for them, while presumably renaming the [[Imperial Guard]] to the far more copyright-friendly "Astra Militarum", ''(not to mention the removal of several other ICs and units which never had models from their codex)'' , and eventually renaming their beloved Space Marines to Adeptus Astartes and Heretic Astartes for Loyalists and Traitors respectively, likely due to the 'Spots the Space Marine' situation.

All in all, this is generally a good example of Intellectual Property Law at work: If you want to earn a profit by using someone else's IP, then you either have to License it from the owner ''(which GW won't give to competitors)'' or find a way to release original products that the owner has never released or depicted in any media ''(that also goes for creating models based on drawings ie: "Derivative Works")''. Also, if the owner doesn't want to find someone filling a niche they themselves could be filling, then they shouldn't create gaps in their own product range.

==Result==
In October 2014 Chapterhouse shut down their website after having their assets frozen by Games Workshop.

On 14 November 2014[[https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CC4QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dakkadakka.com%2Fdakkaforum%2Fposts%2FdownloadAttach%2F203680.page&ei=KfNoVOH5MdTasAS6-4HoBA&usg=AFQjCNFYJrz-tAZimprelIjxCpWNv2F7CA&sig2=FUMkGA2kVaeUX7jO3foNhA&bvm=bv.79142246,bs.1,d.d2s]] the case was settled between the companies. The appeals from both sides were dismissed "with prejudice" (cannot be re-litigated) in a "Joint Dismissal" (meaning they both agreed to it): The $25,000 damages sought by GW were waived and the asset freeze was lifted. Each side has to pay its own legal fees (Chapterhouse was represented pro bono, of course).

On 18 November 2014 Chapterhouse announced via Facebook that "the web store will be up and going by the end of the week and I will ship out any orders that were not disputed this week as well. Hopefully the site will be able to stay profitable and I am hoping the defense lines will sell as well as some new products as well."

Additionally, after the Chapterhouse decision, GW began renaming factions and units from their original and well-loved names to names that can be defended as trademarks in court, with the new name often being [[Fail|impossible to take seriously.]] It can be assumed that this is an attempt to prevent bits manufacturers from using words that GW is also using when naming their products. The most infamous example of this is [[Age of Sigmar]], in which ''every goddamn name'' was changed to be completely fucking stupid for this purpose, even basic fantasy terms like "[[orc]]" and "[[elf]]." [[Transformers]] fanboys may compare this to [[Hasbro|Hasbro's]] issues with "[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Blastification blastification]" and prefix/suffix abuse, but the situation with the Transformers franchise is far removed from GW's. First, in several cases Hasbro has actually been forced to change a name because ''another toy company'' claimed the trademark for a classic toy before Hasbro did; this is why several toylines in the early 2000s passed by without a Bumblebee. Second, the market in which Hasbro operates is fucking bananas, with a metric shitload of toy companies competing for shelf space and the threat of bootleg toys from the Walmart bargain bin damaging your company's reputation looming in the background. In this environment, changing a toy's name to be a little goofy is actually a smart business move. Games Workshop's position in the miniatures wargame market is [[Privateer Press|almost]] entirely unchallenged, giving them strong claims on the names they were already using for decades, and [[Casting|bootleggers of GW miniatures]] are all using the same quality process as GW and don't give a fuck about trademarks anyway. So not only is the proliferation of nounverbers and dog Latin pointless (see below), it's also completely unnecessary even if it ''did'' work. Additionally, as stated below, all the new "trademark friendly" factions are still recognised by their old name among the community, so third party companies can just use the old names and actually have a better chance in court as said name is [[Fail|no longer a trademark.]]

In the 8th Edition, Warhammer 40k has also seen the new renaming trend:
*Imperium
**Imperial Guard - ''Astra Militarum''
**Space Marines - ''Adeptus Astartes''
**Sisters of Battle - ''Adeptus Ministorum''
**Imperial Robots - ''Adeptus Mechanicus''
**Imperial Knights - ''Questor Imperialis''
**Titan Legions - ''Titanicus Imperialis''
**Imperial Assassins - ''Officio Assassinorum''
*Chaos
**Chaos Space Marines - ''Heretic Astartes''
**Renegade Knights - ''Questor Traitoris''
**Renegade Titans - ''Titanicus Traitoris''
*Xenos
**Eldar - ''Aeldari''
**Dark Eldar - ''Drukhari''
**Tau - ''T'au''
The general rule, at least with Imperial vs Chaos, appears to be:
*Imperial - ''Imperialis/Adeptus/Officio/Astra''
*Chaos - ''Heretic''
*Renegade - ''Traitoris''
*Imperial Guard - ''Militarum''
*Space Marines - ''Astartes''
*Sisters of Battle - ''Ministorum''
*Adeptus Mechanicus - ''Mechanicus'' (Duh)
*Knight - ''Questor''
*Titan - ''Titanicus''
*Assassin ''Assassinorum''
Presumably this means we will soon be seeing [[Dark Mechanicum|Mechanicus Tenebrae]], [[Chaos Daemons|Heretic Daemons]], [[Lost and the Damned|Militarum Traitoris]], [[Orks|Oruks]], [[Eldar Corsairs|Aeldari Cursarii]], [[Harlequins|Aeldari Ridicularius]], [[Deathwatch|Xenos Venatores]], [[Blood Angels|Angeli ex Sanguinus]], [[Dark Angels|Angeli Tenebrae]] and [[Space Wolves|Vlka Fenryka]].

==Discussion==

Some would argue that Chapterhouse should have seen the lawsuit coming, since they based a huge portion of their business model as "aftermarket bits" specifically for GW products, using GW models/components in their advertising and even using GW names such as ''"pre-heresy terminator"'' for their products, which was an incredibly risky venture - akin to playing with fire - especially considering that most people know how litigious GW is over their IP.

The earlier rulings regarding specific instances of infringment still stand, since this was only an agreement on the damages appeal (and not the original case); therefore GW still cannot "own" a copyright on something that they have never depicted or produced themselves, so still don't expect the recent attitude of ''"no model = no rules"'' to lessen off any time soon.

Ultimately whether this is bad or good is up to you the reader, since it means that GW from now on will at least have models for the things that they present in their books rather than leaving giant gaps for over a decade ''(eg: [[Kheradruakh|Decapitator]])''.

Some fear that it will now be more difficult to find alternative parts for GW models anymore ''(meaning you'll have to go to them exclusively for your kit-bashing needs)'' unless you can find something in another range that fits your chosen model "coincidentally" *wink wink* . In fact even saying it fits with specific third-party products is actually fine ''(like modified car parts)'', you still can't advertise your own products using someone else's products and trademarks, the product has to stand on its own, but that's not really any change in IP law at all, so things continue as normal.

One notable result of this affair resulted in two new policies from GW; "If it doesn't have a model, it doesn't have rules" and "If it's in the artwork, it needs a model". The former rule prevents other companies from make profit by creating models for model-less codex entries. The latter rule means that all new artwork features the same five or six models over and over again, making it very repetitive and uninspiring. Thanks Chapterhouse.

==Stopping this from happening to YOU==
You CAN be sued for creating your own conversions of anyone's models, but so long as they are for non-commercial use, the lawsuit will in practice be thrown out by the judge once it reaches that step of the lawsuit. This is universal (Western) tort law; you can be sued by anyone for anything, but unless there are potential damages to award, the suit cannot go anywhere.

If you ARE making money off of your conversion, this leads to questions about the nature of the conversion and the nature of the money, which means the lawsuit will go farther.

====Idea-Expression Divide====

This was ChapterHouse's defense (when it succeeded): Facts, ideas, and processes are not copyrightable, only specific expressions of facts and ideas. If someone writes down a description of a model, they have a copyright on what they just wrote - NOT on the model described. If you make the model before they do (copyright is about whoever makes it first), you own the copyright to that model. In other words, the model is not actually a conversion - it is your original work. It's why model less options like the Mycetic Spore went away.

====First Sale====

This is what lets retail stores exist. If you buy a thing, you may sell that thing, because it is yours. This is object specific, meaning that if you buy a Land Raider model, you may then sell that specific model - the First Sale doctrine has no bearing on you then producing more models on your own. You may also modify that thing before selling it, of course - for example, you may build and paint the model, *then* sell it, which is why people selling off their old models on e.g. [http://ebay.com ebay] is fundamentally protected. This absolutely means you can buy GW models on an item by item basis, converting them as you go and then selling them off - this is exactly what people do when they, as just mentioned, sell off their armies on [http://ebay.com ebay].

====Fair Use====

[http://tsoalr.com/ Turn Signals On A Land Raider] was a web comic parodying WH40K, and hence was as quintessential an example of "'''Fair Use"''' as exists anywhere - Fair Use is the primary active defense in copyright lawsuits (remember, it's active - if it's coming up, you've been sued and are defending yourself in court with it, so you're playing with fire). TSOALR was threatened by GW with a lawsuit, and it was making money - it had ads on its site - and was using WH40K IP to do so, so the lawsuit would not have been thrown out. Unfortunately, Fair Use has not been rigorously or objectively defined in any jurisdiction on the planet, so it's the judge's call, based on the case at hand and any relevant precedent. TSOALR would still easily have won (parody is a subset of criticism, which is the most heavily enshrined kind of Fair Use), but it would have been expensive to do so, since it would have had to pay a lawyer to raise the defense in court - money TSOALR did not have. If you intend to protect yourself with Fair Use, familiarize yourself beforehand with the relevant cases you're going to claim as precedent and why you think it's fair use, and be prepared to shell out gobs of money to deal with GW shitting all over you. TSOALR folded rather than go to court, and so we lost one of the mainstays of WH40K fandom.

====Public Domain====

If no one holds the copyright to the model you're converting, no one can claim damages against you in court. There aren't many models in the public domain, but if you do find one, do with it whatever you like - that's the whole point of it.

However, historical items are, or at least seem to be to this untrained editor's eyes, in the public domain. Or else why would Flames of War, Warlord Games, Trumpeter, Tamiya and other be able to all make Sherman tank models without Sueing each other? It's also why Games Workshop changed the name of the "Imperial Guard" and "Storm Troopers", both terms used by real world military units, to the more trade markable "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions."

====Not All IP is Copyright====

The above defenses work against *copyright* lawsuits; trademark infringement (and patent, but odds are incredibly slim you'll run up against patent law for this) is an entirely different discussion. Trademark infringement is trivial to defend against, if you want to play it really safe, because trademarks apply only to incredibly specific expressions of ideas, like 'Astra Militarum'. If you just don't use those terms, trademark isn't relevant and can't be successfully brought against you. Trademarks are usually where it becomes relevant to get a license from the owning company, because trademarks serve as an indication of the origin of the good or service - to continue with our example, if you sell female Imperial Guard you made yourself, but call them Astra Militarum, customers might get confused about where the models are coming from, and conclude that GW is the original source of the models. If you did this to intentionally mislead them, it would be considered fraud.

There is no surer trademark defense than not using the trademark anywhere, if you want to go into some sort of business based off of someone else's IP. There are other defenses - for example, it is by definition not a trademark violation to simply use a trademarked expression to identify the owner of the trademarked expression, so you can e.g. put out ads saying that your paint schemes are totally better looking than Games Workshop's, and GW's attempt to sue you over your use of their trademarked name will ultimately fail - but trademarks are iffy enough that you should consult a lawyer before doing *anything* with a trademarked expression. You're better off keeping it generic, like: ''"conversion kits compatible with most 28mm models"'' or ''"painting services for tabletop wargaming models"''. Ironically, this makes GW's new trend of changing names to be more trademarkable (Imperial Guard > Astra Militarum, Space Marines > Adeptus Astartes, Chaos Space Marines > Heretic Astartes, Tau > T'au, Eldar > Aeldari, Dark Eldar > Drukhari, etc) completely useless as third party companies can just title their models with the old name and thus [[Rules Lawyer|no trademark is infringed]].

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:CH Heresy-Era Terminator.jpg|[[Original character, do not steal|'''Exhibit A''']]: Actually marketed as "Heresy Era Terminator". Something like this was a lawsuit waiting to happen, due to trademark (not copyright) infringement.
File:CH mongolian heads.jpg|[[White Scars|Mongolian]] heads, "compatible" with most 28mm brands; this is how it should have been done.
</gallery>

{{Model Manufacturers}}

[[Category:Model Manufacturers]] [[Category:Publishers]]

ChapterHouse Studios

2017-07-29T03:45:32Z

2001:8003:38E4:8100:DC85:D2E1:E74:CE62: /* Result */

{{Publisher Infobox
|name=ChapterHouse Studios
|website=http://chapterhousestudios.com/
}}
'''ChapterHouse Studios''' is a miniatures company that produces miniatures and bits meant to be used with [[Games Workshop]]'s [[Warhammer 40,000]] and [[Warhammer Fantasy]] lines. Rather than dancing around the issue and saying "compatible with major brands of 28mm miniatures (wink, wink)", ChapterHouse's products are directly named and organized by what GW factions and models they're meant to go with. Needless to say, this led to [[Blam|less than desirable consequences]] when Gee Dubs found out about this.

= Lawsuit from Games Workshop =
[[File:spore.jpg|right|thumb|300px|GW chose to remove several units rather than let ChapterHouse make a model for them. In other words, GW cares more about hurting ChapterHouse than they care about having a quality tyranid codex.]]
Games Workshop got fed up with this and filed a lawsuit against them when they started making models for units that GW had named in their codices but not depicted in any art or models, most notably the [[Tyranids]]' [[Mycetic Spore]]. The lawsuit went on for years, but finally ended mostly in ChapterHouse's favor -- since Games Workshop had never actually produced any depiction of many of the units in question, it was ruled that ChapterHouse (and anyone else) weren't violating any copyrights by making their own models (it would be like Games Workshop trying to bring a lawsuit against every person in the world who made conversions for Warhammer).

However on balance, GW took around 200 specific articles of alleged copyright infringement to court with them, and won about 30% of those. Forcing ChapterHouse to retire many of their own models, as simply making "variations" ''(such as female versions of existing GW models like Farseers & Aspect Warriors)'' still counts as infringment. Plus ChapterHouse was ordered to pay damages for these breaches of copyright and pay court costs, which they were still appealing as of early 2014.

Games Workshop had to update their codexes to reflect this, stripping out the Mycetic Spores from the Tyranid codex, as well as the Doom of Mal'antai and the Parasite of Mortrex, which also had models made for them, while presumably renaming the [[Imperial Guard]] to the far more copyright-friendly "Astra Militarum", ''(not to mention the removal of several other ICs and units which never had models from their codex)'' , and eventually renaming their beloved Space Marines to Adeptus Astartes and Heretic Astartes for Loyalists and Traitors respectively, likely due to the 'Spots the Space Marine' situation.

All in all, this is generally a good example of Intellectual Property Law at work: If you want to earn a profit by using someone else's IP, then you either have to License it from the owner ''(which GW won't give to competitors)'' or find a way to release original products that the owner has never released or depicted in any media ''(that also goes for creating models based on drawings ie: "Derivative Works")''. Also, if the owner doesn't want to find someone filling a niche they themselves could be filling, then they shouldn't create gaps in their own product range.

==Result==
In October 2014 Chapterhouse shut down their website after having their assets frozen by Games Workshop.

On 14 November 2014[[https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CC4QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dakkadakka.com%2Fdakkaforum%2Fposts%2FdownloadAttach%2F203680.page&ei=KfNoVOH5MdTasAS6-4HoBA&usg=AFQjCNFYJrz-tAZimprelIjxCpWNv2F7CA&sig2=FUMkGA2kVaeUX7jO3foNhA&bvm=bv.79142246,bs.1,d.d2s]] the case was settled between the companies. The appeals from both sides were dismissed "with prejudice" (cannot be re-litigated) in a "Joint Dismissal" (meaning they both agreed to it): The $25,000 damages sought by GW were waived and the asset freeze was lifted. Each side has to pay its own legal fees (Chapterhouse was represented pro bono, of course).

On 18 November 2014 Chapterhouse announced via Facebook that "the web store will be up and going by the end of the week and I will ship out any orders that were not disputed this week as well. Hopefully the site will be able to stay profitable and I am hoping the defense lines will sell as well as some new products as well."

Additionally, after the Chapterhouse decision, GW began renaming factions and units from their original and well-loved names to names that can be defended as trademarks in court, with the new name often being [[Fail|impossible to take seriously.]] It can be assumed that this is an attempt to prevent bits manufacturers from using words that GW is also using when naming their products. The most infamous example of this is [[Age of Sigmar]], in which ''every goddamn name'' was changed to be completely fucking stupid for this purpose, even basic fantasy terms like "[[orc]]" and "[[elf]]." [[Transformers]] fanboys may compare this to [[Hasbro|Hasbro's]] issues with "[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Blastification blastification]" and prefix/suffix abuse, but the situation with the Transformers franchise is far removed from GW's. First, in several cases Hasbro has actually been forced to change a name because ''another toy company'' claimed the trademark for a classic toy before Hasbro did; this is why several toylines in the early 2000s passed by without a Bumblebee. Second, the market in which Hasbro operates is fucking bananas, with a metric shitload of toy companies competing for shelf space and the threat of bootleg toys from the Walmart bargain bin damaging your company's reputation looming in the background. In this environment, changing a toy's name to be a little goofy is actually a smart business move. Games Workshop's position in the miniatures wargame market is [[Privateer Press|almost]] entirely unchallenged, giving them strong claims on the names they were already using for decades, and [[Casting|bootleggers of GW miniatures]] are all using the same quality process as GW and don't give a fuck about trademarks anyway. So not only is the proliferation of nounverbers and dog Latin pointless (see below), it's also completely unnecessary even if it ''did'' work. Additionally, as stated below, all the new "trademark friendly" factions are still recognised by their old name among the community, so third party companies can just use the old names and actually have a better chance in court as said name is [[Fail|no longer a trademark.]]

In the 8th Edition, Warhammer 40k has also seen the new renaming trend:
*Imperium
**Imperial Guard - ''Astra Militarum''
**Space Marines - ''Adeptus Astartes''
**Sisters of Battle - ''Adeptus Ministorum''
**Imperial Robots - ''Adeptus Mechanicus''
**Imperial Knights - ''Questor Imperialis''
**Titan Legions - ''Titanicus Imperialis''
**Imperial Assassins - ''Officio Assassinorum''
*Chaos
**Chaos Space Marines - ''Heretic Astartes''
**Renegade Knights - ''Questor Traitoris''
**Renegade Titans - ''Titanicus Traitoris''
*Xenos
**Eldar - ''Aeldari''
**Dark Eldar - ''Drukhari''
**Tau - ''T'au''
The general rule, at least with Imperial vs Chaos, appears to be:
*Imperial - ''Imperialis/Adeptus/Officio/Astra''
*Chaos - ''Heretic''
*Renegade - ''Traitoris''
*Imperial Guard - ''Militarum''
*Space Marines - ''Astartes''
*Sisters of Battle - ''Ministorum''
*Adeptus Mechanicus - ''Mechanicus''(Duh)
*Knight - ''Questor''
*Titan - ''Titanicus''
*Assassin ''Assassinorum''
Presumably this means we will soon be seeing [[Dark Mechanicum|Mechanicus Tenebrae]], [[Chaos Daemons|Heretic Daemons]], [[Lost and the Damned|Militarum Traitoris]], [[Orks|Oruks]], [[Eldar Corsairs|Aeldari Cursarii]], [[Harlequins|Aeldari Ridicularius]], [[Deathwatch|Xenos Venatores]], [[Blood Angels|Angeli ex Sanguinus]], [[Dark Angels|Angeli Tenebrae]] and [[Space Wolves|Vlka Fenryka]].

==Discussion==

Some would argue that Chapterhouse should have seen the lawsuit coming, since they based a huge portion of their business model as "aftermarket bits" specifically for GW products, using GW models/components in their advertising and even using GW names such as ''"pre-heresy terminator"'' for their products, which was an incredibly risky venture - akin to playing with fire - especially considering that most people know how litigious GW is over their IP.

The earlier rulings regarding specific instances of infringment still stand, since this was only an agreement on the damages appeal (and not the original case); therefore GW still cannot "own" a copyright on something that they have never depicted or produced themselves, so still don't expect the recent attitude of ''"no model = no rules"'' to lessen off any time soon.

Ultimately whether this is bad or good is up to you the reader, since it means that GW from now on will at least have models for the things that they present in their books rather than leaving giant gaps for over a decade ''(eg: [[Kheradruakh|Decapitator]])''.

Some fear that it will now be more difficult to find alternative parts for GW models anymore ''(meaning you'll have to go to them exclusively for your kit-bashing needs)'' unless you can find something in another range that fits your chosen model "coincidentally" *wink wink* . In fact even saying it fits with specific third-party products is actually fine ''(like modified car parts)'', you still can't advertise your own products using someone else's products and trademarks, the product has to stand on its own, but that's not really any change in IP law at all, so things continue as normal.

One notable result of this affair resulted in two new policies from GW; "If it doesn't have a model, it doesn't have rules" and "If it's in the artwork, it needs a model". The former rule prevents other companies from make profit by creating models for model-less codex entries. The latter rule means that all new artwork features the same five or six models over and over again, making it very repetitive and uninspiring. Thanks Chapterhouse.

==Stopping this from happening to YOU==
You CAN be sued for creating your own conversions of anyone's models, but so long as they are for non-commercial use, the lawsuit will in practice be thrown out by the judge once it reaches that step of the lawsuit. This is universal (Western) tort law; you can be sued by anyone for anything, but unless there are potential damages to award, the suit cannot go anywhere.

If you ARE making money off of your conversion, this leads to questions about the nature of the conversion and the nature of the money, which means the lawsuit will go farther.

====Idea-Expression Divide====

This was ChapterHouse's defense (when it succeeded): Facts, ideas, and processes are not copyrightable, only specific expressions of facts and ideas. If someone writes down a description of a model, they have a copyright on what they just wrote - NOT on the model described. If you make the model before they do (copyright is about whoever makes it first), you own the copyright to that model. In other words, the model is not actually a conversion - it is your original work. It's why model less options like the Mycetic Spore went away.

====First Sale====

This is what lets retail stores exist. If you buy a thing, you may sell that thing, because it is yours. This is object specific, meaning that if you buy a Land Raider model, you may then sell that specific model - the First Sale doctrine has no bearing on you then producing more models on your own. You may also modify that thing before selling it, of course - for example, you may build and paint the model, *then* sell it, which is why people selling off their old models on e.g. [http://ebay.com ebay] is fundamentally protected. This absolutely means you can buy GW models on an item by item basis, converting them as you go and then selling them off - this is exactly what people do when they, as just mentioned, sell off their armies on [http://ebay.com ebay].

====Fair Use====

[http://tsoalr.com/ Turn Signals On A Land Raider] was a web comic parodying WH40K, and hence was as quintessential an example of "'''Fair Use"''' as exists anywhere - Fair Use is the primary active defense in copyright lawsuits (remember, it's active - if it's coming up, you've been sued and are defending yourself in court with it, so you're playing with fire). TSOALR was threatened by GW with a lawsuit, and it was making money - it had ads on its site - and was using WH40K IP to do so, so the lawsuit would not have been thrown out. Unfortunately, Fair Use has not been rigorously or objectively defined in any jurisdiction on the planet, so it's the judge's call, based on the case at hand and any relevant precedent. TSOALR would still easily have won (parody is a subset of criticism, which is the most heavily enshrined kind of Fair Use), but it would have been expensive to do so, since it would have had to pay a lawyer to raise the defense in court - money TSOALR did not have. If you intend to protect yourself with Fair Use, familiarize yourself beforehand with the relevant cases you're going to claim as precedent and why you think it's fair use, and be prepared to shell out gobs of money to deal with GW shitting all over you. TSOALR folded rather than go to court, and so we lost one of the mainstays of WH40K fandom.

====Public Domain====

If no one holds the copyright to the model you're converting, no one can claim damages against you in court. There aren't many models in the public domain, but if you do find one, do with it whatever you like - that's the whole point of it.

However, historical items are, or at least seem to be to this untrained editor's eyes, in the public domain. Or else why would Flames of War, Warlord Games, Trumpeter, Tamiya and other be able to all make Sherman tank models without Sueing each other? It's also why Games Workshop changed the name of the "Imperial Guard" and "Storm Troopers", both terms used by real world military units, to the more trade markable "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions."

====Not All IP is Copyright====

The above defenses work against *copyright* lawsuits; trademark infringement (and patent, but odds are incredibly slim you'll run up against patent law for this) is an entirely different discussion. Trademark infringement is trivial to defend against, if you want to play it really safe, because trademarks apply only to incredibly specific expressions of ideas, like 'Astra Militarum'. If you just don't use those terms, trademark isn't relevant and can't be successfully brought against you. Trademarks are usually where it becomes relevant to get a license from the owning company, because trademarks serve as an indication of the origin of the good or service - to continue with our example, if you sell female Imperial Guard you made yourself, but call them Astra Militarum, customers might get confused about where the models are coming from, and conclude that GW is the original source of the models. If you did this to intentionally mislead them, it would be considered fraud.

There is no surer trademark defense than not using the trademark anywhere, if you want to go into some sort of business based off of someone else's IP. There are other defenses - for example, it is by definition not a trademark violation to simply use a trademarked expression to identify the owner of the trademarked expression, so you can e.g. put out ads saying that your paint schemes are totally better looking than Games Workshop's, and GW's attempt to sue you over your use of their trademarked name will ultimately fail - but trademarks are iffy enough that you should consult a lawyer before doing *anything* with a trademarked expression. You're better off keeping it generic, like: ''"conversion kits compatible with most 28mm models"'' or ''"painting services for tabletop wargaming models"''. Ironically, this makes GW's new trend of changing names to be more trademarkable (Imperial Guard > Astra Militarum, Space Marines > Adeptus Astartes, Chaos Space Marines > Heretic Astartes, Tau > T'au, Eldar > Aeldari, Dark Eldar > Drukhari, etc) completely useless as third party companies can just title their models with the old name and thus [[Rules Lawyer|no trademark is infringed]].

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:CH Heresy-Era Terminator.jpg|[[Original character, do not steal|'''Exhibit A''']]: Actually marketed as "Heresy Era Terminator". Something like this was a lawsuit waiting to happen, due to trademark (not copyright) infringement.
File:CH mongolian heads.jpg|[[White Scars|Mongolian]] heads, "compatible" with most 28mm brands; this is how it should have been done.
</gallery>

{{Model Manufacturers}}

[[Category:Model Manufacturers]] [[Category:Publishers]]

ChapterHouse Studios

2017-07-29T03:22:23Z

2001:8003:38E4:8100:DC85:D2E1:E74:CE62: /* Result */

{{Publisher Infobox
|name=ChapterHouse Studios
|website=http://chapterhousestudios.com/
}}
'''ChapterHouse Studios''' is a miniatures company that produces miniatures and bits meant to be used with [[Games Workshop]]'s [[Warhammer 40,000]] and [[Warhammer Fantasy]] lines. Rather than dancing around the issue and saying "compatible with major brands of 28mm miniatures (wink, wink)", ChapterHouse's products are directly named and organized by what GW factions and models they're meant to go with. Needless to say, this led to [[Blam|less than desirable consequences]] when Gee Dubs found out about this.

= Lawsuit from Games Workshop =
[[File:spore.jpg|right|thumb|300px|GW chose to remove several units rather than let ChapterHouse make a model for them. In other words, GW cares more about hurting ChapterHouse than they care about having a quality tyranid codex.]]
Games Workshop got fed up with this and filed a lawsuit against them when they started making models for units that GW had named in their codices but not depicted in any art or models, most notably the [[Tyranids]]' [[Mycetic Spore]]. The lawsuit went on for years, but finally ended mostly in ChapterHouse's favor -- since Games Workshop had never actually produced any depiction of many of the units in question, it was ruled that ChapterHouse (and anyone else) weren't violating any copyrights by making their own models (it would be like Games Workshop trying to bring a lawsuit against every person in the world who made conversions for Warhammer).

However on balance, GW took around 200 specific articles of alleged copyright infringement to court with them, and won about 30% of those. Forcing ChapterHouse to retire many of their own models, as simply making "variations" ''(such as female versions of existing GW models like Farseers & Aspect Warriors)'' still counts as infringment. Plus ChapterHouse was ordered to pay damages for these breaches of copyright and pay court costs, which they were still appealing as of early 2014.

Games Workshop had to update their codexes to reflect this, stripping out the Mycetic Spores from the Tyranid codex, as well as the Doom of Mal'antai and the Parasite of Mortrex, which also had models made for them, while presumably renaming the [[Imperial Guard]] to the far more copyright-friendly "Astra Militarum", ''(not to mention the removal of several other ICs and units which never had models from their codex)'' , and eventually renaming their beloved Space Marines to Adeptus Astartes and Heretic Astartes for Loyalists and Traitors respectively, likely due to the 'Spots the Space Marine' situation.

All in all, this is generally a good example of Intellectual Property Law at work: If you want to earn a profit by using someone else's IP, then you either have to License it from the owner ''(which GW won't give to competitors)'' or find a way to release original products that the owner has never released or depicted in any media ''(that also goes for creating models based on drawings ie: "Derivative Works")''. Also, if the owner doesn't want to find someone filling a niche they themselves could be filling, then they shouldn't create gaps in their own product range.

==Result==
In October 2014 Chapterhouse shut down their website after having their assets frozen by Games Workshop.

On 14 November 2014[[https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CC4QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dakkadakka.com%2Fdakkaforum%2Fposts%2FdownloadAttach%2F203680.page&ei=KfNoVOH5MdTasAS6-4HoBA&usg=AFQjCNFYJrz-tAZimprelIjxCpWNv2F7CA&sig2=FUMkGA2kVaeUX7jO3foNhA&bvm=bv.79142246,bs.1,d.d2s]] the case was settled between the companies. The appeals from both sides were dismissed "with prejudice" (cannot be re-litigated) in a "Joint Dismissal" (meaning they both agreed to it): The $25,000 damages sought by GW were waived and the asset freeze was lifted. Each side has to pay its own legal fees (Chapterhouse was represented pro bono, of course).

On 18 November 2014 Chapterhouse announced via Facebook that "the web store will be up and going by the end of the week and I will ship out any orders that were not disputed this week as well. Hopefully the site will be able to stay profitable and I am hoping the defense lines will sell as well as some new products as well."

Additionally, after the Chapterhouse decision, GW began renaming factions and units from their original and well-loved names to names that can be defended as trademarks in court, with the new name often being [[Fail|impossible to take seriously.]] It can be assumed that this is an attempt to prevent bits manufacturers from using words that GW is also using when naming their products. The most infamous example of this is [[Age of Sigmar]], in which ''every goddamn name'' was changed to be completely fucking stupid for this purpose, even basic fantasy terms like "[[orc]]" and "[[elf]]." [[Transformers]] fanboys may compare this to [[Hasbro|Hasbro's]] issues with "[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Blastification blastification]" and prefix/suffix abuse, but the situation with the Transformers franchise is far removed from GW's. First, in several cases Hasbro has actually been forced to change a name because ''another toy company'' claimed the trademark for a classic toy before Hasbro did; this is why several toylines in the early 2000s passed by without a Bumblebee. Second, the market in which Hasbro operates is fucking bananas, with a metric shitload of toy companies competing for shelf space and the threat of bootleg toys from the Walmart bargain bin damaging your company's reputation looming in the background. In this environment, changing a toy's name to be a little goofy is actually a smart business move. Games Workshop's position in the miniatures wargame market is [[Privateer Press|almost]] entirely unchallenged, giving them strong claims on the names they were already using for decades, and [[Casting|bootleggers of GW miniatures]] are all using the same quality process as GW and don't give a fuck about trademarks anyway. So not only is the proliferation of nounverbers and dog Latin pointless (see below), it's also completely unnecessary even if it ''did'' work. Additionally, as stated below, all the new "trademark friendly" factions are still recognised by their old name among the community, so third party companies can just use the old names and actually have a better chance in court as said name is [[Fail|no longer a trademark.]]

In the 8th Edition, Warhammer 40k has also seen the new renaming trend:
*Imperium
**Imperial Guard - ''Astra Militarum''
**Space Marines - ''Adeptus Astartes''
**Sisters of Battle - ''Adeptus Ministorum''
**Imperial Robots - ''Adeptus Mechanicus''
**Imperial Knights - ''Questor Imperialis''
**Titan Legions - ''Titanicus Imperialis''
**Imperial Assassins - ''Officio Assassinorum''
*Chaos
**Chaos Space Marines - ''Heretic Astartes''
**Renegade Knights - ''Questor Traitoris''
**Renegade Titans - ''Titanicus Traitoris''
*Xenos
**Eldar - ''Aeldari''
**Dark Eldar - ''Drukhari''
**Tau - ''T'au''
Presumably this means we will soon be seeing [[Dark Mechanicum|Mechanicus Tenebrae]], [[Chaos Daemons|Heretic Daemons]], [[Lost and the Damned|Militarum Traitoris]], [[Orks|Oruks]], [[Eldar Corsairs|Aeldari Cursarii]], [[Harlequins|Aeldari Ridicularius]], [[Deathwatch|Xenos Venatores]], [[Blood Angels|Angeli ex Sanguinus]], [[Dark Angels|Angeli Tenebrae]] and [[Space Wolves|Vlka Fenryka]].

==Discussion==

Some would argue that Chapterhouse should have seen the lawsuit coming, since they based a huge portion of their business model as "aftermarket bits" specifically for GW products, using GW models/components in their advertising and even using GW names such as ''"pre-heresy terminator"'' for their products, which was an incredibly risky venture - akin to playing with fire - especially considering that most people know how litigious GW is over their IP.

The earlier rulings regarding specific instances of infringment still stand, since this was only an agreement on the damages appeal (and not the original case); therefore GW still cannot "own" a copyright on something that they have never depicted or produced themselves, so still don't expect the recent attitude of ''"no model = no rules"'' to lessen off any time soon.

Ultimately whether this is bad or good is up to you the reader, since it means that GW from now on will at least have models for the things that they present in their books rather than leaving giant gaps for over a decade ''(eg: [[Kheradruakh|Decapitator]])''.

Some fear that it will now be more difficult to find alternative parts for GW models anymore ''(meaning you'll have to go to them exclusively for your kit-bashing needs)'' unless you can find something in another range that fits your chosen model "coincidentally" *wink wink* . In fact even saying it fits with specific third-party products is actually fine ''(like modified car parts)'', you still can't advertise your own products using someone else's products and trademarks, the product has to stand on its own, but that's not really any change in IP law at all, so things continue as normal.

One notable result of this affair resulted in two new policies from GW; "If it doesn't have a model, it doesn't have rules" and "If it's in the artwork, it needs a model". The former rule prevents other companies from make profit by creating models for model-less codex entries. The latter rule means that all new artwork features the same five or six models over and over again, making it very repetitive and uninspiring. Thanks Chapterhouse.

==Stopping this from happening to YOU==
You CAN be sued for creating your own conversions of anyone's models, but so long as they are for non-commercial use, the lawsuit will in practice be thrown out by the judge once it reaches that step of the lawsuit. This is universal (Western) tort law; you can be sued by anyone for anything, but unless there are potential damages to award, the suit cannot go anywhere.

If you ARE making money off of your conversion, this leads to questions about the nature of the conversion and the nature of the money, which means the lawsuit will go farther.

====Idea-Expression Divide====

This was ChapterHouse's defense (when it succeeded): Facts, ideas, and processes are not copyrightable, only specific expressions of facts and ideas. If someone writes down a description of a model, they have a copyright on what they just wrote - NOT on the model described. If you make the model before they do (copyright is about whoever makes it first), you own the copyright to that model. In other words, the model is not actually a conversion - it is your original work. It's why model less options like the Mycetic Spore went away.

====First Sale====

This is what lets retail stores exist. If you buy a thing, you may sell that thing, because it is yours. This is object specific, meaning that if you buy a Land Raider model, you may then sell that specific model - the First Sale doctrine has no bearing on you then producing more models on your own. You may also modify that thing before selling it, of course - for example, you may build and paint the model, *then* sell it, which is why people selling off their old models on e.g. [http://ebay.com ebay] is fundamentally protected. This absolutely means you can buy GW models on an item by item basis, converting them as you go and then selling them off - this is exactly what people do when they, as just mentioned, sell off their armies on [http://ebay.com ebay].

====Fair Use====

[http://tsoalr.com/ Turn Signals On A Land Raider] was a web comic parodying WH40K, and hence was as quintessential an example of "'''Fair Use"''' as exists anywhere - Fair Use is the primary active defense in copyright lawsuits (remember, it's active - if it's coming up, you've been sued and are defending yourself in court with it, so you're playing with fire). TSOALR was threatened by GW with a lawsuit, and it was making money - it had ads on its site - and was using WH40K IP to do so, so the lawsuit would not have been thrown out. Unfortunately, Fair Use has not been rigorously or objectively defined in any jurisdiction on the planet, so it's the judge's call, based on the case at hand and any relevant precedent. TSOALR would still easily have won (parody is a subset of criticism, which is the most heavily enshrined kind of Fair Use), but it would have been expensive to do so, since it would have had to pay a lawyer to raise the defense in court - money TSOALR did not have. If you intend to protect yourself with Fair Use, familiarize yourself beforehand with the relevant cases you're going to claim as precedent and why you think it's fair use, and be prepared to shell out gobs of money to deal with GW shitting all over you. TSOALR folded rather than go to court, and so we lost one of the mainstays of WH40K fandom.

====Public Domain====

If no one holds the copyright to the model you're converting, no one can claim damages against you in court. There aren't many models in the public domain, but if you do find one, do with it whatever you like - that's the whole point of it.

However, historical items are, or at least seem to be to this untrained editor's eyes, in the public domain. Or else why would Flames of War, Warlord Games, Trumpeter, Tamiya and other be able to all make Sherman tank models without Sueing each other? It's also why Games Workshop changed the name of the "Imperial Guard" and "Storm Troopers", both terms used by real world military units, to the more trade markable "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions."

====Not All IP is Copyright====

The above defenses work against *copyright* lawsuits; trademark infringement (and patent, but odds are incredibly slim you'll run up against patent law for this) is an entirely different discussion. Trademark infringement is trivial to defend against, if you want to play it really safe, because trademarks apply only to incredibly specific expressions of ideas, like 'Astra Militarum'. If you just don't use those terms, trademark isn't relevant and can't be successfully brought against you. Trademarks are usually where it becomes relevant to get a license from the owning company, because trademarks serve as an indication of the origin of the good or service - to continue with our example, if you sell female Imperial Guard you made yourself, but call them Astra Militarum, customers might get confused about where the models are coming from, and conclude that GW is the original source of the models. If you did this to intentionally mislead them, it would be considered fraud.

There is no surer trademark defense than not using the trademark anywhere, if you want to go into some sort of business based off of someone else's IP. There are other defenses - for example, it is by definition not a trademark violation to simply use a trademarked expression to identify the owner of the trademarked expression, so you can e.g. put out ads saying that your paint schemes are totally better looking than Games Workshop's, and GW's attempt to sue you over your use of their trademarked name will ultimately fail - but trademarks are iffy enough that you should consult a lawyer before doing *anything* with a trademarked expression. You're better off keeping it generic, like: ''"conversion kits compatible with most 28mm models"'' or ''"painting services for tabletop wargaming models"''. Ironically, this makes GW's new trend of changing names to be more trademarkable (Imperial Guard > Astra Militarum, Space Marines > Adeptus Astartes, Chaos Space Marines > Heretic Astartes, Tau > T'au, Eldar > Aeldari, Dark Eldar > Drukhari, etc) completely useless as third party companies can just title their models with the old name and thus [[Rules Lawyer|no trademark is infringed]].

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:CH Heresy-Era Terminator.jpg|[[Original character, do not steal|'''Exhibit A''']]: Actually marketed as "Heresy Era Terminator". Something like this was a lawsuit waiting to happen, due to trademark (not copyright) infringement.
File:CH mongolian heads.jpg|[[White Scars|Mongolian]] heads, "compatible" with most 28mm brands; this is how it should have been done.
</gallery>

{{Model Manufacturers}}

[[Category:Model Manufacturers]] [[Category:Publishers]]

ChapterHouse Studios

2017-07-29T03:21:12Z

2001:8003:38E4:8100:DC85:D2E1:E74:CE62: /* Result */

{{Publisher Infobox
|name=ChapterHouse Studios
|website=http://chapterhousestudios.com/
}}
'''ChapterHouse Studios''' is a miniatures company that produces miniatures and bits meant to be used with [[Games Workshop]]'s [[Warhammer 40,000]] and [[Warhammer Fantasy]] lines. Rather than dancing around the issue and saying "compatible with major brands of 28mm miniatures (wink, wink)", ChapterHouse's products are directly named and organized by what GW factions and models they're meant to go with. Needless to say, this led to [[Blam|less than desirable consequences]] when Gee Dubs found out about this.

= Lawsuit from Games Workshop =
[[File:spore.jpg|right|thumb|300px|GW chose to remove several units rather than let ChapterHouse make a model for them. In other words, GW cares more about hurting ChapterHouse than they care about having a quality tyranid codex.]]
Games Workshop got fed up with this and filed a lawsuit against them when they started making models for units that GW had named in their codices but not depicted in any art or models, most notably the [[Tyranids]]' [[Mycetic Spore]]. The lawsuit went on for years, but finally ended mostly in ChapterHouse's favor -- since Games Workshop had never actually produced any depiction of many of the units in question, it was ruled that ChapterHouse (and anyone else) weren't violating any copyrights by making their own models (it would be like Games Workshop trying to bring a lawsuit against every person in the world who made conversions for Warhammer).

However on balance, GW took around 200 specific articles of alleged copyright infringement to court with them, and won about 30% of those. Forcing ChapterHouse to retire many of their own models, as simply making "variations" ''(such as female versions of existing GW models like Farseers & Aspect Warriors)'' still counts as infringment. Plus ChapterHouse was ordered to pay damages for these breaches of copyright and pay court costs, which they were still appealing as of early 2014.

Games Workshop had to update their codexes to reflect this, stripping out the Mycetic Spores from the Tyranid codex, as well as the Doom of Mal'antai and the Parasite of Mortrex, which also had models made for them, while presumably renaming the [[Imperial Guard]] to the far more copyright-friendly "Astra Militarum", ''(not to mention the removal of several other ICs and units which never had models from their codex)'' , and eventually renaming their beloved Space Marines to Adeptus Astartes and Heretic Astartes for Loyalists and Traitors respectively, likely due to the 'Spots the Space Marine' situation.

All in all, this is generally a good example of Intellectual Property Law at work: If you want to earn a profit by using someone else's IP, then you either have to License it from the owner ''(which GW won't give to competitors)'' or find a way to release original products that the owner has never released or depicted in any media ''(that also goes for creating models based on drawings ie: "Derivative Works")''. Also, if the owner doesn't want to find someone filling a niche they themselves could be filling, then they shouldn't create gaps in their own product range.

==Result==
In October 2014 Chapterhouse shut down their website after having their assets frozen by Games Workshop.

On 14 November 2014[[https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CC4QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dakkadakka.com%2Fdakkaforum%2Fposts%2FdownloadAttach%2F203680.page&ei=KfNoVOH5MdTasAS6-4HoBA&usg=AFQjCNFYJrz-tAZimprelIjxCpWNv2F7CA&sig2=FUMkGA2kVaeUX7jO3foNhA&bvm=bv.79142246,bs.1,d.d2s]] the case was settled between the companies. The appeals from both sides were dismissed "with prejudice" (cannot be re-litigated) in a "Joint Dismissal" (meaning they both agreed to it): The $25,000 damages sought by GW were waived and the asset freeze was lifted. Each side has to pay its own legal fees (Chapterhouse was represented pro bono, of course).

On 18 November 2014 Chapterhouse announced via Facebook that "the web store will be up and going by the end of the week and I will ship out any orders that were not disputed this week as well. Hopefully the site will be able to stay profitable and I am hoping the defense lines will sell as well as some new products as well."

Additionally, after the Chapterhouse decision, GW began renaming factions and units from their original and well-loved names to names that can be defended as trademarks in court, with the new name often being [[Fail|impossible to take seriously.]] It can be assumed that this is an attempt to prevent bits manufacturers from using words that GW is also using when naming their products. The most infamous example of this is [[Age of Sigmar]], in which ''every goddamn name'' was changed to be completely fucking stupid for this purpose, even basic fantasy terms like "[[orc]]" and "[[elf]]." [[Transformers]] fanboys may compare this to [[Hasbro|Hasbro's]] issues with "[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Blastification blastification]" and prefix/suffix abuse, but the situation with the Transformers franchise is far removed from GW's. First, in several cases Hasbro has actually been forced to change a name because ''another toy company'' claimed the trademark for a classic toy before Hasbro did; this is why several toylines in the early 2000s passed by without a Bumblebee. Second, the market in which Hasbro operates is fucking bananas, with a metric shitload of toy companies competing for shelf space and the threat of bootleg toys from the Walmart bargain bin damaging your company's reputation looming in the background. In this environment, changing a toy's name to be a little goofy is actually a smart business move. Games Workshop's position in the miniatures wargame market is [[Privateer Press|almost]] entirely unchallenged, giving them strong claims on the names they were already using for decades, and [[Casting|bootleggers of GW miniatures]] are all using the same quality process as GW and don't give a fuck about trademarks anyway. So not only is the proliferation of nounverbers and dog Latin pointless (see below), it's also completely unnecessary even if it ''did'' work. Additionally, as stated below, all the new "trademark friendly" factions are still recognised by their old name among the community, so third party companies can just use the old names and actually have a better chance in court as said name is [[Fail|no longer a trademark.]]

In the 8th Edition, Warhammer 40k has also seen the new renaming trend:
*Imperium
**Imperial Guard - ''Astra Militarum''
**Space Marines - ''Adeptus Astartes''
**Sisters of Battle - ''Adeptus Ministorum''
**Imperial Robots - ''Adeptus Mechanicus''
**Imperial Knights - ''Questor Imperialis''
**Titan Legions - ''Titanicus Imperialis''
**Imperial Assassins - ''Officio Assassinorum''
*Chaos
**Chaos Space Marines - ''Heretic Astartes''
**Renegade Knights - ''Questor Traitoris''
**Renegade Titans - ''Titanicus Traitoris''
*Xenos
**Eldar - ''Aeldari''
**Dark Eldar - ''Drukhari''
**Tau - ''T'au''
Presumably this means we will soon be seeing [[Dark Mechanicum|Mechanicus Tenebrae]], [[Chaos Daemons|Heretic Daemons]], [[Renegades and Heretics|Militarum Traitoris]], [[Orks|Oruks]], [[Eldar Corsairs|Aeldari Cursarii]], [[Harlequins|Aeldari Ridicularius]], [[Deathwatch|Xenos Venatores]], [[Blood Angels|Angeli ex Sanguinus]], [[Dark Angels|Angeli Tenebrae]] and [[Space Wolves|Vlka Fenryka]].

==Discussion==

Some would argue that Chapterhouse should have seen the lawsuit coming, since they based a huge portion of their business model as "aftermarket bits" specifically for GW products, using GW models/components in their advertising and even using GW names such as ''"pre-heresy terminator"'' for their products, which was an incredibly risky venture - akin to playing with fire - especially considering that most people know how litigious GW is over their IP.

The earlier rulings regarding specific instances of infringment still stand, since this was only an agreement on the damages appeal (and not the original case); therefore GW still cannot "own" a copyright on something that they have never depicted or produced themselves, so still don't expect the recent attitude of ''"no model = no rules"'' to lessen off any time soon.

Ultimately whether this is bad or good is up to you the reader, since it means that GW from now on will at least have models for the things that they present in their books rather than leaving giant gaps for over a decade ''(eg: [[Kheradruakh|Decapitator]])''.

Some fear that it will now be more difficult to find alternative parts for GW models anymore ''(meaning you'll have to go to them exclusively for your kit-bashing needs)'' unless you can find something in another range that fits your chosen model "coincidentally" *wink wink* . In fact even saying it fits with specific third-party products is actually fine ''(like modified car parts)'', you still can't advertise your own products using someone else's products and trademarks, the product has to stand on its own, but that's not really any change in IP law at all, so things continue as normal.

One notable result of this affair resulted in two new policies from GW; "If it doesn't have a model, it doesn't have rules" and "If it's in the artwork, it needs a model". The former rule prevents other companies from make profit by creating models for model-less codex entries. The latter rule means that all new artwork features the same five or six models over and over again, making it very repetitive and uninspiring. Thanks Chapterhouse.

==Stopping this from happening to YOU==
You CAN be sued for creating your own conversions of anyone's models, but so long as they are for non-commercial use, the lawsuit will in practice be thrown out by the judge once it reaches that step of the lawsuit. This is universal (Western) tort law; you can be sued by anyone for anything, but unless there are potential damages to award, the suit cannot go anywhere.

If you ARE making money off of your conversion, this leads to questions about the nature of the conversion and the nature of the money, which means the lawsuit will go farther.

====Idea-Expression Divide====

This was ChapterHouse's defense (when it succeeded): Facts, ideas, and processes are not copyrightable, only specific expressions of facts and ideas. If someone writes down a description of a model, they have a copyright on what they just wrote - NOT on the model described. If you make the model before they do (copyright is about whoever makes it first), you own the copyright to that model. In other words, the model is not actually a conversion - it is your original work. It's why model less options like the Mycetic Spore went away.

====First Sale====

This is what lets retail stores exist. If you buy a thing, you may sell that thing, because it is yours. This is object specific, meaning that if you buy a Land Raider model, you may then sell that specific model - the First Sale doctrine has no bearing on you then producing more models on your own. You may also modify that thing before selling it, of course - for example, you may build and paint the model, *then* sell it, which is why people selling off their old models on e.g. [http://ebay.com ebay] is fundamentally protected. This absolutely means you can buy GW models on an item by item basis, converting them as you go and then selling them off - this is exactly what people do when they, as just mentioned, sell off their armies on [http://ebay.com ebay].

====Fair Use====

[http://tsoalr.com/ Turn Signals On A Land Raider] was a web comic parodying WH40K, and hence was as quintessential an example of "'''Fair Use"''' as exists anywhere - Fair Use is the primary active defense in copyright lawsuits (remember, it's active - if it's coming up, you've been sued and are defending yourself in court with it, so you're playing with fire). TSOALR was threatened by GW with a lawsuit, and it was making money - it had ads on its site - and was using WH40K IP to do so, so the lawsuit would not have been thrown out. Unfortunately, Fair Use has not been rigorously or objectively defined in any jurisdiction on the planet, so it's the judge's call, based on the case at hand and any relevant precedent. TSOALR would still easily have won (parody is a subset of criticism, which is the most heavily enshrined kind of Fair Use), but it would have been expensive to do so, since it would have had to pay a lawyer to raise the defense in court - money TSOALR did not have. If you intend to protect yourself with Fair Use, familiarize yourself beforehand with the relevant cases you're going to claim as precedent and why you think it's fair use, and be prepared to shell out gobs of money to deal with GW shitting all over you. TSOALR folded rather than go to court, and so we lost one of the mainstays of WH40K fandom.

====Public Domain====

If no one holds the copyright to the model you're converting, no one can claim damages against you in court. There aren't many models in the public domain, but if you do find one, do with it whatever you like - that's the whole point of it.

However, historical items are, or at least seem to be to this untrained editor's eyes, in the public domain. Or else why would Flames of War, Warlord Games, Trumpeter, Tamiya and other be able to all make Sherman tank models without Sueing each other? It's also why Games Workshop changed the name of the "Imperial Guard" and "Storm Troopers", both terms used by real world military units, to the more trade markable "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions."

====Not All IP is Copyright====

The above defenses work against *copyright* lawsuits; trademark infringement (and patent, but odds are incredibly slim you'll run up against patent law for this) is an entirely different discussion. Trademark infringement is trivial to defend against, if you want to play it really safe, because trademarks apply only to incredibly specific expressions of ideas, like 'Astra Militarum'. If you just don't use those terms, trademark isn't relevant and can't be successfully brought against you. Trademarks are usually where it becomes relevant to get a license from the owning company, because trademarks serve as an indication of the origin of the good or service - to continue with our example, if you sell female Imperial Guard you made yourself, but call them Astra Militarum, customers might get confused about where the models are coming from, and conclude that GW is the original source of the models. If you did this to intentionally mislead them, it would be considered fraud.

There is no surer trademark defense than not using the trademark anywhere, if you want to go into some sort of business based off of someone else's IP. There are other defenses - for example, it is by definition not a trademark violation to simply use a trademarked expression to identify the owner of the trademarked expression, so you can e.g. put out ads saying that your paint schemes are totally better looking than Games Workshop's, and GW's attempt to sue you over your use of their trademarked name will ultimately fail - but trademarks are iffy enough that you should consult a lawyer before doing *anything* with a trademarked expression. You're better off keeping it generic, like: ''"conversion kits compatible with most 28mm models"'' or ''"painting services for tabletop wargaming models"''. Ironically, this makes GW's new trend of changing names to be more trademarkable (Imperial Guard > Astra Militarum, Space Marines > Adeptus Astartes, Chaos Space Marines > Heretic Astartes, Tau > T'au, Eldar > Aeldari, Dark Eldar > Drukhari, etc) completely useless as third party companies can just title their models with the old name and thus [[Rules Lawyer|no trademark is infringed]].

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:CH Heresy-Era Terminator.jpg|[[Original character, do not steal|'''Exhibit A''']]: Actually marketed as "Heresy Era Terminator". Something like this was a lawsuit waiting to happen, due to trademark (not copyright) infringement.
File:CH mongolian heads.jpg|[[White Scars|Mongolian]] heads, "compatible" with most 28mm brands; this is how it should have been done.
</gallery>

{{Model Manufacturers}}

[[Category:Model Manufacturers]] [[Category:Publishers]]

ChapterHouse Studios

2017-07-29T03:05:52Z

2001:8003:38E4:8100:DC85:D2E1:E74:CE62: /* Lawsuit from Games Workshop */

{{Publisher Infobox
|name=ChapterHouse Studios
|website=http://chapterhousestudios.com/
}}
'''ChapterHouse Studios''' is a miniatures company that produces miniatures and bits meant to be used with [[Games Workshop]]'s [[Warhammer 40,000]] and [[Warhammer Fantasy]] lines. Rather than dancing around the issue and saying "compatible with major brands of 28mm miniatures (wink, wink)", ChapterHouse's products are directly named and organized by what GW factions and models they're meant to go with. Needless to say, this led to [[Blam|less than desirable consequences]] when Gee Dubs found out about this.

= Lawsuit from Games Workshop =
[[File:spore.jpg|right|thumb|300px|GW chose to remove several units rather than let ChapterHouse make a model for them. In other words, GW cares more about hurting ChapterHouse than they care about having a quality tyranid codex.]]
Games Workshop got fed up with this and filed a lawsuit against them when they started making models for units that GW had named in their codices but not depicted in any art or models, most notably the [[Tyranids]]' [[Mycetic Spore]]. The lawsuit went on for years, but finally ended mostly in ChapterHouse's favor -- since Games Workshop had never actually produced any depiction of many of the units in question, it was ruled that ChapterHouse (and anyone else) weren't violating any copyrights by making their own models (it would be like Games Workshop trying to bring a lawsuit against every person in the world who made conversions for Warhammer).

However on balance, GW took around 200 specific articles of alleged copyright infringement to court with them, and won about 30% of those. Forcing ChapterHouse to retire many of their own models, as simply making "variations" ''(such as female versions of existing GW models like Farseers & Aspect Warriors)'' still counts as infringment. Plus ChapterHouse was ordered to pay damages for these breaches of copyright and pay court costs, which they were still appealing as of early 2014.

Games Workshop had to update their codexes to reflect this, stripping out the Mycetic Spores from the Tyranid codex, as well as the Doom of Mal'antai and the Parasite of Mortrex, which also had models made for them, while presumably renaming the [[Imperial Guard]] to the far more copyright-friendly "Astra Militarum", ''(not to mention the removal of several other ICs and units which never had models from their codex)'' , and eventually renaming their beloved Space Marines to Adeptus Astartes and Heretic Astartes for Loyalists and Traitors respectively, likely due to the 'Spots the Space Marine' situation.

All in all, this is generally a good example of Intellectual Property Law at work: If you want to earn a profit by using someone else's IP, then you either have to License it from the owner ''(which GW won't give to competitors)'' or find a way to release original products that the owner has never released or depicted in any media ''(that also goes for creating models based on drawings ie: "Derivative Works")''. Also, if the owner doesn't want to find someone filling a niche they themselves could be filling, then they shouldn't create gaps in their own product range.

==Result==
In October 2014 Chapterhouse shut down their website after having their assets frozen by Games Workshop.

On 14 November 2014[[https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CC4QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dakkadakka.com%2Fdakkaforum%2Fposts%2FdownloadAttach%2F203680.page&ei=KfNoVOH5MdTasAS6-4HoBA&usg=AFQjCNFYJrz-tAZimprelIjxCpWNv2F7CA&sig2=FUMkGA2kVaeUX7jO3foNhA&bvm=bv.79142246,bs.1,d.d2s]] the case was settled between the companies. The appeals from both sides were dismissed "with prejudice" (cannot be re-litigated) in a "Joint Dismissal" (meaning they both agreed to it): The $25,000 damages sought by GW were waived and the asset freeze was lifted. Each side has to pay its own legal fees (Chapterhouse was represented pro bono, of course).

On 18 November 2014 Chapterhouse announced via Facebook that "the web store will be up and going by the end of the week and I will ship out any orders that were not disputed this week as well. Hopefully the site will be able to stay profitable and I am hoping the defense lines will sell as well as some new products as well."

Additionally, after the Chapterhouse decision, GW began renaming factions and units from their original and well-loved names to names that can be defended as trademarks in court, with the new name often being [[Fail|impossible to take seriously.]] It can be assumed that this is an attempt to prevent bits manufacturers from using words that GW is also using when naming their products. The most infamous example of this is [[Age of Sigmar]], in which ''every goddamn name'' was changed to be completely fucking stupid for this purpose, even basic fantasy terms like "[[orc]]" and "[[elf]]." [[Transformers]] fanboys may compare this to [[Hasbro|Hasbro's]] issues with "[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Blastification blastification]" and prefix/suffix abuse, but the situation with the Transformers franchise is far removed from GW's. First, in several cases Hasbro has actually been forced to change a name because ''another toy company'' claimed the trademark for a classic toy before Hasbro did; this is why several toylines in the early 2000s passed by without a Bumblebee. Second, the market in which Hasbro operates is fucking bananas, with a metric shitload of toy companies competing for shelf space and the threat of bootleg toys from the Walmart bargain bin damaging your company's reputation looming in the background. In this environment, changing a toy's name to be a little goofy is actually a smart business move. Games Workshop's position in the miniatures wargame market is [[Privateer Press|almost]] entirely unchallenged, giving them strong claims on the names they were already using for decades, and [[Casting|bootleggers of GW miniatures]] are all using the same quality process as GW and don't give a fuck about trademarks anyway. So not only is the proliferation of nounverbers and dog Latin pointless (see below), it's also completely unnecessary even if it ''did'' work. Additionally, as stated below, all the new "trademark friendly" factions are still recognised by their old name among the community, so third party companies can just use the old names and actually have a better chance in court as said name is [[Fail|no longer a trademark.]]

==Discussion==

Some would argue that Chapterhouse should have seen the lawsuit coming, since they based a huge portion of their business model as "aftermarket bits" specifically for GW products, using GW models/components in their advertising and even using GW names such as ''"pre-heresy terminator"'' for their products, which was an incredibly risky venture - akin to playing with fire - especially considering that most people know how litigious GW is over their IP.

The earlier rulings regarding specific instances of infringment still stand, since this was only an agreement on the damages appeal (and not the original case); therefore GW still cannot "own" a copyright on something that they have never depicted or produced themselves, so still don't expect the recent attitude of ''"no model = no rules"'' to lessen off any time soon.

Ultimately whether this is bad or good is up to you the reader, since it means that GW from now on will at least have models for the things that they present in their books rather than leaving giant gaps for over a decade ''(eg: [[Kheradruakh|Decapitator]])''.

Some fear that it will now be more difficult to find alternative parts for GW models anymore ''(meaning you'll have to go to them exclusively for your kit-bashing needs)'' unless you can find something in another range that fits your chosen model "coincidentally" *wink wink* . In fact even saying it fits with specific third-party products is actually fine ''(like modified car parts)'', you still can't advertise your own products using someone else's products and trademarks, the product has to stand on its own, but that's not really any change in IP law at all, so things continue as normal.

One notable result of this affair resulted in two new policies from GW; "If it doesn't have a model, it doesn't have rules" and "If it's in the artwork, it needs a model". The former rule prevents other companies from make profit by creating models for model-less codex entries. The latter rule means that all new artwork features the same five or six models over and over again, making it very repetitive and uninspiring. Thanks Chapterhouse.

==Stopping this from happening to YOU==
You CAN be sued for creating your own conversions of anyone's models, but so long as they are for non-commercial use, the lawsuit will in practice be thrown out by the judge once it reaches that step of the lawsuit. This is universal (Western) tort law; you can be sued by anyone for anything, but unless there are potential damages to award, the suit cannot go anywhere.

If you ARE making money off of your conversion, this leads to questions about the nature of the conversion and the nature of the money, which means the lawsuit will go farther.

====Idea-Expression Divide====

This was ChapterHouse's defense (when it succeeded): Facts, ideas, and processes are not copyrightable, only specific expressions of facts and ideas. If someone writes down a description of a model, they have a copyright on what they just wrote - NOT on the model described. If you make the model before they do (copyright is about whoever makes it first), you own the copyright to that model. In other words, the model is not actually a conversion - it is your original work. It's why model less options like the Mycetic Spore went away.

====First Sale====

This is what lets retail stores exist. If you buy a thing, you may sell that thing, because it is yours. This is object specific, meaning that if you buy a Land Raider model, you may then sell that specific model - the First Sale doctrine has no bearing on you then producing more models on your own. You may also modify that thing before selling it, of course - for example, you may build and paint the model, *then* sell it, which is why people selling off their old models on e.g. [http://ebay.com ebay] is fundamentally protected. This absolutely means you can buy GW models on an item by item basis, converting them as you go and then selling them off - this is exactly what people do when they, as just mentioned, sell off their armies on [http://ebay.com ebay].

====Fair Use====

[http://tsoalr.com/ Turn Signals On A Land Raider] was a web comic parodying WH40K, and hence was as quintessential an example of "'''Fair Use"''' as exists anywhere - Fair Use is the primary active defense in copyright lawsuits (remember, it's active - if it's coming up, you've been sued and are defending yourself in court with it, so you're playing with fire). TSOALR was threatened by GW with a lawsuit, and it was making money - it had ads on its site - and was using WH40K IP to do so, so the lawsuit would not have been thrown out. Unfortunately, Fair Use has not been rigorously or objectively defined in any jurisdiction on the planet, so it's the judge's call, based on the case at hand and any relevant precedent. TSOALR would still easily have won (parody is a subset of criticism, which is the most heavily enshrined kind of Fair Use), but it would have been expensive to do so, since it would have had to pay a lawyer to raise the defense in court - money TSOALR did not have. If you intend to protect yourself with Fair Use, familiarize yourself beforehand with the relevant cases you're going to claim as precedent and why you think it's fair use, and be prepared to shell out gobs of money to deal with GW shitting all over you. TSOALR folded rather than go to court, and so we lost one of the mainstays of WH40K fandom.

====Public Domain====

If no one holds the copyright to the model you're converting, no one can claim damages against you in court. There aren't many models in the public domain, but if you do find one, do with it whatever you like - that's the whole point of it.

However, historical items are, or at least seem to be to this untrained editor's eyes, in the public domain. Or else why would Flames of War, Warlord Games, Trumpeter, Tamiya and other be able to all make Sherman tank models without Sueing each other? It's also why Games Workshop changed the name of the "Imperial Guard" and "Storm Troopers", both terms used by real world military units, to the more trade markable "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions."

====Not All IP is Copyright====

The above defenses work against *copyright* lawsuits; trademark infringement (and patent, but odds are incredibly slim you'll run up against patent law for this) is an entirely different discussion. Trademark infringement is trivial to defend against, if you want to play it really safe, because trademarks apply only to incredibly specific expressions of ideas, like 'Astra Militarum'. If you just don't use those terms, trademark isn't relevant and can't be successfully brought against you. Trademarks are usually where it becomes relevant to get a license from the owning company, because trademarks serve as an indication of the origin of the good or service - to continue with our example, if you sell female Imperial Guard you made yourself, but call them Astra Militarum, customers might get confused about where the models are coming from, and conclude that GW is the original source of the models. If you did this to intentionally mislead them, it would be considered fraud.

There is no surer trademark defense than not using the trademark anywhere, if you want to go into some sort of business based off of someone else's IP. There are other defenses - for example, it is by definition not a trademark violation to simply use a trademarked expression to identify the owner of the trademarked expression, so you can e.g. put out ads saying that your paint schemes are totally better looking than Games Workshop's, and GW's attempt to sue you over your use of their trademarked name will ultimately fail - but trademarks are iffy enough that you should consult a lawyer before doing *anything* with a trademarked expression. You're better off keeping it generic, like: ''"conversion kits compatible with most 28mm models"'' or ''"painting services for tabletop wargaming models"''. Ironically, this makes GW's new trend of changing names to be more trademarkable (Imperial Guard > Astra Militarum, Space Marines > Adeptus Astartes, Chaos Space Marines > Heretic Astartes, Tau > T'au, Eldar > Aeldari, Dark Eldar > Drukhari, etc) completely useless as third party companies can just title their models with the old name and thus [[Rules Lawyer|no trademark is infringed]].

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:CH Heresy-Era Terminator.jpg|[[Original character, do not steal|'''Exhibit A''']]: Actually marketed as "Heresy Era Terminator". Something like this was a lawsuit waiting to happen, due to trademark (not copyright) infringement.
File:CH mongolian heads.jpg|[[White Scars|Mongolian]] heads, "compatible" with most 28mm brands; this is how it should have been done.
</gallery>

{{Model Manufacturers}}

[[Category:Model Manufacturers]] [[Category:Publishers]]

ChapterHouse Studios

2017-07-29T02:58:58Z

2001:8003:38E4:8100:DC85:D2E1:E74:CE62: /* Result */

{{Publisher Infobox
|name=ChapterHouse Studios
|website=http://chapterhousestudios.com/
}}
'''ChapterHouse Studios''' is a miniatures company that produces miniatures and bits meant to be used with [[Games Workshop]]'s [[Warhammer 40,000]] and [[Warhammer Fantasy]] lines. Rather than dancing around the issue and saying "compatible with major brands of 28mm miniatures (wink, wink)", ChapterHouse's products are directly named and organized by what GW factions and models they're meant to go with. Needless to say, this led to [[Blam|less than desirable consequences]] when Gee Dubs found out about this.

= Lawsuit from Games Workshop =
[[File:spore.jpg|right|thumb|300px|GW chose to remove several units rather than let ChapterHouse make a model for them. In other words, GW cares more about hurting ChapterHouse than they care about having a quality tyranid codex.]]
Games Workshop got fed up with this and filed a lawsuit against them when they started making models for units that GW had named in their codices but not depicted in any art or models, most notably the [[Tyranids]]' [[Mycetic Spore]]. The lawsuit went on for years, but finally ended mostly in ChapterHouse's favor -- since Games Workshop had never actually produced any depiction of many of the units in question, it was ruled that ChapterHouse (and anyone else) weren't violating any copyrights by making their own models (it would be like Games Workshop trying to bring a lawsuit against every person in the world who made conversions for Warhammer).

However on balance, GW took around 200 specific articles of alleged copyright infringement to court with them, and won about 30% of those. Forcing ChapterHouse to retire many of their own models, as simply making "variations" ''(such as female versions of existing GW models like Farseers & Aspect Warriors)'' still counts as infringment. Plus ChapterHouse was ordered to pay damages for these breaches of copyright and pay court costs, which they were still appealing as of early 2014.

Games Workshop had to update their codexes to reflect this, stripping out the Mycetic Spores from the Tyranid codex, as well as the Doom of Mal'antai and the Parasite of Mortrex, which also had models made for them, while presumably renaming the [[Imperial Guard]] to the far more copyright-friendly "Astra Militarum", ''(not to mention the removal of several other ICs and units which never had models from their codex)'' , though Games Workshop still love Space Marines too much to rename them, despite the 'Spots the Space Marine' situation.

All in all, this is generally a good example of Intellectual Property Law at work: If you want to earn a profit by using someone else's IP, then you either have to License it from the owner ''(which GW won't give to competitors)'' or find a way to release original products that the owner has never released or depicted in any media ''(that also goes for creating models based on drawings ie: "Derivative Works")''. Also, if the owner doesn't want to find someone filling a niche they themselves could be filling, then they shouldn't create gaps in their own product range.

==Result==
In October 2014 Chapterhouse shut down their website after having their assets frozen by Games Workshop.

On 14 November 2014[[https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CC4QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dakkadakka.com%2Fdakkaforum%2Fposts%2FdownloadAttach%2F203680.page&ei=KfNoVOH5MdTasAS6-4HoBA&usg=AFQjCNFYJrz-tAZimprelIjxCpWNv2F7CA&sig2=FUMkGA2kVaeUX7jO3foNhA&bvm=bv.79142246,bs.1,d.d2s]] the case was settled between the companies. The appeals from both sides were dismissed "with prejudice" (cannot be re-litigated) in a "Joint Dismissal" (meaning they both agreed to it): The $25,000 damages sought by GW were waived and the asset freeze was lifted. Each side has to pay its own legal fees (Chapterhouse was represented pro bono, of course).

On 18 November 2014 Chapterhouse announced via Facebook that "the web store will be up and going by the end of the week and I will ship out any orders that were not disputed this week as well. Hopefully the site will be able to stay profitable and I am hoping the defense lines will sell as well as some new products as well."

Additionally, after the Chapterhouse decision, GW began renaming factions and units from their original and well-loved names to names that can be defended as trademarks in court, with the new name often being [[Fail|impossible to take seriously.]] It can be assumed that this is an attempt to prevent bits manufacturers from using words that GW is also using when naming their products. The most infamous example of this is [[Age of Sigmar]], in which ''every goddamn name'' was changed to be completely fucking stupid for this purpose, even basic fantasy terms like "[[orc]]" and "[[elf]]." [[Transformers]] fanboys may compare this to [[Hasbro|Hasbro's]] issues with "[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Blastification blastification]" and prefix/suffix abuse, but the situation with the Transformers franchise is far removed from GW's. First, in several cases Hasbro has actually been forced to change a name because ''another toy company'' claimed the trademark for a classic toy before Hasbro did; this is why several toylines in the early 2000s passed by without a Bumblebee. Second, the market in which Hasbro operates is fucking bananas, with a metric shitload of toy companies competing for shelf space and the threat of bootleg toys from the Walmart bargain bin damaging your company's reputation looming in the background. In this environment, changing a toy's name to be a little goofy is actually a smart business move. Games Workshop's position in the miniatures wargame market is [[Privateer Press|almost]] entirely unchallenged, giving them strong claims on the names they were already using for decades, and [[Casting|bootleggers of GW miniatures]] are all using the same quality process as GW and don't give a fuck about trademarks anyway. So not only is the proliferation of nounverbers and dog Latin pointless (see below), it's also completely unnecessary even if it ''did'' work. Additionally, as stated below, all the new "trademark friendly" factions are still recognised by their old name among the community, so third party companies can just use the old names and actually have a better chance in court as said name is [[Fail|no longer a trademark.]]

==Discussion==

Some would argue that Chapterhouse should have seen the lawsuit coming, since they based a huge portion of their business model as "aftermarket bits" specifically for GW products, using GW models/components in their advertising and even using GW names such as ''"pre-heresy terminator"'' for their products, which was an incredibly risky venture - akin to playing with fire - especially considering that most people know how litigious GW is over their IP.

The earlier rulings regarding specific instances of infringment still stand, since this was only an agreement on the damages appeal (and not the original case); therefore GW still cannot "own" a copyright on something that they have never depicted or produced themselves, so still don't expect the recent attitude of ''"no model = no rules"'' to lessen off any time soon.

Ultimately whether this is bad or good is up to you the reader, since it means that GW from now on will at least have models for the things that they present in their books rather than leaving giant gaps for over a decade ''(eg: [[Kheradruakh|Decapitator]])''.

Some fear that it will now be more difficult to find alternative parts for GW models anymore ''(meaning you'll have to go to them exclusively for your kit-bashing needs)'' unless you can find something in another range that fits your chosen model "coincidentally" *wink wink* . In fact even saying it fits with specific third-party products is actually fine ''(like modified car parts)'', you still can't advertise your own products using someone else's products and trademarks, the product has to stand on its own, but that's not really any change in IP law at all, so things continue as normal.

One notable result of this affair resulted in two new policies from GW; "If it doesn't have a model, it doesn't have rules" and "If it's in the artwork, it needs a model". The former rule prevents other companies from make profit by creating models for model-less codex entries. The latter rule means that all new artwork features the same five or six models over and over again, making it very repetitive and uninspiring. Thanks Chapterhouse.

==Stopping this from happening to YOU==
You CAN be sued for creating your own conversions of anyone's models, but so long as they are for non-commercial use, the lawsuit will in practice be thrown out by the judge once it reaches that step of the lawsuit. This is universal (Western) tort law; you can be sued by anyone for anything, but unless there are potential damages to award, the suit cannot go anywhere.

If you ARE making money off of your conversion, this leads to questions about the nature of the conversion and the nature of the money, which means the lawsuit will go farther.

====Idea-Expression Divide====

This was ChapterHouse's defense (when it succeeded): Facts, ideas, and processes are not copyrightable, only specific expressions of facts and ideas. If someone writes down a description of a model, they have a copyright on what they just wrote - NOT on the model described. If you make the model before they do (copyright is about whoever makes it first), you own the copyright to that model. In other words, the model is not actually a conversion - it is your original work. It's why model less options like the Mycetic Spore went away.

====First Sale====

This is what lets retail stores exist. If you buy a thing, you may sell that thing, because it is yours. This is object specific, meaning that if you buy a Land Raider model, you may then sell that specific model - the First Sale doctrine has no bearing on you then producing more models on your own. You may also modify that thing before selling it, of course - for example, you may build and paint the model, *then* sell it, which is why people selling off their old models on e.g. [http://ebay.com ebay] is fundamentally protected. This absolutely means you can buy GW models on an item by item basis, converting them as you go and then selling them off - this is exactly what people do when they, as just mentioned, sell off their armies on [http://ebay.com ebay].

====Fair Use====

[http://tsoalr.com/ Turn Signals On A Land Raider] was a web comic parodying WH40K, and hence was as quintessential an example of "'''Fair Use"''' as exists anywhere - Fair Use is the primary active defense in copyright lawsuits (remember, it's active - if it's coming up, you've been sued and are defending yourself in court with it, so you're playing with fire). TSOALR was threatened by GW with a lawsuit, and it was making money - it had ads on its site - and was using WH40K IP to do so, so the lawsuit would not have been thrown out. Unfortunately, Fair Use has not been rigorously or objectively defined in any jurisdiction on the planet, so it's the judge's call, based on the case at hand and any relevant precedent. TSOALR would still easily have won (parody is a subset of criticism, which is the most heavily enshrined kind of Fair Use), but it would have been expensive to do so, since it would have had to pay a lawyer to raise the defense in court - money TSOALR did not have. If you intend to protect yourself with Fair Use, familiarize yourself beforehand with the relevant cases you're going to claim as precedent and why you think it's fair use, and be prepared to shell out gobs of money to deal with GW shitting all over you. TSOALR folded rather than go to court, and so we lost one of the mainstays of WH40K fandom.

====Public Domain====

If no one holds the copyright to the model you're converting, no one can claim damages against you in court. There aren't many models in the public domain, but if you do find one, do with it whatever you like - that's the whole point of it.

However, historical items are, or at least seem to be to this untrained editor's eyes, in the public domain. Or else why would Flames of War, Warlord Games, Trumpeter, Tamiya and other be able to all make Sherman tank models without Sueing each other? It's also why Games Workshop changed the name of the "Imperial Guard" and "Storm Troopers", both terms used by real world military units, to the more trade markable "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions."

====Not All IP is Copyright====

The above defenses work against *copyright* lawsuits; trademark infringement (and patent, but odds are incredibly slim you'll run up against patent law for this) is an entirely different discussion. Trademark infringement is trivial to defend against, if you want to play it really safe, because trademarks apply only to incredibly specific expressions of ideas, like 'Astra Militarum'. If you just don't use those terms, trademark isn't relevant and can't be successfully brought against you. Trademarks are usually where it becomes relevant to get a license from the owning company, because trademarks serve as an indication of the origin of the good or service - to continue with our example, if you sell female Imperial Guard you made yourself, but call them Astra Militarum, customers might get confused about where the models are coming from, and conclude that GW is the original source of the models. If you did this to intentionally mislead them, it would be considered fraud.

There is no surer trademark defense than not using the trademark anywhere, if you want to go into some sort of business based off of someone else's IP. There are other defenses - for example, it is by definition not a trademark violation to simply use a trademarked expression to identify the owner of the trademarked expression, so you can e.g. put out ads saying that your paint schemes are totally better looking than Games Workshop's, and GW's attempt to sue you over your use of their trademarked name will ultimately fail - but trademarks are iffy enough that you should consult a lawyer before doing *anything* with a trademarked expression. You're better off keeping it generic, like: ''"conversion kits compatible with most 28mm models"'' or ''"painting services for tabletop wargaming models"''. Ironically, this makes GW's new trend of changing names to be more trademarkable (Imperial Guard > Astra Militarum, Space Marines > Adeptus Astartes, Chaos Space Marines > Heretic Astartes, Tau > T'au, Eldar > Aeldari, Dark Eldar > Drukhari, etc) completely useless as third party companies can just title their models with the old name and thus [[Rules Lawyer|no trademark is infringed]].

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:CH Heresy-Era Terminator.jpg|[[Original character, do not steal|'''Exhibit A''']]: Actually marketed as "Heresy Era Terminator". Something like this was a lawsuit waiting to happen, due to trademark (not copyright) infringement.
File:CH mongolian heads.jpg|[[White Scars|Mongolian]] heads, "compatible" with most 28mm brands; this is how it should have been done.
</gallery>

{{Model Manufacturers}}

[[Category:Model Manufacturers]] [[Category:Publishers]]