Hi guys,

Please answer the question in the title.

Really URGENT

Thanks
LordElrond

As long as you arnt selling the parts I think it's alright. Of course if you are moulding parts from GW kits then that may be different. But sculpting and moulding your own pieces is ok.

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12th GBHL 2013.
13th GBHL 2014
9th GBHL 2015


Mid Sussex Wargamers

I'm moulding a high elf shield

That would depend on two things...
1] What you are making casts of

2]What you are doing with the casts you make.

If you are casting say GW shields and then selling them then no its probably not legal. If you are making casts of GW or other suppliers stuff simply to use in your own collection then its probably ok.

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Commission Availability : BOOKED SOLID (again lol)

More of my work at

www.ShadowandFlame.co.uk

If I take them into a GW?

lol probably not adviseable

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Commission Availability : BOOKED SOLID (again lol)

More of my work at

www.ShadowandFlame.co.uk

No matter how you wrap it up, breach of copyright is breach of copyright.

By copying a GW model (or part) and casting it (even for your own use), you have used a GW design and deprived them of income. (By this, I mean making a mould from one of thier parts).

What will GW do?

If you are just doing some mods or conversions, nothing, it would be petty and not worth the effort.

If you are casting and selling the parts, then they may have a go if they catch you.

If you are sculpting the model from scratch (and then making casts), then you are pretty much safe, provided you do not try to pass it off as a GW item.

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"Naur an edraith ammen!", no thanks, we have central heating.

Conversions

Conversions are a major aspect of the hobby, although in intellectual property terms, they also constitute a major infringement. However, we are certainly not about to stop people making cool conversions of our products, although, there are certain things to keep in mind:

Please do not combine our intellectual properties with IP owned by any third parties.
(Your conversions should be one-time, unique masterpieces of hobby Do not create a production run of conversions for sale. Whilst infringing our IP, this is also simply not hobby.
Casting

Do not cast any materials that are based upon Games Workshop material. Games Workshop has to maintain a strict policy on this to fight counterfeiters. We would also remind you that reproduction for personal use is NOT an automatic exclusion in respect of copyright protection in many territories worldwide)


This is GWs legal policy. You should be fine if you copy something you have purchased and do not use it to personally benefit financially in any way.

So its ok?

Not strictly true. I had a sculpt commisioned from scratch of the uruk hai scout captain with 2 handed axe done and had a few casts made. I decided to put one on ebay just out of curiosity. I was emailed after about 2 days of the listing going live by Warner Bros (not sure why warner Bros would email as i didn't think they had anything to do with the rights to lotr but anyway) I was made to take down the listing , got a slap on the hand by ebay and was told to stop selling these casts or else lol Needless to say the casts are no longer for sale. I was VERY clear in the listing that this was a scratch sculpt cast and not a GW original.

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Commission Availability : BOOKED SOLID (again lol)

More of my work at

www.ShadowandFlame.co.uk

I recall the listing.

It may be because you described the item as a an accurate copy of the GW model. (Even though you did make it quite clear it was an original sculpt).

I am surprised, more so bearing in mind they don't even make that model anymore.

However, it's nice to know that Warner Bros paid you so much attention. World beware, DMS threatens domination!

Stockton today, the Empire by next Thursday.

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"Naur an edraith ammen!", no thanks, we have central heating.

I say if you do a good enough cast and paint it well enough... who will ever know?! Keep it for yourself and there is no trouble, try selling and making profit and then that would not be acceptable. As a hobbyist I say instant mold is there to have fun with so if you have bought a GW product; feel free to play with it and use instant mold, just dont try making money for yourself from GW. I have recently just got into using instant mold and I think it is very good and useful, I still use 'green-stuff' so GW are still making money from me whichever way you look at it.

Doh!

Warner Bros will hold the world wide rights to making any models based on the characters in the movies (they will negotiate for these rights with the Tolkien estate).

The model you had commissioned will have violated those rights. Hence WB getting interested.

As such, a representation of Treebeard (very much a Tolkien character) will be out of order, but a generic "Tree Giant" will be safe.

Mind you, I am still impressed by their spy network, do they have teams of people scouring the web for this sort of stuff?

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"Naur an edraith ammen!", no thanks, we have central heating.

So, to make this clear, would it be ok to use models with those shields in a tournament?

I'd say yes, nobody will be able to tell

But if I get found out then I'm busted...?

This would not be covered by "fair" use terms and is infringing on the producers rights. Generally this is fine for private and home games/collections, but you run the risk of getting removed from the tournament. GW employees, particularly at tournments are trained to look for such usage. What are you planning on putting the shields on. If they have an elven shield on troops not meant to have that shield it will attract some attention as a mod and might get a higher level of scrutiny leading to discovery . . .

It's not legal nor is it the sort of thing that should be encouraged here I believe. After all, bits can be sourced off fleabag or mates. Hope you find another way around it

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http://jannersjaunt.blogspot.dk

I wouldn't worry about it.
Don't you think that the people of GW don't make/sculpt/craft their own items?

A lot of miniatures have options without a miniature with the options available.
Don't say that you molded the item, what they don't know can't hurt you.

Many people add itmes to models that have it in their profiles, that was not my claim. But when an employee at a tournament sees a model with a piece not generally packaged with that piece they will give it extra scrutiny and depnding on the material used to do the molding and the complexity of the caster "counterfeits" are generally easily recognizable.