So the interwebs are all a buzz with this story, and so far, no one really knows what’s going on but the sites listed above are down.
What do they all have in common? They’re blogs that use Google’s Blogger software, have GW pictures up and have all been served complaints from GW about posting pictures of copy-written material up on their sites.
Some of the complaints against Faeit 212 and Apocalypse 40K:
http://chillingeffects.org/dmca512c/notice.cgi?NoticeID=918221
http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512c/notice.cgi?NoticeID=928410
The chatter in the community is that GW did this as a reaction to the above listed sites (and others too, but those are the most commonly known) habits of posting copy-written images, including those we see that are leaked from White Dwarf. Allegedly they somehow forced Google to take the sites in question down. Other rumors are saying that Google is simply having technical problems and that those sites are affected by it.
Now I won’t say explicitly that GW is behind this or if it is simply a technical glitch as I can’t. I do not know what’s going on, I am just offering up the details available to me and some opinions. I have been told though, that BoLS is only experiencing technical issues while Natfka over at Faeit’s situation may be more closely linked to GW. That is all hearsay at this time though, so take it with a pinch of salt.
I understand an individual or company’s desire to protect their IP. That is 100% fair. If you owned something, and someone was using it for profit without your consent you’d likely be mad, too and justifiably seek to stop the offending party from continuing in their course of action. In this case I would imagine that GW wouldn’t want someone to steal their thunder by posting images of new models from the White Dwarf before it hits the stores as it will likely result in lost sales. Those folks who’ve seen all the pictures online already, may choose not to purchase the magazine. That too, is fair. Just like GW going after companies for making models and bitz that are based off of GW IP such as the Chapter House lawsuit going on now, or the more recent GW legal action against Blight Wheel Miniatures.
However, my question is when does protecting their IP actually cost GW business by pushing customers away?
Even if they are in an ethically defensible position of protecting their property and rights to profit, there is a less tangible commodity that they are losing by taking these courses of action: customer goodwill.
As a company, every time GW legally attacks another entity for something they run the risk of looking like bullies. Sites like Faeit 212 and BoLS in all honesty very well may cost them sales on White Dwarf. I have also heard the argument made that GW has found that keeping their releases a mystery up until release time increases impulse purchases and by having the cat let out of the bag by large, popular sites that post rules and such ahead of time GW may lose sales. I can understand that. If you knew how crappy Ahirman was gong to be before you saw the awesome model because you read his rules on line, you may choose not to buy the model.
My question though is how much do they lose by doing this? How many customers see this and after years of feeling neglected finally say enough is enough and pick up another game? How many future sales are lost there? How many sales do you think sites like BoLS and Faeit drive for GW by stoking the promotions machine, all at no cost? If they are the ones trying to kill the information flow as alleged, it may be more detrimental to their long term business health than beneficial.
At the end of the day, this is a community driven industry. We are not buying sprockets. We are not buying commodities. We are not even buying luxury goods in the conventional sense. These aren’t video games that you play by yourself and then get rid of. We buy, build, paint and keep these miniatures for years, if not our lifetimes. They have a real emotional weight for most of us and the game associated with them also has meaning. We’re buying little pieces of our passion, and pouring parts of oursevles into them through the labor and creativity associated with their creation. They are a means to engage with one another on common social terms and almost all of us have made genuine and enduring friendships as a result of gaming.
Gaming they way we do is more about hanging with your friends and blowing off steam, being creative and competitive than anything else. Treating this industry and the customers associated with it like sprockets and consumers just doesn’t work for long term health. When Privateer Press really took off one of the most common things you heard was: they’re not like GW, they care about their customers. Whether or not you agree with that statement, the idea really matters in this industry.
I’d refer you all to this very interesting article about the detah of TSR (the publisher of D&D before WotC bought them). The similarities are pretty interesting. A CEO that also allegedly doesn’t play the game (I have been told many, many times that GWs C level brass don’t play the games), aggressively suing/using legal action to defend their IP, and in general being pretty out of touch with their customers. How long can GW stay this course before their actions cost them more money than letting small businesses piggy back on their IP does? I understand the quandary: on the one hand you don’t want to be weak and allow competitors to put you out of business, but you also can’t alienate your customers and damage your brand by appearing to be a bully. It’s definitely a balancing act.
These corporate leaders may come from more competitive industries that fostered the mindset that brought them to the top: aggressiveness, shrewd business tactics, efficiency and profit oriented. However these same attitudes may ultimately be the downfall of the same companies. I can’t help but wonder if sacrificing some desire to maximize profit in order to foster community growth and outreach isn’t the better business model in this industry?
What do you all think?
I’m already done. My armies are going on the chopping block in the next month. I have no interest in giving the money I work for to a company that practices these sorts of shenanigans.
Bear in mind, we don’t have concrete information yet. At least I don’t. So this is all just rumor at this point.
That said, we’d be sad to see you go, buddy. You done with miniatures or just GW? You still playing Warmahordes?
And if you need help selling those armies, we have a consignment program too, FYI.
While I’ve mostly stopped playing GW games, as my group of friends and I have moved from wargames to RPGs, I still like the occasional 40k game. However, with the recent policy changes GW is taking like bullying out online retailers and now shutting down blogs (assuming of course that GW did take them out, and it’s not just a technical thing), I have lost all respect for GW as a company.
It is a real shame, as I love their minis and the universe, but I really can’t give them money when in turn they actively destroy the gaming community. Unless they do some serious damage control, I doubt they will ever see a penny from me, or my group of friends again.
You’re not along in that. I love the game, I love their customer support, but god dang I hate their policies. They suck hard. If they just softened up a bit and interacted with and engaged their community instead of trying to impose their will on us like we were McDonalds customers or something, it would go over so much better, IMO. I could be wrong of course, but it certainly feels like that would help a ton. They could do mind blowing things like, shock, test rules before printing them!
The only way that will happen is if they release something that is really terrible. The only example I can thing of is Wizards of the Coast, what with D&D 4th edition being pretty terrible. There was such an outcry from the fans that they started development of 5th fairly quickly, and made the rules have an open beta sort of thing so anyone could download them and send feedback.
Without such a massive blunder, or some sort of actual organized movement from the fans (which just won’t happen), they are sadly going to keep going in this direction.
While I’m not a fan their games myself, I do hope Privateer Press and other smaller game companies keep getting more and more popular so that one day they can actually be a threat to GW’s bottom line.
There are so many companies with quality products out there now, if GW doesn’t step it up and change their policies I really believe they are going to start hemorrhage customers.
I always heard that if you let something slip in international copyright, you set the ground for people to use that against you. I doubt bell of lost souls is gw related in its issues as their facebook page says google is on it trying to fix the problem. Naftka on the otherhand literally posted pictures from either the army book or the white dwarf today. It sucks, but if gw did pounce on him, that is why.
Yeah, we’re still waiting to learn more.
Does this mean I officially am now an unnamed source i keep hearing about on the intertubes?
Haha, no, sorry. I hit up some other folks.
It sux really cause even though I play other games (infinity and malifaux for the win!), I have been having quite a bit of fun with 6th ed lately. My play group is small, we have been doing the beer and pretezels thing in my garage; As a consequence we haven’t been play WAAC lists and doing fun stuff like campaigns and such.
I still think that GW needs to fix their model prices but I do like the increased pace of FAQ’s and codex releases.
There business practices however need some major adjustment…it is people like BoLs and Faiet that keep their company alive. Killing community content is basically just cutting off the means to which they hype the product really.
Yeah, it’s pointless to try and squash community content. Embrace it like Pathfinder has done and watch things grow and thrive.
Buying a basic army… $400
GW biting the hand that feeds them… $100
Running into your buddy on a random site on the internet… Priceless
Sup spoon 🙂
Random site on the internet?!?! YOu insult us, sir! 😉
Fritz says his blog his being hit with Chinese Spam bots.
That’s a constant. We get about a hundred spam bots a day.
3++ is down also
It’s up now.
I thought this was a for sure thing. Saw this earlier today.
http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512c/notice.cgi?NoticeID=928410
First, if GW doesn’t defend their trademarks, they lose them. Second, defending BoLS/Naftka as being even remotely in the right when there are crystal clear IP violations is just absolutely ridiculous. I understand GW has not always been kind to their community, and I realize that this may not be the best business decision in the savant-eyes of our peers, but you have to be kidding me if you think that GW is not completely within their rights to submit a DMCA notice to Google and have the sites taken down.
I think it’s incredible hubris that BoLs/Naftka/the community are even a little bit surprised that they can’t just take protected work that GW puts a lot of time, effort, and money into and spam it all over the internet with no repercussions.
You’ll be hard pressed to argue that Nafka’s violating IP, as he’s not claiming ownership of the IP and “news reporting” is generally covered as fair use (both in the USA and in Australia where Google and Nafka are based, respectively). Not that it’s necessarily perfectly legal, but I would be a little more specific about what you think Nafka’s done wrong than simple OMG IP VIOLATION. Also, they only lose the trademark if someone else claims ownership. Nafka never did that, as it’s clear from his posts that these are GW products. GW’s not going to lose any of their trademarks because Nafka said “here’s a leaked picture of GW’s new product X”.
It’s also worth pointing out that it can be pretty easy for a company to shut down a website without any legal justification at all. Call up Google with a semi-plausible excuse, and they’ll take the website down without ever seeing a courtroom. PIPA and SOPA were basically an attempt to legally formalize this procedure, and the internet was up in flames over it. Nafka wasn’t shut down because a court called up Google, or GW got a court order, or even because what he was doing was necessarily illegal. He got shut down because GW asked Google, and Google was like “meh, sure, whatever”.
Regardless, BOLS would be undeserved of any legal action (they didn’t actually recieve a takedown notice, they just had some technical difficulties that don’t seem to have anything to do with GW). All they’ve ever done is occasionally link to Nafka’s blog, and the BOLS frontpage is only a small portion of their website. If referring to Nafka’s posts is enough to warrant a takedown notice, then probably every 40k website deserves to be taken down. Disregarding the question of whether or not Nafka deserved to be taken down, there would certainly be no justification for taking BOLS down.
So taking Nafka down? Maybe, but the fact that Nafka exists kind of indicates that GW needs to mix up their marketing department. Taking down BOLS? They need to fire and replace their entire public affairs section.
But, again, GW didn’t take down BOLS. In fact, the Lounge still works, and BOLS admin has clarified the situation there. The problem is some sort of glitch with Google Blogger.
Oh, and I’m not a lawyer or anything. My response is just based on my understanding of stuff actual lawyers have said in the past, in particular Popehat (who is a 1st amendment specialist and specifically handles stuff like this, and does not have a very high opinion of GW precisely because of under-the-table bullying practices similar to this).
As I stated in the article, I agree with you from a legal perspective. However, look at the general reaction. In pragmatic terms, you look bad to the general public. Would you think it may not be better to allow some infringement on your IP in order to gain goodwill? If not, what do you think the downsides are?
Look at Pathfinder. They, have a totally open source rule set and they blew D&D out of the water, who is much more restrictive. By relinquishing some control, they actually made more money.
Admittedly faet’s is would be in the wrong here. He releases spoilers and those effect launch sales.
But sending cease and desist orders to a company like Mini-wargaming for posting product images for intent to sell THEIR product is absolutely ridiculous. They did that because they want to mitigate small business’s that sell their product because they have put themselves in direct competition with those companies.
Suing a company over a word like “space marine” and posing the argument that it was their idea is not only ridiculous but completely absurd.
People forget that companies much like people can choose whether or not they behave in a ethical and sustainable manner. Obviously these policies only serve to boost stock dividends for the majority share holders at the expense of their customer base.
Do I love 40k yes, do I purchase 40k I don’t purchase the models or their pdf products. However I have started purchasing thier books since they have moved to hard-cover, with updated release schedules. I never purchase or intend to purchase anything from a GW store.
I hope that they update their mentalities but if they don’t then hey whatever…these days I can get into 1 entire faction of infintiy or half of these other games out there for the same price it would cost me to purchase a 1500 point army
I hear you, man. The reason I (and most folks) still love 40K is because it really is a fun game, it has a huge, vibrant and huge community, and we all have invested so much into it.
But, there is a lot of temptation out there.
Lets hope this is really a technical glitch. I really just don’t think GW could bear the backlash that would come with them shutting down some of the best community sites out there. Especially with the mind numbing decisions recently with the changes to the trade agreement, and then taking credit for how the hobby has grown in the US since they put in those draconian online sales rules and basically stopped supporting the game. BoLS is one of the prime examples of who is really responsible for the flourishing GW community.
There’s probably only so much more a highly intelligent tech savvy community will take before it’s starts to lashout and fight back.
I actually agree with both sides here, on won hand GW should be happy for all of the free press they are getting from sites such as this. On the other hand GW has a right to call shenanigans on sites like faeit and BOLs especially if they are profiting from GW product, posting pics and rumors drives foot traffic which drives up ad revenue and I doubt GW is getting a cut.
I only play Warhammer 40k – i dont really have the investment in me to play Warmahordes although i’m more tempted time and time again..
I like Warhammer because i love the fluff and the stories i feel like are told with the minitures and painting and hobbying and everything..and the community has been amazing as i’ve gotten into it..
Fritz and others have made me seriously consider doing something myself.. but to think BoLS might be impacted by this would be.. well startling to me really.. The fact is MWG and BoLs and here and a few other sights are really one of the things that keep me going in the hobby..
..i mean all i pretty much do now is watch Batreps.. if they start impacting places that do that..it’d damage my interest and i really don’t concern myself with company polices. I work for a big company and sometimes they do weird stuff.. its part of the business.. but when you start harming the community you should care about its damaging.
Its like when musicians or athletes say the fans don’t matter – we pay their salaries in some regard because we want to see them. When you start to damage that…its hard to recover..
..if BoLS really is impacted i might seriously consider not purchasing stuff anymore. I was pretty impacted when MWG went impacted b their policies as is.
I always find it interesting the personal level that many of us take towards GW, the level of which is unparalleled in the business world at large. I mean, if you are a Mac guy, then Apples release of a new iPad before a new Mac Airbook does not seem to promote the kind of raw antagonism some gamers have towards GW.
Heck, Apple even exploits workers and child labor laws and still does not seem to generate the level of antipathy that Games Workshop does.
I personally don’t care much about GW other than I hope they make some cool models and supply the books and rules to play the game. The fact of the matter is that you can look far and wide to find other gamers playing games en mass, even Warmachine is hard to find folks to play with. 40k gives access to a gaming community. No more, no less.
What I’m really trying to say is..
I’m fine with GW too really as long as they keep producing quality fluff and good models, but at some point..my ability to enjoy the game. I’m one of the people other GW people hate..cause i’ll pay the prices they ask.. if i want a land raider i’ll save up and go get one.. I’m the spoiler for if none of us like it none of us should pay it.. (Sorry folks)
..and using your Apple example really isn’t quite right – if you liked watching people type on an Apple…and went out and actively sought to post about people typing on an Apple, and looked for videos of people playing on an Apple.. and someone started taking your ability to watch those videos away or to talk about your love of the product away.. would be more apt..
For me, they’d make the game less enjoyable through what they’re doing.. IF that is what is going on.
ahem
innocent until proven guilty and all..we should probably put the pitchforks away and such..
Yeah I know the feeling. It seriously seems like GW disdains us at times, their loyal customers. I know that isn’t the case but capitalistic principles force behavior that comes across as antagonistic at times.
I think that is because of the emotional attachment we have for these products. As I said, they aren’t sprockets, they’re prized possessions with a real, emotionally based value to us. I can honestly say if my house caught fire, the first things I’d grab would be pictures and my minis! haha,
I remember seeing somewhere that most of GW’s stocks is owned by investment groups. I would suspect GeeDub is setting itself up to be sold, but that’s just me.
I always read these types of comments and ruefully shake my head, but never actually say much. Thought I would break my silence for just a moment and provide a little insight stemming from my employment at an asset management firm…
Most firms in developed economies with any serious market cap will typically have the vast majority of their float (publicly available equity) owned by investment companies. This is quite simply a result of mutual funds and their like being the preferred investment vehicles for many investors.
Mutual funds and their like are generally amongst the most passive of investors (with some notable exceptions) but will generally only rarely step in to try and change board composition etc… What they won’t do is “takeover” the company.
There are, however, other investment vehicles out there which we’ll broadly (and somewhat erroneously) refer to as hedge funds. Some of these funds, in particular buyout funds, are looking to take over a company at times so they can take them private, improve efficiencies and then resell or maybe if they think the sum of the parts is greater than the whole then to sell off in pieces.
If you look through the major holders of GW stock (which publicly traded companies are generally required to disclose) you’ll actually find that many of the more speculative oriented investment vehicles have shed their stakes and moved on and that many of the more staid mutual fund type investors (such as Fidelity) are now big owners.
TLDR – not being set up for sale by the “investment companies” could theoretically be set up for acquisition by GW senior management and the board, but given the financials if many of the larger toy makers don’t think that is the case.
Sounds like you are fairly knowledgeable on this topic. So it sounds like you are saying this may be a preparatory move to sell? Can you please elaborate, I am not sure I caught the exact point.
Hmm. That would be interesting. Could be great, could be awful. We were told recently that GW was the subject of a hostile take over, but that the buying party has not yet been revealed.
“However, my question is when does protecting their IP actually cost GW business by pushing customers away?”
I see this everytime GW does something stupid, and the answer is – never! No body is in the hobby for GW’s sake. We’re in it for the game, for the models and for the tournaments. All three are still there no matter GW’s attitude. GW has had the bad rep for as long as I’ve been in the hobby (11+ years) and it has never mattered.
For what it’s worth my educated guess is that GW use Faeit 212 as their inofficial rumour outlet.
Just wanted to add that I’m pretty sure that people that leave the hobby and blame GW would have quit no matter GW’s attitude, there are always other reasons with much more weight. But blaming GW when you quit is common and accepted in our subculture and gives props to the quitter.
It matters to me, and I have strayed from GW a few times to other games (who typically go out of business, probably because they are not as aggressive and are run less efficiently) but like a battered spouse, always come back to the game I love.
Not going to lie, Faeit 212 was probably the biggest reason I made impulse buys. It almost seemed like a brilliant advertising tool by GW to hype their products. If its gone for good I’ll be extremely disappointed.
I agree that Faeit 212 sometimes seems like a marketing tool for GW as the info is so spot on and builds to a crescendo through dripping rumors to a waterfall of pics and rules. Kind of like Blood of Kittens.
Yeah, exactly. To us it seems genius to let people do your marketing for you for free. However we don’t know what data GW has on why they should try and shut these things down.
I’m pretty sure the original article said that GW was in the right with defending their trademark, but at what cost? A responder said it was insane for us (my words not his) to think GW is wrong for defending their IP and such but at what cost? Are they going to be the kid that takes his ball and goes home because the game isn’t going exactly the way they want? I saw the Tau pictures from Fait and went whole hog into Tau and spent way more than I would have because guess what? There are no stores within a 90 minute drive, the Barnes and Nobles near my house barely released the White Dwarf with the Tau in it, and I have to order online everything I buy for any games I play so by the time I factor in shipping it’s better for me to order from a site such as Frontline or the many others that offer a discount. It’s not that I’m going to spend less money on GW games. I’m probably going to spend more because I feel at least I’m getting a discount so can justify spending more. GW is just going way overboard with what they think is going on in the community. Tau will be the last army I buy new and then it’s on to greener pastures with or without my playgroup unfortunately.
That’s how I look at it, too. Marketing is a HUGE part of business. You need to build anticipation. GW is famous in the business world for spending almost nothing on marketing due to the extreme interest in their product their customers have. It gives them a big advantage. But to actively try and stop it is weird to me. I don’t have access to the data their decision makers do, but as an outsider looking in it seems odd to try and stop people from pumping your product up for you….for free.
The problem for GW with shutting down sites like Faiet is that a lot of us just don’t have the money to go out and make an ‘impulse buy’. I have to save for 4-5 weeks to buy a GW product, so pics/rumours on rumour sights make me save to buy new models, so I am able to go and buy them the day they come out. Without this, i will have seen the rules by the time I have enough money to buy the product anyway, so it doesn’t matter if they’ve been leaked online, and the rules will usually make me save up to buy it anyway.
I am trying to give everyone a diff view on copyright then just a customers side point of view. Maybe help some of you understand what those C level people are thinking. Is just a point of view and not saying that what GW is thinking
First thing first, both sites overly violated GW copyright. In order for you to defend your copyright, you can’t cherry pick who can violate your copyright and who can’t. you must ask why? well it comes down to our civil case structure. in order for you to sue you must provide a few things. First someone done something wrong to you. in this case violated your copyright. in other, might be a breach of contract. 2nd, they are LIABLE (regardless their intended to cause harm or not) for that something. 3rd, and here is the important one, as a result of their action you suffer DAMAGES and they are LIABLE for those DAMAGES.
So back to the question on why gw don’t want to cherry pick. because it will limit their ability to show DAMAGES when someone does violate GW copyright in a more negative way. lets say ABC Co. using GW images to start their own line of products. GW will sue them and then we got to the 3rd part and then ABC Co will say well BOLS been using those images also and you did not go after them so therefore they are common images and therefore ABC Co. didn’t cause/liable for DAMAGES to GW. And the judge might see it as. well ABC Co. did violate copyright and they are liable for it but well those images are everywhere so what the harm ABC Co has done? result be a lesser settlement or no settlement for GW. There are many other example. like you can replace ABC Co with an employee that leak info.
What is lesser settlement on a case really mean? For us gamer, we don’t care or look at that as any kind of problem but for a Company is a big problem. The lesser the settlement is, the lesser reasons or you can call it deterrence for other not to violate your copyright or violate your company in general. GW don’t want to waste their resources to serve legal sue all the time and get blog down in court. that a waste of time and money.
The thing is BOLS and all the other site is just too big for GW to just ignore it and they are violating GW copyright left and right. So GW might need to stop them because they might have something down the pipe that need to use their real legal muscle and they can’t let those blogs hurt them in that case. it is very cheap to clean up site like BOLS and stop anything that might happen in the future.
You’re thinking of trademarks I believe.
Copyright defence is something completely different.
Some great threads on Dakka in the Discussions section about this. Very balanced and reasoned discussions on both sides. Well worth a read.
Natfka himself saying what’s going on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGdOYadt8aQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Thanks for sharing that.
For Crying out loud, BOTH WEB SITES EXPLAIN THAT THE PROBLEM IS WITH GOOGLE, you are all bitching about GW and they have done nothing here.
It was a tec problem with google. GW isnt some evil genius mastermind that try to take down the world and that are only interested in money. Its run by the same hobbyists that we all are.
They both have articles that explain the problem and you guyes are all going on about it like a bunch of pork chops.
Go play Warmachine if it upsets you that much, but please stop bitching so much.
Geez Cuz, tell us how you really feel! Don’t hold anything back! Haha, the article was speculative as it states, that data out now wasn’t available when I wrote it and it is ok for us to discuss this stuff, not necessarily just bitching. And while the game designers are hobbyists like us, the C level employees are not.
From Faeit himself
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L02uNG9sl5Y
I don’t like some of the things GW has done,
but if defending IP is ethically defensible in this case, then they absolutely should.
If customer goodwill trumps ethical consideration, I would call GW even more unethical.
I agree that it is sensible but I think there are exceptions to the rule when it actually hurts you more than helps you. Where that point is is really debatable. However in this instance, if GW had been responsible, I would have to lean towards no due to the fallout with the community. Losing some sales on White Dwarf I think it worth some community goodwill, but that is my opinion.
Now we know a bit more. Seems BoLS was taken down by mistake and is back up. Faeit was taken down on purpose, allegedly by posting some photos pre-mature GW’s own release. We don’t know the details. Must really hurt GW to take down one of the biggest and most pro-GW sites out there with almost 20 million views.
Right?! So silly of them and it really hurts them, IMO. We don’t have the actual revenue numbers but that kind of free publicity can’t be bad.
This was the last straw that got me to jump ship to Warmachine and privateer press. It is bad enough that I am made to feel like some kind of criminal when I try buy my miniatures from anyone, but the official Game’s workshop site. Buying miniatures online is important to me, but I am not allowed to add game’s workshop miniatures to an online shopping cart thanks to GW policy. I have to submit some sort of email order form every time I want to buy from miniature market.
Faction balance is important to me and I understand that it isn’t easy to balance all the different armies when your a miniature company, but Game Workshop isn’t even trying. It’s like a bad joke that the newly released codexes are stronger than the older one’s.
Then there is the story of the 40k universe which never seems to advance at all.
Now finally we have Faeit being taken down, so I can’t even read about how there might one day be hope for the army I am gluing together.
If anyone wants to buy an unpainted tyranid army feel free to respond to me.