one of the main problems with the legal system is that "the process is the punishment" for the vast majority of people

As someone who works in us trademark law I'll just say frivolous "lawfare" is all too common. Legislation hasn't caught up to anti-slapp levels in frivolous trade infringement claims

Just a quick update gamza was able to put his stuff back on his patron because he contested the copyright strike and games workshop did not reply back to Patreon to reinforce their claim

Would be fascinating to see what happened if Warner Bros or Frank Herbert's estate knocked on GW's door and told them that they can't have a God-Emperor any more.

"Moorcock. A man so respected in the fantasy community that we have collectively agreed not to make fun of his name." Tea spat through nose.

What anyone thinks of Gamza is meaningless. The important thing is that GW is continuing it's very aggressive, bullying copyright defense. The behavior makes me less and less likely to do any business with them. I already quit buying their paints. I was planning to play Old World when it came out (assuming there are dwarfs) but I really have to ask myself why? There are just too many other companies out there with good games and good minis who will appreciate my patronage more than GW would.

we dont have a justice system, it's more like an auction.

If GW wont lower its pricess (witch they can indeed do) 3d printing will become more and more common. Also, I would love if all the various companies and creators that GW has "drew inspiration" from their creations came knocking one day with the same attitude

Anyone else getting flash backs to what happened to the music industry sticking with CDs because 'no one will use a computer to download an MP3'. Games workshop real are going to be the CD player of the hobby industry. Also the podcast The fluffenhammer has covered the all the stuff GW has ripped off I great detail over the years

GW offering STL files at reasonable prices would actually change the game. Imagine all the OOP things they could offer!?

The starcraft one is a nice circular design copy as when it was in early development it was ment to be a licensed 40k game and the marines originally were GW space marines that when the developers lost the license they had to change the look just enough to not look like space marines anymore. GW then copy that look for the leagues of votan is just fucking hilarious as copying something to make them look different to space marines they copied something that was originally a space marine 🤣

GW is the epitome of predatory capitalism. They've sold the soul of their brand and watered it down selling their broken and constantly changing proprietary product with pay to play stats and models that are obsolete the same week they come out. Coming after smaller creators and bullying them with the fear of litigation yet not coming after larger brands is revealing of their business practices. The points expressed in this video are salient. I got into the hobby when White Dwarf had articles on DIY terrain crafting and kitbashing and still featured 3rd party models etc. All the life has been sucked out. They are nothing but bullies and they are shooting themselves in the foot with their disgusting quest for profit

His designs were similar to GWs, but then GW also made their new Sagittarius as close a copy of the Gremlin from halo. Its only a matter of time before someone hits them with a lawsuit with all the material they "borrow"

You could easily mistake GW as an American company with the amount of litigation that they push.

Games Workshop: How DARE you copy our almost-exact copies of the Terminators from the Hollywood Terminator franchise! How DARE YOU GAMZA!

Gamers Workshop will never make their products cheaper and will keep bullying anyone who does a better job at making parts, or miniatures and actually knows how to use 3D design and a printer. I feel better about taking a break from Warhammer 40k and working on Gundam/Gunpla models and much happier now.

GW is blanket c&d all the small guys, if Gamza is an example of the smaller company/content creator telling them no, maybe hopefully more people will keep saying no... Or a firm can jump in and swoop in to take the low hanging fruit Games Workshop is handing out

Another part to this story that has been left out is Gamza has put these files up on cults for free and they are great. i have them all and have printed off 40 necrons and saved a packet.

GOD im so torn on this one. On the one hand gamza isnt the most "inviting to the public" personality for the product, on the other GW sending a cease and desist over his stl's is kinda scummy too

I cant wait for 3D printing technology to evolve even more. The price is already coming down and quality getting better.

This reminds me of a discussion I had with friends when GW killed WHFB and replaced it with space marines fantasy. A friend of mine he this idea that a huge part of the reason GW killed WHFB after some very lacklustre support and a directly pisspoor "end times" run was that not only most names (Dwarves, High Elves, Dark Elves, Wood Elves etc) were not possible to copyright as they are generic descriptors of these fantasy peoples, but even high elf models and the rest were next to impossible to "enforce". Try to get the idea that "No, no they may call them landsknechten, but they are CLEARLY our own original design, Empire greatswords!" to stand up in any court outside of a banana-republic. GW is a perfect example of how shitty our societal system allows companies to act...to quote James Stephanie Sterling: "You can't steal from corporations...its called re-appropriating what the corporations stole in teh first place".

It's almost like the hoarding of capital and laws that support publicly traded companies doing nearly anything to preserve profit are a bad thing. Who would have guessed?

That's "God Emperor Gamza, beloved by all." No judge made him do it, Patreon made him take them down. He also posted a new video 3 days ago saying he won that one, because GW didn't respond to them on the counter claim, allowing the reupload of his files. So, always push back against GW because they'll fold, because they know they have nothing to stand on, like the bullies they are.

I would love to see your take on Chapterhouse. Your meticulous ability to research these things would undoubtedly lead to some unique insights.

I would love to see a break down of the Chapterhouse Lawsuit. I remember following it on Bell of Lost Souls back in the day. Every time there was a new information, I gobbled it up. I even read some of the final legal document (that was available to the public). It was fascinating, and I would love to see a short series based on it going through the lead up, trial, and results. I realize that is a ton of work, and I am like one of four people who would love to see it.

There was a time when people were able to judge other people, and we judged them by their actions. I Loved the skit, and the bit about how we all collectively agreed not to make fun of Michael Moorecock's name! (I'm coincidentally re-reading the Elric saga now).

I was a commission painter in the late '90s, and I often sold painted miniatures on Ebay. The cease and desist letters I got from GW where for listings with the words orc, ork, space marine, Imperial Guard, troll, goblin... it was amazing. None of those words could be said to be their intellectual property!

GW just being GW. Plus silencing a vocal critic, and 3d printer is a win win win for GW

Thank you for addressing this. A lot of artists are creating models that are way to similar to GW properties. I like to see models that are obvious "counts as" but clearly distinct and often improvements at least in style to GW models. I still hate seeing GW going after any alternative to their product, especially when they are completely unwilling to take advantage of a growing aspect of the hobby. If GW sold stls of weapons and bits, for a reasonable price and not by a GW reasonable price, they would get so much good PR from the community without hurting their own sales. I don't know why they bury their head in the sand on this.

I very much would like a vid on Chapter House.

They already dropped their case, he can do whatever he wants with his files

Considering the amount of newcomers in recent years, maybe a video on the chapter house trial isn't a bad idea.

The synopsis of Gamza in the beginning is like poetic gold.

The irony is that GW would never actually defend their IPs thru the legal process. They couldn't afford to either on a significant scale. But the fact they could do it once allows them to intimidate any small creator that can't even do it once. So the notion GW is "obligated" to defend their IP is ridiculous on its face.

As a former customer of Chapter House I would love to find out more about that situation.

at around 11:32 minutes, when Discourse proclaims an alternative path, millions of CEOs just cried out and fell ill to a sudden and mysterious death.

There is a reason why I found my way to Bolt Action/Konflikt 47 lately, even when admitting that I really enjoyed 40K in 9th edition after a long hiatus. It is really sad to see that GW after behaving for ONE edition of 40K again got back to their worst behavior against fans, against creators and against providers of alternative models. TBH I really don't even like Gamza, he is IMO quite a moron in most of his videos and most of the time not really likable too. I also do not think that 3D printing will become a replacement for model companies like GW in the near future BUT 3D printing and also suppliers for 3D files like Gamza make our beloved hobby much more richer and interesting.

Fascinating! I remember a very xenomorph 'inspired' Hive tyrant back around 3rd edition. Was the Queen from Aliens. I remember being disappointed and thinking they could done better.

Well.. Gamza slapped his wet one right in the face of GW... He literally stood there and asked them to take their best shot. And fire they did. Not to victim blame in general but in this case he kinda had it coming. That does not make what GW does any more right.. (after all the only reason we do not have Space Marines or Hight Elves any more are because those terms are common use and can´t be copyrighted) But as my old nan used to say... Two roosters fighting does not make a omelett... Or in other words.. two wrongs does not make one right. But the core problem here is compyright and how "fairly close" is very much good enough.

At this point I've lost hope for GW as a company. They have been doing this sort of thing for decades, and a company that doesnt adapt with the times or use new technology to their advantage deserves to slowly die off. Use their own Corpo logic against them. As for Gamza he's a bit of an edge lord with a chip on his shoulder. Entertaining, but mostly harmless. He didn't deserve to get slapped with the Law Hammer.

The only thing I find humourous about this is how far Gamza is willing to go for a bit of attention. Dude is a walking bike and spoke meme.

Make what you want of gamza and his views, GW deserve all the shit they get. They have copied and pasted every bit of medieval, fantasy and sci-fi genre's they can get their skaven-esque mits on. Would love to see the owners of the Dune trademark flatten GW now.

Being an old boy seeing blister packs drop from 4 metal minis to 3 in the mid nineties, it feels that gw got super focused on minmaxing profit, ignoring their borrowed ideas. And now they have to be the loudest dog to try and keep others away. But 3d printing is something that really needs to be embraced as it's only going to get cheaper and more accessable.

My deepest sympathies to Rich Whiteman on the recent passing of his great aunt. 😞 It's so sad to hear that she was killed in a tragic car accident. People should be very grateful to Rich for selflessly finding the strength to appear in this video during his period of mourning.

The term Plasteel didn't actually originate with 2000AD either. I'm not entirely sure Harry Harrison created Plasteel and Ferroconcrete but he certainly used them in his 1961 novel "The Stainless Steel Rat"... though it is said that there aren't any original stories any more I do wish GW had been just a little more creative in their plagerism ;)

“Good artists copy. great artists steal” -Pablo Picasso

You’ve gotta remember back to the 90’s when FASA got weaker to the point they went out of business by an American distributor of Robtech claiming battle tech infringed there IP.

I did a Google: Rich Whiteman was a jazz bassist.

You judge Gamza too hard. He is VERY progressive: unlike other uber-men, he WOULD allow you to leave the house to work. As long you remember to keep the house clean.. /s

So happy to see a skit. I love the skits :D

If every judge read Dune before hearing a GW case they would never win one.

Another great video discourse. I would love to see a video about the Chapter House saga - another project for you! PS can you add your twitch link and streaming times? ty x

It's funny that GW a company that stole multiple ideas from other IP's sue other because they claim IP imfrigement. I just wish someone would sue GW for copyright imfrigement and they lose hard. I doubt that this would teach them humility but at least they would know what it feels like.

100% with you on your analysis. I used to really like them as a company. But since about 2000 they have become shadier and shadier to the point that I no longer really care about their products.

I don't know, can't we just go back to a time when everybody just enjoyed everybody's work for what it was, I'm sure back in the 80s we did just that, I remember actually going to citadel miniatures and they would just cast whatever metal figs you wanted and everything was cool, crazy how things change so much

John Steakley used the term Plasteel in his 1984 novel, Armor.

Space Marine is too generic a term.

I agree with you with copyright on terms like Space Marine and Inquisitor, but I agree with GW with the copyright on Gamza because if I was given one of Gamza's models I would think it was a Necron model. The Space Marines I say have enough diversity in their model look that I could but some twists to how it looks and it could look completely different. I'll admit that the Imperial Guardsmen look a lot like starship troopers, but what makes them different is war gear as the two have very different looking wargear. Some Ork models definitely couldnt be copyrightable, but some could. What I'm personally trying to say is that the name copyrights are stupid I agree, but your argument for how necrons are like the terminators is like they're inspired, but not direct copy's like Gamza's. Necrons are inspired by terminators, but not exact copy's. The only thing that I couldn't tell the difference would be judge dread and the adeptus arbites.

Discourse has raised two excellent points here: 1. Gamza is cringe 2. Despite being cringe, what is happening to Gamza sets a dangerous precedent.

Man I wish the Warhammer hobby had more people making miniatures besides games workshop they way over charge for the amount of plastic in their models

*sigh* It’s getting harder and harder to be a fan :/

I'm waiting for them to try and go after OPR. It's going to happen. That they haven't tried yet is honestly kind of the amazing part.

The fun and the hypocrisy of Games workshop is that each one of their ideas is like 10 other ideas all thrown into a blender. So most of their stuff could get sued by 10 different people. "Inspirations" include but are not limited to Dune, Starship Troopers the book, Starship Troopers the movie, The book Heart of darkness which inspired the film Apocalypse Now, and boy are they lucky no ancient mythologies and pantheons have anyone to sue over stealing their stuff. Ancient Egypt at least three different times between The Necrons, The Thousand Sons and Horus. That's right, Interesting little tidbit. The ancient Egyptian god Horus led a rebellion against Ra.

GW: YOU CAN'T DEFEAT US, GAMZA, YOU SONOWABIAAAATCH!! Gamza: No, I can. GW: *angry pigs sounds*

a lot of gamza's 3d prints were literal 1 to 1 copies of 40k minis, he got what he deserved. thieves cant be thieveing

Would be interested to hear more about Chapter house

You made me shoot hot tea out of my nose with your shoes comment...while in a little bit of pain it was fucking hilarious

Oh damn that Yamaguchi reference. Going for the deep cuts from history.

Well they backed down because they were in the wrong, Pretty much he done what Chapter House did years ago and they won their cases but it ruined them, also there are countless ther stuff much like that all over the place online be it on MMF, Pateron, gumtree etc...

And let’s be honest, Gamzas Russ tanks had 58 bolts modeled on it and GW had 60 bolts. Totally different.

I would be interested in a video about the chapterhouse case, if you decide you want to make one. Either way, you make wonderful content, I look forward to watching your back catalogue.

Where was the beautiful eldar looking model from?

You're addressing an important issue in a clear-eyed and reasonable way, yet what I take the most from this vid is, "yay, more skits!". That's on me.

Got to love their IP protection because so many of the ideas they trade on have always been taken from the wider sci-fi and fantasy genre. These days they simply now just throw their weight and use of expensive lawyers around against those who can't afford to fight them.

My favorite was what has happened with Raging Heroes. When they were really small time, they had a manticore model that they made a lamassu alternate head for. They got a C&D from GW for that part...Just as the WHFB Storm of Magic expansion was launching, along with GW bringing their own *ancient* lamassu model back to sale. After the Chapterhouse trail RH has went full throttle on making entire alternative model lines for GW armies, as well as a few of their own fun lines lol

Holy shit the Kangaroo Court was exactly what I needed today to brighten my mood. The video on the whole was really good (I mean, your content is good so no surprise) but the Court segment just... chef's kiss

Bethesda has the rights to the word “scrolls” they come at people all the time who put that word in any title. This is pretty common stuff. Sucks but not something only GW does just something all companies with IP do.

Gamza had it coming. He kept tugging on the tail of GW and they finally turned around and gave him the bite he was looking for. What they did to him or at least tried to do to him. It was just a warning implying they can go even further next time. People wanna keep trifling with these big companies and somehow think they're untouchable. Sorter reminds me of the guys that kept messing with Nintendo.

I'd be really interested in seeing a full blow-by-blow of the chapter house debaucle.

“Art Theft is cool if a little guy is stealing from a big guy.” -Discourse, July 2022

I've made Gamza's proxies, and threw him some money. I also have them backed up on drive after drive, in case they ever get pulled. But so far, Cults3d have been great to deter corpo influence

The truth is that no matter how many times this occurs thousands and thousands of people will continue to buy their products and support them. GW knows this. For me I have been playing other games and painting those models like Warmachine and Malifaux and Conquest. For me I know I’m happier in the hobby now.

Ngl, that lawyer impression was amazing. :D

Do a video about the Chapter house case. It would be interesting to hear the details.

Yes going over the chapeterhouse case would be very helpful since you are a real lawyer.

It's curious to me that Ravaged Star by MWG Dave has not been attacked by GW. Maybe they are too big / too powerful in the hobby?

>star wars use the term Inquisitor/ inquisitorium GW: “oh umm.. yeah its a generic word hehe..” *nervous laughter* “we’ll let then use it.. heh heh heh”

Hurra! Old good Discourse showing us sketches! =) Love you!

Yes to chapter house please

It is a sad day when the irish get to take shoes for granted...

In the late 70's there was an Anime called "Star Blazers" and in one of the Episodes they featured a character called "Sgt Kox" who lead a group of "Space Marines" against Gamelon forces.

I remember the Space Marine book case There was a search for terms in the sphere of wargaming, not that trademarks can't lapse, or that prior use is not contentious, but the point with "Space Marines" as a term in wargaming pre-dates GW's use of it, in FGU's figure wargame "Space Marines"

I like him but he is very caustic and a bit jerky.

I have to say it. I don't like Gamza. Never have. Never will. And I also have to admit, that he was blatantly marketing his product as the cheaper GW alternative. His designs are also very close to *some* GW sculpts, but nevertheless original designs in my opinion. That does not stop me from thinking, that GW and their tactics are despicable. That is one of the reasons, why I stopped buying their product years ago. The others are: 1. Their games are crap. 2. Their sculpts are mediocre at best, although production quality is good. 3. Their pricing is abusive. So, in order to save the hobby, we, as consumers, need to band together and vote with our money and stop buying their product, until such time, that GW changes their way. I know that a boycott will probably not work, but let's try to make sure, that more and more customers jump ship and stop buying their product.

I don't want to defend Games Workshop here but I will say on the Starcraft point that originally, the game was meant to be a Warhammer 40k RTS game. The Terrans within the game were meant to be Space Marines (hence why they do look like Space Marines in all but helmet), the Protoss were meant to be Eldar, and the Zerg were Tyranid. Other than that though, your points were entirely spot on

I'm not sure its a huge red flag GW goes after small creators and not large corporations. Because large corporations have legal departments who are smart enough not to commit copyright infringement. Pepsi isn't making Ultramarine flavored soda. Disney didn't announce a Tau Disney+ show this weekend. Even Blizzard who everyone says stole Starcraft and Warcraft from GW weren't dumb enough to make Jim Raynor into a Primaris and make the Zerg into a HiveFleet. ChapterHouse Studio was straight up making "Space Marine White Scars Captain" as a product. And CHS studios very specifically didn't win their trial and then went bankrupt, they were ordered to pay GW like $30,000 in damages for all the claims GW won in court, which was like a full 1/3rd of them. Gamza was just straight up selling a Necron model. Smaller creators think they're too small for notice, that laws only apply to big corporations. And that's not how it works. People don't just get a pass because they can't afford a legal team.

Mercedes made a car called the murorder. GW should've tried to go after them BUHAHAHAHA

It would be awesome if you could do a breakdown of the legal case from Chapterhouse v GW a decade ago. I seem to remember the word on the street was that it essentially opened the door for 3rd party companies to create bitz/minis that "totally arent GW proxies" so long as they weren't using copyrighted labels etc. I've only been able to find people who aren't legally versed giving summaries in forums, so someone who can actually break it down Barney style for me would be great.

I can definitely see a 3D printer becoming part of my hobby in the future. I like GW's models, but the lack of competition on the High Street means virtually every model my family own was purchasted from the same GW store. We desperately need more competition which is easily accessible and free from GW's terrified legal team. They can't stand the thought that 3D printing is only getting cheaper, better quality and growing way more popular with the big content creators. Instead of innovating or embracing the future, they want to stamp out competitors one person at a time. Reminds me of when Napster gave the music industy a heart attack 20 odd years ago.

While what gamza was sharing and even selling was certainly skirting the line... that's just it, SKIRTING the line. He did nothing illegal. This is just another case of GW throwing slapsuits at people that bite them for their own greedy actions. And all it does is make more of us that want to bite GW just as hard.