Eric, the only part of your argument that I disagree with is the contention that this was a sound business move by GW.  You say that they only risk offending a few hundred fans, but you also imply that the files produced by these fans could have a serious impact on the company’s future profits.  I don’t see how you can have it both ways.  If the relative number of GW fans on the site is small, the impact of their activities will also be small.  I agree with Seth in doubting the wisdom of GW’s actions.  I’m not saying they should have done nothing, but I have to think that a considerably less heavy-handed approach would have been much more prudent.

Where have you guys been? GW does this every 5 years or so. They clamp down on IP and everyone gets their panties in a WAD about it.

In the end 90% of the people who complain don’t buy GW stuff anyway, and the 10% who do forget about it in a few weeks. 

However you feel about it, GW won’t change and their actions certainly wont make anyone who plays’ their core game stop playing. (only bankruptcy occasionally causes this) The are still by far the most successful tabletop miniatures company in history. They have to be doing something right.

-M

Although its a shame that BGG removed all files for GW games, I don’t blame them for a second. You hit the nail on the head, how would it benifit them in the slightest to take the risk of legal action being taken against them? 99% of the backlash has been squarely focused on GW and the inevitable detractors who have felt the need to critise BGG seem rather brave when the solicitor’s letter doesn’t have their name on the top.

Producing player aids to assist and improve games is always a labour of love with no thought of personal gain. Whenever I have approached a publisher to request permission to use scanned material as part of an aid, I have always received a very prompt and enthusiastic reply giving their blessing (Fraggors & Wolf being excellent examples). Most publishers see the wisdom and commercial sense in encouraging an active fan base. If GW don’t want this to protect IP on a game 20 years out of print that has been sold on, rewritten and re-issued as a significantly different game then that is their rather strange prerogative.

I have never understood people being smug about making their own games when the game in question is still in print. Whilst many of us possess hi res scanning equipment and colour printers, the material costs for paper ink and pawns is often equal to or more than the SRP. Factor in the time and effort needed to collect the bits required, not to mention the hours needed to prepare, print and stick it all together and the smug copier would have been better off doing a morning’s one star work at McDonalds and buying the game legitimately. And the quality would be better too.

Great article.

However, you don’t send cease & desist letters to your customers, you send cease & desist letters to your *competitors*. You work out licensing agreements with your customers.

Here is a fine fansite policy by Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro:

http://www.wizards.com/fankit/fantoolkitmagic.html

Here is a muddier but still relatively clear fansite policy by Blizzard:

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/legal-faq.html

This way, IP holders can keep their IP ownership very clear, but still allow fan sites to continue to make IP holders money which is what fan sites do. Money that the IP holder pays NOTHING for. This is usually called a win/win in business.

For whatever reason, GW decided not to go that way, thereby almost certainly losing potential sales. This is my main criticism of what they did.

All that said, I do think that BGG needs to do a better job at policing what they accept. Full card scans or other material that is not publicly available should either be rejected or the publisher’s permission sought. Effectively, they are being very Google-ish about the way they are profiting by others’ IP, and I’m not sure they will be able to withstand legal and other scrutiny if it comes down to that.

Also BGG acted in the correct fashion. They certainly do not have the required cash to enter into any legal battles at this point.

-M

@ Michael

I haven’t complained about GW’s actions, because, like Michael, I have seen this several times from GW already.  GW’s business model does not really involve the fan base.  They are more interested in churning new customers, and that seems to frequently involving telling existing customers to pound sand. 

Its a model that has worked for them, but has not worked for me as a consumer, so I have already written them off.  I know I am not alone in that. GW’s slow decline continues apace. 

All of that said, it takes a very large grain of salt for me to swallow GW copyright infringment claims.  When GW starts paying royalties to the Tolkein estate for their entire product line, I might start taking their claims of derrivative works seriously.  “Haflings” indeed.

I both agree and disagree with the post.

Did GW have the legal right to issue the C&D letters (I use the plural because a number of GW fansites have been hit lately, as well)? 

In most cases, yes they did.  Many (if not all) of the removed files included copyrighted images and trademarked fonts and terms.

Was there another approach that would have worked?

Yes. Steve Jackson Games had issues with a file, and politely requested its removal. BGG complied.  Fantasy Flight Games had issues with several images and, again, politely requested removal.  Again, BGG complied.  Neither company started with lawyers like GW did.

Many publishers now have official presence on BGG (and other hobby and fan sites), and have shown a willingness to interact with their fans - FFG, for exmample, decided not to sell painted minis for Arkham Horror based on fan feedback.  GW only interacts with their fans directly via GW’s official sites, occasional e-mails, or via C&D letters.

Do fans need to be aware of IP?  Yes they do. We regularly violate IP with fan-created materials.

Does that make GW’s approach right?  No.

I like this article in response to the GW’s C&D:
http://fellonmyhead.blogspot.com/

I haven’t read all of the posts on BGG, so maybe others have made the point that Jennifer brings up: there are plenty of other ways to go about protecting your IP.  It just goes to prove the point that many have made; they don’t care about their fanbase, they just want to keep a constant stream of new customers coming through the mill.  A new customer will make them much more money than an existing customer will.

I also agree with Jason’s sentiments about their debt to Tolkien.  In fact, I thought the Tolkien Estate used to be very aggressive themselves about protecting their IP.  Either they’ve changed or perhaps we don’t understand where the IP line is really drawn.

Agree completely with Jennifer Schlickbernd’s post.

You don’t piss off people who are supporting your product. They had all the right to do what they did, but from a business point of view I’m sure it will hurt their sales—even if it is comparatively small—and that’s always a “no-no.”

But whatever, I don’t get why we have all the “brouhaha” about this. If you don’t agree with what they did, just stop supporting GW and tell your friends to stop supporting them. Do we really need an analysis of the facts?

Also, to the whole arguement over people creating their own games from scanned components—that is SO INSIGNIFICANT that is doesn’t even warrant discussion.

The amount of time and effort it takes to make your own copy of most games (save for maybe paste-ons with cards) is insane compared to the cost of just buying the game.

It doesn’t look like Dominion is hurting in sales due to people making their own copy. In fact, because they posted the images I was more likely to purchase Dominion. I can get a good example of what the game is like and if I ever need to reference a card when I’m away from my set I can find it in the images.

So many times have I found myself going through images on BGG only to not find the component I’m talking about in a discussion and then have to dig it out of my game myself. That’s just annoying.

I’ll disagree with two legal points (though I am not a lawyer).

First, the claim that 90% of GW’s C&Ds are well within their legal rights doesn’t really jibe with the state of the law, at least in the US. Requesting take-downs for files that had their words and pictures, yeah, that’s totally just. Requesting take-down of scenarios for their games is not.

The latter depends upon a very aggressive definition of derivative copyright which companies like TSR and Wizards of the Coast have never been able to prove--primarily because TSR always chickened out before a final legal decision. If a precedent were to be set it would be the same thing as saying that only Microsoft could develop programs for Windows--and not even perennial IP abuser Microsoft has tried that tactic.

Second, I’ll also disagree with the implication that making your own copies of a game--and telling other people how to--is against the law. Quite frankly, that’s just not how the law is written. Unless you get into patents (and most game companies don’t) you can’t protect a game, only the specific interpretation of a game (and the cards in Dominion may have enough text to apply, but I’m talking about the generalities here, not that one specific).

Mind you, I think it’s largely immoral when you’re making your own copies of games that someone designed and that you could currently buy, but the above was suggested as a legal issue not a moral issue--at least in part to show how much “lawlessness” there is on BGG--and at least in this case, it’s largely misleading.

To address another followup, claiming that a file was taken down because it included a “trademarked term” is a grave misunderstanding of IP laws.

Trademarks protect a mark of some sort--usually a name AND a distinctive likeness--from being used in trade. That usually means in advertising or as part of a product name or product container (though there are ways to use a trademark even in these circumstances; look, for example, at any generic drug product you buy from CVS or Walgreens). It doesn’t stop people from using those terms within a product.

So, you couldn’t publish “The SKAVEN Coloring Book”, but you could publish a coloring book which had Skaven in it and named them--unless a very aggressive understanding of derivative copyright is set by the courts.

Not a Lawyer.

I wish we had a lawyer analyze all this stuff and give us a fairly accurate representation of the truth. (Since it is never truly clear and cut in law, especially in trademark / IP cases)

Even still, even if they had all legal rights to do it—it doesn’t make it just. So that’s why I’m not buying any Warhammer-themed anything, even though I do love Fantasy Flight Games (I’ll still buy their other stuff).