Ok, I was just curious, and a bit concerned. I've grown up in the computer
industry, so I'm used to patents and copyrights and any supposed infringement
thereof as being the sparks for nice fat lawsuits.:o) My only concern was that
eidos might have the actual appearance of Lora Croft copyrighted (in fact, I'd
be surprised if they didn't), and thus making a miniature witha similar
appearance would border on infringement. I'm just a concerned fan, that's all.
God bless,
- Buddy
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[quoted original message omitted]
> Buddy Chamberlain wrote:
My
> only concern was that eidos might have the actual appearance of Lora
Yes, but "similar" is not "the same", and bordering on infringement is just
that, bordering. And there are no laws against that. At this time.
> Buddy Chamberlain wrote:
> Ok, I was just curious, and a bit concerned. I've grown up in the
My
> only concern was that eidos might have the actual appearance of Lora
Eidos certainly have Lara's image copyrighted (I used to work for Eidos until
my company bought ourselves back from the Eidos Empire and know how
'protective' Ian Livingstone is of their creation). I wouldn't presume to
speak for Jon T, but I guess his attitude is similar to ours in that we know
we're sailing pretty close to the copyright wind with some of our models, but
we're careful to avoid drawing attention to ourselves by not advertising the
models
as Lara Croft, Barb Wire or in our case X-Wings, TIE Fighters etc.
Instead
you'll find such items as 'Heavy Two-Man Fighter' (Y-Wing), 'X-Foil Four
Engined Fighter' (X-Wing), 'Fast Fighter' (A-Wing) listed in our
catalogue. You won't find any pictures of these particular models on our
website or in the
catalogue either. And after that we pretty much just hope that no-one
from LucasArts will notice an operation as small as us! I know that one or two
small operations who produce fantasy or SF collector's figures have had
copyright troubles and the extent of the action taken by the film companies
has
been to slap 'cease-and-desist' letters on them, effectively saying
don't do it any more, take the models off the market and that will be the end
of the matter. I guess they realise that sueing a small operation isn't cost
effective (the total assets of Brigade Models would barely make it worth
Lucas' lawyers
getting out of bed in the morning) and could be a PR disaster - remember
the recent fiasco when LucasArts wanted to shut down all web sites featuring
copyrighted Star Wars images and logos? They quickly realised that such a move
would alienate many people and abandoned the exercise.
> Yes, but "similar" is not "the same", and bordering on
I think you'd have a tough time arguing that (for example) the GZG Star Tiger
isn't a Starfury, or our 'Fighter with Hex Solar Panels' wasn't a TIE. I must
admit I'm not an expert in copyright law so I don't know exactly where the
lines can be drawn, but I would guess that we're on pretty thin ice. Plus
Eidos, Lucas etc would be able to line up a huge array of expensive lawyers,
so we'd never be in a position to contest the issue anyway. Hopefully it'll
never come to
that :-)
> On Fri, 4 Jun 1999, Tony Francis wrote:
> Buddy Chamberlain wrote:
i'm sure that if st st st jon put his mind to it, he could find a character
from a russ meyer film on whom he could claim the mini was based
:).
tom
Howdy!
> On Fri, 4 Jun 1999, Paul Lesack wrote:
> Yes, but "similar" is not "the same", and bordering on
There is already a ruling, I believe FASA v. Hasbro. It basically
says that the miniatures/toys have to be *bang* on copies. As far as
the miniatures hobby goes, NO one would sue because a> I(It is a small
industry with little publicity, and b> you can't get blood from a stone (you
have to feed your lawyers, after all).
Laterish!
Ken
Ok, thank you. Like I said, I'm not trying to cause a problem here. Rather, I
wanted to make sure there wasn't one.:o)
God bless,
- Buddy
---------------------------------------------
Get paid for surfing the Web! (I'm dead serious!) www.alladvantage.com
Referal #: BXL-474
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[quoted original message omitted]
> I think you'd have a tough time arguing that (for example) the GZG Star
I must
> admit I'm not an expert in copyright law so I don't know exactly where
The unofficial but generally agreed on view is "stand back five feet and
squint". If they look the same, they're close enough to start a suit. A Lara
Croft figure or similar would be more arguable since there are quite a few
women in the world who might have been used by your designer, but a
not-TIE-fighter would be kind of difficult to defend. I suppose the big
boys could recover all your profit from whatever of those designs you've ever
sold, if they were really motivated, but a "cease and desist" is more
probable. I hope you're incorporated, so you are not personally as well as
corporately liable?
but I would guess that we're on pretty thin ice. Plus Eidos, Lucas
> etc would be able to line up a huge array of expensive lawyers, so we'd
Howdy!
> On Fri, 4 Jun 1999, Laserlight wrote:
> The unofficial but generally agreed on view is "stand back five feet
A
> Lara Croft figure or similar would be more arguable since there are
Thanks to the FASA v. Hasbro, precedent has been laid down. In the words of
the judge "...a robot is a robot, a spaceship is a spaceship....". The result
was that FASA had no case because even though a number of toys were almost
exact copies of some of their Battletech designs, they were not *exact*
copies.
As long as there is a minimal level of difference, and the name is not the
same, you should be safe. However, a company could always threaten to sue, and
if their war coffers are larger than yours, it makes little difference *how*
different your designs are.
In the miniatures business, as long as the name is different and the designs
are slightly modified, you are pretty safe. Unless you are
WotC.... :)
Ken
> Kenneth Winland wrote:
> Thanks to the FASA v. Hasbro, precedent has been laid down. In
How did the GW-vs-Demonworld case go? The models were certainly close
to one another, but not identical.
Curious,
> Kenneth Winland wrote:
Not sure about DW, but GW had a suit against DemonBlade Games, over thier
"Org" line. They were using the old Grenadier K-Force Orcs, and GW took
exception to the castings. The court battle ended in a deal, they'd
discontinue most of the K-Force lines (which was good, because they were
phasing those out anyway, as they really, really, sucked) and GW agreed to
back off. It looked like DB might have won and got damages for being bothered
by GW, but at the time it was a 2 man comany and they didn't want to take it
that far.
Howdy!
> On Sat, 5 Jun 1999, Oerjan Ohlson wrote:
> How did the GW-vs-Demonworld case go? The models were certainly close
I think that Demonworld backed down. They probably could have beat it, but it
would have taken money....
Ken
> Kenneth Winland wrote:
> > How did the GW-vs-Demonworld case go? The models were certainly
They reached an agreement. On what terms, I know not. But Daemonblade managed
to produce an original magazine article on Orcs with Machine