3D printing is getting better every year, so is this the end of companies who make miniatures, or is this just the beginning of something great?
3D printing is amazing. I have always been amazed by the technology. It can be used to make amazing things and bring your art to life. However, it should not be used to steal other people’s art so you can save a couple of bucks.
Yes, you’re investing time and money into producing your product but that is a drop in the bucket when it comes to actual production. Far more money is spent in the development and marketing of a product. Before you moan about Games Workshops lack of advertising, marketing is far more than advertising. It takes a lot of talented people to make the models we love and give us the products we want.
Further, economies of scale means that Game Workshop is able to produce and distribute models far cheaper than whatever it would cost you to print up three Leviathans. So please, remove your cost to make things form the equation, just because you buy paint from GW doesn’t make it all breaks even in the end. You plunk down 50+ dollars for a box of plastic because of the Art and IP; not because it’s a piece of plastic.
Intellectual Property is the real gold.
The product it self is cheap. The ideas behind the product are what matters. It has taken Games Workshop many work hours to get to where it is at now. Creativity isn’t easy, if it was, you’d have your own universe that sells millions of dollars in products each year. By going online and procuring a piece of someone Intellectual property you’re making them less likely to want to create more in the future. Please, don’t do that.
As long as you’re not making money it’s okay. Right?
Actually, no, it’s still not okay. That STC design is not yours. It belongs to the Emperor Games Workshop. They commissioned an artist to design that piece of art. Someone was willing to spend time to recreate that art and provide it for free. It’s important to note that they cannot replicate that artwork without permission. You are now using that replicated art to produce your own product; again without permission; none of that fall’s under fair use. https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html
How much of someone else’s work can I use without getting permission?
Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances. See, Fair Use Index, and Circular 21, Reproductions of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians.
You’re not my dad, you can’t tell me what to do!
Now, of course this opens up a whole other bag of worms because a law is pointless unless it is enforced. We saw the public backlash that happened when the RIAA went after kids who had downloaded millions of songs to their computer using Napster. The new, socially aware, Games Workshop probably won’t go after you. However, the more people that print their own armies the less Games Workshop makes. The less it make the less it can produce. That, or it’ll have to pursue alternate methods of distribution.
The iTunes example
CD’s where a pain, they got scratched, and they skipped if you tried to take them on a run. In general, they where lame. Being able to save millions of songs to a solid-state drive a billion percent better. We could burn our music to our iPods and have them forever. We didn’t have to deal with DRM because we owned the disc! Then Napster made it so we didn’t have to buy discs any more; we could just share with our friends.
CD sales slumped and the recording industry was hemorrhaging money and all the while it was embroiled in litigation trying to stop file sharing. Along came iTunes and it’s DRM. That actually saved the music industry. Yes, you can bypass DRM but most people don’t because Apple made it so simple to buy. People bought songs by the bucket loads and artists could then complain about streaming music several years later but I digress.
So, what can Games Workshop Do?
Well, it can start selling its STC’s using DRM to prevent the average person from sharing it. Maybe they can afford to sell a STC for 10-20 bucks each. Maybe they’ll make it one use only. I don’t know. What I do know is that the more people who stop buying the less Games Workshop is going to be able to produce. The less it produces the more it’ll cost for a box of my plastic crack. So please, if you like it, buy it.
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About the Author: Felix Fimbres
