Popular 3D upgrade bits site Pop Goes the Monkey has just had more items purged from their Shapeways store allegedly courtesy of Games Workshop.
Two weeks after the first purge of products at Pop Goes the Monkey, and Pop threatening to fight their removal, it is happening again.
Shapeways, for those who don’t already know, is a high end 3D printing company that allows users to create their own Marketplace where they designers can upload their own 3D files for others to purchase 3D printed items. Pop Goes the Monkey is probably the most popular Warhammer Marketplaces on Shapeways, and now, without warning, they have had even more items purged from their web store.
Shapeways has a very strict copyright policy, and any company that feels someone is infringing on their copyright can submit a take down request.
Ultimately this is probably what Games Workshop did with a lot of Pop Goes the Monkey’s designs (seemingly line by line).
As specified in our Terms & Conditions, we expect that the creator of a 3D design hold the copyrights to the content. Hence, please only upload your own original work, work that is freely available through a Creative Commons license, or work that does not infringe on the rights of another copyright holder.
If it was their doing, this isn’t the first we’ve seen Games Workshop going after people for copyright infringement, or Pop Goes the Monkey, and it’s most likely not going to be the last. One of the designs that were taken down was of a shark, or a Carcharodon which is what the design was labeled as. For those of you who don’t know, Carcharodon is defined by Merriam-Webster as:
a genus of sharks (family Lamnidae) comprising the man-eater and a number of extinct related forms having carcharodont teeth.
So what gives on this one? Is it too close to something GW has made, or is this just a case of someone being heavy handed?
EDITOR’S NOTE: We can confirm Games Workshop is the company taking issue with these items on PGtM’s site. We’ve also obtained this list of assets Games Workshop is referencing in their notices on these products. You can compare what is shown here as part of their submission to what has been removed from the PGtM’s site.
There is of course some interesting iconography that they chose to submit, as well as ones that you may expect to see as well.
With over 900 designs still available on Shapeways, even after the latest purge, there’s still plenty of items available to upgrade your miniatures. So, make sure you head on over to Pop Goes the Monkey‘s Shapeways Marketplace and get those orders in before anything else gets taken down.
We’d really like to know what you have to say about the recent purge of Pop Goes the Monkey’s web store, both the claimed “infriniged” icons list as well as the custom designs themselves.
Where do you think both parties should go from here?
Latest News & Rumors from Games Workshop
About the Author: James Rodriguez
