GW's Behavior Already Backfiring

[NockerGeek]

No. It's like if Paramount shut down Youtube so no one could watch the trailers for upcoming movies. Trailers that, for some stupid reason, Paramount only ever releases the day before opening.

Well, more accurately, it'd be like Paramount complaining to Youtube about a Youtube channel that posts trailers before Paramount wants to release them, and Youtube shutting down that channel/user's account. Now, while we would agree that Paramount's one-day trailer policy would be stupid, it's still their property and their legal right to release trailers whenever they'd like.

And it's like that here. I think we can all agree that GW's one-week preview window is a bad policy for all involved. It's still their right to have that policy, because it's their content and they have the right to release it in the manner they see fit. Just because someone else decides to circumvent that policy and leak stuff early doesn't make it legally right (even though we all love seeing the info ahead of time).

[DarkLink]

You're right I'm not an expert on online legality. But everything I've seen and heard has said Faeit has ignored multiple requests to not or withdraw illegal/leak scan and images and GW took the final action one stop higher with google, and that google over reacted and pulled the entire blog, not just the offending articles, in a similar way that Amazon Knee Jerked and pulled that Space Marine book

Those requests are not court orders. GW never went to a judge and said 'hey, this guy is doing something illegal'. Which, unless Nafka himself had signed an NDA, I'm pretty sure there's absolutely nothing illegal about what he's doing. There's no legal basis upon which GW shut down Faeit's site.

Google can shut down any of their sites at a whim, simply by no longer linking to that site. Companies send requests to Google for this sort of thing on a fairly regular basis, but it's certainly not some formal legal process. In fact, recall SOPA and PIPA? Those were basically laws designed to formalize this exact process, where a company could request Google or whomever to take down X website for almost any arbitrary reason and Google would have to do it, and the company would be legally protected from any recourse. This is exactly that same scenario. GW decided to censure speech for no better reason than they didn't like it. It's not necessarily illegal for GW and Google to do this, but it's certainly counter-productive bullying.

And, no, it's not comparable to torrenting movies. Nafka wasn't posting the entire codex. He wasn't reselling material. He wasn't claiming ownership. In fact, he was basically providing marketing services for free, because GW refuses to even announce what their next codex is, let alone try and promote or market it until like the day before release. Posting sneak preview pictures is pretty well covered in most countries as fair use, though Britain has pretty crappy free speech laws compared to the USA so I don't know what they're like there. Australia, where Nafka's based, has some form of protection, someone linked to it in another thread.

[Hokiecow]

Jesus, people need to stop over reacting.

GW have ordered a website to stop publishing illegal copies of their public material.

Thats like Empire Magazine refusing to cover movies from Paramount because Paramount tried to get a Torrent website to stop.....

Right.

A lot of people are letting their dislike for GW corporate blind them to the fact they are within their legal rights. Other blogs and forums have not impacted by this. I'm assuming it's because they have taken GW IP more seriously.

[Kirsten]

There's no legal basis upon which GW shut down Faeit's site.

probably why GW didn't shut down the site

[olberon]

to a certain extend the hunt of the GW gestapo (can i use gestapo and GW in one sentence or even in public??) was amusing. now they are just getting annoying. to quote electric:

I can tolerate a lot of cr@p from a company, unless it effects me directly. Charge too much? That's ok, I'll just buy less. Your magazine mostly sucks? That's ok, I just won't read it. Sue left and right and act like a big copyright bully? To a certain extent, I can blame it on a hyperactive legal team. To a further extent, I can tolerate a certain degree of a$s-hattery from a company, because every corporation has its sins.

The thing is that this hobby is fun because its full of user-driven media and user-created content. I like being able to read up on stuff before its released. GW's behavior is starting to seriously crimp my style.

[thundrchickn]

The real question now is if BOLS will do the same thing. I think it would be hilarious if BOLS removed all mention of GW products from their site and youtube channel for the rest of the year. Lets see if their is a correlation to quarterly statements. I'd love to see some more focus on the star wars x wing game, warmahordes, dystopian wars, infinity, etc.

[Slacker]

This is basically a lose/lose situation for Games Workshop - issue a legally proper takedown request and look like bullies to the wargaming community, or do nothing and risk losing their IP's protections by not defending it. As a company that depends on its IP to make money, they really can't do the latter, but they're drawing a ton of heat by doing the former. And of course, the Faeit212 blog isn't really the originating source of the infringement - it's wherever the leak in the distribution chain is, so that someone could snap pics of the magazine early and send them along to Natfka. When it comes down to it, the core cause of all of it is the tiny preview window that GW allows these days, making sites like Faeit212 that much more popular for the news-and-previews-hungry market that is the gaming corner of the internet. This is just the fallout from the legal repercussions of following through with that plan.

GW loses fans' respect (and inadvertently creates more ammo for the war between GW fans and GW haters), the fans lose a popular rumors site (and a popular news site through collateral damage), and everyone ends up just being that much more tense - all because of perfectly legal, valid action that, honestly, had to be taken.

I still feel like there has to be some way GW can still enforce their IP and not come off like bullies, but that would be what a competent PR department would be used for...

[Denzark]

I like GW even better - I never knew they had the power to close down websites on other people's servers. I may even get shares.

Oh what - its not actually GW, but Google over-reacting? And everyone is ranting at GW? Well I never.

[Ordo Septenarius]

The real question now is if BOLS will do the same thing. I think it would be hilarious if BOLS removed all mention of GW products from their site and youtube channel for the rest of the year. Lets see if their is a correlation to quarterly statements. I'd love to see some more focus on the star wars x wing game, warmahordes, dystopian wars, infinity, etc.

If they did that, would this site be around? BoLS touts itself as a wargaming site, but really, there's one game in particular that I believe MOST people come here to read about.

[Nurglitch]