Games Workshop is trying to shut down fan animations | Hacker News Reader

Games Workshop is trying to shut down fan animations

pcgamer.com

One long running fan project that is pulling the plug because of this is "If the emperor had a TTS". Here is their statement https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OXljeaktnDA

Which is a shame, TTS was what got me into 40k, I have no interest in TTing but brought some of the books with every intention to buy more after reading what I had (just reading though the expanse atm) and even had some mini’s on order because I was thought that might be fun to have around the office. That all happened because of TTS.

Yes they were using GW’s IP creating the series, however without that series they wouldn’t have another fan of the lore and in the end another customer.

I dunno how to feel, I can see GWs side, it used their IP, copyright and IP law allows them to restrict derivative works. But without those derivative works I wouldn’t have given a shit about GW

They say “don’t bite the hand that feeds you”. And GW can honestly feel like they are feeding these fan works with IP, however these fan works are also feeding GW with customers.

I don't feel the least bit for GW, IP protection is almost always net negative for society. Any more than a little and it's just used to by extant powers to collect rents.

It seems weird that fan art is allowed but animation isn't. If I do two drawings of a character then that's allowed, but if I quickly change from one to the other then that gives the illusion of movement and isn't allowed anymore.

the prevailing theory is that they're doing it to remove competition to a streaming/multimedia service that GW is preparing to launch

Not sure if I heard correctly but SF and fantasy writers have major beef with Warhammer because it steals all the ideas from this type of literature amd reuses them for their merch without compensation or even attribution.

EDIT

nvm apparently it's just a mixture of everything, with the strongest influence from Moorcock. Witcher character also drew a lot from his books.

http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.com/2014/06/acceptable-in-80...

The law is usually on the side of IP protection. But fighting some of your most enthusiastic and creative fans seems bad for the franchise, community, and hobby in general.

If they encourage unofficial, non-commercial fan fiction, fan art, and fan comics, why forbid unofficial, non-commercial fan animations and films? Not to mention that one of the most obvious and fun uses of model kits and miniatures is stop-frame animation! Changing existing terms is also a bad look.

Next up: Disney sues people who stream Star Wars miniatures, board game, and tabletop RPG sessions (all of which are clearly unauthorized adaptations and public performances of Disney/Lucasfilm's IP.) And Lego Group is presumably liable for encouraging and inciting unauthorized adaptations (and potentially public performances) of the Lego Star Wars movie and game IP in living rooms all over the world - in fact profiting from such infringement and doing nothing to stop it!

Luckily Astartes was not shut down but absorbed: https://twitter.com/astartes40k/status/1369666193989111808?s... hope the creator gets to achieve what he hopes to do with GW.

That honestly makes it weirder to me. If gw had this policy a few years ago this guy never would have been found and hired.

I started reading Horus Heresy thanks to those fan videos, I am not interested in miniatures or tabletop game but the lore sounded interesting.

I don't understand why they are trying to kill their chances at free advertising, if not for those animations, I wouldn't even hear about 40k.

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