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For all intents and purposes someone does 'own' the fluff. Take the Star Wars IP, despite the far reaching extended fiction, all properties belonged to Mr. Lucas. Now Disney owns it. I see it no different then if you were to be hired to make a game for Star Wars, it got shot down and you continued to make it on your own. You'd get a cease and desist. I understand that the mediums are different but the point is still salient. Freelance or hired, if you work with an IP that isn't your own, you're going to be under the thumb of that entity. poo poo, if you make an IP that is too close to an existing one you can get hosed. Take that lady author's horrible Space Marine book and GW.
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Oct 19, 2013 01:25
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That book if I recall correctly was called X The Space Marine, only X was the name of her furry ORIGINAL CHARACTER DO NOT STEAL. GW's objection was entirely with the use of the word 'Space Marine' in the title. The sad fact about IP law, at least in the US, is that you have to aggressively protect your trademarks otherwise they are free to use for anybody. At least that's how I remember it.
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Oct 19, 2013 01:38
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Blacktoll posted:For all intents and purposes someone does 'own' the fluff. Take the Star Wars IP, despite the far reaching extended fiction, all properties belonged to Mr. Lucas. Now Disney owns it. I see it no different then if you were to be hired to make a game for Star Wars, it got shot down and you continued to make it on your own. You'd get a cease and desist. I understand that the mediums are different but the point is still salient. Eh, not quite. The protection for something like Star Wars falls under the copyright protection for derivative works, which usually includes things like sequels unless it's a parody or otherwise covered under fair use. Also, it sounds like Disney didn't buy the Star Wars IP, they only licensed the rights to create derivative works from the IP from the IP owner Lucasfilm. I know the kind of crazy overbroad IP assignment contracts mentioned as part of the GW contract are usually a bad idea, probably unenforceable, and illegal in places like California and several other states. California law, for instance, explicitly excludes from such contracts any IP created outside the workplace and without using company facilities. GW's legal department sounds pretty dumb and they could get burned on this, but the whole point of the contract is to scare people and not be enforceable. Which is, again, pretty dumb since if that whole clause gets struck down, there's a chance they lose an actual case where an employee tries to separately market an idea he came up with on company time. And has been oted earlier, that Space Marine book thing is an entirely different issue since it's over a trademark, and not a copyright, and for once it's an example of GW's legal team actually doing their jobs properly. Just like GW probably couldn't publish a book called "Tales of an Imperial Stormtrooper." OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Oct 19, 2013 |
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Oct 19, 2013 01:55
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Blacktoll posted:For all intents and purposes someone does 'own' the fluff. Take the Star Wars IP, despite the far reaching extended fiction, all properties belonged to Mr. Lucas. Now Disney owns it. I see it no different then if you were to be hired to make a game for Star Wars, it got shot down and you continued to make it on your own. You'd get a cease and desist. I understand that the mediums are different but the point is still salient. Cream_Filling posted:Eh, not quite.
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Oct 19, 2013 02:07
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Arquinsiel posted:Nope. That's how Warcraft happened. I'm not up on the actual case, but wasn't it just a C&D and that was it? Did they ever actually take it to court? Because honestly GW seems to have a decent common law claim on the term considering they published a book titled "Space Marine," and "Space Marine Battles" is an actual book series branding, with a logo and everything.
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Oct 19, 2013 02:14
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It's too generic. It's a marine, which is a thing that has a clear definition, in space, which is a place that marines could conceivably go. There was a C&D and then some anti-troll IP law group sent them a pro-bono "gently caress you and your C&D" counter letter.
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Oct 19, 2013 02:20
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Besides, didnt Heinlein invent the term? I know nothing about copyright law, but I would think that his case would be just as valid if he decided to throw his weight around.
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Oct 19, 2013 02:23
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Hot Dog Day #82 posted:Besides, didnt Heinlein invent the term? I know nothing about copyright law, but I would think that his case would be just as valid if he decided to throw his weight around. Actually it would be more valid because he would have come bak from the dead to do so, and you do not gently caress with Heinlein, zombie or not. As for my personal experience, I work for a political party and part of my contract is that any industrial designs I come up with while I am employed by them belong to them. So...this poo poo is more common that you think.
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Oct 19, 2013 02:32
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Arquinsiel posted:It's too generic. It's a marine, which is a thing that has a clear definition, in space, which is a place that marines could conceivably go. There was a C&D and then some anti-troll IP law group sent them a pro-bono "gently caress you and your C&D" counter letter. Hot Dog Day #82 posted:Besides, didnt Heinlein invent the term? I know nothing about copyright law, but I would think that his case would be just as valid if he decided to throw his weight around. It's not a copyright, it's a trademark. Trademarks are made up of generic terms all the time. "Apple" is an extremely common and ancient word. Putting the word apple in the name of your next computer product still means you're probably going to get screwed in court. The example I gave before of "Imperial Stormtrooper" is two generic words, but put together and in the proper context they imply that something is an official Star Wars product even if it's not. The same basic idea applies here. GW published a book called "Space Marine" in the 90s (which later saw an ebook release) and has a whole line of ebooks titled "Space Marine Battles." Until the offending work came out, there were no other books or ebooks with "Space Marine" in the title except for related GW products. This is a signal to consumers that when you see something with "Space Marine" in the title, it's a GW product. If the "average consumer," a particularly dimwitted legal fiction, could be confused then it's a trademark problem, especially since the average consumer in this case is primarily children (and the clueless parents of children, and also of course adult manchildren like me). If so, then the author should change the title of their work to prevent any confusion. Heinlein never sold a product called "Space Marine" or anything easily confused for "Space Marine." Even if he had, he and his IP holders also haven't enforced their claim - they never told people to stop using the term "space marine" and the term has ceased to be strongly or uniquely associated with Heinlein (incidentally Heinlein isn't even the first recorded user of the term). If you don't take action to stop people from using your trademark as soon as you know about it, then eventually your trademark becomes generic and no longer applies. This is why GW and other companies are so anal about other businesses even possibly sort of infringing on trademarks - you have to defend them or lose them. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Oct 19, 2013 |
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Oct 19, 2013 03:04
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Very interesting! Thank you for the education.
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Oct 19, 2013 03:15
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I'll second that, interesting stuff.
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Oct 19, 2013 03:18
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That was the arguement made in the C&D to Amazon (and not the author) by virtue of GW moving into ebooks, but the counter arguement was that "space marine" has been used to describe any generic armoured future soldier by the videogame industry since Doom and that "Captain Brink of the Space Marines" was published in 1932. It didn't seem to matter that Hogarth's ebook predates any of GW's, so technically she could, were she so inclined, try to dick with them for moving in on her ebook trademark. The end of the story is that her book is still on Amazon, thus GW were wrong.
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Oct 19, 2013 03:37
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Arquinsiel posted:That was the arguement made in the C&D to Amazon (and not the author) by virtue of GW moving into ebooks, but the counter arguement was that "space marine" has been used to describe any generic armoured future soldier by the videogame industry since Doom and that "Captain Brink of the Space Marines" was published in 1932. It didn't seem to matter that Hogarth's ebook predates any of GW's, so technically she could, were she so inclined, try to dick with them for moving in on her ebook trademark. More like GW is afraid of more bad press and has so far decided not to pursue the matter further (or else they came to some sort of confidential agreement with the author ending the matter quietly). Amazon isn't exactly a court of law. It's an interesting case in that probably no real publishing company's legal department would have let her go ahead with that title. But since the work was self-published, the author probably doesn't understand what's going on and didn't have any resources to do any basic groundwork on that or most other issues, let alone respond. As self-publishing continues to grow, we're probably going to see more cases like this where self-published authors don't realize that they're also small business owners who, in exchange for lower barriers to entry and a much bigger cut of the earnings, may also not get the same legal resources or protection that conventional authors have. Also, their IP lawyers might be smarting pretty bad after their suit against Chapterhouse, making them extra sensitive. That counter-argument has already been addressed: generic terms can still be trademarks. The same reason why they successfully registered the trademark on "Space Marine" for a video game, even though it's a common and generic term in the video game industry. Seriously, GW does some dumb stuff, but this is a bog standard trademark defense and it seems pretty reasonable to me. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Oct 19, 2013 |
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Oct 19, 2013 03:56
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Well I suspect it would count for the purposes of protecting it against a genuine threat were one to arise and was done purely for the sake of form, but the 1932 publication date would invalidate their claim for literature and the author they were pursuing published her work before they published their ebooks, which was regarded as relevant. Seriously though, if you think GW gives a gently caress about bad press you haven't been paying attention.
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Oct 19, 2013 04:53
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Arquinsiel posted:Well I suspect it would count for the purposes of protecting it against a genuine threat were one to arise and was done purely for the sake of form, but the 1932 publication date would invalidate their claim for literature and the author they were pursuing published her work before they published their ebooks, which was regarded as relevant. Except mere use of a term doesn't invalidate the claim. Not all book titles are automatically trademarkable, and trademarks themselves must remain in continuous use. However, the titles for a book series are the classic example of a book title that can be trademarked, which is why I distinguished specifically regarding the Space Marine Battles series. Also, I'm not clear on the exact facts of the case, but GW/BL has been publishing ebooks and other software for quite some time, as well as audio books under the Space Marine Battles series, which I believe fall into the same classification as ebooks. I think I'll stop here since after the first effortpost I'm probably starting to bore and annoy people, but basically law is complicated and this is an example of how cases like this can and do drag on forever. I agree that you are on the whole correct, though, in that GW corporate is run by assholes. Sorry about the derail. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Oct 19, 2013 |
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Oct 19, 2013 05:21
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Is Fear to Tread any good?
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Oct 19, 2013 06:07
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Don't apologise for your posts Cream_Filling, consistently the most informative and structured responses in this thread; a thread which is already full of good info. Fear To Tread is enjoyable in places, if you like the Blood Angels/Sanguinius at all you should probably pick it up.
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Oct 19, 2013 06:40
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I've been told that the Necrons and the Tau can't fully enter the Warp because they lack psykers. I had thought that the only psyker you needed for Warp travel was a Navigator for navigation, and that you don't need a psyker to actually enter the Warp; the engines do that by themselves.
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Oct 19, 2013 06:41
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The Tau have next to no Warp presence (if any at all), and they don't like the idea of traveling into something that's proven to be unpredictable at best and lethal at worst. Hence "the Warp is no place for the Greater Good".
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Oct 19, 2013 09:23
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Yeah, the Tau lack the genetic freaks necessary to navigate in the warp so they use engines which let them do short jumps that skim them over the surface of the warp, like skipping stones on water. Their tiny warp presence combined with the fleeting nature of the ship's exposure means that nothing really notices them let alone has a chance/motivation to attack them while they're jumping. It also means they are much slower/shorter ranged than the other races. The patron species of the Necrons, the C'tan, found the warp to be anathema to their own physical existence. This is why the Necron technology tends to get hosed up by it, and designed to repel it, they are after all inhabiting bodies created by the C'tan. To get around it they use FTL ships which are a lot slower over large distances than warp-capable vessels, but faster and more manouverable (iirc) in conventional space. They also use the Dolman gates, which are C'tan created stable breaches into the Old Ones/Eldar webway network, enabling faster than warp travel but only to places connected by the webway routes they can (forcibly) gain access to. This presumably being how the different Tomb Worlds are connected. Lovely Joe Stalin fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Oct 19, 2013 |
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Oct 19, 2013 15:07
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berzerkmonkey posted:Nobody "owns" the fluff - GW has made it pretty clear that everything and nothing is canon. All the stories we read are flawed accounts of the events and nothing is the "real" explanation - it's just bits and pieces. It sucks, but that's the stance GW has taken. Legal issues aside, this isn't quite right. Certain authors do "own" certain chapters, particularly the big 4. They basically get right of first refusal on a project featuring them, they get input on how they are handled. When other authors work with those chapters, they work extensively with the other author to make sure it all flows right. Abnett had to consult extensively with McNeill about his handling of the Ultramarines, and Ward had to consult extensively with ADB about writing the Black Legion and Chaos Space Marine fluff for the codex, and ADB has mentioned talking with James Swallow to get the Blood Angels right for Master of Mankind. It's not clear to what extent this is a hard and fast BL rule, but it is at least a professional courtesy that gets mentioned by the authors in interviews. And as a long term Star Wars fan, let me strongly disagree with you about the canon policy. Star Wars would be greatly improved if they didn't have the "cram everything in because it is all canon" policy. The BL one of "myths and legends" is way better. If you seriously like the SW take better, I have four words for you: "super star destroyer controversy" By the way, Massacre hit street yesterday. Anyone seen it? I know it is more plastic mans than plastic mans books, but stuff from Betrayal popped up as plot threads in the books, so I'd expect the same here Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Oct 19, 2013 |
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Oct 19, 2013 16:22
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I cannot imagine the chagrin I would feel as an author if I had to consult with Swallow and McNeill about anything to do with my work.
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Oct 19, 2013 17:13
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Does this mean Gav Thorpe runs the Dark Angel side of things? 
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Oct 19, 2013 17:16
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Baron Bifford posted:The greatest disappointment for me was the Titan. They really hype up how important that thing is, then when you see it you get a bland construct of the same poo-brown color as the rest of the Forge World, lumbering down a corridor. That is what everyone is fussing about? I was hoping for some real Pacific Rim moments. I kinda felt that way too, although at least we got a great titan-y song out of it that I think evokes the concept well! At least the music guy held up his part of the job. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vt26l-BWpw e: Oh yeah, and I remember thinking that they did the walking animation pretty well; along with the sense of scale of the thing, I think it did a nice, convincing job of animating how something that goddamn big and heavy would "walk." Given, I was only able to observe this because the sequence was pretty much a short, uneventful corridor walk, but I'll take what I can get. v  v
One Legged Cat fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Oct 19, 2013 |
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Oct 19, 2013 18:45
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Rapey Joe Stalin posted:I cannot imagine the chagrin I would feel as an author if I had to consult with Swallow and McNeill about anything to do with my work. Why? Keep in mind that for all our goon opinions about books, these guys are coworkers. Heck, more so - Ted from accounting probably doesn't like the same stuff you do. These guys are all scifi authors working on the same IP for the long haul. That is way more similarity than you see in most professions. They have similar interests, move in similar circles, have similar goals, and have similar motivations. They go to conferences, writing workshops, and pubs together. Unless someone is a complete and utter horses rear end (eg Karen Traviss on the Legacy of the Force series for SW), I can't see why there would be a problem working with them. Safety Factor posted:Does this mean Gav Thorpe runs the Dark Angel side of things? McNeill has the Ultras, King the Wolves, Thorpe the Dark Angels, Swallow the Blood Angels, Abnett the Imperial Guard, ADB the Chaos legions. And now Wraight may get the Iron Hands and White Scars if his books on them do well and he signs on for the long haul since he is handling them in the Space Marine Battles books and Horus Heresy books. Again, this isn't to say that one is the only one to write them - Abnett did the Ultramarines, ADB did the space wolves, etc. But they have a predominant author who sets the "tone" of the faction, and others will basically do their take on it (eg ADB's afterward about how his Logan Grimnar is different from King's)
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Oct 19, 2013 19:26
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A candidate for the most  moment in all of 40k fiction has to be in Battle For The Fang when all the most bad-rear end characters take on Magnus, the Crimson King, Tzeentch's chosen and Lord of the Thousand Sons.This moment: 'The Great Wolf had arrived.' (Or something close to that) literally had me fist pump while reading.
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Oct 19, 2013 19:38
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Fried Chicken posted:Why? Keep in mind that for all our goon opinions about books, these guys are coworkers. Heck, more so - Ted from accounting probably doesn't like the same stuff you do. These guys are all scifi authors working on the same IP for the long haul. That is way more similarity than you see in most professions. They have similar interests, move in similar circles, have similar goals, and have similar motivations. They go to conferences, writing workshops, and pubs together. Unless someone is a complete and utter horses rear end (eg Karen Traviss on the Legacy of the Force series for SW), I can't see why there would be a problem working with them. Also, prose and characterization are not necessarily the same thing as general fluff tone. I highly doubt, for example, that Abnett takes syntactical advice from McNeill, as opposed to just what the 'feel' of the Ultramarines should be.
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Oct 19, 2013 19:44
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Rapey Joe Stalin posted:I cannot imagine the chagrin I would feel as an author if I had to consult with Swallow and McNeill about anything to do with my work. I think most of them seem like pretty chill dudes. McNeill has written some pretty good stuff before and Swallow helped write Deus Ex:HR and got a BAFTA nomination for it. They're probably people you can talk to for ages about 40k fluff but their prose isn't at the same level as some of the other authors.
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Oct 19, 2013 19:52
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JerryLee posted:Also, prose and characterization are not necessarily the same thing as general fluff tone. I highly doubt, for example, that Abnett takes syntactical advice from McNeill, as opposed to just what the 'feel' of the Ultramarines should be. Yeah, and probably making sure they don't insert a glaring contradiction or dropping plot hooks for one another to use Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Oct 19, 2013 |
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Oct 19, 2013 21:48
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VanSandman posted:A candidate for the most I didn't really like it that much, it felt like Magnus should have wiped them all out but only got sort off beaten due to plot armor. The whole sequence was basically "character wails on Magnus for a while, Magnus remembers he's a loving primarch mega psyker and one shots said character. Repeat until Great Wolf".
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Oct 19, 2013 22:26
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Well he was basically ignoring them until they managed to interfere with what he was doing. After killing the Wolf who was fixing the Wulfen problem and wrecking his research, he knew his goals had been accomplished due to Tzeentchian prophesy powers. After that I got the impression that he was just running out the clock. Plus, you know, throwing Bjorn from the top of THE loving mountain was pretty cool, even cooler because Bjorn survived it. Oh well, agree to disagree.
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Oct 19, 2013 22:46
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I liked the action sequence better in Nick Kyme's Salamander Trilogy When the one guy who is the avatar of salamanders (?) goes super saiyan and starts Neo-ing all the bad guys and then something happens but I couldn't parse it even though I re-read it over and over.
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Oct 20, 2013 03:36
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Blacktoll posted:I liked the action sequence better in Nick Kyme's Salamander Trilogy When the one guy who is the avatar of salamanders (?) goes super saiyan and starts Neo-ing all the bad guys and then something happens but I couldn't parse it even though I re-read it over and over. Please someone post this.
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Oct 20, 2013 08:12
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Found Massacre, flipped through it briefly. More later, but aside from some awesome art of the primarchs and Erebus (who looks exactly like the sort of rear end in a top hat you would expect) the only thing that lept out was we learned Vulkan's role: the teacher
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Oct 20, 2013 17:02
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Fried Chicken posted:we learned Vulkan's role: the teacher What does this mean? Can you give some context?
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Oct 20, 2013 23:46
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Fried Chicken posted:And as a long term Star Wars fan, let me strongly disagree with you about the canon policy. Star Wars would be greatly improved if they didn't have the "cram everything in because it is all canon" policy. The BL one of "myths and legends" is way better. If you seriously like the SW take better, I have four words for you: "super star destroyer controversy"
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Oct 21, 2013 00:28
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I don't mind the general 40k stuff all being 'canon' but the thing that annoys me is the Horus Heresy series not lining up. It was billed as 'what really happened' so you'd expect a coherent timeline.
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Oct 21, 2013 01:10
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Kegslayer posted:I don't mind the general 40k stuff all being 'canon' but the thing that annoys me is the Horus Heresy series not lining up. It was billed as 'what really happened' so you'd expect a coherent timeline. I know there has been one or two little bumps, but how is the HH series not lining up?
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Oct 21, 2013 02:12
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UberJumper posted:I know there has been one or two little bumps, but how is the HH series not lining up? The books aren't written chronologically and several different authors are working it, so there wasn't a coherent timeline for books 1-20 that had every event happening sequentially and each author given an outline of what to cover. I know they write the multi-book Star Wars stories like that and all the authors have to routinely collaborate and share information so everyone is on the same page.
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Oct 21, 2013 02:35
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Aries posted:What does this mean? Can you give some context? It describes him as a teacher in basically the same way that Cruze is called a judge, Lorgar a priest, and Russ an executioner Massacre, page 250 posted:VULKAN Here;s more, because I care Massacre page 234 posted:FERRUS MANUS Massacre, page 242 posted:KONRAD CURZE Massacre, page 260 posted:LORGAR And because why not, here are some images. Apologies for them being uncropped screenshots. If one of you is a lexicanum editor go ahead and clean up the larger images here before tossing them up there  I really like the one of Vulkan, it reminds me a lot of the busts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, AKA Caracalla, one of the more famous black emperors of Rome. Here is a bust of the emperor, now imagine it bald and rotated 60 degrees. Same facial expression and profile.  I'm pretty sure this is Kor Phareon, even though it is on a different page than his entry. It does the same thing with Abaddon elsewhere in the book, and this matches the description  Erebus, that utter fucker. He looks so delightfully punchable. I love how the runes and scars are worked into the design. ALso, they got rid of those stupid random head spikes, which is a major improvement  Lorgar. I'm not sure how visible it is in this screen cap, but he has really faint writing done on him in the form of negative space to indicate that it is more reflective of the light. This is in contrast with the rest of it, on the armor there is tiny writing in black, indicating it is engraved. It highlights that the writing on his skin isn't carved in, but more something that handles light differently (in canon, because it is tattooed gold). Neat trick really. The expression is nicely done. This is a man at peace with himself, surveying something from afar.  Cruze. I'm a little iffy on the teeth, but I do like the rest of it.  Ferrus Manus. Like the shot of Fulgrim, Erebus, Kor Phareon, and Abaddon, it is pretty clear that this is design work from the model. Clear that is, because the model has the same expression. I haven't seen the one of Lorgar close up, but I assume that is the same in his case as well. There is a lot more, basically an entry for all the primarchs, plus their right hand man (Malgohurst, Typhon, Sevatar, etc) plus more great art like some really creepy noise marines and the like, plus all the new units but I am already pushing the envelope of  so
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Oct 21, 2013 03:53
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