>>116384940Games Workshop was angry that a company called Chapterhouse was selling knockoffs of their IP that were also a superior quality. So they tried to copyright pauldrons and leather capes. They didn’t get those copyrights, AND Chapterhouse won the lawsuit. So they sued some smaller companies for similar knockoffs and won those cases.
Now let’s rewind. In the 1980‘s GamesWorkshop was run by eccentric historians and artists who loved the hobby and barely cared about profit. A lot of their staff was part-timers since it was cheaper. Those guys sold the company to some investor types.
In the late 80’s, early 90’s they found out that under British law any part-timer keeps the rights to what they create. They are a British-based company.
So this guy Tony Ackland who did art for them owned the lion’s share of their shit He offered to sell it cheap since he just liked working there, but instead they fired him then revamp their line ever so slightly to claim its different; meaning the official GW IP was knockoffs.
Now let’s go back to Chapterhouse. Ackland heard about that lawsuit shit, and calls them up. Tells them that, because British law, he can cite the cases they won and basically add rape the company to death in court. His only demand: stop suing people. That’s it.
BUT
That caused all the other part-timer who got fired to crawl out of the woodwork and start selling their shit. So now GW has a fuckton of competition selling the same concepts, in some cases literally the same sculpts, profiting only themselves.
So GW has the biggest copyright failure out there.
