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[Artevere]

 Is anyone interested in working on this? I'm not talking about a few suits of power armor and a bolter, but an entire campaign set in the 40k universe. I myself have writing experience, NWN scripting and mod building experience. If there is enough interest in this, I'll throw up a website and we can start at the drawing board.

[Clegan]

Let me save you the time and effort. In the letter below Change all reference to Talisman to Warhammer 40K, and the website to the website you would have used. That would be the letter you would receive.




Our Ref: Legal/RS/GLS/10709

5 October 2009
By Email

Dear Sir

Re: Infringement of Games Workshop Limited’s Intellectual Property Rights

Games
Workshop Limited (“GW”) has for some time been engaged in the business
of designing, manufacturing and marketing: hobby board games; war
games; models; miniatures; and associated products and in the course of
this business has acquired and registered a large number of copyrights
and other intellectual property rights.

The webpage http://www.students....n/talisman.html
for which we believe you are responsible has recently been bought to
our attention. Having checked your website it is apparent that your
product is based entirely upon the Talisman game which is owned and
controlled by GW and its official licensee. Therefore it is our belief
that the placement of your game on the internet constitutes an
infringement of GW’s intellectual property rights. Specifically, your
activities have given rise to two causes of action, namely passing off
and breach of copyright.

Passing Off:

GW has built up a
successful and distinguishable brand over the last twenty five years
and clearly has a longstanding and loyal support base, which has
attracted much goodwill to the brand. Whether intentional or not and
despite the presence of disclaimers, your conversion of the Talisman
game into an electronic format clearly gives rise to the possibility
that people may think that there is some connection between your
product and GW. This is because having used the word Talisman since
1983 it has effectively become a ‘badge of origin’ for the GW brand. It
is for this reason that GW will not tolerate your activities as they
could lead to both confusion in the mind of the consumer and a loss to
GW.

Copyright:

As you may be aware copyright is a right
that vests in the creator as soon as the material in question is
created, in this case the materials used to create the original
Talisman game. Having used the Talisman name and created the game in
the 1980s GW owns the copyright in the board and the characters that
comprise the game thereby making it an offence for others to use these
images in the course of business, or to create products that are based
in whole (or in substantial part), or adapted/derived from the Talisman
game. Therefore your unauthorised use of GW’s copyright by offering the
game to the public is a primary infringement of GW’s copyright and
contrary to s.16(2) of the Copyright Design & Patents Act 1988.

We
take this opportunity to emphasise how seriously GW considers breaches
of its intellectual property rights. It is the policy of GW to always
enforce its rights against any party infringing its intellectual
property rights by means of appropriate legal proceedings. However, in
the present circumstances we may be prepared to refrain from taking
such proceedings against you if we receive from you within fourteen
(14) days of the date of this letter your written undertakings, in a
form acceptable to us, that you will:

immediately cease and
desist from any activity which infringes GW’s intellectual property
rights and remove the Talisman game from your site and any others that
you control; and
confirm by return that you will not infringe GW’s intellectual property rights at any time in the future.

In
the event that we do not receive undertakings in respect of the above
from you within 14 days of the date of this letter, we shall have no
option but to commence formal proceedings against you without prejudice
to any other of our rights and, if necessary, forthwith and without
further notice. In the meantime, all our rights are reserved including
seeking injunctive relief, delivery or destruction of infringing
materials you hold in relation to the game, damages, costs and
interests.

We accordingly look forward to hearing from you. If
you are in any doubt as to the content of this letter we recommend that
you seek independent legal advice.



Yours faithfully




Group Legal - Games Workshop Group plc
For and on behalf of Games Workshop Limited
robbie.shneerson@games-workshop.co.uk

[Artevere]

This isn't always the case



http://www.battlefield40k.com/



That group has been active for some years. GW has made it painfully clear that anyone who emulates their gaming system will be dealt with harshly. They won't even let Relic make a direct conversion of the table top, because they're afraid people would no longer see need to buy $50 plastic men. However, mods that don't directly conflict with gaming systems, and only use the universe tend to survive.

[Periodiko]

Realize that there's a sword of damacles with all projects like this: they can be shut down at any time with merely a letter, and all it requires is some guy at GW to decide that your project is too similar to say, the new feature in the expansion to Dawn of War 2, or whatever.

Also, don't you think its a better idea to make a small, conservative thing first to learn how the toolset works? How many projects like this are even ever completed? You have no modeling experience despite that being the largest hurdle you'd face: are you really willing to bet that you can work with a complete stranger over possibly a period of years to finish something like this, all in your spare time, knowing that if they withdraw to finish a degree or raise a family or whatever, you're left with a half-finished nothing?

Modifié par Periodiko, 17 novembre 2009 - 07:54 .

[Artevere]

Of course they can. But if nobody tried, where would we be? Still playing mario kart, thats where. I have been involved with mods that haven't worked out, as what we were doing was not technically possible with what little access we had to the game's engine. In this case, we are importing new models and textures, not attempting to recode the game mechanics.



I just wanted to see if there were other people out there with a similar interest. I already knew there were doom bringers and nay sayers ready to pounce, though thanks for reaffirming that you're ever ready.

[FalloutBoy]

Artevere wrote...

But if nobody tried, where would we be?

Exactly the same place that you will be if you do try, but with less heartbreak.

Ideas are cheap. No reason you couldn't do something similar, but without using copyright material.

[phordicus]

just have common origin sources handy. GW's ideas aren't 100% original, either.

[Adinos]

Ignoring the legal issues, the problem is the scope of the project....it is just too big to have any chance of being completed by a group of inexperienced part-time hobbyists.... you need a dedicated professional full-time group for something of this scale....

[BaronIveagh]

I dunno: some guys did a Fallout 3 TC this way. According to GW policies listed on their website Total Conversions are OK. It's just putting random GW IP in another game that's not.

[Artevere]

The scope isn't quite as big as you think. The hardest part is actually the modelling/texturing, and that is only as big as we want it to be. I'm not saying throw every chapter, every unit from every army and 5 imperial sectors in it. Hell, it doesn't even need space marines, and elves/eldar are already highly similar.



Considering the amount of time and work being spent on seeing Morrigan's nipples, I think this would be a much more worthy project.

[GregSolidus]

I'll join