Gw Take Downs

Hello fellow 40k bits shop owners (and any other shop owners that make companion items to franchise products). My goal with this thread is to do a few things:


1. To alert shop owners that it looks like this is happening again last time I had this happen was 2021.
2. To discuss what happens
3. Would like everyone to share how they are dealing with this situation.

Ok So lets start off my shop offers bits mainly for the verious grim dark games. I design each of my items. I DO NOT scan actual products. At most I will use caliper and measure the original product and I will go about designing my own item.

That being said, this week I received a new set of take down request notices from shapeways due to complaints from Games Workshop. Technically there were six products in the group but 3 are digital stls versions (since I'm part of the stl test group)s. All were take downs under the guise of "Space Marine Helmet"

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Hi Bw,

I am sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news, but unfortunately we have received a copyright infringement notice for your model Space-Knights-V6-Helmets-ver1.

It claims that you infringe the rights of Games Workshop Ltd., who own the copyright to Space Marines helmet.

Therefore we have no choice but to suspend your design from the site. Please do not attempt to re-upload the model unless and until you have successfully challenged this notice. Doing so may trigger our repeat infringer policy.

Our full content policy is here if you would like to know more: http://www.shapeways.com/legal/content_policy. If you believe that this takedown is incorrect, under our content policy you have the right to challenge this takedown. Please refer to the content policy for information about what needs to be included in your counter-notice.

Thank you for your understanding. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at any time.

Kind regards,

The Shapeways Team
service@shapeways.com

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So Who else has had this happen, how have you dealt with it. How has it affected how you work/create/sell

People often learn the hard way. It doesn't matter if you drew the shapes yourself or not, if it looks like someone else's Intellectual Property, it is an infringement. You must invent your own; there is no, "but I drew it completely myself".

For example, people often draw an image of Mickey Mouse and then use it in a commercial way, and get IP infringement notices from Disney. Same thing with "Thomas the Tank Engine" or any Marvel "Super Hero" and dozens of other popular (and not so popular) images.

Get permission and all is okay. Lack permission and, "Ut oh!"

Sadly GW doesn't do the "Get permission" route. There is no licensing mechanism. They go so far as for their official gaming tournaments to outlaw custom parts.

Was it due to the design of the parts, or because you used words like "Space Marine" in the description? You could come up with a unique design, but you need to let potential customers know what it is and what it fits, at which point you need to mention a GW term and whammo!

From what I expirienced from GW:
Logos, symbols not allowed
Same names not allowed, especially, "space marine "
Some designs, but I don't understand which. They ignore 99% their copies and ban WW1 WW2 generic scifi style vehicles

the take down notices were for space marine helmet. I call my items space knights (like spellcrow) they targeted 6 (buts its really three as they went after the printed version and the digital download pilot version).

I never heard from GW or an agent on their behalf that filed the claim.
I did do a counter notice to Shapeways and was told they would give GW 10 - 14 days to escalate any legal action. In this case we heard nothing.
After 14 days I asked Shapeways to restore my items and I just noticed my items were readded.

Along with the Counter notice I reasked for some enhancement from Shapeways. I have asked this via support and now legal. Sadly the legal contact side stepped the discussion and just said we are infringing on GW IP and we should get copyright lawyers.

The items I asked for

1. Editing products especially in batch is a manual and time intensive process. Now right now I have over more than 700 products listed on the marketplace. In the interest of complying with any future requirements and ensuring efficiency in this process, I kindly request the implementation of a mechanism that would enable bulk editing and re-uploading of product data.

2., I suggested it would greatly assist sellers like myself if your platform, which categorizes products as Warhammer 40k, could seek guidance from Games Workshop regarding specific language and terminology that they find objectionable. This approach would be akin to the practices employed by Cults3d and My Mini Factory. This would provide clarity and facilitate compliance for sellers when creating and adding products to your marketplace.

Thanks for all your time and now im back to manually editing all my products =S