Skull Forge Studios is selling 3D prints of The Bad Batch in Legion scale

[T70 Driver 1,344]

Just wanted to give a heads up to anyone who'd like to pick them up.

[NeverTellMeTheOdds 219]

Not sure why you’re promoting piracy...

[KommanderKeldoth 3,141]

1 hour ago, NeverTellMeTheOdds said:

Not sure why you’re promoting piracy...

Except that the bad batch does not exist in Legion, it would purely be used for homebrew purposes.

[NeverTellMeTheOdds 219]

24 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

Except that the bad batch does not exist in Legion, it would purely be used for homebrew purposes.

It’s still not an IP that skullforge owns. And there’s a good chance they do become part of legion at some point.

[KommanderKeldoth 3,141]

42 minutes ago, NeverTellMeTheOdds said:

It’s still not an IP that skullforge owns. And there’s a good chance they do become part of legion at some point.

This debate has occurred several times on this and other forums about the ethics of 3D printing miniatures for games.

My opinion is that Skullforge, Mel's, Buckethead bits etc. are harmless becuase they are not selling complete experiences (no cards or rules associated with them), just miniatures that enhance a game. I own a few Skullforge minis and they don't replace purchases, in fact they usually inspire me to buy more official product. Disney also seems to think so becuase they have not cracked down on them.

Even if they release the bad batch down the road, you would still need to purchase a box to get the cards. And the models will be straight up higher quality and detail in hard plastic with pose options.

[Ralgon 1,005]

4 hours ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

This debate has occurred several times on this and other forums about the ethics of 3D printing miniatures for games.

My opinion is that Skullforge, Mel's, Buckethead bits etc. are harmless becuase they are not selling complete experiences (no cards or rules associated with them), just miniatures that enhance a game. I own a few Skullforge minis and they don't replace purchases, in fact they usually inspire me to buy more official product. Disney also seems to think so becuase they have not cracked down on them.

Even if they release the bad batch down the road, you would still need to purchase a box to get the cards. And the models will be straight up higher quality and detail in hard plastic with pose options.

Yeah well, your opinion doesn't count for much in court.

The main issue any company needs to at least attempt to protect their paid for ip's is so someone crossing the line doesn't have a fair use discrimination out when defending.

 

It sucks *****, and has sunk many,many solid fan projects but it is what it is.

[KommanderKeldoth 3,141]

37 minutes ago, Ralgon said:

Yeah well, your opinion doesn't count for much in court.

The main issue any company needs to at least attempt to protect their paid for ip's is so someone crossing the line doesn't have a fair use discrimination out when defending.

 

It sucks *****, and has sunk many,many solid fan projects but it is what it is.

This is all true, and yet it doesnt change the fact that Disney and FFG have not gone after Skullforge, Mel's or Buckethead Bits. Considering that people mention them on the forums pretty regularly its not like they're flying under the radar.

If Disney issues a C&D to them I would not be surprised, becuase they are indeed violating the copyright. But it wouldnt really be in their best interest considering how harmless these operations are.

A good example of when they did issue a C&D was when a UK company was taking molds of the CR90 from x-wing and using them to make 3d debris tokens. This was a lot more blatant becuase they were stealing the actual model (created by FFG based on reference pics and props).

[Yodhrin 353]

People need to stop making such definitive statements. Are they breaching the copyright? Maybe. Maybe not. We don't know, because IP law is a nest of poisonous snakes that will usually only bite you if you don't have enough money to pay fancy lawyers for several years, but which is still unpredictable enough to occasionally bite the billionaires, and you only find out which it is when the judge bangs their gavel. Case in point - Lucasfilm/Disney's attempt to shut down the costume guy in the UK - who worked on the original films - making replica screen-accurate Stormtrooper armour for the 501st and other cosplayers. In theory that should have been a slam-dunk for Disney, instead they've created a situation where they've arguably lost the exclusive right in the UK to use basically every Star Wars-related design created prior to the mid-oughts. Yes, even commercially. Sidenote; if you ever wondered why all their modern Trooper designs are based on either the angular Rogue One helmets & chestplates or the iTrooper sequel stuff rather than any of the classic costume styles, well...

People also need to stop throwing around words like "piracy"(which is admittedly a colloquial term, but is related to the copying of digital media), or equating situations like this with recasting which is entirely different.

Skullforge etc create original artistic works, by which I mean they open a piece of software and sculpt objects from scratch. They don't scan existing works, they don't use molds to take impressions of existing works to replicate them, there is no actual "copying" going on. They don't exactly replicate likenesses. They very intentionally do not use any registered Trademarks. It's entirely possible Disney could take one of them to court and either win, or simply bury them under legal fees until they agreed to stop and go away, but it's not a foregone conclusion, and people need to stop imposing their personal feelings about the morality of the situation on the legal realities.

As for said morality, honestly I find the whole thing a bit laughable in general, but in terms of Disney specifically? The idea of working myself into a lather over the idea someone might take inspiration from a Disney IP is genuinely comical. For a start, the only reason most of the "nyeeeeh it's piiiiiracy!" brigade even hold the opinion you do is because Disney in particular have spent most of the last century radically and drastically expanding the scope of the concept of intellectual property far beyond its original intent by means of a mixture of bribery & corruption(sorry, "lobbying"), outright legal bullying, and "communications" to the public that would be called propaganda if they came from a government. Not to mention the fact that Disney built their entire company by taking works that were in the public domain and making their own versions of them, then using the aforementioned gangster-esque approach to essentially appropriate those stories back from public ownership.

The idea that Disney, of all companies, is a victim of intellectual property infringements is sheer farce.

So, how about this - we all assume that Disney are big enough and bad enough to look after themselves, and that if they haven't bothered to do anything about all the little garage producers making stuff that 99.999% of Disney's customer base will never even know about nevermind buy by now after decades of them doing it(what, you thought this started with Legion? People have been selling garage kits for Star Wars stuff since the internet was a thing, probably before), they're probably quite happy with a live-and-let-live approach, and all just mind our own business eh.

[Bigbboyd 53]

I will be honest, I am suprised that Disney hasn't logged a formal complaint. They did against a aircraft model company in China that produced the ANA Star Wars planes. Had US CBP seize every shipment of them all at the Port of Entry. 

[buckero0 1,956]

You'll never get a tank driver substitute for plo koon or lok durd frome anywhere but sometthing like this. If this was real piracy, they'd sell the figures for less than double of what the actual company is selling their products for. 

[headzombie 20]

Its hard to find a summary of the court case that isn't full of hyperbole but Games Workshop verse Chapterhouse pretty much made it clear that this kind of thing is ok. Don't use the actual names and you can get away with quite a bit. Another lawsuit might go a different way but folks like GW and Disney are worried about precedent at this point if they lose again.

[NeverTellMeTheOdds 219]

3 hours ago, headzombie said:

Its hard to find a summary of the court case that isn't full of hyperbole but Games Workshop verse Chapterhouse pretty much made it clear that this kind of thing is ok. Don't use the actual names and you can get away with quite a bit. Another lawsuit might go a different way but folks like GW and Disney are worried about precedent at this point if they lose again.

That’s not true at all... if you think they’re the same thing you’re crazy. The reason GW lost PART of that case was that Cadians looked too much like modern real word soldiers (which can’t be copyrighted), or it was just generic looking vehicles (jet bikes). If you think that same thing would happen with the bad batch then you don’t know what you’re talking about. Chapter house still had to pay GW $25,000 because they lose on a lot of those claims. 
 

But to me it’s more about the principal. No one would want those products if they were some generic models, or an idea skullforge etc came up with. The only reason people want to pay them money for those models is because of the IP (something that isn’t their idea). This to me is worse than those who post movies for download. Those people aren’t even charging for it, skullforge is. 

Edited March 29 by NeverTellMeTheOdds

[syrath 1,316]

The majority of Legion play these days is on tts , which they can't acknowledge in any official sense. You can play Legion in its entirety with, as yet, unreleased units. Technically this is stepping on everyone's IP including FFG, however IMO it enables the game by allowing people to more easily find games to play and even encourages people to buy official product so that they can play at events or clubs when they can. It is also keeping the game going in these harder times. I have never used it but I'm seriously considering it since I can't play , as no-one in my household plays.

Anyway , I dare say this won't do any harm to the sales of the bad batch expansion when/if it gets tot the shops as it will get sold out and be months before many people can get their hands on it.

Edited March 29 by syrath

[buckero0 1,956]

@syrath

The majority of your legion play may be on tts, but you've got no evidence that more or less people play in one fashion vs the other.

[Yodhrin 353]

4 hours ago, NeverTellMeTheOdds said:

That’s not true at all... if you think they’re the same thing you’re crazy. The reason GW lost PART of that case was that Cadians looked too much like modern real word soldiers (which can’t be copyrighted), or it was just generic looking vehicles (jet bikes). If you think that same thing would happen with the bad batch then you don’t know what you’re talking about. Chapter house still had to pay GW $25,000 because they lose on a lot of those claims. 
 

But to me it’s more about the principal. No one would want those products if they were some generic models, or an idea skullforge etc came up with. The only reason people want to pay them money for those models is because of the IP (something that isn’t their idea). This to me is worse than those who post movies for download. Those people aren’t even charging for it, skullforge is. 

Skullforge et al are charging for the time, effort, and skill they utilised in sculpting the 3D models. Are artists who take commissions for, for example, RPG characters being played in a setting based on an existing IP also "worse than posting movies"? 🙄 A sentiment that's also just wonko IMO, even if you come at it from the already wonko "YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR" DVD propaganda ad school of copyright hysteria - someone who posts a movie for free on the internet is, according to the aforementioned (extremely questionable)school of thought, depriving companies of UNCOUNTABLE BAJILLIONS of dollars of revenue by enabling people to "steal" the film. If you download the movie, you get all of it, and there's no need to give any money at all to whoever made it.

How exactly are third party models for Legion even comparable, let alone worse? None of the models include any of the accompanying cards, tokens, and other doodads required to actually play the game with. Much of what they're selling isn't even available from FFG and may never be.

You see third party producers as parasites, but the reality is they're symbionts. They provide things the main company can't or won't due to an unfavourable cost:profit ratio or licensing issues or simply a lack of capacity, and by doing so they increase the main company's profits overall by supporting and enabling sales of the core product line. For example, I doubled the number of Clone Wars core sets I was planning to buy and also picked up a Saber and some other doodads despite not needing one for my Republic army - why? Because I can go to a third party and get Purge Troopers/Airborne clone helmets, and that gave me an idea to do a very early-Empire/Jedi Purge force of P2 Clones in Imperial colours led by a maniac cyber-reconstructed Purge Commander who was mauled by his Jedi during Order 66. FFG literally have a couple of hundred pounds of my money they wouldn't otherwise have right now because of third party producers, and on top of that I'm now picking up the odd CIS addon unit because hey, why not, I have all these B1s. Now, you could argue that FFG will eventually release their own Purge Trooper unit box, and that may be, but there's no guarantee it would have happened to spark that idea in my head then without the surrounding circumstance of the Clone Wars release getting started, heck, there's no guarantee I'll even still be playing Legion when & if that eventually happens. The fact is right now, FFG are profiting from something a third party did. And that example is hardly unique, I've seen it countless times over the years in GW games and in model making - being able to buy a B-Wing from a garage kit maker in the right scale when none of the official licensees would make one because it wasn't worth their time led someone I know to buy literally dozens of starfighter kits that were official licensed products, because the B-Wing was the key missing piece of the RotJ diorama they wanted to make. I can't even count the amount of times I've seen people spend small fortunes on a GW army that they only talked themselves into because they could buy third party bitz.

As for your personal principles, I'd suggest the solution is very very simple - don't buy any third party stuff. Ipso presto wotsit, problem solved and conscience salved. I'd suggest you simply have the courtesy to let others make that same judgement on their own terms, and don't wreck something that just about everyone recognises is a benefit to all sides by tattling and drawing attention that forces action to be taken.

Edited March 30 by Yodhrin

[syrath 1,316]

1 hour ago, buckero0 said:

@syrath

The majority of your legion play may be on tts, but you've got no evidence that more or less people play in one fashion vs the other.

If you re-read my post

 

3 hours ago, syrath said:

. I have never used it but I'm seriously considering it since I can't play , as no-one in my household plays.

 

So I've made it clear I've never used it, however given the current state of affairs in the world, people shouldn't be popping over to their friends house for a game of Legion and while there are perhaps a few family players who may be playing with each othet, I'm more than slightly confident they don't outnumber TTS players at this time.

Perhaps I'm completely wrong but there is that possibility that there are a larger.number of clubs /FLGS being still running clubs despite Covid19, I don't think there are any I've heard of in Scotland, so I'm fairly sure TTS players outnumber family players in Scotland at this time

[NeverTellMeTheOdds 219]

40 minutes ago, Yodhrin said:

Skullforge et al are charging for the time, effort, and skill they utilised in sculpting the 3D models. Are artists who take commissions for, for example, RPG characters being played in a setting based on an existing IP also "worse than posting movies"? 🙄 A sentiment that's also just wonko IMO, even if you come at it from the already wonko "YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR" DVD propaganda ad school of copyright hysteria - someone who posts a movie for free on the internet is, according to the aforementioned (extremely questionable)school of thought, depriving companies of UNCOUNTABLE BAJILLIONS of dollars of revenue by enabling people to "steal" the film. If you download the movie, you get all of it, and there's no need to give any money at all to whoever made it.

How exactly are third party models for Legion even comparable, let alone worse? None of the models include any of the accompanying cards, tokens, and other doodads required to actually play the game with. Much of what they're selling isn't even available from FFG and may never be.

You see third party producers as parasites, but the reality is they're symbionts. They provide things the main company can't or won't due to an unfavourable cost:profit ratio or licensing issues or simply a lack of capacity, and by doing so they increase the main company's profits overall by supporting and enabling sales of the core product line. For example, I doubled the number of Clone Wars core sets I was planning to buy and also picked up a Saber and some other doodads despite not needing one for my Republic army - why? Because I can go to a third party and get Purge Troopers/Airborne clone helmets, and that gave me an idea to do a very early-Empire/Jedi Purge force of P2 Clones in Imperial colours led by a maniac cyber-reconstructed Purge Commander who was mauled by his Jedi during Order 66. FFG literally have a couple of hundred pounds of my money they wouldn't otherwise have right now because of third party producers, and on top of that I'm now picking up the odd CIS addon unit because hey, why not, I have all these B1s. Now, you could argue that FFG will eventually release their own Purge Trooper unit box, and that may be, but there's no guarantee it would have happened to spark that idea in my head then without the surrounding circumstance of the Clone Wars release getting started, heck, there's no guarantee I'll even still be playing Legion when & if that eventually happens. The fact is right now, FFG are profiting from something a third party did. And that example is hardly unique, I've seen it countless times over the years in GW games and in model making - being able to buy a B-Wing from a garage kit maker in the right scale when none of the official licensees would make one because it wasn't worth their time led someone I know to buy literally dozens of starfighter kits that were official licensed products, because the B-Wing was the key missing piece of the RotJ diorama they wanted to make. I can't even count the amount of times I've seen people spend small fortunes on a GW army that they only talked themselves into because they could buy third party bitz.

As for your personal principles, I'd suggest the solution is very very simple - don't buy any third party stuff. Ipso presto wotsit, problem solved and conscience salved. I'd suggest you simply have the courtesy to let others make that same judgement on their own terms, and don't wreck something that just about everyone recognises is a benefit to all sides by tattling and drawing attention that forces action to be taken.

I’m not going to read your couple of novels, but regardless of what the forgers are charging for, people wouldn’t be playing for them if not for the IP, period. Some other artists developed these ideas, and they’re using that to make money. Trying to justify it is like the people who say “people wouldn’t have paid to watch the movie in theaters anyways, so it’s ok to pirate it”. 

[syrath 1,316]

27 minutes ago, NeverTellMeTheOdds said:

I’m not going to read your couple of novels, but regardless of what the forgers are charging for, people wouldn’t be playing for them if not for the IP, period. Some other artists developed these ideas, and they’re using that to make money. Trying to justify it is like the people who say “people wouldn’t have paid to watch the movie in theaters anyways, so it’s ok to pirate it”. 

As much as I agree with this, Id hazard a guess that the competitive scene (for those that care about it) wouldn't be the same without TTS which as I mentioned earlier also steps on the IP. 

For a bit of background I used to make tutorial videos that were sold worldwide, and at one point if you looked for my videos online the first 72 search results on Google were for torrents and the 73rd was the first you could buy from. So I'm a very strong supporter of maintaining IPs and not ripping the IP and copyright holders off, this being said sometimes though you also have to accept that quite often these items aren't lost sales for the IP holder.

Currently there are no legion bad batch figures available, this gives an option to do something along those lines. I'd personally stay and wait for the proper ones to be released, but is it truly a lost sale for FFG when they don't have one yet

Have you seen how much music out there are "soundalikes" that step just on the other side of copyright to ensure they don't get in trouble , there is a whole market out there for it for people.to buy hold music,  the!e time music etc., Is this any different (for the record I don't support sound a likes either) , I'm just trying to point out that it's never automatically a lost sale for.anyone and can in fact get more people into the game

[NokDrayen 53]

Really? Skull Forge is a "forger" because their miniatures are based on Star Wars creations? Then I guess the same goes for every online seller that offers terrain based on set designs for Tatooine, Hoth, Jedha, etc. That would include Corvus Games, Gale Force 9, Imperial Terrain, Legion Terrain, Tosche Station Terrain and literally dozens of others.

https://corvusgamesterrain.com/search?type=article%2Cpage%2Cproduct&q=desert*

https://www.flamesofwar.com/gf9online_store.aspx?CategoryID=13738

https://imperialterrain.com/collections/sci-fi-rpg-tabletop-terrain/desert-theme

https://www.legionterrain.com/search?q=desert

https://www.etsy.com/shop/ToscheStationTerrain?ref=cart_shop_name_click&cart_id=2838435223&search_query=jedha

None of these are officially licensed. But they all add to the Star Wars Legion play experience, making the game richer and drawing in new players. In fact, FFG has actually promoted companies like this — for instance, using Tatooine buildings from Imperial Terrain and others at conventions.

Alternate miniatures are the same. If FFG or Disney thought any of these efforts were hurting sales or profits in the least, rather than helping them, they'd bring down the legal hammer.

 

[NokDrayen 53]

By the way, a "forger" is someone who produces a fake and attempts to pass it off as the real thing.

So the term doesn't apply to Skull Forge at all — unless they start copying existing Star Wars Legion miniatures and selling them (along with packaging, bases, assembly instructions and cards) as if they were actual FFG products.

[ejdmo 24]

9 hours ago, NeverTellMeTheOdds said:

That’s not true at all... if you think they’re the same thing you’re crazy. The reason GW lost PART of that case was that Cadians looked too much like modern real word soldiers (which can’t be copyrighted), or it was just generic looking vehicles (jet bikes). If you think that same thing would happen with the bad batch then you don’t know what you’re talking about. Chapter house still had to pay GW $25,000 because they lose on a lot of those claims. 
 

But to me it’s more about the principal. No one would want those products if they were some generic models, or an idea skullforge etc came up with. The only reason people want to pay them money for those models is because of the IP (something that isn’t their idea). This to me is worse than those who post movies for download. Those people aren’t even charging for it, skullforge is. 

You need to find a good analysis of the case somewhere because you are waaaaay off.  GW lost most of the case and proved they had very little understanding of Copyright, Intellectual Property, and Trademarks.  Chapterhouse had to pay because they made models of a couple characters that GW hadn't released figures for and advertised them as such.  There is a thread on Dakka with links to court documents and commentary from actual attorneys, if you'd care to learn more.

As for the topic at hand, I always find it silly and a little sad when people feel the need to police these sorts of things for giant corporations.  Most of the time these small garage kit style companies make stuff that the IP holder will never make, and almost always increase sales for said IP holder in the long run.

[Yodhrin 353]

6 hours ago, NeverTellMeTheOdds said:

I’m not going to read your couple of novels, but regardless of what the forgers are charging for, people wouldn’t be playing for them if not for the IP, period. Some other artists developed these ideas, and they’re using that to make money. Trying to justify it is like the people who say “people wouldn’t have paid to watch the movie in theaters anyways, so it’s ok to pirate it”. 

You know, as much as you might dislike reading "novels", if you're going to bother replying it really does help to do so, it saves you from making yourself look like either a dim numpty who can't grasp the arguments being made, or a disingenuous numpty who's simply incapable of responding to said arguments honestly so instead constructs and replies to the argument they wish someone else had made.

Someone else has already pointed out using "forgers" is a nonsense, but that's true to form at least.

Regardless, since you're evidently just an ideologue who's not actually interested in discussing things, we'll leave it there, though in parting I'll just say that you should probably find some more productive use for your energy than getting angry on behalf of a multi-billion dollar corporate entity which doesn't know you exist, never will know you exist, and doesn't care for you one single iota.

[jocke01 920]

Just wanna add my 2 cents. I think FFG and Disney hasn't bothered to go after them because they aren't stealing sales when they just add models or parts for people to modify their armies with. Also they can just check what the most popular things are and the add them to the game, free information and prototype sculpts.

[emsgoof 473]

I like turtles

[magnumhan 32]

On 3/28/2020 at 1:53 PM, NeverTellMeTheOdds said:

Not sure why you’re promoting piracy...

yee without sin shall cast the first stone...

 

but im sure you follow your teachings to no end...

 this forum is getting silly......some of you would complain about a tiddly-winks game....