i smell a copyright war incoming

[Zontar]

This is freaking Disney we're talking about, throwing petty lawsuits so they can eat a broken company up on the cheap is their freaking M.O. and it doesn't matter a good god damn how much it costs them either.

I think you've got it the other way around: this is Disney we're talking about, the bottom line is literally the only thing that matters. Every single move they do without a single exception is because in their minds they believe it maximizes the money they make. Even acts that seem altruistic like their being one of the companies putting pressure on North Carolina isn't being done because they care (hell many in the company near the top probably agree with that example), it's being done because doing so means publicity that saves them money on conventional advertising.

This is why Disney almost always settles out of court, because even if they can win it's excessively rare for them to do so in a way that's less expensive then to settle. This is why most corporate conflicts in Hollywood have similar outcomes: someone threatens to sue another, other takes it seriously, before the court date they make a deal and let it go. Really at this point the only reason major companies even go to court anymore for this type of incident is to determine who actually owns an IP and not if it was being used incorrectly.

 

[hermes]

This seems like a case of a lazy artist ripping resources from Internet in order to comply with a deadline.

Spoiler

It is a rather common practice in comics to have placeholders and never remove them, or over impose other concept art and draw over them to speed things up. This is not much different than the Uncharted 4 trailer. I have not much sympathy for him.

In this case, regardless of the truth, Marvel is likely to stomp GamesWorkshop in court, or buy the company outright. Because Marvel has Disney, who basically has all the money in the world effectively.

i dont know. this seems an open and shut case to me. its OBVIOUS that marvel stole from GW

Unfortunately, that's not how things work in courts in the US, whoever has the most money eventually wins, even when they have no legal leg to stand on. Basically Marvel will be able to just sue GW into the ground, despite GW being totally legally in the right.

That is not how it works either. While Marvel/Disney could outsue GW any day, they are not going to do it and get into the PR nightmare just to defend an artist from copyright infringement over a background item of a secondary race in an offshoot comic. Please notice that acquiring GW would be an investment of several hundred millions of dollars, which is a lot more than they could get from the sales of the comic book. Paying the lawyers for the acquisition would be more expensive than getting a new background artist.

The most likely scenario will be that they will claim to not know about it (which is likely; you can't claim Marvel executives even read all their own material, much less that they are aware of references to Warhammer 40k properties), and settle for damages outside court; while at the same time firing or punishing whoever is responsible for this.

 

[Sixcess]

Yeah, this will definitely get settled out of court. Disney wouldn't buy GW - by the time they'd finished cleaning up the 40K IP to make it even remotely compatible with their corporate identity it would be so bastardised as to be almost worthless.

 

[Zontar]

Disney wouldn't buy GW - by the time they'd finished cleaning up the 40K IP to make it even remotely compatible with their corporate identity it would be so bastardised as to be almost worthless.

Disney didn't do any such thing to Miramax, and Marvel's mandate is "do what you want, but stay profitable and give us 2 movies for theatrical release each year". If they where to buy GW, they wouldn't be branding it as their own by slapping the logo onto it, but buying it, inject some money into it and getting money back from investment would certainly be within their business model.

 

[mduncan50]

This seems like a case of a lazy artist ripping resources from Internet in order to comply with a deadline.

Spoiler

It is a rather common practice in comics to have placeholders and never remove them, or over impose other concept art and draw over them to speed things up. This is not much different than the Uncharted 4 trailer. I have not much sympathy for him.

In this case, regardless of the truth, Marvel is likely to stomp GamesWorkshop in court, or buy the company outright. Because Marvel has Disney, who basically has all the money in the world effectively.

i dont know. this seems an open and shut case to me. its OBVIOUS that marvel stole from GW

Unfortunately, that's not how things work in courts in the US, whoever has the most money eventually wins, even when they have no legal leg to stand on. Basically Marvel will be able to just sue GW into the ground, despite GW being totally legally in the right.

That is not how it works either. While Marvel/Disney could outsue GW any day, they are not going to do it and get into the PR nightmare just to defend an artist from copyright infringement over a background item of a secondary race in an offshoot comic. Please notice that acquiring GW would be an investment of several hundred millions of dollars, which is a lot more than they could get from the sales of the comic book. Paying the lawyers for the acquisition would be more expensive than getting a new background artist.

The most likely scenario will be that they will claim to not know about it (which is likely; you can't claim Marvel executives even read all their own material, much less that they are aware of references to Warhammer 40k properties), and settle for damages outside court; while at the same time firing or punishing whoever is responsible for this.

Sorry, I'm not sold on those pictures. Those are like two super-generic poses, and the proportions don't even appear to be the same. I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could find dozens of such photos with the exact same poses.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Anyway, when I first saw that pic, it didn't look drawn, it looked like a photoedit of a pic of an actual model.

I opened the first picture and thought this was going to be a thread about the book looking identical to Borderlands art.

 

[SupahEwok]

Sorry, I'm not sold on those pictures. Those are like two super-generic poses, and the proportions don't even appear to be the same. I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could find dozens of such photos with the exact same poses.

Take another look at the first pair, particularly the necklace things and the bracelet. That's way too specific to be entirely coincidental. As for the second, I think the proportions are right, but eh.

 

[WindKnight]

Sorry, I'm not sold on those pictures. Those are like two super-generic poses, and the proportions don't even appear to be the same. I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could find dozens of such photos with the exact same poses.

The 2nd pair features work by Greg Land who, well, is infamous for tracing his art and reusing the same source for multiple drawings or characters, sometimes within the same issue (as well as using 'o' faces as the basis for female characters taking hits). Just google his name, and you'll see he's fairly blatant.

 

[Leg End]

Wow, looks like someone had Tau on the mi-
Jesus christ it is a Skyray.

Unfortunately, that's not how things work in courts in the US, whoever has the most money eventually wins, even when they have no legal leg to stand on. Basically Marvel will be able to just sue GW into the ground, despite GW being totally legally in the right.

Doing anything hostile outright is a bad move for Disney considering the actual legion of people who would defend GW and 40k to the death. Not to mention that GW's legal team aren't exactly slouches either. They're not quite the hellspawn that Disney's lawyers are but they're getting there.
Plus, not sure if this adds a bit of a twist but GW is UK based. But it's been too long for me to even think how the legal system even functions in this bullshit.

Most likely outcome is, at best, GW and Disney settling out of court. At worst? Nothing is done and the same comic just keeps stealing assets because absolute laziness. OP can you source us the exact issue number for this one?Disregard that I'm an idiot, I didn't read the link.

 

[Bobular]

This is fake right?

No way they could be so blatant right?

And the messed up drones/thrusters/missiles/doors on the Skyray, no way a professional would do that right?

And the Riptide Battlesuit in the middle, it just not just one tank they can't be so stupid as to lift the whole army right?

This is fake right?

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

comic book publishers seem a lot less worried about copyright issues than most corporations it seems. seriously tell me all the Superman, Batman, wonder woman, Capt. America, Spiderman, Hulk and any other comic book ripoff character swarming around other companies. I'm personally surprised people aren't sued more often in this industry. I think they were just hoping that no one would care.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

Is this real or not? I clicked the link but for some reason the page wouldn't load. I'm not even talking about the blatantly ripped off assets, what I want to know is when comics began using hideous, low resolution 3D renders instead of actual 2D drawings.

 

[Benpasko]

I've seen 3d porn comics that looked better than that, fuck. If you ever wanted proof that Marvel comics are dead, here it is. At least I still have my Warlock and the Infinity Watch comics.

Edit: Toned down the hyperbole a bit, need to remember Marvel is not all comics.

 

[JohnZ117]

Not a flattering art style...and why on Earth would they have holes going through the sides of the tanks? It looks like they didn't even bother to complete the model.

oh its complete. they upscaled the model and forgot to upscale the hatch too

That's the kind of planning that destroys Death Stars.

This seems like a case of a lazy artist ripping resources from Internet in order to comply with a deadline.

Spoiler

Sorry, I'm not sold on those pictures. Those are like two super-generic poses, and the proportions don't even appear to be the same. I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could find dozens of such photos with the exact same poses.

As typed before, the jewelry is suspicious, but they can probably get away with because of the flip and costume changes, alone.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yesh, what's up with that artstyle? I mistaken it for some kind of an online cgi sort of comicbook as if it was kinda taken from Champion Online.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

While I don't condone asset thievery, I'm not sure that GW will bother. They've defended some infringements in the past, mostly against targets they seem to have a large chance of winning against, or at least not spending money on lawyer fees in protracted civil cases. In a way I'd almost like to see GW lose a case like that against Disney and go bankrupt despite my initial reaction against the asset thievery, but thats more of a personal fuck you to a company that's been gouging customers for a very long time. Yeah I admit, I love the whole Warhammer-verse thing but I refuse to buy anything from GW or derived from their IPs (like Dawn of War, Total Warhammer) in protest of their customer gouging bullshit.
Privateer Press > GW

 

[Ambitiousmould]

GW are cunts in almost every respect anyway, especially when it comes to copyright and trademarking. This is the company that made an independent author take down their (completely unrelated) book because "Space Marine" was in the title. If I recall correctly they also claim to have a trademark on words like 'Codex' and other general use words, and 'Eldar' which was invented by Tolkein.

If they ended up being fucked up by Disney, I'll call it Karma despite the fact that those are clearly copy/pasted and poorly implemented GW designs.

 

[Fox12]

In this case, regardless of the truth, Marvel is likely to stomp GamesWorkshop in court, or buy the company outright. Because Marvel has Disney, who basically has all the money in the world effectively.

i dont know. this seems an open and shut case to me. its OBVIOUS that marvel stole from GW

...

Can't this just be a shoutout? I haven't read the comic, but if the only thing they have in common is a ship design then there's not much to work with. No one called it a rippoff when they found Berserk references in Dark Soul's, or when the guns from Alien's showed up in Halo. I don't see what the big deal is.

 

[WolfThomas]

Yesh, what's up with that artstyle? I mistaken it for some kind of an online cgi sort of comicbook as if it was kinda taken from Champion Online.

It's just that artist's style. I had to suffer through it during Volume 2 of Cable.

And in reality he's the real culprit. It's not like an executive went and told him to put a tau tank there. He cut a corner and got caught.