Chapterhouse vs. GW studios - Summary Judgement called

[Sureshot05]

As this appears to be bigger news than the usual legal fighting I thought we were due fresh thread on the subject, especially as it is of general interest to many.

http://ia600405.us.archive.org/18/it...0791.213.0.pdf

As far as I understand it, GW has called for judgement and stated there case clearly. Similarly, Chapterhouse have stated theirs and asked for judgement. I am unable to access the Chapterhouse one, and I am no lawyer so I may well have this wrong.

I am hoping that maybe one of our fellow american gamers can get the corresponding response to GW by Chapterhouse. For those unfamiliar with the history I recommend reading the archive:

http://archive.recapthelaw.org/ilnd/250791/

Please note the legal updates up until recently were discussed here:

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...orkshop-vs-CHS

PLEASE DO NOT DISCUSS WHETHER YOU THINK THIS IS LEGAL OR NOT. This has been done to death previously and the judge will decide soon enough on the case.

[Scammel]

Cheers, was dying for a substantial update.

[Sean_OBrien]

Really the same as before. This is fairly standard part of the process. The judge will evaluate all parts and then decide what parts he will rule on (if any) and what goes forward to trial. Should merge this with the other thread as it is the same case.

What really sucks though, is that in GW's evidence they have a lot of emails from people who apparently informed them that Chapterhouse was doing foul things...and they left the email addresses in the public record. I would hate to be any of those people in the next few months...

[machine_recovered_meat]

What really sucks though, is that in GW's evidence they have a lot of emails from people who apparently informed them that Chapterhouse was doing foul things...and they left the email addresses in the public record. I would hate to be any of those people in the next few months...

I'll wager they have more in unused material. There's usually much more unused material than stuff entered in evidence.
Why would you hate to be someone whose email address has turned up?

[Sean_OBrien]

Hate mail. There names and email addresses that were used to communicate with GW are in evidence. That means everyone who dislike GW and supports Chapterhouse will be signing them up on every spam registry, porn mailing list and any other thing they can think of... Won't be fun once the names start to get into circulation.

[machine_recovered_meat]

Really?

That would be an exceptionally pathetic course of action to take, presuming any judgement was unfavourable to chapterhouse (rather than unfavourable to both sides).

[tiger g]

Really?

That would be an exceptionally pathetic course of action to take, presuming any judgement was unfavourable to chapterhouse (rather than unfavourable to both sides).

Have you read 1% of the posts on this forum. I could easily see many pathetic posters that would do this. Just look at how many freely admit to downloading illegal PDF's.

[Sean_OBrien]

Won't make a difference what the judgement is.

In the eyes of many people, the names in evidence are "rats". Even people who could care less about GW or Chapterhouse would be inclined to hammer those people simply because they "turned Chapterhouse in".

[jack da greenskin]

Really?

That would be an exceptionally pathetic course of action to take, presuming any judgement was unfavourable to chapterhouse (rather than unfavourable to both sides).

More pathetic that taking it upon yourself to complain to a company about a rival product, who's existence *DOES NOT AFFECT YOU AT ALL*

[6mmhero]

More pathetic that taking it upon yourself to complain to a company about a rival product, who's existence *DOES NOT AFFECT YOU AT ALL*

Yes certainly more pathetic. For the people that sent the emails they evidently did not like the idea of someone potentially leeching from something they like and enjoy. I remember the Chapterhouse guy had a number of people email him directly and his response was to tell them they did not know what they were talking about and to basically treat them as if they were stupid.

At the end of the day this is just a hobby and anyone who makes things personal is an idiot.

Still I am very interested to find out how this ends eventually as it has been ongoing for quite a while.

[Charax]

Oh dear. not marking that correspondence as confidential to be placed under seal was an incredibly reckless thing to do - a quick search of one of the addresses brought up a location, family members, number of children, posts on a couple of specialist forums...

People (and, it appears, lawyers) don't appreciate just how much damage a piece of information can do. I would hope anyone who disapproved of these people's actions would take the high road and avoid such tactics.

Still, so much info from one address...spooky.

[xxRavenxx]

More pathetic that taking it upon yourself to complain to a company about a rival product, who's existence *DOES NOT AFFECT YOU AT ALL*

People often feel a moral obligation to report things. Simple comparison: Would you tell the police if you saw someone being mugged? The mugging doesn't affect you at all...

[jack da greenskin]

People often feel a moral obligation to report things. Simple comparison: Would you tell the police if you saw someone being mugged? The mugging doesn't affect you at all...

Criminal law and civil law.

[xxRavenxx]

Morality doesn't necessarily differentiate.

[Charax]

Seeing someone being mugged is a positive identification of a confirmed criminal offense. These emails are from busybodies attempting to score points with Big Daddy GW by going "Um..sir? are these ok sir? I mean, I have no background in law and don't know if what these people are doing is an actual offense under the law, but I thought I'd check with you anyway, for some unknown reason"

The two situations aren't remotely comparable. The interesting thing is, the emails I've seen (and I don't even pretend to have seen them all) don't show people displaying any actual confusion between CHS' parts and GWs, they're inquiries into whether GW knows about CHS' use of trademarks and designs.

Still, glad some part of this might be over soon, this has been in limbo for far too long.

Wonder if these upstanding citizens are regretting sending those emails now.

[MajorWesJanson]

Seeing someone being mugged is a positive identification of a confirmed criminal offense. These emails are from busybodies attempting to score points with Big Daddy GW by going "Um..sir? are these ok sir? I mean, I have no background in law and don't know if what these people are doing is an actual offense under the law, but I thought I'd check with you anyway, for some unknown reason"

The two situations aren't remotely comparable. The interesting thing is, the emails I've seen (and I don't even pretend to have seen them all) don't show people displaying any actual confusion between CHS' parts and GWs, they're inquiries into whether GW knows about CHS' use of trademarks and designs.

Still, glad some part of this might be over soon, this has been in limbo for far too long.

Wonder if these upstanding citizens are regretting sending those emails now.

What, regret doing what they think is the right thing to do? Any sort of hate mail or whatever they get would not be because of their actions, but because some reprehensible people decided to harass them for their beliefs.

A non criminal example would be like a person telling their teacher that a classmate may have downloaded their term paper from the internet. It doesn't affect their grade, but still they feel it is their duty to speak up.

These people had an issue with Chapterhouse's practice of using GW iconography and imagery to sell their own (subjectively inferior) products. The legal status was hazy, so they brought it up for attention.

[Charax]

What, regret doing what they think is the right thing to do?

No, I meant would they regret having emailed GW if they knew, with the benefit of hindsight that the company would make their correspondence a matter of permanent public record. They can't have known that at the time, so they might regret their decision in retrospect.

A non criminal example would be like a person telling their teacher that a classmate may have downloaded their term paper from the internet. It doesn't affect their grade, but still they feel it is their duty to speak up.

That's a much more apt analogy

These people had an issue with Chapterhouse's practice of using GW iconography and imagery to sell their own (subjectively inferior) products. The legal status was hazy, so they brought it up for attention.

Well, the "GW iconography" part is up for debate, hence the filings listing sources like fan designs and Giger as inspiration. You appear to have made up your mind on that, however.



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[Sean_OBrien]

Like I said - I feel sorry for the names listed there. I also expect that GW will get some blowback (or their lawyers). Various places within the documents, names are redacted. The lawyers needed to offer the same level of protection to their supporting witnesses as they did to internal GW personnel. Wouldn't be surprised if one or more of them ended up bringing a civil suit against GW as a result of the unwanted exposure.

[Caiphas Cain]

Have you read 1% of the posts on this forum. I could easily see many pathetic posters that would do this. Just look at how many freely admit to downloading illegal PDF's.

Really? Downloading illegal PDFs makes you pathetic, and likely to sign some poor guy for spam and porn emails? Jeez, it's only a matter of time before they take it up a notch and rob a bank. You're lucky I don't know your email! (joking, of course)

I really hope that people can avoid being a complete ass, and refrain from doing such a thing. I completely support CHS, and dislike a fair amount of what GW has done. But there's a difference between GW and the poor guys who sent the emails.

[MajorWesJanson]

Well, the "GW iconography" part is up for debate, hence the filings listing sources like fan designs and Giger as inspiration. You appear to have made up your mind on that, however.

I have, but I remember the sections links having image links that were clearly meant to be Black Templars and Salamanders. As for any legality, that is for this case to decide.

I guess we will find out the results of this case in what, 3 more years?