View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80HsW4HmUes Now to go about finding the files for some sprues...
Games Workshop fiercely advocates against the theft of its intellectual property and the practice of making 3D-printed copies of table top models. This thread will likely get locked.
As long as the thread is not about advocating piracy and merely a discussion on what impact this may have and what measure GW may take to prevent 3d-printed models (which would be damn hard, TBH), this thread won't get locked.
You can't stop progress and people's strife to freedom It's a constant fight in our capitalist world But, realistically, Games Workshop has nothing to worry about
As long as you arn't selling the things you make, there is no difference from making a model via a 3dprinter, or with modeling clay (totally possible too!). Now, as even the 'cheap' 3dprinters are still quite costly, and still ahve a hard time getting tiny details equivalent to curent miniatures, yeah, I can't see there being an issue. On the other hand, it does open up possibilities along the lines of terrain and custom bits.
If I wanted to play the table top game I would get scraps of paper and write the names on them. I could get my hands on a 3-D printer but the support is a patent by one company so it is the only one with a "prefect" 3-d printer. They are also a pretty penny. The one in the my shop in high school cost 40k(usd). I won't use anything but the best when printing(cause it would be hard to make something without it warping)
It's a complex legal issue, and as you aren't paying me, so I'm not giving legal advice I'll make a general statement of "No you wouldn't get sued". But, for the 3K a system that was good enough would cost, plus then the development time in making the 3dmodels to be printed, etc etc..... you might as well just go down to the hobby store and support the hobby.
No. You're not going to get sued. You would need to be knowingly taking part in either the distribution or production of commercial quantity rip-offs for serious legal proceedings to start. For the small, personal use stuff I think Games Workshop are smart enough to concede that there's really nothing they can do about it. At most they'd send a cease and desist request. They've got every right to be worried about their table top 3D printer model schematics hitting the web; the designs of the models themselves are their intellectual property and having knock-offs made in backyards en masse could cause some financial loss. There's a huge difference between taking modeling clay and hand crafting your own model, and pressing print on a 3D printer to make a duplicate. The two things can't even be considered similar and I'm not sure why that point was raised, unless you're being facetious. Just as long as no one starts posting torrent links to 3D printer model schematics, we should be kosher. I don't want to sound like a party-pooper, but this is Games Workshop we're talking about. Yeah, they nickle and dime the HELL out of their customers and charge way too much for table top models (so I can understand why people would want to print their own), but do you really want to see GW in a worse financial position than what they're already in?
