Possible Jail sentence

[Talion]

Hello,
I have a good idea, but not sure if I can legally do it..........

I\'m basically buying loads of the old Version 2 GW Talsiman miniatures. I have people hunting them down and buying them for me.

Now that I\'ve got them, I want to resell them. Now this is the dodgy bit........

I own the orginal Talisman and all the expansion packs, I am also a professional picture and photo editor. What I\'ve done is digitally remastered the original playing cards.

I want to give these new digitally remastered cards away free with the appropriate Talisman miniature I sell (just in case someone hasn\'t got the expansion pack and wants to play the character). Is this legal?????

I intended to watermark the cards to ensure that they could not be sold on as originals, and make clear that these were copies and could not be bought seperatley.

I know GW come down on people like a ton of bricks if they feel they\'re copyright is being nicked (even though they nick everyone else\'s)

Do you think I would be in a big pile of troll poo if I did it............

 

[supervike]

You\'d be making money off of GW\'s intellectual property....From what I understand of their position when it comes to this, they won\'t be too happy. There are a few attorneys on the site, maybe they\'ll chip in some free legal advice....

 

[Legacy Account]

Yeah, you\'d get slapped for it. If they found out

You say you\'ve \'remastered\' the cards. Are they a complete redesign? You could try that, with pics of a painted version of the miniature. Don\'t see how they could complain too much about it. Talisman is not in production, neither are the minis.

Then again, they are twats.:bouncy:

 

[Talion]

You say you\'ve \'remastered\' the cards. Are they a complete redesign?

No, I\'ve scanned in the originals card at a very high resolution, and taken out the original picture and text, I\'ve then created a new back, exactly the same as the original, but in better quality, I\'ve then improved the colouration of the picture and text and added them to the new background. The graphics file is huge over 200mb just for the front, but when they are printed on shiny card, the look better than the originals.

It\'s a shame they are like that, I\'m just want ot keep an old game alive, I did intend creating brand new characters, and cards for the game.............

 

[No Such Agency]

You better believe it\'s \"dodgy\", for the reason supervike mentioned. I personally think it\'d be perfectly ethical... but since when did that mean anything? Life is not, by any means, fair. At any rate, you\'d likely not go to FPYITA prison, but be slapped with a hefty judgement or out of court settlement if GW found out.

You could probably get away with discreetly sending your cards with the minis \"as a favour ot the buyer\", as long as you didn\'t advertise the fact... but then it\'s not much of a selling point, is it?

 

[Talion]

\"You could probably get away with discreetly sending your cards with the minis \"as a favour to the buyer\",\"

Hmmmm, interesting point. Knowing my luck though I would sell one to someone from GW and get my ass fined anyway. I\'ll keep that in mind though. Not that I would do such a thing

 

[vincegamer]

Interesting question.
Would you be violating their copyright?
Absolutely.
Would you be permitted to do it?
Possibly.
Each card is a copyrighted work. By copying the card then changing it, you are creating a derivative work.
Is there a fair use argument to allow such? possibly.

This is not advice, merely speculating.
I suspect if you advertised the cards with the minis you would draw the attention of GW. They most likely would tell you to stop but worse they may tell ebay to stop you.
If you sold it without advertising - possibly just saying a bonus item is included, odds are nothing would happen to you.
The thing is, anyone interested in the mini probably is so because they have the expansion, so you\'re not likely drawing off any audience/customers.
Proving harm is unlikely and while the copyright act allows statutory damages, they probably are not justified here.

I think GW is stupid to stop this sort of thing, but that\'s their decision, not mine.

 

[Primeval]

I bought a figure on ebay that was from a game called Darkworld, and the seller was doing just what you described - he made Talisman cards for the miniatures and included them. I recall seeing a few sets of auctions by him, so he must not have gotten into trouble, or maybe he just slipped under the radar...