Generic Sci-Fi Stuff Isn't Stealing

[Chris Copeland]

Note: the following is my opinion. I am being declarative but I want to acknowledge right off the bat that I am aware that I am expressing opinion. I will happily engage in any pleasant debate, however... :)

I saw in another thread something that I just couldn't let slide: a poster was saying that Mantic was ripping off and copying GW's intellectual property. That wasn't really the point of that thread so I thought I put my opinion in this new thread.

Here is the essence of where I'm coming from: Mantic makes generic SF and Fantasy models. They make Space Troops, Orks, Ratmen, Zombies, and guys in power armor... ALL of these things appeared in Science Fiction and Fantasy long before Games Workshop put out a single model. ALL of these things have long pedigrees. So, I must respectfully disagree with those who think that Mantic is ripping off GW. Cheers!

On a related side note: GW regularly references real world, historical troops, weapons, and uniforms. Cadians look very muck like almost any modern, post WWII troops. GW tanks look like tanks from WWI. Krieg troops look like German troops... etc, etc... GW has no sole right to doing things like this. Good Sci Fi is always rooted in the real world... again: cheers...

[eldargal]

'Ripping off' is a phrase that is used far too much. What Mantic do is shamelessly produce kits that are compatible with GW army books and armies, and there is nothing wrong with that. AoW do the same thing, so do many other small companies. It makes sense, if you are a fantasy/scifi miniature producer, to make your models compatible with the Big Boys range.

[Pendragon38]

If mactic wants to bring to light models that GW just made a few models or a bit of fluff for there game and other Sic-fi ranges thats fine with me.:cool:

[MaltonNecromancer]

http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/215473652_PbFNx-L-2.jpg

[eldargal]

Not to mention:
http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/215543608_oPsC3-L-2.jpg

[Kawauso]

Yeah, people like to toss around 'rip-off' and 'unoriginal' far too much.

There hasn't been anything 100% original since...I don't know...the first homo sapien culture developed. But even then they were probably 'ripping off' things they saw in the natural world around them. Seriously. Every idea comes from somewhere. It's what you do with it and how you put a unique spin on something that matters.

[bfmusashi]

Looking at the chimps it's probably older than that.

[Wildeybeast]

GW itself draws inspriation from lots of difference places, and whilst it is fair to say there is little that is totally original in either Warhammer or 40K, what they do is to craft all these different influneces together in a unique and interesting way. As for companies 'ripping off' GW, I don't think there is anything wrong in making models that are clearly compatible with GW systems. After all, most model companies make things on the 28mm scale for that reason, even if the models don't necessarily fit. When this becomes 'ripping off' GW is when you deliberately and repeatedly manufacture and market products as being explicitly designed for GW and use copyrighted GW IP.

[HsojVvad]

Rip off? Here my son wanted to start a Terminator army not a Necron army. LOL

[Kawauso]

Rip off? Here my son wanted to start a Terminator army not a Necron army. LOL

Either you're trolling or I think you missed the point of the thread.

Yes, it's clear Necrons were inspired by the Terminator movies - everyone remembers when Reanimation Protocols was called 'We'll Be Back'.

Their aesthetic is pretty far removed from Terminator, though, all things considered. Apart from being robotic skeletons (or skeletal robots?)...they don't really share anything in common.

In other words: not a rip-off.

[Archon]

Mantic is a young miniature-company with ambitionous targets. The Vermin are - in fact - Space-Skaven. In that case it is open to see, who is "borrowing" the base-design idea. But everyone can come up with rats, mice or squirrels in space.

In my opinion it is more "off ripping" what some smaller 3rd party manufactorys are doing ... looking on necron-based designs.


Krieg troops look like German troops

Uniformwise it is more france in WW I.

[bfmusashi]

Don't bring up facts when discussing IG origins, you'll only confuse them.

[Chris Copeland]

My original post was about Mantic not ripping off GW. They are clearly doing something else: they are inserting themselves into GW's market space by producing less expensive models that can be compatible with GW's ruleset. I also see this as legitimate because they will stand or fall in that market based on the quality of their sculpts and the degree to which they impress the GW gaming community (they seem to be running far behind on both counts). They have just as much right to these icons of Sci Fi and Fantasy as GW, though: Spacemen with Ray Guns, Rat-men, Orks, Trolls, Power Armored Warriors, space gribblies, etc, etc, etc... cheers...

PS If Mantic were to produce some Space Skeleton Robots with Ray Guns that wouldn't impinge upon GW's rights either... it's just another generic piece of Sci Fi flotsam and jetsam that has a long pedigree... one that goes back before the advent of Necrons or the Terminator movies...

[Bean]

Not much to say beyond that I agree with Chris.

That said, I think there is a line to be drawn between making space-knights in powered armor and making, say, a model for a Luna Wolves Space Marine shoulder-pad. There is a point at which you're legitimately infringing on GW's intellectual property, but I agree that it's very hard to cross that line without exactly duplicating one of their models or actually using the specific names they've invented.

[Necron2.0]

This link (http://www.deviantart.com/download/296286355/ip_equals_jerbs___by_necron2_0-d4weg0j.jpg) expresses how I see the whole issue of how GW has responded to perceived issues of IP, and what it really truly means. People talk about IP in lofty terms, but really the issue is far more visceral and basic.

[LordGrise]

I agree completely with Copeland. ::shrug:: My sympathies for GW are severely limited; every army they have is based on tropes that were already in existence before they made use of them. When I contemplate their marketing strategies...

Having said that, and at the risk of derailing the thread, I am following Chapterhouse Studio's case with a great deal of interest. My feeling, though, is that it will be a mixed bag, neither side getting everything they wanted, followed by GW outright buying CHS in order to prevent a disastrous ruling being publicized. Because unless GW gets all the cheese, then they will be nibbled to death by the mice. Or so they will believe. Of course, doing that will cause all the rest of the mice to try even harder in order to cash in and be bought up. And they don't have enouigh money for that. At least, not with their current marketing strategies.

That being said, if CHS wins it all, I don't know what GW will do.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Such common sci-fi/fantasy tropes strike me as "building up" kinda like folklore. We start off with robots, then someone adds glowy rayguns to the robots, Terminator makes them skeletal and then GWS throws some pseudo-egyptian stuff in. The problem with declaring the latest version "theirs" is that they only really added the egyptian bits or whatever - just a slight mutation on a pre-existing thingy.

[westside]

If the primary reason a customer is buying a product, and the primary reason a company is making a product is to profit from the concepts popularized and made profitable by another company it is probably safe to say that it is a rip off.

Let's have some honesty very few people would be buying any of the items from Mantic or CHS if those products did not first have meaning in the 20+ year old WHFB and 40k 'universes'. At least Mantic makes some pretense of having games of their own and a story line. CHS studios before the commencement of the lawsuit and their retroactive remedial remedies can not say the same.

Space soldiers might be generic, but certainly genetically enhanced space warriors in power armor with a drop of blood between angle wings on the shoulder pads should belong to the people who (paid for) created it.

If we keep on condoning copying and Scribd downloads, file share sites, etc., it will only be the gamers who suffer in the end of ends when new products and ideas dry up because innovation isn't rewarded and marketing products just isn't worth while.

[Bean]

This is only tangentially related, but the discussion of science fiction "tropes" (as it were) reminded me of this, and it's well worth a read. Enjoy!

John C. Wright: What is Science Fiction? (http://www.scifiwright.com/2011/04/what-is-science-fiction-the-final-complete-and-exhaustive-definition-2/)

[Chuck777]

Mantic ripped off GW and GW ripped off D&D and D&D ripped off Tolkien and Tolkien ripped off history and mythology.

Honestly, everything is a rip off of something else.


The only thing that is truly unique to any company's rip off is how they spin the old idea. GW combined Genetically Engineered Super Soldiers with Knights and made Space Marines. Genetically Engineered Soldiers are a common enough trope, as are knights but, by combining the two you make something unique.

GW took Vikings and combined them with Demon worship and created Warriors of Chaos. GW then took Chaos Warriors and combined it with their Space Marine idea and created the Chaos Space Marines.

Knights who battle Demons is a common motif, GW took that and combined it with their Space Marine idea to create the Gray Knights.

GW took undead skeletons and gave them an Egyptian motif, thus making Tomb Kings. They then took Terminator and combined it with Tomb Kings and created Necrons.



The only thing that is really unique to Warhammer are the Skaven. Few games employ Ratmen. D&D has Wererats but they were never a large society in any of their worlds (until recently).

[Cuddy]

If the primary reason a customer is buying a product, and the primary reason a company is making a product is to profit from the concepts popularized and made profitable by another company it is probably safe to say that it is a rip off.

Sort of like Games Workshop profiting from Necrons popularized by the concepts in Terminator, Tyranids by the concepts in Alien, or Space Marines from the power armored, xenophobic, slightly fascist, warrior-philosophers fighting aliens created and popularized by Robert Heinlen? Much less the characters that are extremely thinly veiled versions of other characters(like Sharpe, Flashman to name very few)...IN SPACE! It wouldn't bother me at all though, if they didn`t turn around and get psycho about other people doing the same.

EDIT: Best example, the Aliens series of movies used the name space marines first, and the idea of the alien is highly prevalent in a lot of Tyranid models and fluff (some lictor and similar creatures have had the plot of the movie as part of their fluff over the years) yet the movie series has to now acknowledge Game Workshop`s copyright...which they got over a decade afterwards. So they stole a bunch of ideas, commercialized them, and then forced the original source to acknowledge them. Pretty dastardly.

[eldargal]

Good thing they don't, then. Every case of GW sending a C&D or taking someone to court has been due to actual infringement of GWs trademarks or copyrights.

It wouldn't bother me at all though, if they didn`t turn around and get psycho about other people doing the same.

[Cuddy]

They do get crazy about them. Look at what they've done with things like fan movies (Damnatus) for starters.

[eldargal]

If by crazy you mean 'unable to give legal permission to the creators as under German law where the creators were based this would mean effectively giving the creators rights to GWs IP without limit', then yes.

Source (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7010484.stm). So blame German copyright law, not GW.

In fact GW has sanctioned (http://thelordinquisitor.com/blog/born-free/) a new fan film, Lord Inquisitor. Which as far as I know is also a German production so perhaps hte copyright thing has changed? Or they have found some work around. It would be interesting to find out.

[Cuddy]

Don't quote me on this, but from what I've heard from some sources it sounds like the German law wasn't really understood well by GW. While I'm not 100%, the fact that the new sanctioned one is German, and that there are lots of games produced by third party developers by other companies in Germany who havn't had this problem seems to support it. Hard to say though, it seems everyone I've heard from only has second hand sources rather then the actual law (due to it being in German I presume). Even the BBC article doesn't say the common "GW would lose it's IP rights/copyright ownership etc" but much more vague talk of issues and unprecedented cases. Anyone on here German by any chance?

[eldargal]

GW erred on the side of caution in an unprecedented issue, nothing crazy about that. Maybe German law has changed, maybe GW understants it better or maybe Lord Inquisitor has found some way around it. The point is GW were acting to protect their interests in a sensible fashion.

[Cuddy]

My point is more that it leaves a bad taste with many people, including fans, when a company that has borrowed so liberally from other sources without trouble brings up IP at all. If you think that what Chapterhouse and the like were doing was bad, then what of things like the Caiaphas Cain novels (which I love)? They're the Flashman series of books, complete to the characters and many of the jokes/references. GW, through Black Library, has profited off of them. If changing an idea the slightest bit, then producing a product which you profit off is something Games Workshop does, why is it wrong when Chapterhouse does it? Its not even like the Flashman books are old news, one came out as late as 2005, and they date back to the sixties. It's by far not the only time either. (The Guns of Tanith/Guns of Navaronne comes to mind quickly as well)

[eldargal]

Except that is irrelevent. Damnatus, that boardgame website and all the other cases of GW taking legal action didn't 'borrow heavily' they actually used GWs trademarks and copyrights.

I don't think CHS making the kits they make was bad, I think using GWs trademarks to describe them was. I'm all for alternative bits, that doesn't give companies to use others trademarks outside the bounds of the law. There is a difference between labelling something 'Space Marine shoulder pads' and 'shoulder pads compatible with Space Marines'.

If you think BL is actually plagiarising the Flashman stories contact whoever holds the rights to them and inform them.

[Adra]

I have to agree with eldargal. Taking inspiration from something is very different from i direct copy. So alien had aliens in it and the nids are inspired by them, so what? They dont look that much like them to be considered a copy. Inspired sure, but not a copy. The genestealer is maybe the closest to the giger alien and although it has a few elements that are close to the same, it also has many differences. It is not a copy, but may be heavily inspired by existing designs. As long as the line does not get crossed then its all fine, but once you start making direct, or very close copies, things start getting nasty.

I've said it before, GW isnt a cottage industry with a bunch of jumper wearing beard necks pottering around in a shed making games for they joy on childrens faces, they are a massive company and will protect whats theirs with every legal power they have, and thats what everyone else does in the same situation. Being inspired by GW products is fine and its great that people do it, but chapter house and companies like them run such a fine line i cant help but have no respect for them.

[Houghten]

EDIT: Best example, the Aliens series of movies used the name space marines first, and the idea of the alien is highly prevalent in a lot of Tyranid models and fluff (some lictor and similar creatures have had the plot of the movie as part of their fluff over the years) yet the movie series has to now acknowledge Game Workshop`s copyright...which they got over a decade afterwards.
Let's at least get the verifiable facts straight, shall we? Lieutenant Gorman's crew of ultimate badasses were "Marines" or "Colonial Marines," never "Space Marines."

As to the Alien series having to acknowledge GW's copyright... what are you on about? Where have they ever done that? Is it going to show up in the credits of Prometheus? I doubt it.


The genestealer is maybe the closest to the giger alien and although it has a few elements that are close to the same, it also has many differences. It is not a copy, but may be heavily inspired by existing designs.
Xenomorph-y elements are sprinkled throughout the Tyranid line - the eyeless faces of the Hive and Tyrant Guard, the big crest on the 3rd edition Hive Tyrant, the Parasite of Mortrex's chestburster-laying habit - and I wouldn't say the Genestealers have more than anything else does. I'm not even sure what they do have. Is it the tongue attack you're thinking of?

[the jeske]

There is a difference between labelling something 'Space Marine shoulder pads' and 'shoulder pads compatible with Space Marines'.

yes one fits on a label and the other one does [in europe at least].

[eldargal]

That is why god invented small font.

[gendoikari87]

Either you're trolling or I think you missed the point of the thread.

Yes, it's clear Necrons were inspired by the Terminator movies - everyone remembers when Reanimation Protocols was called 'We'll Be Back'.

Their aesthetic is pretty far removed from Terminator, though, all things considered. Apart from being robotic skeletons (or skeletal robots?)...they don't really share anything in common.

In other words: not a rip-off.

don't forget the black templars and their obvious homages to monty pythons holy grail, like the holy orbs of antioch.

[LordGrise]

Chapterhouse is not attempting to hijack 40K, nor are they attempting to market their own ruiles or army. What they are doing is serving the market for alternate units, for bits with which to personalize units, and for those units that GW has shown no inclination to make. That last bit, I'll agree, is dodgy... but allow me to draw everyone's attention to a perhaps somewhat parallel situation.

I offer for everyone's contemplation (word of the day, sorry) the situations of the computer game franchises Doom and Diablo. Fopr anyone who doesn't know, the Doom series were first person shooter games from the nineties and two-thousands; Diablo was a third-person adventure/RPG/clickfest. The original games were released, they sold well, and then modders got ahold of them and started publishing a LOT of homebrew.

Did either publisher jump on the modders, some of which did indeed sell their products? Hell no. Diablo one and two are still selling today, coming up on twenty years since publication in Diablo one's case. The Doom franchise actually hired the top three mod teams for their expansions and sequels. The modders extended the saleable lifetimes of the core games many times over.

Now Diablo 3 approaches, and Blizzard seems to have girded it's loins and geared up to go to war with the modders. I think this is a mistake, and I predict that Diablo 3 will be on the fifty percent off sale shelves within six months of release for precisely these reasons; no support for modders, and a legal team that's been fed raw meat by Blizzard's backers.

CHS, Mantic, and the others are not hurting the core 40K game; they are supporting it. Okay, GW is not making money off them directly. But they are benefitting indirectly, and that seems to have been overlooked here.

[eldargal]

GW isn't 'going to war with modders' to use your analogy, it has taken one company of a multitude to court for breaches of its trademarks (which there almost certainly is a case to answer) and copyrights (very grey area, hard to say, hence the ongoing court case).

[fuzzyguy]

The only thing that is really unique to Warhammer are the Skaven. Few games employ Ratmen. D&D has Wererats but they were never a large society in any of their worlds (until recently).

Skaven are based upon traditional Japanese fables especially those from the Edo period involving yōkai and nezumi. There is nothing new about social groups of vile rat men, just the scale of the infestation.

One could say that Skaven like many things GW have done is derivative, which I think is a more appropriate word for much of what people are attempting to say when they post "rip off". "Rip off" implies intent to deceive or steal for one's own use. Derivative work is an inspired adaptation. There is a rather significant difference.

[Chuck777]

Skaven are based upon traditional Japanese fables especially those from the Edo period involving yōkai and nezumi. There is nothing new about social groups of vile rat men, just the scale of the infestation.


Doi! I forgot about the Nezumi!

Rokugan also has them.

I suppose GW doesn't have anything that is not derivative.

[Kawauso]

I suppose GW doesn't have anything that is not derivative.

No one does, is the point.

Take any work of fiction, ever, and you can find something it's based off of or inspired by to varying degrees.

[the jeske]

That is why god invented small font.

toy labels have to be of proper size oin EU the size of the font used on those is fixed too.

[eldargal]

It is still irrelevent, though, as CHS selling shoulder pads as 'Space Marine shoulder pads' is still infringing upon GWs trademarks whatever may or may not fit on the packaging.

[Corvus-Master-of-The-4th]

Just for the sake of this argument, I thought i'd add my opinion: Firstly I agree with Kawauso and Eldargal. Because Chapter House firstly were attempting to make Games Workshop kits... To me that seems a bit off and I'm not a fan of their style, but hey we all have our opinions.

However, when people claim that Games Workshop copies all of the aforementioned elements of fantasy and sci-fi it's because as artists and designers, everything you do has to be based in "real life" when you first start the process, because things need to look like they 'could' work, enough to keep up the suspence of disbelief (I think thats the term) and so when the Games Workshop 'copies' often it's a hommage, such as the "we'll be back rule".

But this idea of paying hommage to their predecessors I belive comes from Newtons claim that to get where he got, he stood on the back of giants (para phrased), also... Would anyone buy something with no recognisable links to anything ever previously made? (if even plausible). But yeah... I hope that made some form of sense :).

[mikethefish]

Where exactly GW got their inspiration from is completely irrelevant IMO. At the end of the day, here's where the ultimate situation lies:

Through various sources of inspiration, GW created a world/game that became very popular with wargaming fans. This is undeniable.

Mantic comes along, and (despite creating their own proprietary game rules) creates a series of figures that are obviously designed to be "compatible" with GW's creation - though at a slightly cheaper monetary cost. Is this deniable? Technically yes - we do not have ESP powers to look into the minds of Mantic's designers. But while you CAN deny that this was Mantic's motivation, you would be a fool if you did. The evidence - though circumstantial - is mountainous. You can only plunge your head in the sand so deep before you are buried completely. The similarities of Mantic's line to the ideas/aesthetic of the biggest miniature seller in the market are too many to possibly ignore.

So did Mantic copy GW's designs when they made their models? Absolutely. But how is that bad? They are legally ok (no lawsuits yet so...), so no problem there. They provide players with different alternatives for creating armies - which is also not bad. For most players, it's always fun to see a different take on an existing army. Is it even hurting GW sales? I seriously doubt it. Even if you grant that ever sale of a Mantic model is a sale that GW doesn't see - on the other side, that's another player who is PLAYING a GW product, and a healthy local gaming community (however it comes about) only helps GW's bottom line.

People... stop worrying about this. Nobody's really getting hurt here. It doesn't matter who copied who. Just play the game, have fun, and use whatever tools you need to use in order to make sure your army is cool and unique.

SUMMARY-
Did Mantic copy GW? Yes. They are absolutely trying to use the popularity of GW's models/look to sell their own line. To think otherwise is pretty foolish. It's just that that's not really a bad thing, and only really helps out our hobby.

[Sure]

People tend to have an off-base idea about IP and how it relates to this hobby. Here's a real basic version of how this plays out in U.S. law:

TRADEMARK:
these are the things that let you know the entity from whom the product is derived. I can't put golden arches over my hamburger shack because that belongs to McDonalds. I can't use Tyranids to dexcribe my new line of space-monster toys or Tau for the generic high-tech alien toys I put out.
I could have started a computer manufacturing company called Apple and Apple Records would have to suck it because everyone knows that these are two entirely different businesses due to their area of business. That being said, there were meetings and negotiations when apple got into the whole iTunes business.

PATENT:
you created some new thing that is a novel innovation. it may be a whole new invention OR a modification/improvement of an existing one, but you must be able to show how what you created is so different from any existing patent that you should be granted special rights. If GW itself were to develop a new high-quality resin that proves to be cheaper to produce and mold AND there was something different about the chemical formula from all other resins then it could get a patent. If it merely mixed together two resins whose formulas were patented by another company, then there isn't really anything novel.

copyright:
usually reserved for ORIGINAL creative works. the standard for original is different than the "NOVEL" standard applied to patents. Originality simply requires enough creative input to be a work that stands on its own. This is a low standard. That is why sampling has been allowed in music. This is why many model companies should be perfectly fine creating models that fit in to the 40K universe provided they don't cross the boundary of TRADEMARK infringement. An outer space elf, an outer space ork, or a genetic supersoldier riding a wolf are all simply concepts...they really can't be copyrighted (although names and individual sculpts can be). However, any company making sculpts compatible for 40k must be careful to make their products easily distinguishable from GW sculpts and names or they could get into a tight spot.

As far as I'm concerned, GW brought this competition on themselves with their business practices. The lack of a complete range of models for codices combined with things like finecast (a cheaper alternative that for which we will charge our customers more!...if they were smart they would have kept a lid on the cheaper part.)) make for diminsihed customer loyalty. You aren't looking for similarities, but rather you are looking for differences. By saying it's a thinly veiled knock-off you may be saying it just may have enough originality to squeek by! One person's thin veil may be the judge's differentiator.

[Chris Copeland]

So did Mantic copy GW's designs when they made their models? Absolutely. But how is that bad? They are legally ok (no lawsuits yet so...), so no problem there. They provide players with different alternatives for creating armies - which is also not bad. For most players, it's always fun to see a different take on an existing army. Is it even hurting GW sales? I seriously doubt it... Did Mantic copy GW? Yes. They are absolutely trying to use the popularity of GW's models/look to sell their own line. To think otherwise is pretty foolish. It's just that that's not really a bad thing, and only really helps out our hobby.

Perhaps I'm splitting hairs here. I agree with some of what Mike says and disagree with some. I agree with him when he says it ultimately causes no real harm and that it even helps the hobby. Everyone I know who has any Mantic models is already well invested in GW product and seems to just be branching out a bit for fun. I've never met a player who just uses a lot of Mantic models to play GW games cheaply... perhaps they are out there... I just haven't met them yet.

I agree that Mantic is pushing it's way into a marketplace created by GW: models that are compatible with GW's ruleset. This is clearly what they are doing. I am not offended by this (Mike doesn't seem to be either) and I think that it is a sign of a healthy marketplace.

Here is where we differ (and perhaps where I am splitting hairs): I've as yet to see a single model that didn't come from long standing icons of Sci Fi and Fantasy: Orcs, Space Soldiers, Rat-Men, Knights, Elves, Undead... etc... etc... ad nauseum. All of those things pre-date GW (and sometimes by centuries) so I can hardly accuse Mantic of ripping off or copying GW. The Space Soldiers with Ray Guns that GW makes don't particularly stick out as being particularly original. They follow the oldest Sci Fi paradigm there is: base your Space Men on the here and now with a little bit of different technology and they'll be all the more believable. If I saw actors dressed as IG troopers in an episode of almost any Sci Fi movie or serial it would most likely be completely lost on me that I was looking at stuff based on Imperial Guard... because the IG are done right: they are pretty darn generic Science Fiction space-troopers.

Again, I may be splitting hairs. Yes, Mantic is looking to ride GW's coattails... no, they are not copying them. Cheers.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Mmmm, Gamesworkshop's success created a larger market for generic sci-fi/fantasy minis. Mantic is taking advantage of the market GWS made more than copying GWS.

[mikethefish]

Well Chris, I really think you ARE splitting hairs here.

It doesn't matter who invented the style. What matters is that GW has a bunch of players who use models that look a certain way. Mantic COULD have made their models look like anything they liked but they are obviously making a bunch of figures deliberately designed to look similar enough to GW's models that some of GW players will buy Mantic's stuff to use for GW games.

This is an imitation. This is a copy. There is no other definition of what is happening. It's not a bad thing as I said, but folks really need to figure out how to call a spade a spade.