GW IPhammer reaches China?

[mordiano]

Just to say that a certain chinese company that makes copied miniatures for our hobby has its website down...

Has GW gotten the best of them??

cheers

[Rapture]

You severely underestimate the protection of the Red Curtain. Consider it a 2++ with WBB.

The site has only changed names. Relatively big news on some less salubrious discussion forums.

[Limey El'Jonson]

They immediately set up shop again under a different domain name, presumably with a different hosting service too.

[billytwix]

What is the new site? Their stuff is amazing

[gendoikari87]

What is the new site? Their stuff is amazing

Srsly? it's one thing to defend chapterhouse, it's something from another book entirely to support this gob****e of a company.

[fuzzbuket]

What is the new site? Their stuff is amazing

really.............. theres a diffrence between not supporting GW and Supporting a company that wants to take down GW (by directly stealing revenue)*

if we all thought that way GW wouldnt exist, and even if you dislike the prices theres not way you can understate what GW has done for the hobby :D

-fuzz

[faolan]

To be fair though, and I admit to having used them for a few test items AND for some out of production Rackham stuff, the stuff I got from them that was Forgeworld was actually better than any FW stuff I'd ever ordered - the company had taken the time to fix all the forgeworld mistakes and then recast the items properly.

But I don't feel in the least bad about buying the old Rackham stuff that's been OOP for a while.

[DrLove42]

What FW mistakes? I've nevr had the slgihtest defect from anything from FW.

Sure they can warp, but thats a sign of durable resin. If this knockoff stuff doesn't warp then its far more brittle, and less survivable.

This company obviously have either ades casts of off FW pieces or (less likely) made them themselves

China is notoriious in its protection of people ripping off the west. Last year they rejected a Cease and Desist order from Apple to the guys making "iPads" out there that were not even close. Cars, electronics, clothes...its always pretty bad.

In the nicest possible way China is f***ed up country. When the government falls there (it will eventually...they're a communist dictatorship with a secret police that wants to be a Capitalist country, with the largest population inthe world) the world will be a better place. In the mean time we should stop importing chinese stuff

As for this company...its disgusting. CHS (I may not like) but they don't take money away from GW. These guys clearly do

[faolan]

Everything I've gotten directly from FW has had horrible mold alignment problems and often has massive short-shots in it (you should have seen my poor Bloodthirster fresh out of the bags), but the nurgly dread and slaughterer daemon I got from China didn't.

My Venators have had large chunks that just didn't cast (massive air bubbles) and alignment problems, same with my Chappy dread. They do great concept work, but I find their quality control to be lacking.

I'm by no means defending the chinese company, but since GW sodomizes us in Australia, to hell with them - I don't buy things from China from companies that are nicer to us, like PP or FoW.

[eldargal]

But the fact remains you are giving money to criminals, and while it is ridiculous what GW charges in Australia these sorts of groups don't just rip off 'bad' companies. I had a friend whose small business went broke because a company in China started copying her products. They were inferior quality, but cheaper, so people bought them. Result, one less business paying tax and eight people out of work. Support one and you might as well support them all, it is still morally bankrupt.

[faolan]

Eldar, I don't claim that it was "right" of me to do it. I would argue it was less wrong than it could have been, but no, I'd never argue it was ethically correct.

You are, of course, completely correct that it was an improper/"bad" action.

[Wildeybeast]

Eldar, I don't claim that it was "right" of me to do it. I would argue it was less wrong than it could have been, but no, I'd never argue it was ethically correct.

You are, of course, completely correct that it was an improper/"bad" action.

So why did you do it and why are trying to justify it?

[faolan]

I did it because he offered some interesting looking products at a reasonable price, and I really didn't care about GW's bottom line.

I'm not trying to justify it, I long ago figured out I didn't have to justify myself to the internet, especially over something as minor as this - because, let's face it, while it's not a good action, there's far worse evils in the world to worry about, and I never claimed I was Lawful Good in real life.

I wouldn't encourage other people to do it, to shop here or at other questionable places.

I'm not entirely sure I buy your argument that it's ALL morally bankrupt, but that's another philosophical discussion in general. After all, every time you make a press cast or your own conversion or sculpt your own to use in place of an item from *any company* that argument could be made (not that I'd buy into that either).

[gendoikari87]

But the fact remains you are giving money to criminals, and while it is ridiculous what GW charges in Australia these sorts of groups don't just rip off 'bad' companies. I had a friend whose small business went broke because a company in China started copying her products. They were inferior quality, but cheaper, so people bought them. Result, one less business paying tax and eight people out of work. Support one and you might as well support them all, it is still morally bankrupt.

well if you're in australia i won't blame you for using these guys, what GW does to the australians is criminal.

And yes, if I can find the site, I'll use them. Is it right? No. But GW's prices are too high, if they want people to be loyal to them, bring your prices down.

[eldargal]

But making something yourself takes skill and effort, it isn't putting money in the pockets of people who just steal from other people.

You think it is minor, but it isn't. What is a few dollars to a bunch of Chinese criminals? Problem is more people start thinking like that, more people start buying from them, more genuine businesses lose customers, more businesses fail, more people out of work. You may think it is small, but you are a small piece of a problem that destroys companies large and small and puts hard-working people out of work. You may think I'm being hyperbolic, but look at the figures, IP theft and knock-offs costs companes billions upon billions of pounds every year.

If you don't want to pay GW AUS prices (and who would) then buy from overseas companies, there are still some that ship to the antipodes. Or buy on eBay, quite a few places offering stuff at a discount on UK/EU RRP. But please don't give money to criminals.

I'm not trying to be rude, and I'm not saying you are a bad person, but in this case you are doing a bad thing. It's jsut easy to pretend you aren't hurting anyone because you're so divorced from the people it impacts.

[Verilance]

well if you're in australia i won't blame you for using these guys, what GW does to the australians is criminal.

And yes, if I can find the site, I'll use them. Is it right? No. But GW's prices are too high, if they want people to be loyal to them, bring your prices down.

The minimum wage in Australia is about double the minimum wage in the US so the fact that they pay more for things shouldn't be surprising or unacceptable. that is the way things work.

[gendoikari87]

I'm not trying to be rude, and I'm not saying you are a bad person, but in this case you are doing a bad thing. It's jsut easy to pretend you aren't hurting anyone because you're so divorced from the people it impacts.

I don't really care if I'm hurting GW, in fact I REALLY hope I am by buying from these people. GW's prices are way too high and they need to be punished for that behavior. Does that make buying from pirates right? No, but I don't care, I do not shed tears for corporations, they aren't people, they don't feel pain, and they have no soul. So again, here the ball is in GW's court, they want loyalty and to not loose business, lower prices. That's capitalism.

[eldargal]

If you want to punish GW, don't buy from them.

The fact that tou would rather give money to criminals and then HOPE you are helping put people out of work (GW employs three thousand plus) makes me think that you are at best woefully immature and at worst, genuinely immoral.

[Wildeybeast]

I don't really care if I'm hurting GW, in fact I REALLY hope I am by buying from these people. GW's prices are way too high and they need to be punished for that behavior. Does that make buying from pirates right? No, but I don't care, I do not shed tears for corporations, they aren't people, they don't feel pain, and they have no soul. So again, here the ball is in GW's court, they want loyalty and to not loose business, lower prices. That's capitalism.

What a stupid argument. By buying from pirates, you are taking business away from GW, which will only lead to further price increases as they try to make up for the losses. Worse case scenario, GW gets forced out of business because everyone buys from pirates, suddenly pirates have nothing left to copy and the hobby dies. Ethics aside, piracy is very damaging to the hobby, supporting it is a selfish and short sighted decision.

Also to suggest that GW needs to please you for you to demonstrate loyalty is to utterly fail to grasp the concept of loyalty. Loyalty is not conditional upon what someone does for you, it is sticking with them through thick and thin.

[Rapture]

Hmm. While I don't condone any illegal activity, I will drop some support on the "that's capitalism" argument.

GW is a company that can charge whatever they want for their product. When that price gets too high (the profits becoming disproportionate to the reasonable costs of production), consumers will lash out at or abandon the company. GW will, if the trend continues to the point where it damages their profits, eventually be forced to modify something about how they do business in order to minimize the incentive to obtain their product through illegal activity.

This is just like the constant back and forth between the music industry and illegal downloaders. Nothing will be destroyed in the long run, but there will be refocusing on the product and what consumers are willing to pay.

I will also have to take a second to bash the idea of corporate loyalty - it is stupid nonsense. GW produces a game that people love, but they are a publicly owned business willing to bleed whatever profits they can out of their customers - just like any other business. The producer-consumer relationship is one that is balanced out by the selfish actions of both parties. This is how capitalism works and both sides get the best reasonable benefit from the relationship.

The minute anything other than personal goals infect the producer-consumer relationship, one sides loses. This is especially true when the relationship shifts in favor of the produce as it has mush more to lase and gain from the relationship. You can never trust someone with stock options.

[eldargal]

The capitalism argument is fine, up until the point people start giving their money to criminals. Find GW to expensive? But at UK RRP on ebay. Still too expensive, try Mantic/PP/find a cheaper hobby/whatever. But giving money to criminals is still wrong.

[Wildeybeast]

This is just like the constant back and forth between the music industry and illegal downloaders. Nothing will be destroyed in the long run, but there will be refocusing on the product and what consumers are willing to pay.

Actually, the illegal download market did destory something, namely physical record sales and the high street stores that rely on them. Yes, the music industry itself survived and did respond by going to digital sales, but the stores have suffered a lot and many people have lost their jobs. Somewhere along the line, someone honest is always hurt by piracy. To to justify it under the guise of high prices or companies not meeting customer needs is simply a way to salve your guilt that you are doing something wrong by supporting criminals who don't give a stuff about the original product or supporting the industry, whether it be minatures, handbags or music.

[eldargal]

Exactly, which is what makes this such an insidious problem. People are so far removed from the victims of their decisions that they convince themselves that no one except the Big Bad Companies are being hurt, and they deserve it because anyone who has the temerity to charge more than we want to pay for things can be good.:rolleyes:

[Rapture]

Actually, the illegal download market did destory something, namely physical record sales and the high street stores that rely on them. Yes, the music industry itself survived and did respond by going to digital sales, but the stores have suffered a lot and many people have lost their jobs. Somewhere along the line, someone honest is always hurt by piracy.

Those stores were relics of something ready to disappear completely. The people that worked there were casualties of our economic system - not piracy. Progress happens and shake-up events, like piracy, are one of the many sources its inspiration. I don't think GW will be genuinely impacted by a small string of recasts, but it will keep the company on its toes and, although it may seem contrary to the short term effect, has the potential to make them stronger.

[Wildeybeast]

What!? How can it possibly make them stronger? This is utter nonsense. There will be no point in them investing in improving their product range as other are simply ripping it off and making money from GW's investment in quality. They will have to raise prices to compensate for lost trade and will have to spend money in fruitless legal battles with pirates (though I doubt they will bother doing that in China). There are no benefits from piracy, expect for the pirates and the selfish individuals who support them, whilst honest people lose out.

[Rapture]

What!? How can it possibly make them stronger? This is utter nonsense. There will be no point in them investing in improving their product range as other are simply ripping it off and making money from GW's investment in quality. They will have to raise prices to compensate for lost trade and will have to spend money in fruitless legal battles with pirates (though I doubt they will bother doing that in China). There are no benefits from piracy, expect for the pirates and the selfish individuals who support them, whilst honest people lose out.
None of this is true. Strong businesses overcome obstacles. The company will make sacrifices to retake customer support lost to piracy. This is where the balance comes into play. GW will have to alter their practices to still meet their needs but also meet the desires of consumers at the price that they are willing to pay. GW will aim for the largest profit by projecting what prices will attract different numbers of customers (simply raising prices will likely result in collapse unless undue corporate loyalty shields them). They will either continuing to operate with a more balanced producer-consumer relationship (the imbalance of which turns large enough numbers of consumers to alternate sources of the product so that the company needs to respond) or they will fail. They will only fail if the company cannot adapt or has overextended itself to take advantage of a temporary market (like the music stores).

Piracy is essentially a market challenge. Challenges promote innovation and competitive business practices. CEOs don't like them (the GW CEO would be happy to continue doing whatever he wants to maximise profits), but the market does. GW will be strengthened because they will have to reign in their operations to meet the realistic expectations of consumers. This promotes the company's longevity.

[Wildeybeast]

Piracy is not a 'market challenge'. Falling sales, rival companies and changing technology are market challenges. Piracy is crime, which companies cannot and should not have to respond to. You are, as I have previously stated, hiding behind the mask of high prices and companies failing to respond to customer desires. The music industry responded by offering digital downloads of individual songs at very affordable prices. People still pirate and the music industry is still losing money to them. People do it because they don't give a damn about the people who produce the origianl product. GW cannot compete with pirates because they could sell their stuff at cost price and the pirates would still undercut them as they are using inferior materials and are not having to invest time and money in designing the product nor paying the people that do so.

[gendoikari87]

If you want to punish GW, don't buy from them.

The fact that tou would rather give money to criminals and then HOPE you are helping put people out of work (GW employs three thousand plus) makes me think that you are at best woefully immature and at worst, genuinely immoral.

That's what I have been doing for well over two years now. But if there is another company doing the same thing for less. Yeah I'm tempted to get back in at a REASONABLE cost. GW is not reasonable, if they were, i'd be buying from them.


Piracy is not a 'market challenge'.In the digital realm your right, because it takes nothing to copy and past and transfer. But in physical products, it is, it takes resources to make these copies, which in turn means you essentially have another competitor that can be beaten, thus leading to competition. Perhaps illegal competition but competition that leads to innovation as competition always does.

[LordGrise]

I don't support piracy. I have not, and will not buy from them. CHS I do not consider pirates because they make models and enhancements that GW does not. But that is another thread.

Now. Having said that, I will say this. Piracy is a symptom of issues in the supply and demand system. If pirates can make better copies of a given product than the legitimate manufacturers, sell them lower, and still make enough of a profit to continue doing so, then the legitimate manufacture has issues they need to correct.

In GW's case, some of these issues they cannot correct: cost of labor, cost of equipment, and cost of materials come to mind quite quickly. But quality control issues are. I've bought very little failcast; three sets of Tau sniper drones is it. But they all had issues; one minor and easily correctible, one major and requiring significant effort on my part to fix, and one of them bad enough I contacted GW and requested replacement. Which I got, promptly and without any argument. But it shouldn't have been necessary in the first place, and is likely a significant portion of GW's overall operating costs. THAT they can correct, and I don't understand why they haven't already. Pricing imbalances is another. Fixing the things that anger and frustrate your customers would go a ways towards promoting that customer loyalty thing.

[Rapture]

Piracy is not a 'market challenge'. Falling sales, rival companies and changing technology are market challenges. Piracy is crime, which companies cannot and should not have to respond to.
Untrue and irrelevant, respectively. Crimes are a fact of doing business and are regularly (especially in the case of shrinkage) factored into budgets and business plans.


You are, as I have previously stated, hiding behind the mask of high prices and companies failing to respond to customer desires. The music industry responded by offering digital downloads of individual songs at very affordable prices. People still pirate and the music industry is still losing money to them. People do it because they don't give a damn about the people who produce the origianl product.
Hiding?

The music industry responded and stayed viable. It isn't what it once was, but maybe it should never have been what it once was. This is a question left to consumers - they have already answered. Piracy will continue. The challenge to the industry is to offer a legitimate product that consumers will favor over pirated material. The obstacles in this challenge are irrelevant. It is what it is.


People do it because they don't give a damn about the people who produce the origianl product.
Of course they don't. The people who produce the original product don't give a dam about the consumers. And why should either party care about the other? These are commercial transactions.

(Obviously a generalization, but this is true for both sides)


GW cannot compete with pirates because they could sell their stuff at cost price and the pirates would still undercut them as they are using inferior materials and are not having to invest time and money in designing the product nor paying the people that do so.
Businesses compete with every interest that is contrary to their own. The challenge of doing business is to operate in the market. The market includes criminals, regulators, and consumers that may function in opposition to the business - it is the business's job to overcome them.

Piracy is a fact that a majority of companies have to face. There is no extinguishing it. GW will figure out how to deal with it and the company (and the consumers) will be better off.

[eldargal]

Capitalism as a free-for-all is the single most damaging thing to happen to capitalist theory in its history.

Also, that crime is an obstacle doesn't legitimise it. If we followed the logic that piracy should be accepted (which is what is implied by your argument) because it makes survivors stronger we could apply the same to murder, rape, assault etc. Piracy is theft, my six brothers and I bashing your door in and robbing you blind might make you upgrade your security, but that doesn't make it right. Piracy may challenge a business, but that doesn't make it right.

[Wildeybeast]

Untrue and irrelevant, respectively. Crimes are a fact of doing business and are regularly (especially in the case of shrinkage) factored into budgets and business plans.

But they shouldn't be and wouldn't be if selfish individuals did not support the criminals.



The music industry responded and stayed viable. It isn't what it once was, but maybe it should never have been what it once was. This is a question left to consumers - they have already answered. Piracy will continue. The challenge to the industry is to offer a legitimate product that consumers will favor over pirated material. The obstacles in this challenge are irrelevant. It is what it is.

No, the challenge to the industry is to find a way to stop the pirates nicking their stuff. The music industry offers a legitmate product (music which people like), in whatever form people want and for very reasonable prices. There is nothing else they could do to improve the customer experience. For example, Radiohead offered a 'pay what you like' deal for one of their albums, so you could actually pay nothing and get it legitimately, but people still pirated it. This has nothing to do with ofering a 'legitmate product' or 'reasonable prices' this is people stealing things because they can and they want to.



Of course they don't. The people who produce the original product don't give a dam about the consumers. And why should either party care about the other? These are commercial transactions.

(Obviously a generalization, but this is true for both sides)

And stupid generalisation at that. Why do GW designers/sculptors/painters do what they do? Sure, they get paid, but they do it because they love it and because they want to share what they love with like minded people.



Piracy is a fact that a majority of companies have to face. There is no extinguishing it. GW will figure out how to deal with it and the company (and the consumers) will be better off.

There is an easy way of dealing with it, which is for people to stop supporrting it. Ultimately there is nothing a business can do to stamp it out, but all it takes is for people to make a decision to support legitmate businesses and they hard working people they employ, rather than giving their money to criminals who will be the death of the industry if they are allowed to be successful.

[gendoikari87]

What a stupid argument. By buying from pirates, you are taking business away from GW, which will only lead to further price increases as they try to make up for the losses. Worse case scenario, GW gets forced out of business because everyone buys from pirates, suddenly pirates have nothing left to copy and the hobby dies. Ethics aside, piracy is very damaging to the hobby, supporting it is a selfish and short sighted decision.

Also to suggest that GW needs to please you for you to demonstrate loyalty is to utterly fail to grasp the concept of loyalty. Loyalty is not conditional upon what someone does for you, it is sticking with them through thick and thin.

Loyalty is earned through respect, not given. Also your argument that they raise prices just goes to show how utterly you lack understanding of how economics works. When a shift showing REDUCED demand I.E. Lower sales, occurs, you lower prices to fit the demand curve. Raising them only works as a short term bandaid to disguise a bad business model, which will, yes, shut GW down. And IF GW ever closes it's doors for good because of a bad business model I won't shed a tear, it won't be the end of the world, just a hobby.

[eldargal]

Games Workhop directly employs over three thousand people and indirectly helps support god knows how many more through high sales in gaming/model stores. It also gives a great deal of pleasure and enjoyment to millions. The flow on impacts of all that going would be significant, and I for one am not going to be happy with thousands of families losing a breadwinner just to satisfy some petulent grudge at a company for charging more than I want to pay.

[Wildeybeast]

Loyalty is earned through respect, not given. Also your argument that they raise prices just goes to show how utterly you lack understanding of how economics works. When a shift showing REDUCED demand I.E. Lower sales, occurs, you lower prices to fit the demand curve. Raising them only works as a short term bandaid to disguise a bad business model, which will, yes, shut GW down. And IF GW ever closes it's doors for good because of a bad business model I won't shed a tear, it won't be the end of the world, just a hobby.

I understand perfectly well how economics worse. If we were talking about a loss in sales due to reduced demand then GW would have to lower their prices. What we are talking about is not a reduction in demand, but a loss of income due to people buying GW products illegally from another company. GW is still investing money in developing their prodcut, only to not get the money from the sales. As I have already mentioned, GW can reduce their prices as much as they like, they will still lose out to pirates who can undercut them. Reducing prices will not stop people supporting the pirates, it will simply eat further into their revenue. Thus they are left with no choice but to raise prices and hope their loyal customers will swallow the price increase. The other alternative is to cutback on their investments in product quality or reduce staff numbers. Whatever they do, honest people lose out.

[Rapture]

No one is legitimizing anything or claiming anything is right or wrong. Whether capitalism is a 'free for all' and the implications of the answer can only be answered by economists and philosophers. Governments are responsible for doing what needs to be done regarding unfair competition. This doesn't change the fact that business are responsible for operating in their chosen market where they are fully aware of the challenges.

As stated, piracy is a fact. It will happen. Business will deal with it as they have been since the first person started copying another. What people should do is obvious by the fact that the activity in question is illegal. I don't remember advocating privacy. Wouldn't it be great if no one ever broken and laws ever? Sure, why not? The realistic approach (the same one that the businesses affected by piracy take in order to survive) is the only one worth mentioning.

Again, the pirates will only kill the industry if the industry is in a condition to be destroyed. If that is the case, it is only a matter of time anyway. GW will respond appropriately, as they have throughout their tenure, and everything will continue.


And stupid generalisation at that. Why do GW designers/sculptors/painters do what they do? Sure, they get paid, but they do it because they love it and because they want to share what they love with like minded people.
Speaking of stupid generalizations, do you personally know all of the GW designers/sculptors/painters that you just made a generalization regarding?


The flow on impacts of all that going would be significant, and I for one am not going to be happy with thousands of families losing a breadwinner just to satisfy some petulent grudge at a company for charging more than I want to pay.
Businesses come and go. Always have and always will. Everyone who works for a company assumes the risk that the company's behavior or the state of the market (two things that every employee should be aware of) will lead to its destruction. Encouraging consideration of bad times ahead is the best way to lessen their impact.

[Wildeybeast]

Speaking of stupid generalizations, do you personally know all of the GW designers/sculptors/painters that you just made a generalization regarding?

No, I don't, a fair point there. However the couple I've had pleasure of speaking to in Bugman's seemed to genuinely love what they do and were more than happy to talk to me about it. So whilst I made generalistion, it was a focused one based on some evidence, rather than you broad sweeping one that no one in creative industries care about what they make or who buys it.


Businesses come and go. Always have and always will. Everyone who works for a company assumes the risk that the company's behavior or the state of the market (two things that every employee should be aware of) will lead to its destruction. Encouraging consideration of bad times ahead is the best way to lessen their impact.

And how exactly will encouraging hard working people, doing something they love, to consider that they may lose jobs because of the illegal actions of selfish people 'lessen the impact' when they do lose their jobs? Just because you are expecting something unpleasant and beyond your control, does not mean it is any easier to take., especially when you know that bad thing has been caused by other people and was avoidable. And I again point out that neither the company's behaviour nor market conditions have any inflcunce on piracy.

[eldargal]

I know a few people who sculpt who have had contact with GW sculptors and report how much they love doing what they do. I know from conversations heard/reported at Games Days that the sculptors present are highly enthusiastic. Incidentally I believe MajorWesJansen said Jes Goodwin talked about being quite shocked and dismayed that people were willing to wish 3000 people out of work just to settle some silly grudge with a toy soldier company.

[Rapture]

No, I don't, a fair point there. However the couple I've had pleasure of speaking to in Bugman's seemed to genuinely love what they do and were more than happy to talk to me about it. So whilst I made generalistion, it was a focused one based on some evidence, rather than you broad sweeping one that no one in creative industries care about what they make or who buys it.
They certainly care - their profits are based off of who buys it. Business is business and the goal is success. GW is not a nonprofit.


And how exactly will encouraging hard working people (debatable), doing something they love (debatable), to consider that they may lose jobs because of the illegal actions of selfish (debatable) people 'lessen the impact' when they do lose their jobs?
They will prepare for it economically. Job loss it a fact of life. they reason why it happens is irrelevant, the fact that people.


Incidentally I believe MajorWesJansen said Jes Goodwin talked about being quite shocked and dismayed that people were willing to wish 3000 people out of work just to settle some silly grudge with a toy soldier company.
The company that they work for pushes the envelope regarding price and keeps itself in a precarious position. Besides, no one should be surprised that some consumers want to see their business fail. This is another fact of doing business.

[Wildeybeast]

They certainly care - their profits are based off of who buys it. Business is business and the goal s success. GW is not a nonprofit.

I would imagine that most of GW staff are not paid on commission, thus they see no share of the profits. They care about the work they do for its own sake, not for how mcuh money the company makes off it (beyond the fact that the company does make money and thus is able to pay their wages).



They will prepare for it economically. Job loss it a fact of life. they reason why it happens is irrelevant, the fact that people.

You are being totally unrealisitc. There is no way most people can prepare for going from having an income to not. Most people simply don't have the disposable income to save up enough to be able to support themselves for any significant length of time when their income disappears (and for many people currently it is significant length of time). That is why most developed states offer welfare payments. And besides, most people only find out their job is under threat when it is too late to do anything about it. Being unrealsitic about the impact of piracy is one thing, but to suggest that everyone goes around constantly worrying that they might lose their job and making savings for such an event is ridiculous.

[Rapture]

I would imagine that most of GW staff are not paid on commission, thus they see no share of the profits. They care about the work they do for its own sake, not for how mcuh money the company makes off it (beyond the fact that the company does make money and thus is able to pay their wages).

You are being totally unrealisitc. There is no way most people can prepare for going from having an income to not. Most people simply don't have the disposable income to save up enough to be able to support themselves for any significant length of time when their income disappears (and for many people currently it is significant length of time). That is why most developed states offer welfare payments. And besides, most people only find out their job is under threat when it is too late to do anything about it. Being unrealsitic about the impact of piracy is one thing, but to suggest that everyone goes around constantly worrying that they might lose their job and making savings for such an event is ridiculous.
There is nothing unrealistic about it.

How many people have an adequate savings (3 months pay minimum)? Not many. How many of those people who do not have: Ever purchased a new car? Have a cell phone? Have a computer? Have cable/satelite TV? Have a TV at all? Smoke? Take a day off? Go on vacation(s)? Don't buy clothes at Walmart? Eat out? I won't even get into how so many fail to become properly educated. The list of luxuries that people prioritize before their savings is out of control. That said, I don't think that there is anything wrong with that. It is a personal choice. The thing to remember is that many people choose not to be prepared. They gamble and they lose.

[DrLove42]

So what you're saying is you should Pirate off GW, drive them out of buisness to punish the staff who don't have a savings account?

[Wildeybeast]

I agree that people prioritise frivilous luxuries ahead of savings, but you are asking people to prepare for an event that they cannont control or forsee (in most cases), which will never affect most people and which is down to the greed and selfish actions of an irresponsible minority. It is unrealistic to ask them to do so, nor should they have to when job losses are down to piracy. And three months savings in nowehere near enough for most unemployed people as they can expect to spend much longer out of work than that. What you are suggesting is we basically have an unlimited fund stored up in a bank, which could well go bankrupt and lose all your money any way.

[Rapture]

And three months savings in nowehere near enough for most unemployed people as they can expect to spend much longer out of work than that. What you are suggesting is we basically have an unlimited fund stored up in a bank, which could well go bankrupt and lose all your money any way.
Preparation for the contingency of unemployment is not only financial. Staying marketable (through education, training, networking, and diversity) is key. What I am suggesting is that people attempt to support themselves or quietly suffer the consequences.


So what you're saying is you should Pirate off GW, drive them out of buisness to punish the staff who don't have a savings account?
You forgot to mention how I support Hitler, Iran, and the right to abortion up until one year after the baby is born.

[gendoikari87]

Games Workhop directly employs over three thousand people and indirectly helps support god knows how many more through high sales in gaming/model stores. It also gives a great deal of pleasure and enjoyment to millions. The flow on impacts of all that going would be significant, and I for one am not going to be happy with thousands of families losing a breadwinner just to satisfy some petulent grudge at a company for charging more than I want to pay.
Take it up with their management then, tell them to start implementing a business model that grows the player base instead of squeezing every dime they can out of the diminishing one they have. Because buying pirated or not, they will fail if they head on down the road they are. Hell pirating might keep enough games going to see a few more sales than most of us simply quitting. Though I now understand your GW fanboyism, the others however....

[gendoikari87]

I understand perfectly well how economics worse. If we were talking about a loss in sales due to reduced demand then GW would have to lower their prices. What we are talking about is not a reduction in demand, but a loss of income due to people buying GW products illegally from another company. GW is still investing money in developing their prodcut, only to not get the money from the sales. As I have already mentioned, GW can reduce their prices as much as they like, they will still lose out to pirates who can undercut them. Reducing prices will not stop people supporting the pirates, it will simply eat further into their revenue. Thus they are left with no choice but to raise prices and hope their loyal customers will swallow the price increase. The other alternative is to cutback on their investments in product quality or reduce staff numbers. Whatever they do, honest people lose out.

I can see how some of the legitimate sales GW would have had would be lost, but my business isn't one of them as I have and will continue to refuse to buy GW products until they reduce costs, or put a freeze on price increases. Now, if they DO put that freeze on or reduce cost, Yeah I'll be back in, in a heartbeat and it will be from them. Oh and the part about them raising prices and HOPING the loyal customers eat the cost is pipedream, The playerbase is already shrinking, and most telling is the growth of other games.

[Wildeybeast]

Take it up with their management then, tell them to start implementing a business model that grows the player base instead of squeezing every dime they can out of the diminishing one they have. Because buying pirated or not, they will fail if they head on down the road they are.

In your opinion. One could argue that since the only evidence for the number of people playing the hobby is highly subjective personal experience, the profits GW is making indicate that the hooby is in very good health.



Hell pirating might keep enough games going to see a few more sales than most of us simply quitting.

Until GW goes bust because of piracy and then the pirates have nothing left to copy and the hobby dies.


I can see how some of the legitimate sales GW would have had would be lost, but my business isn't one of them as I have and will continue to refuse to buy GW products until they reduce costs, or put a freeze on price increases. Now, if they DO put that freeze on or reduce cost, Yeah I'll be back in, in a heartbeat and it will be from them. Oh and the part about them raising prices and HOPING the loyal customers eat the cost is pipedream, The playerbase is already shrinking, and most telling is the growth of other games.

If you are simply not buying from them, all well and good, but if you are buying from pirates (or advocating this, which you seem to be) then you are only hurting the hobby and the people who produce and play it. And as I've already mentioned, their is no satisfactory evidence for the growth or reduction of the GW player base

[eldargal]

Just because you're too poor/cheap to pay RRP doesn't mean GWs business model is flawed, nor does it change the fact that you are advocating breaking the law and giving money yo criminals. As to fanboyism, you are really scraping the barrel if that is the best yo ucan come up with. My appreciation of GWs products in no way diminished my arguments or make yours anything more than petulent garbage.

Take it up with their management then, tell them to start implementing a business model that grows the player base instead of squeezing every dime they can out of the diminishing one they have. Because buying pirated or not, they will fail if they head on down the road they are. Hell pirating might keep enough games going to see a few more sales than most of us simply quitting. Though I now understand your GW fanboyism, the others however....

[gendoikari87]

Profits are misleading at best as a way to determine player base (especially when you keep increasing prices), what is somewhat telling is the growth of other games. FOW and Warmahordes being two big indicators.



Just because you're too poor/cheap to pay RRP doesn't mean GWs business model is flawed, nor does it change the fact that you are advocating breaking the law and giving money yo criminals. As to fanboyism, you are really scraping the barrel if that is the best yo ucan come up with. My appreciation of GWs products in no way diminished my arguments or make yours anything more than petulent garbage.

Look, crack down on piracy all you want, fine. Lets even say we even get rid of it (which won't happen with china, but for the sake of argument lets say we are capable of doing this). Won't get people back into the hobby that have simply quit. You want to succeed, admit your own failures and correct them, THEN go after the pirates. But you know what, if you fix those flaws, respect your customers, and offer your product at a decent price, taking care of the pirates will be much easier as they will have much less support, because then you won't have people like me even considering using them, we will be firmly in GW's court.

[DrLove42]

You forgot to mention how I support Hitler, Iran, and the right to abortion up until one year after the baby is born.

Breaking News! Only ****'s who support terrorism and murder babies advocate piracy!

For every pirated FW model you buy, another infant is thrown into the fires of their **** war machines!

[Wildeybeast]

Profits are misleading at best as a way to determine player base (especially when you keep increasing prices), what is somewhat telling is the growth of other games. FOW and Warmahordes being two big indicators.

The growth of competitors is no less misleading since many people play multiple game systems from different companies.



Look, crack down on piracy all you want, fine. Lets even say we even get rid of it (which won't happen with china, but for the sake of argument lets say we are capable of doing this). Won't get people back into the hobby that have simply quit. You want to succeed, admit your own failures and correct them, THEN go after the pirates.

I agree GW has a number of business practices that need addressing, but piracy has no influnence on any of them, nor should these practices be used as a justification for them

[Rapture]

GW has a number of business practices that need addressing, but piracy has no influnence on any of them
I disagree. There will always be a community of pirates but those numbers rising past the usual suspects can be an indicator of discontent regarding the producer. I am sure that a company as successful as GW keeps a close eye on pirate markets.


Breaking News! Only ****'s who support terrorism and murder babies advocate piracy!
Breaking News! Only ****'s (or people with low reading comprehension) would mistake what I said for what you claimed I said!

Your 'jokes' would be much more at home on the latest Dudesmen page.

[gendoikari87]

The growth of competitors is no less misleading. Fair enough given the possibility of a growing industry sector. However, Competitor growth is still eating marketshare at the least.




I agree GW has a number of business practices that need addressing, but piracy has no influnence on any of them, nor should these practices be used as a justification for them. yes but what we should do, and what we do, are often completely different things, we don't live in a perfect world. And if GW wants my business they will cut prices, until then, I quit, or will get knock offs.
And that is how things are, not how they should be.

Edit: with the exception of the start set boxes like AOBR which Are fairly reasonable. And show that IF they wanted to GW could price at a reasonable price.

[Wildeybeast]

Fair enough given the possibility of a growing industry sector. However, Competitor growth is still eating marketshare at the least.

Again, in your opinion, we have no evidence for that and GW's increased profits could be taken as an indicator to the contrary.



yes but what we should do, and what we do, are often completely different things, we don't live in a perfect world. And if GW wants my business they will cut prices, until then, I quit, or will get knock offs.

If you are willing to support people stealing from them, GW employees probably wouldn't want your business.

[DrLove42]

Breaking News! Only ****'s (or people with low reading comprehension) would mistake what I said for what you claimed I said!

Your 'jokes' would be much more at home on the latest Dudesmen page.

Shock! New resarch from leading scientific papers confirms people with no sense of humour or understanding of sarcasm resort to shameless name calling very quickly!

FYI - I have a Master degree in Aeronautical engineering and am doing in PhD in Nano Bio Tribology.My reading comprehension is fine

[gendoikari87]

Again, in your opinion, we have no evidence for that and GW's increased profits could be taken as an indicator to the contrary. Now we're just going in circles with no real data for either side.




If you are willing to support people stealing from them, GW employees probably wouldn't want your business.I believe they'll take any business, all money is green, or well, so to speak.

Look bottom line is simple, you lower prices, you get more customers, that's supply and demand 101, and you keep a business like GW alive with a growing playerbase. GW has proven with the starter set they release each edition they are capable of offering products at a reasonable price, so why not extend that and make everyone more happy, players get to spend less (okay that's bull****, they have bigger armies), have more opponents at each store, GW makes more money. Win-Win-Win. the only logical explaination for GW's model is they think the hobby is going to die, or severely shrink and there's nothing they can do about it, because god knows they aren't trying.

[gendoikari87]

Oh and I forgot stores get more revenue from more people at tournaments, but that doesn't really affect GW... The only people that would be saddened by GW adopting this model are *gasp* Pirates, who will find people leaving them for the authentic stuff, because people will pay reasonable prices for the real stuff over insanely cheap prices on knock offs.

[Wildeybeast]

Now we're just going in circles with no real data for either side.

That was exactly the point is was making, that there is no reliable data for the strength of the player base.


I believe they'll take any business, all money is green, or well, so to speak.

Which is why I said employees - the people who actually make the stuff you are stealing. As a business, yes money is money, but go ask a designer/artist etc what they think of you nicking their stuff.



Look bottom line is simple, you lower prices, you get more customers, that's supply and demand 101, and you keep a business like GW alive with a growing playerbase.

In theory yes, though you need more than just cheap prices to attract customers. A good product is always helpful.


GW has proven with the starter set they release each edition they are capable of offering products at a reasonable price, so why not extend that and make everyone more happy, players get to spend less, have more opponents at each store, GW makes more money.

And again I point out that I am not arguing that GW could and perhaps should, address their prices. What I am arguing about is you using prices as a justification for piracy. Dress it up any way you like to make yourself feel better, bottome line is you are stealing from people and supporting a practice that damages the hobby.

[TheBitzBarn]

I'm by no means defending the chinese company, but since GW sodomizes us in Australia, to hell with them - I don't buy things from China from companies that are nicer to us, like PP or FoW.

Your Government is the cause of the Sodomy with high import taxes, State mandated pay rates all that plus transportation cost is majority of the reason. GW is not perfect but they have to work with Governments and factors they cannot control

[Chuck777]

Actually, the illegal download market did destory something, namely physical record sales and the high street stores that rely on them. Yes, the music industry itself survived and did respond by going to digital sales, but the stores have suffered a lot and many people have lost their jobs. Somewhere along the line, someone honest is always hurt by piracy. To to justify it under the guise of high prices or companies not meeting customer needs is simply a way to salve your guilt that you are doing something wrong by supporting criminals who don't give a stuff about the original product or supporting the industry, whether it be minatures, handbags or music.

Pirates did not make computers or iPods, other companies did. The Music Industry failed to capitalize on the changing times and so was punished by the consumer via piracy. MP3 players need digital versions of your songs, the existence of the CD is an unnecessary medium by which to get the songs onto your player. Downloading directly saves the consumer both time and money. The new digital age in which we live is ruthless in that it requires vastly fewer employees over a much smaller geographical area to operate. Record stores were too expensive and going the way of the dodo once walmart really started amping up its electronics department. You could go to Tower Records and pay 17 dollars for a CD, or you could go to WalMart and pay 11. Which is the average consumer going to realistically support? WalMart of course. The switch to Digital only hastened the decline of vestigial Record Store.

Wargaming is going to face the exact same problems in the future with 3-D printing. If everyone has access to a 3-D printer and can, with relative ease, print their own armies, then what hope does GW have of surviving? They could focus on rules by updating the rules every year, or switching to a rules expansion system like Privateer Press (every army gets a small update in a book that covers a specific theme or campaign). However, even then, the company will not be as profitable as it is today. GW could make money on selling the basic template for each arm, leg, body, model, etc. However, how much will the consumer pay for that? Thus what is GW left with?

The Digital Age is ruthless and unless you have contingency plans, then you will be hurt, if not outright killed.

[HsojVvad]

Wait a second. The music industry is loosing money? You do know most of the artists unless you are a big name hardly get any money from these music sales. Yes they might get a small % but basically the artist makes pennies compared to the producers or corporations are making the millions.

To be signed to a label you are basically selling your soul since you do not own your work. But that is here nor there.

How come Chatper House is getting away from this? Are they not taking money away GW? So how come it's ok for them to do it and not this Chinesee company I never even herd of before.

How come people are acting all high and might all of a sudden? Haven't we all downloaded something? So that would mean we are all hiporcits here. We all have "stold" in some manner and to call someone out on it, seems so childish here. I expected this on Warseer not here on BoLS.

[Chuck777]

Wait a second. The music industry is loosing money? You do know most of the artists unless you are a big name hardly get any money from these music sales. Yes they might get a small % but basically the artist makes pennies compared to the producers or corporations are making the millions.

The recording industry subsidizes all the failures and botched one hit wonders by milking the successful artists, who comprise a very tiny percentage of the total number of artists.


To be signed to a label you are basically selling your soul since you do not own your work. But that is here nor there.

That's the conundrum. Do you want to be a star, with your name in lights and throngs of fans or do you want to own your own work and play at local birthday parties? Having standards and values often means you loose out on what the Devil has to offer.


How come Chatper House is getting away from this? Are they not taking money away GW? So how come it's ok for them to do it and not this Chinesee company I never even herd of before.

Chapterhouse sells additional pieces to help flesh out your army. its one thing to create a new shoulder pad or weapon, quite another to create an Ork Boy or a Tyranid Termagant.

[gendoikari87]

That was exactly the point is was making, that there is no reliable data for the strength of the player base.



Which is why I said employees - the people who actually make the stuff you are stealing. As a business, yes money is money, but go ask a designer/artist etc what they think of you nicking their stuff.




In theory yes, though you need more than just cheap prices to attract customers. A good product is always helpful.



And again I point out that I am not arguing that GW could and perhaps should, address their prices. What I am arguing about is you using prices as a justification for piracy. Dress it up any way you like to make yourself feel better, bottome line is you are stealing from people and supporting a practice that damages the hobby.

I'm not using as a justification, I don't need a justification. just pointing out what WILL happen, not justifying it and saying it should.

[daboarder]

You know its funny, people are often quick to remind people that GW is a company and exists solely to make money, but then when someone discusses telling them to get effed and looks elsewhere then it becomes "disloyalty" form a customer.

Heres some news, free market enterprise works in all sorts of ways, if you do not provide your goods at a reasonable rate then people will look anywhere else.

lets get something clear, IT IS NOT ILLEGAL TO BUY FROM THE CHINESE. and given the attitude of modern business ie: make money irregardless, it is not immoral either.

[Defenestratus]

But the fact remains you are giving money to criminals, and while it is ridiculous what GW charges in Australia these sorts of groups don't just rip off 'bad' companies. I had a friend whose small business went broke because a company in China started copying her products. They were inferior quality, but cheaper, so people bought them. Result, one less business paying tax and eight people out of work. Support one and you might as well support them all, it is still morally bankrupt.

I don't agree with EG on pretty much anything - but she's spot on in this regard.

If you mention that you've bought your toys from that chinese knock-off company, especially in an LGS, I'll pack my minis up and play someone else.

[the jeske]

But the fact remains you are giving money to criminals, and while it is ridiculous what GW charges in Australia these sorts of groups don't just rip off 'bad' companies. I had a friend whose small business went broke because a company in China started copying her products. They were inferior quality, but cheaper, so people bought them. Result, one less business paying tax and eight people out of work. Support one and you might as well support them all, it is still morally bankrupt.
wait . so she knew that they were making copies . And she didnt ask her protectors to deal with it , nor pay them to stop or share the money ? This means that she either never did buissness in the east , or those were not criminals but a fully legal firm . If someone isnt strong enough to trade/make stuff without it being stolen then he should be trading or making stuff , or at least get good protectors it doesnt cost that much when your succesful.
Also what does moraly bankrupt mean ? morals arepre determinated , they cant be sold or traded , so you cant go bankrupt by having or not having them.



as doing copies goes. The hobby as a whole would not exist in eastern europe at all , if it wasnt for people who were molding and selling models . I remember back in the 90s the first thing people would do with fresh boxs from UK , is to open them go to the back of the shop and make yourself and army of those . Whole markets exist because gamer communities started up like that .

[gendoikari87]

I don't agree with EG on pretty much anything - but she's spot on in this regard.

If you mention that you've bought your toys from that chinese knock-off company, especially in an LGS, I'll pack my minis up and play someone else.

How would you even tell if they don't tell you though?


Heres some news, free market enterprise works in all sorts of ways, if you do not provide your goods at a reasonable rate then people will look anywhere else.

lets get something clear, IT IS NOT ILLEGAL TO BUY FROM THE CHINESE. and given the attitude of modern business ie: make money irregardless, it is not immoral either.

This, and china protects it's own, and china ain't goin no where. So argue all you guys like about what's moral and what's not, the reality is that the Chinese knock offs exist, and you have to compete with them.

[Kataklysm]

How would you even tell if they don't tell you though?



This, and china protects it's own, and china ain't goin no where. So argue all you guys like about what's moral and what's not, the reality is that the Chinese knock offs exist, and you have to compete with them.

Game. Set. Match. -claps-

[TheBitzBarn]

They exist but they are still illegal, They are propped up by a deficit government which will fall in the next 2 decades if not sooner, and buy form them is immoral.

That is Game set match when you lose you job to a Chinese knock off or when a chinese prisoner starts doing your job (yes Chinese use Prison labor)

[daboarder]

They exist but they are still illegal, They are propped up by a deficit government which will fall in the next 2 decades if not sooner, and buy form them is immoral.

That is Game set match when you lose you job to a Chinese knock off or when a chinese prisoner starts doing your job (yes Chinese use Prison labor)

Illegal where? in China? nope they are legally allowed to do that if they acknowledge that the parts are a copy?

immoral? Whose morality? GW's? Modern Business ethics? ethics in business are not a one way street despite what many companies would like you to think.

China falling in 20 years FROM AN AMERICAN HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA hows that health care going.

Hows that 15 trillion going? Deficit you self righteous hypocritical brainwashed hacks wouldn't understand the meaning of the word.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html

as for prison labour....DUH so does the US mate.

[Chuck777]

Since when was it immoral to buy cheap knock off products? Morality has nothing to do with it what so ever.

If you don't like that people are buying cheap knock offs, then remind them that if GW looses enough business then they will go bankrupt. Remind them that if GW goes bankrupt, then those cheap knockoffs they were buying will go away. Remind them that if GW goes bankrupt, then their hobby will die. Remind them that if the game dies, then they will be sitting on a pile of near worthless plastic because, no matter how rare and valuable GW models may become, no collector will want to buy cheap knock offs.

Do not evangelize them and bring right and wrong into this discussion because there is NO right and wrong, there are simply decisions and their consequences.

[the jeske]

as for prison labour....DUH so does the US mate.
yeah but they kind of a dont put you in to prison[or at least it aint called a prison] , if the country need people to make more of X. licens plates ? cool . building the new villa for politician X [because the jail sells you] ok , not nice [they dont feed well and no water hurts] , but ok . Ending up in jail because some of the firms cant complet their projects in the field of genetics ? no so much . specialy when you miss your Dr because of it .

That and the pre new year hunt for "corrupt" middle high goverment officials is two only things I dislike about china economy . [nothing messes up chain of transport of goods X then an important middle man getting exectuted . sucks hard ].

[daboarder]

That and the pre new year hunt for "corrupt" middle high goverment officials is two only things I dislike about china economy . [nothing messes up chain of transport of goods X then an important middle man getting exectuted . sucks hard ].

First world problems right!

but seriously china is most definitely NOT a very nice government but to claim it is a weak government crippled by deficit is just uneducated and ignorant.

[AnEnemy]

Illegal where? in China? nope they are legally allowed to do that if they acknowledge that the parts are a copy?

immoral? Whose morality? GW's? Modern Business ethics? ethics in business are not a one way street despite what many companies would like you to think.

China falling in 20 years FROM AN AMERICAN HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA hows that health care going.

Hows that 15 trillion going? Deficit you self righteous hypocritical brainwashed hacks wouldn't understand the meaning of the word.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html

as for prison labour....DUH so does the US mate.

You're Australian yes? Well, I'd hope China crashes if I were you. Before your government manages to sell off all of your country's natural resources leaving your little island a desiccated husk. Or annexation bait.

All jingoistic trolling aside, China's system is doomed to fail. It operates on a devalued currency and a devalued work force. Now, that fall could come a century or two from now, but yeah...it operates on the assumption that it's populace enjoys being exploited.

[daboarder]

All jingoistic trolling aside, China's system is doomed to fail. It operates on a devalued currency and a devalued work force. Now, that fall could come a century or two from now, but yeah...it operates on the assumption that it's populace enjoys being exploited.

And America's operates on the assumption that the consumer enjoy's being exploited.

As to the rest of your post, well there is a little old piece of legislation called the MRRT that basically means that legally they don't own those resources and they damn well pay for the privilege of taking them overseas.

On another note,

Annexation? Really?

What about Australia's geography, military history, treaties and populous makes you think that is even remotely possible, invading Australia would lead to a bigger cluster **** than vietnam, korea and the falklands together.

And a dessicated Husk?.....HAVE YOU LOOKED AT A MAP! going to happen to you before it happens to us.

Seriously.....

[AnEnemy]

And America's operates on the assumption that the consumer enjoy's being exploited.

As to the rest of your post, well there is a little old piece of legislation called the MRRT that basically means that legally they don't own those resources and they damn well pay for the privilege of taking them overseas.

30% tax on profits over 75 million? Chump change when you're talking about billions. I'm sorry, but weren't you JUST talking about the amoral nature of business? Put up a wall and they'll find a way around it in order to reach that pot of gold. It'll just lead to an increase in mining/etc etc etc to compensate. Which could, in turn, lead to decreasing domestic availability. Damaging your long term energy/manufacturing infrastructure and forcing your already criminal consumer goods pricing structure through the roof. It's a nice idea though. At least your government is able to see a potential problem and attempt a solution. Maybe I'm wrong and it'll all work out. I am, by no means, an expert on the speculation of long term effects on a country's well being due to comprehensive economic engineering via taxation. I mean, at least your pensioners will be happy about the influx of monies.


On another note,

Annexation? Really?

What about Australia's geography, military history, treaties and populous makes you think that is even remotely possible, invading Australia would lead to a bigger cluster **** than vietnam, korea and the falklands together.

Your military has got a lot of heart and not much else. Judging the future by how you fought in the past is...well...unwise. That's cool though. There are a lot of people infatuated with weirdly idealistic notions of their military in my country as well. I'm sure a can-do spirit will work out great against an army over a million strong with cutting edge tech(both conventional and bio chemical) at their disposal if China ever decides to go that route. I don't think it'll happen any time soon though. They seem to prefer playing the long game, but that won't last considering how much they've ****ed their environment. An exponentially increasing population in the billions is not going to stay within their own borders for long. I'm not saying it'll be in our lifetimes mind you, but it is inevitable. China will own Asia. They have too. That kind of population operating at a 1st world tech/industrial/consumer level is unsustainable in an area of land that small. Australia isn't too far and it's already funneling resources to them. Not a huge leap. Still, hypothetical. I'm just amused by the alacrity and passion with which you were ready to defend your future overlords.


And a dessicated Husk?.....HAVE YOU LOOKED AT A MAP! going to happen to you before it happens to us.
Seriously.....

I'm sorry, but do you think I'm referring to water? I'm not using the word literally. I thought the subject of the main body of my post was pretty clear...

[daboarder]

30% tax on profits over 75 million?

Your military has got a lot of heart and not much else. Judging the future by how you fought in the past is...well...unwise.

I'm sorry, but do you think I'm referring to water? I'm not using the word literally. I thought the subject of the main body of my post was pretty clear...

its 30% of those billions, that's not chump change mate in fact that's 300 million for every 1 billion of profit after wages and other bills are paid.........nice maths dude.

Your second quote proves you have no idea of military history or current military thinking, let alone and understanding of modern warfare. Australia has consistently punched above its weight since 1915. man for man we have one of the best militaries in the world. If you dont believe me you can go ask the Afghanies, the Iraqi's the Indonesian's, the Vietnamese, the Korean's the Japanese and the Germans.

As for resources....why is water involved we are for all intents and purposes the same size as you, hell we have a cattle station bigger than Texas......you've been harvesting your resources longer than we have and we had more to begin with based on geology anyway.

Please continue to try and assert your supposed superiority....its hilarious

[eldargal]

Let's not turn this into an Australia vs America contest.

We all know you're both inferior to Britain.:p

Chuck, giving money to criminals who destroy legitimate businesses is immoral. Saying that there are only decisions and consequences is a cheap copout for people who don't want to admit that the consequences of their actions will have a negative impact on other people who have done nothing to harm them in return. The logic just doesn't hold, try applying it to other crimes. Murder isn't immoral because someone dying is just a consequence of someone deciding ot put a bullet through their head.

As to the point about 3D printers, that is delusional. You might as well argue that coffee machines will kill cafes.

[Kataklysm]

Why cant we all just admit that some of us do not want to support these pirating practices. While others will continue to support them. Stop trying to defend why you think it is moral to buy from this company, if it is or not is not anyones concern but yours.

Would I personally buy products from this company?

Answer: Maybe :confused: I personally like to support forgeworld. I dont like the prices, but I do however want to see them continue as a company. I know that the prices are high but it is a simple trade off to ensure that said company continues to employ designers that can and do a fantastic job.

I do not see the point in people swinging their E-peen around in a forum about who is moral or immoral. I especially do not see the point in these same people talking about who china will own first. I simply doesnt matter because China will own the world sooner or later anyhow. :D

[daboarder]

Eldargirl,

My point is that basically I see no real reason for consumers to be held to moral and ethical standards when society lets many business's get away with immoral and unethical behavior merely "because they are a company". They are, whether they like it or not a part of our society and our current society aspires to equality for all.

Personally I feel no more loyalty for GW than Tom Kirby likely feels for me and as such my actions will reflect that within the bounds of law.

Finally though perhaps irrelevantly, this Chinese company is not likely to put anyne out of business. Their range is limited and it is only GW products that have the VAST discrepancy between the price of the counterfeit and original that would tempt me to trust the company with an order.

[eldargal]

Companies should be held morally and ethically accountable, just because they sometimes get away with bad things doesn't justify other people do bad things. GW hasn't done anything particularly immoral or unethical either. Charging 100% more for the same product in Australia isn't immoral, it is just stupid. It is also standard down there as I'm sure you are aware, iaren't you having a guvmint investigation into retail pricing at the moment?

I have no loyalty to GW. I like their product, I buy their product so long as I think it is worth it. That is far as it goes, but it doesn't mean I'm going to give money to criminals for what is essentialyl stolen property.

[daboarder]

But according to Chinese law they are not criminals, they correctly labeled the product as non-original and in china that makes it a perfectly legitimate company. They Haven't according to the law stolen anything. so why is it immoral to give them money?

Lets be clear on this, they are manufacturing the product using their own materials in accordance with the law they haven't robbed a GW truck and then sold the contents....wheres the moral fault in that?

[Captainparty]

But according to Chinese law they are not criminals, they correctly labeled the product as non-original and in china that makes it a perfectly legitimate company. They Haven't according to the law stolen anything. so why is it immoral to give them money?

Lets be clear on this, they are manufacturing the product using their own materials in accordance with the law they haven't robbed a GW truck and then sold the contents....wheres the moral fault in that?

The moral fault is that they are taking someones original creation and then selling it to other people for profit.

If you created something and wanted to sell it, morally and legally, it would be wrong to take that thing from you, copy it and sell it to other people, undercutting you.

If you can't see how that is wrong, then you're obviously broken,

[daboarder]

And we come right back to the same arguments.

GW doesn't treat its customers with morality, loyalty and respect so why should we treat them any differently?

try this: GW is charging inflated prices to a country based solely on historical standard, If you can't see how that is wrong then you're obviously Broken.

[the jeske]

yep very true . people do not understand that in the eastern world making copies is not viewed as stealing . double that when goverment sponsored/protected firms do it. So as daboa said there are no criminals here unless the firm from china opens a factory in EU or US .




I know that the prices are high but it is a simple trade off to ensure that said company continues to employ designers that can and do a fantastic job.
I played nids and chaos main. ask me about fantastic job in 6 years.



China's system is doomed to fail. It operates on a devalued currency and a devalued work force. Now, that fall could come a century or two from now, but yeah...it operates on the assumption that it's populace enjoys being exploited.
you do know that they had more or less the same ruling system with the same goverment type since like for ever and they are the only one of the big civilsations that never stoped to exist .



If you created something and wanted to sell it, morally and legally, it would be wrong to take that thing from you, copy it and sell it to other people, undercutting you.
that is a logical falacy . because if the world that way US would never build cars because it was not them who inveted the first engines [and as they didnt have the idea they cant use it]. sony, ford , simens all huge companies build around one thing that some time well in the past and dude went somewhere and stole stuff. ideas , resources etc. There is nothing imoral in selling stuff people want to buy , it maybe illegal , but as we pointed our before coping stuff in china and many other eastern countries is not viewed as illegal , so there is no problem with that.

ah and as undercuting goes and imoral actions . Anyone remembers what GW did in europe in the 90s with free retail ?

[Rapture]

If you can't see how that is wrong, then you're obviously broken,

The number of blatantly wrong things that we do every day is out of control. Slaughtering sentient things to eat them, burning coal for electricity, forcing others to suffer as we take more than we need - all very wrong. However, society has deemed them acceptable so we don't feel (too) bad about doing them. Chinese society has clearly deemed this activity legitimate. Moral bankruptcy is a matter of perspective.

[Captainparty]

And we come right back to the same arguments.

GW doesn't treat its customers with morality, loyalty and respect so why should we treat them any differently?

No, GW is more expensive than you'd like.

They respect me just fine, I go into one of their shops, the staff greet me by name, they chat and joke with me. On a wednesday night, I'm there till 10pm painting and being coached by an awesome painter that they arranged to show up, on a thursday, if I wanted, I could play games till the same time. They show me this respect and loyalty and I buy things from them. If you don't buy things from them because you can't afford it, then, hey, you're not a customer and they don't owe you anything.

Now granted, my friends and I are pretty cool, good looking well adjusted guys who happen to also like this game and not the typical fat smelly rules obsessed grognard, so maybe thats it?

Nothing they do is at all immorral, I can't even imagine how you'd argue that they're an immoral company.

[DrLove42]

The number of blatantly wrong things that we do every day is out of control. Slaughtering sentient things to eat them, burning coal for electricity, forcing others to suffer as we take more than we need - all very wrong. However, society has deemed them acceptable so we don't feel (too) bad about doing them. Chinese society has clearly deemed this activity legitimate. Moral bankruptcy is a matter of perspective.

There is a difference in necessity and other thinhgs there

We NEED to eat things. No one elses life is damaged through this action (unless you start eating other people)
We NEED to produce electricity. It doesn't hurt any one (not directly at least)

Do they need to rip off another company? Its not a necessary action, and it does have an effect on another party.

You're right that China does turn a blind eye to this, and in a lot of cases endorse and protect this. But that isn't about right or wrong, thats the way they live, trying to be detrimental to the west

And i'd love to know how you consider GW to be immoral. Do they stamp on kittens? Do they melt their plastic for their castings using babies to fire the furnaces?

[Captainparty]

The number of blatantly wrong things that we do every day is out of control. Slaughtering sentient things to eat them, burning coal for electricity, forcing others to suffer as we take more than we need - all very wrong. However, society has deemed them acceptable so we don't feel (too) bad about doing them. Chinese society has clearly deemed this activity legitimate. Moral bankruptcy is a matter of perspective.

What you have said has nothing to do with what I've said. You're an idiot and I wasn't engaging with you because I see no need to, i'll ignore you because you add nothing.

[the jeske]

They show me this respect
did you possibly ever played nids or chaos ? did you play SoB . if what GW did with those armies is not showing the finger to their fan base , then I dont know what is .



We NEED to eat things. No one elses life is damaged through this action (unless you start eating other people)
Oh rly ? how about US or EU subing their farmers and being more responsible for what is going on in african [food wise] then any other country . Do you know how food producing concerns work outside of EU/US to make their US/EU buyer happy and what it does in other markets ?


We NEED to produce electricity. It doesn't hurt any one (not directly at least)
let me check . buildind dams , exploitation of african mines . WWI and WWII being wars to gain more resources . Our Russian firms physicly eliminate people who oppose Russias entry in to the EU market . Russia and China allowing Iran and Syria to do what they do , because they sell stuff to those countries . etc etc.



Do they need to rip off another company? Its not a necessary action, and it does have an effect on another party.
am sorry but how do you make a copy of a sm , to be bought by people playing sm , that is not an sm , but a totaly different desing when the buyers clearly want cheaper sm . Because am missing something here . Also there is no riping off here , If GW wanted to do a trade war with China they could do it . If they cant or wont , then its their problem , not the producers that supply stuff customers want.

[gendoikari87]

Let's not turn this into an Australia vs America contest.

We all know you're both inferior to Britain.:p


And all three are inferior to Equestria! For Celestia!!!!!!

[Captainparty]

did you possibly ever played nids or chaos ? did you play SoB . if what GW did with those armies is not showing the finger to their fan base , then I dont know what is .

SoB aren't a big seller, they never were, they're ecconomically unviable and yet they STILL dedicate time and effort in them, not as much as you would like, sure, but they did. People complain about Sisters, but who many sisters players do you actually know? Compared to everything else? And the few you did know bought the models years ago and haven't bought anything new since. That is a buisness decision, they're not going to throw money away.

[DrLove42]

did you possibly ever played nids or chaos ? did you play SoB . if what GW did with those armies is not showing the finger to their fan base , then I dont know what is .

They get a new set of rules, updated and working (i got schooled by one just last week) for £4 in a copy of white dwarf. For an army that isn't profitable, they could have just dropped, but instead they got a new life to tide them over. Eldar, Tau, Templars would be so lucky....

And how do you feel Nids are not fair? Just cos the internet deems them "unworthy" does that automatically make them so?

ALSO - I feel it necessary to kick all Bronies out :P. Can we agree on that?

[daboarder]

No, GW is more expensive than you'd like.

They respect me just fine, I go into one of their shops, the staff greet me by name, they chat and joke with me. On a wednesday night, I'm there till 10pm painting and being coached by an awesome painter that they arranged to show up, on a thursday, if I wanted, I could play games till the same time. They show me this respect and loyalty and I buy things from them. If you don't buy things from them because you can't afford it, then, hey, you're not a customer and they don't owe you anything.

Now granted, my friends and I are pretty cool, good looking well adjusted guys who happen to also like this game and not the typical fat smelly rules obsessed grognard, so maybe thats it?

Nothing they do is at all immorral, I can't even imagine how you'd argue that they're an immoral company.

ohh personal attacks, I like it, got style kid But I couldn't dare less what you say.

I will however point out that your confusing GW corporate, you know those guys who actually make money being un-ethical, and GW customer relations.

Nothing they do is Immoral, really? That statement right there proves that you mate have never been exposed to a corporate environment. and as for me, I'd say discriminating against people based on geographical location is pretty Immoral. Would it be ok if GW charged double to people based on their colour or religion? How is geography any different?


The number of blatantly wrong things that we do every day is out of control. Slaughtering sentient things to eat them, burning coal for electricity, forcing others to suffer as we take more than we need - all very wrong. However, society has deemed them acceptable so we don't feel (too) bad about doing them. Chinese society has clearly deemed this activity legitimate. Moral bankruptcy is a matter of perspective.

sorry just a side track, how is eating meat, a core part of our diet and survival, Immoral? Of course if your talking about cannibalism I completely retract that statement.

[daboarder]

Please remove

[fuzzbuket]

And all three are inferior to Equestria! For Celestia!!!!!!

BURN IT, BURN IT WITH FIRE, WE SHALL HAVE NO BRONIES HERE

*runs away like so*
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/541799243465497242/977E6C52FF56B9BA58403341681C13A8D3C4920C/


-fuzz

p.s. i get bored with skyrim so heres my screenshot library, filled with teh lulz
http://steamcommunity.com/id/fuzzbuket/screenshots/

[daboarder]

Is that a my little pony space marine in skyrimm?

Thats actually pretty cool

[gendoikari87]

Oh god, is that a pinkiepie blood angel in Skyrim? That.... there are no words to describe the awesome.

[Captainparty]

ALSO - I feel it necessary to kick all Bronies out :P. Can we agree on that?

Surely everyone can agree with that.

[the jeske]

They get a new set of rules, updated and working (i got schooled by one just last week) for £4 in a copy of white dwarf. For an army that isn't profitable, they could have just dropped, but instead they got a new life to tide them over. Eldar, Tau, Templars would be so lucky....
but you do understand that the old sob dex was more viable then the WD one and both Tau and eldar are doing better then SoB WD dex . same with BT gunlines


And how do you feel Nids are not fair? Just cos the internet deems them "unworthy" does that automatically make them so?
no but the fact that the models sell bad . they have a low number of people playing them at all events [a top tournament player would think this way . Nids viable. people meta SW and GK and IG . wont be ready to face nids . Ill pick nids because of their different game play and suprise effect against opponents who may not test their armies against nids . thing is nothing like that happens] . + the fact that it took them what a year and a half to re FAQ shadow to work on psykers in transports is just one of those small things that make me sure that they do not care about their buyers and that codex viability is just random .


ALSO - I feel it necessary to kick all Bronies out :P. Can we agree on that?
I like how you didnt mention chaos , because you know very well that what they did to the chaos players was more then showing disrespect. It was like making all BA/DA/BT/SW play ultramarines with just one build possible.

[Captainparty]

ohh personal attacks, I like it, got style kid But I couldn't dare less what you say.

I will however point out that your confusing GW corporate, you know those guys who actually make money being un-ethical, and GW customer relations.

Nothing they do is Immoral, really? That statement right there proves that you mate have never been exposed to a corporate environment. and as for me, I'd say discriminating against people based on geographical location is pretty Immoral. Would it be ok if GW charged double to people based on their colour or religion? How is geography any different?



sorry just a side track, how is eating meat, a core part of our diet and survival, Immoral? Of course if your talking about cannibalism I completely retract that statement.

wasn't a person attack, it was a statement, you don't respect GW, why should they respect you?

They charge double to austrailians because everything costs double in australia, because the living wage is double. Its not the issue people try and make it. The hobby is expensive, people will try and justify theie complaints about not being able to afford a thing they want, Australians, who get paid twice as much, choose to complain about having to pay twice as much because they can't buy all the space barbies that they want.

[Captainparty]

but you do understand that the old sob dex was more viable then the WD one and both Tau and eldar are doing better then SoB WD dex . same with BT gunlines


no but the fact that the models sell bad . they have a low number of people playing them at all events [a top tournament player would think this way . Nids viable. people meta SW and GK and IG . wont be ready to face nids . Ill pick nids because of their different game play and suprise effect against opponents who may not test their armies against nids . thing is nothing like that happens] . + the fact that it took them what a year and a half to re FAQ shadow to work on psykers in transports is just one of those small things that make me sure that they do not care about their buyers and that codex viability is just random .


I like how you didnt mention chaos , because you know very well that what they did to the chaos players was more then showing disrespect. It was like making all BA/DA/BT/SW play ultramarines with just one build possible.

Tyranids don't sell badly, they do well, they don't often appear at the top tables of tournaments, but that is a tiny, tiny slice of players. The vast majority of people play or buy models for the army they think looks coolest, or they like the fluff of, not the one that gives them a competitive

[gendoikari87]

wasn't a person attack, it was a statement, you don't respect GW, why should they respect you?

They charge double to austrailians because everything costs double in australia, because the living wage is double. Its not the issue people try and make it. The hobby is expensive, people will try and justify theie complaints about not being able to afford a thing they want, Australians, who get paid twice as much, choose to complain about having to pay twice as much because they can't buy all the space barbies that they want.

........ Flaw in your thinking, if they get paid twice as much and everything costs twice as much, they aren't paid twice as much their currency simply has a different exchange rate.


also, STOP WITH THE THINKING THAT GW RESPECTS ANY OF YOU OR DOES ANYTHING MORAL, IT IS A CORPORATION IT HAS NO SENSE OF RIGHT OR WRONG OR RESPECT, IT IS NOT A LIVING BEING!

[daboarder]

wasn't a person attack, it was a statement, you don't respect GW, why should they respect you?

They charge double to austrailians because everything costs double in australia, because the living wage is double.

You know that's BULL right? they and most other business charge double or more in Australia because when they started seeing us as a worthwhile market 15-20 years ago that's what the exchange rate accounted for. since then the value of the Australian dollar has increase while wages have remained reasonably constant. mean while the cost of living is actually increasing and companies are still operating on exchange rates more than a decade out of date. They largely get away with this due to a quirck in our importation laws.

Of course the other side is that Australians now have access to international markets on a personal level and as such companies are having to respect the Australian market on an international stage. GW however decide that a Trade embargo against the southern hemisphere was the "ethical", "moral" and appropriate action to take. as such their sales in Australia are down approximately 20% between 2010 and 2011 and I cannot wait to see them drop even further in the upcoming financial report.

EDIT: basically ^ what he said.

I feel I should add a final word of advice, do not look at GW's half yearly profit and reach the conclusion that the company is currently financially healthy, it will be interesting to see the reactions of investors when they read the yearly financial report and get a good look at the actual sales data.

[DrLove42]

And yet you're buying from this company? Do they respect you? Are they moral? Even if GW isn't "moral" aren't they still better than this company?

This is a side note - They're honouring the Titanic (built in Belfast, Ireland) by building Titanic II...in a state owned chinese company...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17890754

[gendoikari87]

And yet you're buying from this company? Do they respect you? Are they moral? Even if GW isn't "moral" aren't they still better than this company?

This is a side note - They're honouring the Titanic (built in Belfast, Ireland) by building Titanic II...in a state owned chinese company...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17890754

Your not listening, none of them are moral, even if they appear to be it's only because doing so is profitable. It's like saying the rock that hit your house is less moral than the one up on the hill.

[DrLove42]

But the rock up the hill doesn't decide to get up by itself and jump through your window. Someone has to throw it

And the person who throws it through your window is less moral than the one who leaves it where it is.

A company may not be a living entity, but its run by people. And its THEIR moral choices that affect you

[Captainparty]

This conversation has lost its bearings.

It doesn't matter what GWs actions are, or how they are as a company. They made these things, and they sell them,thats wrong. There are no two ways about that.

If you disagree with this basic fact, that you should own the rights to a physical thing you design and create, and be free to do with that as you wish, then you're an idiot.

Many of you choose to daemonise GW because you can't afford their products in the quanitity you'd like. This isn't thier fault, its yours and is entirely in your control. You can either choose not to want thier products or aquire more wealth, you are free to do that.

[fuzzyguy]

On the subject of intellectual property rights and moral high ground, I'd recommend folks remember to think beyond their own respective cultures. It seems the vast majority of the people posting are from some form of western cultural position. Collectivism is quite prevalent in eastern and middle eastern cultures. Confucianism actually advocates that the monopolization of an idea is immoral and abhorrent, for example. Calling the belief systems of another people backwards or worse is a rather nasty slippery slope with plenty of history to show where the end of that very tragic and unfortunate path leads. Demonizing those who disagree with you or hold different belief systems than you will not win them or others over to your train of thought, quite the opposite actually.

Just some food for thought. :)

[Wildeybeast]

Wow, go to work for a day and the thread just runs away with itself. Far too many silly points to deal with so, I'll just settle for dittoing everything Eldargal said. :D


On the subject of intellectual property rights and moral high ground, I'd recommend folks remember to think beyond their own respective cultures. It seems the vast majority of the people posting are from some form of western cultural position. Collectivism is quite prevalent in eastern and middle eastern cultures. Confucianism actually advocates that the monopolization of an idea is immoral and abhorrent, for example. Calling the belief systems of another people backwards or worse is a rather nasty slippery slope with plenty of history to show where the end of that very tragic and unfortunate path leads. Demonizing those who disagree with you or hold different belief systems than you will not win them or others over to your train of thought, quite the opposite actually.

Just some food for thought. :)

I will deal with this last one though. I'll admit I don't know much about Eastern philosophy but I'm going to go out on limb and suggest that Confucianism probaby doesn't advocate nicking other people's stuff and selling it for a profit yourself. Beacuse that is what we are talking about, not monoplisation of ideas. Lets not forget that this is theft of other peoples' stuff by people who have no interest in furthering the hobby.

I find it staggering that there are so many people who unable/unwilling to see that by supporting pirates, they are damaging the hobby. Beacuse the pirates aren't doing this in some misguided quest for 'justice' because GW charges Australians too much. They are doing it beacuse GW are the biggest fish and therefore more people will buy their stuff. If the likes of PP or Reaper or any other of the 'non-evil' companies suddenly starts selling by the bucket load, the pirates will target them too and take them for everything they can until all the original model makers are put out of business and the hobby we love will be dead. Or, people could just buy legit models and the pirates will go and pick another industry to ruin.

[fuzzyguy]

I will deal with this last one though. I'll admit I don't know much about Eastern philosophy but I'm going to go out on limb and suggest that Confucianism probaby doesn't advocate nicking other people's stuff and selling it for a profit yourself. Beacuse that is what we are talking about, not monoplisation of ideas. Lets not forget that this is theft of other peoples' stuff by people who have no interest in furthering the hobby.

I find it staggering that there are so many people who unable/unwilling to see that by supporting pirates, they are damaging the hobby. Beacuse the pirates aren't doing this in some misguided quest for 'justice' because GW charges Australians too much. They are doing it beacuse GW are the biggest fish and therefore more people will buy their stuff. If the likes of PP or Reaper or any other of the 'non-evil' companies suddenly starts selling by the bucket load, the pirates will target them too and take them for everything they can until all the original model makers are put out of business and the hobby we love will be dead. Or, people could just buy legit models and the pirates will go and pick another industry to ruin.

I think you missed my point. The monopolization of ideas, Intellectual Property Rights as understood in western civilization, is viewed as immoral. There is a firm belief that intellectual property belongs to everyone, not just the one who initially created it. They don't view it as stealing anything because there is no physical theft. The idea of intellectual theft is antithesis to their beliefs. You can't steal what is believed to belong to everyone. They are creating something, a copy of something, but they are still creating a physical copy of something and thus don't understand what the problem is. The ideas of intellectual property are starting to spread in some circles in China, but it isn't mainstream.

The company is making non-Gw stuff as well. Historicals are a rather large market and arguably those sales lost hurt those smaller boutique companies a great deal more than GW's potential lost sales. I'm not saying I don't disagree with the current global status quo with recasters, because it is a problem and not sustainable for companies in the West. What I'm trying to do is create an understanding for why it is this behavior is so prevalent in Eastern cultures and why those governments and peoples don't see a reason to convert their beliefs to western ones. What is happening is the friction of different cultural groups brought on by globalization. I think it would be far more productive to try and find a common ground by which both cultural groups could find compromise regarding intellectual property, but that is far beyond the means of those within a niche hobby community. The best option for those of us in the western world to address the current incompatibilities of eastern and western cultures & economies is to not participate in those sales. I won't buy, support, or inform others where and how to do business with the recasters in China or Russia because it hurts those who make products within the rules of the western world, but I'm not going to demonize the recasters for having fundamentally different belief systems, economic systems, governments, and laws either.

[gendoikari87]

Many of you choose to daemonise GW because you can't afford their products in the quanitity you'd like. This isn't thier fault, its yours and is entirely in your control. You can either choose not to want thier products or aquire more wealth, you are free to do that.

Wow, so much simple minded bull here. It's staggering.

[DarkLink]

Why hasn't this thread been locked yet? It sounds like something from warseer, which is kind of ironic, because warseer probably would have deleted immediately.

[krittoris]

well if jes goodwin is shocked that people dont care about gw's employees enough to spend up to 1000 dollars on a 2000 point wargaming army, hes in for a rude shock.

no one truely cares for gw, all they care about is gw hanging around keeping the hobby alive so that our thousand dollar investments in our entertainment dont seem like a true waste of money.

someone pm me this chinese web address please, cant find it anywere :P

(remember guys, look after yourself and you're neighbour, because gw is not gonna keep a roof over you're head or put food in your belly, there in it for themselves and care nothing for you, as long as stock moves, there profits are happy)

I have always supported gw by buying there products, but the recent prices on the new and current things are to harsh, 90AUD for 3 wolves??? what a joke, heres another joke for you, 'its ok, buy standins from a more affordable system', HELLO you cant play non gw models in any of there official comps, events ro stores.

[Rapture]

Hardly a waste of space. The discussion involves philosophy, economics, morals, and how all of these things relate to a current situation that is affecting something that many of us care very deeply about (GW/'the hobby'). Calling it a 'warseer' thread is a blatant attempt to skew opinions.

Fuzzyguy specified what needed to be said regarding morals pretty well. The ultimate good/bad argument can be entirely cultural.

While people may have a problem understanding why China allows this 'piracy,' consider the alternative. The US is so heavily favors the creators of certain things that they become untouchable. Think about Microsoft's approach to software. The company sells licenses instead of the actual product. Even for an honest, normal user this can lead to endless headaches. DRM methods for music and DVDs can also seriously limit the honest enjoyment of the consumer. It is easy to blame pirates for the security measure, but, as has been quite controversial in this thread, it is the responsibility of the producer to respond to threats and keep the product enjoyable.

[ElectricPaladin]

On the subject of intellectual property rights and moral high ground, I'd recommend folks remember to think beyond their own respective cultures. It seems the vast majority of the people posting are from some form of western cultural position. Collectivism is quite prevalent in eastern and middle eastern cultures. Confucianism actually advocates that the monopolization of an idea is immoral and abhorrent, for example. Calling the belief systems of another people backwards or worse is a rather nasty slippery slope with plenty of history to show where the end of that very tragic and unfortunate path leads. Demonizing those who disagree with you or hold different belief systems than you will not win them or others over to your train of thought, quite the opposite actually.

Just some food for thought. :)

This argument applies a lot more to "casual" pirates, rather than career pirates. If I've got a scanner and an internet connection and I decide to share my collection of codices, or if I've got a 3d printer and a graphics program and I decide to share my GW-inspired (or completely ripped off) printer recipes, or whatever - that's collectivism. I am sharing a resource (GW products) with my community (like-minded people on the Internet). Someone who rips off GW's IP to make a buck for themselves, taking advantage of other people... that's not collectivism. There's no collective benefit. That's a dude trying to make a buck by ripping off someone else's hard work. In other words: still just capitalism.

Can you tell that I have some sympathy for casual pirates and none for IP thieves? I don't download books myself, unless I already own them and electronic copies are not also available for sale, but I understand why someone would, and it's a lot less despicable than making money off someone else's hard work.

[Wildeybeast]

I think you missed my point. The monopolization of ideas, Intellectual Property Rights as understood in western civilization, is viewed as immoral. There is a firm belief that intellectual property belongs to everyone, not just the one who initially created it. They don't view it as stealing anything because there is no physical theft. The idea of intellectual theft is antithesis to their beliefs. You can't steal what is believed to belong to everyone. They are creating something, a copy of something, but they are still creating a physical copy of something and thus don't understand what the problem is. The ideas of intellectual property are starting to spread in some circles in China, but it isn't mainstream.

The company is making non-Gw stuff as well. Historicals are a rather large market and arguably those sales lost hurt those smaller boutique companies a great deal more than GW's potential lost sales. I'm not saying I don't disagree with the current global status quo with recasters, because it is a problem and not sustainable for companies in the West. What I'm trying to do is create an understanding for why it is this behavior is so prevalent in Eastern cultures and why those governments and peoples don't see a reason to convert their beliefs to western ones. What is happening is the friction of different cultural groups brought on by globalization. I think it would be far more productive to try and find a common ground by which both cultural groups could find compromise regarding intellectual property, but that is far beyond the means of those within a niche hobby community. The best option for those of us in the western world to address the current incompatibilities of eastern and western cultures & economies is to not participate in those sales. I won't buy, support, or inform others where and how to do business with the recasters in China or Russia because it hurts those who make products within the rules of the western world, but I'm not going to demonize the recasters for having fundamentally different belief systems, economic systems, governments, and laws either.

I understand the point your are making, though I would argue that the line between taking somebody else's property to sell and making a direct copy of somebody else's property for your own personal gain is a pretty thin one. You could also argue that whilst this sort of practice might be more acceptable in eastern cultures, if we are making a case for 'cultural understanding' then surely the onus is on eastern cultures to respect the values and laws of the cultures from which the product originates? And whilst I respect your attempt to put a different slant on this discussion, lets be clear that the stance of the Chinese government (and the pirates who they refuse to stop) has nothing to do with cultural ideas about IP. It is entirely about promoting Chinese business at the expense of foreign ones, not to mention giving a massive FU to the rest of the world and making it clear that China doesn't give a stuff international opinion or laws.

[Chuck777]

Chuck, giving money to criminals who destroy legitimate businesses is immoral. Saying that there are only decisions and consequences is a cheap copout for people who don't want to admit that the consequences of their actions will have a negative impact on other people who have done nothing to harm them in return. The logic just doesn't hold, try applying it to other crimes. Murder isn't immoral because someone dying is just a consequence of someone deciding ot put a bullet through their head.

People would not entertain the thought of going to China for models if they felt GW was giving them a fair shake. I would never buy from China but I fully understand why many devoted fans are doing so.

Morality has connotations of good and evil, saintly and wickedness. Murder and rape are matters of morality. Choosing to buy knock off models from China is not.

There is zero difference in my mind between buying from China or buying from Mantic when the end result is you not purchasing GW models while still playing GW games. You are negatively impacting other people's lives by virtue of your lack of support for GW. The only difference between the two is that one gives Chinese people jobs and the other gives (the wrong) British people jobs.




As to the point about 3D printers, that is delusional. You might as well argue that coffee machines will kill cafes.

The recording industry had the same attitude about MP3s - no one will want digital versions of their songs, CD's are the bee's knees. The same thing will be true once 3-D printing really takes off. You think its immoral for a company in China to make knock off GW models, wait until your neighbors are creating whole armies for virtually nothing.

Also, the Coffee Machines killing Cafes is the wrong kind of analogy since the latter provides a service and a place to drink. GW models by themselves do not do that. A more apt analogy would be the growth of internet news, which has completely decimated News Papers. Democratizing the process inevitably kills the older business model. Planning and forethought allow you to escape the trap that is the future.

[fuzzyguy]

I understand the point your are making, though I would argue that the line between taking somebody else's property to sell and making a direct copy of somebody else's property for your own personal gain is a pretty thin one.
Where that line lays is wholly dependent upon the culture of the one who draws it, and if you don't see that then I don't think you really do understand the point I am making.


You could also argue that whilst this sort of practice might be more acceptable in eastern cultures, if we are making a case for 'cultural understanding' then surely the onus is on eastern cultures to respect the values and laws of the cultures from which the product originates?

The inability and unwillingness of the West to want to even recognize the legitimacy of the cultural difference is the problem. The west went to China looking for trade and colonial expansion, not the other way around. The onus is on the west to accommodate the belief systems of those they wish to trade with. Xenophobia and Ethnocentrism is alive and well even in post-colonial western civilizations and is seen even now by those in power trying to forcibly convert the east to western ideals. This is nothing new and has been going on for thousands of years.


And whilst I respect your attempt to put a different slant on this discussion, lets be clear that the stance of the Chinese government (and the pirates who they refuse to stop) has nothing to do with cultural ideas about IP. It is entirely about promoting Chinese business at the expense of foreign ones, not to mention giving a massive FU to the rest of the world and making it clear that China doesn't give a stuff international opinion or laws.

Do Western governments not promote and bolster their own businesses and industries over foreign ones historically? You continue to refer to them as pirates, "Pirate" implies criminal intent, and theft of persons and physical possessions. This is not what they are doing within their culture, and accusing them of such by those in the west at all levels does nothing to genuinely open dialogue when they are already on the defensive. My argument wasn't specifically about China, it encompassed India, Pakistan, Iran, China, Russia, most of Eastern Europe, and a great deal of Native American peoples. Anti-china xenophobia does nothing to address the cultural issue. China has good reason to be suspicious of international law considering what the longest surviving culture in the world has had to do to preserve itself from British, French, Dutch, Russian, Korean, and Japanese invasion and colonial attempts. Government policies will generally reflect the belief structures of those under their care. There is a genuine opportunity to reach a middle ground in China for example with the prevalence of wholly digital property. There is some common understanding being made on that ground, and I hope that the frictional history between east and west doesn't get in the way of differing peoples coming to a compromised understanding and agreement to the necessity of respect to I.P. that will benefit everyone. At the end of the day, if nothing is resolved, the only solution is to cease open trade with countries that don't adhere to compatible belief and legal structures.

BTW, thanks Wildeybeast for the discussion so far. I think open, respectful, and civil discussion online is rare. I thoroughly appreciate that we can have disagreements and discussion without being disagreeable.

[Wildeybeast]

Where that line lays is wholly dependent upon the culture of the one who draws it, and if you don't see that then I don't think you really do understand the point I am making.

Indeed it is, which is why i didn't commit to where the line should be drawn, merely pointed out it is very fine one, depending on which side of it you stand.



Do Western governments not promote and bolster their own businesses and industries over foreign ones historically?

Indeed they do, but they generally intevene, or at least offer a method of legal resolution, when one company nicks anothers stuff.


You continue to refer to them as pirates, "Pirate" implies criminal intent, and theft of persons and physical possessions.

Not according to the OED it doesn't. At least not just that.

noun

1 [mass noun] the practice of attacking and robbing ships at sea.
a practice similar to piracy but in other contexts, especially hijacking: air piracy

2the unauthorized use or reproduction of another’s work: software piracy


This is not what they are doing within their culture, and accusing them of such by those in the west at all levels does nothing to genuinely open dialogue when they are already on the defensive.

And if these people were geniunely interested in opening dialogue and defending what they do on a cultural basis, you would have a point. They aren't beacuse they are criminals and know full what they are doing is wrong. They just don't care and to suggest otherwise is at best naive.



My argument wasn't specifically about China, it encompassed India, Pakistan, Iran, China, Russia, most of Eastern Europe, and a great deal of Native American peoples. Anti-china xenophobia does nothing to address the cultural issue. China has good reason to be suspicious of international law considering what the longest surviving culture in the world has had to do to preserve itself from British, French, Dutch, Russian, Korean, and Japanese invasion and colonial attempts.

I know it wasn't but we are talking about piracy in China. In most other countries GW would have legal recourse to stop them, in China they don't. This isn't anit China xenophobia, this is China blatantly flautning international law. And before you get on your high horse about China being invaded about western powers, go have a chat to people in Tibet to find out what they think about Chinese foreign policy. China has been sinned against by the west, but are from innocent.


Government policies will generally reflect the belief structures of those under their care.
You are using that argument in conversation about China?



There is a genuine opportunity to reach a middle ground in China for example with the prevalence of wholly digital property. There is some common understanding being made on that ground, and I hope that the frictional history between east and west doesn't get in the way of differing peoples coming to a compromised understanding and agreement to the necessity of respect to I.P. that will benefit everyone. At the end of the day, if nothing is resolved, the only solution is to cease open trade with countries that don't adhere to compatible belief and legal structures.

There is no middle ground to be reached. Either an individual/company/country respects international IP law or they don't. Either you have the right to protect and own something you create or you don't. How can there possibly be middle ground in that? 'You might sort of own something unless somebody's culture suggests that in fact nobody owns anything in which case we should respect their cultural differences and let them do what they want with the stuff you make?'


Edit

BTW, thanks Wildeybeast for the discussion so far. I think open, respectful, and civil discussion online is rare. I thoroughly appreciate that we can have disagreements and discussion without being disagreeable.

As do I! It is good to know that we can have heated and passionate debate without the need for it to get personal and still respect each other's views even if we don't agree. Glad we are on the same page!

[Wildeybeast]

People would not entertain the thought of going to China for models if they felt GW was giving them a fair shake. I would never buy from China but I fully understand why many devoted fans are doing so.

Sadly not true. As I have pointed out, the pirates could undercut GW even if they sold at cost, so the pirates will always be cheaper and there will still be people willing to buy from them. And my Radiohead example shows people will pirate something even when it is free. Less people might buy from the pirates if GW reduced prices, but there would alwys be some willing to do so.



The recording industry had the same attitude about MP3s - no one will want digital versions of their songs, CD's are the bee's knees. The same thing will be true once 3-D printing really takes off. You think its immoral for a company in China to make knock off GW models, wait until your neighbors are creating whole armies for virtually nothing.

There is a clear difference. 3D printers are way more expensive than MP3 players were, not to mention the size and convience difference. There is also the customer demand. People are not clamouring in significant numbers for 3d printers in their home, not least beacuse there is little use the average perso has for one at the moment. Until they reduce in cost and size and the technology improves to increase their usefulness, they will not take off in anything like the same way as MP3 players.

[DarkLink]

Wow, that was a quick turnaround. A couple pages ago, a certain group of posters were flaming left and right (hah, pun) with inflammatory political comments. Now it's actually a discussion.



Do Western governments not promote and bolster their own businesses and industries over foreign ones historically?

Indeed they do, but they generally intevene, or at least offer a method of legal resolution, when one company nicks anothers stuff.

It's also worth noting that most governments promote their own business and industries over foreign ones. It's not like it's a uniquely western thing. And western nations do tend to have the most developed protection for workers rights and environmental laws and the like, which is part of why eastern nations can compete for work.

[ElectricPaladin]

Do Western governments not promote and bolster their own businesses and industries over foreign ones historically?

Find me a single government - Western, Eastern, Northern, Southern, or Lunar - that doesn't do this, and I'll eat my hat.

[DarkLink]

There are probably one or two dictatorships in recent history with some weird situation where the ruling party might enact some odd business policies to that effect, probably somewhere in the middle east.

[HsojVvad]

The recording industry subsidizes all the failures and botched one hit wonders by milking the successful artists, who comprise a very tiny percentage of the total number of artists.



That's the conundrum. Do you want to be a star, with your name in lights and throngs of fans or do you want to own your own work and play at local birthday parties? Having standards and values often means you loose out on what the Devil has to offer.



Chapterhouse sells additional pieces to help flesh out your army. its one thing to create a new shoulder pad or weapon, quite another to create an Ork Boy or a Tyranid Termagant.

Thanks for the explanations, I understand more. I forgot Chapterhouse doesn't sell SM but only should pads for example basically add ons.

I didn't know this Chinese company sold actual minis.

[Chuck777]

Sadly not true. As I have pointed out, the pirates could undercut GW even if they sold at cost, so the pirates will always be cheaper and there will still be people willing to buy from them. And my Radiohead example shows people will pirate something even when it is free. Less people might buy from the pirates if GW reduced prices, but there would alwys be some willing to do so.

There's a difference between fair shake and undercutting the pirates. GW, nor any company, will be able to beat the pirates in terms of cost but if GW offers their products at more reasonable prices, people will be far more inclined to purchase real models rather than not purchase all together or buy other companies models (knockoff or not). This article showcases (http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/how-valve-devalued-video-games-and-why-thats-good-news-for-developers-and-p) how deeply discounted sales in digital gaming have proven to be orders of magnitude more profitable than continuing to sell games at their normal, high rate. Obviously this cannot be completely applied to GW since none of their products are digital but it does showcase how sales can greatly increase total profit. If GW were to do something like this on a semi-regular basis, then it would go a long way in eliminating GW's problems with competitors (both legitimate and not).

No one with a sound mind wants their products free but by the same token, no one with a sound mind wants to feel cheated and abused by companies.





There is a clear difference. 3D printers are way more expensive than MP3 players were, not to mention the size and convience difference. There is also the customer demand. People are not clamouring in significant numbers for 3d printers in their home, not least beacuse there is little use the average perso has for one at the moment. Until they reduce in cost and size and the technology improves to increase their usefulness, they will not take off in anything like the same way as MP3 players.

We're not at the stage where MP3's really took off with Winamp and Napster. Right now, we're still in the equivalent of the early 90's when MP3s were first being created and just beginning to be noticed by the public. We're a long way away from cheap mass market 3-D printers, though some are even as low as 500 dollars. 3-D Printing will change how people purchase items. I could go to a bitz shop and buy that autocannon, or I could scan the bit and print multiple copies for myself.

Look at this picture. The first gargoyle is the original, the second a digital scan and the third a 3D Printed Gargoyle.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/3D_scanning_and_printing.jpg/636px-3D_scanning_and_printing.jpg

Sure the Printed Gargoyle is not of the same quality but it is close enough to be passable, more so once it is painted. In ten years time, they will be able to make darn near exact duplicates. Eventually 3-D Printers are going to shut down a lot of businesses simply by virtue of the unskilled consumer being empowered to make his own products. I'm sure there will be hordes of websites dedicated to both selling and sharing templates that the Printer can use to create items for you. It will become a big deal once the technology is refined. But that day is not today.

[gendoikari87]

Sadly not true. As I have pointed out, the pirates could undercut GW even if they sold at cost, so the pirates will always be cheaper and there will still be people willing to buy from them. And my Radiohead example shows people will pirate something even when it is free. Less people might buy from the pirates if GW reduced prices, but there would alwys be some willing to do so. They might not go out of business but you'd be hard to find business as a pirate if GW was selling at a reasonable cost, now if they were selling at cost, the pirates would go out of business because it still takes resources to manufacture knock offs and and theres only so low you can go when that's true, so the difference in price between GW and the pirates would be nill or at least not more than the difference in shipping from that far away. Think about it wildeybeast, the pirates have to make money too to stay in business not something they can do when selling at near cost. But then again GW would go under selling at cost as well.




There is a clear difference. 3D printers are way more expensive than MP3 players were, not to mention the size and convience difference. There is also the customer demand. People are not clamouring in significant numbers for 3d printers in their home, not least beacuse there is little use the average perso has for one at the moment. Until they reduce in cost and size and the technology improves to increase their usefulness, they will not take off in anything like the same way as MP3 players.

This will change over time wildeybest, accept it or not, your opinion is that of the uninformed and the willfully in denial on this subject and wholly inconsequential.

[DarkLink]

Here's another article on the decreasing price of video games: http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/why-end-60-video-game-near-181412574.html

Something to keep in mind is that markets tend to find equilibrium. As technology changes aspects of the market, the market itself either adapts or collapses. Without people creating IP stuff, no one can pirate that stuff, and if the people creating the IP stuff have an unsustainable business model, competitors and pirating will undercut them until the market adapts. So long as GW doesn't actually go under, then all these changes are probably good things for us consumers. GW's been uncontested for a long time, and if something upsets that then GW will have to find a way to convince people to keep buying their stuff.

[fuzzyguy]

Oh China's government is far from innocent of crimes against humanity. Generally speaking though, there is a reason why communist and socialist regimes stick around longer in societies with collectivist cultural tendencies. What I was getting at was that there is a certain amount of protectionism and poor attempts at isolationism while still trying to attempt to reap the benefits of global economies and trade. Chinese government generally mistrusts western governments, there is more than just the good interest rates motivating the Chinese government to purchase US Treasury Bonds. This is all likely to change as well with the older generations eventually passing the reigns of leadership on to the next generation who wishes to continue to grow in to a bustling middle class.

The counter point and reason I mentioned the western countries protecting their own business interests was that China is not unique in it's desire to promote and protect its own industries. Arguably they are more likely to do this since those industries and businesses are state sponsored. The argument could possibly be made that in the US the lobbying power of multi-nationals has had negative effects on US businesses and industry, but it isn't any official policy and those effects ebb and flow with the political tides every 4-8 years.

Russian and Eastern European "piracy" is pretty huge as well. Those nations don't have the sheer manufacturing power that China does though so aren't usually as prominently mentioned in those regards. Within miniature wargaming though they do produce quite a few counterfeit models with some possessing state governments that don't work with western nations to directly curtail counterfeit production. Arguably many of the Russian and Eastern European counterfeiters are more malicious than the Chinese since the Chinese government has in the law that reproductions of goods must be labeled as such which is actually pretty consistent with the notion that China is collectivist.

[TheBitzBarn]

Illegal where? in China? nope they are legally allowed to do that if they acknowledge that the parts are a copy?

immoral? Whose morality? GW's? Modern Business ethics? ethics in business are not a one way street despite what many companies would like you to think.

China falling in 20 years FROM AN AMERICAN HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA hows that health care going.

Hows that 15 trillion going? Deficit you self righteous hypocritical brainwashed hacks wouldn't understand the meaning of the word.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html

as for prison labour....DUH so does the US mate.

We do not use Prison Labor for Private enterprise like China at all DUDE. and the Communist Party will collapse on itself in 20 years and our deficit is nothing once we bounce the Moron in the White House. Health Care is best n the world

[TheBitzBarn]

Piracy is Bad no matter who does and GW is a Moral Company they offer Great Benefits to there employees. They do some wacky market stuff but they are not an exploitative industry like Porn or Tobacco

[daboarder]

TheBitzBarn,

I'd love to educate you more about the atrocious health care, the strength of the chinese Government and how its not even technically a "communist" regime. But these things are irrelevant to this topic now that it has progressed beyond them and all I have to say is have fun in your ignorance.

Edit: let me put it this way, CUBA has better healthcare than you......couldn't resist mate.

[gendoikari87]

We do not use Prison Labor for Private enterprise like China at all DUDE. and the Communist Party will collapse on itself in 20 years and our deficit is nothing once we bounce the Moron in the White House. Health Care is best n the world

actually......

also private enterprise and communism? :rolleyes: Now that's an oxymoron.

[plawolf]

We do not use Prison Labor for Private enterprise like China at all DUDE. and the Communist Party will collapse on itself in 20 years and our deficit is nothing once we bounce the Moron in the White House. Health Care is best n the world

How quickly people forget (or are too young/lazy to actually know), but the US once used used convicts to build roads, dig ditches and do all sort of hard labour jobs. Hell, even today convicts in US and other western nations make things like license plates while serving their time. There is also the community service orders whereby criminals are ordered. That's all using prison labour to conduct commercial activities.

Piracy is bad, but using that as an excuse to spread plainly wrong and semi (or blatantly) racist views is far worse.

However, it must be stressed that piracy is as much a symptom as it is a problem, much the same way as illegal drugs.

In the same way that the war on drugs is never going to be won if you only target the suppliers, the issue of piracy will never be addressed if you only go after the pirates.

Pirates are in business because there is demand for their goods. Trying to suggest that this is all the fault of the Chinese companies making the knock-offs is just lazy denial. If everyone in the west put their money where they mouth is and actually respected IP and only bought legitimate stuff, the pirates would be out of business instantly. There are two guilty party in this relationship, and if that is not acknowledged, then you will never solve the issue, and if it isn't the Chinese making knock-offs, it will be the Vietnamese, Indians or Africans etc.

Part of the problem is GW's pricing policy. GW has a monopoly for warhammer and 40k products, and it is abusing that monopoly power to charge extortionate prices for their minis. In addition, the QC issues surrounding finecast is just another example of why monopolies are bad for consumers. If pirates have better QC than GW, that is really beyond pathetic on GW's part. Instead of sending impotent C&D orders, GW (and us consumers) would actually probably be better off if they outsourced production to the pirates.

Jokes aside, who here actually honestly think GW will go belly up if they charged a more reasonable price for their minis and actually fixed the QC issues with finecast?

As a general rule of thumb, consumers have a pretty good idea of what a 'fair price' would be for most products, and that is based on their own disposable income and substitute products. The greater the difference between the 'fair' price and the retail price, the greater the percentage of people who would be prepared to use pirated stuff instead.

In a way, piracy has actually benefitted consumers overall in places like the music and film industry, whereby they had forced record companies and film studios to reduce the price of their products, and also become far more flexible and responsive to the consumers' wants wrt new technology like MP3 players, streaming and downloads etc. It is hard to imagine that the music and film industries would have made those steps without being seriously threatened by pirates.

If piracy becomes a real existential threat to GW, then I believe the chief cause will not be the availability of pirated minis, but GW's own pricing policy.

Everyone who plays the game knows that the game and the universe that we love is tied to GW's fortunes, so that is a very strong incentive for us to buy from GW and support the hobby. There will always be a fringe few who wants to be cheap and will opt for pirated stuff, but for the vast majority of people, we would want to support GW even if the retail price is a little over what we feel should be the fair price. The only way significant proportions of the community would switch to pirated stuff is if the GW retail price is so far above what we view as a fair price the badwill generated is greater than the goodwill we feel towards GW for making this game and universe.

So, to sum up, for a company like GW with a large devoted fan base and creative monopoly, piracy will never become a serious threat useless GW's own actions and choices contribute to alienate that fan base. If GW runs it's business responsibly and sensibly, piracy will not become a major issue even if they sacked all their lawyers. OTOH, if piracy has started to significantly eat into GW's bottom line, then the real problem lies with GW's pricing policy, and unless they address the root cause of the problem, no amount of pirate hunting will turn the situation around.

[eldargal]

I don't think GW will be hurt by Chinese counterfeiters, but chinese counterfeiting does hurt legitimate companies and it is immoral regardless. It is theft, nothing more, nothing less. I also don't give a damn whether Eastern philosophy says it is ok or not, why should I respect their belief that you can't own an idea if they don't respect mine that you can? It flows both ways.

Expensive prices do not justify theft. Disliking a company does not justify theft.

Also let us keep things in perspective. GW make toy soldiers, the next time you want to rant about how immoral they are and don;t treat their customer with respect remember THEY MAKe BLOODY TOY SOLDIERS. For gods sake we aren't dealing with companies poisoning Indian communities with toxic waste or dumping huge volumes of chemicals into the ocean through incompetence. They make sodding toy soldiers. You don't want to pay the prices they ask for toy soldiers? Don't buy toy soldiers.

[daboarder]

Eldargirl,

We've been here before though, its NOT theft. It is perfectly legal according to Chinese law. Of course irregardless of how companies, people and objective morality feel about it I guess we can all agree that those companies have to deal with the existence of counterfeit stock.

EDIT: interestingly though you've mentioned chemical dumping and waste fields, (your referencing the technology companies right?) you should also realize that their products are made of plastic and therefore they are partially responsible for any byproducts of the petroleum industry.

[eldargal]

I don't give a damn about Chinese law, if you aren't in China it doesn't matter. It is illegal here, and it is immoral wherever it occurs. Piracy puts real, hard working people out of work, whatever you may think about the companies they work for. It doesn't just hurt big, faceless corporations either, they are just more obvious.

GW buys the plastic from chemical companies, we buy plastic from GW, so we bear partial responsibility too, then.

[AnEnemy]

Eldargal,

Have you ever argued with a child? If not...now you have. No matter what you say. No matter what logic you bring to the table. It doesn't matter. It will change nothing. They feel they have been wronged. Reality doesn't figure into the equation.

You can point out how their own import infrastructure is to blame. You can point out the very basic creation rationale behind IP. You can listen respectfully to the self serving tantrums that they try to pass off as rational arguments. When you see individuals with fully functioning brains argue the amorality of corporations while accusing GW of immorality then there is only one conclusion.

All for naught.

As sad as it is...buying counterfeit plastic/resin from criminals in China is their way of masking over their feelings of powerlessness over having their toys taken away from them by circumstances beyond their control. They would rather piss in the sand box than play nice.

[DarkLink]

Yeah, the "it's not illegal in china" is a pretty shaky argument. Torturing citizens was legal in Iraq, and look where that got them. Not that piracy is quite the same thing, but there are international trade laws for a reason, though I don't know if any of them are actually relevant.

[the jeske]

also private enterprise and communism? Now that's an oxymoron.
that depands which communism do you mean . even stalin and lenin understood that for example the industry needs small workshops to make small parts for machines and that those have to be "private". chiness communism is no communism at all[not in the western understanding of the work at least] its the same system they had for thousands of years . you have the mandarins , the ruling councile , you technicly have the emperor but he doesnt/cant rule alone . Enterprise in china are private as long as the goverment thinks it is ok for you to own them . the minute they decide it aint you lose it . By the way in the western world it is the same. Try to desing a new jet propulsion engine or new brand of fuel or a better working missile guiding system . Check what happens then . Even in the most democratic of countries . Or better yet wait a bit and try to sell it on the open market and then check how private your firm is.


I don't give a damn about Chinese law, if you aren't in China it doesn't matter. It is illegal here, and it is immoral wherever it occurs. Piracy puts real, hard working people out of work, whatever you may think about the companies they work for. It doesn't just hurt big, faceless corporations either, they are just more obvious.
ok , but you know the factories and the firm is in china . Just like in some countries children labor is ok [guess who makes most footballs in the world] . Also I dont understand the hard working part . Hard working or lazy doesnt matter. What matters is efficiency . If your are an inefficient hard worker then you are worse then a lazy person[they work less so use up less resources , get paid less etc]. It is not the chiness goverment foult that the western countries have this bizzar idea of social care . So if anyone puts anyone of job it is not the chiness work man [guess how hard he works with longer work time , fewer holidays and no unions] , but the stupid western goverments.



Torturing citizens was legal in Iraq, and look where that got them.
it got them to a point where one dinar was worth more then one dolar . And then the US decided that it is good to start a war on an ex ally , to control their oil .
By the way .I hope you dont think that they dont torture there now ? lol.

[eldargal]

Christ, you're just insane.

I mean, damn those Western goverments, forcing companies to pay wages that actually let their workers live and providing standards which keep them safe. What the hell is wrong with them.




You're right, and I'm done, this is getting ridiculous.

Eldargal,

Have you ever argued with a child? If not...now you have. No matter what you say. No matter what logic you bring to the table. It doesn't matter. It will change nothing. They feel they have been wronged. Reality doesn't figure into the equation.

You can point out how their own import infrastructure is to blame. You can point out the very basic creation rationale behind IP. You can listen respectfully to the self serving tantrums that they try to pass off as rational arguments. When you see individuals with fully functioning brains argue the amorality of corporations while accusing GW of immorality then there is only one conclusion.

All for naught.

As sad as it is...buying counterfeit plastic/resin from criminals in China is their way of masking over their feelings of powerlessness over having their toys taken away from them by circumstances beyond their control. They would rather piss in the sand box than play nice.

[daboarder]

yeah I had a feeling it was only a matter of time before someone pointed out that some countries have some really screwed up laws. look keep things in perspective people, the laws we are now discussing do not compare in even the remotest sense to crimes against humanity. As for the war in iraq and afghanistan, ill put that this way. Whatever thoughts you have regarding the invasions remember that at the end of the day the average citizen is FAR better off now than they were before.

eldargirl,

I'm merely pointing out that your argument is objective, someone from china is going to believe just as strongly as you that they are right and you are wrong on this issue. That does not make them a theif, that does not mean they deserve to be punished, that is merely how they are.

AnEnemy,

Before you open your pie hole this chemical scientist would like to direct you to read the above thread. You'll note that it was ME that addressed our import laws as partially responsible for the inflated cost in my country. You'll also note that I've only ever argued that it is not for OTHERS to judge people based on laws and morality they are not beholden to. And finally you'll note that I've expressed my distrust of this and other Chinese companies about the quality of the "product" they supply. With all that in mind I'd like you to get off your high horse grow the hell up and go try to troll elsewhere.

[AnEnemy]

And then the US decided that it is good to start a war on an ex ally , to control their oil .


Iraq controls their own oil interests. They have, however, contracted out the development and maintenance of those oil fields to Royal Dutch Shell and Petronas(Malaysian co.).

We invaded Iraq because of it's strategic location and it's relative secularism. Then we attempted a social engineering experiment by forcing democracy on a Middle Eastern nation. Some say that this was the precursor to the Arab Spring movement, but...some say a lot of things that aren't necessarily true.

So, yeah...toy soldiers.

[Chuck777]

If buying knock off models from China is immoral, then so too is buying Mantic models or other proxies for use in GW games. By not buying GW models, you are putting GW out of business. Those companies are "stealing" customers away with cheaper models that differ very little in theme or function from their source material. Buying Mantic models means you are hurting GW, which means people WILL loose their jobs. Just because Mantic puts a bit of effort into redesigning the wheel does not make them any less guilty of the same crime as the Chinese knock off artists. Now granted the Chinese are more guilty than Mantic in this regard but that does not absolve Mantic (or other companies who create proxy models for use in GW games).

Also note, if the Chinese Knockoff companies are indeed stating that their products (such as they are) are indeed copies, then that does not fit into the truest definition of Counterfeiting (which seeks to deceive the consumer as to the product's seedy origins). They are knock offs, for sure, but not counterfeits by the strictest definitions.

Once again, I am going to state that this is not an issue of immorality. Morality is relative to a given culture. Look at genital mutilation. In America, when performed on a baby boy it is seen as a perfectly acceptable surgery. When performed on a girl, such acts are deemed disgusting and unwarranted. However, in middle eastern societies, Female genital mutilation is widely regarded as the norm. Which culture is right? If female genital mutilation a positive or a negative, is it right or wrong? From one culture it is normal, to the other it is anathema.

Counterfeiting and making knockoffs is no different. The western world developed the fastest and cemented its place at the apex of global society. The west made the rules and attempts to impose them on all other countries. In South Africa hordes of people suffer from the debilitating effects of AIDS. Western pharmaceutical companies have created many different drugs that have proven quite effective at combating AIDS. When shipped overseas, those companies charge exorbitant sums of money for very small quantities of the drugs. Most South Africans struggle to eat three meals a day, there is no way they can afford the medications. An entire industry has popped up in South Africa that manufactures the medications, which gives hordes of people in South Africa the ability to actually live their lives. Are the South Africans immoral for making knock off drugs?

Obviously Toy Soldiers and AIDS meds are not in the same league but I believe it is a useful analogy to showcase that, off times, what we here in the developed world and what those in the developing world believe are often radically different and at odds.

Counterfeiting hurts the company that created the original product but the counterfeiters would not have a large market if the original goods were priced reasonably. The vast majority of people do not even entertain the idea of buying knock offs when the name brand is reasonably priced (which means the company is making a modest profit).

To you, buying knock off models is immoral. To me, it is simply a fact of life - one that I will never partake of and attempt to sway my friends away from. To me Knock offs are in the same category of "bad for the longevity of the game" as buying other companies models to be used in GW games and purchasing models internet retailers over local brick and mortar stores. If you want to play the game for the foreseeable future and have a place to play, then you buy GW products from your FLGS, period end of story. If you want to save a buck and risk the downfall of the hobby in the long term, then by all means purchase Chinese Knockoffs, Mantic models and do it all from the comfort of home on your computer.

[gridespider]

Remember the great file purge of 09 at boardgames geek?.. I JUST ORDERED, 10 MARK- 2 ,CLOSE ASSAULT SPACE MARINES FROM CHINA FOR 60 US DOLLARS!!! SO YOU CAN BITE MY SHINY METAL ........:D:D:

[AnEnemy]

AnEnemy,

Before you open your pie hole this chemical scientist would like to direct you to read the above thread. You'll note that it was ME that addressed our import laws as partially responsible for the inflated cost in my country. You'll also note that I've only ever argued that it is not for OTHERS to judge people based on laws and morality they are not beholden to. And finally you'll note that I've expressed my distrust of this and other Chinese companies about the quality of the "product" they supply. With all that in mind I'd like you to get off your high horse grow the hell up and go try to troll elsewhere.

When I'm referring to you I will use your name or quote directly. When I'm referring to a group of individuals I use general terms. The stances I mentioned are prevailing themes within the pro counterfeit posts contained in this thread. Believe it or not...I'm not here to make you feel bad.

That chip on your shoulder looks really heavy dude.

[daboarder]

When I'm referring to you I will use your name or quote directly. When I'm referring to a group of individuals I use general terms. The stances I mentioned are prevailing themes within the pro counterfeit posts contained in this thread. Believe it or not...I'm not here to make you feel bad.

That chip on your shoulder looks really heavy dude.

My apologies then, I miss understood and made and *** of myself.

[Kataklysm]

This kinda sums all this up.

[Psychosplodge]

Find me a single government - Western, Eastern, Northern, Southern, or Lunar - that doesn't do this, and I'll eat my hat.

UK- look up the award of tube contracts to siemans in germany over a derby based company


Health Care is best n the world

Funniest statement on the internet.
Or do you mean as long as you haven't any major health issues that stop you getting "insurance"?




I mean, damn those Western goverments, forcing companies to pay wages that actually let their workers live and providing standards which keep them safe. What the hell is wrong with them.



Have you tried living on our minimum wage?:(:(
or even twice our minimum wage?:(

[DrLove42]

Yeah I will point out that Cuba has the best health care sytem in the world....

And as a side point. This week china launched 2 satellites. One is a communicatins satellite, encrypted to government transmissions only (several million of their peoples money so their governments cell phones get better reception)

The 2nd is their 5th DoS satellite. For those of you who don't know DoS stands for Denial of Space. It serves no function at all, but to just be there. It blocks over nations satellites and forces expensive rerouting. Additionally the core of the satellite is packed with hundred of steel balls and high explosives. If the chinese governemt so decide they can be detonated, effectivly "denying" a huge area of space to any other space vehicle. If all 5 sateliites blew there would be very little space left up there for anything (space debris is insanely dangerous - one of the space shuttles had a collosion with a fleck of paint, no bigger than a half a fingernail, and that imbedded itself 2 inches into the windscreen of the shuttle)

The chinese government sees abnsolutly nothing wrong with the "if i can't have it, neither can you" mentality. So stop trying to defend them

[daboarder]

hold on, by the laws of conservation of momentum its likely that if those satellites were to explode they will only work as area denial for shot term..... admittedly that sound like a VERY effective way of destroying a super powers communication network very quickly.

[Psychosplodge]

Enough debris should achieve a stable orbit to deny a large area of space, or are you suggesting satellites don't obey Newtonian physics?

[daboarder]

no merely suggesting that given the velocity of any material likely survive such an explosion that its most probable that said peices are going to suffer some pretty extreme orbital decay

[Psychosplodge]

I'd suggest they're more likely to reach escape velocity than decay, as their starting point is already at an orbital velocity.

[daboarder]

oh of course but I was thinking of that more as....negative decay

[DrLove42]

True on both points.

But one thing is certain...space is pretty full of crap these days.

Heres a picture of the damage that paint fleck did the the windscreen of the space shuttle. Stuff in orbit, tends to do it at speeds around 17,500 miles an hour

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/12/Space_debris_impact_on_Space_Shuttle_window.jpg/220px-Space_debris_impact_on_Space_Shuttle_window.jpg

IN 2008 china "shot down" a "defective weather satellite" over their northern provinces. This released 150,00 pieces of debris in NASA's "danger" size (and conveniently made it impossible for any satellite to establish permanant geosychronosis oribit over their northern provinces)

[Psychosplodge]

They must all have cable there...

[plawolf]

Yeah I will point out that Cuba has the best health care sytem in the world....

And as a side point. This week china launched 2 satellites. One is a communicatins satellite, encrypted to government transmissions only (several million of their peoples money so their governments cell phones get better reception)

The 2nd is their 5th DoS satellite. For those of you who don't know DoS stands for Denial of Space. It serves no function at all, but to just be there. It blocks over nations satellites and forces expensive rerouting. Additionally the core of the satellite is packed with hundred of steel balls and high explosives. If the chinese governemt so decide they can be detonated, effectivly "denying" a huge area of space to any other space vehicle. If all 5 sateliites blew there would be very little space left up there for anything (space debris is insanely dangerous - one of the space shuttles had a collosion with a fleck of paint, no bigger than a half a fingernail, and that imbedded itself 2 inches into the windscreen of the shuttle)

The chinese government sees abnsolutly nothing wrong with the "if i can't have it, neither can you" mentality. So stop trying to defend them

What a load of utter baseless bollucks. Next time you want to hijack a thread to spread your tinfoil hat hate theories, at least get the bloody facts right. The two Chinese satilletes are for their Compus GPS network.

Do you know what that means? They are in geostationary orbit, and unlike low-earth orbit, there isn't anywhere near as much space junk that far out, because there isn't anywhere near as many satilletes that far out, and there is a lot more space. Even if the 'evil Chinese' did have these imaginary DoS satilletes, they would not be putting them all the way up in geostationary orbit.

Hell, why would the Chinese even bother with such crude and effectively useless weapons (they are useless because using them woe hurt China as much as any target and makes no sense unless you are racist enough to believe the Chinese are only interested in Fing up things for everyone else instead of rationally pursuing their own best interests)? If they want to target a satillete or group of satilletes, it would be far more effective for them to use their existing ASAT missiles, or nano satilletes or even just hack the satillete or it's control station (the Americans suspect it was the Chinese that thoroughly compromised NASA's network) etc.

Now, are we done with this stupid baseless scaremongering?

[bfmusashi]

China's stance on IP issues may suck for companies but it's great for internet voyeurs. I give you Chinese pikachu!
http://kotaku.com/5906543/have-a-good-time-with-pikachusumyeah
http://kotaku.com/311665/pikachus-lady-business-exposed

[fuzzyguy]

We do not use Prison Labor for Private enterprise like China at all DUDE. and the Communist Party will collapse on itself in 20 years and our deficit is nothing once we bounce the Moron in the White House. Health Care is best n the world

Wow.....
At least you didn't use all caps.
Any country where a person will become financially bankrupt due to healthcare is morally bankrupt. It is more profitable to treat symptoms than cure disease. There are reasons why some things should be run by the state rather than private interest. I'll leave healthcare at that.

The US houses 25% of the prison population of the world, housing more of its population as a percentage in prison than any other country on the planet; more people are incarcerated in the USA than incarcerated in China or Russia. With the privatization of US prisons 100% of able bodied prisoners can be required to work for the minimum wage of 23 cents an hour, with no right to collectively bargain, in labor camps ranging from manning call centers, textiles mills, electronics manufacture, furniture manufacture, to warehousing and distribution services, using prison labor with a MAXIMUM wage of $1.15 an hour. I'm sure there are some unemployed and underemployed folks who would like to know why their jobs are no longer in existence or why their wages are so depressed when their employer chose the cheaper alternative in prison labor. Here is UNICOR's website (http://www.unicor.gov/) if you are wanting to learn more about prison labor, UNICOR's "escape proof gurantee", and how to order products or services through them. It is right out of an Orwellian/Dickensian gilded age dystopia. If you'd prefer a more broken down version of the facts try this site (http://www.prisonpolicy.org/prisonindex/prisonlabor.html). The wheels on the prison labor bus really started rolling in the mid-80s with the war on drugs driving up the prison population.

I would have hoped that the discussion could have remained civil and people could have shown a little more empathy, understanding of cultural differences, and would at a minimum post arguments in a reasonable well articulated manner pertaining specifically to the topic at hand. I guess we just can't have nice things on the internet.

Gamesworkshop doesn't treat its employees in the retail arm in the US all that well...quite the opposite actually. There is a reason employee turnover is so ridiculously high in the GW US retail arm.

I'm done with this thread. I don't have the luxury to be this guy->http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b385/fuzzyguy/cb9e6bff.png

[xllrapidllx]

I'm not really interested in the ethics or morals of this debate.

But if getting cheaper forgeworld models is making me happy, then I'll continue to do just that.


Does anyone know the name of the new company ?


Many thanks

[Wildeybeast]

Find me a single government - Western, Eastern, Northern, Southern, or Lunar - that doesn't do this, and I'll eat my hat.


There are probably one or two dictatorships in recent history with some weird situation where the ruling party might enact some odd business policies to that effect, probably somewhere in the middle east.

Zimbabwe. They took farms off the successful white farmers (beacuse they were white) and gave them to Mugabe's cronies who had no clue about farming. Result, one of the few economically successful countries in Africa now faces starvation and an inflation rate so astronomical that they have to reissue the currency evey 6 months or so.

Get hat eating paladin :D


They might not go out of business but you'd be hard to find business as a pirate if GW was selling at a reasonable cost, now if they were selling at cost, the pirates would go out of business because it still takes resources to manufacture knock offs and and theres only so low you can go when that's true, so the difference in price between GW and the pirates would be nill or at least not more than the difference in shipping from that far away. Think about it wildeybeast, the pirates have to make money too to stay in business not something they can do when selling at near cost. But then again GW would go under selling at cost as well.

This will change over time wildeybest, accept it or not, your opinion is that of the uninformed and the willfully in denial on this subject and wholly inconsequential.

Ah, there are the personal insults, I wondered when they would come back. To clarify, pirates costs will always be cheaper than GW's since they are not investing time and money in people designing the stuff in the first place, the wages they do pay will be far lower, they are using inferior (cheaper) materials and things like employee welfare will be non existent menaign they can undercut. Secondly I was not suggesting that GW would or should sell at cost, merely pointing out that even if GW did lower their prices this much, the pirates would still undercut so the argument that reducing prices will get rid of pirates holds no water. And again I use the Radiohead example to point out that people wil pirate stuff even when it is free ( I really wish someone would bother to read that) so cost is not the reason why some people choose to support piracy. Use it to justify your own actions if you wish, but you must acknowledge that piracy will not disappear if GW lowers prices and that it is damaging to the hobby and the honest people it employs.


Eldargal,

Have you ever argued with a child? If not...now you have. No matter what you say. No matter what logic you bring to the table. It doesn't matter. It will change nothing. They feel they have been wronged. Reality doesn't figure into the equation.

You can point out how their own import infrastructure is to blame. You can point out the very basic creation rationale behind IP. You can listen respectfully to the self serving tantrums that they try to pass off as rational arguments. When you see individuals with fully functioning brains argue the amorality of corporations while accusing GW of immorality then there is only one conclusion.

All for naught.

I spend my day doing this for a job, why do I come home and do it for fun? :confused:


If buying knock off models from China is immoral, then so too is buying Mantic models or other proxies for use in GW games. By not buying GW models, you are putting GW out of business. Those companies are "stealing" customers away with cheaper models that differ very little in theme or function from their source material. Buying Mantic models means you are hurting GW, which means people WILL loose their jobs. Just because Mantic puts a bit of effort into redesigning the wheel does not make them any less guilty of the same crime as the Chinese knock off artists. Now granted the Chinese are more guilty than Mantic in this regard but that does not absolve Mantic (or other companies who create proxy models for use in GW games).

Nonsense. GW can compete with other companies and they are not 'stealing' customers form each other. Firstly people are not property and cannot be stolen (nowadays). Secondly, mantic is not stealing beacuse it is not taking GW's property. If you want to start a seperate thread about whether making proxy models is valid business practice, fine, but it is nowhere near the same thing as piracy.


Once again, I am going to state that this is not an issue of immorality. Morality is relative to a given culture. Look at genital mutilation. In America, when performed on a baby boy it is seen as a perfectly acceptable surgery. When performed on a girl, such acts are deemed disgusting and unwarranted. However, in middle eastern societies, Female genital mutilation is widely regarded as the norm. Which culture is right? If female genital mutilation a positive or a negative, is it right or wrong? From one culture it is normal, to the other it is anathema.

A poor and insensitive analogy. Male gential 'mutilation' ( I assume you mean circumcision) is not harmful and it is sometimes medically useful/necessary. Female genital mutilation is never necessary and is frequently harmful and painful. That is why it is deemed as "disgusting and unwarranted". And if you don't want to the do morality argument, I again offer the argument that piracy is damaging to the hobby and if supported by enough people will put the business that design our models and games out of business which means no more hobby.

[Wildeybeast]

I'm not really interested in the ethics or morals of this debate.

But if getting cheaper forgeworld models is making me happy, then I'll continue to do just that.


Does anyone know the name of the new company ?


Many thanks

If I told you I'd buy you all the FW models you want for the rest of your life if you molested a child would you still say that?

Have you made this account just to troll?

[xllrapidllx]

If I told you I'd buy you all the FW models you want for the rest of your life if you molested a child would you still say that?

Have you made this account just to troll?

Your argument is invalid... Unless you are a child molester.

There is no pleasure in doing that, whilst getting something cheaper is very pleasurable.

People will always go for the cheaper options, because it's human nature to choose the cheaper option.

If you have two models, both the same yet one is cheaper you'll choose that one.

If you enjoy paying over the top prices, then congrats to you.

[Wildeybeast]

It is a valid point since you clearly stated you had no interest in moral arguments so long as you got cheaper models. However I take your point that I phrased it wrongly. How about I just drive down to Warhamemr World, steal everything I can fit in my car and give it all to you? It's free for you, you get what you enjoy and don't have to do anything you don't enjoy. Still not bothered about the morality of where your models come from?

[DrLove42]

So if tomorrow GW announced they were going to start selling all their models half prive, but the quality would be bad, the materials poorer quality, the customer service/returns non existant AND thye werent going to make any new sculpts, just copy other companies models you be fi.e with that?

[the jeske]

what would be all good and nice , if the models actualy were poor quality . remember a lot of the "pirate" chines stuff is producted by the same companies or using the same machines as the legal ones .




Then we attempted a social engineering experiment by forcing democracy on a Middle Eastern nation. Some say that this was the precursor to the Arab Spring movement, but...some say a lot of things that aren't necessarily true.
arab spring bringing more democratic parties to power [looks at the broother hood , dudes in libya ] . yes of course . because shariat is like totaly democratic .
I remember Iraq from the time of the Iraq/Iran war . Awesome place to work and live . dollar worth less then dinar .Everything you want you can buy[<= Russian. you dont know what it is to stand in the line for 2 hours and buy nothing] . Sure if you opposed
Sadams rule you get eliminated . But I would like to see a country where it is different. There were no religion based wars. Keeping the peace by elimination of terror groups like kurds . and it was done proper not like western guys . It was done proper with elimination of base of support . An insurgent can be hunted in the mountains for years . But burn his home in the vally . Kill his family [supporting terrorist is illegal] burn the fields and what happens ? no terror .

[ElectricPaladin]

Zimbabwe. They took farms off the successful white farmers (beacuse they were white) and gave them to Mugabe's cronies who had no clue about farming. Result, one of the few economically successful countries in Africa now faces starvation and an inflation rate so astronomical that they have to reissue the currency evey 6 months or so.

Get hat eating paladin :D

I think my hat is safe.

This isn't an example of a country failing to protect its economic interests - this is an example of a country doing it really badly. Consider that giving farms to the cronies was done in the interests of keeping the cronies loyal, which prevents them from undermining the regime, which prevents political collapse, which goes hand in hand with further economic collapse. This is not to say that the decision was a "good" one, or that they knew what they were getting into and decided to weather the economic consequences in order to avoid worse political ones. I'm just saying that poorly managing your means of production and distribution is not the same thing as being some theoretical nice-guy state that doesn't even try to protect its own economic interests.

[DrLove42]

I remember Iraq from the time of the Iraq/Iran war . Awesome place to work and live . dollar worth less then dinar .Everything you want you can buy[<= Russian. you dont know what it is to stand in the line for 2 hours and buy nothing] . Sure if you opposed Sadams rule you get eliminated . But I would like to see a country where it is different. There were no religion based wars. Keeping the peace by elimination of terror groups like kurds . and it was done proper not like western guys . It was done proper with elimination of base of support . An insurgent can be hunted in the mountains for years . But burn his home in the vally . Kill his family [supporting terrorist is illegal] burn the fields and what happens ? no terror .

CAn't tell if terrible troll or blithering idiot.

You think;

- You compare them to fall fall Soviet russia and think its good
- You think a country where everything is fine, unless you say you don't like the leader, in which case you get killed is good
- Gassing 10s of 1000s of innocent people was a good thing (get your facts right. 99% of the kurds are a peaceful problem. Saddams elimation of them wasn't terro based,it was no better than Hitler on the Jews)
-You suggest murdering innocent people to stop one person is a good thing as well?

To move your views into say America would be;

- If you say you don't like the President the secret service turn up at your house and put a bullet in your head in front off your family (when the Chinese government used to do this, they even charged the family for the cost of the bullet)
- Saying a terrorist is a muslim right? So lets just kill every muslim in the country! That'll stop the problem!
- Also theres a lot of these Latin American Peop)le around here. I don't like the colour of their skin. So lets test our chemical weapons on their villages!

(FYI NONE OF THIS IS MY OPINION -Just trying to prove how disgusting a point he's trying to make

[ElectricPaladin]

CAn't tell if terrible troll or blithering idiot.

Why can't he be both?

[lattd]

If anyone is interested, global expenditure on intellectual property was 612 billion in 2010, in 2009 estimates of counterfeit goods was 460 billion, 78% of all counterfeit goods come from China. Piracy doesn't harm business's it slaughters it.

[gendoikari87]

yeah, question, what can we effectively do about it? That's right, diddly squat until china decides to play fair.


Ah, there are the personal insults, I wondered when they would come back. To clarify, pirates costs will always be cheaper than GW's since they are not investing time and money in people designing the stuff in the first place, the wages they do pay will be far lower, they are using inferior (cheaper) materials and things like employee welfare will be non existent menaign they can undercut. Secondly I was not suggesting that GW would or should sell at cost, merely pointing out that even if GW did lower their prices this much, the pirates would still undercut so the argument that reducing prices will get rid of pirates holds no water. And again I use the Radiohead example to point out that people wil pirate stuff even when it is free ( I really wish someone would bother to read that) so cost is not the reason why some people choose to support piracy. Use it to justify your own actions if you wish, but you must acknowledge that piracy will not disappear if GW lowers prices and that it is damaging to the hobby and the honest people it employs.

Really? pirates operate cheaper than GW, NAW i didn't know that. And totally didn't take that into account. [/sarcasm] Do your self a favor and actually read.

Anyway i'm done with this thread, too many complete idealistic idiots who don't get the point.

[Wildeybeast]

yeah, question, what can we effectively do about it? That's right, diddly squat until china decides to play fair.

Really? pirates operate cheaper than GW, NAW i didn't know that. And totally didn't take that into account. [/sarcasm] Do your self a favor and actually read.

Anyway i'm done with this thread, too many complete idealistic idiots who don't get the point.

I did, don't blame me if your point wasn't clear (btw, sarcasm is sometimes quite hard to pick up from text, so if you want to get your point across clearly you might want to consider not using it). As for not being able to do anything, you could always not buy from the pirates. If everyone did that, rather than making excuses for them and their own selfish actions, it might have a bit of impact. If you don't want to have a reasoned discussion rather than just insulting people, I'm sure the thread will be better off without you.


If anyone is interested, global expenditure on intellectual property was 612 billion in 2010, in 2009 estimates of counterfeit goods was 460 billion, 78% of all counterfeit goods come from China. Piracy doesn't harm business's it slaughters it.

Very interesting figures, can I ask where you got them from?

[DarkLink]

If you don't want to have a reasoned discussion rather than just insulting people, I'm sure the thread will be better off without you.


The Ignore list is an awesome feature;). Rarely used, but when it is, it's a godsend.

[gendoikari87]

I did, don't blame me if your point wasn't clear (btw, sarcasm is sometimes quite hard to pick up from text, so if you want to get your point across clearly you might want to consider not using it). As for not being able to do anything, you could always not buy from the pirates. If everyone did that, rather than making excuses for them and their own selfish actions, it might have a bit of impact. If you don't want to have a reasoned discussion rather than just insulting people, I'm sure the thread will be better off without you.


Ditto. because if you actually read my earlier post you'd notice I never said anything to the order that the operating costs were the same, in fact I implied that they were lower for the pirates.

[DarkLink]

Wow, really? He disagrees with your point in a polite and respectful manner, after you called him an idiot among other things, and you take his response as an insult? What a tool. This is actually kind of amusing.






I do recall reading an article about how the music industry took something like a 50% hit to their profits when illegal downloads started to boom. I'll have to see if I can find that again.

[daboarder]

The music industry is not the best analogy for the effect of pirated material on business.

Despite their claims that piracy cripples their income there are is a lost of social research data that suggest it is in fact either the opposite in that people are exposed to more music than they would be otherwise and therefore develope broader tastes. OR it is a net effect of zero because even if people didn't download music doesn't mean they would go out and by it.

[Wildeybeast]

Wow, really? He disagrees with your point in a polite and respectful manner, after you called him an idiot among other things, and you take his response as an insult? What a tool. This is actually kind of amusing.

Indeed it is. I have thankfully learned not to get too wound up about what people say on the internet (took me a while!) and I take being insulted as a sign that your opponent can't come up with any sensible responses to your answer. I find the fact that there are people trying to justify piracy in any way shape or form rather amusing (whilst viewing it as alarming example of the decline of the moral fabric of society). Anyway, I thought Gendoikari was quitting this thread?

[burning crome]

this is really going to wind me up since I did use this site. And before people start dragging me in to ethics debates the chief thing i was buying of them was 60mm GW bases. You have no idea how hard these are to track down. If you go to GW direct them apart form being stupidly over priced you can only get them in mixed sets.If you try going to a resin base manufacturer then they seem to want quite a premume for this size. I know there a bit more resin in them but not the same as 10 25mm surely. If any one could message me the new site i'd be gratefully thanks

[Wildeybeast]

Your justification is you were only buying bases, so that's alright? 'I only gave the criminals a little bit of money, so it doesn't really matter'. Well, it's a new one for this thread, I'll give you that, though I'm not sure it's any better than the other lame justifications nor how you think that is going to dissuade people from criticising you.

[DarkLink]

Pretty sure it's against forum rules to post links to illegal stuff, regardless of whether it's illegal in china or not.

Yeah, I couldn't find anything on music downloads with a quick google search, though I did find an article (http://cquirke.mvps.org/pwdssuck.htm) making fun of how silly passwords can be.


Edit:
I found this, too, making fun of the movie industry: http://steveblank.com/2012/01/04/why-the-movie-industry-cant-innovate-and-the-result-is-sopa/

[burning crome]

Your justification is you were only buying bases, so that's alright? 'I only gave the criminals a little bit of money, so it doesn't really matter'. Well, it's a new one for this thread, I'll give you that, though I'm not sure it's any better than the other lame justifications nor how you think that is going to dissuade people from criticising you.

I truly don't care what you think. I also torrent codex so i have a some sort of clue as to what people are on about rather than pay 20 a pop my sins are numerous what can i say.

[gendoikari87]

Indeed it is. I have thankfully learned not to get too wound up about what people say on the internet (took me a while!) and I take being insulted as a sign that your opponent can't come up with any sensible responses to your answer. I find the fact that there are people trying to justify piracy in any way shape or form rather amusing (whilst viewing it as alarming example of the decline of the moral fabric of society). Anyway, I thought Gendoikari was quitting this thread?

no, it's a sign that your too thick headed to be reasoned with so, i opt to piss you off instead, which BTW you still haven't gotten the point if your talking about "justifying piracy" the point is not to justify it at all.



I truly don't care what you think. I also torrent codex so i have a some sort of clue as to what people are on about rather than pay 20 a pop my sins are numerous what can i say.

Doesn't everyone do this for the codexes they don't play with?

[gendoikari87]

BTW in case you haven't gotten the point yet, the point is this: these guys exists, they are 100% LEGAL and some people who are tired of GW's prices are going to use them. Right or wrong, destructive to the industry or not, that is the reality.

[TheBitzBarn]

BTW in case you haven't gotten the point yet, the point is this: these guys exists, they are 100% LEGAL and some people who are tired of GW's prices are going to use them. Right or wrong, destructive to the industry or not, that is the reality.

Yes they exist but they are NOT 1005 Legal They are 110% ILLEGAL and you can justify using them and be a criminal all you want but you and I both know it is ILLEGAL. Yes they exist and some people will use them because they do not care. That still does not make them LEGAL

[daboarder]

EDIT: you know what I'm done I've got better things to do than try to educate a bigot with a piss poor education.

[DarkLink]

He might not have the best grasp on what's going on in China, but I'm not exactly certain that quite qualifies him as a bigot. China doesn't exactly have the best reputation in a lot of areas, and its government deserves a lot of that reputation.


snip

I'm also pretty sure openly insulting other posters is against forum rules as well. Flagged.

[gendoikari87]

Yes they exist but they are NOT 1005 Legal They are 110% ILLEGAL and you can justify using them and be a criminal all you want but you and I both know it is ILLEGAL. Yes they exist and some people will use them because they do not care. That still does not make them LEGAL

They're legal to produce in china, and it's legal to buy from china, so please if there is some importation law that I'm missing fill me in.

[bfmusashi]

What country do you live in Gendo?

[DrLove42]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11155110

Pirated goods are seized on arrival into the country usually. The only reaosn these might get through is because customs don't know what they're looking for.

It is ILLEGAL to purchase pirated goods in the UK

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Consumerrights/Yourconsumerrightswhenbuyinggoodsandservices/DG_194549

I can only assume there is similar rules for the States and other places....I'll have a look and see what I can find

UPDATE - ACTA (Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) Signed by the US. Makes all counterfeit goods, the sale of, the distribution of and the import of ILLEGAL. The government seems to go after the buyers, cos they can't get the sellers cos of the Chinese governemts attitude to it

[plawolf]

- If you say you don't like the President the secret service turn up at your house and put a bullet in your head in front off your family (when the Chinese government used to do this, they even charged the family for the cost of the bullet)

Yet more utterly BS claims some troll pull out of his butt. Just stop talking about the real world since you obviously have no clue and stick to toy soldiers.

[DrLove42]

In some cases, the prisoners family is even billed for the bullet—the equivalent of about 6 cents. From http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=298



" Families who want to reclaim the body are charged for the bullet.From http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/03/12/1047431092598.html


"the family had to pay an equivalent of $3,000 as a "bullet fee"—a fee for the bullet used by security forces" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124571865270639351.html (OK so this one is Iran not china...)


The relatives of the victim may well be offered the bullet that killed their loved one, and then charged the 30p it cost http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1238454/Akmal-Shaikh-Briton-executed-Chinese-firing-squad-body-returned.html


Most of the executed’s families did not come to claim the bodies, although they would have had to pay just the minimal “bullet fee” to take possession http://www.connexions.org/CxLibrary/Docs/CX5051-ExecutionDayinZhengzhou.htm

Maybe you should check your facts before you acuse people of making stuff up


Lawyered

[eldargal]

Another thing which is conveniently forgotten is that the Chinese government today is the same government that presided over the deaths of 23-42 million deaths during the Great Leap Forward. Different people obviously, but same party, ideology and in some cases same political families.

This is not a nice government, they are not nice people and before anyone says 'omg racist!' the reason they are so horrible is for that they do to their own people. They still torture dissidents and their families, and execute them. They destroy entire cities to rebuild them in a more internal security friendly layout. There are still persistent and credible claims of mass forced sterilisation and sometimes even forced abortions.


This should probably be moved to the Oubliette.

[the jeske]

Different people obviously, but same party, ideology and in some cases same political families.

actualy some of the older top ranking ones took part in the cleansing and the cultural revolotion . But again , how is this wrong . they had the power and power means you have to destroy any form of opposition , otherwise they will come back and try to usurp again . also the human loses were acceptable , it didnt wipe out china as civilisation . On the other hand the western sociaties were know to totaly wipe out ethnic groups and profit from it both in the short and long term too , so what kind of an argument is that.



This is not a nice government, they are not nice people and before anyone says 'omg racist!' the reason they are so horrible is for that they do to their own people.
they are an awesome goverment , much better then any of the western ones .. If stuff is supposed to be done it is done . A goverment is good not because it pats you on the head and says your nice [the very idea that a sociaty or a goverment may exist for a single person makes no sense to me in the first place] . It is good when it is effective . China is getting richer , more stuff is done , country is more powerful then it was 10 years ago . Ergo goverment good.


They still torture dissidents and their families, and execute them
why not , it is legal . besides didnt you like off osama lately ?




They destroy entire cities to rebuild them in a more internal security friendly layout.

Same thing was done in Russia or in France , or in Israel or in the US . I fail to see how this is a different/bad thing.



There are still persistent and credible claims of mass forced sterilisation and sometimes even forced abortions.
but only in the unquite regions like tybet or the provinces with muslimes which both dont accept the main goverment rule . It is only natural that to have peace the goverment has to keep such masses under control . In fact it is very humanitarian . Much better the forced expulsions[europe post WWI and II] or physcial elimination.



It is ILLEGAL to purchase pirated goods in the UK
actualy it is only illegal to purchase pirated goods made by non UK "pirates" . When UK mass copied stuff post WWII there were no problems with IP laws . But of course when an UK based company steals stuff from another country like Russia , it is called "securing the economical safty and interests of the united kingdoms".


That still does not make them LEGAL

since when does the US or EU decide what is legal for the whole world . Because If I remember right that is not how stuff suppose to work , specialy in your democratic worlds[unless western democracy means . you have to do what we tell you to do colony/3ed world country].

[plawolf]

He might not have the best grasp on what's going on in China, but I'm not exactly certain that quite qualifies him as a bigot. China doesn't exactly have the best reputation in a lot of areas, and its government deserves a lot of that reputation.

And you would know this for a fact because?

Just look at this thread, I have lost count of the number of utterly untrue and often plainly ridiculous claims made against China, and no-one else has said a word about it.

In the west, and America in particular, China bashing and anti-China views is fast becoming the top national past time and all too often, it is based on biased, manipulated or plainly false information. Even respectable institutions like CNN and the BBC have been caught red handed going as far as to photoshop images to the point where the very nature of what they showed has been fundamentally altered in order that they fit with this 'reputation' instead of actual facts on the ground.

If such views or treatment were being made against any other race or group, there would be absolute uproar, can you imagine the response if members made derogatory racially stereotypical comments about blacks or god forbid, Jews?

China does make a lot of counterfeit goods, that is a fact. What is not a fact is the claim that it is Chinese government policy to promote or protect such companies and individuals.

The Chinese government does actively encourage the procurement and assimilation of advanced foreign technologies and knowledge, but that is only for critical sectors like heavy industry, computing and electronics etc. The funny thing is, once upon a time, America did exactly the same thing, and the Japanese, and the South Koreans.

However, these policies only apply to industries and sectors the Chinese consider to be critical to their national power and advancement. Plastic toy soldiers just isn't on that list. Neither are designer hand bags or pirated DVDs (funnily enough, the Chinese government actually has a strict quota on the number of foreign films it allows imported into the country because they are weary of the influence of western pop culture eroding traditional Chinese values and what not, so they would definitely put a stop to all those pirated DVDs 'polluting' the minds of their citizens if they could wouldn't they?)

There is no 'evil commie' plot to rip off plastic toy soldiers. It just happens to be Chinese companies that make these pirate goods because a) there is a strong enough demand for them, and b) because China is probably one of the few places out there with enough surplus labour and equipment of high enough quality to make rip-offs that western consumers would want as they could easily pass off for the real thing.

People like to cling to the company line that counterfeits are always of poorer quality than legitimates. But the fact is, there are counterfeits, and there are counterfeits. Some are indeed the poor quality superficial crap you are wasting your money buying, but there are also counterfeits every bit as good as the originals, sometimes they are even better!

I am no advocate of pirated goods and would not buy them myself, but I hate propaganda and false information even more.

If you want to be against piracy and counterfeits, at least be against it because you know the full and true facts and made the decision to be against it based on those facts instead of hating it because of false information or because you were programmed to do so.

[plawolf]

From http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=298


From http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/03/12/1047431092598.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124571865270639351.html (OK so this one is Iran not china...)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1238454/Akmal-Shaikh-Briton-executed-Chinese-firing-squad-body-returned.html

http://www.connexions.org/CxLibrary/Docs/CX5051-ExecutionDayinZhengzhou.htm

Maybe you should check your facts before you acuse people of making stuff up


Lawyered

So who was actually executed for saying they don't like the president? :rolleyes:

It's actually telling about which part you focused on as you seem to think being charged a 'bullet fee' is more important than the crime the guys were executed for.

[eldargal]

And this just goes to confirm what I said earlier, you're a cretinous loon. Either that or you are twelve and are basing your knowledge of government ethics on playing Civlization V.



actualy some of the older top ranking ones took part in the cleansing and the cultural revolotion . But again , how is this wrong . they had the power and power means you have to destroy any form of opposition , otherwise they will come back and try to usurp again . also the human loses were acceptable , it didnt wipe out china as civilisation . On the other hand the western sociaties were know to totaly wipe out ethnic groups and profit from it both in the short and long term too , so what kind of an argument is that.


they are an awesome goverment , much better then any of the western ones .. If stuff is supposed to be done it is done . A goverment is good not because it pats you on the head and says your nice [the very idea that a sociaty or a goverment may exist for a single person makes no sense to me in the first place] . It is good when it is effective . China is getting richer , more stuff is done , country is more powerful then it was 10 years ago . Ergo goverment good.


why not , it is legal . besides didnt you like off osama lately ?




Same thing was done in Russia or in France , or in Israel or in the US . I fail to see how this is a different/bad thing.


but only in the unquite regions like tybet or the provinces with muslimes which both dont accept the main goverment rule . It is only natural that to have peace the goverment has to keep such masses under control . In fact it is very humanitarian . Much better the forced expulsions[europe post WWI and II] or physcial elimination.


actualy it is only illegal to purchase pirated goods made by non UK "pirates" . When UK mass copied stuff post WWII there were no problems with IP laws . But of course when an UK based company steals stuff from another country like Russia , it is called "securing the economical safty and interests of the united kingdoms".

since when does the US or EU decide what is legal for the whole world . Because If I remember right that is not how stuff suppose to work , specialy in your democratic worlds[unless western democracy means . you have to do what we tell you to do colony/3ed world country].

[DrLove42]

Gotta agree with Eldargal here. Are you part of the EDL by any chance (assuming your in the UK)? YOu see no problem in a governemt that actively murders and tortures innocent people as long as the means support the ends?


So who was actually executed for saying they don't like the president? :rolleyes:

It's actually telling about which part you focused on as you seem to think being charged a 'bullet fee' is more important than the crime the guys were executed for.

Yeah my bad for assuming you were pointing at the other thing. You did kinda take that sentence out of context. It was in response to a guy saying that Iran/Iraq was an awesome stable country because the secret police destroyed any opposition or people who complained. I was just re-locating the situation to how it would be in a western society

[plawolf]

Another thing which is conveniently forgotten is that the Chinese government today is the same government that presided over the deaths of 23-42 million deaths during the Great Leap Forward.

Another infamous baseless claim that everyone takes for a 'fact'.

I personally know people who actually lived through those famines, and they tell some grim and desperate stories about starvation and the lengths people went to feed themselves and their families. These stories are remarkably consistent considering they come from people who lived many hundreds and thousands of miles apart who come from cities and the countryside, but the one fact that all of these stories lacked, was tales of massed deaths from starvation.

Now, considering the Chinese total population at the time of the Great Leap Forward as around 580m, a death rate of 23-42m would amount of 4-7% of the total population. You would think people would notice and remember if there was that kind of die-offs.

When you consider how closed off and secretive the Chinese government was in those days, it casts more doubt on how anyone from the west would know those figures in the first place, as that is most certainly not the kind of information the Chinese government would be advertising if true.

Trying to find the providence of where that death rate actually came from was surprisingly hard for such a well publicized and quoted figure. And as near as I could tell, that figure was based on census data taken after the Great Leap Forward, compared to population projections made before it, and the difference was seized upon by the propagandists of the west (yes, the west had those in the 60s and China was most certainly a target for them) as the 'death toll'.

Anyone with even the most basic knowledge about statistics should see how absolutely ridiculous it would be to make such a conclusion even if you had a wealth of empirical data to accurately plot historical trends about population growth and make projections for future trends.

The PRC was only founded in 1949, after over a century of near continuos warfare and strife. The Great Leap Forward started in 1958, 9 years later and there was the Korean war in between.

There was nowhere near enough empirical data for the original population projections to be anything other than a guess, there wasn't even enough information to make that a 'best' guess. That is before you factor in the impact the Great Leap Forward had on official Chinese government figures, when everything was hyper-inflated, from production of goods to crop yields to birth rates in a bid to make it look like the country was experiencing fantastical success, and which ultimately led to the famine in the first place as government records showed many times the crop yields and stocks they had, and farmers were wasting their time trying to cast iron in backyards while crops rotted in fields.

The more you look at where the figure came from, the more unsound it is, and the more ridiculous that it is accepted and quoted so often as if it was a fact.[/QUOTE]



Different people obviously, but same party, ideology and in some cases same political families.

Wrong again I'm afraid. The only similarity between the people in power in Beijing today compared to those in power during the Great Leap Forward is that they are all members of the 'communist' party.

But the party isn't even remotely communist, nor has it ever really been. It has always been more socialist, and the only time it actually tried to be communist was during the Great Leap Forward, and everyone agreed that it was a terrible idea and no-one has seriously suggested anything of the sort since.

The communist party in China is so large and encompassing and has so little real political ideology that it is not a political party in any sense. There are vastly different views, ideologies and people in the same party, some of who has political and ideological differences as vast as that between the Tea Party and Democrats.

Trying to hand the crimes of past leaders on China's current government is about as reasonable as suggesting Obama should be held responsible for America's slave trading past.


This is not a nice government, they are not nice people and before anyone says 'omg racist!' the reason they are so horrible is for that they do to their own people. They still torture dissidents and their families, and execute them.

So which dissidents have been executed lately in China? As for torture, well it seems Americans have a rather elastic definition of what amounts to 'torture' that is largely dependent who is doing it to who.

When that US Navy E3 force landed in China, you had American politicians accusing the Chinese of 'torture' because they once woke the crew up in the middle of the night for questioning. Sleep depravation apparently.

Even if we leave out the obvious examples from America's war on terror, what American police are doing with Occupy movement members could, and almost certainly would be represented as oppression and torture if it was an 'unfriendly' government that was doing it.

The overnight expedient trials of British nations responsible for the London riots would be called a kangaroo court if it was done by an unfriendly regime.

That's just recent examples, what the American and British governments did to put down populist anti-government movements during the Vietnam war and the British miners strikes were all pretty nasty my lady.

How reasonable or accurate would it be to bring up Vietnam or the Miners Strike to use to assess current American and British administrations? The conservative party is in power again in the Uk today as was during the miners strike, and both the democrats and republicans were in power during the vietnam war. Same parties, same ideologies, and sometimes the same political families too.

Every government has done bad things to it's people for one reason or another in the past, and dare I say, will do so again in the future when the stakes are really down.

Chinese dissidents who claimed all sorts of things while being 'gagged' in China also has a funny tendency to simply drop off the public radar once they reach the 'safety' of the west. You would think that if they were really so abused and oppressed as they claimed, and if they were nearly as passionate as they appeared, they would speak out more, not less, once they reach the west where no-one was suppressing their right to free speech.


They destroy entire cities to rebuild them in a more internal security friendly layout. There are still persistent and credible claims of mass forced sterilisation and sometimes even forced abortions.

Come on, all the other points you raised were wrong in my opinion for the reasons already listed, but at least they were commonly enough made points that it would be easy to take them at face value if you did not look deeply into them, but these are so way out there, I really would have expected someone of your intelligence to be spectacle of them unless you had some pretty damn good evidence. And no, I would not consider some off-hand remark made by journalists with absolutely no professional qualifications or expertise or something from a website with an obvious axe to grind as good evidence.

If you were a professional with specialized knowledge in a particular field as I am, you would be disgusted at how often journalists get even basic facts completely wrong. And that's them trying their best to report the truth on purely technical matters. With them adding spin or their own personal bias into the mix on political or foreign affairs pieces and it really is depressing how much reporters get away with.

[plawolf]

Gotta agree with Eldargal here. Are you part of the EDL by any chance (assuming your in the UK)?

Why would you think that I am a member of the EDL?


YOu see no problem in a governemt that actively murders and tortures innocent people as long as the means support the ends?

Assumption is the mother of all mistakes.

It is an assumption, and an incorrect one, that I have no problems with governments that actively murders and tortures innocent people.

My beef is the often misinformed or plainly wrong assumptions that make people to automatically assume certain governments do that in the first place.

All too often, a double standard is cast whereby police thuggery is ignored or even praised in one place but called 'torture' in another.


Yeah my bad for assuming you were pointing at the other thing. You did kinda take that sentence out of context. It was in response to a guy saying that Iran/Iraq was an awesome stable country because the secret police destroyed any opposition or people who complained. I was just re-locating the situation to how it would be in a western society

Fair enough, and sorry if I took your off-hand remark out of context. My issue was not with you, but the underlying misinformation and assumptions that led you to make that off-hand remark in the first place.

[DrLove42]

OK...assumption is definently the mother of all mistakes. IN your above post ^^ the 2 top quote boxes "the EDL" and "means supports the ends" weren't aimed at you, they were aimed at "The Jeske".

None of your comments (haven't read your big post up above yet though :P) show you as being anything other than a well reasoned individual, even if you don't agree with me (but hey you need 2 sides to have a debate!)

A lot of people have this "idealised" version of china in their head of Samurai, the ancient art and culture, the dragons and chinese new year....you know the stuff you see in all of the films. But in reality its a rapidly industrialising country, with huge issues that people overlook

Take this political dissident on the news today. He's a human rights campaigner, who hasn't done anything violent. The chinese government threatened to kill his wife and children if he didn't surrender back to them.

And theres a bit of a difference in the "torture" that the US does and the "torture" that China and middle eastern countries commit

[Wildeybeast]

no, it's a sign that your too thick headed to be reasoned with so, i opt to piss you off instead, which BTW you still haven't gotten the point if your talking about "justifying piracy" the point is not to justify it at all.

What a shame it isn't working, all you are doing is confirming my view that you lack the ability to construct a sensible argument



Doesn't everyone do this for the codexes they don't play with?

No because not everyone thinks that stealing stuff is ok.


And this just goes to confirm what I said earlier, you're a cretinous loon. Either that or you are twelve and are basing your knowledge of government ethics on playing Civlization V.

My favourite bit is where he accuses you killing Osama Bin Laden.


why not , it is legal . besides didnt you like off osama lately ?

Eldargal, moonlighting as US Navy Seal are you now? You should have probably kept that bit quieter! :D

[plawolf]

OK...assumption is definently the mother of all mistakes. IN your above post ^^ the 2 top quote boxes "the EDL" and "means supports the ends" weren't aimed at you, they were aimed at "The Jeske".

Well looks like I made that point rather better than even I intended or realized. My bad there. ;)


None of your comments (haven't read your big post up above yet though :P) show you as being anything other than a well reasoned individual, even if you don't agree with me (but hey you need 2 sides to have a debate!)

A lot of people have this "idealised" version of china in their head of Samurai, the ancient art and culture, the dragons and chinese new year....you know the stuff you see in all of the films. But in reality its a rapidly industrialising country, with huge issues that people overlook

Samurai is actually Japanese. ;)

It also seems like you and I have been looking at pretty different sources of news if your impression of China is one of an ancient fluffy utopian paradise and the press under-reports their problems and issues.

Whereas the view I got from reading the news is a country with all sorts of social, political and environmental problems that the press loves to bring up, even when it seems totally irrelevant to the story, and the populist western view of China is one where the Chinese government has done nothing good, the Chinese people hate it and the world would be a better place if it was gone, a view echoed by several members in this thread already.

If you have never been to China, you might be pretty shocked at what the average Chinese person on the street knows and thinks.

They know better than the average western citizen about the mistakes of their government and the extent of their freedoms. Yet they also acknowledge the accomplishments and all the good their government has done and all the freedoms they have gained over the years.

China still have a long way to go, but it has come a long way already, and the Chinese government is nowhere near as despised or bad for China as we in the west are told by the media and dissidents.

It is tempting and easy to paint China as the 'bad guys' and blame them for all the world's ills.It is certainly far easier and more convenient than to face up to own own mistakes and failings and summon the strength to make the hard choices and difficult changes needed to address them.

The problem is that China is a rising power, and far more of it's people like and support it's government than we in the west would believe (it's a lot more complicated than that, but I am trying to keep this brief), and all this blithering China-bashing in the west is doing serious damage to the west's image in the eyes of the Chinese people. And the Chinese have long memories.

It seems a little far fetched, but I can already see a noticeable shift in the view a lot of Chinese hold towards the west compared to as late as the 90s, and that shift is definitely not a positive one, and who could be surprised? Would we feel more or less inclined to sympathies with a society or people who seem to hold us in contempt all the time?

[DrLove42]

I always thought Samurai were Chinese and Ninja were Japan...or maybe I thought they were the other way around and i just get confused :S

Take it you live in China then?

And yeah sure a lot of the issues wesee are exagerated by the media. A lot of it probably is "demonise" China to increase buisness in other places.

I'm also sure that 99% of the chinese population are well meaning individuals. Its just that 1% that make it worse. Unfortunatly 1% of china is still a pretty huge number!

[Wildeybeast]

Well looks like I made that point rather better than even I intended or realized. My bad there. ;)



Samurai is actually Japanese. ;)

It also seems like you and I have been looking at pretty different sources of news if your impression of China is one of an ancient fluffy utopian paradise and the press under-reports their problems and issues.

Whereas the view I got from reading the news is a country with all sorts of social, political and environmental problems that the press loves to bring up, even when it seems totally irrelevant to the story, and the populist western view of China is one where the Chinese government has done nothing good, the Chinese people hate it and the world would be a better place if it was gone, a view echoed by several members in this thread already.

If you have never been to China, you might be pretty shocked at what the average Chinese person on the street knows and thinks.

They know better than the average western citizen about the mistakes of their government and the extent of their freedoms. Yet they also acknowledge the accomplishments and all the good their government has done and all the freedoms they have gained over the years.

China still have a long way to go, but it has come a long way already, and the Chinese government is nowhere near as despised or bad for China as we in the west are told by the media and dissidents.

It is tempting and easy to paint China as the 'bad guys' and blame them for all the world's ills.It is certainly far easier and more convenient than to face up to own own mistakes and failings and summon the strength to make the hard choices and difficult changes needed to address them.

The problem is that China is a rising power, and far more of it's people like and support it's government than we in the west would believe (it's a lot more complicated than that, but I am trying to keep this brief), and all this blithering China-bashing in the west is doing serious damage to the west's image in the eyes of the Chinese people. And the Chinese have long memories.

It seems a little far fetched, but I can already see a noticeable shift in the view a lot of Chinese hold towards the west compared to as late as the 90s, and that shift is definitely not a positive one, and who could be surprised? Would we feel more or less inclined to sympathies with a society or people who seem to hold us in contempt all the time?

I would argue (and this is just my opinion) that regardless of how many people in their own nation support it, any nation which has illeagally occcupied another for over 60 years and systematically repressed their culture and religion cannot recieve enough of a bashing from the West.

[DarkLink]

Funny thing about communism, is that the people don't matter. All the power is in the hands of the party, and they can do whatever they want. And since they're fanatically wed to a political ideology, communist countries tend to make dictatorships look like a nice vacation spot.


And, yes, samurai are from Japan. They're the Japanese equivalent of European knights. Ninja are from Japan as well, though ninja are surrounded by more "facts" than Chuck Norris. Either way, neither have anything to do with China.


Why would you think that I am a member of the EDL?


Because you're spewing psychotic political nonsense. He'd be like "Amnesty International estimates that the communist Chinese government commits approximately 80% of the world's executions", and you're like "nuh-uh, China is awesome and you're a bigot and even if they did I don't care because state sponsored murder is cool".

Edit: I think I got some of the jeske's comments mixed up with yours, plawolf.

I mean, I'm not anti-execution, assuming due process of law and that the punishment is appropriate to the crime, though it is actually cheaper to just throw them in a prison cell for the rest of their life. But anyone who's taken even a cursory glance at the news knows that China openly targets political dissenters to this day. It's not exactly a conspiracy theory. China is not a very nice place.

On a side note, I wonder why anyone thinks communism is even remotely good. Pretty much every communist country in history has played out like a large-scale version of Animal Farm. Between the USSR and the People's Republic of China, it's very well possible the political killings and purges have killed more Chinese and Russians than the total casualties of World War II. And that's just the people that were killed. That's not counting non-lethal human rights abuses, political and economic oppression, and any other number of things that no one should ever want to happen to anyone. And another funny thing is that China's economic growth comes from the adoption of capitalist economic policies. It's ironic that about the only good thing coming out of China is economic growth stemming from the very thing that communism claims to despise. Then again the Chinese government keeps all of that wealth, very little of it actually trickles down to the people, something that will hurt them economically in the long run.


Edit:
I do question the facts about death penalty in china website that was posted earlier, though. It sounds like it was put together by some high school wannabe activist.

[lattd]

Very interesting figures, can I ask where you got them from?

Sorry only just read this post. The details come from:
Priest E (2006 p. 797) “The Future of Music and Film Piracy in China” Berkeley Technology Law Journal, vol 21, p 795
and
Hargreaves I, (2011 page 3) Digital Opportunity: A review of Intellectual Property and Growth. Intellectual Property Office: London

Two very interesting reads.

@Darklink, the USSR under Stalin killed more people through bad politics and removing "undesirables" than people died fighting in WWII.

[Wildeybeast]

Thanks, I'll add them to my 'to read' list.

[lattd]

The Hargreaves report, is what England and Wales has used to develop its new IP law, however this government didn't go all the way with the report which is a shame it has some very interesting ideas.

[gendoikari87]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11155110

Pirated goods are seized on arrival into the country usually. The only reaosn these might get through is because customs don't know what they're looking for.

It is ILLEGAL to purchase pirated goods in the UK

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Consumerrights/Yourconsumerrightswhenbuyinggoodsandservices/DG_194549

I can only assume there is similar rules for the States and other places....I'll have a look and see what I can find

UPDATE - ACTA (Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) Signed by the US. Makes all counterfeit goods, the sale of, the distribution of and the import of ILLEGAL. The government seems to go after the buyers, cos they can't get the sellers cos of the Chinese governemts attitude to it

has ACTA even been signed yet? Last I heard it had not but that's been a few months. Previously TMK it was only illegal to sell pirated goods. Fairly sure I'd have heard something about it being signed as it had a lot of people up in arms after the SOPA/PIPA

[daboarder]

I always thought Samurai were Chinese and Ninja were Japan...or maybe I thought they were the other way around and i just get confused :S


ummm Drlove......they're both exclusively japanese.

edit: and jeske, mate china is NOT a nice government. they execute people for being a "public nuisance". look at last year with protesting occurring almost globally, china was smart they saw Tunisia fall, saw libia start and then quitely rounded up thousands of suspected dissidents on the sly without making a fuss. I mean there also conducting genocide in tibet.

[DrLove42]

Eh i was always better at european and modern history



has ACTA even been signed yet? Last I heard it had not but that's been a few months. Previously TMK it was only illegal to sell pirated goods. Fairly sure I'd have heard something about it being signed as it had a lot of people up in arms after the SOPA/PIPA

Acta was signed in October/November of lsst year. But obviously china didnt sign it, so it targers buyers not sellers

[eldargal]

I know, that was hilarious.:rolleyes:

Double tap to the chest, one to the back of the head.



My favourite bit is where he accuses you killing Osama Bin Laden.



Eldargal, moonlighting as US Navy Seal are you now? You should have probably kept that bit quieter! :D

Just to put the last few pages in perspective, we now have two people so desperate to justify buying stolen toy soldiers that they are saying the genocide of tens of millions is fine.

[Psychosplodge]

Just to put the last few pages in perspective, we now have two people so desperate to justify buying stolen toy soldiers that they are saying the genocide of tens of millions is fine.

Anything to save a couple of quid...

[AnEnemy]

Didn't BOLS just get a new moderator?

Why is this thread not locked down by now? I refuse, out of a deep seated sense of propriety, to use emoticons, but that blue one with the huge eyes and gaping mouth feels so right after reading the last few pages.

[gendoikari87]

Eh i was always better at european and modern history




Acta was signed in October/November of lsst year. But obviously china didnt sign it, so it targers buyers not sellers

Update on this: it's been signed but not ratified so it's not law yet.

[DrLove42]

Just to put the last few pages in perspective, we now have two people so desperate to justify buying stolen toy soldiers that they are saying the genocide of tens of millions is fine.

Welcome to the Internet!

I don't get why theres so much protest about ACTA. I got the opposition to SOPA and PIPA. They were allowing the government to control the internet and what could be viewed to a certain extent

ACTA - Yes it can include the internet, but its mostly to prevent copyrighted goods infringement.

[lattd]

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/pro-crime-acta. It was signed so yes its in effect, but it hasnt changed our law

[Psychosplodge]

Welcome to the Internet! (http://mildlyamused.tumblr.com/post/20403834723/mazhogimaa-kwe-xbisque-dont-know-what-to#notes).

^now linked for semi nsfw, but hte tag line under the picture just made me think "welcome to the internet" lol

[gendoikari87]

Welcome to the Internet!

I don't get why theres so much protest about ACTA. I got the opposition to SOPA and PIPA. They were allowing the government to control the internet and what could be viewed to a certain extent

ACTA - Yes it can include the internet, but its mostly to prevent copyrighted goods infringement.

Because it does much more than SOPA/PIPA ever even dreamed, and the protest is not over what these bills WANT to do, it's not over what they WILL be used for, much like the NDAA it's over what they CAN be used for. And ACTA is much more dangerous.

[gendoikari87]

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/pro-crime-acta. It was signed so yes its in effect, but it hasnt changed our law

It has been signed but not ratified, so no, it's not in effect yet. It needs six ratifiers and so far it has none. Earliest vote to ratify I can find is the EU in june or july. In the US ratification has been stalled.

http://www.ustr.gov/acta

Process

The United States, Australia, Canada, Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Morocco, and Singapore signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) at a ceremony on October 1, 2011, in Tokyo, marking an important step forward in the international fight against trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy. Representatives of the remaining ACTA negotiating parties, the European Union, Mexico, and Switzerland, attended the ceremony and confirmed their continuing strong support for and preparations to sign the Agreement as soon as practicable. The next step in bringing the ACTA into force is the deposit of instruments of ratification, acceptance, or approval from each of the signatories. The agreement will enter into force following the deposit of the sixth such instrument.

[lattd]

ACTA won't do anything because we keep trading with china. As long as China and many countries are using piracy rather than companies making goods cheaper and relatively priced for each country then IP will suffer.

[DarkLink]

Right, it doesn't matter what the law claims to do. There are plenty of laws that talk about doing X, but really they do Y and they include portions of the last bill Z that was defeated but the legislators want to slip one past the public. You'd be amazed at what a lot of bills actually include.

In the case of ACTA, it's very similar to SOPA and PIPA, except that instead of being limited to the US it's an international thing. Making it international law allows it to circumvent many legal restrictions that would have been placed on SOPA and PIPA, making it a much more dangerous law for citizens. Here's (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/23/if-you-thought-sopa-was-bad-just-wait-until-you-meet-acta/) and article on why its bad, from forbes.

It does seem that they scaled ACTA back a bit, though: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/28/final-draft-of-acta-watered-down-tpp-still-dangerous-on-ip-rules/

[Wildeybeast]

I know, that was hilarious.:rolleyes:

Double tap to the chest, one to the back of the head.

Just to put the last few pages in perspective, we now have two people so desperate to justify buying stolen toy soldiers that they are saying the genocide of tens of millions is fine.

TBH, that actually doesn't surprise me given how insane/selfish some people on the internet are. What does surprise is that people are so desperate to get hold of these models because they enjoy the hobby so much, yet they utterly fail to comprehend how damaging piracy is to the hobby they profess to love.

As for the ACTA, it is pleasing to see we have got back to sensible discussion and away from crazy rants and personal insults (however temporary that situation may be). I can't say I'm overly happy about what ACTA will apparently do nor the way it has been brought about, but I feel compelled to point out that it all comes back to this - if people didn't buy pirated goods this act would never have even been thought of. Once again the selfish actions of a few people spoil it for the rest of us. I am astounded that some people don't see this.

[gendoikari87]

TBH, that actually doesn't surprise me given how insane/selfish some people on the internet are. What does surprise is that people are so desperate to get hold of these models because they enjoy the hobby so much, yet they utterly fail to comprehend how damaging piracy is to the hobby they profess to love.

As for the ACTA, it is pleasing to see we have got back to sensible discussion and away from crazy rants and personal insults (however temporary that situation may be). I can't say I'm overly happy about what ACTA will apparently do nor the way it has been brought about, but I feel compelled to point out that it all comes back to this - if people didn't buy pirated goods this act would never have even been thought of. Once again the selfish actions of a few people spoil it for the rest of us. I am astounded that some people don't see this.



The world isn't perfect, **** is going to go down if you let it, and that means more than just laws, laws are words, there are only two ways to stop things like pirating. 1) make it illegal and crack down hard on it, I.E. Actually enforce it, or 2) hamper the demand and attack the problem at it's roots. Unfortunately route 1 is extremely hard to police globally, they will get a few here and there, but a lot will slip through, just look at the drug trafficking to see how well that plays out. The second route is the one that, while possibly less ideal, is the more realistic solution.

[bfmusashi]

Gendoikari87 channeling this week's on Doomsday Prepper and the mall ninja at your local shooting range.

[Wildeybeast]

The world isn't perfect, **** is going to go down if you let it, and that means more than just laws, laws are words, there are only two ways to stop things like pirating. 1) make it illegal and crack down hard on it, I.E. Actually enforce it, or 2) hamper the demand and attack the problem at it's roots. Unfortunately route 1 is extremely hard to police globally, they will get a few here and there, but a lot will slip through, just look at the drug trafficking to see how well that plays out. The second route is the one that, while possibly less ideal, is the more realistic solution.

I agree entirely. However I disagree with you on the what the problem is. You think extorionate prices, yet as I have shown with several examples, this is only true for some people (and I view that as a poor excuse). There are selfish people who will always pirate, regardless of product cost or availability, simply because they can (in the same way people hack websites simply becasue they can). The only thing that will truly stop piracy is people choosing to stop being selfish and not buying. It will never happen but we that doesn't mean we can't put peer presure on those in our community who choose to support pirates, because whatever your reason for doing so, the end result is still the same and it hurts everyone.

[gendoikari87]

The only thing that will truly stop piracy is people choosing to stop being selfish and not buying. It will never happen but we that doesn't mean we can't put peer presure on those in our community who choose to support pirates, because whatever your reason for doing so, the end result is still the same and it hurts everyone.

Your right that it will never happen, and putting peer pressure on those who do, will have little if any effect because the ones that do, just don't care anymore, and if they are true pirated minis, after the paint, it'll be hard to tell the difference.

[Wildeybeast]

Your right that it will never happen, and putting peer pressure on those who do, will have little if any effect because the ones that do, just don't care anymore, and if they are true pirated minis, after the paint, it'll be hard to tell the difference.

A depressingly true thought. Still, I prefer the glass to be half full (even if it's half full of something unpalatable) and since there is nothing else we can do that will have any impact, I'll keep trying. If I can make even one person at least consider whether what they are doing is right, I'll have achieved something, no matter how insignificant that might be. :)

[gendoikari87]

A depressingly true thought. Still, I prefer the glass to be half full (even if it's half full of something unpalatable) and since there is nothing else we can do that will have any impact, I'll keep trying. If I can make even one person at least consider whether what they are doing is right, I'll have achieved something, no matter how insignificant that might be. :)

I prefer to look at the big picture, and in the end, money is a much greater motivator to action, than morals.

[Wildeybeast]

I prefer to look at the big picture, and in the end, money is a much greater motivator to action, than morals.

As do I. And money is a motivator, but since, as I have said many times, we could reduce GW models to cost price and still see them undercut by pirates, those people who use price as a justification will still do so and will not change their actions. So campaigning for lower prices will fail on two counts, as GW will ignore it and the people who buy from pirates won't change their actions. You'll notice I have tried to avoid the morality argument and instead appeal to the selfishness of the pirate supporters by emphasising the damage it does to the hobby they claim to love.

[gendoikari87]

As do I. And money is a motivator, but since, as I have said many times, we could reduce GW models to cost price and still see them undercut by pirates, those people who use price as a justification will still do so and will not change their actions. So campaigning for lower prices will fail on two counts, as GW will ignore it and the people who buy from pirates won't change their actions. You'll notice I have tried to avoid the morality argument and instead appeal to the selfishness of the pirate supporters by emphasising the damage it does to the hobby they claim to love.

no but reducing them down to a fair cost will go a long way to decreasing pirated stuff. Myself for instance, i'm waiting to see if the box set is robed marines, since the box set marines are IMO a fair price or better, I'll gladly pay that price as opposed to going to china. It won't get rid of the pirates and some will continue to buy pirated stuff, but not everyone is so uncaring.

[the jeske]

Gotta agree with Eldargal here. Are you part of the EDL by any chance (assuming your in the UK)? YOu see no problem in a governemt that actively murders and tortures innocent people as long as the means support the ends?
I am Russian customs officer . also am having a problem with understanding something here . how is someone innocent when he opposes the plans of the goverment . Because either there is some logic leap am not seeing here or my abilty to understand english may not be enough [which may very well be true].


And this just goes to confirm what I said earlier, you're a cretinous loon. Either that or you are twelve and are basing your knowledge of government ethics on playing Civlization V.
I worked for 6 years on the Russian/Chiness border before being moved to Germany [I am a customs officer] . I think I know more about the eastern Europe and far east asia ways of dealing with things then you do . Also calling people cetinous loons , just because they have a different view of the world . Isnt that against those democracy principals you western guys care for so much ?



no but reducing them down to a fair cost will go a long way to decreasing pirated stuff

true . people are first of all lazy [that is why they need goverments to force them to work harder] ,if they could get stuff they want on the spot they try to order stuff from china [which can be stoped on borders , may never arrive , may arrive damaged and there will be no refunds etc etc] . GW prices would be ok , if this was still the 90s early 2000s and GW would still be have a monopoly on table top games.

[Uncle Nutsy]

I am Russian customs officer . also am having a problem with understanding something here . how is someone innocent when he opposes the plans of the goverment . Because either there is some logic leap am not seeing here or my abilty to understand english may not be enough [which may very well be true].

well, there's a line here. they are innocent when they voice an opinion that differs from the government. It's perfectly acceptable to disagree or protest against the actions of the government. The other side of the line, when the innocence evaporates, is when that person or persons take a violent course of action against the government. Firebombing a government biulding nets you quite a nasty little jail sentence.


I worked for 6 years on the Russian/Chiness border before being moved to Germany [I am a customs officer] . I think I know more about the eastern Europe and far east asia ways of dealing with things then you do . Also calling people cetinous loons , just because they have a different view of the world . Isnt that against those democracy principals you western guys care for so much ?

Not at all. It's called "freedom of speech" and is allowed in the western world. We can call our government liars, cretins or any other names we wish, no matter how vitriolic, and we don't get arrested for it. It's one of the cornerstones of our society.



true . people are first of all lazy [that is why they need goverments to force them to work harder] ,if they could get stuff they want on the spot they try to order stuff from china [which can be stoped on borders , may never arrive , may arrive damaged and there will be no refunds etc etc] . GW prices would be ok , if this was still the 90s early 2000s and GW would still be have a monopoly on table top games.

Over here, if a person is lazy, the government isn't needed to force them to work harder. they just end up making life harder for themselves. So people that I know of (most of them anyway) do what they can to keep things from getting to hard on themselves.

People also try to order overseas if they can, but due to the recent restrictions, most either buy from their local gaming store or they figure out a way to bypass the restrictions.

[the jeske]

Over here, if a person is lazy, the government isn't needed to force them to work harder.
all people are lazy , if they werent there would be no need for goverments.


they are innocent when they voice an opinion that differs from the government. It's perfectly acceptable to disagree or protest against the actions of the government. The other side of the line, when the innocence evaporates, is when that person or persons take a violent course of action against the government. Firebombing a government biulding nets you quite a nasty little jail sentence.
I dont understand the difference . questioning the abilty or the right to rule is the same as blowing something up .I would rather see a thousand people silenced because they have anti goverment sentiments[back in the days that was called treason and you were shot for that] , then wait till out all of those people one dudes decideds to blow something up . that is how all the succesful countries were run and that is how all will be run till the end of times . A goverment that decides that opposition to it is "legal/good" has just lost it power and will be overthrown.


Not at all. It's called "freedom of speech" and is allowed in the western world.
We can call our government liars, cretins or any other names we wish, no matter how vitriolic, and we don't get arrested for it. It's one of the cornerstones of our society.
am sure it was me who was called that not my goverment and that is a medical state one can not judge without a doctor [+am almost sure cretins are unable to read and write , so that would be automaticly false].
The only thing I see is that freedom of speech is destroying the western sociaty . Pre FoS west was strong , we of course couldnt agree [as there can be only one ruler] , but that could be expected . But waging a war against other countries and your own population[people are always lazy , not interested in long term power of a country ] , how is that logical , how does that make sense ? If people think they can say and write what ever they want you only get chaos . new ideas are of course needed , but they should be enforced in by the goverment and not by people who have no responsibilty [but can have goverment/country shatering power]. If a goverment acts bad and is unsuccesful it stops existing , what happens to a western news paper who does all to undermine the power of its own country[not that I have anything against such a thing in other countries. specialy in the long run]? nothing . I never understood the idea why FoS is so important to the western sociaty . Now back in the days when newspapers/news were controled by the goverment and important people , that made sense . But now the voice of some student is suppose to have the same weitgh as the one of a CO of a multinational company ? how I ask . + there is always the problem that when faces a world where people tell you that it is all FoS, democracy , the Me being the focus of the sociaty and you suddenly enter the real world you get a nasty awakening .
so I wouldnt call FoS the corner stone of the sociaty , maybe a tombstone , but not a corner stone.

[gendoikari87]

.I would rather see a thousand people silenced because they have anti goverment sentiments[back in the days that was called treason and you were shot for that] , then wait till out all of those people one dudes decideds to blow something up .

Russians, perverting socialism: 1917-1991, seriously, critical evaluations of the government are a necessity, no government is perfect, and they need to identify their flaws, and often times that identification comes from the people, and governments need to listen to that criticism, not silence it.

[eldargal]

Don't get me started on Russia. My mother is Russian and we have a lot of interests in Russia since the fall of Communism. I'm very proud of my Russian heritage but the fact is Russia died in 1917, what we call Russia is a dilapidated, Soviet era husk of a country that isn't worthy of the name.

The only glimmer of hope for the country is the apparent growth in support for a restoration of the monarchy. Russia with a strong, constitutional Czar like they were working towards before the Bolshevik excrement seized power might be able to get itself in order. But this won't happen for decades, if at all. At least Putin restored the Cossacks, that is something.

[gendoikari87]

Don't get me started on Russia. My mother is Russian and we have a lot of interests in Russia since the fall of Communism. I'm very proud of my Russian heritage but the fact is Russia died in 1917, what we call Russia is a dilapidated, Soviet era husk of a country that isn't worthy of the name.

The only glimmer of hope for the country is the apparent growth in support for a restoration of the monarchy. Russia with a strong, constitutional Czar like they were working towards before the Bolshevik excrement seized power might be able to get itself in order. But this won't happen for decades, if at all. At least Putin restored the Cossacks, that is something.

All hope for a bright future in 1917 ended when lenin declared all power to the soviets, and the others left the room in protest.

[daboarder]

Russia is working on re-instating the Tsar's?

I don't mean to be rude but surely not many of the Romanov's or their extensions survived Lenin, Stalin and the cold war.

You also have to acknowledge that despite the ultimate fate of Russia Stalin did manage to get them to win a world war and they were a major world power even if only for a time.

oh also something you might find curious. Most common wealth nations actually don't have the "right to free speech" though this is a good thing as we don't have random people unaccountably spewing vitriol about whoever they want.

[eldargal]

They aren't working on it, there is growing support in the populace and academia for it. Plenty of Romanov's survived, most are not legitiamte heirs due to a variety of dynastic issues mostly related to morganatic marriages and Tsar Paul Is changes to the succession laws.

However there has been considerable speculation that Prince Michael or even Prince Harry may be offered the role instead. They are related to the Romanovs and aren't bogged down in the ridiculous succession dispute splitting the two main surviving Romanov branches.

Soviet Russia was a superpower in spite of the Bolsheviks, not because of them.

[Gotthammer]

I dont understand the difference . questioning the abilty or the right to rule is the same as blowing something up .I would rather see a thousand people silenced because they have anti goverment sentiments[back in the days that was called treason and you were shot for that] , then wait till out all of those people one dudes decideds to blow something up . that is how all the succesful countries were run and that is how all will be run till the end of times . A goverment that decides that opposition to it is "legal/good" has just lost it power and will be overthrown.

So you're volunteering to be the first victim of the new death squads then? I mean you're saying anyone who opposes a government should be silenced whilst disagreeing with the current regieme. Logically you should ask for them to take you first for your dissent - you'd be a shining beacon of how great the process is...
Or maybe you should petition your ruling party to murder the opposition party as they clearly are fermenting dissent and are horribly treasonous in questioning whether cuts to public schooling are a bad thing, or if the powers of police need to be reigned in in certain areas or expanded in others.
And don't even get me started on them constantly questioning the Government's ability to rule around budget time! Kill the lot of them! Who cares if the ruling party's fiscal policy is flawed and the country's going broke and nothing works - they're in charge and we should obey them or die!

And all those terrible people who question the ability of their government to rule when it's doing things like making itself rich while the people starve, or forcing late term abortions and sterilisation on people, or persecuting/massacring ethnic/religious groups that happen to just be different from their own.

Sounds like a real 'successful' country to me. Just look at how awesome Chile was under Pinochet - nothing but prosperity for all and a powerhouse of economic and scientific endevour... no? How about Syria? North Korea? The USSR even?

:rolleyes:

[Wildeybeast]

They aren't working on it, there is growing support in the populace and academia for it. Plenty of Romanov's survived, most are not legitiamte heirs due to a variety of dynastic issues mostly related to morganatic marriages and Tsar Paul Is changes to the succession laws.

However there has been considerable speculation that Prince Michael or even Prince Harry may be offered the role instead. They are related to the Romanovs and aren't bogged down in the ridiculous succession dispute splitting the two main surviving Romanov branches.

Soviet Russia was a superpower in spite of the Bolsheviks, not because of them.

The Russians want Prince Harry as their monarch!? But then who will we get to dress up in [EDIT] German WW2 uniforms (stupid BoLS censorship) and take part in fun run's wearing masks of his brother? They killed their own royal family, so they aren't taking ours! Britain needs Harry! :D


http://cdn3.gossipcenter.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/story_header/photos/prince-harry-100312sp.jpg

[eldargal]

I know, he would be missed.:) Not likely to happen to be honest, as I said it isn't exactly on the agenda.

[Wildeybeast]

I didn't imagine it would be, I can't see the oligarchs and KGB having much to gain from the restoration of a monarchy

[Uncle Nutsy]

all people are lazy , if they werent there would be no need for goverments.

when people are given the choice of living in a house or on the street, they usually choose the house. Granted, there are some people who wouldn't work no matter how dire the consequences. but I can't speak for them.



I dont understand the difference . questioning the abilty or the right to rule is the same as blowing something up .I would rather see a thousand people silenced because they have anti goverment sentiments[back in the days that was called treason and you were shot for that] , then wait till out all of those people one dudes decideds to blow something up . that is how all the succesful countries were run and that is how all will be run till the end of times . A goverment that decides that opposition to it is "legal/good" has just lost it power and will be overthrown.

the differences lie in western law. We have certain ways of dealing with those who make threats, all the way up to the physical act of blowing something up. We just can't have the government running around and silencing people for a difference in opinion. Not only is that against the constitution, that's against everything western society stands for.

If the government here started to silence people for having an opposing opinion, people would pick up firearms and start fighting the government.



am sure it was me who was called that not my goverment and that is a medical state one can not judge without a doctor [+am almost sure cretins are unable to read and write , so that would be automaticly false].
The only thing I see is that freedom of speech is destroying the western sociaty . Pre FoS west was strong , we of course couldnt agree [as there can be only one ruler] , but that could be expected . But waging a war against other countries and your own population[people are always lazy , not interested in long term power of a country ] , how is that logical , how does that make sense ? If people think they can say and write what ever they want you only get chaos . new ideas are of course needed , but they should be enforced in by the goverment and not by people who have no responsibilty [but can have goverment/country shatering power]. If a goverment acts bad and is unsuccesful it stops existing , what happens to a western news paper who does all to undermine the power of its own country[not that I have anything against such a thing in other countries. specialy in the long run]? nothing . I never understood the idea why FoS is so important to the western sociaty . Now back in the days when newspapers/news were controled by the goverment and important people , that made sense . But now the voice of some student is suppose to have the same weitgh as the one of a CO of a multinational company ? how I ask . + there is always the problem that when faces a world where people tell you that it is all FoS, democracy , the Me being the focus of the sociaty and you suddenly enter the real world you get a nasty awakening .
so I wouldnt call FoS the corner stone of the sociaty , maybe a tombstone , but not a corner stone.

I can't explain exactly how our society works without pulling a lot of history books off the library shelf, but if you want to understand how western society operates better, you would need to study a lot of literature on western society.

[DarkLink]

As a starter, the guarantee of individual human rights is what separates western society from most of the other negative examples listed above. Americans have freedom of assembly, press, speech, freedom, etc, the right to own and bear arms and act in self defense, cannot be illicitly coerced or imprisoned without proper trial, may not be punished with excessive bail or sentence, and so on and so forth.

The people are the foundation of a government. The government only has the right to rule by the consent of those it governs. The quintessential duty of any and all governments is to protect the rights and prosperity of its people. Any government that stray from that doesn't have a right to rule. The violation of the peoples rights inherently erodes the foundation of a government.

The jeske's comments struck me with a particular difference between here and russia. In a communist type state, the government has to force people to do things because they view the people as being lazy, when really they're just downtrodden. In a free republic or democracy, everything is build on the fact that people are not inherently lazy. The people are allowed the freedom to better themselves and their conditions, and wonderful things tend to happen as a result. Some people are still lazy, some people can still get stepped on, but most people step up and work hard and carry society forward. Taking away the individual and property rights of the people simply cuts their legs out from under them.

[Wildeybeast]

As a starter, the guarantee of individual human rights is what separates western society from most of the other negative examples listed above. Americans have freedom of assembly, press, speech, freedom, etc, the right to own and bear arms and act in self defense, cannot be illicitly coerced or imprisoned without proper trial, may not be punished with excessive bail or sentence, and so on and so forth.

The people are the foundation of a government. The government only has the right to rule by the consent of those it governs. The quintessential duty of any and all governments is to protect the rights and prosperity of its people. Any government that stray from that doesn't have a right to rule. The violation of the peoples rights inherently erodes the foundation of a government.

The jeske's comments struck me with a particular difference between here and russia. In a communist type state, the government has to force people to do things because they view the people as being lazy, when really they're just downtrodden. In a free republic or democracy, everything is build on the fact that people are not inherently lazy. The people are allowed the freedom to better themselves and their conditions, and wonderful things tend to happen as a result. Some people are still lazy, some people can still get stepped on, but most people step up and work hard and carry society forward. Taking away the individual and property rights of the people simply cuts their legs out from under them.

Whilst I'd agree with everything else you said, I take strong issue with the suggestion that the right to bear arms is a human right. It is an american civil right, yes, but is certainly not a human right as it's omission from the UN Declaration of Human Rights would indicate, along with the view of most western European societies that gun ownership should be strictly controlled and regulated.

[gendoikari87]

This thread has taken twists and turns into wonderland.

[daboarder]

They aren't working on it, there is growing support in the populace and academia for it. Plenty of Romanov's survived, most are not legitiamte heirs due to a variety of dynastic issues mostly related to morganatic marriages and Tsar Paul Is changes to the succession laws.

However there has been considerable speculation that Prince Michael or even Prince Harry may be offered the role instead. They are related to the Romanovs and aren't bogged down in the ridiculous succession dispute splitting the two main surviving Romanov branches.

Soviet Russia was a superpower in spite of the Bolsheviks, not because of them.

HA I like that, next thing you know the Germans will want the return of the Kaiser's, and seeing as the british are their strongest relation.....could you imagine the british monarchy ruling most of Europe.

[Morgan Darkstar]

HA I like that, next thing you know the Germans will want the return of the Kaiser's, and seeing as the british are their strongest relation.....could you imagine the british monarchy ruling most of Europe.

long live the empire.... whooooppp de de whoooopp whooooppp :P