#ip law

A world where all of our culture is owned by mega corporations and traded as a commodity.

This is done under the pretense of protecting authors, but the ones who are really protected are the oligarchs who have spent millions of dollars making the copyright system as oppressive as possible. Especially to the actual creators who work for them. Because the creators who make characters for the mega corporations do not own their own characters.

The person from this other universe might ask how people are able to iterate and retell stories. Because in their world, it's normal for somebody to create a character, and for others to create new stories with that character. Each one putting their own spin on it as it evolves over time.

One person makes a character, and another makes a story with that character with a different spin on it. And another makes a spin on that person's interpretation of the character. And so on and so forth.

And you would explain to this person from the other universe how things used to be like that. 500 years ago, characters couldn't be copyrighted. Stories were passed down from generation to generation. Different authors would retell stories their own way. Each iterating on the previous.

And to an extent, we can still do that today. The internet is filled with fanart and fanfiction. As long as we don't make profit from it, most of the corporations will ignore it. We can make works using popcultural icons, we just can't make any money off of what we create.

But even this really only exists as long as the mega corporations allow it. If they chose to bring the hammer down on fanfiction websites, there's really not much that could be done. The way the laws are written now, courts would probably deem a lot of fan works as not falling under fair use.

And companies could make reasonable claims that fanfiction hurts their bottom line. Why would somebody buy a poorly written Star Wars novel when there's tons of Star Wars fanfiction they can get for free?

If Disney or Warner or Paramount decided one day to use their billions of dollars to target fanfiction websites, those communities would probably find themselves demolished overnight.

This person from that other universe would be able to see things more clearly than we do. They would see what we ignore because this is how things have been as long as we've been alive.

They would see that our culture is owned.

They would see that this isn't normal.

Okay, I'm mad about something now, and I put up the video for context. You see, there was this fan-chapter of Warhammer 40K Space Marines called the MaidMarines.

Long story short, they were this funny fan-chapter with an original Primarch, a theme of anime catgirl maids (and yes, they included female Marines), they kinda slyly satirized Warhammer 40k's themes with their ideals being centered around feeding people and communal care, and there were these wonderful fan minis by the user Solflamer for fans to 3d print

Long story long, well, watch the video. But NOTE THE USE OF THE TERMS "WERE" AND "WAS" HERE.

Because Games Workshop, owners of Warhammer 40k and copyright dickheads par-excellence made them take them down, both the minis and even the fan codex the original creator ChummiChan!

And, to the people saying "Well, they infringed on GW's IP, what did you expect?" firstly, fuck you, stop licking boot leather you bitchass coward, you're probably one of the assholes cheering on the record companies trying to kill the Internet Archive.

Secondly, let's analyze this case from a perspective of fair used, based on the US standards of the four factors:

-The purpose and character of the use, IE whether it is transformative and what field it is being done in. The use is indeed for miniatures akin to the kind GW sells, but of a faction that does not exist and will likely never exist officially, satirizing both fanwork tropes and internal setting tropes in ways that GW would never do due to major lore reasons. It is also being done in the field of 3d printing, a field that GW so far has refused to touch.

-The nature of the copyrighted work. The work is narrative, which were presented as nonprofit, but also embodied in physical miniatures, which are designed to be customizable by the end-user, and there are many early examples of GW themselves showing this off like the old Deodorant Grav-Tank and the original Space Marine tank that was a modified GI Joe Armadillo. Therefore, this is in the spirit of a pattern encouraged by GW.

--Though, this might be complicated by a decision in the lawsuit against Chapterhouse that saw them win on this, but lose on the issue of variations. I would imagine a rename would be in order, but now, GW didn't ask for them to rename them now did they?

-The amount of the content used. GW has no official STLs to derive from, and while they share design elements, they are clearly distinct in ways that do not resemble other Marines on multiple key points. The narrative relates to theirs, but it was released largely for non-profit and does not use their original text and contains mostly original elements; and game mechanics have been found to be largely protected by fair use so the codex being taken down might still not be kosher!

-The effects of the use on the potential market. This is their strongest point, nobody who wants to buy regular fucking Space Marines is going to buy Maidmarines instead. This is even before you get into the fact it is primarily within the niche of 3d printing; which again; GW has never done. Hell, the fact they are cross-compatible wit hGW models might improve sales, given the potential for kitbashing, again encouraged by the hobby.

Overall, while there are some gaps, they might have a case to challenge GW in court about that.

Except here's the thing: GW has way more money and lawyers than them, and could financially ruin them. And orgs dedicated to fighting this either don't exist or have large enough umbrellas they current;y have bigger fish to fry due to the hellish global situation.

So if they were in the right, it ends up meaning nothing in the end because of power. That is not justice. That is a bully doing whatever the fuck they want.

Because they're big enough to get away with it and nobody will stop them. And I fucking hate bullies.

Write fanfiction

Read fanfiction

Make fanart

Enjoy looking at fanart

Plan on ever creating a piece of media inspired however loosely by another work

Plan on ever enjoying a piece of media inspired however loosely by another work

Are not wealthy with a successful IP franchise

Are not a giant company that owns successful IP franchises

Want to live in a world where creative expression is not paywalled or otherwise gatekept

Want medication to be less expensive/do not profit off medical patents

And etc etc etc

A great design can set your product apart but without protection, it can be quickly copied. In this webinar, we’ll walk through the core types of intellectual property and focus on how design patents work in the United States to protect the visual aspects of your products. We’ll look at real-world examples across industries, highlight common mistakes entrepreneurs make, and briefly touch on key considerations for protecting designs internationally. We’ll close with time for live Q&A.

May 15, 2026

12:00 PM Central Time

Zoom (Live)