"Not Dr Who figures - Where they gone?" Topic

Just been browsing the Crooked Dice and Heresy websites and it looks like all their respective 'Not' Who inspired figures are now unavailable.
Anyone know the score? I'm assuming it's to do with an official range now being available?

Maybe someone in TV land decided to catch up in IP infringement and sent a letter? There seems to be an awful lot of SF/F stuff around that one would have thought would have required some sort of licence agreement.

I would suspect that Warlord have asked the BBC to issue a letter – there is no point in buying a license if others in the same industry are producing unlicensed figures in competition…

Mike

I have some of the Heresy ones, the Tenth, Eleventh and War Doctor. They are absolutely superb.

How do you actually copyright a likeness on say a skinny bloke with spiked hair, in a suit wearing trainers anyway?
Is the threat enough to deter most small businesses?

The legal fees alone would cripple Heresy or Crooked Dice. They've removed the "not" minis as a courtesy to Warlord I believe without any legal nastiness. warlord have had to pay for the licence after all.

As I understand it Black Tree are selling off "left over" stock from way back when they had the Who licence. I'm surprised the Beeb haven't spotted that Black Tree are taking the proverbial.

willlucv – yep. Most small mini producers are either hobby businesses or operations with very, very small margins. A threat of legal action is more than enough to shut down their 'Not-whatever' lines. Heresy was very clear as to why they were stopping production – they had their small Dr. Who line going for years, but as soon as another, licensed producer arrived on the scene, they got The Letter. And yeah, a clear likeness of a distinct character is something protected under IP law. Heresy's were really good likenesses, too. Heck, Warlord should have hired Andy Foster to sculpt for them – I have those ones you mention, they're amazing.

Tangentially, it's why I'm so impressed by Chapterhouse Studios taking on GW, and mostly winning. But they were, for the most part, solidly in the legal right, and knew it.

It never ceases to amaze me that people in our hobby will go well out of their way to point out when someone might possibly be doing recasts, but have no objection whatsoever to blatant intellectual property theft. In my mind, both are equally wrong. Both are making use of the creative efforts of another to enrich themselves without permission or license.

Please explain to me the moral superiority of one over the other?

I'm not sold on Doctor Who gaming in the first place unless it's an RPG and even then it sounds dull and I'm a fan.

@Flashman14 Something like Pulp Alley works really well for Dr Who gaming.

I bought mine because I like the show but it also dovetails quite nicely with Rogue Trader. Games Workshop had a license for producing Dr Who games back in the 80s.

Making 'not' figures has an extremely long history in miniature production. In most cases I don't really care unless there is a clear and blatant infringement. Most IPs are obviously fantasy or science fiction based and most fantasy and science fiction is extremely derivative of earlier forms. That said, if there is an official licensed range for something available, that would normally be my first port of call anyway.

If I ever get anything published, I'm going to pull a H.P. Lovecraft and let whoever wants to make miniatures out of my stuff make miniatures. I figure each little figure is a little bit more immortality for me.

The Lovercraft Mythos, although drawn from the combined imaginations of a number of different sources, (not least Chaosium), is probably one of the less derivative and more imaginative IPs I can think of.

I do love how pompous some people get about IPs. For example, Stormtrooper armour from Star Wars was designed and built by a bloke in a shed in North London, which is incidentally where most of the props and costumes for Doctor Who originated. I imagine the designs for Stormtroopers, Daleks and Cybermen came from a requirement in the script for unspecified 'armoured space fascists', which a costume department or prop design studio had to actually visualise.

> which a costume department or prop design studio had to actually visualise.

Which they were PAID to do. Unless they had a contract saying the results of any such work were theirs than it belongs to who paid them to create it.

Daleks are an interesting case – BBC did not bother to declare them their's and so they belong to someone else.

In the case of George Lucas he famously didn't secure any such rights, and having taken the original manufacturer to court he lost the case and the manufacturer is still allowed to sell replica stormtrooper armour. Bear in mind quite large parts of the costume are basically 70s era motocross armour. I own a Stormtrooper bodysuit myself (the black bit under the white armour) which I use for its intended purpose as a motorcycle undersuit (it helps you move freely in leathers without the armour snagging).

Found this on a Dr Who forum. "Terry Nation owning the Daleks is pretty well known, although interestingly he doesn't solely own the design – that's shared with the BBC. Because of the way Doctor Who used to work, the individual writers often kept the rights to what they created, and this lasted up until the fifth doctor at least. Nyssa, one of Davison's companions, was on a similar deal and owned by Jonny Byrne so they kept trying to kill her off to save money, and Robert Homes still owns the Sontarans. Interestingly when Robert Holmes tried to spin off the Sontarans into films they had to change their look."

Also, found this on a comic forum "I think it's a feature of British copyright law that even in a work for hire situation, a creator still holds the copyright of characters he or she created. This also lies at the root of Alan Moore's many conflicts with US comic publishers. Because according to British law, Moore would still hold the copyright to the characters he created, while according to US law he doesn't. Marvel has come to a compromise and given Moore back the copyright to some minor characters he created for Marvel UK in the 1980s (and in one case, independently created for the BBC's Doctor Who comic strip before reusing them in Captain Britain), while DC won't budge."

Amusingly Games Workshop themselves were bitten by the IP issue, back in the 80s when it turned out a fifth Chaos God (Malal) and his champion Kaleb Daark were actually the property of the comic writers John Wagner and Alan Grant.

The Citadel miniatures for Daark, mounted and on foot are among the more sought after classics around.

Back on topic, the Warlord Dr Who figures are pretty good, but I think I still prefer my third party Heresy ones.

Warlord has the rights to Dr. Who? That sucks. Their over-priced games are lame

The DWMG (Doctor Who the Miniatures Game) free rule website which was created by one of the owners of Crooked Dice has shut down as has the associated yahoo group. Looks like Warlord wants to make sure they have no competition for their yet to be released Doctor Who rules.

It isn't Warlord sending these out – it's the BBC. Warlord have actually made that clear elsewhere – possibly also on here – can't remember where I saw it though…!