Galactic Armory Hit with Cease and Desist Over Warhammer 40K Models
The cosplay 3D modeler has received a cease and desist from Games Workshop, and will comply. But its spirit isn't gone yet.
Galactic Armory, a Patreon that offers 3D printable cosplay models based on popular sci-fi franchises, will remove all its Warhammer 40K files over 48 hours to comply with a cease and desist letter sent by Games Workshop, a post from yesterday reads.
Owned and operated by Aaron Hughes, Galactic Armory is both a Patreon and an online storefront for STLs and physical cosplay items. The Warhammer 40K models specified in Games Workshop’s takedown request are all part of the company’s Patreon, however.
“This is our first C&D we’ve received,” Hughes told All3DP, “and we’re going to fully comply with their requests.” That includes all “models and files that have copied any significant part of Games Workshop’s characters and designs,” according to a copy of the cease and desist Hughes shared with All3DP. That’s twenty-six 40K-based helmets and weapons still present on Hughes’ Patreon at the time of writing.
Games Workshop did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This isn’t the first time Galactic Armory has received a request to remove Warhammer files, but it is the first time the request was legitimate. Late last year, the company received and challenged a “phony DMCA”, but was briefly forced to comply by Patreon. That filing was littered with spelling errors and sent by a Gmail account, Hughes says, but there’s no question about the authenticity of this new notice to cease and desist.
Takedown requests from Games Workshop are nothing new, though. The company was an early player fighting the sharing of 3D printable models based on its intellectual property (IP) – even those shared for free – including a landmark case Wired called “the next digital war: the fight over copying physical objects.”
Though Galactic Armory’s designs are all created from scratch, it’s clear they’re based on Warhammer’s IP. And, with money changing hands, the matter seems cut and dry.
Fortunately, the blow doesn’t seem to have dampened Galactic Armory or Hughes’ spirit. There are still hundreds of models based on a variety of franchises in its Patreon collection, and Hughes says that models from a new grimdark setting (like that of 40K) will be coming at the end of the month.
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License: The text of "Galactic Armory Hit with Cease and Desist Over Warhammer 40K Models" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.