What is CGL's official stance on 3D printed minis?
What is CGL's official stance on 3D printed minis?
I know the general consensus is that proxies are okay, and I am aware that CGL doesn't seem to care about people printing minis for themselves. I just want to get my facts straight before I open my mouth to my fiancee who runs an etsy store that does 3D printing.
Specifically, I want to know if they have made a statement on the subject anywhere. I am so used to Games Workshop pretending to not care about fan works for several years before suddenly taking legal action on all IP infringers they can find. I no longer trust corporations to be nice, so I want to know if they have ever put in writing what they will and will not tolerate regarding their minis.
Generally they're not litigious about it, but make sure you don't name them identically. Most people name them something similar. Rifleman becomes Musketeer or Gunman, the Centurion become the Hoplite or Legionnaire, etc. Then use 'compatible with Battletech or other 1:285 scale mech games' as keywords to get noticed.
It would be very nice if CGL had something like Hero Forge, where you can plug in what your custom mini has and get a model that accurately portrays what weapons it has. Then you pay the company like $5 for an STL file and a liscence for personal use, and you can print that mini as much as you like.
A company will always say that making bootlegs of their products is illegal, especially if they're being sold.
In practice, they probably won't care or do anything about it if it isn't in large volumes.