Greenstuff World Vs Sword N Steele

[limburger 21696xp 0]

I’d say YouTube definitely is the one causing more harm than needed. The fact that channels like SidAlpha and Jim Sterling can dedicate videos to DMCA abuse by some of the worst developers in existance ought to be more than enough evidence how bad the system is.

This is what happens when politicians make laws (a) without understanding the technological challenge, (b) that favour big corporations and (c) ignore the consequences (especially for the little people).

@phaidknott I have seen SnS before as they did videos with contrast paints. I’d say it’s one of those niche hobby channels that are of above average quality.

Also this serious review of theirs is worth watching :

 

[ghent99 3589xp 3]

So let’s look at the players here:

 

YouTube took the word of a third party that they had Copyright infringement.   This caused harm to the victim which is the creator on their platform.  YouTube didn’t verify if any of it was true and just put a strike against the creator.   This seems a flawed system at best and as many on here agree needs to be improved.

 

GSW directly called for the Copyright strike by YouTube on the creator.   They dont hold a Copyright for the strike to go against, they have a trademark in Spain.   The trademark is for an English word that has been in common usage in the English speaking world where paint is concerned.  They did this to mess with a competitor and only did it a few months ago.  So they acted like assholes to the video creator directly so they could attack a competitor.  Personally I find this pretty foul.

 

Vallejo seems to be stuck with this trademark battle but have decided to play ball and change the branding.  They also apologized for something that they didn’t do and are working to assist in making the errors go away.  Seems a decent response from an openly concerned company.

 

Sword and Steel the creator has ultimately come out ahead but could of had the channel destroyed because or this.  Changed the video to have something up and has also done explanation videos explaining her position.  GSW had the gall to ask her to take down the explanation video.  This is after expressing interest in getting reviews done if she plays ball.

 

So my hot take on this is YouTube and Google suck and are not living up to their obligations under the law in their home country.

GSW are amateurs at best and really duplicitous creeps at worst.  You don’t have to be a multinational company to act out in these ways.

Sword and Steel deserves our support for being a mature adult and being straight forward with her community. I can only hope that this grows he following.

When I first heard of this issue my concern was with YouTube and their actions. After the first explanation video and the communication to the creator by GSW I found myself upset enough to stop buying their products, and yes I have a few.  It took the Beasts of War boys getting the relationship restarted with the new management at GW for me to lift my boycott.  Finally it was nice to see that Vallejo reached out to the creator and even if just a PR move it was the right thing.  This escapade shows that you cant always assign motives to actions but you can look at the actions and assign them merit.

[warzanKeymaster 31125xp 3]

I don’t know the ins and outs of this case. But a couple of times a year we get caught in the middle of disputes and potential disputes between companies, its rarely anything malicious by the companies involved and we tend to try and quietly work in the background to put them in touch to see if they can get it resolved.

The reason we take a light touch with this kind of thing is that small companies get it hard with IP law as it’s an expensive thing to navigate.

GW cost us a fair bit when we had to get representation for the spate of letters we recieved (and to be fair to GSW and others we never recieved even an acknowledgement of them being withdrawn never mind an apology lol – but again that’s legal folk for you)

In this case its trademark law we seem to be discussing (others are copyright and design rights etc)

Trademarks are expensive for small companies and their legal eagles will have put the fear of god into them on how important enforcement of your trade mark is or you stand to lose it and all you have invested in creating it.

These folk are not wielding hammers etc they dont have much choice in the tools they use so everything seems heavy handed.

It’s a shame for all involved for sure. But not uncommon.

[tankkommanderParticipant 6420xp 1]

SnS did a legit review of a product that she purchased with her own money.

GSW was way wrong to strike her video. 1st because they legally cannot actually support their assertion of a breach of their copyright/trademark (as this is fair use to review a product) and 2nd because it is a over reaction before even contacting the creator.

It is good that GSW backed down after they realised the storm they had created and the backlash that was going to happen. They apologised and put it right with YT.

There is no reason for SnS to take down ANY of the videos just to try and re-write history and erase the actions of GSW.

Good luck to SnS and her channel. She has never ‘milked’ the situation or caused any ‘drama’. That is all on GSW.

[limburger 21696xp 1]

YouTube definitely ought to check if the victim of the nuclear option is indeed violating copyright.

However the laws of big numbers work against them, which puts them in an awkward position vs (big) corporations and the media industry who do prefer to kill, crush, destroy with zero regards for collateral damage.

The consequences of a single copyright strike are gigantic for a content creator, which is made even worse because of YouTube’s behaviour which does not protect the ‘small’ / independent creators from overzealous *beeps*

Also : people are the worst … especially the mobs formed by internet outrage who tend to amplify any silly thing without even checking if the target of the outrage ever did any of the things they have been accused of.

 

[lupa15 11253xp 1]

I do agree that GSW misunderstood the tools at their disposal to protect their trademark.

From what I understand both Vallejo and GSW were competing for registering the Colorshift trademark in Spain and GSW was granted the trademark. I know that overseas in USA the trademark is held by Taylor Brands. As Vallejo already came out with a statement of the product name change and the product shown probably was an old purchase before this retraction this probably should have been referenced with lawyers before even taking any action.

This just all seems to be a big misunderstanding and I like that GSW came out and apologized to Naomi (SnS).  I think GSW and other smaller companies can learn that reacting without understanding can be extremely detrimental to everyone involved and should weigh their actions before moving forward.

[aiwassParticipant 90xp 3]

Michael from the TWS-Channel an Video about this:

 

[yoshiParticipant 3197xp 3]

Green Stuff World sucks and I totally blacklisted them.

They deserve all the shit they get. #neverforget

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 2]

I wonder what it has done for their subscriber count because this all seems like more publicity than they could have ever hoped for. If the video hadn’t been restored, Sword’n’steel would probably come out of this with a net gain. Nothing like a bit of controversy (with a sprinkling of sob story) to win some new clicks and subscribers.

And the response to GSW has been ridiculous. They put a copyright strike on a video so people are now completely boycotting them? GSW cause a YouTube channel to lose one video, whether you agree with that or not surely the punishment should probably fall well short of the destruction of their business and livelihood? I don’t know, seems a little disproportionate to me

[slayerofworldsParticipant 3449xp 3]

TWS Translation to English…

Hello and welcome to an exceptionally serious #TWS video. Because at the end of December 2019 and the beginning of January 2020, a few things happened which finally caused me as channel operator to permanently delete certain videos in my channel.
Therefore I would like to inform you about 3 things in the following minutes:
– First: A brief summary of the events surrounding the Canadian YouTube channel Sword ‘n’ Steele, against which the Spanish company Green Stuff World had briefly taken action.
Secondly, and this is also the most important point: to illustrate with a few examples how the Spanish company Green Stuff World has partly acted in recent years.
Thirdly: That I will not present, recommend or link any products of Green Stuff World anymore and have removed older videos about this from the TWS archive completely.
Let’s start with point 1, current events. On December 28th, 2019, Naomi released a video on her channel Sword ‘n’ Steele about the Vallejo colors that were released at the end of October 2019 and are now called “The Shifters”. Naomi had bought these colours under her original name “Colorshift” and called them “Colorshift” in the video name and showed the original package and bottle designs in the video itself.
About 2 days after publication Naomi’s video was taken offline by YouTube and Naomi herself was also given a warning by YouTube – a so-called strike. The off-line strike was at the instigation of the company Green Stuff World, which has held the rights to the name “Colorshift” as a brand name for Spain since October 31st, 2019, and wanted to protect its trademark rights in this way. Color manufacturer Vallejo had – as just mentioned – already renamed these colors to “The Shifters”, but unfortunately Naomi didn’t know about this.
So Naomi first contacted YouTube and was given the company Green Stuff World as her direct contact for possible clarification. Naomi immediately wrote to Green Stuff World and after a short correspondence she received the promise that Green Stuff World would contact YouTube to avert the damage caused to Naomi.
Fortunately, this was possible within a day and Naomi’s original video was also back online with a new title and modified thumbnail. On December 31st, 2019, Naomi had also uploaded a specially censored version. And in another video from December 30th, 2019, Naomi describes the whole process from her perspective. All these 3 videos I have linked above and in the video description.
Let’s just briefly summarize:
– Vallejo will release new colors called “Colorshift” at the end of October 2019.
– On October 31st Green Stuff World gets the rights to the brand name “Colorshift” for Spain after a previous application for Spain.
– On December 28th Naomi releases her video and about 2 days later Green Stuff World has Naomi’s video blocked via YouTube.
– About one day later Green Stuff World took back almost everything from Naomi.
Regarding the legal dispute between Green Stuff World and Vallejo about the brand name “Colorshift”, it has to be added that this name is widely used in the hobby sector and many paint manufacturers use the term “Colorshift” – and this long before Green Stuff World launched their colors on the market. Furthermore, Green Stuff World has registered this brand name only for Spain and not worldwide.
Nevertheless, I personally was initially inclined to see Naomi only as an unfortunate victim in a trademark dispute between Green Stuff World and Vallejo. I also felt it was right that Green Stuff World wanted to protect her registered trademark. Of course it could have been solved differently with Naomi and without a temporary YouTube strike, but at least the matter was quickly resolved. … However, in the meantime a certain shitstorm had descended on Green Stuff World and the case was intensively discussed on a wide variety of platforms. But whether this has influenced Green Stuff World’s decision to give in would be pure speculation in my opinion.
On January 2nd, 2020, I received the following statement on request to Green Stuff World with the following words among others: “…We have been in direct contact with Naomi from Sword ‘n’ Steele all the time.“
According to Naomi, this is not true, the contact came about only at Naomi’s request and after her original video was turned off. “All the time” is not for me.
“We were not really aware of the actions that YouTube would take and the consequences these would have. We thought there would simply be a warning so then we could talk.“
The contact to Naomi could have been sought before and directly. For example via her Facebook page or via the e-mail in her YouTube imprint.
“We are a small family business, this is my hobby and my life, and I am very proud of what has been achieved after many years of hard work, and it hurts me deeply that in a matter of hours, hundreds of people are destroying it. For all this, because the damage to the Sword ‘n’ Steele channel has been corrected and it was never intended, I would like to ask you please help to returns this situation to normal and stop this madness.”
After that I was personally inclined for a moment to see Green Stuff World as a victim in the legal dispute with Vallejo … But while reading the numerous comments on YouTube, Facebook and the news portal http://brueckenkopf-online.com I came across a few hints that Green Stuff World is not always so strict about copyright or copyright itself.
Therefore we come now to point 2, the behaviour of Green Stuff World in the past years towards some manufacturers or dealers. I have made some longer telephone calls to get a first-hand description of the following facts:
Between 2010 and 2012 the German modeller Stefan Niehues (https://beesputty.com) developed his so-called “Tube Tool”. The basic idea came from experiments with a threaded rod to depict structures on footballers’ socks. With his “Tube Tool”, he virtually reversed this process to create different structures with grooved plates on modeling pastes. For example for tubes …
Stefan then sold his “Tube Tool” on his own and from 2013 on also via the German dealers PK-PRO and Battlefield-Berlin, among others.
On 12 March 2014, the owner of Green Stuff World, Israel Soriano Garcia, filed two so-called design patents for modelling tools with the European Union Intellectual Property Office – EUIPO for short – and released the “Roll Maker” tool via his company. This “Roll Maker” tool was an exact 1:1 copy including all dimensions of the “Tube Tool”.
But wait! Design patent? What is a design patent?
Wikipedia says about this. “A design patent is an industrial property right that gives its owner an exclusive right to use an aesthetic appearance (shape, colour, form) for certain goods. … ” And very important: “A design right is an unexamined property right. In the registration procedure, the prerequisites of novelty and individual character are not examined, but only formal requirements for registration”.
This means that you do not have to be the originator of a product to register this right. Fulfilling certain formalities is enough. The fees for such a registration are also relatively low at about 400-500€ and as luck would have it, both Green Stuff World and the EUIPO are located in the same place: Alicate, Spain.
Following this design registration the following happened. Green Stuff World submitted its design entry to the sales platform eBay, including PK-PRO as the distribution channel for the “Tube Tool”. Thus the sale of the “Tube Tool” developed by Stefan Niehues was immediately prohibited there due to copyright infringement.
Of course Stefan turned to Green Stuff World, but neither a reasonable dialogue nor an agreement was reached. As a demonstrable author, Stefan could of course now have gone to court in Alicante, Spain, to enforce his rights. But this would not only have taken several months or even years, but would also have cost several thousand euros in expenses and costs. Even if Stefan himself had previously registered such a design or even applied for a patent. In order to enforce his claims, a lawsuit in Alicate against Green Stuff World would have been necessary in any case.
And all this for an article that initially cost around 20€ and later only 10€, of which Stefan has only sold 750 copies to date. In short: Neither the registration of a design nor a patent would have protected Stefan Niehues from Green Stuff World’s action. And a lawsuit abroad would have been out of proportion to the costs and the earnings of his product. But here we are with copyright law and a completely different construction site …
After Green Stuff World had released their motif punches or leaf punches in July 2016, the German online retailer PKO-PRO decided to include such tools in their product range as well. The inquiry with a Chinese producer showed that in Europe already some customers were supplied with such tools. But the Chinese producer emphasized that he owns a patent on these tools since 2006.
In coordination with PK-PRO, new motifs for the sheets to be punched were then designed, not only to obtain their own products, but also to differentiate themselves from the Green Stuff World punching tools.
At the end of September 2016 PK-PRO officially announced its “PK-Punches” with the help of some photos. The “PK-Punches” were available from October 1st, 2016.
But exactly one day before, on September 30th, 2016, Green Stuff World filed another design application at the European Union Intellectual Property Office. This time, however, the design patent related to the shape of the punches. In other words, not on any sheets that can be punched, but on the haptic shape of the punch, for which the Chinese producer has held a patent since 2006.
Impossible? No, because, as already mentioned, the registration procedure for such a design does NOT examine the requirements of novelty and individual character, but only some formal requirements for registration.
With this design, Green Stuff World shortly afterwards stopped the sales of the “PK-Punches” on eBay and amazon. Because, as already mentioned in the first example, it is completely sufficient on these platforms to assert a claim for copyright infringement or similar. eBay and amazon then blocked the item and, in the worst case, directly the entire marketplace shop of the supplier. Only when the plaintiff – in this case Green Stuff World – withdraws his accusation, would the sales of the PK-Punches have been possible again on eBay. For this, of course, it would have required either a concession or a court case with a verdict.
And as in the first example, such a trial in Alicante, Spain, is associated with considerable costs. In addition, the patent holder of the design applied for by Green Stuff Worlds is the Chinese producer.
What followed, however, were various lawyers’ letters between PK-PRO and Green Stuff World for about half a year. Ultimately without result, because at some point Green Stuff World simply stopped contacting us. This cost PK-PRO about 10.000€ in translation and legal fees and of course a lot of time … Although PK-PRO was able to sell its “PK-Punches” via its own webshop, it could only reach a part of its original customers. And as usual with new releases, the demand for such tools was already covered after half a year had elapsed.
As a reminder again the statement of Green Stuff World published on January 2nd, 2020:
“We are a small family business, this is my hobby and my life, and I am very proud of what has been achieved after many years of hard work…”
Well, I personally got a slightly different impression of the company Green Stuff World during my research. Although Green Stuff World has always remained within the framework of the applicable laws in the cases I researched, I believe that they have consciously taken advantage of the corresponding loopholes in the law and procedures. There is no question that such “hard restraints” are also common in other industries, but legally sound does not automatically mean morally sound. At least for me.
Even the initially very harsh action against Naomi’s video, in which a shutdown and warning was issued directly via YouTube, does not fit for me with Green Stuff Worlds’ statement: “We would like to apologise again for this serious misunderstanding, for having damaged her channel in some way, and for having made her part of a legal dispute between companies that have nothing to do with her. The shutdown and warning was at the request of Green Stuff World – how could this have been a misunderstanding?
After all these statements, events and my researches I have come to the personal conclusion that I will not buy, use and present any more products from Green Stuff World via the TWS channel and thus recommend and thus advertise you.
I have deleted the two TWS reviews of Green Stuff World – even if one of the videos was the ninth most popular video in the TWS archive. But I gladly accept the loss of views, likes and reach. Furthermore I will remove all links to Green Stuff World from all TWS video descriptions in the next days.
Nevertheless – and I want to emphasize this here – this is my personal opinion and decision. I do not want to call for a shitstorm against or even boycott of Green Stuff World. With this video I only want to show you the result of my research and inform you about backgrounds you might not have had any insight into so far. And so that nobody thinks that I only published this video to get as many YouTube clicks as possible out of the current situation, this video is NOT monetized. That means, no matter how many people watch this video, I don’t get one cent of advertising revenue for it.
I also want to avoid any hate comments or further shitstorm against Green Stuff World. Accordingly I have deactivated the comment area below this video and also at my corresponding Facebook postings.
Just take your time to form your own opinion … and if you want to continue shopping at Green Stuff World and/or present their products, please do so. I definitely don’t want to dictate anything to anyone or impose my opinion.
So, that’s it from my side regarding Green Stuff World. I hope to see you again next Friday for a more pleasant hobby topic … See you!

[limburger 21696xp 1]

the worst part is that these *Beeps* are using a situation that was resolved as fast as it was humanly possible (especially given the timezone differences involved which a lot of people appear to ignore ….) as well as past issues of similar status to crucify GSW.

It has become a bloody witch hunt.
It’s a damn shame that no corporation is allowed to make mistakes and fix them.

//

@onlyonepinman I think it has helped SnS a bit.
Heck, I don’t blame them for trying to make the best out of a bad situation while still informing their subscribers of what happened.
YouTube’s ranking algorithm forces content creators to upload at regular intervals to maintain their status.
It’s yet another thing that few people fail to realise when they claim that having a youtube channel is not a job …

[deaddaveParticipant 15122xp 0]

@slayerofworlds very interesting read that! ?

[phaidknott 7023xp 0]

It’s a situation not helped by the over-reaction from the content creator (although I guess this is the first time it’s happened to them as they are a new channel, and saw this perhaps as a personal attack…I dunno). The original video was back up within a few hours (so no time and effort wasted by the content creator). HOWEVER this kind of thing happens all the time on YouTube, from PC game reviews being copyright striked for using the custom music for the game by the composer because they hadn’t gained his/her permission to even reviews being striken because they didn’t like the product (and the manufacturer banning the video because it’s their product at the end of the day)). From time to time content creators will have this happen.

I DO feel that SnS “censored” video was a bit of an over-reaction because the original video was back up (GSW didn’t demand they redo the video removing all mention of Colourshift)

As to the whole copyright/trademark of words in common usage, it’s as old as time. On who originally invented “something” vs who got the patent in, just ask Telsa and Marconi. I’ve no clue to the exact details here other than reports of conflicting “opinions” (and that’s the key word here), but apparently a chap in China is claiming patient before either of the two parties mentioned above.

All I’m saying here is I’m not a fan of the “mob justice” that springs up via the internet. And for this to be triggered/retriggered because someone video was taken down for a few hours and the perpetrator making a public apology seems to be a bit of an over reaction. If your objection is about the whole idea of the copyright/trademark itself, well that’s always been an issue, will continue to be an issue (as long as lawyers are alive) and we mere mortals will never work all this out 😀

 

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 2]

I guess my issue with the TWS video is that while they say they’re not calling for a shit storm or boycott of GWS, by putting out that video they are in fact promoting one, passively perhaps, but still promoting it all the same.  It’s full of emotive language and moral judgements culminating with statement that the author will never buy, promote or advertise GSW products again and is removing all references to them from their videos.  Obviously they aren’t calling for mass boycott or any thing like that no sir!  It’s their own personal decision to no longer buy from GSW. They’re just saying.  That they’re no longer buying GSW products.  Just in case you wanted to know.  For whatever reason.

They are basically virtue signalling, the moment they made the video it stopped being a personal choice.

I don’t know how true any of that is and quite frankly it doesn’t sound like something I really want to get involved in.  But purely regarding the matter at hand, the whole Sword’n’steel thing is one mahoosive storm in a teacup. I would guarantee that the publicity has benefited them far more than the strike has harmed them.  Just look at the view counts prior to this and then let’s see what their view counts are on their next videos.  That’s not a criticism of the channel as such, more a commentary about how everyone is massively over-reacting.

[limburger 21696xp 0]

Company A getting a (design) patent for something that Company B made is not exactly uncommon.

The fact that the cost of getting this sort of thing to court tends to be unprofitable is probably why few ever challenge such rulings.
Calling for a boycott because company B happened to be an ‘amateur’ is the dumbest thing ever.

Chances of any invention only ever being done by a single person/company in the entire world are pretty slim.
The laws never account for that … and ‘smart’ companies abuse this fact to get ahead of the competition.

It sucks, because it is immoral.
However it is is how the game is played by pretty much every company that has managed to survive for more than a few years.

I can rant for days how Apple’s iPod is the worst musicplayer ever and that you should be using company X’s thing because that is a technological superior product.
It won’t stop people from buying iPods, because fact is that they deliver a product that is good enough for them.

Same thing with GSW and their products.
There may be better variants of their rollers or colorshift paints.
What really matters is which is (a) more readily available and/or (b) more convenient to use.
Not everyone needs ‘the best’ product. Most will settle for something that is ‘good enough’.

And lets’ not kid ourselves here.

Vallejo is a bigger name in paints than GSW is.
I wouldn’t be surprised if people are more likely to buy their products because of that.
And I think any other company would have done exactly the same in their position especially when competing with a company in the same regional market.

I’d suggest not digging into Vallejo’s history if you want to be 100% sure that GSW is the only ‘evil’ one in this fight.
You might not like what you find … because no one has a spotless record.

[Author]

Posts