Clear points all. Im follwing a small rules and miniatures developer (white light media), who started its own resin printing production of his products And by mid 2021 he released a KS to start to sell its own STL, for personal use only, which wee very successful. But so far, i didnt saw a Battle Report , or a painted collection (besides individual minis), of his miniatures uploaded by another person/customer/player. So i cant tell how REALLY successful he was.
I'm similar to the guy you described, that likes indie games and got a 3D printer for the purpose of printing minis for those games. Based off my behavior, I think your right, I can totally see printing disrupting the small companies that rely on miniature sales. I also agree that some small companies thriving with the proliferation 3D printing. Perhaps good rulesets will win out over flash now that quality minis are everywhere. Copyright is tough, and I agree with you I think there will be groups of gamers that strictly buy stls, to print and those that strictly pirate. I think piracy ma slow a little with NFT's on the rise; its only a matter of time before artist are able to mint the models they sell, thereby selling unique copy of the mini address to the consumer (Similar to the way you stamp a persons name on a pdf sold to them). Its a simple deterrent and its not really a technical stop gap but at that point the person is pirating a unique copy of a miniature. Its akin to posting your minis up for free on ebay with you paying the shipping. Since I'm sure the artist would only mint a certain number of copies, the pirate is effectively giving away money. To push it a little further what if on each of those NFT minis a persons name is automatically etched on the bottom of the base, or foot, I'm sure a lot of people won't care who's name is on the base, but some will, and some won't wanna be bothered covering it up. tldr: NFT's add real world value to miniature stl files.
The problem is that IP copyright already covers this, but enforcing the law costs, and individual creators will probably find that pursuing violators may well be ineffective (it's only worth pursuing a claim if the cost against the amount one could extract is a net positive). Email me if you want to discuss POD, but I imagine you already know what you need to know.
Clear points all.
Im follwing a small rules and miniatures developer (white light media), who started its own resin printing production of his products
And by mid 2021 he released a KS to start to sell its own STL, for personal use only, which wee very successful.
But so far, i didnt saw a Battle Report , or a painted collection (besides individual minis), of his miniatures uploaded by another person/customer/player.
So i cant tell how REALLY successful he was.
I'm similar to the guy you described, that likes indie games and got a 3D printer for the purpose of printing minis for those games. Based off my behavior, I think your right, I can totally see printing disrupting the small companies that rely on miniature sales. I also agree that some small companies thriving with the proliferation 3D printing. Perhaps good rulesets will win out over flash now that quality minis are everywhere. Copyright is tough, and I agree with you I think there will be groups of gamers that strictly buy stls, to print and those that strictly pirate. I think piracy ma slow a little with NFT's on the rise; its only a matter of time before artist are able to mint the models they sell, thereby selling unique copy of the mini address to the consumer (Similar to the way you stamp a persons name on a pdf sold to them). Its a simple deterrent and its not really a technical stop gap but at that point the person is pirating a unique copy of a miniature. Its akin to posting your minis up for free on ebay with you paying the shipping. Since I'm sure the artist would only mint a certain number of copies, the pirate is effectively giving away money. To push it a little further what if on each of those NFT minis a persons name is automatically etched on the bottom of the base, or foot, I'm sure a lot of people won't care who's name is on the base, but some will, and some won't wanna be bothered covering it up. tldr: NFT's add real world value to miniature stl files.
The problem is that IP copyright already covers this, but enforcing the law costs, and individual creators will probably find that pursuing violators may well be ineffective (it's only worth pursuing a claim if the cost against the amount one could extract is a net positive). Email me if you want to discuss POD, but I imagine you already know what you need to know.