Hey, I'm republican. screw copyright (and patents, and most trademarks, too). Shit's screwed up.
I laughed out loud so hard when I read this
Why?
I'm against things that don't make sense -- like going after sites that are giving your free publicity.
It's most likely because they don't want competitor's stealing ideas before the models actually hit shelves. I'm not a lawyer, but I read that anyone can legally copy GWs concepts and then turn around and sue GW for releasing their own model. In other words, if the model is only a picture and not yet released, then its fair game to copy.
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Kinda. Keep in mind you're not allowed to copyright and
idea, only the specific expression (but courts screw this up all the time). This is why people getting upset about copied plot outlines are silly....the basic plot is just an idea, and anyway there's arguably only a limited number of viable basic plots anyway.
Regardless, the point is that GW can't just copyright the basic idea of "big armored guy on a horse-sized wolf", they can only copyright a specific sculpture. Any other such sculpture is only a violation to the degree that it's copying that sepcific sculpture (always highly arguable) but it's certainly never a violation to make a fairly different looking big armored guy on a horse-sized wolf.
There's nothing especailly magical about a "release date", though. Actually the leaked pictures could be considered a "publication date" of sorts, by themselves. They still made the first one.
IP law has evolved over centuries and it is now quite happily feeding on itself. It's got it's own metagame. It's built on certain bones of reason that make sense if you accept certain precepts (I don't, largely) but it no longer makes much sense even in that context.
