Hey everyone!
It’s been a little while since we’ve given an update and given recent events within the community. This is going to be a case of good news, bad news.
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first of all. As you may or may not be aware, GMK are currently cracking down on sets that could be deemed to infringe on IP, a category our set would fall into. The precedent was set as part of GMK White Wolf in which Andy (GMK’s CEO) made the following comment:
“Due to the growth of the hobby there have been a large spike in projects and ideas being proposed to us. We can't possibly do research on our own and make sure each and every set is original and free from infringements, and have at times struggled with this in the past. Therefore, we are adding a clause to our contracts with the vendors in which we define that it is the vendor's responsibility to check for IP/Copyright violations, and in case of legal action from studios/IP holders that the vendor and designer will be solely responsible for all liabilities and financial damages. After these contracts are in place this should help mitigate this issue from happening down the line.”
More recently GMK Gateway (currently in GB) has had its entire novelties kit pulled and re-worked to remove IP infringement, and GMK Kouhai has had it’s novelties kit removed entirely by way of designer decision regarding potential IP infringement.
So how does this affect our set? Much like GMK Kouhai we stand at a crossroad and are required to make some choice decisions. Our options currently are as follows:
- Drop the novelty kit all together. This should remove area’s of immediate IP infringements and is the safest route.
- As we are yet to finalise our novelty kit, we will look to use novelties that do not infringe upon IP. This is disappointing because we may not be able to achieve the desired effect or meet the requests of some of those who filled out the IC form.
- Change Manufacturer. This does not resolve the issue of IP infringement and would mean that we, our vendors and the new manufacturer would be working at the risk of a cease & desist or worse.
If we are to drop the novelty kits we are inclined to drop the entire project. Therefore, we are currently leaning towards option 2.
With all that out of the way let’s talk about the good news.
- We have confirmed all of our vendors
- We have a number of collaborations lined up including a cable, resin wrist rest, and artisan keys.
- We will be renaming the set from Juvenile Galant to just Galant
I’ll be looking to announce the vendors and collabs in a separate update within the next few weeks!
Lastly, we just want to thank you all for having an interest in this set! These are setbacks in some respects but opportunities in others and we want to ensure that we can get the best possible product out to everyone!
If you have any questions please feel free to reach out either via this thread or through
Discord