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Why does GW have to protect "their" IP like a greedy dragon?
Because most of it is general enough that they really cannot do anything about it. Really the majority of GW's IP can be replicated without even telling GW or asking permission because they base their universe on historical or previous fictional examples. So they have to protect what they have stolen so what they did can not be repeated!
Example: I am going to create a science-fiction universe with the following factions: Space Orcs, Imperial Humans, Anarchist/Rebelling/Barbarian Humans, Space Elves, Communist High-Tech Aliens, Bug-like Aliens, Robotic Aliens (did I miss any?) Within the Imperial Human faction there would be the Imperial Army, Space Navy, and Space Marines mirrored in the Rebelling Humans. The Imperial Humans may also have an Inquisition .
Now for this universe I have drawn on the following things: Tolkien, the Holy Roman Empire, Starship Troopers, the movie Alien, Terminator, and Anime. None of it is based on GW's IP, but it resembles it significantly.
So the estates of Ridley Scott (Alien), James Cameron (Terminator), Robert A. Heinlein (Starship Troopers), and Tolkien should sue GW!
THEMES
While we are likely to be happy for you to create your own desktop themes based upon our IP, please do not use our trademarks in those themes. In other words, do not use our logos and symbols, but please do draw your own version of a Wood Elf or Tyranid.
WTF? I can not draw my own version of a Wood Elf? So shouldn't GW sue Wizards of the Coast for these? Those are Elves, some of them wood elves or elves that live in woods!
Any game or mod must be a "total conversion." In other words, you must not use our intellectual property (logos, images, names etc.) in relation to the worlds, names, logos, or images of any other company. For example, you cannot place our Space Marines in a Disney total conversion using the Unreal engine, but you could make a TC solely using Space Marines with the Unreal engine. This is, of course, assuming that you have permission to use the Unreal engine.
Little does GW realize that a lot of the things that have 'Total Conversions' have these things called SDKs, cause they would never allow such a thing!
ANIMATIONS
We would probably not have a problem with anyone creating animations based upon our intellectual property ? as long as there is no commercial connection to that creation. Again, please be careful of the language used and the topics discussed.
So if we made Damnatus a cartoon you could get away with it?
Things that GW has trademarked that I supposedly can not use without their permission:
Dreadnought
Rhino
Cassius
Lysander
and plenty others.
So GW is forbidding the release of Damnatus based on the fact that it is advertised as begin directly related to GW's IP.
The work around - remove the direct link between Damnatus and GW's IP. While this may seem difficult at first, it probably would not be . They could say it is inspired by GW's IP, but not based on it especially if the characters and places in the movie do not relate to various fictional characters of GW. An Inquisitor investigating a cult of dark gods worshipers in a space-spanning human empire, sounds like moving middle age history into a space setting, easily original work.
But the double eagle on the weapons is owned by GW! Or maybe just a futuristic Holy Roman Empire symbol - here.
In the end GW needs to look at its sources of inspiration and realize that they have not really created anything new except how all of these ideas interact (maybe) and that any single instance of supposed infringement on GW's IP could have easily been created based on its own sources of inspiration.
That was a long rant - sorry.
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