Pathfinder 1E Paizo Copyright Issues at Obsidian Portal?

pawsplay · Jul 6, 2011

AeroDm said:
No, it probably would *not* fall under fair use. On that same measure, it is true that if a company doesn't defend its IP it can potentially lose said IP. However, a company can also broadly license usage of its IP or declare that it will not prosecute certain violations without jeopardizing its IP either. Paizo could lay a blanket statement down that says, "We authorize the use of our IP in publication so long as that usage does not infringe on commercial uses of said IP." With that, they wouldn't need to send C&Ds, would have a protected IP, and could still send C&D to people that actually abuse the IP in a way that is detrimental to the company. (Now, if they deemed this was actually detrimental to the company, then more power to them--they have the right to defend their IP however they choose).

A court might find that licensing digital versions of those cards to users, or the OP site in general, is a commercial use that should be protected.

prosfilaes · Jul 6, 2011

AeroDm said:
On that same measure, it is true that if a company doesn't defend its IP it can potentially lose said IP.

Trademarks can be lost, but copyrights can't; even after It's a Wonderful Life was played a million times as a PD movie and used as an example as such before Congress, the studio still asserted their copyright in the music and took back control over the movie.

Agamon · Jul 6, 2011

Mark CMG said:
I doesn't seem to rise to the level where switching is warranted or prudent. Looked upon as a single incident, where we have not seen the problem ourselves and the details are largely unknown, it doesn't seem shocking but when you clump them in with the companies you first professed were similar, then suddenly it seems amazingly shocking.

The event itself brings to mind events brought on by those other companies (it incited in me the same wtf moment as when I first heard about TSR and WW doing the same thing). I sure didn't mean to imply that because of this one incident that they've fallen to the same level. A very long way to go there, for sure.

Dannyalcatraz · Jul 6, 2011

Patryn of Elvenshae said:
Do you understand what a Let's Play is?

Yes.

And my point stands: as long as the posted clips are of short enough length to be deemed to not harm the commercial viability of the product "reviewed", there will be no problem. The longer the clip you post, the more secrets you reveal, the more likely you are to find yourself outside the safe harbor of "Fair Use."

Note that a scathing review that utterly destroys the commercial value of a game would still be protected by law. It's not the destruction of value alone that runs you afoul of the law, but rather, the destruction of value in conjunction with revealing too much of the IP's content. Posting a speeded up complete playthrough of a 20 hour game- compressed down to a 2 minute film- with the review, "It SUXXORS!" would probably get you some prison time.

TheAuldGrump · Jul 6, 2011

Agamon said:
Agreed there. I'm not saying they shouldn't protect their IP, I'm just surprised that this would fit into that criteria. Obviously I haven't read their Community Use Policy, and if this infringes on that, well, apparently a lot of peepers were drawn to the professionalism of the page, and I can then see how this happened.

(Note to self, make a crappy OP site that no one wants to look at )

Let's go to the crappy OP site where I'm the hero!

(Apropos of darned near nothing.)

The Auld Grump, just rewatched Jaynestown last week....

C_M2008 · Jul 6, 2011

I'm not interested in either WoTC or Paizo's offerings at this point (being a convert to the glories of Warhammer FRP 3e), but I thought I'd play devil's
advocate.

Whenever WoTC issues a cease and desist there is widespread outrage.

Now that Paizo has issued a C&D they are just "protecting their intellectual property"?

Is this not blatant hypocrisy?

Like I said, just raising a point, I don't really have a horse in the race anymore.

Patryn of Elvenshae · Jul 6, 2011

Dannyalcatraz said:
Yes.

I'm not so sure you do ...

And my point stands: as long as the posted clips are of short enough length to be deemed to not harm the commercial viability of the product "reviewed", there will be no problem.

... because this statement is completely at odds with it.

I direct you to ...

The Greatest X-COM Let's Play, Ever

... and ...

Demon's Souls Let's Play

Dannyalcatraz · Jul 6, 2011

One form of walkthrough is the "Let's Play", where the player (called an "LPer" in this case) gives running commentary on the game.

I stand by my statement. This type of thing starts off in the safe harbor of Fair Use, bit the more that is posted, the greater the chance the courts will find infringement.

But, assuming you mean something else, please enlighten me with a definition, not a link to some 100 (or even 11) page thread I have zero interest in slogging through to divine your critique.

czak · Jul 6, 2011

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koTmGpJE2F4"]YouTube - ‪Nymril: From Beyond the Shattered Gateway‬‏[/ame]

A video for the campaign in question.

Using the google you can track down some of the thumbnails in question, at least for now.

http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/shattered-gateway/items/mmi-303-crysteel-dagger - Google Search

Some are small, others are larger, I've found one of a scroll and one of a ringe that were 180 × 256

I'd like to see the C&D letter. Was it, hey, please stop doing this, or, LAWYERS ATTACK! The last time Paizo asked someone to take down content it was a google maps version of their world map, and it involved an email saying please take it down.

Edit:

On further investigation, it seems that there is a small, and a thumbnail version of several of paizo's item cards.

If you do an image search for the items in the spoiler one at a time, you can see multiple versions.

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prosfilaes · Jul 6, 2011

Dannyalcatraz said:
Posting a speeded up complete playthrough of a 20 hour game- compressed down to a 2 minute film- with the review, "It SUXXORS!" would probably get you some prison time.

Unlikely. Jail time for copyright infringement is usually limited to the commercial infringers, not random people. You can find complete, uncompressed, playthroughs of many games on Youtube and the Internet Archive, so it's obviously not the biggest concern of software companies. I'm not even sure that a 600:1 compression of a playthrough (which doesn't take of the key part of the game) wouldn't be fair use. And the instant you make it appear that it's about the negative review instead of the copying, you'll have journalists and free speech activists up in arms.