Story hour publishing and copyright issues

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

We're definitely talking about using specific names and places, and text of copyrighted material.

There is one way you can publish your stuff without making any changes. Get a job writing books for WoTC

 

[Dr Midnight]

When it comes to legal stuff, I find that the person who asks if it is legal and argues for "being able to do the thing they wanted" is almost always wrong.

It's like wishful thinking collides with better judgement.

Yeah, the human quality of hope in the face of implausible success is a terrible thing.

There is one way you can publish your stuff without making any changes. Get a job writing books for WoTC

You raise a fine point. Gonna go look over their submission guidelines. Thanks mister.

 

[frankthedm]

Ctrl+H man. Cull anything wotc owns and then change as much as you can JIC. You don't want to be lumped in with this person.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Hey Doc, welcome back! You had a great story hour back when ...

No insights here other than a fantasy author recently published something without changing names common with Mystara IP and got ripped to shreds. I'd certainly recommend changing all the names to be safe.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

Just so you know, WoTC more than likely won't accept unsolicited manuscripts.

 

[Morrus]

Just so you know, WoTC more than likely won't accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Definitely. Almost nobody will these days; if they rejected someone's submission and published something similar a few years later, they'd be vulnerable to lawsuits even if it was a case of independent origin. The way to avoid that is to have a policy of never even looking at unsolicited submissions.

 

[Dr Midnight]

Unscrupulous sorts forcing people / companies into pre-emptive defensive positions ruin everything for everyone.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Unscrupulous sorts forcing people / companies into pre-emptive defensive positions ruin everything for everyone.

So self publish. It's not that hard. Yeah, you'll need to take efforts to make sure you don't intrude on someone's IP, but otherwise it cuts out the middle man.

 

[Dr Midnight]

That was what I was looking at initially, but if I'm now going through and performing a find / replace for everything referencing Greyhawk, pantheons, specific spells, modules, etc... I might as well just give up now, as I'm pretty sure this is going to be prohibitively time-consuming.

Then, even if I catch all the names, there's a chance someone could notice plot elements and pick up on that what happens in the Place of Basic Badness is somewhat like what happens in the Temple of Elemental Evil. Friggin' hell.

 

[Dr Midnight]

And THEN, on the other hand, I have that people are liking my writing and I'm putting together a volume of short stories because why not. Having five novels' worth of material in the can, ready to go but for some intense Find & Replace action, is a tempting prospect and a quick way to fattening out my available titles.

I know I'm probably going to wind up not going for it, but again: friggin' hell.