DMGenie - Masters of the Djinn Yahoo Group missing

[Kirin'Tor]

The real problem is, even with the effort to use a 'password' from teh books themselves, it isn't sanctioned by WotC (or the other companies that may or may not have been involved), and thus it's still a breach of copyright.

Even if you were to find a way to 100% prove they owned the book - where going to the store & reading it, or emailing the code around couldn't happen - then it's still a crime to distribute it, unless given premission by the copyright holder.

For the same reason it's illegal to download the PDF of a book, even if you own it - the publisher could (adn often does) sell the PDF copy on it's own, then yor're taking tha that ability away from them. WotC (and others) have chosen to make the data/character generation capability of their books available in specific formats, and it's a illegal to distribute it in another format, or in that 'sanctioned' format without compensation to teh copyright holder. (It's illegal regardless of whether or not a publisher sell the product in that format, but in the PDF example & the DMGenie case, the original holder happens to.)

 

[DonTadow]

The real problem is, even with the effort to use a 'password' from teh books themselves, it isn't sanctioned by WotC (or the other companies that may or may not have been involved), and thus it's still a breach of copyright.

Even if you were to find a way to 100% prove they owned the book - where going to the store & reading it, or emailing the code around couldn't happen - then it's still a crime to distribute it, unless given premission by the copyright holder.

For the same reason it's illegal to download the PDF of a book, even if you own it - the publisher could (adn often does) sell the PDF copy on it's own, then yor're taking tha that ability away from them. WotC (and others) have chosen to make the data/character generation capability of their books available in specific formats, and it's a illegal to distribute it in another format, or in that 'sanctioned' format without compensation to teh copyright holder. (It's illegal regardless of whether or not a publisher sell the product in that format, but in the PDF example & the DMGenie case, the original holder happens to.)

This reminded me of another thread i was in just before the closing (which is why i'm suspcious that those jealous guys at codemonkey might have had something to do with it). The thing is you're not putting direct content into dmgenie, you are putting your interpreation of the content, similiar to a quiote from a book. Nothing that was originally wotc material makes it into the program. It's a wierd legal issue and one I dont think is much of an issue. Making that illegal would make every cliff note, every website review, every college thesis illegal as well. In an equal ground of legality they'd have a hard time trying to prove a script for monk of tatooes is similiar to the tattoed monk from complete warrior if enough is changed.

Part of the reason why i dont buy too many wotc books, nor buy any of the updates for etools, their manipulating the laws for profit because of big brother hasbro.

 

[kingpaul]

If people are going to steal or wish to be maliciuos, there is no way to totally prevent that.

So its OK to distribute IP that isn't yours because someone else is going to do it anyway?

 

[Kirin'Tor]

Part of the reason why i dont buy too many wotc books, nor buy any of the updates for etools, their manipulating the laws for profit because of big brother hasbro.

Well, you could look at it that way, or you could look at it from a less abberant viewpoint:
Their using pre-established law to maintain what slim profit margins their character generator pulls in. If people are just giving away that content (whether it's the official eT data sets, user made eT data sets [that were all the rage before CMP], or sets for another d20 Char-Gen) then it's eating away at their profitability.

And even beyond that, there's the issue of OGL/d20 liscences. I assmue DMGenie claims at least OGL compatibility. If so, then even making it _possible_ to put a companies PI into their program realy brings into question their lisence status.

 

[Kirin'Tor]

So its OK to distribute IP that isn't yours because someone else is going to do it anyway?

That's where most of these arguments tend to go, wether music via napster movies via ed2k, pdfs via kazaa, or datasets via groups:

"It's OK to violate copyrights because other people do it too!!!"

 

[kingpaul]

The thing is you're not putting direct content into dmgenie, you are putting your interpreation of the content, similiar to a quiote from a book.

The whole books is copyrighted, which includes the names of the feats, classes, spells, etc. By making a dataset of the book available is distributing another's IP.

Part of the reason why i dont buy too many wotc books, nor buy any of the updates for etools, their manipulating the laws for profit because of big brother hasbro.

Its manipulating the laws by stating distributing the IP of someone is illegal if you don't have permission?

 

[DonTadow]

The whole books is copyrighted, which includes the names of the feats, classes, spells, etc. By making a dataset of the book available is distributing another's IP.

Its manipulating the laws by stating distributing the IP of someone is illegal if you don't have permission?

Its just this is a murky part of the subject. People use the same type of ip to write reviews, reports, research books and such. Except, in these cases, they are distrubuted at costs. Instead of hating on other programs, etools should really reevaluate why their product brings in slim revenue. Eh i dont even like their product but i'm tempted to downlaod all the datasets just to spite them. It just urks me when people squieeze little guys because of their own failures.

 

[kingpaul]

I advice he be a little more careful to whom he let into the groups from now on.

So you are condoning and encouraging the distribution of IP?

 

[kingpaul]

Eh i dont even like their product but i'm tempted to downlaod all the datasets just to spite them.

So, because you don't think WotC's position on their IP is correct, you think its alright to steal CMP's licensed product?

It just urks me when people squieeze little guys because of their own failures.

So, you think following the law is squeezing people?

 

[Mynex]

Hey Mods

The insults, accusations, insinuations, and flat out declarations of theft of IP being 'Okay' are unacceptable.

But I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Seems that a lot of unacceptable behaviour is allowed when it's directed at us, so I should be used to it by now.

*shrug* Whatever.