Dragon Magazine & Dungeon Magazine on CD

[tylerthehobo]

That's not totally clear to me. It might certainly be one of the contributing factors. The main legal problem, as I understand it, had to do with other parts of the magazine being reprinted.

Of course it's not clear - it's a legal matter.

Some folks with more publishing experience than I have already posted, but yes, printing the magazines in whole (ads, art, articles, etc.) would involve owning or acquiring permission to print the whole kit-n-kaboodle - a very expensive undertaking when you're talking about 30 years of materials now.

 

[Wraith Form]

Some folks with more publishing experience than I have already posted, but yes, printing the magazines in whole (ads, art, articles, etc.) would involve owning or acquiring permission to print the whole kit-n-kaboodle - a very expensive undertaking when you're talking about 30 years of materials now.

Asking from the perspective of utter ignorance, why not edit the adverts out? If WotC and/or Paizo owns the art & articles, where's the problem--I have no interest in ages-old advertisements.......!

 

[PatrickLawinger]

hearsay ...

Based on total hearsay...

I think the legal problems had something to do with contracts being "variable." In other words, a contract with someone like Gygax would be different than a "newbie" writer. This meant that some authors (and artists) were able to retain certain rights with respects to reprint(s) and/or the creation of an "electronic" version wasn't clearly allowed in certain contracts.

The story(ies) I recall hearing mostly involved some of the comics, art, and short stories from the really early issues of Dragon but I honestly have no idea what is true or not. I honestly have the feeling that probably very few people know the entire story (I certainly don't).

As for editing out things,
Unless you have all of the original text and art as electronic files readily available for import into the layout program(s) you are using this is not really very simple for some of the really old issues.

I would bet that Paizo could put out a compilation of at least the last 5-10 years without a problem, beyond that, who knows. Re-doing the layout is expensive in terms of time and effort, they'd have to figure out if it would be worth that expense by trying to assess what sort of demand they'd have and what sort of price point they'd need to hit for it.

 

[johnsemlak]

Asking from the perspective of utter ignorance, why not edit the adverts out? If WotC and/or Paizo owns the art & articles, where's the problem--I have no interest in ages-old advertisements.......!

Well, some people think the old ads are the coolest thign about the Dragon CDROM

I AM NOT A LAWYER, and I know little about the publishing industry, but as I understand one of the key issues is whether or not the PDFs can be considered 'reprints'. If they are considered 'reprints', that is, rereleased versions of exactly the same product that was originally released, there are far fewer rights issues. I assume a reprint would have to include all ads exactly as they originally appeared. If the magazine were reformatted in any way, it could not be considered a reprint, and the publisher would have to contact any author who retained the rights to something that was in the magazine(s).

Anyway, thats how I understand it, though I could be way off. In any case, I suppose ultimately WotC did not satisfactorily convince everyone that the Dragon Magazine CD ROM was a collection of 'reprints', rather than new product re-using old IP.

 

[BOZ]

Keep watching the magazines and Paizo's website. Humming the tune to When You Wish Upon a Star might be appropriate.

hey cool, disney's going to produce it!

 

[Wraith Form]

Keep watching the magazines and Paizo's website. Humming the tune to When You Wish Upon a Star might be appropriate.

Count me as another "guaranteed purchaser" if/when you put that CD out.

Hell, put it out as a DVD and you can cram every product in it you've ever offered...wink wink, nudge nudge.

 

[Glyfair]

Some folks with more publishing experience than I have already posted, but yes, printing the magazines in whole (ads, art, articles, etc.) would involve owning or acquiring permission to print the whole kit-n-kaboodle - a very expensive undertaking when you're talking about 30 years of materials now.

One argument I remember hearing at the time was that it's legal to reproduce such things for archival purposes. The big argument was whether this qualified under that exception.

 

[Piratecat]

So here's a question: how much would such an (awesome) product cut demand for current Dungeon Magazines and other adventures in the market?

 

[Samothdm]

My understanding from someone in Marketing at WotC (no idea if she's still there) was that part of the problem did involved the advertisements, but more importantly some of the comics stuff which ended up in legal action. Part of the settlemen on WotC's part was to allow one particular publisher to use the official "Dungeons & Dragons" logo on their products, even though those products were not part of the official product line.

And, I agree, part of what makes looking through the archive so fun is seeing all the old ads, especially for all of those products by... I forget the name. Fantasy Games Unlimited? They had Bushido, Pulp Adventures, Aftermath, Space Opera, Chivalry & Sorcery... about a gazillion different RPG genres. They all cost about $6 for the entire set of rules.

 

[Wraith Form]

So here's a question: how much would such an (awesome) product cut demand for current Dungeon Magazines and other adventures in the market?

It won't stop me from buying Dragon and/or Dungeon down at the newsstand (or, hopefully soon, just renewing my subscription).

The DVD (format I'm pushing for) will be a purchase in addition to the aforementioned.