"Glowing" review from a product not available yet?

[Bagpuss]

Just to add the same reviewer has given nothing but 5 star reviews for all his reviews on amazon.com , and the majority of those are for Skirmisher Publishing (same as the 5 star review on RPGnow) the only other publisher reviewed (also all 5 stars) is Troll Lord Games.

The owner of Skirmisher Publishing Michael J. Varhola also writes for Troll Lord Games.

Interesting, coincidence.

Another interesting coincidence it Varhola is (according to his wiki entry) a distant cousin of Andy Warhol....

Hmm who's that reveiwer again? oh yeah M. Odysseus Warhol perhaps he's family (and here I was thinking he was made up) still he isn't Skirmisher games biggest fan.

That honour goes to R. Moraes who seems to have given one or two line 5 stars reviews to everything they have published and even stuff they didn't so long as Michael J. Varhola was involved.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Another interesting coincidence it Varhola is (according to his wiki entry) a distant cousin of Andy Warhol...

Have you seen the authors on his Wiki-article?

Cheers, LT.

 

[Glyfair]

Perpetual copyright only dates back to 1926 (or there about). Most things dated before that year are public domain. Problem is figuring out if older material wasn't reregistered at the copyright office as this was an option up until 1976. I do believe much of the Mars ERB books are public domain or at least Project Gutenberg believes they are.

Interesting. I know TSR got in some hot water because of their release of a John Carter wargame (boardgame?) in the mid-70s. I recently saw a copy of it go for about $500 (Greg Stafford's copy, in fact) on eBay.

 

[jmucchiello]

As Justin pointed out Trademarks are a whole other kettle of fish.

Aside: of course what I don't understand is why copyrights have become perpetual if trademarks still cover stuff. The Sonny Bono Copyright Act was written to keep Mickey Mouse out of public domain. But in reality it only keeps the cartoon "Steamboat Willy" out of public domain. I really don't see how Disney would lose money if "anybody" could legally sell copies of Steamboat Willy. Anyone attempting to modify SW and use Mickey Mouse in some other way would be shutdown by the Trademark laws. But they convinced Sonny Bono to save the mouse.

 

[jujutsunerd]

As Justin pointed out Trademarks are a whole other kettle of fish.

Aside: of course what I don't understand is why copyrights have become perpetual if trademarks still cover stuff. The Sonny Bono Copyright Act was written to keep Mickey Mouse out of public domain. But in reality it only keeps the cartoon "Steamboat Willy" out of public domain. I really don't see how Disney would lose money if "anybody" could legally sell copies of Steamboat Willy. Anyone attempting to modify SW and use Mickey Mouse in some other way would be shutdown by the Trademark laws. But they convinced Sonny Bono to save the mouse.

I wish they'd simply given Disney a 'lose no copyright ever' exception and let everyone else play by the old rules. It would have been a net benefit for everyone (except the copyright lawyers and lobbyists, but them I don't care about. The current situation is somewhere between cruel and unusual.

/Jonas

 

[jaerdaph]

I believe this is a problem that is becoming more and more prevalent, not just at RPGNow but everywhere. Fake publisher reviews and reviews written by publisher's friends are hard to prove but with a little practice and due diligence, you can figure out which opinions are of real value.

Whenever I see a review at RPGNow, for example, I always check the reviewer's name to see what other reviews the reviewer has written there and elsewhere. It helps if it is someone I recognize from say EN World too. Staff reviewers’ opinions always hold more weight with me, as does general Internet "buzz" on message boards like this.

You can also learn a lot about the publisher in his or her replies to any negative reviews. If the publisher chops the person down, is insulting or overzealously objects to the review, I usually scratch that product off my list right away along with any further purchases from that publisher. If the publisher goes out of his way to rectify the situation, thank the person for taking the time to write the review, and offer some insight into the situation free of over-emotion, I have a lot more respect for that publisher and will keep their products in mind. I really respect the publishers who respond to a negative review clearly written by a mental midget (especially those who leave a one star review because they can't get the product to download) calmly and with an offer to rectify the situation.

I recently saw a really niche product at RPGNow get a poor review from a purchaser and then a less than stellar staff review. Shortly afterwards, there were a string of 5 star reviews for this niche product (in numbers beyond anything a major PDF release like Monte Cook's World of Darkness, for example, was getting), all by reviewers who had no other reviews in the RPGNow database. Definitely made me raise an eyebrow, if not a red flag.

There was a publisher who used to leave negative reviews of other publishers' competing products, really gunning them down, until he (she?) was called on it and I never purchased anything from them again. It was really a shame because I tend to purchase everything that comes out for d20 Modern, and some of their stuff would have been otherwise interesting to me.

The bottom line with reviews, like anything when making a purchase, is Buyer Beware.

 

[wingsandsword]

I wish they'd simply given Disney a 'lose no copyright ever' exception and let everyone else play by the old rules. It would have been a net benefit for everyone (except the copyright lawyers and lobbyists, but them I don't care about. The current situation is somewhere between cruel and unusual.

The problem with that is that the US Constitution explicitly says that copyrights (and patents) shall be for finite durations, while the US Constitution is not a very long document, but that's actually one thing it's explicit on (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8, the so-called "Copyright Clause").

So, no perpetual copyright in the US without an amendment, and the SBCTEA was contested as being de-facto perpetual copyright. While it was upheld by the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft (7 to 2), Stevens and Breyer did believe that it was unconstitutionally long and already pushing toward perpetual copyright. The majority opinion, written by Ginsburg, upheld the SBCTEA specifically because it was still quite finite and would run out at a specific date in the future.