IMPORTANT! Posting WotC articles wholesale...

[wedgeski]

I'm having trouble with the links. Could someone please post the entire articles on fair use here.

*Guffaw*

 

[Malchior]

While i am not necessarily condoning it, it is interesting to note that under "Fair use" it is arguably permissible for a number of separate individuals to each quote a section of a work (and perhaps comment on it) until the entire work has been quoted. Obviously this isn't very conducive to reading the article, but it is an interesting point about "fair use".

"...when thousands of people each exercise fair use, and the accumulation of these folks results in the entire 80 hours being redistributed..."

and

"...people could exercise fair use in this way, but reconstructing the season from all these clips would be impractical..."

Both quote from an article by John C Dvorak at PC Magazine.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2304371,00.asp See page 2

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

If WotC is using traffic to the preview postings as an indication of 4e interest, then reposting the entire article could mess up their metrics.

 

[SlagMortar]

WoTC uses the excerpts as a means of drawing traffic to their website. Once you are on their website, then they can show you advertisements for their various products. Copying the article to another website removes that ability.

This is not just a theoretical copyright issue. WoTC has the right to keep track of the number of people viewing the articles and to control what advertisements are shown while people are viewing the articles. If people are coming to Enworld and reading the articles, then they are looking at Enworld's advertisements instead of WoTC's advertisements. Enworld makes money from those advertisements. Providing links on Enworld instead of the entire article allows both Enworld and WoTC to fulfill their objectives.

Of course that sucks for people like me behind a firewall, but the blame for that lies on the firewall.

Good work Enworld mods.

Edit: partially ninja'd by Thornir

 

[Wild-Mage]

As far as I can tell you don't actually need an account to log in. Just hitting the log in button seems to work (for now).

 

[Brown Jenkin]

If WotC is using traffic to the preview postings as an indication of 4e interest, then reposting the entire article could mess up their metrics.

And I care why? I will follow moderator rules certainly, but just as WotC wants whats in their best interests so do I, and my best interest is not having to bounce between two sites. Again I will follow the rules the moderators have decided on even if I don't always like them.

 

[wedgeski]

And I care why? I will follow moderator rules certainly, but just as WotC wants whats in their best interests so do I, and my best interest is not having to bounce between two sites. Again I will follow the rules the moderators have decided on even if I don't always like them.

On the contrary, it's probably in all of our best interests to keep traffic to the WotC healthy so that they start investing the right kind of cash into their web presence.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

On the contrary, it's probably in all of our best interests to keep traffic to the WotC healthy so that they start investing the right kind of cash into their web presence.

We can all dream, but I have seen no indication of that happening. Sure they talk a good talk about didgital offerings, but in 8 years I have seen no indication of followthrough. As they say, fool me once.

Maybe if we all stopped going there they might get the hint that there is something wrong and actually try to fix it.

 

[mlund]

Well, to be fair, what company wouldn't WANT there advertisements to be freely distributed? Greater market saturation is always a good thing when you're trying to get the word out about your products and services.

There are definitely venues where a company might feel that placing its advertisement is in poor taste or is otherwise damaging to the brand.

I wouldn't want any advertisements of mine being distributed at an event that I found morally reprehensible. I wouldn't want my works used to lend credibility to a rival product either. To use a farcical, but instructive, example: what kind of reputation would it give your business if someone kept putting up fliers about your lawn fertilizer at random people's funerals as opposed to a home and garden show?

Indiscriminate market saturation can actually turn your advertisements against your brand.

- Marty Lund

 

[Hussar]

We can all dream, but I have seen no indication of that happening. Sure they talk a good talk about didgital offerings, but in 8 years I have seen no indication of followthrough. As they say, fool me once.

Maybe if we all stopped going there they might get the hint that there is something wrong and actually try to fix it.

Out of curiosity, what's wrong with their site. Note, I'm not talking about Gleemax, that's a different issue. But, the D&D site is pretty easy to navigate and read. I've never had a problem with that site. What are these huge issues you are worried about?