@
Mistwell, @
Sacrosanct and @
Ovinomancer
1. Our group has an Obsidian Portal site for our campaigns, from time to time I as DM dress it up with pretty pics from the net, while the players poach pics for their characters.
2. Furthermore I might take entire excerpts from modules or campaign settings from WotC/TSR material and include them for reading purposes for our play group.
3. Lastly, our Obsidian Portal page is marked as public.
Where are we falling afoul or at risk?
I'm merely asking because I imagine hundreds of other groups out there are doing the same - wouldn't something like Obsidian Portal be at risk with all these copyright infringements?
1. Yes, this puts in danger of copyright infringement.
2. This may put you in danger of copyright infringement. The usage for your game is part of what you purchased, so providing the text to your players isn't an issue. However, the having your campaign where you provide that information be open to anyone may -- may -- put you in jeopardy. I would ask a lawyer for specific advice.
3. This is the most likely point where you may be discovered as in violation. If you do not open your portal, then the module/supplement usage becomes a non-issue and even the image usage reduces impact. You can still be hit for the image usage, though, especially if the rights holder is selling access to the image.
For Obsidian Portal's jeopardy, nope, none of your violations puts them at risk at all. Unless it can be shown that Obsidian Portal is willfully aiding copyright abuse, they're shielded from having to take any action whatsoever by law. This is the same law that says your ISP can't be sued because you (hypothetical you) are issuing death threats on the internet -- platform providers are not liable for what contributors post so long as the posting is generally open and not curated. Morrus is protected from being liable for your bad behavior on his site by this law, although since he has a moderation policy, if he's alerted to your behavior and chooses to do nothing about it he might have some risk, but so far the courts have been reluctant to even go that far against a platform provider.
That changes for Obsidian Portal if they are legally notified about your infringement. This is what usually happens in the case of anonymous internet infringement - the hosting site is issued a DMCA demand to remove the infringing material. At that point, it really depends on what Obsidian Portal's policies are -- your account may be suspended and you are notified as to the reasons why, at which point you may be able to take steps to remove the offending material and have your account reinstated; or Obsidian Portal may just delete your account and be done with it. Both (or some other option) are viable methods of dealing with it. If I were you, I'd carefully read the terms of service for Obsidian Portal and find out what policy they have in place for such things. A quick google shows their policy is in Section 5 of their ToS. I can't read it from here (it's blocked), but that's where you should go to understand what risks you're running.
As for damages, if you are found to be in violation, their likely to be minor. There's little to a few images used for personal use that will trigger punitive damages, and compensatory damages will be limited to the actual monetary damages that can be proven -- likely just the cost of the image x number of truly separate uses and maybe x the number of people that also accessed it from you. That can be costly, as some images cost many hundreds of dollars, but it's cheaper than it could be.
What people in this hobby really need to understand is that your intentions really don't matter, that everyone does it really doesn't matter, and that the system is less good at finding a just outcome than it is at extracting money from everyone involved. You take risks using copyrighted material you don't have rights to - small ones, but potentially expensive ones. If the rights holder stops at a DMCA takedown request, you are lucky -- comply and mvoe on. If they press things, it's going to get expensive for you. Even if you eventually win, the costs of the litigation against you can be ruinous. Now, granted, you probably aren't going to be sued for using some images on your Obsidian Portal page, but you should still be careful. Take the example of the predatory practices of
Getty Images, for instance. Please pay attention to the caveat at the end, though. Just because the group coming after you is usually full of bullpoop, it doesn't mean you're not going to be the exception.
