Another Cease and Desist Letter: 4E Powercards

[Fifth Element]

He's done his part by contacting WotC legal, he got an inadequate response

How was it inadequate? "No" is a perfectly good answer to "may I?" when it involves the use of someone else's property.

And jdrakeh did use the situation to suggest that WotC may be clamping down on "fan publishing altogether", which there is no evidence of, at present, as far as I know. Scott_Rouse denied it specifically, to be sure.

If we're calling out Scott_Rouse, we should be calling out jdrakeh as well. He had no reason to suggest this was an indication that WotC are "clamping down" on fan publishing.

 

[jdrakeh]

There are any number of reasons why your request was denied (time of our legal staff, potential issues with the rights, etc) but it has nothing to do with a fanzine policy and it is pretty uncool of you to suggest such a thing

My own inquiry was made with specific with regard to my fanzine. I was told I could not publish an issue of said fanzine dedicated to LoC. The response that I received certainly may have arisen from factors other than an official policy regarding fan works. I merely posited a potential scenario. I didn't accuse you (or WotC) of anything. If you choose to take my post like that, that's on you.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

Sorry, I am not trying to be a jerk here.

FWIW, I did go ask what the situation was before my post, by talking with both the AH Brand Manager and the person who is responsible for replying to the corporate inbox. The answer given to jdrakeh was a short, polite no you may not use this. I did not dig into the reason why we said no beacuse at the end of the day it is none of my business. I can tell you it has nothing to do with "reign in control of our IP" or "clamping down on fan publishing altogether"

Again not trying to come off like a jerk and I apologize to jdrakeh if it seems that way but I do take exception to someone posting in an already controversial thread the allegation that

Originally Posted by jdrakeh
FWIW, it's possible that WotC is clamping down on fan publishing altogether as an effort to reign in control of their IP.

combined with

"Let's share!" era of gaming had to come to an end some day. It was fun while it lasted and I guess we can at least be thankful we got as much as we did.*

is meant to paint us us as being unfair at the least or greedy in the worst.

Could our "no" answer have explained more? Maybe. Sometimes the person who writes these responses only gets a "no" answer with no detail, herself. Considering she answers hundreds of requests like these a month (myself I get about 5-10 a week) she long ago stopped questioning the answers she gets and just tries to be as polite and understanding as possible with her responses.

I can appreciate jdrakeh's frustration as a fan and I am sorry the answer he got was not what he was hoping for but it's nothing personal and has nothing to do with fan publishing.

 

[jdrakeh]

He's done his part by contacting WotC legal, he got an inadequate response, and he is now being publicly told that you do not know what it is but that it isn't what he suspects it is.

I didn't actually receive a reason at all. Just a "Sorry, but no." reply. It was actually very polite and I got the impression that the individual whom I was corresponding with was merely passing on an answer from somebody else.

You could have picked up a phone to legal, find out who made the denial, and then posted by clearing up the problem instead of just slapping down the poor guy who is only doing what many, many fans are likely to do over the coming years and months post-OGL.

I appreciate the defense but, honestly, I don't think that's in Scott's job description

 

[jdrakeh]

. . .combined with is meant to vilify us as being unfair at the least or greedy in the worst.

I certainly didn't mean to vilify WotC. If you've followed my posts over the years, you'll see that I frequently defend tight control of IP by publishers as being a positive thing, specifically with regard to rights management. If you don't defend your rights to trademarks and such, you'll lose them.

With regard to the 'clamping down' comment, I certainly could have phrased that better. FWIW, I spent an hour at the hospital lab immediately prior to making that post. With the 'end of an era' comment, I simply meant to suggest that WotC may be returning to a more standard (and practical) model of rights management in the wake of recent restructuring.

Again, apologies, if you took my post the wrong way. I did not intend any malice whether you choose to beleive that or not.

 

[Mark]

Plus, it seems to me that any fanzine that actually references someone else's IP (as fanzines generally tend to do) might have "potential" issues with the rights and might require time from the legal department to accept or deny. That comes across as a de facto policy, whether you intend it to be or not.

Yup. As a fanzine (as opposed to a published commercial non-news product or a personal project that would be distributed on the web, for fun or profit), there are certain rights of fair use that come into play. An offhand "no" to any IP usage seems to exclude that caveat. For instance, while a feature article that might utilize IP to construct a new game might be off limits, an article on the history of the a property might well be able to use certain IP extensively. Sure, it isn't WotC legal's obligation to get into the various details of what might be possible to do, but they can certainly be more clear about what is not allowed. Sadly, as Scott points out, WotC does not have the time or manpower to address over one hundred requests in a month. Seems to me like doing a little more in advance would probably prevent problems that are inevitible in this era where WotC does not have the OGL to point toward as a pretty solid blanket policy with a vast community helping to keep one another mostly on the straight and narrow.

I appreciate the defense but, honestly, I don't think that's in Scott's job description

Until there is a fan policy in place, Scott is the face and ersatz fan-question-interface (by virtue of his presence here and about, as it were), particularly when phone calls can only solicit a "Sorry, but no" response.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

FWIW, I did go ask what the situation was before my post, by talking with both the AH Brand Manager and the person who is responsible for replying to the corporate inbox. The answer given to jdrakeh was a short, polite no you may not use this. I did not dig into the reason why we said no beacuse at the end of the day it is none of my business. I can tell you it has nothing to do with "reign in control of our IP" or "clamping down on fan publishing altogether"

Sorry Scott, but that does not help your case any. You asked other people and got the same polite no, which is no problem. But you did not ask why the no response was given. As a result you cannot then say that one reason or another was not the reason either. All you can legitamately say is that those reasons would not be ones for you, but that does not mean it couldn't be reasons for others.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

I certainly didn't mean to vilify WotC. If you've followed my posts over the years, you'll see that I frequently defend tight control of IP by publishers as being a positive thing, specifically with regard to rights management. If you don't defend your rights to trademarks and such, you'll lose them.

With regard to the 'clamping down' comment, I certainly could have phrased that better. FWIW, I spent an hour at the hospital lab immediately prior to making that post. With the 'end of an era' comment, I simply meant to suggest that WotC may be returning to a more standard (and practical) model of rights management in the wake of recent restructuring.

Again, apologies, if you took my post the wrong way. I did not intend any malice whether you choose to beleive that or not.

Thanks. You beat me to the quote, I actually went and edited out the word vilify as it was too harsh. Sorry we did not get you the answer you wanted, sometimes these old games have messy issues that can't be explained in public. I deal with it regularly on rights for old TSR articles and art. The contracts were poorly written at best and at worst are long gone.

I appreciate the follow up and hope the lab gives you a clean bill of health.

Group Hug

 

[Scribble]

Sadly, as Scott points out, WotC does not have the time or manpower to address over one hundred requests in a month. Seems to me like doing a little more in advance would probably prevent problems that are inevitible in this era where WotC does not have the OGL to point toward as a pretty solid blanket policy with a vast community helping to keep one another mostly on the straight and narrow.

Did you read this part though:

LOC was published by Avalon Hill. Back in those days, rights to games that lay fallow for a number of years often reverted back to the author/designer. This was before work-for-hire contracts. I am not saying this is the case here but it has happened with games like Cosmic Encouter and Titan


Seems like there's a possibility that they can't just make a blanket fansite policy. Some games or departments might have special needs.

I feel for Scott... I'm in account management, one of my jobs is handling an inbox where questions from some of our smaler accounts go. It gets really really busy. Sometimes when that happens the only responce I can give is: "Claim paid correcty- no adjustment needed."

I wish I could give a lengtheir WHY your claim paid correctly responce, but there are too many other issues to deal with. So you're just going to have to trust that I did in fact do my job, and researched your issue.

I think the same is true in this case. He got a responce of no, and he probably just needs to trust whomever sent that response did in fact do their job.

From what I've seen of Scott it seems like he does his job and then some, and still gets slack for it. So I really do feel for him.

Also remember he's the brand manager of D&D not all things WoTC...

 

[Mark]

Did you read this part though

Of course.

Seems like there's a possibility that they can't just make a blanket fansite policy. Some games or departments might have special needs.

That's why you have a blanket policy to cover most instances and then have the time to more effectively handle special cases rather than having to just throw up your hands and admit you simply cannot address any of them effectively.