Tracey Alley - plagiarist

[BOZ]

I don't know if this story has made the rounds here yet, but apparently an Australian author by the name of Tracey Alley has made a near-duplicate of Mystara / The Known World and sold it as part of a novel series.

http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2013/06/winners-losers-and-tomb.html
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pv04?Mystara-setting-stolen-for-hack-novels
http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9472

Also see the Facebook group Mystara Reborn for reaction from game designer Bruce Heard and fans - https://www.facebook.com/groups/mystara.reborn/585364398174796/?notif_t=group_activity

 

[Morrus]

Blimey. That map really is the same map, names and all.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

And she appropriated some art for the covers of some kindle books she sells.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

O.M.G.: Maps, place names, character names & art lifted from all kinds of TSR/WotC sources without a thought of being caught.

Reminds me of a student a professor friend of mine caught lifting pages and pages of material from another work as part of a final pepper for the class. It was from a book written by the professor's own father.

Or how The Verve got caught doing uncredited sampling from The Rolling Stones. (And there was another piece on the same album that likewise ripped off early work by Vangelis.)

What are these people smoking?

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[Hand of Evil]

IF she has permission for the art, she should just photo-copy and post it. Remember this from a last year:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...yne-Reynolds-art-for-Rush-Limbaugh-newsletter

wonder what happened with it?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Given the "author's" denials and claims of "coincidence", permission is unlikely...

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Oh my.

When I first read the title I was like "what's the big deal, if it's just a fan creation for a home game" ... but if the author is selling products, that's just plain wrong. I assume Australia has some sort of copyright reciprocity with the US to allow appropriate action to be taken.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

A pat on the head, but no medal.

What good little boys and girls you are. You know US copyright law so well! There's no question that she "broke the law". Those good boys at the Mystara Piazza get a nice pat on their little heady-heads for turning her in. Maybe Hasbro will give those nice boys an awesome little gift certificate for their service to corporatized culture...

***
​

The original goal of copyright law was to provide for individual human creators so that they would have a livelihood, for a relatively short time (14 years), while they produce entirely new creative works.

Yet via corporate influence in the legislation of rights law, this has grown into a monster:

• In the case of natural persons (human beings), the creative works are locked down for the life of the author plus 70 years after they're dead. This provides a pension to a family lineage, who they themselves perhaps have done nothing to contribute to humanity's creative commons.
• And for works which were authored by legal persons (non-human corporate beings) these stories are locked down for 120 years.

Gigantic media and entertainment corporations have commoditized and locked down our culture and stories and shared mythologies.

The Mystara Piazzites and ENWorlders don't get a medal for pointing out who "broke the law". You do get a medal for sensing what a vibrant, humane, free cultural sector would look like, and enacting that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_culture_movement
https://sites.google.com/site/threefoldnow/free-cultural-sector

 

[DornWaraxe]

If I remember right there was a case a few years ago, that revolved around a map. Only the map. But the author or whoever chose to use the said same map in their own personal endeavor. Which of course led to a law suit and subsequent payment of back royalties and the issue of a public apology and a cease and desist of anymore use of said map. And this was just the map, not the names of cities and countries, just the general map.