WotC Dungeons & Dragons Fans Seek Removal of Oriental Adventures From Online Marketplace

[Cadence]

If you remove it from DMs Guild/DriveThruRPG, there would be no legal way to obtain copies. That's the exact same legal situation as the book being "banned".

Being banned feels like not only can't you print it, but you can't re-sell it, or find it at the library.

Publishers deciding not to keep something in print feels totally different to me - the effect on the public not-withstanding. It's their IP, not the publics.

I assume you don't want to force publishers to keep things in print if they don't want to?

 

[DammitVictor]

Publishers deciding not to keep something in print feels totally different to me - the effect on the public not-withstanding. It's their IP, not the publics.

That's a matter of opinion. I believe in the moral rights of the creator to control (to some extent) and profit from their work, but not at the expense of the public's interest-- copyright law exists and establishes the existence of "intellectual property", as an artificial monopoly, not as an extension of human rights but to promote the public's interest in the creation of artistic and literary works.

I assume you don't want to force publishers to keep things in print if they don't want to?

I can't advocate forcing publishers to spend money on keeping a product in print that they don't wish to keep in print-- for financial or moral reasons-- and when it comes down to it, I can't really advocate forcing them to keep a digital product available through an online retailer if they no longer wish to be associated with it.

But... I do think their decision to stop selling a product, whether or financial or moral reasons, should absolutely terminate their artificial legal right to prevent others from doing so-- since the moral purpose of copyright, after all, is to encourage the public availability of cultural works.

 

[Cadence]

But... I do think their decision to stop selling a product, whether or financial or moral reasons, should absolutely terminate their artificial legal right to prevent others from doing so-- since the moral purpose of copyright, after all, is to encourage the public availability of cultural works.

Four particular questions:

Should authors be required to keep all versions of their works in print (such as the earlier Star Wars runs, the copies of the Hobbit and LotR without the changes, etc...) or lose their rights to that particular version?

Should artists be required to make prints available of any peace of artwork they made the original of, even if they want each peace to be unique?

Should photographers have everything available for public sale regardless of who the picture is of?

Does it count as on sale if they just slap some really big $ amount?

None of the moral purpose of copyright is for artists, writers, and other creators to have possession of their own creation and profit from it?

 

[DammitVictor]

Should authors be required to keep all versions of their works in print (such as the earlier Star Wars runs, the copies of the Hobbit and LotR without the changes, etc...) or lose their rights to that particular version?

Twenty years ago, that would have been a tough question-- keeping a work "in print" was a tremendous expense. On the one hand, if they're not selling it they're not profiting from it, but on the other hand, a publisher could be planning a major release that they can't afford yet.

Nowadays, keeping a work "in print" is as easy as not cancelling it. I am okay with saying that if a company revises their work after publishing it, they must keep the deprecated version available in order to maintain copyrights to it-- in the case of Star Wars I would argue this is absolutely in the public's interest to protect culturally significant works from vandalism at the hands of their own creators.

Details are hard, and technical, and political. You can pick at flaws in any proposal I make all day, and I could just as easily pick at the flaws in the current legal paradigm. The principle of the matter is still going to be that whether the government censors a book, or the government enforces the IP owner's right to remove it from sale, the practical result for the end user is the same: the book is no longer legally available for public consumption, and this is contrary to the purpose of the laws that make it possible.

 

[Cadence]

Details are hard, and technical, and political.

Fair enough.

I hadn't decided if those were going to be my only four questions. If you want to answer the other three (about the particular selling cases, not the purpose of copyright), then I won't have any more Just curious what your responses would be.

 

[Lanefan]

Four particular questions:

Should authors be required to keep all versions of their works in print (such as the earlier Star Wars runs, the copies of the Hobbit and LotR without the changes, etc...) or lose their rights to that particular version?

Sticky question. For mass-produced works e.g. a book or a movie, there is I think a moral obligation to retain earlier versions (and, where possible, have them available even if not in their original physical form) rather than recall and-or destroy them. And as someone already astutely pointed out, retention and distribution is far easier now than even 20 years ago.

Should artists be required to make prints available of any peace of artwork they made the original of, even if they want each peace to be unique?

Following on from the last question, if the piece is meant to be unique (or of a set-number limited run) then there's no obligation for the artist to make prints available. However, one could argue the copyright only extends to the original(s); meaning that for a painting, say, someone couldn't paint another copy but could photograph it and distribute that photo (I wouldn't necessarily agree with this argument, but it can be made).

Should photographers have everything available for public sale regardless of who the picture is of?

This one depends on why the photo was taken in the first place, and of whom i.e. are the subjects public or famous figures who could reasonably expect photos of themselves to proliferate among the masses. Almost needs a case-by-case answer.

Does it count as on sale if they just slap some really big $ amount?

Yes, provided that someone paying that really big $ amount in good faith will in fact receive the product in return.

None of the moral purpose of copyright is for artists, writers, and other creators to have possession of their own creation and profit from it?

Here's the truly bizarre bit, at least for me: in the US, as of a few years ago when I asked at a legal seminar, it is in theory legally impossible for an artist or content producer to create a work and then intentionally release it into the public domain as copyright-free. Put another way, a creator cannot legally waive copyright even if he-she wants to; the only option is to sign it over to someone else, which completely defeats the point of making it copyright-free.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That's a matter of opinion. I believe in the moral rights of the creator to control (to some extent) and profit from their work, but not at the expense of the public's interest-- copyright law exists and establishes the existence of "intellectual property", as an artificial monopoly, not as an extension of human rights but to promote the public's interest in the creation of artistic and literary works.

I can't advocate forcing publishers to spend money on keeping a product in print that they don't wish to keep in print-- for financial or moral reasons-- and when it comes down to it, I can't really advocate forcing them to keep a digital product available through an online retailer if they no longer wish to be associated with it.

But... I do think their decision to stop selling a product, whether or financial or moral reasons, should absolutely terminate their artificial legal right to prevent others from doing so-- since the moral purpose of copyright, after all, is to encourage the public availability of cultural works.

Yeah, I think bringing copyright law into the equation makes this a very sticky situation. Especially since copyright is under massive scrutiny due to large problems on multiple levels, such as the new standards of "eternal copyright" that companies like Disney are able to get on works they hold the rights to, but never work on producing, which essentially locks them away and prevents their use for the public. A state that copyright was supposed to prevent from happening.

 

[DammitVictor]

Put another way, a creator cannot legally waive copyright even if he-she wants to; the only option is to sign it over to someone else, which completely defeats the point of making it copyright-free.

That's the purpose of Creative Commons and other copyleft open licenses.

 

[FireLance]

We've kind of moved on in the conversation, but I just wanted to add that I thought the idea that there was a single, unified, monolithic Asian community that would take offense that OA, among other things, presented Asians as having a single, unified, monolithic culture to be truly amusing.

 

[Dire Bare]

We've kind of moved on in the conversation, but I just wanted to add that I thought the idea that there was a single, unified, monolithic Asian community that would take offense that OA, among other things, presented Asians as having a single, unified, monolithic culture to be truly amusing.

It's been covered in the thread. Of course, the thread is hyuuge.

Not all Asians or Asian Americans find the term "oriental" offensive. Not all Asian or Asian American gamers find the stereotyping in the book "Oriental Adventures" offensive or overly problematic. But many do. Enough that the term should be avoided and the book needs a solution, either removal from sale or a disclaimer in the front.

And WotC needs to do better in future products. Not just better than "Oriental Adventures", but better than the current 5E products as well.