A History & Analysis of TSR’s Copyright Policies

[JLowder]

Wow, I didn't know those were finally getting released. Congratulations Jim!

By the by, the book's Amazon.ca page gives it a release date of July 1st of this year. It also still mentions that it's set in Ravenloft, though that's almost certainly too much to hope for, I imagine.

I look forward to picking it up!

Thanks! I hope you enjoy it.

The Ingram information is wrong about Ravenloft; you can see where they even got the main character's name wrong, compared to the publisher description. Ingram must have simply assumed the old data for the title was correct and tacked it on to what Elder Signs provided. It's most definitely not set in Ravenloft.

By the by, anyone who wants a preview for the Ebonacht series can read a stand-alone prequel short story in the Paizo anthology Worlds of Their Own (paizo.com - Worlds of Their Own (Trade Paperback)). That story takes place a few years before the start of The Screaming Tower and is a good example of what the trilogy will be like.

Cheers,
Jim

 

[S'mon]

Well, I talked with TSR's lawyers quite a bit throughout the late 80s and 90s about contracts and IP, first as an employee and then as part of a contract dispute I had with the company that dragged on after I resigned, from about 1994 until Wizards bought TSR in 1997. From my experience the TSR lawyers knew what they were talking about but frequently made public statements that were based upon the corporate philosophy. I had similar conversations with some of the WotC attorneys in the era of the Dragon CD ROM fiasco and found a very similar pattern.

Cheers,
Jim Lowder

That's interesting, thanks Jim. It always seemed a bit odd to me that a lawyer with any knowledge of IP could think that his company 'owned' terminology like armor class or hit points.

 

[Xyxox]

I still think that if I ever meet Robb Repp, the original TSR Online Coordinator who strong-armed the shutting down of countless FTP sites, which caused the irretrievable loss of God knows how much player created material (which would be protected under the OGL today), I will punch him in the face. Many Times.

As for Sean K. Reynolds, the second Online Coordinator (Veggie Boy as he was known back then), if I ever meet him I will shake his hand. He calmed things down a lot.

Sean was my "boss" when I did about a stint as a "TSRO" in the late 90's and into 2000. I had to leave in 2000 due to some demands on my time from a new job.

Great guy. Still great to this day.