Another Cease and Desist Letter: 4E Powercards

[billd91]

And thus you make my point for me. What does Wizards intend to pursue? Why can't Wizards come out and state it?

Aside from having so much legalese to worry about that it's a slow process? I can think of a couple of reasons:

1) Flexibility - they can go after targets of opportunity rather than deal with the blowback of complains for an unevenly enforced guideline.

2) Loopholes - publishing a set of guidelines, as useful as they might be, also invites scoundrels who intend abuse the spirit of the policy by finding loopholes around the wording.

And to toss in a third: It simply hasn't been a high-enough priority to devote the time.

 

[Scribble]

And thus you make my point for me. What does Wizards intend to pursue? Why can't Wizards come out and state it?

My best guess would be copyright violations that come to their attention.

When you withdrawl money from an ATM is it your job to turn to the nearest person and say: "Taking this money from me by force, or deception, would be a violation of US law, and I will pusue any abuse through legal action."

Or do you just assume that if they steal from you, you will then call the cops?

Look man, I agree, WoTC would probably be better served creating a fansite policy. I think most people who want to create a fansite for D&D are generally interested in supporting D&D, and want to do so in a legal way. I think Wizards would probably benefit from supporting their fans ability to do so without having to contact a lawyer or soemthing. I was just saying that because someone didn't take action againt something ilegal before doesn't make it legal.

Aside from that I wonder- did either of the shut down sites try to get in touch with Wizards before they opened their electronic doors? Scott Rouse seems like a decent guy pretty open to at least TRYING to point fans in the right direction.

 

[Ourph]

Why can't Wizards come out and state it?

Why not just assume WotC will enforce their rights to the full extent the laws allow? It's what most companies do, and those that don't (Disney frex) usually claim more protection than the law allows in any official IP-infringement policy, which is actually worse for the fans.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

2) Loopholes - publishing a set of guidelines, as useful as they might be, also invites scoundrels who intend abuse the spirit of the policy by finding loopholes around the wording.

yea like we have to worry about D&D players abuseing the word of the rule to supercide the spirit of it...where would you dfind such a person... never mind


and to who ever asked me if I was jokeing, yes when I said blame the pirates for the lack of updated GSL I thought I was being funny...darn multi quite not working right...

 

[shieldknight01]

How Naive Are We?

Can we honestly believe that no one at WOTC or Hasbro had seen the fansite power cards until Jan 5th? I mean, come on, I've been using the MSE to create power cards since October, and I know that the Power Card thread on this site has been up for much longer than that, and it has links to the very sites that create these files, not to mention jpgs and file downloads of examples.

Please, they are sending out the C&D letters now, because they were never sure if the Power Cards would sell, but now that they see everyone making there own, they want to own the market. Not that I can blame them, but they could have put a stop to this almost 6 months ago. Not now, right before they sell the new power card sets.

Just my 2cents.

 

[Xyxox]

Can we honestly believe that no one at WOTC or Hasbro had seen the fansite power cards until Jan 5th? I mean, come on, I've been using the MSE to create power cards since October, and I know that the Power Card thread on this site has been up for much longer than that, and it has links to the very sites that create these files, not to mention jpgs and file downloads of examples.

Please, they are sending out the C&D letters now, because they were never sure if the Power Cards would sell, but now that they see everyone making there own, they want to own the market. Not that I can blame them, but they could have put a stop to this almost 6 months ago. Not now, right before they sell the new power card sets.

Just my 2cents.

Going with Occam's Razor would suggest the Power Cards site was not brought to the attention of the appropriate parties within WotC management until January 5 as that is a far simpler answer than to suggest a wide ranging evil conspiracy.

 

[Ourph]

Can we honestly believe that no one at WOTC or Hasbro had seen the fansite power cards until Jan 5th?

Given that I've been actively playing 4e since last summer and using Power Cards in almost every session and I hadn't heard about the site until this thread, I find it very easy to believe exactly that.

 

[jaerdaph]

 

[Scribble]

Given that I've been actively playing 4e since last summer and using Power Cards in almost every session and I hadn't heard about the site until this thread, I find it very easy to believe exactly that.

Also, I wouldn't say WoTC (Or any corporate entity) is really "fast" with anything.

For al we know they might have known about it from day one, someone reported it, and it went into some random corporate lawyer guy's "to do" pile. (Probably on top of other less important things such as reveiwing an already released document for changes designed to make people happy, as a favor to an overworked coworker.)

 

[Imaro]

Why not just assume WotC will enforce their rights to the full extent the laws allow? It's what most companies do, and those that don't (Disney frex) usually claim more protection than the law allows in any official IP-infringement policy, which is actually worse for the fans.

Because doing this is silly, since even posting a character you create can, technically, be considered IP infringement.

Going with Occam's Razor would suggest the Power Cards site was not brought to the attention of the appropriate parties within WotC management until January 5 as that is a far simpler answer than to suggest a wide ranging evil conspiracy.

You know I find it hilarious that WotC is always held up as a business when it suits it's fans, but the minute a detractor suggests they did something most businesses would in a situation... suddenly it's a conspiracy theory... or it's ridiculed... There have been numerous cards with the full text of powers distributed all over the internet.

IMO,as a company concerned with their IP and usage of it, it is more absurd to think WotC was oblivious or didn't notice any of the sets of power cards (with the full text) out there any earlier than January... I mean just the fact that they have multiple presences on this site alone, where links to tons of power cards (with full text) are listed means even the minutest effort would have garnered them this information.

No, it's much more likely that while, perhaps not aware of Ryan's specific site... WotC has been aware of the sets of power cards on the internet and...up to this point...chose not to do anything about them because they helped promote their product and they in turn had nothing to offer their customers. Personally I think this lax attitude up until now, probably led to people like Ryan thinking it was okay to create a website with the power text on them since there are already PDF's & MSE sets with them in it.

SIDE NOTE: As far as "common sense" here's a site that has been up forever for Exalted 2nd edition... on the site are the Charm Cards for Solar Exalted, Dragon-Blooded Exalts and Lunar Exalts. That's all the powers from 3 different books, along with great character sheets and rule cheat sheets... yet for years there have been no C&D's from WW for the site to take the cards down. I'm assuming, perhaps mistakenly, that WW recognizes sites like these help promote their game and cultivate the "hobby" aspect as well.

exalted sheets