Another Cease and Desist Letter: 4E Powercards

[catsclaw227]

And assuming that both sites that were recently shut down were violating WotC's copyright, my question is this: why didn't either site merely change their content enough to comply with the law?

If I am not mistaken, with Ema's site, he decided that making the changes wasn't worth the time or effort.

And for 4epowercards.com, I imagine that "merely change their content" would have entailed HOURS and HOURS of time. There were over 1800 card violations...

And to address a previous post, I have been using an MSE set and even followed the power cards thread. But I never heard of 4epowercards.com until this thread.

And.... (again).... the people that duplicate that much of WOTCs text either didn't care that they were doing something illegal or they didn't bother finding out if it was OK. Either way, negligence was at play.

Huh. Someone likes 4e and puts up some nifty power cards to help make the game run more smoothly for people.

In response to this enthusiasm on the part of their customers, WOTC slaps 'em with a C&D, in effect saying "BAD fan! You're not allowed to add to the fun!"

Way to go, guys.

Strawman. They didn't send the C&D in response to the enthusiasm of a 4e fan. They sent it in response to over 1800 powercards full of WOTC IP that were knowingly distributed for free. How is this hard to understand?

Let's ask one of the publishers out there.... Maybe Chris Pramas (Green Ronin) or Matt Sprange (Mongoose) or Joe Goodman (Goodman Games) can chime in:

If someone took large amounts of your closed IP an made it available for free online, would you feel legally obligated to ask them to stop?

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Take chess for example--if someone made free cards for each piece that described how the piece moved, even if quoting from rules printed by another company, what's the problem?

That's illegal. It's BLATANT AND OBVIOUS copyright violation.

 

[Imaro]

If I am not mistaken, with Ema's site, he decided that making the changes wasn't worth the time or effort.

And for 4epowercards.com, I imagine that "merely change their content" would have entailed HOURS and HOURS of time. There were over 1800 card violations...

And to address a previous post, I have been using an MSE set and even followed the power cards thread. But I never heard of 4epowercards.com until this thread.

And.... (again).... the people that duplicate that much of WOTCs text either didn't care that they were doing something illegal or they didn't bother finding out if it was OK. Either way, negligence was at play.


Strawman. They didn't send the C&D in response to the enthusiasm of a 4e fan. They sent it in response to over 1800 powercards full of WOTC IP that were knowingly distributed for free. How is this hard to understand?

Let's ask one of the publishers out there.... Maybe Chris Pramas (Green Ronin) or Matt Sprange (Mongoose) or Joe Goodman (Goodman Games) can chime in:

If someone took large amounts of your closed IP an made it available for free online, would you feel legally obligated to ask them to stop?

Again...

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


Edit: on a side note Mongoose has a PDF SRD for their Runequest rules... available for anyone to download.

 

[catsclaw227]

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

And has WW publicly stated their approval of this site, or is it in violation of their fan site policy?

I am actually curious, because I don't know the answer.

Edit: on a side note Mongoose has a PDF SRD for their Runequest rules... available for anyone to download.

Yes, I have seen and read it. My question to the publishers was about closed content. Maybe I wasn't clear.

EDIT: Actually, I did say "closed IP" in my original post. OK, I thought I was hallucinating.

 

[Imaro]

And has WW publicly stated their approval of this site, or is it in violation of their fan site policy?

I am actually curious, because I don't know the answer.

I don't know the answer either, but it's been there and is referenced on boards many of the designers participate on... mainly RPG.net. How is this relevant anyway since WotC doesn't have a fansite policy? Right now it seems a toss up on whether you will get a C&D letter or not.

Yes, I have seen and read it. My question to the publishers was about closed content. Maybe I wasn't clear.

EDIT: Actually, I did say "closed IP" in my original post. OK, I thought I was hallucinating.

Well here's a site with IP information about Aldea, the world of Blue Rose rpg by Green Ronin, again it's been up forever... I actually would love to hear if Chris Pramas believes a site like this hurt his game or helped to promote and foster interest in it...

Blue Rose Notes

 

[catsclaw227]

I don't know the answer either, but it's been there and is referenced on boards many of the designers participate on... mainly RPG.net. How is this relevant anyway since WotC doesn't have a fansite policy? Right now it seems a toss up on whether you will get a C&D letter or not.

I was just asking because if I remember correctly, WW has a fairly strict fan-site policy. If they know it exists and it violates their fan-site policy, then it creates a legal precedence for WW to ignore a site that violates their fan site policy and that opens all kinds of problems for them.

Well here's a site with IP information about Aldea, the world of Blue Rose rpg by Green Ronin, again it's been up forever... I actually would love to hear if Chris Pramas believes a site like this hurt his game or helped to promote and foster interest in it...

Blue Rose Notes

I'd be curious to know about his thoughts on this as well.

 

[catsclaw227]

Well here's a site with IP information about Aldea, the world of Blue Rose rpg by Green Ronin, again it's been up forever... I actually would love to hear if Chris Pramas believes a site like this hurt his game or helped to promote and foster interest in it...

Blue Rose Notes

Taking a cursory look at it doesn't lead me to believe that they have copy/paste posted a lot of stuff printed from the Blue Rose book. This may be the difference. Wholesale copying of game elements of a large portion of your book (PHB powers took up over 100 pages, minus a page or two for each of the classes) is a lot different than printing a map or two and paraphrasing elements of the game world.

 

[MrGrenadine]

That's illegal. It's BLATANT AND OBVIOUS copyright violation.

Quotes from published works, when used in another published work, are not copyright violations.

I believe compliance with the law hinges on the creation of a new work, however that is defined legally.

In this case, perhaps a game aid is a new work?

 

[Xyxox]

So even though, through a simple google search you can find tons of sites with power cards that contain full text and descriptions... In fact just browsing these forums turns up plenty... you honestly believe a company like WotC since 4e was released hasn't done this... even though they were aware of their core books being put up on torrent sites before the books were even released?

To try and keep up with it would require many full time employees, so yes.

Yeah it's easy to throw that "conspiracy" word around when you want to discredit an argument but don't have anything substantial to back it up with except... anecdotal evidence that doesn't even relate directly to WotC. Yeah whatever, you've really revealed the "conspiracy" for what it is...

It's far easier to stoke the fires of suspicion with conspiracy theories about evil intent.

 

[Imaro]

To try and keep up with it would require many full time employees, so yes.

And yet somehow, they are finding a way to do it now...

It's far easier to stoke the fires of suspicion with conspiracy theories about evil intent.

Who said anything about "evil"... it wasn't, it was smart business.