ATTN Piazo: Dungeon mag and Dragon mag CD-roms & the Tasini v NY Times decision

[seankreynolds]

Seriously, It's a major issue for freelancers who wanted to re-use those articles, but the way I see it, Dragon was an unusual case; the majority of freelancers who contributed to Dragon, also gamers themselves, got more from the CD-ROM archives than they lost, because the majority of work done was for outdated game systems, and no longer commercially viable.

But many of the most vocal freelance authors against the Dragon CD-ROM claim that those 5-year-old stories and articles are extremely valuable, and publishing the CD-ROM would be ruining their ability to make zillions of dollars from that gold mine of OOP material.

I happen to disagree with them. In fact, I'd be perfectly happy if the stuff I wrote for TSR/WotC 5 years ago was now publically available for free. I don't own it, though (work for hire contract says they own it outright) so I don't have any say in it. At least it's available as an inexpensive PDF in most cases.

Also, I believe in recent months a higher court has overturned the ruling in the National Geographic case (a similar case to the Dragon CD-ROM), ruling that it's not infringement for a publisher to release a compilation of magazines in CD form. So if that changes the possibility of future Dragon/Dungeon CD-ROMs ... who knows? Then again, the decision could be overturned by an even higher court (but I think that means it would have to go to the Supreme Court).

David Kenzer has stated on the Kenzer message boards that there never was Kenzer lawsuit vs. WotC: that's apparently gamer urban legend.

Have you considered that Kenzer may not be telling the truth?

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Or is he?

dum dum dum!

*just being dramatic*

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

This issue was pretty widely discussed on r.g.frp.dnd back in that time frame, as Sean can probably attest. One of the major issues is that in the early days of Dragon, obviously no one even considered the concept of digital rights, and therefore the rights to a lot of the early stuff was very debatable. Certainly stuff like KotDT has clear value even now, while most of the articles are of minimal value. TSR simply didn't have the means to go back and ask all the authors for permission - Dave Trampier, for example, was totally MIA during that time frame. They went ahead and did it, but after all that, it didn't even sell all that well (though I'd certainly like to get my hands on a copy).

 

[grodog]

Have you considered that Kenzer may not be telling the truth?

Sure. If he's lying, though, that would be worth knowing

 

[Olive]

This seems to come up every couple months or so.

Really? I've never seen it come up before, and I fidn this stuff interesting...

 

[JollyBGood]

The quote atrributed to Dave is correct. There was no lawsuit. (i.e. nothing ever went to court).

Since both parties are under the terms of an NDA I can't go into specifics. Not that it matters. It pretty much seems to be common knowledge although most accounts have the details wrong on many levels.

The fact that we have a good working relationship with WotC and have had over fifty books (both HackMaster and Dungeons and Dragons 3E) approved through WotC speaks for itself, I think.

As for our contracts with Dragon for KODT I should point out that we weren't under theh standard boiler plate contracts TSR/WotC usually worked under with freelancers.

I negotiated my own terms prior to joining KenzerCo in 1996 expressley having the parts pertaining to the assignment of 'electronic rights' removed. Later Dave Kenzer renegotiated those same contracts to further ensure the ownership of the strips were clearly defined.

I'm just pointing it out because a lot of the speculation surrounding a 'lawsuit' over the Dragon CD seems to assume we were under the same contract as other freelancers. That's certainly not the case.

I understand the speculation but I hope you understand why we're not at liberty to divulge details. I just wanted to shed a little light on the situation where I could.

 

[Kesh]

Really? I've never seen it come up before, and I fidn this stuff interesting...

It has, believe me. I've seen this once before around Dec-Jan, a few months prior to that. A couple times on the Wizards boards prior to that. And so on... Sometimes it's about an updated Dragon archive, others it's about getting a similar Dungeon CD.

I'd say the topic comes up here less frequently than it used to on the Wizards boards (and can't anymore, now that they axed their Dungeon/Dragon discussion forum).

 

[seankreynolds]

Anyone who knows Dave Kenzer would certainly know this isn't the case. You can accuse him of being many things but a liar certainly isn't one of them. I'm sure you didn't mean it to come off that way. Of course I'm biased. He's my best friend as well as my business partner.

I'll just put back in the part of your post that you edited out (above) ....

Interesting that you expect us to believe your statements in the very same post where you admit your bias.

{The quote atrributed to Dave is correct. There was no lawsuit. (i.e. nothing ever went to court).}

Correct on a technicality, then? i.e., legal action, but not brought before a court, and thus not a lawsuit (which the dictionary defines as "an action or a suit brought before a court")?

Riddle me this ... how did KenzerCo, which at the time was a very tiny company, managed to land the greatly valued and expensive license to produce not only 3E D&D products with the official logo, but also the rights to 1E AD&D (i.e., Hackmaster)? If KenzerCo can land this license (which almost certainly required plopping down at least $10,000 as an initial fee, quite a lot in the RPG industry), how come none of the other big players in the early days of the d20 industry have managed that? Certainly White Wolf has the money, and having the D&D logo instead of the D20 logo is a guarantee of greater sales ....

And wasn't Kenzer a lawyer before he started KenzerCo?

There's a lot that doesn't add up about this situation.

{ I'm just pointing it out because a lot of the speculation surrounding a 'lawsuit' over the Dragon CD seems to assume we were under the same contract as other freelancers. That's certainly not the case.}

I don't think that (whether or not your strips had a different contract) is the speculation. The speculation is about whether or not their was a lawsuit (or any sort of legal action) and if that affected certain licenses.

 

[JollyBGood]

I'll just put back in the part of your post that you edited out (above) ....

Interesting that you expect us to believe your statements in the very same post where you admit your bias.

{The quote atrributed to Dave is correct. There was no lawsuit. (i.e. nothing ever went to court).}

Correct on a technicality, then? i.e., legal action, but not brought before a court, and thus not a lawsuit (which the dictionary defines as "an action or a suit brought before a court")?

Riddle me this ... how did KenzerCo, which at the time was a very tiny company, managed to land the greatly valued and expensive license to produce not only 3E D&D products with the official logo, but also the rights to 1E AD&D (i.e., Hackmaster)? If KenzerCo can land this license (which almost certainly required plopping down at least $10,000 as an initial fee, quite a lot in the RPG industry), how come none of the other big players in the early days of the d20 industry have managed that? Certainly White Wolf has the money, and having the D&D logo instead of the D20 logo is a guarantee of greater sales ....

And wasn't Kenzer a lawyer before he started KenzerCo?

There's a lot that doesn't add up about this situation.

{ I'm just pointing it out because a lot of the speculation surrounding a 'lawsuit' over the Dragon CD seems to assume we were under the same contract as other freelancers. That's certainly not the case.}

I don't think that (whether or not your strips had a different contract) is the speculation. The speculation is about whether or not their was a lawsuit (or any sort of legal action) and if that affected certain licenses.

Just let me say I'm not here to squash the rumors. Like Dave, my hands are tied under the terms of an NDA so obviously I'm limited in what I can say.

Bias aside, your post seemed to imply Dave Kenzer of lying when in fact he wasn't.

Also keep in mind that his quote was taken out of context -- he was actually correcting a poster on our boards who had stated KenzerCo had 'sued' Wotc. (i.e. that it went to court and KenzerCo prevailed).

Again, there was 'no lawsuit', It never went that far because the matter was rather quickly resolved between both parties.

It's my opinion is that there's a huge difference between settling a dispute through negotiation via lawyers and going before a judge to settle the matter in an official capacity.

As you said people can read read between the lines rather easily and figure out much of what took place. I'm simply correcting a few innaccuracies in those assumptions.

 

[Olive]

Again, there was 'no lawsuit', It never went that far because the matter was rather quickly resolved between both parties.

It's my opinion is that there's a huge difference between settling a dispute through negotiation via lawyers and going before a judge to settle the matter in an official capacity.

I'm sure that most people (including me) see this as avoiding the issue and relying on semantics... Not that I care really, but when people say 'lawsuit' the mean that phrase to include 'threat of legal action' as well.