Aaron L
Hero
johnsemlak said:Mmm, how are the first 10-12 issues of Dungeon easily available to the public? I wanna get my hands on those.
I'm pretty sure he was saying that they weren't easily available to the public.
johnsemlak said:Mmm, how are the first 10-12 issues of Dungeon easily available to the public? I wanna get my hands on those.
Ah, looking back at Henry's post, I believe you're right. My bad.Aaron L said:I'm pretty sure he was saying that they weren't easily available to the public.
johnsemlak said:This case is one reason why we will not see a Dungeon archive CD ROM, it would seem, or Polyhedron.
Which is a great shame.
You ask a bunch of different questions there, and I'm not sure how to answer all of them, so I'll just discuss how I see the situation. I certainly don't think that any of those viewpoints discuss the broad opinion of the boards, if such an ephemeral thing exists.silentspace said:Is this right?
The general feeling here on the boards seems to be that publishers should be allowed to sell electronic copies of freelancer's work without paying freelancers. Just out of curiousity, why does everyone feel that way?
Is it really because the freelancers will refuse to allow republication because they think the rights are worth "millions"? Is that what people here really think? It seems more likely that they would ask for some sort of nominal fee (as opposed to nothing), with maybe some tiny fraction of royalties if the thing sells really well.
Or is it because you only want the folks at Paizo to get your money, and don't like the idea of them giving a part of it to the creators of the work?
Or is it because you feel that any work, once created, should be in the public domain? (In which case the compilation should really be free)
Please help me understand this. I don't really understand copyright issues. Thanks.
silentspace said:Just so I understand (and please correct me if I don't)...
1 - Publishers (such as NYT and Paizo) were not allowed to create and sell print copies of freelancer's work (such as compilations of past articles) without some sort of further renumeration to the freelancers?
2 - In order to get around this limitation, the publishers sold electronic copies of the work, since the copyright laws were less clear on this issue? This way they can collect profits without having to deal with the inconvenience of paying the producers of the work.
3 - The Supreme Court ruled in the Tasinin case that the copyright protections that freelancers have for their creative work also applies to electronic, not just print copies.
4 - Since the Tasini case, freelance contracts now include the rights of publisher to re-issue work in electronic form? Does that also include print copies?
5 - Since the Tasini case, a new case with National Geographic has set a new precedent, whereby publishers are now allowed to release compilations of previously submitted work without further paying the creators?
Is this right?
Janx said:I think Sean and Jolly got a bit off topic with the Kenzerco thing. Sean did state his opinion on how he'd feel about seeing his stuff reprinted (the gist was he'd be glad if someone wanted his old stuff).
Jolly didn't answer that, though some of it was implied by the fact that he did negotiate some sort of first print rights to his stuff. Since Jolly's stuff is mostly art/comic which ages better (ie. his old stuff is relvant today), his concern might be different than Sean, who's earliest material was likely 2nd Ed. which is OOP. Perhaps a fair question to Jolly is, would he want a piece of the action if someone were to reprint his old magazine articles, or some such in a big collection CD?
Wizardru's got the right point. People want stuff. We also don't want to lose stuff. Most of the stuff in Dragon is the only place it was published. If we don't scan it and put it on CD, we risk losing it. For 30 years worth of material, charged at $50 a CD, we can't afford to pay every guy for reprint costs. Nor can we afford to lose this material. True, not all of it is valuable, but often, we don't know until later, the value of something.
This is old stuff. The artists and writers aren't being hurt. They may be denied more profits, but no one's taking money from them. Paying them, would likely make these archive CDs impossible to release. That's the real waste. The fact of the matter is, yes, Jolly's strips are reprinted in the Dragon Archive CD. I didn't buy it for his cartoons. Heck, I have the originals, as well as his reprint books. So he hasn't lost any money. And somebody who buys the Dragon CD just to get the KoDT strips and not buy from Jolly, isn't going to give Jolly their money anyway.
Janx