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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steve Conan Trustrum" data-source="post: 1911132" data-attributes="member: 1620">Which is backed by the experience of several rather long, expensive lawyer consultations. I like to know what I'm getting into before I begin investing money in a business, and knowing, as a publisher, how copyright applied to me, especially as it trickled up from my freelancers, was a major point I was sure got brought up ... once or twice.If by some you mean "let me play Devil's Advocate here" ...Nope, I'm not the police. Neither is Justin. In fact, I think you can be quite assured that the police will never get involved in this or just about most other copyright infraction. And I don't "say" I'm an artist and a professional (I am, in fact, a writer, soon to be publisher, and professional). My published credits, registered business and rather high legal consultation fees say all of that for me.Some of the points you've made very directly make a stance on publisher/artist culpability -- for example, your erroneous assumptions about an artist's responsibility concerning the use of third party rights. When, where, how much, and under what circumstances YOU can use copyrighted material is a VERY different matter from then taking that material and, by act of publication, trying to pass those same rights off on to the publisher. You were wrong in your position on this, which shows you don't know as much about copyright as you think. You also brought up the point of "so long as it's not for profit," which is one of the oldest and most damaging misunderstandings of Fair Use going around.So then, the question comes up as to whether Gary or Justin are in your part of the woods as well. If not, why does your part of the woods have any bearing on the legality of Justin's situaton?So far as the artist is concerned, in a professional vacuum, yes. Once he brings in a third party, such as a publisher, the situation is entirely different. Another artist can give you rights to manipulate his work and do whatever YOU want with it on your own, for instance, but that isn't legally or ethically the same as trying to sell it to someone else, such as a publisher, on its own or as part of a compilation work (such as a rpg book) that alters the context of the original artist's intentions and granted rights. Again, assuming something about this is incredibly wrong and you could end up getting into big trouble not learning the facts instead of using guess work and "common sense" -- you owe it to yourself, if nobody else, so that you won't stick your leg in a bear trap down the road.Quite obviously, your priorities and definition of what constitutes "etiquette" in a situation such as this differs quite radically from people who potentially have a lot more to lose than you. In other words, publishers who may currently have, or may have been thinking of initiating, work with this artist.Theoretically, yes. I think you'll find, however, that they are a LOT more difficult to prove in court. If you have legal-minded friends to consult, I suggest you do so in this regard. The problem with email is that time stamping and headers can VERY easily be falsified (in fact, it's as easy as me rolling back the clock on my computer). Verbal agreements have to be substantiated by witnesses, something that is very difficult to do when much of the rpg industry doesn't work face to face and consists of little more than the rare phone call, plenty of emails, and mailed contracts. Unless you've recorded the conversation or had a face-to-face in front of reputable witnesses, a verbal contract likely won't prove to be worth the paper it's written on.With a contract, the clauses, conditions, dates and signatures are there for everyone to see, plain as day.</blockquote>

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