CMP: On its way out?

[TheYeti1775]

Almost certainly not, unless the WotC lawyers were high on crack for an extended period of time.

Maybe not crack but they are in Smokerville.

Its the same as me handing you a book I wrote, say put this into a dataset format for your program. You can make the datasets for this period of time of the books I write.

To me that means you have control of the data. The IP for creating the data is all yours.

Yeti

 

[Mercule]

Almost certainly not, unless the WotC lawyers were high on crack for an extended period of time.

Exactly. That's just not the way licensing agreements work. It's expired. Buh-bye.

 

[jaerdaph]

Heck, I would personally pledge $50 towards any legal fund if CMP decided to take it on. I know that is a VERY small amount in terms of legal fees---but it could start some momentum...

I'm going to point you (and everyone else) toward http://www.idealist.org

You'll find lots of things there far more worthy of your time, energy, admirable commitment and $50.

 

[Michael Morris]

Yeti, don't take this personal but you don't know what your talking about. If you did you wouldn't propose the above. Your analogy doesn't hold. The closest analogy one can draw similar to yours is that CMP was leasing the car. At no time did they own it. They can't keep producing the datasets nor sell the old ones without the license.

 

[thpr]

Now for a little Lawful Evil twist in the CMP favor

I'm not a lawyer, but let me point out a few issues here.

So wouldn't technically CMP still be in control of stuff THAT CMP CREATED during that time period?
<snip>
So unless the data came over in that format, then the IP is now CMP's not WOTC.

That depends on how the license was written. Unless there were special terms, CMP would own the translation of the copyrighted work to the PCC/LST format. However, since that data is a derivative work of the original books owned by WotC, WotC ALSO maintains copyright control over those datasets, so they cannot be copied or distributed without permission from *both* parties.

I'm just going to use a car analogy so you all can follow my line of thinking.

What you're referring to in legal terms is the doctrine of first sale, see 17 USC 109 for how this applies to copyright.

The problem with your analogy is that distribution of a new COPY of the dataset that CMP created falls under 17 USC 106(1) and 17 USC 106(3), which reserves for the copyright holder the right to copy (and distribute a copy of) the work. Hence the name, well, *copy*right.

This is a better analogy: If you buy a book, the publisher cannot maintain any control over what you do with that physical copy - you can read it, resell it, sit on it, compost it, burn it, whatever you like. However, if you COPY it, you are violating copyright law, because it is the act of copying that is reserved for the copyright holder. That may be fair use, if the copy is for personal use, but once you distribute it to others (also violating 17 USC 106(3)), it is unlikely you will be protected by the fair use clauses (17 USC 107)

As described, your case would never make it to a jury: It's a matter of law which would be handled in summary judgement against CMP.

 

[silvermane]

...

 

[TheYeti1775]

Yeti, don't take this personal but you don't know what your talking about.

Trust me I don't take these boards personal at all. I don't mind when people tell me I'm full of it.


Don't derivated works have thier own corresponding laws?


Personally between stuff like this and Sarbreenar, It's sorely tempting to tell WOTC to shove it where the sun don't shine. Honestly unless my group all went to it, if they were to come out with a 4e I wouldn't buy it. We play a D20 world, and barely have anything outside of Core and Complete books for WOTC material. I'm one of the few that tends to get all the books. Generally the others will hear my take on it, before deciding if they wanted it for themselves or not. Yes I'm ranting some, I know. But for all the rants I could have about CMP, I can not fault them for the job they somehow managed to do successfully when given a failed product as their basis for a start.

 

[TheYeti1775]

...

Well speak up.
Didn't hear ya.

 

[The_Gneech]

Wow ... on a whim I went to check if the "DMG II stat block fix" for E-Tools ever appeared, and I find the web equivalent of an elephant graveyard.

Erf. I'm very sad to see this. E-Tools, for all its faults, is the one thing that makes D&D playable for me.

Thanks for all your hard work, guys. I salute you! And I'm going to keep using E-Tools as long as it keeps working.

-The Gneech

 

[kingpaul]

Wow ... on a whim I went to check if the "DMG II stat block fix" for E-Tools ever appeared, and I find the web equivalent of an elephant graveyard.

Yeah, their still recovering from their hosts' worm infection.