Ema's RPG Sheet Website down...

[xechnao]

How is that even remotely the same. Everything posted in the 4e fan forums is free. If ENworld or the poster were charging people for viewing or downloading the stuff posted there, I can assure you that WotC would step in. And that's basically the whole issue. The moment Ema started earning money based on what belongs to WotC, his site stopped being a fansite. As it is, ENworld is not a business. EN Publishing is.

It is the same thing on this matter. ENWorld charges for advertisements and you are exposed to them in the forums. Ironically Wotc advertises too. The deal here is that ENWorld does NOT COMPETE with Wotc business but helps it. I guess if it did compete it would receive a C&D letter too.

 

[Khairn]

The difference is still the following. At ENworld you can get everything you want, for free (except the search function! but that's hardly related to WotC's IP or whatnot). At Ema's you could get some things for free, but if you wanted everything, you had to pay.

Sorry, but I think you're trying to split a hair.

Ema's product was his character sheets. EN's product is a fan site filled with all sorts of 4E and WotC IP information. The products from both sites were available for free.

Ema's had an option for those who wanted to support the site to donate and get an additional service (ie store character data). EN has an option for those who want to support the site to donate and get an additional service (search function, PM etc) which is used to get better access and use out of their product.

Both sites used D&D and its IP to attract their customer. If you want "everything" from either site, you had to pay.

I really don't see much of a difference.


Aside from that bubbly personality thing I mentioned earlier.

 

[dvvega]

@Khairn

Actually Ema's site in the no-pay mode was still giving out mechanical information on powers in the 4th edition section without permission. Granted, SOME of that information was in summary, but the currently licensing of 4th Edition pretty much only allows names to be mentioned, not complete information.

I have sitting right in front of me a file of Warlord Attack powers I printed off Ema's site only recently 7th Jan 2009 which clearly has ALL the power text and even the power quote for Hammer and Anvil for example.

That is a big difference to what ENWorld does.

D

 

[Jack99]

Sorry, but I think you're trying to split a hair.

Ema's product was his character sheets. EN's product is a fan site filled with all sorts of 4E and WotC IP information. The products from both sites were available for free.

Ema's had an option for those who wanted to support the site to donate and get an additional service (ie store character data). EN has an option for those who want to support the site to donate and get an additional service (search function, PM etc) which is used to get better access and use out of their product.

Both sites used D&D and its IP to attract their customer. If you want "everything" from either site, you had to pay.

I really don't see much of a difference.


Aside from that bubbly personality thing I mentioned earlier.

Fair enough. Please show me where I can find all the powers (with full text) from PHB, MP and FRPG on ENworld. Or the rituals.

If you do not see that there is a difference between ENworld, which might have a few spread out over 1.000.000 threads and Ema's where you could just press a few buttons and get them added to your sheet, then I guess we will really have to agree to disagree.

Cheers

 

[Morrus]

For those engaged in the "what's the difference between Ema's and EN World?" discussion, while I'm not particularly inclined to get into a debate of the semantics involved, I can certainly take this opportunity to clarify policy here without offering any opinion on the policies of Ema's web site: we don't condone (or knowingly allow) wholesale reproduction of third-party IP ("third party" in this context meaning "not EN World's"). If you see something like this being hosted on EN World, please privately let us know, so that we can deal with it appropriately - using the report post button is the ideal way to do this.

Note that discussion of a third-party's IP is completely acceptable, as, indeed, are small snippets of IP pertaining to that discussion, especially in the context of news, a review or a public debate; reproduction of significant amounts of third-party IP without permission, however, is not allowed here.

 

[chriton227]

*deleted by poster*

 

[Xyxox]

Obviously not. But, you are welcome back when you have read up on the law.

You quoted a case regarding piracy where no sale of pirated material occured and the sharing act was, in fact, the act of piracy.

It has no relevence to what Ema did. Nor does it apply to Ema even when Ema's site was merely a fan site and not a business as the SCOTUS has no jurisdiction in Italy.

 

[chriton227]

Dictating? You were told it was part on an agreement. WOTC didn't dictate, they came to a settlement with EMA. And you do not like the settlement EMA and WOTC agreed to. So, you have decided to blame WOTC for it? How about you are not happy that EMA breached copyright and trademark laws thus leading them to decide to settle with WOTC out of court for a settlement which included losing your data?

Without knowing the details of the agreement, no one can know for sure how much negotiation happened and how much influence each side had on the final terms of the agreement, but I don't know of very many cases where in a settlement between a multi-billion dollar corporation and a single infringing individual, the single individual had much of any say beyond "accept the terms the corporation specifies" or "be plowed so far under with legal expenses and eventual penalties that you will be eating ramen noodles until the day you die".

You are right, I am not happy that Ema breached the laws and as a result the site is no more. I'm not happy that the current state of copyright law (and the ever increasing duration) in the US is "protect corporate interests" over "promoting the progress of science and the useful arts". In my assessment, Ema's didn't reproduce enough of the content to replace the need for the books. It didn't tell you how many HP per level a class got or how many powers you could pick. It didn't give you the 4e feat, race, or skill descriptions. All of the power and spell descriptions cited the source and page of the original information (which is what I though was the acceptable way of reproducing information from other sources, although Ema could have used more formal citations rather than PHB.106). It did include logos, but those are fairly easy to strip back out of PDFs, especially ones generated dynamically (just replace with a blank graphic of the same dimensions). The power cards and power/spell sheets could have easily been turned off, or replaced with simple blank versions that the user could fill in on their own. But I am not a lawyer, and I really don't know IP law that well, so my assessment on the matter is nothing but a personal opinion.

In any case, what is done is done, and no amount of arguing with people on the internet, especially those of us discussing it had absolutely no direct involvement in the proceedings, will do anything to change that. I've stated my opinions on the matter; I don't think there is much chance of my opinion changing, and I don't think I have much chance of changing the opinions of anyone who disagrees with me, so I'm going to step out of the discussion.

 

[catsclaw227]

Each case of copyright and trademark infringement should be treated on its own and handled with care. Treating a website which offered a needed service (yes, it was needed, because WotC sheets are unusable crap) for thousands of people for several years without profit the same as a shipment of Chinese-manufactured Rolex forgeries is not, in my opinion, a good way to handle these things.

I agree that the original 3.5 WOTC sheets were poorly done, but I know lots of people that used them without problem in lots of games. And they were able to enjoy the D&D game and knew their PC just fine. Just because we didn't like the layout doesn't mean they were unusable crap.

I'm just edgy and worked up because the tools Ema managed to create for his site were the types of tools WotC should have posted on their site on Jan 6 2008 for 4e, and should have had on their site before then for 3.x. What I'm left with now is the atrociously ugly things that the DDI character creator can produce, where it doesn't even bother to do some of the calculations (how hard would it have been to calculate out 1/2 level plus stat mod for Resourceful Presence?), let you manually edit anything on the character sheet, or even export it to PDF or RTF to be able to send it electronically to your GM for review (important if you run an online game like I do).

I export them to PDF just fine, and there's a thread out there that has many people discussing just how they do this. Should WOTC have made "export to pdf" native to the application? Maybe, but it's not really critical. One additional thing to note, with the CB you can send your DM the sheet as a *.dnd4e file and (s)he can load it into their copy of the CB as well. And if they don't have a DDI sub, and they are a DM, your group might wnat to consider buy it for them. It will save your poor hard-working DM a TON of time with adventure prep.

Technically almost any other 4e character sheet on the web, whether a fillable PDF, a Word doc, or an Excel sheet, violates WotC's IP, at least if it does anything at all automatically or lists the feats or powers. I did a quick check of several D&D 4e sheets at RPGSheets, every one I looked at was in violation. If you want to get technical, if I make my own status cards that detail out the effects of the 4e conditions to use in my own game, I'm reproducing WotC's content without prior written consent and distributing it to other individuals (the other players in the game), thus violating copyright law. Would I even be allowed to enter someone else's character from the game I'm playing in into the Character Builder and print them out a character sheet without violating the DDI/CB licensing agreement or WotC's IP? When Dungeons & Dragons starts to feel like Lawyers & Lawsuits, it's time to pack up and find a different game to play.

They weren't that harsh. A C&D is totally appropriate for what Ema was doing, and it appears that Ema and WOTC came to an agreement about what should be done.

Did WotC have the right to shut down Ema's? Definitely. Do I feel doing so benefited the game or the community of players? Not a chance. Do I feel that there should have been some form of middle-ground between ignoring Ema's site and ordering it razed? Absolutely. I would have loved to have seen some sort of licensing agreement worked out, one that would have allowed the resource in some form to still exist, while at the same time allowing WotC to maintain control of their IP. But WotC has made sure that will never happen.

Again, I think it bears repeating...

If WOTC knowingly allows Ema's site to provide protected content (while charging money), they set a precedence for other sites and companies to create a for-profit venture riding on that same IP. I am sure there is a technical term for this, but they really had no choice. Ema's site, especially because it was well liked by the fandom, put WOTC in a terribly compromising situation and they had to act in the way they did.

I can envision a conversation like this....

WOTC: I know a lot of people like your site and the fans use it for character sheets, but you KNOW you shouldn't have used all this non-OGL and 4e material.
Ema: Yea, but to make the sheets a valuable resource for the player, I needed to add it.
WOTC: Yes, but it was illegal.
Ema: I know...... sorry.
WOTC: You know you have to shut it down, right? I wish we didn't have to do this, because the fans like it, but if we don't someone else will do something worse and then we're screwed.
Ema: yea... I know.
WOTC: As much as we don't like to, you know we have to send you an official C&D letter, right?
Ema: yea... I know...​

Just speculating and all....

EDIT: and who knew that the INDENT tag puts the text in scary MOD-SPEAK colors.

 

[Khairn]

If you do not see that there is a difference between ENworld, which might have a few spread out over 1.000.000 threads and Ema's where you could just press a few buttons and get them added to your sheet, then I guess we will really have to agree to disagree.

I guess then we'll just have to agree to disagree then.

The "right" of WotC (that is supported by many on this thread) to send out C&D letters in support of unauthorized use of their IP, doesn't appear to ber limited between IP that is spread out over a few thousand posts, as opposed to that which is spread out over a couple of character sheets.

Morrus has made it clear that EN does not condone the listing of WotC's IP in threads, but at the same time EN isn't actually doing anything to stop it. The same "right" that WotC has apparently used to shut down Ema's can be used on any other site that has any unauthorized IP. And I don't think anyone can claim that EN doesn't have WotC IP on their site, and is collecting money to support it.

Just an opinion.