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<blockquote data-quote="Mark" data-source="post: 4654266" data-attributes="member: 5"><p>Whether money is charged or not, IP needs to be protected.&nbsp; Part of the reasoning behind the advent of the OGL and the subsequent 3.x fansite policy was an effort to manage an inevitable amount of usage by a growing online community.&nbsp; One of the side effects of abandoning the OGL for the newest edition of D&amp;D was a need to create a new policy for how to deal with online activity that might violate copyright and trademarks.&nbsp; Recently we found out that Scott Rouse was tasked with curtailing filesharing of D&amp;D materials, a task that he said was prioitized higher than making adjustments to the current GSL.&nbsp; Now a site carrying 4E IP material that was a fansite and began charging a fee received a C&amp;D notice, prompting its closing.&nbsp; It remains to be seen if they will take the same stance with a site that might do the same thing but not charge money for it, however, the fact that Ema did not simply cease charging and actually shut down the entire site seems to indicate that was not an option.&nbsp; Perhaps they will reopen with more limited content and still charge, or not charge, or something else.&nbsp; That also remains to be seen.&nbsp; Some have suggested that it was the &quot;software&quot; aspect that brought on the C&amp;D but, honestly, I doubt anyone believes that illegally utilizing someone's IP is okay outside of &quot;software&quot; but a no-no used in conjunction with &quot;software&quot; of some kind.&nbsp; If anyone does believe the above conditional usages, they could go right ahead and open a fansite with all of the same material outside of a &quot;software&quot; application and not charge for it, then see how long before they receive a C&amp;D, though I wouldn't recommend it.</p></blockquote><p></p>

[QUOTE="Mark, post: 4654266, member: 5"] Whether money is charged or not, IP needs to be protected. Part of the reasoning behind the advent of the OGL and the subsequent 3.x fansite policy was an effort to manage an inevitable amount of usage by a growing online community. One of the side effects of abandoning the OGL for the newest edition of D&D was a need to create a new policy for how to deal with online activity that might violate copyright and trademarks. Recently we found out that Scott Rouse was tasked with curtailing filesharing of D&D materials, a task that he said was prioitized higher than making adjustments to the current GSL. Now a site carrying 4E IP material that was a fansite and began charging a fee received a C&D notice, prompting its closing. It remains to be seen if they will take the same stance with a site that might do the same thing but not charge money for it, however, the fact that Ema did not simply cease charging and actually shut down the entire site seems to indicate that was not an option. Perhaps they will reopen with more limited content and still charge, or not charge, or something else. That also remains to be seen. Some have suggested that it was the "software" aspect that brought on the C&D but, honestly, I doubt anyone believes that illegally utilizing someone's IP is okay outside of "software" but a no-no used in conjunction with "software" of some kind. If anyone does believe the above conditional usages, they could go right ahead and open a fansite with all of the same material outside of a "software" application and not charge for it, then see how long before they receive a C&D, though I wouldn't recommend it. [/QUOTE]

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