File type discrimination

[Davin]

Re: Re: Re: Re: File type discrimination

That is part of what I was talking about, although it is more than the official site as people here and elsewhere are trading this information.

I think it's more in the not-yet-disallowed state. We'll have to see what happens in the future.

What is the legal difference between file types?

Unfortunately, I couldn't even begin to guess the legal ramifications here, so I'm going to leave that to someone with plenty of ranks in Profession(Lawyer).

 

[smetzger]

Re: Re: Re: Re: File type discrimination

As a note to anyone who is trying to decode .rac, .chr, .dll, or .exe portions of the program. This directly violates the license for the program. As the license states ?You may not: ...; (2) modify or prepare derivative works of the Software; ...; (4) design or distribute unauthorized levels; or (5) reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Software.?

Reverse engineering has been consistantly upheld in courts as being legal. Of course no other industry has been able to get a law passed that allowed something that was tangibly purchased to be construed as a license to use the product instead of an outright possession. Suffice it to say it would be very difficult for Fluid/WOTC to prosecute a reverse engineer case.

 

[Archimedes]

In order to claim rights to their IP don’t they need to actively defend it.

You can't lose a copyright by neglecting to defend it. Trademarks are what you have to actively defend. Most of what we're talking about here are copyright issues, but...

My understanding of this issue is that the PCGen creators want their program to become D20 complient and use the D20 logo. Since D20 is an actual trademark, I can understand why the PCGen crowd wants to toe the line.

Other than that, this is a tempest in a teapot. PCGen is Open Source. If a group of users gets really unhappy with the way things are going they can create their own list files or even fork the program.


Sam

 

[Christian]

Reverse engineering has been consistantly upheld in courts as being legal. Of course no other industry has been able to get a law passed that allowed something that was tangibly purchased to be construed as a license to use the product instead of an outright possession. Suffice it to say it would be very difficult for Fluid/WOTC to prosecute a reverse engineer case.

That's backwards, smetzger. It's because reverse engineering was determined to be legal that the prohibition was added to the EULAs. Since there's nothing in the law inherently protecting the designers from reverse-engineers, they add language prohibiting it into the contract. When you click 'I agree' on the install after pretending to read the license agreement, you have entered into a contract with the software publisher not to reverse-engineer the program. So if you do that any, you're in violation of that contract. In theory, that is-I don't know how seriously this has been tested.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Re: Re: File type discrimination

You can't lose a copyright by neglecting to defend it. Trademarks are what you have to actively defend. Most of what we're talking about here are copyright issues, but...

The issue I am looking at is whether by encouraging the free trading of IP in the form of e-tools files, WotC is is forefitting the right to complain if that same material is then traded in a different format. Yes this is a copyright issue, but I am still hoping to get an answer.

My understanding of this issue is that the PCGen creators want their program to become D20 complient and use the D20 logo. Since D20 is an actual trademark, I can understand why the PCGen crowd wants to toe the line.

Yes they wish to be compliant so that there can be no legal issue with thier use of SRD material as well as other OGL material that they have recieved permission to distribute. Until PCGen is OGL/d20 compliant they risk being shutdown. My question is for when PCGen is compliant whether or not users will be able to freely trade the non-SRD material that WotC is now making freely availible in a different file format. While I do not ever expect PCGen to officialy distribute non-SRD material without proper legal permission, currently This board and other sites actively shut down the distribution of the non-SRD lst files that are availible while allowing the distribution of the same material in e-tools format.

Other than that, this is a tempest in a teapot. PCGen is Open Source. If a group of users gets really unhappy with the way things are going they can create their own list files or even fork the program.

Yes, absolutely (except the teapot part). In fact there is not even a question of whether a user can input the material themselves. The problem comes for people like myself and others who do not have the time and/or ability to make the changes ourselves, but would still like to have access to this information in a character generator program.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Re: Re: Re: Re: File type discrimination

As a note to anyone who is trying to decode .rac, .chr, .dll, or .exe portions of the program. This directly violates the license for the program. As the license states “You may not: ...; (2) modify or prepare derivative works of the Software; ...; (4) design or distribute unauthorized levels; or (5) reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Software.” If WotC is revoking this portion of the license than great, but until this happens than all third party attempts to add functionality are illegal. If Davin has official permission from Fluid and WotC great, but I have seen nothing stating that this is the case.

This may and may not be an issue (IANAL), but what about those who haven't bought e-Tools and thus haven't agreed to those terms?

 

[CRGreathouse]

Re: Re: Re: File type discrimination

I like efforts by people like Charles Greathouse, to get things like standard statblock formats. I've already started changing my own formats to make E-Tools imports easier...

Thanks, Luke.

On the same subject, I have something important to say: It's not the format that's important, but the universality. If everyone started to use a single format, I'd be more than happy to use it, even if it wasn't the format I worked on making.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: File type discrimination

This may and may not be an issue (IANAL), but what about those who haven't bought e-Tools and thus haven't agreed to those terms?

I think you are correct here, but tell me who is doing this that doesn't own the program? Except of course this only backs up the first point that by making these files freely availible that if someone wanted to extract this information for inclusion in a different format then WotC would not realy have a say in the matter as the licence for the program would not apply, the material is not labeled as being copyrighted material of WotC, and it is being freely traded with WotC's full knowlege.

 

[Sm!rk]

There is no issue. WoTC owns the IP, they can do with it as they please.

The real facts are that pcgen have been commercially exploiting all sorts of IP for the past two years with no say so from the owners. The hoped to exist under the blind eye of a large corp and succeeded, until now.

This is so much like a criminal robbing your home, and then falling on your door mat and then suing you. Yeah pcgen lost "their" data, they should have never had that data. If you became dependant on pcgen and dependent on *them* violating copyright, then you have only yourself and pcgen to blame. WoTC owns the material, they sell you that material in books. That is their buisness.
What I find funny are group of people that somehow manage to ignore common sense and feel they have a right to pirate material all in the name of Open Source. Which gives open source a bad name and steps all over other legitimate "groups". How about this open source is a portal "copyright violaters software", which leads to full fledged pirating.



Whining about how WoTC chooses to control their property is like whining to your neighbor to mow his lawn with the grain.

 

[Cergorach]

The real facts are that pcgen have been commercially exploiting all sorts of IP for the past two years with no say so from the owners. The hoped to exist under the blind eye of a large corp and succeeded, until now.

For some reason you have better eyesight than me, where exactly was pcgen 'exploiting' things commercially?

Also, the folks here are probablt digging around for a way to exploit the fact that WotC is not cracking down on E-Tool files. If they allow it for one format then it's not difficult to sway the 'courts' to allow it for all...