From PCGen to 3rd Party Software developers that wish to use PCGen Datasets

[karianna]

PCGen only stopped when WotC Lawyers told them, not users or any "community". Ironic, Paul King is usually much faster at correcting some false information from being stated.

(Note: I was staying out of this until now)
While you say "blatantly", I like to think I have been honest and open about what I am doing. I have also checked and double checked the legal aspects of Evolution, why waste months and years of time just to find out it is illegal?

As I told Paul King, my goal is not to get into the business of selling datasets.. I will leave that to other companies. My goal and focus is to find a way to allow users to create data faster and easier then anyone else has before. As many users of NPC Designer know, I love giving users a choice, I even created the output format so they can move the information easier to their desired applications of choice.

Am I leveraging perhaps the largest source of d20 data available to the industry, yes.

Have I been respectful and asked for permission, yes. This some how dropped between the cracks last July. Now have asked again and been told to wait...

Have I answered every question given to me by PCGen, yes.

The point is I have tried to be respectful of PCGen and the work from many users since you first asked me to email you. Not because of what your "community" might say or do but because that's how I am. To be honest, there is no such thing as a bad press.

Was totally not referring to Evolution or yourself on this one . You have been totally honest and open right from the start and polite to boot and so that's not a problem with us at all. In fact we're busy discussing the Evolution case and Paul K or myself should get back to you very shortly! I think I can already say that it's going to be a positive answer. Again my apologies for us not responding to you sooner, very bad form on our part.

 

[kingpaul]

PCGen only stopped when WotC Lawyers told them, not users or any "community".

Like Kar, I only got really involved with PCGen right after GenCon '02. I had dome some dataset work before that, but wasn't involved with the day-to-day. However, PCGen had been trying to talk with WotC about WotC's opinion on PCGen's opinion that what we were doing fell under fair use. Anthony Valterra said "no", we removed the WotC datasets.

Now, on that note, were there other publishers at that time period that PCGen was distributing datasets against the publisher's wish? I can't recall having other datasets pulled at that time.

Ironic, Paul King is usually much faster at correcting some false information from being stated.

What, I'm not allowed to spend the holiday season with friends and family?

 

[karianna]

What, I'm not allowed to spend the holiday season with friends and family?

No, get back to work!

 

[soulcatcher]

Maybe.

Of course, in the early days PCGen distributed the IP of some publishers without their permission. Those publishers complained "loud and clear" but the folks at PCGen claimed Fair Use and kept on doing it for years. Shame didn't work on PCGen, what makes you think it would work somebody else now?



Just commenting. As a D&D software publisher, I'd like to see our tiny little niche market flourish. One of our members making veiled, vague, and baseless threats - legal and otherwise - doesn't create a good atmosphere.

Or maybe it's not just a comment. DM's Familiar imports stat blocks and I distribute a PCGen output sheet that creates that stat block. Perhaps next you'll say I need permission to create an output sheet? If I don't comply you'll complain loudly on many forums to shame me?

Todd, this is bs, and you know it. You were here at the time, and I was too, and the fair use argument collapsed into doing what was requested of us in precisely the *next* major public release of PCGen.

The last release of pcgen with unpermissioned files (except for accidents that were removed when noticed) was 2.7.3, which took place on 2002.07.24. Bryan was contacted by WotC and asked to go OGL when he was at gencon, at the end of that July. This created a firestorm when he pulled the release and made release 3.0.0 that removed all unpermissioned datasets. 3.0.0 was released on 2002.08.04. Many of us *argued* that we had a fair use right to the actual data, but not the text. But the project when asked switched over essentially immediately.

11 days is hardly *years*.

 

[soulcatcher]

PCGen only stopped when WotC Lawyers told them, not users or any "community". Ironic, Paul King is usually much faster at correcting some false information from being stated.

I was in the community at the time, not in the leadership, but I was in the community. WotC approached Bryan at GenCon '02, and WotC *asked* us to go OGL. We did nit receive a Cease and Desist. We did not receive legal threats. PCGen had reached the level of market penetration that we were on their radar, and they approached us and asked nicely, and we complied.

As for community, I think it's fair for the community of hundreds to be concerned about how their collective effort over tens of thousands of hours is utilized. People are willing to donate their time to things that will be free. Less so when donating that time makes a single individual money/more money.

Note: Because I'm speaking here in a historical context, this comment is my own, and does not represent the BoD.

 

[2WS-Steve]

The way I remember it was that, prior to the official relationship with WotC, PCGEN had been distributing closed content and several members of the online community had pointed out that this violated copyright -- in particular, Clark Peterson of Necromancer Games (and a lawyer) was concerned about it.

However, no one was going to go around and enforce other companies' copyrights for them if they weren't doing it for themselves -- which I think is right. Many companies have a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" policy on these matters that works out well for everyone involved.

When WotC did come talking to the PCGEN folks at the time, it did sound like everything was handled smoothly on both ends.

But Todd's right that the early days of PCGEN were the wild west, and a bunch of copyright violation was going on -- though I suspect that many companies didn't care.

Nowadays, the PCGEN conversion tool is probably a fairly moot point as far as PCGEN data volunteers are concerned. The files every company wants to convert (and every customer wants converted) are the WotC files that CMP created -- and I believe those belong to WotC now, likely always did.