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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dykstrav" data-source="post: 3204853" data-attributes="member: 40522">I've seen a few infringement suits play out. Fortunately I haven't been personally involved with them yet, but it generally boils down to the following process.1) Cease and desist letter: The copyright holder makes a nice letter and sends it to you politely informing you that they believe you are infringing on their copyright, and if you don't stop they'll take you to court over it. If you stop distributing the material at this point, that's probably all there is to it.2) You go to court (assuming that you didn't stop distributing the material). Unless you have a good lawyer you don't want it to get to this point. Essentially, an infringement case hinges on the copyright holder being able to prove that they lost money because of what you did. If you are found to be infringing, they estimate damages (which you pay to the copyright holder) and issue you an injunction against using the material.Check out the Ghettopoly case, it even involved Hasbro.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghettopoly" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghettopoly</a>Even in this case, however, a default judgement was rendered on the behalf of Hasbro because the defendant couldn't produce documents. The focus wasn't on whether or not Chang had copied the rules (which are copyrighted) but that by using the "-opoly" suffix he'd infringed on their trademark on the term "MONOPOLY" in the context of a board game.We do know that alot of this sort of thing happens and just flies under the radar. There are, for example, fan shows based on Star Trek that Paramount just doesn't think are worth shutting down. People have even re-shot entire movies in their backyards and distributed them without reprisal, simply because the copyright holders realize that these people aren't a threat to their bottom line.This is the best advice you can get. Even if you use 100% original material, you should always get a lawyer to do clearances for you. Fortunately, there are usually enough lawyers that want to do entertainment law that they'll do it pro bono in most cases (this is the only way I get a lawyer to check my material before I publish it).</blockquote>

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