Gleemax Terms of Use - Unacceptable

[Delta]

You misread the post. Marius wasn't saying it couldn't happen, he's saying it's not why it was included. That language is there to protect Wizards more than to enable them to steal your ideas.

I still say it's wishful thinking. To look at a legal license, and conclude that the licensor won't do what the license says they can do, is a very bad decision.

As has been said before, fans can post stuff on their own website and file suit and avoid this license entirely. There's nothing in the license that prevents filing of suits (even for things on the WOTC boards). The license does not provide the protection that Marius claims it does. What it does do is exactly what it says -- allow WOTC to reprint User Content for free.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

I don't post my homebrewed material on WotC's forums specifically because of this condition.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I still say it's wishful thinking. To look at a legal license, and conclude that the licensor won't do what the license says they can do, is a very bad decision.

This cannot be repeated enough.

RC

 

[tomBitonti]

(Text omitted) ...

As the judge said at the time, we were wise not to trust people's motivations, and to trust instead what was on paper. I only wish I had learned that lesson well enough to have applied it to the security firm.

(Text omitted) ...

RC

Nice post. Thanks!

 

[Yair]

How, exactly, do you suggest they do that?

My own suggestion is for for the license to state that Gleemax is a "copyright free zone", effectively - that whatever you post there cannot be used as a source-copy in a copyright infringement suit. So if you post your house rules there and Wizards then prints a book with them, you can't sue Wizards based on the fact that they were posted to their site. You can sue Wizards based on the fact that they're on YOUR site, just like you can now (without the Gleemax agreement, and unrelated to it). One can also sue you for posting something that isn't yours into Gleemax; I'd add a public policy allowing posters to use Wizards' IP on Gleemax as long as they aren't quoting it or rewriting extensive parts of it.

The point isn't that my suggestion or meleeguy's suggestion is perfect; the point is that there are other alternatives to provide protection to WotC, that its lawyers CAN draw up an agreement that respects the rights of others. That they don't is precisely because they don't respect them.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Nice post. Thanks!

You're welcome.

Also true post. You might think that you're shaking hands with a friend, but when you make a contract with a business, you've no guarantee that your friend will be the one calling the shots a year from now, two years from now, ten, or twenty. And, if that business (or that part of the business) gets sold those rights might transfer with the sale. In fact, they are almost certain to.

Surely the Gleemax TOS could be improved merely by making the rights granted nontransferable, including nontransferable in case of sale?

Finally, if WotC doesn't intend to shut down sites like EnWorld, the Gleemax TOS aren't going to protect them anyway. They still may face challenge because something appeared here before it appeared in a WotC product. Indeed, they might now face challenge merely because something appears on Gleemax. Example: I write something for EN World. It is discussed, with quotations, on Gleemax. If I discover this, and fail to challenge WotC's claim to use of material on Gleemax, what are the rammification to my ownership of said material?

The Gleemax TOS are just bad news all around.


RC

 

[Yair]

I think this is a pretty radical interpretation of copyright protections. By that standard, you are breaking the law by simply creating your own adventures in the first place, even if you never post them to the internet or share the file with someone else.

Not so. You are allowed to read the Monopoly rules to your partners and play with them. You are NOT allowed to broadcast the monopoly rules and board, and that includes playing monopoly online. You MIGHT be allowed to discuss the monopoly rules online, depending on how much you quote and how kindly the courts view this as "educational" analysis or something approximating it. That's how radical copyright protection is.

That's fine. I already said that I understood the terms wouldn't be acceptable to everyone, and I even agree that it's not a great policy. I just don't see that they are as unreasonable as some people's reactions would seem to indicate. In fact, I would expect people who seem to be so protective of their own IP to be more understanding of a company establishing very strict policies in order to protect ownership of their IP. It seems hypocritical to want your own IP so strictly protected and to call for WotC to be extremely lenient with their own.

It would be hypocracy if I demanded money for my works. I'm just opposed to a corporation owning my works. A person can freely use them, building on them - but a coproration is an economical entiry, so can't Fair Use anything. I don't want someone getting paid to use my work without me getting paid. I don't even want someone to have the right to make that possble, even if I know he won't.

 

[resistor]

As the judge said at the time, we were wise not to trust people's motivations, and to trust instead what was on paper. I only wish I had learned that lesson well enough to have applied it to the security firm.

...

No matter what you think of the folks in charge of WotC today, someone else may be in charge tomorrow. Or Gleemax might be sold to a third party. All kinds of things might happen, and you don't get to change your mind about things you've already posted there if they do.

Well said! This is exactly the point I was making about the principle of least privilege. In computer security, the idea is that if each program is guaranteed to be operating at the lowest level of privilege needed to do its jobs, then even if it is co-opted by a malicious entity, it can do no more damage than allowed by its privilege level.

The same thing applies to contracts: While you try to assume good faith in your normal dealings, when it comes to putting terms on paper you have to assume bad faith, if not at the moment, then in the future, or in the event of a transfer of the rights. Otherwise you're just asking to be screwed when the owners change hands and new leadership comes in.

 

[resistor]

It is in the sense that you're the one making the claim that there is a solution.

My claim is that when you face something as nebulous as ideas and writing, the only way to ensure your right not to get sued by someone claiming you stole their posted ideas is to state any posted ideas can be yours.

Patently false. I work as a computer programmer for a major silicon valley corporation. Like many of their engineering employees, I like to work on side projects in my free time, many of which I put up for free on the internet. Obviously my employer has concerns about me suing them if they ever produce something similar to my works by coincidence, and also if I were produce something similar to their existing work through proprietary knowledge.

And you know what? My contract contains an explicit section to address precisely these issues. It defines precisely what work that I do belongs to the company, what work the company has an implicit stake in (mostly work done on company time or company equipment), and what work that I do they can't touch without my permission. My employer certainly could have said "All work you do while employed by us is ours." (though I probably would have refused to sign it). Instead, they invested some money in getting the legal team to write up terms for their specific needs.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to make an attempt to write legalese for Gleemax. However, I've now presented two cases of IP licenses for the protection of a corporation (MySpace and my employer) where limited, specific grants are used rather than unilateral ones. What evidence do you have that it CANNOT be done?

Your claim is that there is surely another way to do it. But you have no idea what it is. Perhaps it's like OS security or police arrests.

Actually, that's not what I said. I said the situation OS security and police arrests, which it is. I suggested that the solution was like MySpace's solution, which amounts to investing some lawyer hours in coming up with a tighter contract.

I don't think 'this idea was derived from this other idea' is anything like security; it's nebulous, it's sticky to deal with.

And, honestly, I doubt any such claim would hold up in court -- really, I suspect it's more a matter of the bad blood and people screaming about how WotC is 'ripping off' so-and-so's clever idea of ice demons.

Probably true, though many have pointed out that that is also the case for the current terms as well.

And I can honestly say that I have no particular fear of them stealing my ideas. I highly doubt I would ever produce anything valuable enough to steal. However, I absolutely refuse to sign rights over to them that they do not NEED.

The thing most people don't get, though, is the same thing that came up during the WotC setting search -- ideas are cheap. It's doing something with an idea that is important.

Also, mechanics aren't covered by IP laws. I could come up with a system that used all of D&D's mechanics, just written completely differently. I'd probably get some heavy-handed legal letters and a lot of people snorting at me, but it's legal.

Conversely, WotC could come out with E6, use all the feats posted in ENWorld, and so on. As long as the language isn't the same, they have the right to do it.

EDIT: To be less inflammatory.

 

[Marius Delphus]

2.User Content; Intellectual Property Ownership; Rights Granted to You

a. User Content

... It is not the intention of Wizards to commercially exploit User Content through the foregoing license grants. Rather, our lawyers tell us that this license is necessary to protect Wizards in those rare circumstances where Wizards has ideas or business plans similar to User Content. ...

Complete text here.

No, I know, I know, the people that work at WOTC have no respect for the creative process, the ownership of intellectual property, or the hard work of individual authors, and they're ready to mercilessly plunder the Gleemax messageboards for any idea that is even remotely publishable. I get that. :\ (Always remember to rob and plunder before you pillage and burn, after all.)

The :\ in this case means I'm being sarcastic. But if my faith that WOTC won't republish my valuable, valuable message board posts is wishful thinking, then why isn't the fear that WOTC will "steal" from message board posters just so much message-board drama? (I know, I know... it's just "common sense." :\)

Personally, I think the right way to go is never to post anything you don't want to pollute the rights to. In any public forum, not just Gleemax. I've said it multiple times in another venue, but it's equally applicable in this case... if you really think you have something worth publishing, then see about publishing it. Don't give anyone else rights to it.

Legally, the best information I have access to confirms that Gleemax and Wizards need this TOS/TOU provision to keep the message board alive in the face of Wizards' publishing business (last I checked, MySpace doesn't have a publishing arm). Yeah, I said "need." Because I (naively :\) believe WOTC is telling the truth in the quote above: their lawyers really did tell them that that provision's an important protection for WOTC.

I'm not denying that, on the face of it, the provision gives WOTC the "power" to republish anything that appears on Gleemax. I believe it does, technically. But I guess somebody forgot to notify me that WOTC had changed from "a bunch of folks that work hard on games because they love them" to "a bunch of evil corporate suits who are looking to plunder the fans' collective creativity."

I maintain the provision is there to protect WOTC. I predict it won't be substantially changed.