Green Ronin and Call of Cthulhu

[Wolfspider]

* SPOILERS BELOW*












How does Green Ronin get away with using concepts and ideas from H.P. Lovecraft's Mythos stories in the Freeport series of adventures and sourcebooks when Chaosium has the license to do games based on the horror writer's works?

 

[Shapermc]

Freeport has Cthulhu Mythos? New to me.

 

[Wolfspider]

Freeport has Cthulhu Mythos? New to me.

Yes. Serpentmen are the main baddies, and the books mention the snake god Yig and the Outer God (or is he Great Old one?) Hastur (along with the Yellow Sign).

As far as I know, these are all from H.P. Lovecraft's work.

 

[Voneth]

Yes. Serpentmen are the main baddies, and the books mention the snake god Yig and the Outer God (or is he Great Old one?) Hastur (along with the Yellow Sign).

As far as I know, these are all from H.P. Lovecraft's work.

I wouldn't get all riled about snake men, they are pretty common in fantasy. The other stuff ... hmmm.

 

[Gallowglass]

Erm, actually the Yellow Sign comes from the work of RW Chambers, Hastur is I believe originally from Ambrose Bierce and I think Yig was created by another writer in the 'Lovercraft Circle' ( RE Howard?)

As for Chaosium owning the rights I'm sure they are aware of the situation and would take action if they felt it was appropriate. But you will note that Green Ronnin have NOT referenced Cthulhu, Deep Ones or any of Lovecrafts own creations...

And bottom line Green Ronnin are definetly NOT a company I would expect to goof up on copyright deliberatly, so they probably checked these things first.
.

 

[VixenofVenus]

I dunno ... but saying 'Hastur' repeatedly makes webpages load faster!

 

[Ranger REG]

How does Green Ronin get away with using concepts and ideas from H.P. Lovecraft's Mythos stories in the Freeport series of adventures and sourcebooks when Chaosium has the license to do games based on the horror writer's works?

First off, see my sig below.

Now, IIRC, ideas and concepts can never be copyrighted, according to the US intellectual property law.

Also, IIRC, and correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't H.P. Lovecraft's works considered Public Domain (i.e., anyone can use it since no one owns the right)?

 

[Albert_Fish]

Hastur...beirce
King in Yellow...chambers
Yellow Sign...chambers
Serpent people....Howard
Yig....Zelia Bishop


Lots of D20 books use lovecraftian References. Particularly Necromancer games.

 

[gregweller]

As far as I know, the Cthulhu Mythos is part of the public domain--even Lovecraft himself encouraged his friends to use the Mythos in their work (although, IIRC Lovecraft himself never used the term 'Cthulhu Mythos'--that was coined by August Derleth). There is one site on the web that has posted all of Lovecraft's stories, and there are ebooks readily available of all of his stories. As far as I know, no one has ever brought copyright infringement for anyone using the Mythos in their own stories. There are literally hundreds or thousands of Cthulhu Mythos stories out there. I'm sure that Chaosium has control over it's *game* Call of Cthulhu, but I don't see how they could claim copyright over the fictive elements of the Mythos itself--therefore you could readily use those elements in another game, whereas you wouldn't be able to use the *mechanics* of the CoC game, or perhaps even claim that it was 'CoC compatible.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

As far as I know, Lovecraft's works have recently (like within the past few years) entered public domain. And there are several websites out there that have his stories. I'm not sure about the status of his "revision" stories, like Curse of Yig, but since these tend to be less popular I doubt that anyone is hoarding up the copyrights. More recent stuff, like that created by Campbell or Lumley, would still be copyrighted.

Originally, Arkham House (created by August Derleth and Lin Carter) had the rights to the stories and sort of kept them alive. They gave Chaosium license to use it in an RPG. Now that the stuff's public domain, anyone could use the Mythos, they just couldn't connect it to Chaosium's game. You may also notice if you go to the bookstore, there's now several options for Lovecraft reprints (even stuff like Penguin Classics), whereas usually you could only get Del Rey (at least back in the eighties when I was buying them all).

The only time I'm aware of that any kind of legal action would've been taken regarding Mythos elements used w/o permission is with the original 1st edition of Dieties & Demigods, which had but Cthlhu and Elric gods in it. I don't know all the details of the story, but general consensus is that TSR had to reissue the book without them because Chaosium had the license to RPG material.