Hey Publishers, fair use?

[Treebore]

I'm still not seeing anything saying that any kind of works are excluded or not covered. The language seems to be "all inclusive". The language also indicates that there is even more room for interpretation, IE future court decisions.

Even in the fair use descriptions of conditions, etc...

 

[Mark]

It's a matter of "purpose," as per above and in the second link I added to this thread.

 

[guildofblades]

fair use does not say what kinds of publications are protected, open, or what have you. Fair use details a list of the "types of reasons" where fair use may apply. Those reasons could potentially apply to anything covered under copyright, regardless of the subject matter.

Playing games, however, is not an activity or reason given under fair use for which it is ok to use any elements of a copyright protected works.

However, I could see a case for a certain amount of latitude being provided for "commentary" and "review". There is nothing under copyright law which suggests the audience for either must include a minimum number of people. So one could, in theory, photo copy some charts and other information from a game tome and share it with their fellow gamers as part of a "review". Yeah, sounds fishy, but since that activity is never clearly defined, its open to interpretation. Which means, ultimately, its something that would be decided by a judge if it were brought into court. The judge would decide if your sharing of those certain elements would indeed be covered by fair use for the reasons given for the fair use. Obviously "to enjoy the game through the activity of gaming" would not qualify. No more than copying and distributing a movie is ok for "enjoying a movie".

So in short, sharing whole PDFs = copyright violation.

Sharing parts of the document for play = still copyright violation

Sharing part of it for review, commentary, etc, likely not copyright violation and it would be a "fair use" of the material. Doing it for gaming and claiming this in court *might* fly in court. But realistically speaking, it would also be an extremely rare publisher that would pursue such to court anyway.

Nothing in the vast, vast majority of gaming publications, is patented. So if you happened to "rewrite" the gist of what the publication was presenting, expressed in your own form, then its totally ok and not covered by copyright at all. So long as you also avoid those pesky trademarks in the process and hence be in trademark violation, this gets the job done. Its understandable that many folks wouldn't want to put the work in to rewrite the subject matter, and hence that is why the publication (print of PDF) has value and why copying it whole hog is illegal.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.guildofblades.com/retailgroup.php
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com

 

[shinmizu]

In Japan, for example, it's illegal to sell used video games, it's considered copyright infringement.

Incorrect, or at least not enforced AT ALL, since there are many stores that sell used video games, books, and CDs in Japan. You could even rent music CDs (which is probably the biggest reason that miniDiscs actually caught on over there before MP3 player technology got big). Most of my purchases of video games while living in Japan were used games.

 

[Treebore]

fair use does not say what kinds of publications are protected, open, or what have you. Fair use details a list of the "types of reasons" where fair use may apply. Those reasons could potentially apply to anything covered under copyright, regardless of the subject matter.

Playing games, however, is not an activity or reason given under fair use for which it is ok to use any elements of a copyright protected works.

However, I could see a case for a certain amount of latitude being provided for "commentary" and "review". There is nothing under copyright law which suggests the audience for either must include a minimum number of people. So one could, in theory, photo copy some charts and other information from a game tome and share it with their fellow gamers as part of a "review". Yeah, sounds fishy, but since that activity is never clearly defined, its open to interpretation. Which means, ultimately, its something that would be decided by a judge if it were brought into court. The judge would decide if your sharing of those certain elements would indeed be covered by fair use for the reasons given for the fair use. Obviously "to enjoy the game through the activity of gaming" would not qualify. No more than copying and distributing a movie is ok for "enjoying a movie".

So in short, sharing whole PDFs = copyright violation.

Sharing parts of the document for play = still copyright violation

Sharing part of it for review, commentary, etc, likely not copyright violation and it would be a "fair use" of the material. Doing it for gaming and claiming this in court *might* fly in court. But realistically speaking, it would also be an extremely rare publisher that would pursue such to court anyway.

Nothing in the vast, vast majority of gaming publications, is patented. So if you happened to "rewrite" the gist of what the publication was presenting, expressed in your own form, then its totally ok and not covered by copyright at all. So long as you also avoid those pesky trademarks in the process and hence be in trademark violation, this gets the job done. Its understandable that many folks wouldn't want to put the work in to rewrite the subject matter, and hence that is why the publication (print of PDF) has value and why copying it whole hog is illegal.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.guildofblades.com/retailgroup.php
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com

I'm sorry, but the "Fair use" clearly states it is fully a part of the copyright laws. The copyright laws clearly state what it covers, and it clearly covers books. So RPG books are clearly covered by copyright law, and "fair use" is fully a part of section 107 of copyright law.

Now if RPG's want to claim to not be covered by copyright law, they can. All they have to do is publicly declare they do not want to be protected. Thats in the law as well.

Plus all WOTC books, and I would bet books from all RPG companies, clearly state they are protected by US copyright law. Don't believe me? Look for yourself. Read the small print in WOTC books on the first page just before the table of contents. In there they clearly declare their trademarks and clearly declare they accept copyright protection under US law.

So all WOTC RPG books are covered by copyright law, and therefore "fair use" applies, since it clearly states fair use is further explanations of copyright law, section 107, based on court decisions.

Plus "Fair use" does not say it covers all possible situations of fair use. It only gives what has been pretty clearly defined in courts so far. So to say that is all that "fair use" applies to is wrong as well. Look at teh wording. IT does not say, "The following situations are the only things "fair use" applies to."

Plus they give 4 guidelines that are used to determine issues of "fair use", which does apply to any situation not clearly covered already.

"Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

1.

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2.

the nature of the copyrighted work;
3.

amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."

Notice it says, "to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:"
It doesn't say there are only a specific set of situations in which "fair use" applies. Otherwise they would not have written that sentence or given 4 factors to consider in determining "fair use". So "fair use" does not say there are only a few instances of "fair use". Those 4 factors are set out to help determine "fair use" in any future legal litigations because "fair use" as written is not completely comprehensive.

To say otherwise is completely false information.

You are correct in your last paragraph though. Which I will be doing further research to not only verify, but to increase the clarity of my understanding of it.

 

[tensen]

Having a few pages of a .pdf may be fair use (depending on the size of the product). Having the full product is no longer fair use.

You original questions seem somewhat contradictory. Since I'm sure some publishers may consider things fair, but that doesn't mean it is fair use under the legal standpoint.

 

[Treebore]

Having a few pages of a .pdf may be fair use (depending on the size of the product). Having the full product is no longer fair use.

You original questions seem somewhat contradictory. Since I'm sure some publishers may consider things fair, but that doesn't mean it is fair use under the legal standpoint.

True, but unless the publisher publicly states what they consider "fair use" the law, as stated, is what applies.

The "OGL" is an example of declaring what is "fair use" by the publisher.

 

[Committed Hero]

"Fair Use" evolved to allow others to present copyrighted material in a non-commercial fashion. The key question tends to be whether the use of the material by someone else suppresses the demand for it. At least that's my interpretation.

 

[tensen]

True, but unless the publisher publicly states what they consider "fair use" the law, as stated, is what applies.

The "OGL" is an example of declaring what is "fair use" by the publisher.

No. The OGL is defining things that you can use under the terms of the license... it has nothing to do with "fair use." Just what is fair for you to use under the terms.

 

[Kaisoku]

I seem to recall a while back there was the idea to have password protection on PDFs that required accessing a website to log in.

This meant, basically... you could have as many copies of the book as you wanted anywhere, but since you had to essentially "log in" to the book through a website, it was possible to limit it down to one being viewed at a time.

Essentially, bringing PDFs down to the level of a book being handed across the room. Everyone could access the book, but not all at the same time.. they had to share it.


There were a lot of problems with this idea (beyond the basic problem of somehow preventing people from cracking the protection, or simply copying/printing the PDF and bypassing the protection).
The biggest issue was that the PDFs would suddenly become utterly useless and unusable if the company in charge of the website ever went under. Meaning.. you bought a book, but now have lost the ability to access it. Kind of like having all the pages of a book glued shut cuz the publisher packed it in 50 years later (or whatever).

I don't think this idea ever went far past the idea stage... but it seems quite relevent to this discussion.
Nowadays, we just use the honor system I guess...