Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="dm4hire" data-source="post: 6087796" data-attributes="member: 14848">Following up on what I last wrote and responding to Danny I’m wondering if a better way to put it is that the owner of the IP must be actively using it and able to prove it.  So in terms of someone retaining copies and then slowly releasing them in order to inflate the price that would indeed prove they are actively using it.  The owner when filing the claim must be able to show the court that they have a reasonable continued interest and purpose for failing to keep the product active.If we continue to use Alternity as the example WotC could keep it off the market if they can prove that their intention is to release it in limited quantity.  Perhaps they have 500-1000 copies in storage they plan to release every couple of years in small quantities.  I would accept that as they are doing limited print release.  Another acceptable method would be if they incorporate in their business plan that they will be releasing anniversary products or rereleases every five years or so.  I think we can agree that both those and similar methods are valid.  What I’m getting is a publisher/author releases a book and twenty or thirty years after it has gone out of print they should be considered forfeit on copyright if they haven’t or can’t produce reasonable proof that they are using it.  Thus it moves to public domain.  I know of very few companies that don’t continue to use their IP in some form.  So it wouldn’t be much of an issue except in areas of interest such as ours where games die out from lack of interest.Another exception I just thought of would be material tied to an overall IP such as Star Wars or Harry Potter that have broad areas of coverage.  In those cases the trademark would allow it to continue but that would be more of a Trademark concern then I think.  Perhaps that is an addressing issue that should be modified.  By which I think materials related to trademark of such scope should be covered differently when more than one area of the law is covered.  Maybe create a new level of trademark that covers mass market IP.That would give Disney their satisfaction, but at a higher cost since they would be paying for blanket coverage.  Of course I would still allow for parity and allowances that are not meant to cause indemnity or harm to the owner, such as a kid printing a t-shirt they created with Mickey for personal use and not for resale and similar areas.</blockquote>

Verification