KotS Pregen Copyright.

[Family]

The character sheet in the PHB has "Permission granted to photocopy for personal use only" in small type at the bottom. Whoever you spoke to has no idea what they're talking about.

This was the pregens from KotS, the Manager spent 5 minutes with me and 3 off the line, he was quite sure.

I was asking if I was allowed to photocopy them for a night of gaming with my friends.

 

[Dragonblade]

The character sheet in the PHB has "Permission granted to photocopy for personal use only" in small type at the bottom. Whoever you spoke to has no idea what they're talking about.

I think the issue was with copying the pre-gens from KotS. Not a character sheet from the PHB. (If only we had PHBs... )

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Whether it is fair use or not, somehow I expect that if you copy the sheets for your own personal use, WotC's legal department won't be willing to spend a lot of time tracking you down and sending you a C&D letter, but they won't come out and say that because it weakens their legal position.

If you have access to a personal copier, in which case the point is almost moot. The problem here will come about if someone goes to a copy shop like Kinkos who will refuse to copy anything without the consent of the copyright holder. It is not that Wotc will hunt you down but that the store will refuse to allow the copy from happening in the first place.

 

[Korgoth]

This was the pregens from KotS, the Manager spent 5 minutes with me and 3 off the line, he was quite sure.

I was asking if I was allowed to photocopy them for a night of gaming with my friends.

Oh. I thought you meant a blank charsheet from the pad or the PHB or something.

 

[Mouseferatu]

This was the pregens from KotS, the Manager spent 5 minutes with me and 3 off the line, he was quite sure.

Oh. Well, nevermind, then.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Oh. I thought you meant a blank charsheet from the pad or the PHB or something.

Ditto.

For the pregens I could see them stating this. Where they nice enough to perforate the pages for easy detachment?

 

[Cadfan]

True, but non-commercial use is certainly part of "purpose and character".

Yes. Which is a part of fair use. So you've got a part of a part of fair use. Its like owning a tire to a classic convertible. A start, but its not going to drive to the store.

I'm not saying that its wrong to copy a character sheet, or even illegal. I'm just saying that 1) the issue isn't fair use, and 2) the internet is a bad place to get legal advice, particularly on an issue where you're dealing with a constituency of interested parties operating in a near-complete absence of legal consequences.

If you don't believe me, go read the "fair use" page on that RIAA dominated website, Wikipedia.

Edited to add- apparently he was talking about the pregens.

 

[Voss]

This was the pregens from KotS, the Manager spent 5 minutes with me and 3 off the line, he was quite sure.

I was asking if I was allowed to photocopy them for a night of gaming with my friends.

OK, wait. Do you mean 'you bought a copy, and you wanted to photocopy the character sheets for when you ran the module', or 'you wanted to photocopy character sheets of a copy that happened to be in the store, and use them for something else'?

Because those are two very different things.

 

[Ruined]

"... when they pry my laserjet copier from my cold, dead hands."

 

[mearls]

I shot Scott an email about this. I'll see about getting an official response.