D&D 4E New Collaborative File-Sharing Site for 4E Goodness

[tintagel]

Could an Admin move this to the Fan Created Content forum? I think it would fit there more and I overlooked that when I created this...

 

[Mark]

That wasn't WOTC's decision, but to be honest, everything we post here is wide open already - with no real clear terms. SO I decided that if I was going to create a site for us to work with, that our work (templates, images, themes, etc) should be under some sort of limited copyright.

Keep in mind that I'm not trying to step on WOTC's IP here - it's more of a set of guidelines regarding our textures, icons, etc- not the rules contents of the cards.

You might want to look into whether or not you have the right to incorporate someone else's work under copyright and then distribute it without their consent. What gets done on a message board in a very limited fair use manner (even that sometimes gets questionable) compared to what is allowed on the scale you propose are two very different things. WotC might be friendly enough in regard to a little fast and loose play with limited amounts of material crossing the fair use/copyright (and trademark) line but a full site devoted to filesharing works that essentially claim copyright on their IP (there is no real way to separate heavily integrated work like that) might be something beyond their liking. Who knows? Maybe they will give people their blessing and there will be sites all over the Internet creating content for 4E and distributing it en masse. They seem to be reining that sort of thing in, though.

 

[Graf]

Generally speaking Fair Use virtually everything that we do on the boards.
If someone started posting a lot of content page by page from the 4e PhB it'd be different. Just because you're writing about something related to someone's IP doesn't mean they have the right to control what you say.
(at least not in the US, where both google and WotC are incorporated)

Companies have, in the past, pretended their had the ability to do this in an attempt to try to exercise some sort of confused control over things, but most have given up.

 

[tintagel]

You might want to look into whether or not you have the right to incorporate someone else's work under copyright and then distribute it without their consent. What gets done on a message board in a very limited fair use manner (even that sometimes gets questionable) compared to what is allowed on the scale you propose are two very different things. WotC might be friendly enough in regard to a little fast and loose play with limited amounts of material crossing the fair use/copyright (and trademark) line but a full site devoted to filesharing works that essentially claim copyright on their IP (there is no real way to separate heavily integrated work like that) might be something beyond their liking. Who knows? Maybe they will give people their blessing and there will be sites all over the Internet creating content for 4E and distributing it en masse. They seem to be reining that sort of thing in, though.

So are you objecting to the creative commons notice itself, or the concept of a collaborative site? What are the official copyright guidelines for EN World's forums? I could simply copy/paste those. To be fair, I established the CC license in order to protect us, the community, from folks who might take our ideas and profit from them without our consent.

For example: We have spent some serious energy creating 4th edition power cards. A project like this will be legal under the new 4th Ed. license from all the information we know so far. Should we shut down that thread? Several artists wanted a site that would consolidate those works that already exist here and I obliged. Now, if someone were to mine these forums for card templates (devoid of any and all game text) - then used those in October to create their own commercial product via the new 4th Ed license, then we would feel cheated or at least slighted. The CC license was something that allows us to share ideas, textures, and works while keeping things from going commercial and making things very complicated.

Post if you want. Or not. Just understand that what you post can and will be used by the other invited artists/writers to make something of value, and that it cannot be used commercially.

I am cool with whatever, but I think that it would be a double-standard to say that EN World forums are immune to said copyright issues while a invitation-only wiki is not.

Look, I am not trying to take someone else's work and redistribute it as much as I am trying to give back to this community by providing us an easier place to manage the content that we post here. That's right - content that is taken from these forums. Does EN World have some sort of exclusive license with WOTC that I'm ignorant about? If so, I'll gladly shut down the site.

 

[Mark]

Look, I am not trying to take someone else's work and redistribute it (. . .)

Probably best to wrangle some gamer-lawyer to assist in setting up the site and help to lay out your legal options rather than just winging it. There's more than a few around and it would be a good idea to protect everyone's work, WotC's and your own included. It would be a shame to make assumptions and find it all goes south because of not taking some basic legal precautions. Understand, I wish you luck and the best in your endeavor.

 

[tintagel]

Probably best to wrangle some gamer-lawyer to assist in setting up the site and help to lay out your legal options rather than just winging it. There's more than a few around and it would be a good idea to protect everyone's work, WotC's and your own included. It would be a shame to make assumptions and find it all goes south because of not taking some basic legal precautions. Understand, I wish you luck and the best in your endeavor.

I might do that. Anyone know who EN World uses? Or CreativeMountainGames.com, for that matter? Do they work for free, or cheap?

 

[WhatGravitas]

Look, I am not trying to take someone else's work and redistribute it as much as I am trying to give back to this community by providing us an easier place to manage the content that we post here

It's not about that - it's about the Creative Commons license - if you're including WotC material (like on the power cards, at least partially), you cannot put it under Creative Commons, because you never had the copyright in the first place.

And you declared the entire page as being under the CC license... you see the problem?

For example a power card - the design is ours, but the text is perhaps from WotC! You cannot publish WotC's text under CC without their consent! We could, however, publish the template (without WotC-text) under the CC, because we own that material - we have created it.

Not a lawyer!, LT.

 

[tintagel]

Ok, not a problem. CC information is gone.

 

[Nilhgualcm Leahcim]

Could I get a contributor add? name "eslathagos" at "gmail" dot com? Thanks

p.s. Really love that BBEG from Ptolus That is now my cat's name, also

 

[tintagel]

Could I get a contributor add? name "eslathagos" at "gmail" dot com? Thanks

p.s. Really love that BBEG from Ptolus That is now my cat's name, also

Done! Welcome aboard. :-D