Out of Print maps and the people that own them.

[Oryan77]

I've been using Maptool for about a year and seeing as how I'm a graphics guy and a bit OCD, the maps I use with MT needs to be high quality. So I Photoshoped my own maps and have recreated a dozen or two maps from old published adventures. I would love to share my maps and of course, I'd also love to use other peoples recreations. It's a shame that we can't freely do that.

Do you think it is wrong if gamers redrew maps and provided them to other gamers as long as both parties owned the module & the original maps? As a designer, would it still bother you if someone recreated your map and gave it away to other gamers that owned the original map?

I understand that this is seen as a copyright violation even for out of print maps. But I have never really heard any businesses make statements about it. Of course, not owning the original maps and getting some custom maps for free would be a bad thing if the product was still being sold by the developer. But is it actually a problem to a business if that happened with out of print material? Do they actually care?

WotC has been known to redraw maps for a few classic TSR modules and post them online for free. So I just wonder if there is an issue with it or if it is more about paranoia and us just being on the "safe side".

 

[Alan Shutko]

That's an excellent question. A good place to ask might be the Cartographer's Guild. I think I've seen some redrawn maps there.

The Piazza also have a lot of redrawn maps of Mystara.

I haven't heard of any complaints from copyright holders about this. The Mystara folks have historically been somewhat blessed as being allowed to support the campaign setting, so they may have special status. I don't know about the legal aspects of this... It might fit some of the criteria for fair use even to publish on the internet. But I'm not a lawyer, and even if I were, you never REALLY know if a specific case is fair use until a judge has decided it.

What WOTC does is probably not a good guidepost, since they are the copyright holders and may do whatever they want with their maps.