Printing PDFs, copyright issues, etc

[the Jester]

Hey- a lot of you prolly remember a couple months back, there was an interesting discussion of the issues with printing gaming pdfs due to copyright concerns on the part of the print shops (FedEx Kinkos, Office Max, Staples, etc). I work at a FedEx Kinkos, so I had a few experiences to chime in with. A big problem, pretty much everyone in the discussion here agreed, was that the creators/publishers usually intend for the work to be printed, but the actual text of the copyright warning says otherwise.

Well, while I was at work today some people came in with a pdf of a new OGL d20 game (I can't recall the title) and wanted some prints made. There was a copyright notice, all right- but in the credits page, a HUGE text box said, "Dear print shop owners, As the author and publisher, I hereby give all the people on this page the right to print this as much as they want, so there! Now leave them alone!"

Although the tone was snarky (and admitted to it), I thought that was awesome. I dearly hope that that is the start of a trend.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Lord, yes, that'd be a nice trend. I'd love to see PDF publishers (including Malhavoc) and go back and retroactively insert that as well.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

heh, thats pretty funny. I will do that on mine. for sure. (i hope you can wait a few years for this trend to start, because thats when i will be done to put that on the terms of use)

 

[Capellan]

From the Iron Heroes Revised and Iron Heroes Player's Companion legal text:

"The original purchaser may print or photocopy copies for his or her own personal use only."

Doin' our bit

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Yeah, I'd really like it for more publishers to take that step and put something like that in there. Especially since when you buy stuff from places like RPGNow/Drivethru, it comes watermarked. So it shouldn't be too hard to incorporate that watermark as part of the permission to print.