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<blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 4391315" data-attributes="member: 463">Agreed - incidentally I teach copyright and trademark law, and from conversing with TSR in-house lawyers online back in the '90s my impression then was that TSR's own lawyers had only the most tenuous grasp of copyright and trademark law.&nbsp; And that this was a big reason for their aggressive c&amp;d campaign.&nbsp;&nbsp; They thought you could lose copyright protection if you didn't go after fan sites!The problem is that a mid-sized company like TSR cannot afford to pay huge salaries to in-house lawyers.&nbsp; But good lawyers can make a lot of money working for themselves.&nbsp; So the kind of people who end up working in-house for a company of TSR's size are rarely first rate.&nbsp; I expect Hasbro has pretty good lawyers though - for one thing they seem to keep a low profile, always smart!&nbsp; Conversely, we have small 3pps now like Kenzer and Necromancer headed by real lawyers, I agree that definitely makes a difference.In Palladium's case it does appear to verge on sheer lunacy.&nbsp; GW genuinely seem to know what they're doing though - not that it's legal, but they use legal threats to their own advantage.&nbsp; TSR just shot themselves in the foot.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="S'mon, post: 4391315, member: 463"] Agreed - incidentally I teach copyright and trademark law, and from conversing with TSR in-house lawyers online back in the '90s my impression then was that TSR's own lawyers had only the most tenuous grasp of copyright and trademark law. And that this was a big reason for their aggressive c&d campaign. They thought you could [I]lose copyright protection [/I]if you didn't go after fan sites! The problem is that a mid-sized company like TSR cannot afford to pay huge salaries to in-house lawyers. But [I]good[/I] lawyers can make a lot of money working for themselves. So the kind of people who end up working in-house for a company of TSR's size are rarely first rate. I expect Hasbro has pretty good lawyers though - for one thing they seem to keep a low profile, always smart! Conversely, we have small 3pps now like Kenzer and Necromancer headed by real lawyers, I agree that definitely makes a difference. In Palladium's case it does appear to verge on sheer lunacy. GW genuinely seem to know what they're doing though - not that it's legal, but they use legal threats to their own advantage. TSR just shot themselves in the foot. [/QUOTE]

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