Ryan Dancey - D&D in a Death Spiral

[eyebeams]

Sorry, but that is untrue. Not being a commercial publisher does not give you free reign with the IP of others. RCFG is not a commerical publication -- I make nothing off of it -- but you can be certain I am not using non-OGC materials taken from anyone.

The above demonstrates how the OGL has seriously damaged fair use in our community. I actually hope people avoid open licenses in favour of fair use whenever they can, lest any legal test that observes community standards decide that since you weren't using your rights, you never deserved them.

 

[Raven Crowking]

"Fair use" =/= "Free Reign".

I'd rather not have to worry about fair use, except in cases where it seems crystal clear (to me).

 

[PaizoCEO]

I honestly haven't paid attention to exactly who was in what seats at WotC. Did they lose their CEO? If not, then they probably didn't throw away that kind of money.

In order for it to have cost that much, we'd have to believe that Hasbro would have allowed them to spend it and not stop them. We are told that Hasbro does not meddle much in the day-to-day operations, but recall again that $30 million is on the order of 300 person years of compensation - certainly several years worth of WotC's payroll budget. Hasbro didn't see that just whirling out the door?

Remember that the DDI was only a small part of the whole online initiative. There was the whole Gleemax social networking website and they had a number of online games in the works that they were hoping to use to make an online game portal. I've heard the same big number, but it was for all the online initiatives, not just DDI.

-Lisa

 

[billd91]

The above demonstrates how the OGL has seriously damaged fair use in our community. I actually hope people avoid open licenses in favour of fair use whenever they can, lest any legal test that observes community standards decide that since you weren't using your rights, you never deserved them.

I think you overestimate the protection offered by fair use to anything posted on the internet that isn't for educational, satirical, or review purposes.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think you overestimate the protection offered by fair use to anything posted on the internet that isn't for educational, satirical, or review purposes.

I'm an Entertainment lawyer, and I endorse this statement.

"Fair Use" is a powerful but very tricky safe harbor in IP law.

 

[eyebeams]

I think you overestimate the protection offered by fair use to anything posted on the internet that isn't for educational, satirical, or review purposes.

I think it's hilarious that you're saying this on a site that could not exist if it was actually too dangerous to talk about your games and house rules and such. The same is true for many fora as well as places like Obsidian Portal. The field left between fair use and the uncopyrightable nature of bare rules themselves (though not their expressions) is significant.

See Bill, the unfortunate part is that there are in fact arguments being readied in various quarters to scale back these rights considerably via a novel interpretation where values and systems are treated as a form of software. These if course will be helped by communities willing to capitulate.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think it's hilarious that you're saying this on a site that could not exist if it was actually too dangerous to talk about your games and house rules and such. The same is true for many fora as well as places like Obsidian Portal. The field left between fair use and the uncopyrightable nature of bare rules themselves (though not their expressions) is significant.

See Bill, the unfortunate part is that there are in fact arguments being readied in various quarters to scale back these rights considerably via a novel interpretation where values and systems are treated as a form of software. These if course will be helped by communities willing to capitulate.

Copyright arises automatically upon the creation of IP, so its not "dangerous" to post things about your game or HRs or such.

USA Copyright Law
Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

• The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
• The nature of the copyrighted work
• The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
• The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

In all probability, something posted on a website like this is either subject to terms of use that would prevent someone from enforcing a copyright claim (I haven't checked anyone's terms of use to verify this) or would be deemed to be released into the public domain, barring an actual notice that the work in question was not being placed into the public domain. And if someone DID happen to put up such a notice, I wouldn't be surprised to see mods take the post down, just to cover the site from potential liability.

(I say probably because, AFAIK, nobody has ever tried to enforce such a claim.)

But lets say someone did try to assert such a claim: I seriously doubt any Court would uphold a copyright claim against someone using material from ENWorld in their private game.

What if they tried to incorporate a HR posted on ENWorld into a commercial product?

Well,

USA Copyright Law
Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form.

That rule would probably not be deemed to be copyrightable.

However, if you posted a monster writeup containing fluff & mechanics, that unique bit of text covering fluff would be fully copyright protected...barring the Court finding that posting it here placed it into the public domain.

What I think Bill was getting at is that if someone created IP, then someone else posted it on the internet without permission and then you used it in a commercial product, you're not protected by fair use. IOW, you put yourself at risk of a lawsuit by using material found on the internet that you don't know who its original creator is, and fair use will not help you one bit.

It will also not help you if the work is not commercial, but also not of an educational nature (that's test #1)- and that's pretty narrowly construed to cover only use in a recognized academic setting- or if the use substantially damages the market value of the copied IP (test #4).

 

[billd91]

I think it's hilarious that you're saying this on a site that could not exist if it was actually too dangerous to talk about your games and house rules and such. The same is true for many fora as well as places like Obsidian Portal. The field left between fair use and the uncopyrightable nature of bare rules themselves (though not their expressions) is significant.

It's not a question of posting house rules or anything original. It's a question of reproducing text from someone else's work like RC is talking about. Using it for entertainment purposes isn't included in fair use. That's one positive value of the OGL. Follow the license and open content can be reproduced publicly.

 

[Hussar]

/snip



Using the OGL means having to copy all of the Section 15 data from every book you use. Working on RCFG has meant having to copy an awful lot of Section 15 data. I can assure you, cross-pollination occurred well before 4e.

What you see post-4e (or late 3e) is the production of additional rulesets, which tend to cross-pollinate more than sourcebooks or adventures do. But, once there is enough material to work with, cross-pollination is pretty regular. Green Ronin, for example, actively encouraged other publishers to use monsters from Jade Dragons and Hungry Ghosts, because they could see the obvious advantages of doing so.

Fifth Element, working on the Grand OGL Wiki, might know a bit more about it!


RC

Sorry, wasn't quite clear. I was mostly saying that from about 2000-2005 (ish), basically 3e to early 3.5, you don't see much cross pollination. It isn't until, as you say, late 3.5 that you really see things kick off.

And while Green Ronin and Necromancer certainly did do it, the big boys didn't. AEG, Sword and Sorcery Press, Mongoose - those are some pretty skeletal Section 15's.

But, I would love to see what Fifth Element's experiences are. I'll freely admit that I didn't actually buy a lot of Green Ronin's stuff, but I did buy a lot of S&S Press and AEG's books. So it could simply be perception filters kicking in.

 

[Raven Crowking]

(Shrug) You see more cross-pollenation later because there is more stuff to cross-pollenate with. If the earlier material had been less generous with OGC, there would be precious little to use later.


RC