An Open Letter to JPL
Hey JPL,
This idea is really, really taking hold of me. Like, I want to write an honest-to-heaven adventure for honest-to-Alpo publication. I think there's actual commercial potential in this.
So, before I do a LICK of work, I want to know where you stand and how you feel about the whole "Dinopirate" thing.
It's one thing for people to be posting their ideas in a thread for each other to use. It's quite another for somebody to write up an adventure or something and attempt to publish it -- whether or not there's money involved.
I would not be comfortable going ahead with anything more formal than what we have right now without your sign-off, blessing, whatever. It was your idea in the first place and you ought to have the chance to have it handled as you see fit.
It gets legally complicated as soon as people start writing and publishing stuff. Then the copyright sets in and ownership becomes an issue and I want to avoid as much entanglementiness as possible.
What I propose is this: Create an "official" online home for the Dinopirates project. Position somebody (yourself would be my first choice) as the copyright owner of the key pages on that website. That makes it clear where reproduction of that material comes from. Individual contributors can hold copyright on their contributions, but the core "Dinopirates" concept text is owned by you or whoever writes it.
Once that website exists, copyright comes into effect and everything's suddenly very clear. I'm pretty keen to write it and create the website and so on, but I don't want to do that without your blessing. I want to give you the chance to say, "No, that's not cool with me, don't do that," and then nobody gets offended or wastes their time or whatever. The thread can spin out into all sorts of fun ideas for individual's campaigns and that's as far as it will go.
I'd like to see it take on a life of its own. I honestly think there's something to it -- but it has to be handled correctly right from the start, or it won't take off. I've been down this road before with community projects and they're very hard to manage if ownership isn't perfectly clear. I'm willing to take on that role -- IF it's okay with you.
Anyway, let me know what your thoughts on all this are. Please feel free to email me at roarerbull at yahoo.com if you want to discuss further. Anyone else, likewise.
Thanks! And GREAT idea.
