TSR TSR's War on Fans

[Morrus]

DM David has an interesting new article about that particular time period back in the 1990s.

1994: TSR Declares War on the Internet’s D&D Fans

Nowadays Shannon Appelcline writes about the history of the roleplaying game business and writes most of the product histories on the Dungeon Masters Guild. In 1994, he administered a computer at B…

dmdavid.com

 

[jasper]

EYE remember back in 88 Gary and his crew would kneecap people who didn't have proper % dice. Fan magazine publishers were burned to the ground. Then horror of horrors. Gary would turn the speakers up to 11 and put in B-52 8 tracks.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I always thought it ironic (and a bit hypocritical) for Gary to go so hard after any perceived violation of TSR IP after how he created the game in the first place (stealing other's IP, and doing it in such a lazy way where it would have been easy to get permission).

Edit I know full well Gary wasn't part of TSR in 1994 when this article takes place, but when he was still part of the company, he was very much "my way or the highway, and nobody better use D&D stuff without my permission."

 

[Blue Orange]

Oh yes, they were referred to as 'T$R' and 'They Sue Regularly'. I would go online to look at the netbooks and they had big blank sections at the start to maintain 'plausible deniability' so the people in charge of policing it at TSR (who apparently were ambivalent) could claim they didn't see anything.

The article has a link to the whole business about the Cthulhu and Elric sections that were included, then removed, in the first edition of Deities & Demigods. Yup, back in 1st ed there were stats for Cthulhu and Co., though they kind of confused Shub-Niggurath with Abhoth and Hastur is described as a 200' tall lizard man, which I've never seen anywhere--he's either an octopoid monster or the King in Yellow.

The True Story of the Cthulhu and Elric Sections Removed from Deities & Demigods

Just a couple of years after its release, the original Deities & Demigods from 1980 became legend. The first copies included sections featuring the Melnibonéan mythos from the Elric stories by …

dmdavid.com

 

[Stormonu]

Yeah, seems to be a trend, Games Workshop was on that kick a few years ago (though they hit the brakes just a tad).

TSR's internet policy lost me as a customer for a while, and they seemed to be frantically clinging onto a game system that was badly outdated and on its way to being a footnote with the rise of Storyteller-like systems, the rise of MMO's and most especially CCG's like MtG. They slit their own throat pursuing the fans and got tarred and feathered for it.

 

[Shiroiken]

I always thought it ironic (and a bit hypocritical) for Gary to go so hard after any perceived violation of TSR IP after how he created the game in the first place (stealing other's IP, and doing it in such a lazy way where it would have been easy to get permission).

Edit I know full well Gary wasn't part of TSR in 1994 when this article takes place, but when he was still part of the company, he was very much "my way or the highway, and nobody better use D&D stuff without my permission."

TSR (and Gary) were zealously guarding the IP, because at the time it was perceived that any infringement not addressed automatically made it public domain. Given the popularity and profitability of D&D, they couldn't take any risks, even though it really hurt their PR. At the time there were numerous D&D ripoffs that tried to ride the waves of D&D's popularity, and TSR's lawyers warned them it's better to be careful than lose any potential IP.

Looking back it's somewhat understandable, since we have the internet. Not only could individuals look up the IP laws to see what's permitted and what's not, but the company can address the situation more easily to the fan base. Back then you had a handful of magazines... and that was it, other than the occasional word of mouth at the annual GenCon. Could it have been handled better? Yeah, but I don't blame TSR's actions in retrospect*


*at least with this... I still blame them for a lot of other things

 

[BigZebra]

TSR (and Gary) were zealously guarding the IP, because at the time it was perceived that any infringement not addressed automatically made it public domain. Given the popularity and profitability of D&D, they couldn't take any risks, even though it really hurt their PR. At the time there were numerous D&D ripoffs that tried to ride the waves of D&D's popularity, and TSR's lawyers warned them it's better to be careful than lose any potential IP.

Looking back it's somewhat understandable, since we have the internet. Not only could individuals look up the IP laws to see what's permitted and what's not, but the company can address the situation more easily to the fan base. Back then you had a handful of magazines... and that was it, other than the occasional word of mouth at the annual GenCon. Could it have been handled better? Yeah, but I don't blame TSR's actions in retrospect*


*at least with this... I still blame them for a lot of other things

Couldn't agree more.
Taking the times back then into consideration, I can actually totally understand TRS's actions. Of course they should have handled it differently, but I imagine it must have been bloody scary when the Internet exploded and all your IP is just laying there - free for all.

Not much I miss about TSR tho'. Think it would have been hard finding a better steward of D&D than WotC and Crawford & Perkins et al. And no I don't hate 4th - it was a necessary step in the evolution.

 

[Zardnaar]

1994 the year I learnt the internet existed and my brother bought me my first set of dice which I still have.

 

[jeffh]

"Companies that fail to defend their trademarks can lose them. Just ask the original makers of cellophane, escalators, and trampolines. However, D&D fans and TSR would debate how much copyright law justified the company’s cease-and-desist notices."

AAAARGH!

Don't mind me, one of my biggest pet peeves is people who talk like we're supposed to think they're authorities on IP law, but don't even understand the difference between trademark and copyright...

(And, it's not just a case of accidentally using the wrong word. The error is much more substantial than that, though it's not clear to me if it's Repp's, the blogger's, or both. It is trademarks you can lose if you don't defend them, though not quite so easily as was made out here, but it was mostly copyright violations, if anything, that TSR went after. IANAL but as far as I can tell, it was vanishingly unlikely they were going to lose any IP rights over any of this stuff.)

 

[Sacrosanct]

TSR (and Gary) were zealously guarding the IP, because at the time it was perceived that any infringement not addressed automatically made it public domain. Given the popularity and profitability of D&D, they couldn't take any risks, even though it really hurt their PR. At the time there were numerous D&D ripoffs that tried to ride the waves of D&D's popularity, and TSR's lawyers warned them it's better to be careful than lose any potential IP.

Looking back it's somewhat understandable, since we have the internet. Not only could individuals look up the IP laws to see what's permitted and what's not, but the company can address the situation more easily to the fan base. Back then you had a handful of magazines... and that was it, other than the occasional word of mouth at the annual GenCon. Could it have been handled better? Yeah, but I don't blame TSR's actions in retrospect*


*at least with this... I still blame them for a lot of other things

I understand why they did it, just pointing out the irony of them being so adamant about it when Gary created the game by stealing others' IP and being sued for it on multiple occasions.