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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Coreyartus" data-source="post: 7689915" data-attributes="member: 5399">So let's say you and your family worked all your lives to build a beautiful and fabulous house, well known in its small community.  You go on vacation, and your next door neighbor decides to use it for a party while you're gone.  "You're not using it!" he says,  "And I'm not charging anything! And we needed it! We all really really like this house!  It's a lovely building and means so much to all of us and the community!"It's still your house.  They're still trespassing.  They're still using it illegally.It doesn't matter how desperate their need is, or the depth of their love and appreciation, or if they weren't charging admission.  It doesn't matter that they felt there wasn't anywhere else to have their party.  And surely you understand the inappropriate pictures with your grandmother's portrait were just a joke.Maybe one day they take some of the brand new vintage reproduction shutters you saved up for to decorate their own house temporarily--without asking you--and invite all kinds of people to come see your shutters on their house.  Maybe they use your backyard to film a documentary one weekend about the house, and charge a fee for a limited edition deluxe package of the film.  And lo-and-behold they actually get some of the details wrong because checking with you was too much trouble.None of that's hurting you.  And because they're fans of your house, you should be okay with it, right?  I mean, c'mon!If you decide you want to throw a party in your house, you can.  But that's your prerogative, not your neighbors.  You may decide you never want to throw a party at all.  If you decide to make your own documentary, or loan your shutters to someone you trust, that's your option.But it's your decision.  Their needs don't equate permission no matter how pretty the packaging.  I understand there's such a thing as fan-work.  But there's a difference between appropriating the IP without permission and creating something for your own use.  I've created a couple city maps using locations from POTA myself, but I never used stolen artwork, trade dress, rule sets or trademarked terminology.  There are ways to do what you want to do without crossing that line.  And no, that doesn't mean that all blog entries, home-campaigns and inspired work is automatically illegal.  The standards of law as they are articulated and historical precedence should be able to determine if it's crossing a line.  But that's not up to the fan to determine if their work is damaging to the IP.  I understand that a person's drive to create and share is usually altruistic.  And it's a lot easier to do that when the IP is controlled by a faceless corporation.  But there are people behind those IPs that invest their professional creativity into them.  It stops being altruism when you're impacting the possible development of potential projects because of your desperate need to garner attention by sharing your work--especially if component pieces of it are being lifted from others without their knowledge or permission.It's their house. Show us how incredibly creative you are and build your own.</blockquote>

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