NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="PatrickLawinger" data-source="post: 4743628" data-attributes="member: 2735">A couple of quick responses:1) People have the same or similar ideas all of the time. This is why most companies use that wonderful submission form that you have to sign recognizing that. When I prepared Eldritch Sorcery for Necromancer Games I had several submissions that were almost identical. In one case, the spell name, description, and effects were almost exactly the same (all authors had multiple spells accepted so all got credit). In that same book, we published a spell that turned out to be almost entirely the same as a spell in Monte Cook's Complete Book of Eldritch Might. This was because we used the same sources as Monte and ended up with the same spell.People CAN come up with the same idea. Usually this means they have read many of the same books, think in similar ways, etc.2) I agree, this is very unprofessional and reflects poorly on your company as well as potentially discouraging parents from getting their children involved.3) I am not on their boards enough to see this. I have seen some pretty inflammatory posts on the WotC GSL message board that were allowed to continue. Maybe this is more prevalent on some of the other WotC forums, this just hasn't been my experience.4) If you don't protect your IP you can lose it. This doesn't mean that the way WotC has gone about it isn't a PR fiasco though. WotC HAD to ask some of those websites to shut down or drastically change.Honestly, I think WotC is trying to stand on the border of entering into the "new electronic age" and doing so poorly. They need a much more effective website, more effective electronic tools, and, if they are axing .pdfs from online vendors they need to have their own distribution system for legal .pdfs. I think their online presence lately is hit or miss, and mostly miss. They need to get a fansite policy up early last year.</blockquote>

Verification