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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 2419976" data-attributes="member: 19675">Each IP infringement suit is fact dependent.The differences lie in intent, how much of an infringement and the purpose of the infringement of the IP there is.  It is perfectly fine for me to make a copy of a song to make a mix tape/CD for my personal use.  Its another thing to rip an entire computer game from its CD-Rom and give it to my buddies.The kids playing Star Wars have made minor alterations for personal use and likely lack the requisite intent to be found guilty.  It is unlikely that any jury would believe that the kids had any commercial intent.  In contrast, a jury could very well believe you intended to self-publish your campaign materials if you so alleged, especially given the state of the industry today.The US and English courts have found publication in IP cases where the IP was loaned to another party- so if  any of the campaign materials changed hands, even briefly, publication could be found.However, publication isn't key to copyright anymore.  Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright.99% of the time, the DM supplies place names and some house rules, and not much else.  In 28 years of gaming, I've had significant PC creation input from the DM 3 times- twice from the same DM- and once because the game was based on a particular novel which demanded VERY specific strictures on PC creation.The character as copyrighted IP arises as soon as the player's got pencil on paper with a name, race, and class or sketches him out in a sketchbook.  The PC concept is independent of the rule system in which it exists, and may even be independent of the campaign.  (Personally, I have a couple of universal concept PCs that I can drop into almost any setting- and no, they're not generic.)And how will you know until the situation arises?And, more importantly, if you DO offend the player by messing with their PC, what will you do then- kick them out?</blockquote>

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