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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 2421687" data-attributes="member: 7240">You're changing your tack here. My point is that the play, itself, does not constitute publication. It sounds like you now agree with me on that. So, you're now suggesting that third-party publishing of D20 materials is so common that a jury could reasonably assume that anything that happens at a gaming table is something the GM intends to publish? Sorry but I don't buy that either. Based on the current state of the market, it would be totally unreasonable to assume that what takes place at a gaming table is something the GM intends to publish. And, even if it were, all that would allow is for the aggrieved party to seek injunctive relief against publication; the publication would still not have taken place. It is totally unreasonable to see the presentation of something at a gaming table by a GM as the first act in the publishing process.Copyright simply circumscribes others' rights to publish or profit from things about the thing you made. It doesn't prohibit people from discussing the thing you made in the privacy of their own homes -- and that is what gaming is. Once you realize that play does not equal publishing, copyright becomes irrelevant to this argument.I'm really sorry you have had such an impoverished gaming experience. That sucks. In such a creativity-free zone, I'm surprised anyone is coming up with sufficiently new and interesting ideas that it would be worth suing over them.Yeah -- but intellectual property laws today are silly and, in many cases, unenforceable (thank God!). And so what if the wizard I made in basic D&D in 1981 was named Phasenthal? Whoopee -- I own the name Phasenthal (unless I read it somewhere and then forgot). The fact that I "own" the right to write about all human wizards named Phasenthal doesn't impact on people's right to discuss the fact that I made that character when I was nine. If I can't sue people sitting around a dinner table for saying fusangite "made a magic-user named Phasenthal when he was in grade four;" then I don't have the right to sue them for having Phasenthal make a cameo appearance in the D&D episode they're playing at the same table.In my view, and here I'm speaking as a lover of literature not a person offering a legal opinion, but I don't buy that one could make a compelling character without reference to his physical or cultural environment; I certainly wouldn't read about him.I beg to differ. You're making a heap of assumptions about the cultures, traditions, beliefs and values of the people in the world in which they are situated.Well, I'd imagine I'd react by laughing and saying, "You can't be serious." They would either realize the way they were acting was silly and join the rest of the gaming group in our inevitable chuckles, or they would get offended and leave.</blockquote>

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