Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Wage Mage wagemage@**.rr.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 09:43:08 -0500
(as a note I've just decided to ignore the whole mess and move on)

I had a question and couldn't think of a better place to ask it. I'm
working on some palm apps for running and playing SR. One of them that I
would like to create/use/distribute is a spell index. I can never find the
writeup of the spell that the mage is using (I look in MITS, its in SR3 &
vice versa).

So my question is, can I legally distribute a list of all the published
spells in SR? Is that copyright infringement? I know I can build the thing
and just use it for myself, but the whole point of working on this palm
software is to help myself *and others*. I figure all you well connected
folks should have some idea as to the legalities of this ;).

Any thoughts?
Message no. 2
From: TechnoMage TechnoMage@***.net
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 16:00:21 +0100
> (as a note I've just decided to ignore the whole mess and move on)
>
> I had a question and couldn't think of a better place to ask it. I'm
> working on some palm apps for running and playing SR. One of them that I
> would like to create/use/distribute is a spell index. I can never
> find the
> writeup of the spell that the mage is using (I look in MITS, its in SR3 &
> vice versa).
>
> So my question is, can I legally distribute a list of all the published
> spells in SR? Is that copyright infringement? I know I can build
> the thing
> and just use it for myself, but the whole point of working on this palm
> software is to help myself *and others*. I figure all you well connected
> folks should have some idea as to the legalities of this ;).
>
> Any thoughts?

yep - learn German ;o). Fanpro had published all spells in the German
version of MITS, all stuff you search abou magic you can find in the German
MITS - I don't understand why FASA has it made in this way

Inccubus
Message no. 3
From: Cole, Wade A. wcole@********.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 10:40:40 -0600
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wage Mage [mailto:wagemage@**.rr.com]
> Subject: Publishing legalities...?
>
>
> (as a note I've just decided to ignore the whole mess and move on)
>
> I had a question and couldn't think of a better place to ask it. I'm
> working on some palm apps for running and playing SR. One of
> them that I
> would like to create/use/distribute is a spell index. I can
> never find the
> writeup of the spell that the mage is using (I look in MITS,
> its in SR3 &
> vice versa).
>
> So my question is, can I legally distribute a list of all the
> published
> spells in SR? Is that copyright infringement? I know I can
> build the thing
> and just use it for myself, but the whole point of working on
> this palm
> software is to help myself *and others*. I figure all you
> well connected
> folks should have some idea as to the legalities of this ;).
>
> Any thoughts?
>
I think you would have to ask FASA. If they didn't want you to do
it I'm pretty sure they are perfectly within their rights to go after you.
If I see their copyright lawyer around at work here I'll ask her.
------------------------------------------
The information contained in this e-mail message is from the law firm
of Bell, Boyd & Lloyd LLC and may be privileged, confidential, and protected
from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further
disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this
message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that
you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete the e-mail,
and either e-mail the sender at the above address or notify us at our
telephone number 312-372-1121 (Chicago) or 202-466-6300 (Washington, D.C.).
Message no. 4
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 19:30:43 +0100
According to Wage Mage, on Thu, 02 Nov 2000 the word on the street was...

> (as a note I've just decided to ignore the whole mess and move on)

In which case you shouldn't have made that comment... :)

> So my question is, can I legally distribute a list of all the published
> spells in SR? Is that copyright infringement? I know I can build the thing
> and just use it for myself, but the whole point of working on this palm
> software is to help myself *and others*. I figure all you well connected
> folks should have some idea as to the legalities of this ;).

I think that, if it's only an index with page numbers, you should be okay.
The legality of including the basic stats (range, drain, etc.) is open to
debate (at least to a non-lawyer like myself), while if you were to include
the whole description from the books, it'd definitely be copyright
infringement IMO.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
The less of a life, the more mail you read.
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X+ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 5
From: Wordman wordman@*******.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 14:50:38 -0500
> > So my question is, can I legally distribute a list of all the published
> > spells in SR? Is that copyright infringement?
>
> I think that, if it's only an index with page numbers, you should be okay.

I'd agree, but I'm not positive on this one.

> The legality of including the basic stats (range, drain, etc.) is open to
> debate (at least to a non-lawyer like myself),

I'm not sure about the legality of this, but I do know that FASA doesn't
like this. I used to maintain a massive list of equipment from all of the
book (just the basic stats, not descriptions), but FASA (Tom Dowd) asked me
to stop distributing it.

Wordman
Message no. 6
From: Wage Mage wagemage@**.rr.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 15:26:32 -0500
>I'm not sure about the legality of this, but I do know that FASA doesn't
>like this. I used to maintain a massive list of equipment from all of the
>book (just the basic stats, not descriptions), but FASA (Tom Dowd) asked me
>to stop distributing it.

Yeah I had a feeling this was the case. However just to be sure
and in the hope of hearing different, I emailed big Mike (or whoever else
reads the email at shadowrun@****.com) to ask. Anyone know the usual
turnaround on messages to that address? I've heard it's a few weeks, but
I've never written to it before.
Message no. 7
From: Wordman wordman@*******.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 15:38:21 -0500
> Yeah I had a feeling this was the case. However just to be sure
> and in the hope of hearing different, I emailed big Mike (or whoever else
> reads the email at shadowrun@****.com) to ask. Anyone know the usual
> turnaround on messages to that address? I've heard it's a few weeks, but
> I've never written to it before.

My personal experience is that it is never.
Message no. 8
From: Lars Wagner Hansen l-hansen@*****.tele.dk
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 21:57:08 +0100
> Yeah I had a feeling this was the case. However just to be sure
> and in the hope of hearing different, I emailed big Mike (or whoever else
> reads the email at shadowrun@****.com) to ask. Anyone know the usual
> turnaround on messages to that address? I've heard it's a few weeks, but
> I've never written to it before.

Personal exerience: Anywhere from 1 hour to never.

Lars
--
The solution to many problems lies in having somebody else do the work.
[Andrew S. Tanenbaum]
--
Lars Wagner Hansen mailto:l-hansen@*****.tele.dk
Jagtvej 11 http://home4.inet.tele.dk/l-hansen
DK-4180 Sorø phone +45 5783 5950
Denmark
Message no. 9
From: Adam J adamj@*********.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 19:08:18 -0700
At 14:50 02/11/2000 -0500, Wordman wrote:

>I'm not sure about the legality of this, but I do know that FASA doesn't
>like this. I used to maintain a massive list of equipment from all of the
>book (just the basic stats, not descriptions), but FASA (Tom Dowd) asked me
>to stop distributing it.

However, I recently emailed FASA/Mike (Well, probably 4 months ago) to
whinge about a site that had a whole bunch of misc FASA stuff published on
it (and an image stolen from my site :P), and Mike's reply was basically
"We'll ask them to put the disclaimer up, but since it's just a list of our
stuff and not the book text there's not much we can do", or something along
those lines.

The "ironic" thing was, the page had a "Don't steal anything from this
page" disclaimer, when a good half of it was stolen from elsewhere...

Adam
--
< The Shadowrun Supplemental? ShadowFAQ? Full Count? >
< Latest news about them all: http://staff.dumpshock.com/adamj/ >
< adamj@*********.com | ICQ# 2350330 | TSS Productions >
Message no. 10
From: Steve Collins einan@*********.net
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 00 22:24:56 -0500
On 11/2/00 9:43 am, Wage Mage said:

>(as a note I've just decided to ignore the whole mess and move on)
>
>I had a question and couldn't think of a better place to ask it. I'm
>working on some palm apps for running and playing SR. One of them that I
>would like to create/use/distribute is a spell index. I can never find the
>writeup of the spell that the mage is using (I look in MITS, its in SR3 &
>vice versa).
>
>So my question is, can I legally distribute a list of all the published
>spells in SR? Is that copyright infringement? I know I can build the thing
>and just use it for myself, but the whole point of working on this palm
>software is to help myself *and others*. I figure all you well connected
>folks should have some idea as to the legalities of this ;).
>
>Any thoughts?
>

It depends, if it were just index listings that'd be ok. Stats would be
somewhat fuzzy, I doubt there'd be enough certainty for them to spend the
money persuing you any further than a few nastygrams especially if you
were not making a profit on it. Full descriptions however would
definately be illegal. If you had your heart set on it however you could
always create your own spells that were in almost all respects identical
to the listed spells (different namse and descriptions) and then
distribute that and they would have no legal recourse.

Steve
Message no. 11
From: Walter Scheper ratlaw@*******.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 22:00:35 -0500
All this discussion about the legalities of a spell index has made
me curious. If it's this fuzzy on something as simple as a
searchable list of spells, whats the story on Paolo SRCG? What if I
had in mind a suite of programs: character generator, vehicle
design, deck design, spell design, gun design (you get the picture
:) and I wanted to distribute the suite on the Archive, or make it
accessible via the web through a java applet? Seems to me that
Paolo's SRCG is more copyright infringement than Wordmage's
spell index, though I'll admit to being purely amateur when it comes
to copyright law.

That is all
-Walter
ICQ: 83513580
Message no. 12
From: Sebastian Wiers m0ng005e@*****.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 17:57:21 -0600
:So my question is, can I legally distribute a list of all the published
:spells in SR? Is that copyright infringement?

It falls under the area of potential infringement, yes, but that shouln't
put a dead stop to the project. If its just a list of names and what books
the apear in, and maybe the drain codes, that's pretty similar to a book
review, and isn't likely to bother anybody at FASA. The "magic cheet
sheets" I made (TSS productions has them) are similar in that they include a
minimal amount of rule info and act primarily as an index and memory aid.
{Rob Boyle was my GM when I made those, and didn;t have any trouble with my
putting them on the net.} If your "indix" also includes the full stats and
text of the spells, that's a pretty serious violation, similar to ones that
FASA has taken action to prevent in the past.
Honestly, copyright violation is, even to experts, a matter of degree and
intent. Is the result of your actions a diminished need for the original
text, or are you making "fair use" of that information and sharing only
enough that others can figure out better how to use the text?

Also, although FASA never (or very rarely) gives explicite permission for
fan produced "gaming aids", they have been very tolerant in the past of any
ones that are clearly intended as supplements, and don't serve as potential
replacements. They do ask that you put the standard copyright and trademark
boilerplate in explaining that the original rights belong to FASA, use is
without permission, etc, but thats to stop some company from coming along
and saying "well, thousands of folks use the word 'matrix' on thier
webvsites, so why can't we make a book called that?", not to prevent fans
from sharing useful info about the game and books.

Sebastian Wiers
Message no. 13
From: Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 22:44:11 -0800 (PST)
> > Yeah I had a feeling this was the case.
However just to be sure and in the hope of hearing
different, I emailed big Mike (or whoever else reads
the email at shadowrun@****.com) to ask. Anyone know
the usual turnaround on messages to that address? I've
heard it's a few weeks, but I've never written to it
before.
>
> My personal experience is that it is never.

*snort*

I wouldn't say it's THAT bad...I've had a response to
every message I've ever sent there (admittedly, not a
whole lot), but, yeah, a few weeks to a few months
wouldn't surprise me.

On a related note, I sent Mike Stackpole a message
once concerning a BattleTech story I was writing and I
got a reply about a year later. And Karl Waller (we
all remember him, don't we? Apparently he's gotten
into comics these days!) sent me a few messages a
couple of months back. Apparently a friend of his saw
a message I sent on the internet (I can only suppose
it was one I sent to this list) praising his work most
strenuously (as I always do when praising Karl - Karl
ROOLZ!!!) and he was so pleased by what I wrote that
he decided to send me a response. I still have them
saved in my mail folder and I'll never erase those
sectors again!!!

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'booner, aka Doc' Vader)

.sig Sauer

Can you SMELL what THE DOC' is COOKIN'!!!

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
>From homework help to love advice, Yahoo! Experts has your answer.
http://experts.yahoo.com/
Message no. 14
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 11:26:46 +0100
According to Wordman, on Thu, 02 Nov 2000 the word on the street was...

> > The legality of including the basic stats (range, drain, etc.) is open to
> > debate (at least to a non-lawyer like myself),
>
> I'm not sure about the legality of this, but I do know that FASA doesn't
> like this. I used to maintain a massive list of equipment from all of the
> book (just the basic stats, not descriptions), but FASA (Tom Dowd) asked me
> to stop distributing it.

That was years ago, though; perhaps attitudes have changed and they
wouldn't mind you doing that now. From what's been said in other posts
about this, though, getting an answer might be difficult...

FWIW, a complete equipment list would be useful to many players, especially
if it points them to the precise location (book and page) of each item in
it.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
The less of a life, the more mail you read.
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X+ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 15
From: NeoJudas neojudas@******************.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 08:38:35 -0500
From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
Subject: RE: Publishing legalities...?


> According to Wordman, on Thu, 02 Nov 2000 the word on the street was...
> > I'm not sure about the legality of this, but I do know that FASA doesn't
> > like this. I used to maintain a massive list of equipment from all of
the
> > book (just the basic stats, not descriptions), but FASA (Tom Dowd) asked
me
> > to stop distributing it.
>
> That was years ago, though; perhaps attitudes have changed and they
> wouldn't mind you doing that now. From what's been said in other posts
> about this, though, getting an answer might be difficult...

Part of the reason it is difficult this week is because some people at FASA
are still in Europe for other conventions.

> FWIW, a complete equipment list would be useful to many players,
especially
> if it points them to the precise location (book and page) of each item in
> it.

You know, I'm not sure it came out well in the tapings of the "What's Up
With FASA" session at Gencon, but I asked a question very similar to this.

I asked them why they didn't apply the considerations of the "Shopping Cart"
software that is already in use and they had a license for and create a
variation on the scheme that would allow for someone to "shadowshop online".
No money spent of course, all of it would be "Nuyen" (non-existent). But
basically allow a person to go through, "buy" their entire gear list (no
statistics other than the "table listings" that are in the books now
(weight, availability, etc...) and then put a finished "compiled sheet" that
would serve as their "purchasing voucher".

Mark was sitting next to me at the time, because it was something *we* were
considering doing at HHH and Mark's Team (aka; Dumpshock) also had the
resource potential to do things like this.

I must admit, the look on their faces as a collective all was kind of funny.
I wasn't told anything for a real answer other than the expectant one of
"they don't have a lot of time, given the combined product release
schedules". However, at the very least what I asked probably got a few of
the gentleman at that table (Ross was there, as was Randall, Mike, and the
other guys I am far less familiar with) to start the wheels turning a bit.

I know I've been considering it, but do NOT want to bite off more than we
can chew at the moment (new server work begins this week, website
compilations are moving steadily at this point). *IF* I can get permission
to host such a thing though, on a ground similar to James' Ojastes' "The
Shop", but do it "online", I will begin gathering the resources and
volunteers for such.

UNTIL that time however, I am basically locked into mine own schedule.

IF the idea were to be approved however, how many people would be directly
interested in such a thing and how many of them might be willing to do some
keycrunching of the "table information"?

Any interested parties, please email me directly
(neojudas@******************.com) so as to not plug up the list any worse
than I have already done this week.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
J. Keith Henry ("K" "NeoJudas")
Hoosier Hacker House (www.hoosierhackerhouse.com)
THREEH.COM (www.threeh.com)
Message no. 16
From: NeoJudas neojudas@******************.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 08:49:13 -0500
From: "Walter Scheper" <ratlaw@*******.com>
Subject: Re: Publishing legalities...?


> All this discussion about the legalities of a spell index has made
> me curious. If it's this fuzzy on something as simple as a
> searchable list of spells, whats the story on Paolo SRCG? What if I
> had in mind a suite of programs: character generator, vehicle
> design, deck design, spell design, gun design (you get the picture
> :) and I wanted to distribute the suite on the Archive, or make it
> accessible via the web through a java applet? Seems to me that
> Paolo's SRCG is more copyright infringement than Wordmage's
> spell index, though I'll admit to being purely amateur when it comes
> to copyright law.

Gosh.. these are always fun ones to try and answer. Basically it comes down
to how much information, what form it is in, how easily replicatable it
would be by others, is it a charged service, etc... ad nauseum. If the
material is in a recognizable, obviously replicated/stolen format, then
copyright infringements have occurred. If the software basically means that
the books are no longer required, then an infringement has occurred. What
might be worse, and again I am theorizing on this one, I haven't dug this
far myself, is even if one program didn't meet all these specifications, but
a collective group of them did that were findable in a single location...
then the infringement also occurs. Copyright Law... only to be beaten out
in chaotic craziness by Tax Law...

The Character Generator concept, last I knew, would not be all that much
different than the The Shop program. It would all be a bunch of numbers in
a format that unless you really got innovative and were familiar with the
game mechanics, you might not understand them even if you did open up the
database files that would no doubt be associated with such.

For instance, if you are familiar with the Shop (a very useful tool indeed
for quick, simple vehicle designs and no major bendings) and have ever
actually taken the time to open the "book files" that come with it... you'd
discover a fairly impressive maze of components, numbers and most of which
are NOT in a recognizable format except for someone with a really good grasp
on the rules (we've opened them up to modify them for our personal usage as
per James usage requests and to consider helping James rebuild the book
files for Rigger-3 purposes once so-published).

NOT A FUN PROJECT! Even the most avid of the members of the group here that
volunteered for those number crunchings started to get seasick when we
really started to look at what might need to be done for projects like this
one.

As for Paolo's work, I do not know if it is done or not. Last I knew, his
life got personally busy and he had to put it aside for a bit. If he ever
completes it, then I'm sure he'll happily let everyone know about it.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
J. Keith Henry ("K" "NeoJudas")
Hoosier Hacker House (www.hoosierhackerhouse.com)
THREEH.COM (www.threeh.com)
Message no. 17
From: Wordman wordman@*******.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 14:19:31 -0500
Gurth wrote:
> Wordman wrote:
>> I used to maintain a massive list of equipment from
>> all of the books (just the basic stats, not descriptions),
>> but FASA (Tom Dowd) asked me to stop distributing it.

> FWIW, a complete equipment list would be useful to many players,
> especially if it points them to the precise location (book and
> page) of each item in it.

It did, and my private list does. I certainly found it useful and I got a
lot of comments from people who did as well. Personally, I don't really see
why FASA should care, as I don't think it would eat into their sales at all.

One thing to make clear: when Mr. Dowd asked me to stop publishing, he did
_not_ say "stop infringing our copyrights". Instead, he said something to
the effect of "well, having it out there makes us uncomfortable. Would you
mind not posting new version". It was all very classy and polite.

I suspect that, if I wanted to be a jerk, I could have continued to publish
it and it might have taken a court to decide if it was copyright
infringement. I suspect they'd decide that it fell under fair use,
especially since I was a) posting it for free and b) acknowledging the
source, but I'm not sure.
Message no. 18
From: Wordman wordman@*******.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 15:42:28 -0500
> One thing to make clear: when Mr. Dowd asked me to stop publishing, he did
> _not_ say "stop infringing our copyrights". Instead, he said something to
> the effect of "well, having it out there makes us uncomfortable. Would you
> mind not posting new version". It was all very classy and polite.
>
> I suspect that, if I wanted to be a jerk, I could have continued
> to publish
> it and it might have taken a court to decide if it was copyright
> infringement. I suspect they'd decide that it fell under fair use,
> especially since I was a) posting it for free and b) acknowledging the
> source, but I'm not sure.

I did some looking into this on the web, and it looks very strongly that in
the above conditions, I would have _lost_ the court case. If that were the
case, however, the sentencing would be interesting, as I made no profit.

Anyway, the site I found useful is:

http://www.projectcool.com/developer/copyright/

Wordman
Message no. 19
From: Wage Mage wagemage@**.rr.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Fri, 03 Nov 2000 15:52:21 -0500
>I did some looking into this on the web, and it looks very strongly that in
>the above conditions, I would have _lost_ the court case. If that were the
>case, however, the sentencing would be interesting, as I made no profit.
>
>Anyway, the site I found useful is:
>
>http://www.projectcool.com/developer/copyright/

Interesting reading Wordman. Thanks. One problem I just thought
of, even if I were to obtain permission from Fasa to do this, they would
likely want royalties. Since I was planning on giving it away this might be
a problem. If I were to charge to cover the royalties, that might push it
into more dangerous territory.
Message no. 20
From: Cole, Wade A. wcole@********.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 14:54:46 -0600
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wage Mage [mailto:wagemage@**.rr.com]
> Subject: RE: Publishing legalities...?
>
SNIP>
> Interesting reading Wordman. Thanks. One problem I
> just thought
> of, even if I were to obtain permission from Fasa to do this,
> they would
> likely want royalties. Since I was planning on giving it away
> this might be
> a problem. If I were to charge to cover the royalties, that
> might push it
> into more dangerous territory.
>
>
>
Interesting Catch-22... :)
------------------------------------------
The information contained in this e-mail message is from the law firm
of Bell, Boyd & Lloyd LLC and may be privileged, confidential, and protected
from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further
disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this
message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that
you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete the e-mail,
and either e-mail the sender at the above address or notify us at our
telephone number 312-372-1121 (Chicago) or 202-466-6300 (Washington, D.C.).
Message no. 21
From: Wordman wordman@*******.com
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 16:03:58 -0500
> Interesting reading Wordman. Thanks. One problem I just thought
> of, even if I were to obtain permission from Fasa to do this, they would
> likely want royalties. Since I was planning on giving it away
> this might be a problem.

Royalties are usually expressed in percentages. Just tell FASA that you
grant them a 100% royalty ;-).
Message no. 22
From: Mark C Farrington alareth@*********.net
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 00:52:32 -0500
While we are on the subject of copyright and the web/computers here is an
interesting tidbit I picked up the other day.

It basically breaks down to a guy that wrote a book based on content from a
website he maintained. After the book was published, the publisher produced
a court order forcing the website to be shut down because they claimed it
infringed on the copyrights of the book that was based on it.

Does this make any sense to anyone?

The link to the story is here http://www.oreilly.com/news/treasure_1100.html

Alareth
Message no. 23
From: Arclight arclight@*********.de
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 11:35:59 +0100
Von Of Mark C Farrington :

<snip>

> Does this make any sense to anyone?

IMHO (the "H" because I'm not a lawyer ;) both
sides made serious mistakes. They should've regulated
the legal status of the website when the copyrights
were sold. Oh, and CRC is plain stupid for pissing of
a lot of people because of next to nothing...

Arclight
Message no. 24
From: Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject: Publishing legalities...?
Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 12:02:33 +0100
According to Wordman, on Fri, 03 Nov 2000 the word on the street was...

> > FWIW, a complete equipment list would be useful to many players,
> > especially if it points them to the precise location (book and
> > page) of each item in it.
>
> It did, and my private list does. I certainly found it useful and I got a
> lot of comments from people who did as well. Personally, I don't really see
> why FASA should care, as I don't think it would eat into their sales at all.

Was this around '94-95? They could have been suffering a bit from
T$R-syndrome, which I'm sure everyone who was involved with RPGs on the net
or BBS's back then remembers...

> One thing to make clear: when Mr. Dowd asked me to stop publishing, he did
> _not_ say "stop infringing our copyrights". Instead, he said something to
> the effect of "well, having it out there makes us uncomfortable. Would you
> mind not posting new version". It was all very classy and polite.

At least that's better than being told "Stop distributing it or we'll sue."

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
The less of a life, the more mail you read.
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+@ UL P L+ E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X+ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Publishing legalities...?, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!