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Message no. 1
From: Koenig Boldizsar <kobold@********.INEXT.HU>
Subject: Quotes and copyrights
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 12:24:39 +0200
I am sure someone can give me advice.

There has been a Hungarian sourcebook published in Hungarian, by a local
publisher, but with FASA logo, etc.
As it is available in Hungarian only, no English version, I suppose it
is not FASA canon yet.
Therefore, if I duly acknowledge the rights of the authors, can I make a
summary in English to the Web (ie. The SR Archive) without their express
permission?

BTW, anyone interested? (Timeline, cultural background, overall view,
local shadowtalk, my comments, etc.) The book is quite decent with an
occasional munchy streak here and there.

Any comments are welcome.

KoBold
the enthusiastic patriot

PS: How about the Critter/Adept power *Immunity to CARP*?
Message no. 2
From: Erik Jameson <erikj@****.COM>
Subject: Re: Quotes and copyrights
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 14:32:12 -0400
At 12:24 PM 7/9/98 +0200, you wrote:
>I am sure someone can give me advice.
>
>There has been a Hungarian sourcebook published in Hungarian, by a local
>publisher, but with FASA logo, etc.
>As it is available in Hungarian only, no English version, I suppose it
>is not FASA canon yet.
>Therefore, if I duly acknowledge the rights of the authors, can I make a
>summary in English to the Web (ie. The SR Archive) without their express
>permission?

Word of Warning/Advice: Be extremely careful.

You could probably get away with a brief synopsis and a review of the book.
Could probably get away with mentioning a few specifics.

Any more than that and you are almost certainly infringing on copyright.

Seriously, I would ask the publisher/author for permission to do what you
propose, so that the English speaking audience can get a *taste* of what
Hungary is like in 2060.

I am curious to see what the Hungarian and French sourcebooks are like though.

Erik J.

URL to go here soon...
Message no. 3
From: Nexx Many-Scars <Nexx3@***.COM>
Subject: Re: Quotes and copyrights
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 14:54:10 EDT
In a message dated 98-07-09 10:36:33 EDT, you write:

> There has been a Hungarian sourcebook published in Hungarian, by a local
> publisher, but with FASA logo, etc.
> As it is available in Hungarian only, no English version, I suppose it
> is not FASA canon yet.
> Therefore, if I duly acknowledge the rights of the authors, can I make a
> summary in English to the Web (ie. The SR Archive) without their express
> permission?

In most cases, copyrights allow people to make brief quotations for the
purposes of reviews... and, since you're not making any money off of it, there
is also little they can do... I think
Message no. 4
From: Bull <chaos@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Quotes and copyrights
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 15:13:22 -0400
[SNippy SNip stuff about Hungarian Book]

Since Mike went over this a bit at Origins... <these cons are great for
this stuff :)>

Basically the "Foreign" sourcebooks such as the Hungarian, the France and
the Poland Sourcebooks, as well as the scads of material put out by Fanpro
is all ofiicially licensed by FASA.

However, this is licensed the same way as the Droids Cartoon a few years
back wasa licensed Star Wars product. Licensed does not make it official.
basically any info in those books is as unofficial as net material until
you see it printed by FASA in English (Sorry guys).

However, When Mike wants to include an area in a future product (THe
possible Target: Pacific Rim and Target: Europe books come to mind) that
there is a "Foreign" book out for, he will turn to that book first to see
if he can use that info. Sometimes the book took a few too many liberties
with it's country and those around it, so Mike won't use the info, but he
will use those try to use those books as the basis for the new material,
since they were written by a native...

As for copyright, they are still Licensed Products, so not only can you get
in trouble by FASA, you can get nailed by the company that prodced the book
as well. While FASA is pretty cool about fans using stuff on the net, I
would suggest not pushing your luck.

Bull
--
Bull -- The Best Ork Decker You Never Met
chaos@*****.com ===== bull22@***********.com
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/3604

=======================================================
= =
= Order is Illusion! Chaos is Bliss! Got any Fours? =
= =
=======================================================

"We come from Stucco Village, where we bake bread
and play tether ball all day!"
-- A really weird scene from Trinity, the 3 AM version
Message no. 5
From: Matb <mbreton@**.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: Quotes and copyrights
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 02:14:02 -0700
Koenig Boldizsar wrote:

> There has been a Hungarian sourcebook published in Hungarian, by a local
> publisher, but with FASA logo, etc.
> As it is available in Hungarian only, no English version, I suppose it
> is not FASA canon yet.
> Therefore, if I duly acknowledge the rights of the authors, can I make a
> summary in English to the Web (ie. The SR Archive) without their express
> permission?

Summaries of any sort -- in fact, summaries including quoted material no
greater than 10% of the actual source -- are allowable under
international copyright law, under what's called the "fair use rule".
You're allowed to do reviews, that sort of thing, and generally you need
to quote some of the material to do so (book reviews are famous for
this). In fact, since even the name of the book is copyrighted, you'd
*have* to use some copyrighted material, no matter what.

> BTW, anyone interested? (Timeline, cultural background, overall view,
> local shadowtalk, my comments, etc.) The book is quite decent with an
> occasional munchy streak here and there.

Hey, the more out there, the merrier. :)


- Matt

------------------------------------
Quid gignitur ex hyaena et psittaco?
Animal uiribus ridendi in ioca sua eximum.

GridSec: SRCard / Freedonian Research Assistant
Teen Poets FAQ: http://pw1.netcom.com/~mbreton/poetry/poetfaq.htm
SRTCG Website: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Station/2189/ccgtop.htm
Message no. 6
From: Paul Gettle <RunnerPaul@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Quotes and copyrights
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 17:16:36 -0400
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At 02:14 AM 7/10/98 -0700, Matt wrote:
>Summaries of any sort -- in fact, summaries including quoted material
no
>greater than 10% of the actual source -- are allowable under
>international copyright law, under what's called the "fair use rule".
>You're allowed to do reviews, that sort of thing, and generally you
need
>to quote some of the material to do so (book reviews are famous for
>this). In fact, since even the name of the book is copyrighted,
you'd
>*have* to use some copyrighted material, no matter what.

Not just reviews. Most every explanation of "Fair Use" I've seen, also
allowed for quoting for "educational purposes." This means, for
instance, if someone has a question about, say, the status of the CAS
military, and there is some information about it covered in an
out-of-print book, it's perfectly justified to quote the material
directly, since the purpose is to educate people about cannonical
background information for the Shadowrun game system.

In the example mentioned above, the acutal quote was two small
paragraphs from the Neo-Anarchist's Guide to North America. If
however, there were an in-print CAS Armed Forces Sourcebook, it'd be a
no-no to quote the entire sorucebook. Fair Use allows for excerpt
quoting, not copying of entire works.

Game Sourcebooks are a tricky matter, they do not fit easily under the
10% guideline mentioned by Matt, above. If I were to put up a web page
where I just quoted the weapon charts from the back of Fields of Fire,
that would probably not fall under Fair Use. Much of the content for
Fields of Fire was profiles for new gear and weapondry. To quote the
stats from the charts in the back would probably fall under the 10%
guideline if I just count words or pages, but it would be quoting a
majority of the sourcebook's signifigant content.

Another thing to consider is that Fair Use doesn't normally make a
distiction between in-print and out-of-print copyrighted works.
However, I strongly feel that FASA would be less likely to seek legal
action against someone quoting from an out-of-print work, as they
aren't making any money from that work any more.

The best guideline to follow though, is that if you have a strong
feeling that what you're quoting is either going to make the publisher
angry with you, or cost the publisher money, then your quote is most
likely too big.
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--
-- Paul Gettle (RunnerPaul@*****.com)
PGP Fingerprint, Key ID:0x48F3AACD (RSA 1024, created 98/06/26)
C260 94B3 6722 6A25 63F8 0690 9EA2 3344

You dare defy my whims?!?
I am the game master; you are my pawns!
I created the world you see before you!
I control your fate!"
-- Dexter, Dexter's Laboratory.

Further Reading

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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!