From:	ROBERSON@***.EDU
Subject:	Copyright
Date:	Wed, 7 Apr 93 04:42:10 CET

You do maintain your rights to an adventure you write. And yes, you can
publish it. Take Challenge Magazine, for instance. Say I write an adventure
for Shadowrun and Challenge deems it worthy of publication. They pay me for
the rights. That means I no longer have the rights-but they can't run it
without my permission unless they by the rights from me. Once they secure
the rights to an adventure, getting FASA's permission is their problem.

The same is true when dealing with FASA: you write an adventure, it's yours.
They will buy it from you, meaning you have no more control over it. Of course,
if it's really good, you can haggle for all sorts of goodies, like royalties
and such.

Now:self-publishing, where you maintain the rights to the adventure and
still get it out. This is likely only if you start your own company (not
difficult with modern Desktop Publishing software and some money). HERE's
where you start securing rights from FASA, unless you put the little "used
without permission" thingy on there. At that point, it's their call: They can
either sue your ass or let it go (remember how much "third party" stuff was
generated for AD&D and Car Wars?).
Your best bet is to wait into you have a viable product and are just waiting to
figure out how to print it. If you send it to FASA and they take it, fine. If
they don't but you get the bucks to do it yourself, talk to them first. Maybe
they liked it but just can't afford another module and will be perfectly happy
to let it out. Or maybe it just goes against so much of the SR background that
they don't want it published, in which case I hope your gaming group liked it
because they're the only ones who'll get to play it.


J Roberson