| From: | "Captain M. Thurman" <dionysis@*.WASHINGTON.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | re: copyright |
| Date: | Wed, 7 Apr 93 06:54:42 CET |
/* NOT intended as a flame */
gee, and to think, the character *I* worked long and hard to develop can
be used by someone else for THEIR monetary gain without even them telling
me they did it? *NOT*
I, and maybe the others who subscribe to this may agree, would prefer to
see something more along the lines of, oh, maybe individual copyrighting,
not exactly the way it's done for NAGEE, but like I did for my own characters.
I personally hold a copyright on any character that I've had in development
for more than about 6 months. If I use a character for longer, I fairly
obviously intend to keep working on it. I usually allow just about anyone
to use it in any other campaigns or stories, as long as it's clear who has
rights to the idea(conception) of the character.
I usually don't even ask for any royalties if they make anything on it,
but I'm not about to let *MY* characters be in someone else's
story/campaign with *THEM* implying that it was their character conception,
and not giving any credit to me.
So, as an alternative to anything that was discussed here before, I suggest
the following:
Anyone who wants to copyright their characters, fine, just attach a
copyright notice (either in the .sig, or as a letter at the start of their
subscription) and all notices should appear at the beginning (or end, either
should suffice) of the log(s) their characters appear in.
Any other characters would be considered within public domain (this should
be stated in logs and FAQ, too)
Regardless of copyright status, permission should be asked to the
character's creator before any use outside of Shadowtk.
I know the administrative headaches this would bring, but, it would
probably be better than the other alternatives in the long run.
I currently use copyrighted characters within Shadowtk, and if something
comes about where I would be unable to use them without losing my
copyright on them, I would most likely immediately unsub.
-CoHort
