FormCritic wrote:
I don't have a dog in this fight, but I can think of several differences.

I guess it is similar in principle, but ethically it certainly is different. IMO

I agree that that should be the spirit of the law, except that the spirit of the law now seems to allow a company to give away digital copies of products on the mere varification and word that the recipient owns a physical copy he was gifted or bought. iTunes seem to have set the precedent that if you can get ahold of a CD (read borrow from a mate)they'll give you the whole CD in digital form for free. I.e. they will distribute mp3 files with no requirement ever to pay for them to the IP owner. Google and Amazon have already set the precedent with PDFs of books, falling short only at the point of not giving an entire book away for free at the moment.

These companies set US Law, and as the law is some century behind the times, I can only assume that the US and it's companies are setting the standard for the country to abide by in this century. On the whole, what the US companies say, and the US peoples agree to accept, is then accepted as tollerable in the UK. So when the US drop the need to respect copyright law in favour of the needs of businesses to make money, it becomes acceptable in the UK by default. US companies comtrol the morals of the nation in both the US and the UK. That said, you only need to look at the amount of piracy online, and the statistics of where the downloaders and uploaders are, and you can see where the moral compass of nations is pointing. iTunes, Google, Amazon et al are in fact at least paying lip service to the need to resoect copyright and fighting against the majority of the online communities who want freedom to ignore copyright law and/or any form of censorship, restrictions, rules or ethics.

I suppose we have to accept that breaching copyright law in the spirit of the age (the Apple, Google way) is far better than lowering ourselves to the lowest common moral demnominator of the nation.

rmeints wrote:In the end, I feel it's better for me if I just do what the spirit of the law was originally meant to be, especially in terms of rewarding the creators with revenue for what they have created, if that is what they wanted.

...

Except the creators aren't always being rewarded.  But you should do what you feel is best for you, just don't expect anyone else to be similarly motivated, and try not to judge others by your own admittedly individualistic standards.

Mike B.

Badmike wrote:
Except the creators aren't always being rewarded.  But you should do what you feel is best for you, just don't expect anyone else to be similarly motivated, and try not to judge others by your own admittedly individualistic standards.

Mike B.

Hi Mike,

I'm not sure what you mean by not being rewarded. I try not to buy illegal/pirated/etc. copies of things, although that doesn't guarantee I never have. As for other people's actions, which I have no real control over anyway, I have no expectation of their motivations or actions matching mine. I treat others as I hope to be treated. As for judging others, why on earth would I do that? I have gone out of my way in my posts to not be judgmental. Are you merely offering unsolicited advice?

I think:  Keep trying to get permission from the other partner, Ian.

Assuming that the individual writers had contractual rights to their material is a big assumption.  In the absence of some other information, I think it is unlikely that they did.  (With some further thought, make that very unlikely.)

I know, for instance, that TSR's publications were always considered work for hire without expectations of further payment, and were henceforth the property of TSR.  Likewise, I doubt that the writers of articles for the thousands of old magazines digitized in the last decade have any right to payment or other ownership over the work they sold long ago.

An electronic version of an old magazine, with the permission of the company that published the magazine and selling (perhaps) 50 copies, is hardly an unreasonable or dastardly thing to do.

The only exception could be the artwork.  Some of TSR's cover work was first print rights...although that doesn't seem to preclude electronic versions of the same publication.  If an artist objects, you could send them a few bucks, but that seems quite unlikely.

There is the possibility that an electronic version of the Tortured Souls collection could get pirated on the internet.  That does not make the electronic publisher automatically wrong.  That is a choice by others.

Is there another issue I'm not seeing here?  

FormCritic wrote:There is the possibility that an electronic version of the Tortured Souls collection could get pirated on the internet.  That does not make the electronic publisher automatically wrong.  That is a choice by others.

You'll have to clarify what you mean by "pirated" here.  Suppose the old owners of Beast Entz give their permission to create and sell a DVD (where they may or may not get a cut of the profits).

It is clear that the company is defunct and the copyright of all stuff has reverted back to the original author/artist.  In which case, now, not only are those who create the DVD profiting from someone else's work (who they do not have permission from) but also the old owners of Beast Entz are profiting from those people's work who they no long have permission to use.  They are now the ones pirating others peoples work and profiting from it.  Why should they?

PDF Pirate King wrote:It is clear that the company is defunct and the copyright of all stuff has reverted back to the original author/artist.  In which case, now, not only are those who create the DVD profiting from someone else's work (who they do not have permission from) but also the old owners of Beast Entz are profiting from those people's work who they no long have permission to use.  They are now the ones pirating others peoples work and profiting from it.  Why should they?

Indeed. And to add to this mix, there is a rights relationship between the original writers and Games Workshops in regard to the CDM campaign quadrology, and additional materials that are GW specific. On the grounds that much of the founding lore can be found within the pages of TS!, that treads a potentially contentious line. I suspect Basil will not be going there. I did offer the entire set of PDFs to him to release through the likes of RPGNow, even supplied sameples, but he chose not to go there.

That said, according to UK law, unattributed works in a periodical are considered abandoned after the 25 year coppright period has elapsed, if copyright of those works are not claimed by the publisher. By removing the authors' names, Beast Entz have elected to assume full ownership or abandone rights of copyright on an article by article basis. The right are entirely theirs (Beast Entz Owners) in regard to written word. Only the artwork carrying a signiature falls outside of that, and US Law can be ignored.

Badmike wrote: If the work is not in print and the original creator is not seeing a dime from any re-publication that may not happen, I'm not too upset.

I guess this is why NTRPG feels entitled to breach copyright and reprint whatever they want to help support the con.  Can we expect some good items again this year to help defer the cost of the poster purchases?  Maybe you can reproduce the posters.

PDF Pirate King wrote:
I guess this is why NTRPG feels entitled to breach copyright and reprint whatever they want to help support the con.  Can we expect some good items again this year to help defer the cost of the poster purchases?  Maybe you can reproduce the posters.

Yes. And I doubt the cost needs to be defrayed.