State of Play as of April '14 . . .
From memory. The preceding thread may be more specific. . . .

Over the past five years I have been in touch, fleetingly, with both Alan Hinkling and Basil Barrett, believed to be among the prime movers behind publishers Beast Enterprises Limited, as well as a couple of the leading artists, none of whom are involved in the industry any longer (outside of tertiary hobby interests). I have not been able to contact Simon Forrest.

Of those I contacted, the only party interested in enforcing any latent copyright claim to the materials published by Beast Enterprises Limited, was Basil Barrett, and to that end, his only expressed concern was that he had prior sold the copyright to the Complete Dungeon Master Series material to Games Workshop for their Warhammer RPG.

In anticipation of a possible product, I did register BeastEntz.com and BeastEntz.co.uk for a few years, but for obvious reasons, let them laps.

We did explore the possibility of consent to republish, but there appeared to be no real desire or interest there, so the project faltered in 2011.

...

Now, enforcement of copyright is a much greyer area. Copyright was held, and was stated as being held, by the entity Beast Enterprises Limited. No copyright is ever claimed by any individual, and the entity Beast Enterprises Limited does not appear to have ever existed as a bona fide legal entity in the UK. Nor was there ever any declared sole trader operating under that name. So the copyright holder is going to have a hard time establishing their right to enforce copyright of a product that have in writing been bestowed upon another entity and not retained by themselves.

Copyright of the magazines themselves have now lapsed. The only claims that can now be made, were they to be republished, would be potential breach of copyright of the materials directly referencing materials later sold to Games Workshop, potential breach of copyright of artworks by identifiable artists (as their signature on artwork is presumed to be a statement of copyright in the absence of a declaration otherwise), or a claim by a third party author of a breach of copyright claiming they did not know their copyright had been usurped by the operators of Beast Enterprises Limited.

All of which at most could result in a cease and desist letter, as proving damages and quantifying those damages credibly in a court of law is next to impossible.

...

In regard to the product itself, I had sourced a manufacturer in the UK who screen prints DVDs. I had floated the idea with one of the artists for original artwork in keeping with original feel of the magazine, I had tried to enter into discussions with Basil Barrett to establish who, if anyone, owned copyright of the abandoned magazine materials, and I had had similar discussions with Alan Hinkling.

What is certain is this...

The materials in the CDM Series is out of bounds. Yes it is wonderfully complementary, and there is the unpublished CDM5 out there in various forms (at least three versions of the manuscript I am aware of of varying lengths and completeness), but practically the entirety of that campaign in under the control of Games Workshop.

Tortured Souls #1 and #2 (the fanzine) is also a no go area without permission from BB and/or SF.

Also, there is a little bifold flyer that was released somewhere around the issue of Tortured Souls! 3 which is a direct bridge between TS! and CDM1, and so would probably be antagonistic to Games Workshop.

That leaves TS! 1-12 and the Zhalindor map.

Currently I have very high quality PDFs of everything except TS#2 the fanzine, and still holding out for a reasonable chance at pushing a digital project ahead with the blessings of Basil Barrett, or greater solidity in UK Copyright Law. Alternatively, a publisher in a non-copyright jurisdiction who is happy to publish and be damned.

With people asking for many years now, a product is likely to come to market whether Basil likes it or not. The question he really needs to ask himself is whether he wishes to profit fairly by it, or expend his time and effort fighting the onset of the internet age.

...

That's how I see it.

As with Paul Vernon (Starstone), whenever there is a author who is happy to explore the community's interest in his past works, I will do everything to assist in publishing, be that digitising and/or transferring data to modern DTP, proofreading or whatever. But abandoned works that have lapsed copyright and a definite and legitimate interest in the collector and research communities are a different matter. In these cases I tend to side with Badmike etal.

I'd like to see a digital archive published, ideally with the original publisher's blessing.  However, the original copyright holder no longer exists, and the author who now lays claim to copyright, has no interest in publishing. I suspect this is likely due to the potential conflict with previous contactual arrangements with GW, the clear case that he cannot lay claim to all the materials copyright, and the virtual guarantee that any enterprise is likely to be a labour with little return, or only marginal profit, hardly worth his time or effort.

Badmike wrote in Ian's Tortured Souls collection:I hope you keep at it, Ian. Looks like someday things will come together.  I agree anything even remotely GW related would be a bear to try and publish no matter what the circumstances, they are not shy about suing for any reason, legit or not.

Mike B.

Were a backstreet Chinese DVD manufacturer to become aware of the potential market for a small DVD run, there is little anyone could do to pursue a legal challenge to its distribution. If the US government cannot stop the Chinese manufacturing Silver Dollars, and Nike cannot stop trainers hitting the streets, I'd like to see a part claimant to copyright of a lapsed magazine sue the publisher of a DVD. For that matter, there seems no reason to believe Games Workshop would have any more success preventing CDM1-5 being released.

One day authors and publishers with understand the mistake the music industry made in fighting online distribution, and step into the 21st century. Until then they are destined to be marginalised and lose revenue and influence.

Thunderdave wrote in Ian's Tortured Souls collection:Would anyone who's seen the unpublished CDM5 comment on how faithful the Heart of Chaos version is?

Completely unrelated work done by a different author who did not have access to any aspect of the original.

Ian, I would love to see a Tortured Souls DVD one day. I wish you luck.

mbassoc2003 wrote in Ian's Tortured Souls collection:State of Play as of April '14 . . .
As with Paul Vernon (Starstone), whenever there is a author who is happy to explore the community's interest in his past works, I will do everything to assist in publishing, be that digitising and/or transferring data to modern DTP, proofreading or whatever.

Was there an electronic version of Starstone?  I have a copy but would like a PDF!

I'd love to see a PDF of Tradervale.

One final item was closed out thanks to a heads up from a fellow member.
So I also have both the Tortured Souls fanzines that predated TS! magazine.
I'll need to check to see which of the CDM boxed sets I had scanned prior to my entire collection being sold. I suspect I have 1, 2, 3 and the the manuscript for 5 scanned, but not Feathered Preists, so it's a hole in the collection.
I also touched base briefly with the artist (one of) that created such a distinctive look, and we explored to possibility of him maybe contributing cover art, etc. So I'd need to sift through years of archived e-mails to track that down.

Publishing has legal dangers. John Barrett is aware and I believe still on the scene occasionally, and I don't like to harm others IP, although the statute of limitations must be fast approaching, and a non-profit venture may not draw too much hostility, however, Games Workshop do have a historic interest in the CDM series, and I'm no copyright lawyer. I do see the desire for historic works of past generations to be preserved for future generations, and preservation cannot be relied upon, or accessed, in a world (in the UK certainly) with no games stores, no libraries, and access for all to the internet.

So digital images (PDFs) seem like to most reasonable archival format.

Much like the Moldvay bookends, and Starstone reprint, things drift very slowly and I do my best to ensure I have more than one digital archive of what I assembled.

I know I have TS1, pretty sure I have 2 and 4 as well. Do you have those?

mbassoc2003 wrote in Ian's Tortured Souls collection:There is a flyer I think that David has that I don't have a digital copy of.

I think I had a flyer at one point. Don't know if that's what you're thinking of or if I sent you a pic.

I found 9, 10 and 12 to be far rarer than the others, in that order, with 12 being the rarest. For some reason 11 seemed to crop up quite often when I was connection a few years back. Over the past year or so 9 seems to have cropped up more regularly, but the whole range seems to turning up less often these days.

On a similar note (similar publication) GM1 Flight of Eagles seemed to be stupidly hard to come by, with GM2 coming in a close second. That set is also well worth getting a hold off, and there's only 5.