Adobe do not provide a copy of Acrobat Reader for redistribution unless you are a recognised Adobe Partner. So, for those who do not have Acrobat Reader, they will require an internet connection to download and install the Reader. Yes, no luck tracking down Basil or Simon. That said, if either pop up I would love to put together a project with interviews and further background info. Would make a much more interesting project. Maybe the line should read "Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader available from http://get.adobe.com/ (internet connection needed)"

. wrote:Taking a flyer and publishing without managing to contact the original author(s) is one thing. Touting them at GenCon is a completely different thing. I think I'll give that one a miss.

Interesting.

FormCritic wrote:The disk of pdf's seems pretty interesting.  Probably best to search a bit more for the authors before you get too much farther.  

This project has been bubbling for a few years now.

Have been searching for close on 18 months. Have written and e-mailed many of Simon Forrest's co-authors from his time at Games Workshop, and numerous other luminaries. The Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK, the printers who originally published, Oxford University Alumni, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, MSN etc. I even did an obituary search just in case. I know that Basil Barrett is/was still alive in 2006, but haven't been able to trace him, and as for Simon Forrest, I haven't been able to track him beyond working for Games Workshop in the 90's.

It would seem that these guys have moved on with their lives, and moved out of gaming.

. wrote:This project has been bubbling for a few years now.

Have been searching for close on 18 months. Have written and e-mailed many of Simon Forrest's co-authors from his time at Games Workshop, and numerous other luminaries. The Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK, the printers who originally published, Oxford University Alumni, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, MSN etc. I even did an obituary search just in case. I know that Basil Barrett is/was still alive in 2006, but haven't been able to trace him, and as for Simon Forrest, I haven't been able to track him beyond working for Games Workshop in the 90's.

It would seem that these guys have moved on with their lives, and moved out of gaming.

I'm not criticizing you, Ian.  I am just advising you.  

I want these pdf files as much as anyone.  

. wrote:I am going to infringe their copyright.
If they contact me and ask me to desist, I will do so; at which point I will ask permission to remaster and include additional materials if they are up for it etc.

And this makes you any better than the litany of people we work hard against to shut down in the "Copyright Infringement" thread, how exactly?

. wrote:
Firstly, I am upfront about what I am doing.

So are a lot of the other sellers on Ebay.

. wrote:Secondly, I have spent, and documented, what I believe can be demonstrated as 'all reasonable attempts to contact the copyright holder' as defined by UK copyright law.

So the UK Copyright law dictates that your reasonable attempts entitles you to then breach the Copyright?

I'd love to see the law that dictates that.  Could you link that for me please?

. wrote:Thirdly, I have sought and followed the advice of the Copyrigh Licensing Agency in the UK.

Okay and they've advised you that you are good to go to breach copyright?

. wrote:Forthly, I intend to keep a record of all financial income and outgoing on the project.

Irrelevant.

. wrote:And finally, should a copyright holder come forth, I will take all reasonable stept to resolve any potential dispute said copyright holder has.

Again, irrelevant and also again, how exactly is this any better than what people on Ebay have been doing for years and we have all worked so hard to stop from happening.

I'm not trying to be a dick here, but lets be 100% honest. This "project" without consent is pure unadulterated bullshit and hypocrisy of its highest form and it's no better than any of the other scammers who sell pirated material on Ebay or any other site for that matter.  Every single one of them can and have made the exact same claims that you've made with respect to this.  

I'd also find it hard to believe that Scott will be very happy with this project being not only advertised on this site, but also being pretty much hatched from someone who regularly posts here, while doing so from the site.

As an aside....
The man from Midkemia, he say 'no'. So that project goes nowhere.
The man from Mayfair Games (regarding the Big Five), he say 'I don't think we have copyright of those, sorry'. So the search continues.

. wrote:No. What I am saying is, I have taken all reasonable steps to ensure that interested parties are informed and permission is sought, and in their absence, I am documenting for future reference.

Lack of them saying "no" is not "permission".

And documenting for future reference is nice, but it doesn't make it right either.

You're going on the assumption that if they just knew, they'd want it republished anyways.  What if they find out after the fact and say they never wanted the material to be produced that way in the first place?  

Then what?

. wrote:The decision to use copytighted meterials without an absent copyright holder giving express permission is one that occurs practically evry single day to one degree or other by many magazines and newspapers and media publishers the world over. It is the nature of the industry.

No it doesn't and no it's not. There are fair use laws that govern such activities, those that breach that commonly end up in court.  Regardless, even if it did happen all of the time, it doesn't make it right in any way shape or form.  

People commit violent acts against the law every single day, it does not justify someone else to do the same "because other people do it".

. wrote:But the use of copyrighted materials abandoned by, or in the absence of, the owners, is accepted practace in the media at large, and I do not plan on changing the world.

Again, there is a GIGANTIC leap from "abandonment" to your failure to be able to contact them.  Abandonment is a very deliberate act.  One person's inability to find the authors is not "abandonment".  

There are a litany of good reasons why you could not locate them that have nothing to do with them abandoning their intellectual properties.

. wrote:I will go with the crowd because it serves my interest to do so, and it gets the materials to a wider audience. The advice of the CLA is that I would be infringing the author's copyright, but that provided I had taken all reasonable steps to contact said author(s), then if I chose to breach said copyright and was subsequently challenged, a civil case would be unlikely to result provided I was willing to cease the publication.

What crowd are you referring to?  The host of other pirates out there on-line who have "justified" there exploits as well?

. wrote:I have sought independant legal advice and their reading of the matter concurs.

Perhaps you'd be willing to share this advice here?

I'd also like to see the law that you were referring to above as well.

. wrote:I agree that the bottom line is that without express written permission, then copyright is infringed, but that is an overly simplistic viewpoint in the modern world.

No, it's really not.  Everything else is just a work around or an excuse.  It doesn't make it okay.

If you could get expressed legal consent from the authors for this project, I'd support you 100%, but you haven't and so I can't.  This is wrong.

Agree, Faro. Personally I see it as a balancing act of weighing up the risks of PDFs going wild vs. the chances of one or other author taking a civil case through the courts. I would tend to think that if someone shells out for a well authoured well presented product they would be less inclined to then upload the contents to the internet, but I may well be wrong. And I would doubt that if someone were resell a copy they would do so without first making a copy on their harddisk. I could continue to sit on this until such times as one or other C holder surfaces, but that may be a long long time. And I am assuming Basil Barrett and Simon Forrest are copyright holders, with no evidence to support this other than they were the original publishers. For all I know, copyright could have been sold or transfered to Games Workshop when they republished, or it could have become a joint asset of Integrated Games when IG was formed to publish the CDM Series. Who actually owns copyright is unknown at present.

bclarkie wrote:They might be okay with this project, but they might not.  To me, both are equally plausible. I mean it's not like the technology is still something a lot of people aren't familiar with, it can easily be argued that they've perhaps already considered such a product themselves and decided against it.

I tend to find that most publishers are not currently ofay with current technology, and most are also unsure even if, and to what extent, they actually have copyright. Most publishers I have managed to get responses from are interested and willing to publish electronically, and would avail themselves of a free supply of their products in a publishable form, but will not publish because they do not know if they are permitted to do so, and would not want to run the risk of being sued by the original author, or a contributing artist, layout typist, included advertiser or coffee boy.