. wrote:The only individuals involved are the copyright holder (Hasbro) and the copyright infringer.

This is true but the copyright holder is more than Hasbro.  You have the same issues that arose with the Dragon Magazine Archive.   The Dragon Magazine archive had a number of different issues:

1) Is a PDF release consider a "reprint" or a seperate item?
2) Does this fall under the "archival purposes" clause so its okay?

Calling it a "reprint" solves most of the issues as this was included in the contracts most people signed - also covers the contributions by staff writers and artists.

However, freelancers is where most of the issues occurred.  A number of the fiction writers had contracts giving the exclusive electronic rights to their publisher.  Also, some only signed contracts for "first publishing rights only".  Some didn't even really have contracts.

By the sounds of it when the archive was released, basically, TSR/Wizards decided to just ignore that other people owned the copyright to the material and ended up settling in the aftermath that followed.

With "The General" there is a question on much Hasbro owns the copyright for and how much the individual authors own the rights to their articles and art.  In the scheme of things some guy who wrote an article or did a piece of art is not likely to sue because he doesn't want his work republished but that doesn't mean that they should republish his work without asking.

The point is, if Hasbro do not enforce copyright of their material, who cares? Who is hurt by this? Who loses out? Why should anyone give a damn if the owner of the material doesn't give a damn if other people use it?

This was part of the argument I heard earlier when this issue came up. Frankly I think it's a pointless argument. So what if someone is not a party to the copyrights themselves, that doesn't mean others can't have an interest in seeing that the law is upheld and that copyright infringers don't get away with their crimes for free.

Who is hurt by this? Well anyone who ultimately holds a copyright on something is eventually hurt when people throw out the arguement that it's ok to infringe if the holder doesn't immediately respond, and that "it doesn't hurt anyone" so therefore it's ok. That sort of attitude encourages people to continue to infringe and does nothing to stop it from taking place.

You also state "the owner of the material doesn't give a damn if other people use it?" which is entirely false. There are many reasons why a copyright holder may not respond or be able to respond and the lack of a response is NOT the same as someone saying they don't give a damn about infringement or if they work is used freely. What part of the copyright law in the US includes the provision that if a copyright holder doesn't respond someone is free to scan and sell digital and hard copy examples of their work? Having studied it pretty closely I seem to have missed that part of the law.

jcp wrote:What part of the copyright law in the US includes the provision that if a copyright holder doesn't respond someone is free to scan and sell digital and hard copy examples of their work? Having studied it pretty closely I seem to have missed that part of the law.

It doesn't. Publishing without express written consent is a breach of copyright law. Plain and simple. But it is a civil matter between two parties, and not a criminal offence under either UK or US law. So is driving in a bus lane, surfing on your neighbours' WiFi and playing your music too loud on a Saturdy night. They are all breaches of civil law, and not criminal offences. Morally people should not ever break civil law, but there are circumstances in which many people do feel the need or believe they should break those laws, and there is a system of courts for others to seek redress if they feel they have a need to.

I am absolutely sure that Hasbro, with all it's money and influence, would sue them silly and have their website shut down, if they wanted then to stop publishing. So I can only deduce that they either are completelt unaware of the situation (and I'm sure a couple of e-mails can change that) or they are happy to let their products continue being published. If the later is the case, then that is tacit consent whichever way you dress it up. The former is the case, I am sure the situation will change when Hasbro find out. But lets face it, they've publishing these CDs a while, and nothing has happened so far.

All we're talking about here. One person's moral outlook vs another person's moral outlook.

Mars wrote:They were looking to publish a D20 book but I'm not sure what happened with that project.  It seems evident that authors of the original work are still around and doing what they want to with products.  

Different Worlds was never able to come to terms, about what the publishing project should be:  both parties were interested (and there had been interest prior to DWP too), but it never got beyond "yeah, we're all interested"

JasonZavoda wrote:I wonder if this a confusion between Feist and Jordan.

Maybe.

I think the main point though is that it would be rather rude and reckless to publishing Midkemia items without permission while the copyright holders are actively using the brand - new comics being issues, online game coming out, new novels, etc.

It would probably be better if you simply republished copies of Castle Zagyg: Upper Works instead.

JasonZavoda wrote:You mean  "." not me,

Yes.  The

Mars wrote:Maybe.

was for you.

Mars wrote:
RF is dead?  I think he is still publishing novels.  I think that is really one of the big issues.  You have a best selling author of 25 novels and probably a nice contract with a large publishing copy who also probably own the rights to the world of Midkemia or at least have an interest in protecting their rights.   They were looking to publish a D20 book but I'm not sure what happened with that project.  It seems evident that authors of the original work are still around and doing what they want to with products.  To reprint or offer them without their permission seems reckless.

Its a big of a different dilemma if the authors aren't around or are not doing anything related to the products but that isn't the case here.

And here was me thinking RF was dead.
It is the original authors I an in discussions with, or should I say, I e-mailed them and got a reply saying it had been forwarded to their legal team for consideration. These sorts of discussions, from experience, can take a year or more, and in the case of Midkemia, will more than likely result in either a 'no' or a 'no, but we'd really like copies of the PDFs'. I'll put money on the latter, but if it gets the PDFs published legitimatly, it's the next best thing to getting my name on something. At least people get to buy them.

So I wonder why I thought RF was dead?

Mars wrote:I think the main point though is that it would be rather rude and reckless to publishing Midkemia items without permission while the copyright holders are actively using the brand - new comics being issues, online game coming out, new novels, etc.

That's the point of spending all the time tracking people down and entering discussions about copyright licensing and/or offering services to companies. Most of these small press companies have products that will sell, and authors who can make money out of stuff we want to buy. If I can get some of them to publish, even if I'm just providing a free service, there will come a time when I will be able to charge for a service, and there will be a time when the PDF market has a high turnover for old RPG items.

Let's face it. The reason people don't buy old scanned PDFs online is because they are absolutely shite. The product is great. It's the assholes that scan them and the idiots that then try to sell them that are destroying the legitimate PDF market from older RPG items. Have you seen the crap that JG put out? Have you seen the scan of the most recent offering, Tarantis? Those sorts of things are ruining the market by killing peoples confidence in quality. People don't believe they can buy quality scanned PDFs, because they've never seen it done.

Here is a similar sort of thing. This Seller is offering Titan variant boards from some of the issues of General:




** expired/removed eBay auction **




Seller states: The extras from the General Magazine are copies of the articles and not the actual magazine pages.

Is your's cashed?
I keep getting a blue Appache server page with a 404 error and an e-mail link to the webmaster.