Subject: MYSTARA-L Digest - 2 Feb 2002 to 3 Feb 2002 (#2002-34) From: Automatic digest processor Date: 04/02/2002, 19:00 To: Recipients of MYSTARA-L digests Reply-to: Mystara RPG Discussion There are 17 messages totalling 977 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. KenzerCo has Mystara license (3) 2. Mystara license and infrindgement (14) ******************************************************************** The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 18:51:24 +0100 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Havard=20Faanes?= Subject: Re: KenzerCo has Mystara license --- SteelAngel : > They have the Mystara license, and didn't even feel > it necessary to alert > the community of the acquisition, or look for input, > or anything. If that > doesn't just scream: "A pox on the fans, Huzzah!" I > don't know what does. It sounds like they got the Mystara lisence thrown into the deal cause they wanted to publish the B-series, most of which are pretty stupid modules anyway (ducks for cover). I can't say I worry too much about Mystara's reputation, as it was never that widely a respected setting anyway. Also, we can always claim the "the first ones were better"-line like many fans do with Star Wars these days. However, the idea of putting James Mishler on the job (which was briefly mentioned) sounds awsome. Get them to hire Bruce Heard and Aalston aswell, and I'll be in heaven! Havard ______________________________________________________ Sjekk snørapporter... fra 500 ski-destinasjoner i Europa på http://no.snow.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 20:20:29 +0100 From: Agathokles Subject: Re: KenzerCo has Mystara license Havard Faanes wrote: > > It sounds like they got the Mystara lisence thrown > into the deal cause they wanted to publish the > B-series, most of which are pretty stupid modules > anyway (ducks for cover). Not all of them, though. Think B10 or B4. > I can't say I worry too much about Mystara's > reputation, as it was never that widely a respected > setting anyway. Also, we can always claim the "the > first ones were better"-line like many fans do with > Star Wars these days. Yes, we can (and probably will) ignore stuff like their (future) Hackmaster versions of the early B modules. > However, the idea of putting James Mishler on the job > (which was briefly mentioned) sounds awsome. Get them > to hire Bruce Heard and Aalston aswell, and I'll be in > heaven! Yes, it would be good. But as things are now, they seem more interested in lampooning the old stuff rather than revamping it. -- Giampaolo Agosta agathokles@libero.it agosta@elet.polimi.it http://digilander.iol.it/agathokles ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 20:18:24 +0000 From: kevin wyton Subject: Re: KenzerCo has Mystara license I'm not familiar with all of Kenzer&Co's products but I've been hearing great things about their Kingdom's of Kalamar setting. Their release of the Hackmaster game I believe was aimed directly at the fans of their Knights of the Dinner Table comic (which if you have never read you should look for immediately, its hilarious!!). >> From what I've heard Hackmaster has its own setting so hopefully Mystara will be set up as a stand alone setting, perhaps updated to 3E. Might I suggest that someone on the Mystara 3e project (I'm sure I remember someone saying there was one) should contact Kenzer&Co and offer what info they have. We can only hope that they at least let long time fans give suggestions before they make any corporate decisions. Just my two cents Talkatya Kev _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 21:58:06 +0100 From: thibault sarlat Subject: Mystara license and infrindgement I am not very familiar with the copyright laws, but since the rights have been sold, do we need an approval from the new owners? and what about our online productions for Mystara. Can they use them ? How can we protect them? Thibault Sarlat. ICQ 16622177. homepage http://www.mystara.fr.st Join me at:thibault.sarlat@wanadoo.fr clenarius@hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 16:57:19 -0500 From: SteelAngel Subject: Re: Mystara license and infrindgement On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, thibault sarlat wrote: > I am not very familiar with the copyright laws, but since the rights have > been sold, do we need an approval from the new owners? > and what about our online productions for Mystara. Can they use them ? How > can we protect them? As far as I can tell, Kenzer doesn't own any "rights". The IP (intellectual property) is still owned by WoTC. Kenzer owns a license to modify the original works, no more. It's the same thing with the Kargatane and White Wolf/Arthaus. I am under the impression that the Kargatane still can produce their netbooks freely, but only WW has the ability to make a profit off of their Ravenloft books. So, IANAL, but I would say that Mystara is safe for fans (dispite my initial reaction) to write up our own stuff, but we can't sell it. Kenzer is the only company who can legally sell Mystara-branded materiel. This could get ugly in the future. Ethan -- Kinard 210 Linux Guru Webmaster www.steelangel.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 16:16:11 -0600 From: George Hrabovsky Subject: Re: Mystara license and infrindgement There are several legal points here, from the perspective of a writer: 1. There is NO way to copyright a name, ever. It can't be done. We can use any name within the Mystara cosmos as freely as we like. We can even use named principles freely. 2. The only time trademark infringement becomes an issue is when you sell a similar product. They key word here being sell. 3. While they may have a "license" to use the Mystara stuff for their own purposes, this does not give them exclusive rights over the vast quantity of net-based material that has existed from before the collapse of Mystara within TSR to the present and into the future. The only case they might have is if someone copies their material and publishes it on the web for free, that would be piracy... 4. The material on the web is copyrighted to the authors of that material. TSR allowed Mystara to die out completely in, what? 1996? The net community has been actively developing the material for six years. I know that I have been developing Mystara stuff since 1986, and that I have put some of it out on the net. I can certainly argue in court that I have as much right to the material for non-profit purposes as anyone else. 5. You can produce your own Mystara material so long as it neither substantially copies what someone else does (or gives complete credit if you do so, with permission) and/or you have developed far more material than you have copied. For example, with my Borigon stuff, while it is true that I have developed a guide to Karameikos for the Borigon system and have used resources from the old stuff to do this. However, everything is substantially changed and much has been added. While the flavor has been kept, it is a different place. To sum up, it would be difficult for anyone to force us to stop what we have been doing for years. TSR dropped the product line and then allowed everyone to develop it freely. I can only imagine the legal arguments that would be required to shut us down... George ----- Original Message ----- From: "SteelAngel" To: Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2002 3:57 PM Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] Mystara license and infrindgement > On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, thibault sarlat wrote: > > > I am not very familiar with the copyright laws, but since the rights have > > been sold, do we need an approval from the new owners? > > and what about our online productions for Mystara. Can they use them ? How > > can we protect them? > > As far as I can tell, Kenzer doesn't own any "rights". The IP > (intellectual property) is still owned by WoTC. Kenzer owns a license to > modify the original works, no more. > > It's the same thing with the Kargatane and White Wolf/Arthaus. I am under > the impression that the Kargatane still can produce their netbooks freely, > but only WW has the ability to make a profit off of their Ravenloft books. > > So, IANAL, but I would say that Mystara is safe for fans (dispite my > initial reaction) to write up our own stuff, but we can't sell it. Kenzer > is the only company who can legally sell Mystara-branded materiel. > > This could get ugly in the future. > > > Ethan > > -- > Kinard 210 Linux Guru > Webmaster www.steelangel.com > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 23:29:17 +0100 From: =?us-ascii?Q?Andres_Piquer_Otero?= Subject: Re: Mystara license and infrindgement > I am not very familiar with the copyright laws, but since the rights have > been sold, do we need an approval from the new owners? > and what about our online productions for Mystara. Can they use them ? How > can we protect them? I read the Kenzer announcements quite slowly, and it's all slightly confusing... apparently they own rights to use Mystara material for Hackmaster (that is, practically speaking, spoof) purposes and *nothing else*. As you all may know, Hackmaster is a parody reprint of AD&D 1st ed (there's some new joke stuff, like "grudge monster" tables and some new races and character classes, taken out of KotDT comic strip, like faeries and titan gnomes); Kenzer can only use Mystara material as a basis for HM parody modules. The license has not given them the possibility to produce "serious" or otherwise Mystara D20 stuff. That's what they announced. So I really don't think (and fervently hope) that a "parody license" can affect a campaing line (even a "dormant one" in wizards' hands as mystara is. Besides, HM is not D20 (they are compatible in the same way that AD&D 1st ed is compatible with D20, after a long conversion process), so I think that fan material being kept up is not going to be frowned upon by Wizards, as their main interests are in merchandising their own D20 stuff, for which fan support cannot be a hindrance... As for Kenzer, they aim at totally different interest groups. I still wonder that a KotDT joke (the Hackmaster game, a munchkin-bathed hybrid of AD&D 1st ed and Rolemaster - I see the last one in the hundreds of tables the comic characters use)is going to find enough success in the market, especially when the only thing you get from a quite expensive price is a reprint of 1st ed with some laced jokes, but in any case it's not going to find any competence form "serious" Mystara. I don't even know if they're planning on using the Mystara campaign name or the world setting. For what i know of KotDT, i would doubt it: most of the "mythical" Hackmaster modules talked about in the comic strip are spoofs of 1st ed Greyhawk modules (especially the GDQ series)... of course, with the GH setting used as the default 3E world and with an open line of GH novels which aims at the same "classics" Kenzer has torn down into laughs, that option was impossible, so they took the next best thing... I think and hope they'll focus in the oldest modules. I have to admit, I could see a parody of the orange B3, playing hard on all those rumors about indecent artwork and Gygax caricatures inside... Andres ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 19:17:54 -0500 From: SteelAngel Subject: Re: Mystara license and infrindgement On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, George Hrabovsky wrote: > to develop it freely. I can only imagine the legal arguments that would be > required to shut us down... Ever seen the Johnny Cockran "Chewbacca Defense" episode of South Park? Or maybe, read /. in the past years? It really doesn't take much to protect copyrights. In fact, fan works are really only allowed to exist due to the good graces of the company that owns the IP. If WoTC wanted to, it could rein us in, allowing "fan work" to exist only on the "officially sanctioned" fan site. But maybe I'm a bit DMCA paranoid. Ethan -- Kinard 210 Linux Guru Webmaster www.steelangel.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 18:46:08 -0600 From: George Hrabovsky Subject: Re: Mystara license and infrindgement Your argument would be true if it were not for the fact that they have allowed it to occur for so long. They cannot ever allow it if they ever want it to stop. This is why the movie company that put out Harry Potter had to stomp on kid sites, so that they would be able to stop pirates in the future. TSR and WATC have allowed the fan sites and made no effort to stop them, it would be difficult (if not impossible) to stop them now. Paranoia aside, the simple argument, "Why didn't you stop them before it got out of hand?" would be enough to kill any legal attempt at stopping the fan sites. Also the company would have to literally track down and defeat each site one-at-a-time. This would mean dozens if not hundreds of law suits (and these aren't cheap either). I think that there are few companies that have the legal/financial resources to what you suggest. The investigation alone would cost in the thousands, each law suit would cost thousands, that means there would be tens to perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to protect a dead product line. That just doesn't make sense. George ----- Original Message ----- From: "SteelAngel" To: Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2002 6:17 PM Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] Mystara license and infrindgement > On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, George Hrabovsky wrote: > > > to develop it freely. I can only imagine the legal arguments that would be > > required to shut us down... > > Ever seen the Johnny Cockran "Chewbacca Defense" episode of South Park? > > Or maybe, read /. in the past years? It really doesn't take much to > protect copyrights. In fact, fan works are really only allowed to exist > due to the good graces of the company that owns the IP. > > If WoTC wanted to, it could rein us in, allowing "fan work" to exist only > on the "officially sanctioned" fan site. > > But maybe I'm a bit DMCA paranoid. > > > Ethan > > -- > Kinard 210 Linux Guru > Webmaster www.steelangel.com > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 20:17:38 -0500 From: Joseph Elric Smith Subject: Mystara license and infrindgement You can try that defense, but you will find I think that if and when they want to go after the fans sites they can and. will. and if most of the fans are a rude and mean spirited as the ones I have seen posting here, with doom and gloom, and convicting Kenzer and Company with out a trial, who would blame them for trying to shut off the spout of intolerance and hatred. ken Gygax is to Gaming what Kirby was to comic Alas poor Elric I was a thousand times more evil then you ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Hrabovsky" > Your argument would be true if it were not for the fact that they have > allowed it to occur for so long. They cannot ever allow it if they ever want > it to stop. This is why the movie company that put out Harry Potter had to > stomp on kid sites, so that they would be able to stop pirates in the > future. TSR and WATC have allowed the fan sites and made no effort to stop > them, it would be difficult (if not impossible) to stop them now. Paranoia > aside, the simple argument, "Why didn't you stop them before it got out of > hand?" would be enough to kill any legal attempt at stopping the fan sites. > Also the company would have to literally track down and defeat each site > one-at-a-time. This would mean dozens if not hundreds of law suits (and > these aren't cheap either). I think that there are few companies that have > the legal/financial resources to what you suggest. The investigation alone > would cost in the thousands, each law suit would cost thousands, that means > there would be tens to perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to > protect a dead product line. That just doesn't make sense. > > George > ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 19:37:54 -0600 From: George Hrabovsky Subject: Re: Mystara license and infrindgement Actually, the argument is quite strong. It comes down to the notion of, "Selective Prosecution." You simply ask the court the question, "Why is this company picking on me after all this time?" The argument has two components: 1. You can argue that the company has singled you out from all the others to go after. The company cannot overlook a single site and has to bring suit against all of them at once, since they left it go so long. 2. Over the time that you were allowed to continue with full knowledge of the company involved you made significant changes to the product and that it can no longer be said to be strictly the product of the company. Neither argument alone would be likely to persuade a judge, but the two together would force the judge to wonder if it is possible for a company to force a party to remove material that is no longer the product the company produces. Again, to bring suit the company has to show by preponderance of evidence that a violation of trademark or copyright is being commited such that they are being materially damaged. There is no other way for them to bring suit (and not have it laughed off as frivolous). I do not think this is as dark and gloomy as some might think. George ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joseph Elric Smith" To: Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2002 7:17 PM Subject: [MYSTARA] Mystara license and infrindgement > You can try that defense, but you will find I think that if and when they > want to go after the fans sites they can and. will. and if most of the fans > are a rude and mean spirited as the ones I have seen posting here, with > doom and gloom, and convicting Kenzer and Company with out a trial, who > would blame them for trying to shut off the spout of intolerance and hatred. > ken > > Gygax is to Gaming what Kirby was to comic > Alas poor Elric I was a thousand times more evil then you > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "George Hrabovsky" > > Your argument would be true if it were not for the fact that they have > > allowed it to occur for so long. They cannot ever allow it if they ever > want > > it to stop. This is why the movie company that put out Harry Potter had to > > stomp on kid sites, so that they would be able to stop pirates in the > > future. TSR and WATC have allowed the fan sites and made no effort to stop > > them, it would be difficult (if not impossible) to stop them now. Paranoia > > aside, the simple argument, "Why didn't you stop them before it got out of > > hand?" would be enough to kill any legal attempt at stopping the fan > sites. > > Also the company would have to literally track down and defeat each site > > one-at-a-time. This would mean dozens if not hundreds of law suits (and > > these aren't cheap either). I think that there are few companies that have > > the legal/financial resources to what you suggest. The investigation alone > > would cost in the thousands, each law suit would cost thousands, that > means > > there would be tens to perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to > > protect a dead product line. That just doesn't make sense. > > > > George > > > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > > ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 21:13:18 -0600 From: Web Warlock Subject: Re: Mystara license and infrindgement I am not trying to pick on you George, but there are some points that need to be made here. > > There are several legal points here, from the perspective of a writer: > > 1. There is NO way to copyright a name, ever. It can't be done. We can use > any name within the Mystara cosmos as freely as we like. We can even use > named principles freely. Almost true. Yes you cannot copyright a name. But a company can have trademarked intellectual property. Mystara is obviously the IP of Wizards. It does not matter if they develop anything for it or license it out to someone else. > > 2. The only time trademark infringement becomes an issue is when > you sell a > similar product. They key word here being sell. A lot of people think this, but it simply is not true. A company has to defend it's trademarks or it runs the risk of seeing these trademarks either lost or "watered down". This issue comes up all the time on the OGL lists and everyone game company rep on that lists says the same thing; it does not matter if you are making money or not. > > 3. While they may have a "license" to use the Mystara stuff for their own > purposes, this does not give them exclusive rights over the vast > quantity of net-based material that has existed from before the collapse of Mystara > within TSR to the present and into the future. The only case they > might have is if someone copies their material and publishes it on the web for free, > that would be piracy... They cannot use the webstuff. This is correct. Most companies would not want to. > > 4. The material on the web is copyrighted to the authors of that material. > TSR allowed Mystara to die out completely in, what? 1996? The net > community > has been actively developing the material for six years. I know > that I have > been developing Mystara stuff since 1986, and that I have put > some of it out > on the net. I can certainly argue in court that I have as much > right to the > material for non-profit purposes as anyone else. But you could lose. TSR may have dropped the Mystara line, but that did not in any way dilute their or now Wizard's legal claims to the IP. While you own material is your own, it is material built on a shaky foundation at best. Non-profit does not matter. If Wizards can show that they can not develop for Mystara (something they own and paid for) because of the overwhelming fan contributions (no influx of cash to them then), then a judge can shut you down. But even before that you would get a C&D letter from Wizards/Hasbro's lawyers, and so would your ISP. I have forgotten the countless sites that were shut down in the early 90's by TSR. Anybody remember when all of this had to be underground? How many of you had to get a password to Morpheus' "TSR free" site? > > 5. You can produce your own Mystara material so long as it neither > substantially copies what someone else does (or gives complete > credit if you > do so, with permission) and/or you have developed far more > material than you > have copied. For example, with my Borigon stuff, while it is true that I > have developed a guide to Karameikos for the Borigon system and have used > resources from the old stuff to do this. However, everything is > substantially changed and much has been added. While the flavor has been > kept, it is a different place. Or it could be argued that it is derivative. The question the courts will ask would have developed this the same way if you did not have access to the previous work. You can produce any and all the Mystara stuff you like, under the auspices of Wizards and their on-line use policy. If you go outside of the safe harbor of that policy, then you do run the risk of Wizards' legal reactions. > > To sum up, it would be difficult for anyone to force us to stop > what we have > been doing for years. TSR dropped the product line and then > allowed everyone > to develop it freely. I can only imagine the legal arguments that would be > required to shut us down... > > George > Difficult, but not impossible. To be perfectly honest TSR neither dropped the Mystara line, nor allowed anyone to free develop it. It was to them a dead line, but they still owned it. Fan created things for it as fans will do. Here is the point. Wizards is not going to go after fan sites. While they can and have every legal right to do so, they know they would shoot themselves in the foot. The gaming industry is not made of money, litigation costs everyone. Most of the developers are only a few years themselves of being "just a fan" themselves. But to pretend to hide under the umbrella of "of this is non-profit" or "I don't make any money from this" is not a stance you should take. Bottom Line. It does not matter what Kenzer Co. does with Mystara. When I started playing in Mystara all I had was module X1. Everything else I made up. I will still regard the fan stuff as my sources of "new" Mystara information. Warlock. -- Web Warlock web.warlock@attbi.com webwarlock@planetadnd.com Author, the Netbooks of Witches and Warlocks The Other Side: http://www.xtreme-gaming.com/theotherside/ The FanCC: http://www.enworld.org/fancc/ -- "If that is all the Gods can do then I'm over to the Dark Side so fast!" - Tom Servo, MST3k ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 21:34:52 -0600 From: George Hrabovsky Subject: Re: Mystara license and infrindgement Thanks for pointing out my mistake on point #2. One additional point that I would make about the whole thing is that for WoTC to act it must act as soon as it becomes aware of the problem, it cannot allow an activity to continue for several years and then try to stop it. It must also attack every instance of the problem occuring, it cannot single anyone out. At this point it would be nearly impossible for them to accomplish this without seeming to be picking on someone. If they intend to do this (and I doubt that they do) I think it is too late. Still, as you point out, it does not mean they can't do it... George ----- Original Message ----- From: "Web Warlock" To: Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2002 9:13 PM Subject: Re: [MYSTARA] Mystara license and infrindgement > I am not trying to pick on you George, but there are some points that need > to be made here. > > > > > > There are several legal points here, from the perspective of a writer: > > > > 1. There is NO way to copyright a name, ever. It can't be done. We can use > > any name within the Mystara cosmos as freely as we like. We can even use > > named principles freely. > > Almost true. Yes you cannot copyright a name. But a company can have > trademarked intellectual property. Mystara is obviously the IP of Wizards. > It does not matter if they develop anything for it or license it out to > someone else. > > > > > > 2. The only time trademark infringement becomes an issue is when > > you sell a > > similar product. They key word here being sell. > > A lot of people think this, but it simply is not true. A company has to > defend it's trademarks or it runs the risk of seeing these trademarks either > lost or "watered down". This issue comes up all the time on the OGL lists > and everyone game company rep on that lists says the same thing; it does not > matter if you are making money or not. > > > > > > 3. While they may have a "license" to use the Mystara stuff for their own > > purposes, this does not give them exclusive rights over the vast > > quantity of net-based material that has existed from before the collapse > of Mystara > > within TSR to the present and into the future. The only case they > > might have is if someone copies their material and publishes it on the web > for free, > > that would be piracy... > > They cannot use the webstuff. This is correct. Most companies would not want > to. > > > > > > 4. The material on the web is copyrighted to the authors of that material. > > TSR allowed Mystara to die out completely in, what? 1996? The net > > community > > has been actively developing the material for six years. I know > > that I have > > been developing Mystara stuff since 1986, and that I have put > > some of it out > > on the net. I can certainly argue in court that I have as much > > right to the > > material for non-profit purposes as anyone else. > > > But you could lose. TSR may have dropped the Mystara line, but that did not > in any way dilute their or now Wizard's legal claims to the IP. While you > own material is your own, it is material built on a shaky foundation at > best. > Non-profit does not matter. If Wizards can show that they can not develop > for Mystara (something they own and paid for) because of the overwhelming > fan contributions (no influx of cash to them then), then a judge can shut > you down. But even before that you would get a C&D letter from > Wizards/Hasbro's lawyers, and so would your ISP. I have forgotten the > countless sites that were shut down in the early 90's by TSR. Anybody > remember when all of this had to be underground? How many of you had to get > a password to Morpheus' "TSR free" site? > > > > > > 5. You can produce your own Mystara material so long as it neither > > substantially copies what someone else does (or gives complete > > credit if you > > do so, with permission) and/or you have developed far more > > material than you > > have copied. For example, with my Borigon stuff, while it is true that I > > have developed a guide to Karameikos for the Borigon system and have used > > resources from the old stuff to do this. However, everything is > > substantially changed and much has been added. While the flavor has been > > kept, it is a different place. > > > Or it could be argued that it is derivative. The question the courts will > ask would have developed this the same way if you did not have access to the > previous work. > > You can produce any and all the Mystara stuff you like, under the auspices > of Wizards and their on-line use policy. If you go outside of the safe > harbor of that policy, then you do run the risk of Wizards' legal reactions. > > > > > To sum up, it would be difficult for anyone to force us to stop > > what we have > > been doing for years. TSR dropped the product line and then > > allowed everyone > > to develop it freely. I can only imagine the legal arguments that would be > > required to shut us down... > > > > George > > > > Difficult, but not impossible. > To be perfectly honest TSR neither dropped the Mystara line, nor allowed > anyone to free develop it. It was to them a dead line, but they still owned > it. Fan created things for it as fans will do. > > Here is the point. > Wizards is not going to go after fan sites. While they can and have every > legal right to do so, they know they would shoot themselves in the foot. > The gaming industry is not made of money, litigation costs everyone. Most of > the developers are only a few years themselves of being "just a fan" > themselves. But to pretend to hide under the umbrella of "of this is > non-profit" or "I don't make any money from this" is not a stance you should > take. > > Bottom Line. > It does not matter what Kenzer Co. does with Mystara. When I started playing > in Mystara all I had was module X1. Everything else I made up. I will still > regard the fan stuff as my sources of "new" Mystara information. > > Warlock. > > -- > Web Warlock > web.warlock@attbi.com webwarlock@planetadnd.com > Author, the Netbooks of Witches and Warlocks > The Other Side: http://www.xtreme-gaming.com/theotherside/ > The FanCC: http://www.enworld.org/fancc/ > -- > "If that is all the Gods can do then I'm over to the Dark Side so fast!" - > Tom Servo, MST3k > > ******************************************************************** > The Other Worlds Homepage: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/OtherWorlds.asp > The Mystara Homepage: http://www.dnd.starflung.com/ > To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM > with UNSUB MYSTARA-L in the body of the message. > > ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 23:18:36 -0500 From: SteelAngel Subject: Re: Mystara license and infrindgement On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Joseph Elric Smith wrote: > doom and gloom, and convicting Kenzer and Company with out a trial, who > would blame them for trying to shut off the spout of intolerance and hatred. _riight_ Simply put, Mystara is our shared reality. We are a bit protective of it. And with more information brought to light, the torches can be put away. Ethan -- Kinard 210 Linux Guru Webmaster www.steelangel.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 23:24:51 -0500 From: SteelAngel Subject: Re: Mystara license and infrindgement On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Web Warlock wrote: > defend it's trademarks or it runs the risk of seeing these trademarks either > lost or "watered down". This issue comes up all the time on the OGL lists One can argue in court that the abandonment and lazzez faire attitude of fan-works using Mystara for the period of nearly seven years constitutes something. Especially if the defense lawyer uses the concept of "internet time". > But you could lose. TSR may have dropped the Mystara line, but that did not > in any way dilute their or now Wizard's legal claims to the IP. While you > own material is your own, it is material built on a shaky foundation at > best. Wizards owns the ip, but has effectively ignored it for a substantial amount of time. If you want to build a copyright case, you have to bang it out AS SOON AS you find infringement, not 7 years after. Also, the "other worlds" sites are tacit approval of fan works by WoTC. If that approval is there _even once_ for stan's site (at least). It has a very firm leg to stand on legally. Ethan -- Kinard 210 Linux Guru Webmaster www.steelangel.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 23:23:39 -0500 From: Mike Donnelly Jr Subject: Re: Mystara license and infrindgement I think this just points out why lawyers are the parasites of society at large. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 23:53:28 -0600 From: Roger Girtman Subject: Re: Mystara license and infrindgement

Jim Butler, at the time a WotC employee, gave verbal permission (via an interview) for the operation of D&D fan-sites (under the premises of not re-prininting complete products as a whole).  This was obviously done before Kenzer got their license.  Thusly, any attempt to reign legal fire and brimstone down on us would be "ex post facto" (after the fact) and would be thrown out of any court...

On the matter of what Kenzer is gonna so... Frankly I don't care... I'd like to think they'd improve or expand on what we have, but if they don't... so what? I just won't buy the products...

 

Dasvedania,

Roger
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------------------------------ End of MYSTARA-L Digest - 2 Feb 2002 to 3 Feb 2002 (#2002-34) *************************************************************