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...Partially because they released the reprints which not only generated its own excitements but reminded people who was the true heir to the D&D tradition.

Which just illustrates the goodwill that the original IP holder has over any third party competitor if the IP holder does good work.

Come on the reprints were just a gift to us old farts, I'm pretty sure they had little impact on the success of 5e or WotC's bottomline. It was mostly praised by the OSR crowd and we know the entire OSR makes up about 1/10th what WotC's 5e books sell.

It is good PR, good for the community of players, GMs and designers and important for historical purposes so something I 100 percent support (although where are our B/X POD?) but let's not toot our own horn too much here.
 
Come on the reprints were just a gift to us old farts, I'm pretty sure they had little impact on the success of 5e or WotC's bottomline. It was mostly praised by the OSR crowd and we know the entire OSR makes up about 1/10th what WotC's 5e books sell.

It is good PR, good for the community of players, GMs and designers and important for historical purposes so something I 100 percent support (although where are our B/X POD?) but let's not toot our own horn too much here.

It's just too bad they bungled the 2nd Edition reprints so badly
 
I did a term paper and presentation on the Copyright Extension Act this year for my Byusiness Law class, may be of interest to some folks:


AND THE MOUSE RAN AWAY WITH THE CHEESE

A Presentation on Intellectual Property Law​



SUMMARY

In 1998 The Copyright Term Extension Act (CETA) was passed into United States Law by the Senate and House, ratifying the previous Copyright terms set in 1909 and 1976 (“Copyright Term Extension Act”, n.d.) Known colloquially as “The Sonny Bono Act” or “The Mickey Mouse Protection Act”, the controversial bill extended the term of copyright protection from 50 years past the death of the author/creator to 75 years. This law was challenged in the Supreme Court by Eric Eldred and “a group of commercial and non-commercial interests who relied on the public domain for their work” (“Eldred v. Ashcroft”, n.d.).

PRIMARY LEGAL ISSUES

The Oxford Dictionary of Law defines copyright as “the exclusive and assignable legal right, given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material” (Oxford, n.d.). Copyright Laws originated with legal protections granted to book printers in the 18th century, and later extended to protect numerous forms of art, media, and performance (Rose, 1993). The first international standard for copyright was established by the Berne convention in 1886 (Fisher, 2019).

Originally, copyright in the U.S. lasted for 14 years (Schlackman, 2014). In 1909, the law was ratified to extend copyright protection for 28 years from the first year of publication, with the allowance of a renewal for an additional term of 28 years (Rose). In 1976 US copyright laws were amended to provide copyright protections lasting 50 years after the death of the original author or 75 years for corporate ownership (New York Law School Law Review, 1977).

In 1998, intensive political lobbying from multiple corporate copyright holders led to bill H.R. 2589 put before Congress. Introduced by Senator Howard Cable, he proposed the Bill be renamed the “Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act” after the late senator Sonny Bono, who had championed several similar bills prior to his death in January of that year (Carlisle, 2015). The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and House, and “was signed into law by President Clinton on October 27, 1998” (Schlackman).

The Copyright Term Extension Act extended the length of protection to 70 years after the author’s death, 90 years for corporations (Public Law 105-298).

Media derisively nicknamed it “The Mickey Mouse Protection Act”, as the Walt Disney company was one of the most tenacious advocates for the term extension, having poured substantial funds into lobbying for it from 1990, largely to prevent Mickey Mouse from entering into the public domain (Schlackman).

Despite the unanimous support in government for the bill, there was immediate and aggressive opposition in the press and by several advocacy groups. This culminated in the attempt at an injunction on enforcement of the act by a group of publishers, librarians, and non-commercial interests with Internet publisher Eric Eldred as the lead petitioner (“Eldred vs. Ashcroft”, n.d.).

The primary argument of Eldred’s side was that the extension of Copyright terms was unconstitutional, as it violated “both the Copyright Clause's "limited Times" prescription and the First Amendment's free speech guarantee” (Eldred vs. Ashcroft, 2003).

“The "limited Tim[e]" in effect when a copyright is secured, petitioners urge, becomes the constitutional boundary, a clear line beyond the power of Congress to extend. As to the First Amendment, petitioners contend that the CTEA is a content-neutral regulation of speech that fails inspection under the heightened judicial scrutiny appropriate for such regulations. (2003)”

Lawrence Lessig, a constitutional scholar who became the lead counsel for the case, explains the argument in much more detail:

“Every other clause granting power to Congress simply says Congress has the power to do something—for example, to regulate "commerce among the several states" or "declare War." But in the progress clause, the "something" is something quite specific—to "promote . . . Progress"—through means that are also specific—by "securing" "exclusive Rights" (i.e., copyrights) "for limited Times."

In my view, our constitutional system placed such a limit on copyright as a way to ensure that copyright holders do not too heavily influence the development and distribution of our culture. Yet, as Eldred discovered, copyrights have not expired, and will not expire, so long as Congress is free to be bought to extend them again. And while it is the valuable copyrights—Mickey Mouse and "Rhapsody in Blue"—that are responsible for terms being extended, the real harm done to society is not that Mickey Mouse remains Disney's… The real harm is to the works that are not famous, not commercially exploited, and no longer available as a result.

Of all the creative work produced by humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device. But even for that tiny fraction, the actual time during which the creative work has a commercial life is extremely short. Most books go out of print within one year. The same is true of music and film…when a creative work falls out of favor with the commercial distributors, the commercial life ends. Copyrights in this context do no good.

Yet for most of our history, they also did little harm. When a work ended its commercial life, there was no copyright-related use that would be inhibited by an exclusive right. When a book went out of print, you could not buy it from a publisher. But you could still buy it from a used bookstore, and when a used bookstore sells it, at least in the United States, there is no need to pay the copyright owner anything. Thus, the ordinary use of a book after its commercial life ended was a use that was independent of copyright law…Digital technologies have changed that. It is now possible to preserve and offer access to all sorts of knowledge. Digital technologies give new life to copyrighted material after it passes out of its commercial life.

And now copyright law does get in the way. Every step of producing this digital archive of our culture infringes on the exclusive right of copyright. To digitize a book is to copy it. To do that requires permission of the copyright owner. The same holds for music, film, and every other artifact of our culture protected by copyright. The effort to make these things available to history, or to researchers, or to those who just want to explore is now inhibited by a set of rules that were written for a radically different context” (Lessig, 2004)

Lessig further argued that copyright law is subject to scrutiny under the First Amendment, in order to ensure a balance between corporate interests and freedom of speech, and that CTEA violates the doctrine of Public Trust, which requires the government to prove a benefit to the public before transferring any public property into private ownership (Eldred, n.d.).

THE COURT’S DECISION

The original complaint was filed on January 11, 1999, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, with Judge June Green presiding. Green rejected the petitioner’s arguments, stating that “Congress had the power to extend terms as it wished, as long as the terms themselves were of limited duration”, and that the issue of Public Trust did not apply to copyright (Eldred, n.d.).

Moreover, Green rejected the argument regarding free speech based on her interpretation of the 1985 Supreme Court decision in Harper & Row vs Nation Enterprises, wherein it was decided that the value to the public in learning the opinion of a historical figure on a historical event was not protected by the Fair Use clause of material otherwise under copyright (Harper & Row, 1985).

In 2000, the plaintiffs filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, with the most significant difference in their case that they dropped the Public Trust argument. The plaintiffs also extended their argument regarding the Constitution’s copyright clause, arguing that term extensions to copyright do not meet the requirement that Congress promotes “the Progress of Science and useful Arts," (Article I Section 8).

On February 2001, the appeals court upheld the original ruling in a 2 to 1 decision. Judge David Sentelle was the dissenting opinion, agreeing with the plaintiff that the CTEA was unconstitutional in regards to the “limited time” requirement (Eldred, n.d.).

As a final recourse, Lessig filed a petition of Certiorari to the Supreme Court, which was granted in 2002.

Oral arguments were presented on October 9, 2002. Lead counsel for the plaintiff was Lawrence Lessig; the government's case was argued by Solicitor General Theodore Olson, with Attorney General John Ashcroft acting as defendant, and presided over by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, along with Associate Justices John P. Stevens; Sandra Day O'Connor; Antonin Scalia; Anthony Kennedy; David Souter; Clarence Thomas; Ruth Bader Ginsburg; and Stephen Breyer (Eldred vs. Ashcroft, 2003)

In 2003, the court reached its conclusion, dismissing the plaintiff’s claims and upholding the Copyright Term Extension Act as constitutional, in a 7-2 decision (2003).

The court’s decision was based upon “text, history, and precedent.” In this case the prior Copyright acts of 1976, 1909, and 1831, each of which extended the term of copyright protection granted. The court found that the extension of the term did not conflict with the Constitution’s edict of a “Time Limit”.

“Nothing before this Court warrants construction of the CTEA's 20-year term extension as a congressional attempt to evade or override the "limited Times" constraint. Critically, petitioners fail to show how the CTEA crosses a constitutionally significant threshold with respect to "limited Times" that the 1831, 1909, and 1976 Acts did not. Those earlier Acts did not create perpetual copyrights, and neither does the CTEA.” (2003)

Also referenced were cases of Patent Law, where terms were also extended, on the basis that copyrights and patents were analogous IP considerations (2003).

The court further rejected the argument that CTEA violated any part of the First Amendment, concluding that copyrights only cover one particular expression of an idea, rather than the ideas themselves, and Fair Use protections still exist (2003).

Another factor that Chief Justice William Rehnquist considered when making his decision is that the new copyright terms that CETA proscribed matched those standardized in Europe at the time, and that “CTEA may also provide greater incentive for … authors to create and disseminate their work in the United States” (2003)

PERSONAL EVALUATION

We are the first generation to deny our own culture to ourselves.”

- James Boyle, Professor of Law, Duke University


I chose this subject for my presentation as it’s an area of law that interests me greatly. Copyright laws were instituted with the intention of protecting the rights of creators, but over the last century my observation is that more often than not, they are abused to harm creators and benefit corporate interests. My personal belief is that copyright laws are contrary to public interest, antithetical to the advancement of art, and ultimately provide no net benefit to society.

As an avid comic book reader growing up, and someone with personal ties to that industry for several decades, I can think of no more illustrative example than that of the various creators of the characters currently forming the basis of multi-billion dollar media enterprises, who largely died in poverty, and some cases obscurity. Siegal and Shuster, the creators of Superman, made $100 off of their character in their lifetimes. Bill Finger, the co-creator of Batman and the Joker, passed away a complete unknown outside of a few fans, his name conspicuously absent from any of the multiple blockbuster films featuring his creations. Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-man, succumbed to mental illness alone in a small tenement building while Disney made a fortune off of his ideas. Copyright laws at no point served their intended purpose to protect these creators or ensure their rights to profit from their creations. These examples represent only one isolated industry that I happen to know well.

That brings us to Disney itself, which swallowed up Marvel in the late 90s, along with multiple other IPs, from Star Wars to Fox Studios. The irony of the alternating names for CTEA as “The Sonny Bono Act” and the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” is only truly understood with the revelation that Sonny Bono was receiving several thousands of dollars a year from Disney as part of it’s political lobbying, Indeed of the Senators that passed the CTEA, 10 out of 13 are known as recipients of payments from Disney, the largest amounts not uncoincidentally attributed to “Representative Cole, who sponsored the bill and Howard Berman, a co-sponsor of the bill” (Carlisle, 2015).

The underlying motive is recognized of course that Disney does not want Mickey Mouse to enter into the public domain. One might mistake this motivation as understandable, if self-serving, but there is a further twist in this story. Disney did not create Mickey Mouse, but instead stole him from the young animator Ub Iwerks, once Walt Disney’s partner, since largely erased from history through the efforts of Disney himself. It was Iwerks that animated “Steamboat Willie”, the cartoon that launched the Disney empire in 1928, the date that the Disney corporation lobbies constantly to prevent the public domain catching up to. Iwerks received a $3000 payoff, not an insignificant sum in that era, but peanuts when compared to the value of the Mickey Mouse copyright over the last century (Ryan, 2018).

We are currently 2 years away from the new date; post the adoption of the CTEA; that Mickey Mouses’ inaugural animation once again faces entering the public domain. I am curious to see if a new revision extending the copyright term further is on the horizon.

In 2012, Christopher Buccafusco of the Cardozo School of Law and Paul J. Heald of Glasgow University tested the three primary justifications for copyright extension – specifically that “public domain works will be underutilized and less available, will be oversaturated by poor quality copies, and poor quality derivative works will harm the reputation of the original works” (all justifications voiced during the CTEA Senate hearings) (Eldred, n.d.). Their findings found no evidence to support the claims (Eldred, n.d.)

Additionally, since the 1980s, the practice of “IP Hoarding” and “Patent Trolls” have increased in prevalence, companies that will purchase and sit on copyrights and patents, waiting for the opportunity to bring litigation against any work that bears a passing resemblance to their IP,. They are known for “attempts to enforce [Intellectual Property Rights] against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or contribution to the prior art, often through hardball legal tactics” (Kenton, 2020).

The concept of copyright is ingrained in our culture to the point that it is rarely questioned in Western society, seemingly ignoring that the concept of “Intellectual Property” is a relatively new invention. Constantly re-told and re-imagined authorial works pre-dating the modern age such as the Arthurian legends, the Greco-Roman myths, or the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm constantly repudiate the notion that the public domain diminishes the cultural value of creations. Meanwhile, the news is thick with stories of copyright used as a bludgeon by corporations to suppress the artistic creations of individuals. That the vast majority of artistic creations of the 20th century remain unavailable to the public, stored away either simply because they are not deemed profitable or as the impetus for the attempt to profit from litigation rather production and distribution.

In other words, copyright laws are holding our culture hostage, the mythology of our generation owned by corporate entities, the fairy tales of our childhood exploited for nostalgia-driven cash grabs wherein artistic expression or value is secondary to mass marketing, and a tragic majority of the authors and artists the laws intend to protect are neglected and abused.



REFERENCES

Carlisle, Stephen. (2015). The Shocking Truth Behind the Passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension. Nova
Southeastern University. Retrieved from: http://copyright.nova.edu/sonny-bono-copyright-extension/

Copyright [Def.1]. (n.d.) Oxford English Dictionary Online. Retrieved from:

Copyright Term Extension Act. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Last edited January 8, 2020. Retrieved from:

Eldred vs. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186. (2003). Justia Opinion Summary and Annotations. D.C. Cir. Retrieved from:

Eldred vs. Ashcroft. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Last edited December 5, 2019. Retrieved from:

Fisher, William Weston. (2019). Copyright: Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from:

Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985). Justia Opinion Summary and Annotations. D.C. Cir.
Retrieved from: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/471/539/

Kenton, Will. (2020). Patent Troll. Investopedia. Retrieved from: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/patent-
troll.asp

Lessig, Lawrence. (2004). How I Lost the Big One. Legal Affairs. Retrieved from:

New York Law School Law Review. (1977). The Complete Guide to the New Copyright Law. Lorenz Press Inc.

“Public Law 105-298: Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998.” (112 Stat. 2827; Date: 10/7/1998). Text from: United
States Public Laws. Retrieved from: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-105publ298/pdf/PLAW-105publ298.pdf

Rose, Mark. (1993). Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright. Harvard University Press.

Ryan, Jeff. (2018). A Mouse Divided: How Ub Iwerks Became Forgotten, and Walt Disney Became Uncle Walt. Post
Hill Press.

Schlackman, Steve. (2014). How Mickey Mouse Keeps Changing Copyright Law. Artrepreneur Art Law Journal.
Retrieved from: https://alj.artrepreneur.com/mickey-mouse-keeps-changing-copyright-law/

U.S. Copyright Office (2011). Circular 15A: Duration of Copyright (15A.0811). Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O.
Retrieved from: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf
 
It's just too bad they bungled the 2nd Edition reprints so badly

I'd have preferred the 1e reprints with the original or orange spine covers as well.

It would be cool is Chaosium did some reprints of the 1e CoC or Pendragon as well although since I believe they were box sets that may be impracticable. Bit hey they had Pendragon 1e free on pdf for a while so hard to complain!
 
I did a term paper and presentation on the Copyright Extension Act this year for my Byusiness Law class, may be of interest to some folks:


AND THE MOUSE RAN AWAY WITH THE CHEESE

A Presentation on Intellectual Property Law​

I just finished reading a cultural history of 19th century Europe, The Europeans by Orlando Figes and it is a wide-ranging book but he covers the issue of copyright and its development throughout the century and one thing that comes through is how much artists, not just writers but the great composers of opera and art music, were regularly screwed by the lack of copyright.

From that book it was pretty clear that the original intention of copyright was to not only give the artist and their (immediate) family reasonable compensation for their work but also to prevent being ripped off by rampant piracy and shitty translations of their works.

Corporate copyright is obviously out of control but I also can't help but feel that via online 'sharing' we're returning all artists back to the days when only independent men of means could afford to be artists.
 
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I just finished reading a cultural history of 19th century Europe, The Europeans by Orlando Figes and it is a wide-ranging book but he covers the issue of copyright and its development throughout the century and ine thing that comes through is how much artists, not just writers but the great composers of opera and art music, were regularly screwed by the lack of copyright.

From that book it was pretty clear that the original intention of copyright was to not only give the artist and their (immediate) family reasonable compensation for their work but also to prevent being ripped off by rampant piracy and shitty translations of their works.

Corporate copyright is obviously out of control but I also can't help but feel that via online 'sharing' we're returning all artists back to the days when only independent men of means could afford to be artists.


I don't advocate for no copyrights, I just think the laws need to be seriously altered to actually protect artists.
 
No one in their right mind would work with the BRP OGL as presented


Agreed and seconded. I can see some desperate enough to want to get their work published possibly use it. Myself and many others NO WAY. Especially given how NuChaosium has handled the matter publicly and more importantly for thinking they could have pulled a fast one with their "OGL" and thought no one would notice.
 
However what Sommerjon doesn't get that in addition that is I advocate and encourage the use and creation of open content across the board. I believe it is a benefit to the industry and hobby as it allows systems not in the top tier of sales to punch up from their weight category. The system fans are free to create content that expands the variety and quantity of product for the system beyond what one company's staff can do.

As far the issues with 3.5, 4.e and Pathfinder. People forget that Wizards did multiple things to give Paizo the opportunity to be the market leader. That Paizo got to be the market leader because they did quality work with 3.5e rule turning it into Pathfinder. Finally when Wizards got over themselves and buckled down to do a good job with 5th edition they regained the market lead. Partially because they released the reprints which not only generated its own excitements but reminded people who was the true heir to the D&D tradition.

Which just illustrates the goodwill that the original IP holder has over any third party competitor if the IP holder does good work.
No, Sommerjon doesn't give a flip what you advocate.

I am one of those that would rather stand on my own and fail then somewhat succeed off the teat of someone else. YMMV
 
I'd have preferred the 1e reprints with the original or orange spine covers as well.

Yep. If that were an option on the POD versions on DTRPG, I'd buy another set.

Another thing that would be cool would be a POD version of Fiend Folio with the option to give it an orange spine cover with the updated cover art (the Githyanki piece that was eventually used on Tales of the Outer Planes).
 
Especially given how NuChaosium has handled the matter publicly and more importantly for thinking they could have pulled a fast one with their "OGL" and thought no one would notice.
The BRP OGL, whether you love it, hate it, or don't care about it, has never been an attempt by Chaosium to "pull a fast one".
 
The BRP OGL, whether you love it, hate it, or don't care about it, has never been an attempt by Chaosium to "pull a fast one".
Probably not. But when so many content creators seem to think it's not fit for the stated purpose, I find myself wondering from the sidelines how it will benefit me, the consumer.
 
I am one of those that would rather stand on my own and fail then somewhat succeed off the teat of someone else. YMMV

What are you referencing here? Have you published your own game system?
 
No, Sommerjon doesn't give a flip what you advocate.
Then why respond to me at all?

I am one of those that would rather stand on my own and fail then somewhat succeed off the teat of someone else. YMMV
Then don't use Gilgamesh, the Illiad, the Odyssey and work on something completely original without any foundation in the work of others. My view is that culture including gaming is our common heritage with each of us taking from, building on and contributing to the pool. Gaming is no different in this regard. The fact we give an exclusive right to authors to profit and control their work is to foster this pool however in the end everybody work will go into this pool for other to use in the way they see fit.

So taking the stand that somehow it more pure to go at it along is disingenuous and fails to acknowledge the shoulders we all stand on when we create our own material.
 
Corporate copyright is obviously out of control but I also can't help but feel that via online 'sharing' we're returning all artists back to the days when only independent men of means could afford to be artists.
The difference is that as result of digital technology not only the means of production are far more accessible and affordable, the ability for people to become patrons and support their favorite authors and artists.

However it not without its downside, before middlemen companies allowed talented people to focus solely on creating material and art. The authors didn't have to handle the logistics so to speak. Now in the new world, authors and artists have to be able to sell and be organized enough to handle some if not all of the logistic. So the skill set for a successful author/artist has shifted a lot.

But again, new categories of businesses are springing up like fulfillment houses and ad-hoc collaborations that may address in a way that is effective but different.
 
The BRP OGL, whether you love it, hate it, or don't care about it, has never been an attempt by Chaosium to "pull a fast one".
The issue is not about pulling a fast one, it about the staff putting out something thinking that it would be well-received and it is turning out that it isn't. Yes there is a lot of static but there are also input that illustrates the issues of the license. I feel bad that the reception is a disappointment but from personal experience the best course forward is to listen and fix the issues being brought up. Not deny there is a issue or complain about the other "guy" i.e. the Legend Open Content and Mongoose.
 
The BRP OGL, whether you love it, hate it, or don't care about it, has never been an attempt by Chaosium to "pull a fast one".
I wouldn't say it was intentionally deceptive but it is in practice deceptive. They are using Open in very different way than most people are used to.
The BRP OGL, whether you love it, hate it, or don't care about it, has never been an attempt by Chaosium to "pull a fast one".
I think there would have been a lot less to complain about if they had not chosen the word Open on their license name. It is far from the spirit of that term as it has applied to Open in the Open source movement from which the WotC OGL is inspired by.
In that regard BRP OGL is deceptive as it trades on a movement perhaps unintentionally that it's not confirming to
 
With regards to Pendragon, Peter Corless (not Paul Cockburn) loaned Chaosium some money when they were almost bankrupt after Mythos card game sales tanked. It was originally going to be an unsecured loan, but Chaosium decided to put up the Pendragon IP as security anyway. After a short amount of time had passed, Chaosium informed Peter they were not going to repay the loan, and transferred the Pendragon IP to Peter Corless. As you might imagine, this was something that Greg Stafford was not at all happy with. He was voted down. It was one of the factors that led him to resign from the company he had founded over 20 years earlier. Greg's separation agreement included all Gloranthan IP reverting to him.

Very interesting. I knew something about the subject but not all of these details. This explains a lot of things that were not 100% clear to me before.
 
I don't advocate for no copyrights, I just think the laws need to be seriously altered to actually protect artists.

On the bright side, they didn't try and extend copyright again in the USA, because there are now many groups who were willing and able (ie as in funded) to take the fight to the corporations this time around. They blinked, and we won't see that again for some time (if at all). I think many will just cling to their trademarks, and enforce those (though some will likely try and use them also for copyright, and might get away with it a few times before someone lets it go to court and they get embarrassed). The public domain groups I'm in on facebook had a lot of discussions about that at the end of last year through now. It's pretty interesting stuff
 
Riders of R'lyeh would be my favorite version of CoC on account of being Mythras Cthulhu but starting PCs are a dash too badass for my tastes. (Also the whole "using large chunks of RQ6/Mythras without talking to TDM at all" thing was... not great. Still, I hope Quentin's in better health.)

I just started to wade through Raiders this morning after you brought it up. It’s a lovely tome (I have it in PDF only). I was thinking it would be worth hacking to do an Old West version.
 
I don't advocate for no copyrights, I just think the laws need to be seriously altered to actually protect artists.
Copyright law works just fine. The problem is people make poor choices and then want someone to blame. All an artist needs to do is copyright his creations instead of choosing to sell his rights to someone else. Then license it out. Compare the Rolling Stones' income from LPs with Decca compared to Beatles' income from LPs with their label.
 
Copyright law works just fine. The problem is people make poor choices and then want someone to blame. All an artist needs to do is copyright his creations instead of choosing to sell his rights to someone else. Then license it out. Compare the Rolling Stones' income from LPs with Decca compared to Beatles' income from LPs with their label.
That is an area for artist improvement but I agree with TristramEvans TristramEvans copyright has been over expanded. I fair to see why society needs to give this expansive a legal right to creators as an incentive to create
 
That is an area for artist improvement but I agree with TristramEvans TristramEvans copyright has been over expanded. I fair to see why society needs to give this expansive a legal right to creators as an incentive to create
I fail to see why the collective believes it has a right take ownership of something it didn't create.
 
I fail to see why the collective believes it has a right take ownership of something it didn't create.

As opposed to corporations owning ideas they didnt create?

The copyright extension act has NOTHING to do with creators, by its very nature. Its copyright terms, AFTER the creators are dead
 
I think the initial goal was to make sure the creator and his immediate family were justly compensated for their works during their lifetime. If they made a fortune, that could be passed on to their heirs. I don’t think copyright was meant for great-great grandchildren to keep collecting, or for corporations to buy out a creator and make profits for generations
 
I think the initial goal was to make sure the creator and his immediate family were justly compensated for their works during their lifetime. If they made a fortune, that could be passed on to their heirs. I don’t think copyright was meant for great-great grandchildren to keep collecting, or for corporations to buy out a creator and make profits for generations.


Yeah, hence the original law in the States was 14 year terms, renewable once in the creator's lifetime
 
There is a place though for arguments to be made where creators like Siegel and Shuster got ripped off and their descendants think they weren’t justly compensated and they can prove it.
 
There is a place though for arguments to be made where creators like Siegel and Shuster got ripped off and their descendants think they weren’t justly compensated and they can prove it.

well, that's why I think copyrights should be non-transferrable during the creator's lifetime
 
I fail to see why the collective believes it has a right take ownership of something it didn't create.
Because they are trading you the right to use their legal system and enforcement paid by all of them in exchange for a time limited right. Want total control. Cool. Go get your personal police force to protect it
 
well, that's why I think copyrights should be non-transferrable during the creator's lifetime

That would have certainly helped Brian Wilson (from The Beach Boys) out when his father sold the rights to all the songs he had written up to that point for a pittance (1969, when Brian was 27). It helped push Brian into an even further horrible mental state and cost him millions of dollars in lost income.
 
That would have certainly helped Brian Wilson (from The Beach Boys) out when his father sold the rights to all the songs he had written up to that point for a pittance (1969, when Brian was 27). It helped push Brian into an even further horrible mental state and cost him millions of dollars in lost income.

The more I investigated copyright law, the more I just saw story after story of creators getting screwed, often dying in poverty, while parasites got rich off of their ideas
 
The more I investigated copyright law, the more I just saw story after story of creators getting screwed, often dying in poverty, while parasites got rich off of their ideas
I'm not sure you can stop that ultimately. If no one else can profit off it but the creator then no one has incentive to help them profit. If others can then there's almost always going to be some way to screw them.
 
I'm not sure you can stop that ultimately. If no one else can profit off it but the creator then no one has incentive to help them profit. If others can then there's almost always going to be some way to screw them.
Non-transferable rights doesn't mean they can't be licensed. Just as even exclusive licenses don't mean they can't be renegotiated on the grounds of the reward being unfair to the artist:wink:.
 
I just started to wade through Raiders this morning after you brought it up. It’s a lovely tome (I have it in PDF only). I was thinking it would be worth hacking to do an Old West version.

I like how Raiders repurposes RQ6 for Cthulhiana & Yog-Sothothery; I'm less enthusastic about how badass starting PCs are. (Do not "Pulp Cthulhu" me. I promise it will end badly.)

How cool would it be if TDM released their own Cthulhu-by-way-of-Mythras supplement? Hell, Monster Island seems tailor-made for this sort of game.
 
Non-transferable rights doesn't mean they can't be licensed. Just as even exclusive licenses don't mean they can't be renegotiated on the grounds of the reward being unfair to the artist:wink:.


that was my thinking.

I'm not expecting perfection, I just think there are obviously better alternatives to the current situation.
 
That would have certainly helped Brian Wilson (from The Beach Boys) out when his father sold the rights to all the songs he had written up to that point for a pittance (1969, when Brian was 27). It helped push Brian into an even further horrible mental state and cost him millions of dollars in lost income.

When VH1 used to do Behind the Music, I saw the one on TLC. They broke down how they could be a multi-platinum selling group, and yet still be broke. All the things a record company will bill a band for before they see a single penny is fucked up. That's why keeping their publishing and merchandising rights is what helps a band. Hell, when some bands go on tour, you get a free cd for attending a concert (this happened to me when I saw Babymetal and Nightwish). A friend of mine who writes for an online metal site told me the labels now count those as sales
 
When VH1 used to do Behind the Music, I saw the one on TLC. They broke down how they could be a multi-platinum selling group, and yet still be broke. All the things a record company will bill a band for before they see a single penny is fucked up. That's why keeping their publishing and merchandising rights is what helps a band. Hell, when some bands go on tour, you get a free cd for attending a concert (this happened to me when I saw Babymetal and Nightwish). A friend of mine who writes for an online metal site told me the labels now count those as sales
When a label discusses their plans for he next 12 months, the artists are not even a factor. Misinterpretation is an industry where the creators are not considered important by the people actually makin money.
 
I fail to see why the collective believes it has a right take ownership of something it didn't create.
Because nobody creates in a vacuum. The natural state is for people to make up creative shit they think is fun from the material. Copyright started out as a form of censorship by the crowned heads of Europe, then morphed into yet another way to grant a monopoly and finally by the early 19th century into the form where author are given control in order to make a profit.

I am favor of a strict copyright for a limited time. However afterward the work is made public domain and returned to pool for other use or build as the original author stood on the shoulder of those who came before him.
 
I think it's quite hard to get it right. I suspect in 1930 the amount paid for a comic hero like Superman seemed reasonable given the then idea that this was a disposable thing marketed to children and not some wonder IP that would tune out decades later to be worth a substantial sum.

It reminds me of me asking my dad if he had professional insurance.

He said he could design a $50 part that could sink a ship. Every time he talked to an insurance company about insuring it the price was so high he would never be able to work with what they needed to charge him. His solution was be mostly broke. It worked beautifully. He's still working at 82.
 
The more I investigated copyright law, the more I just saw story after story of creators getting screwed, often dying in poverty, while parasites got rich off of their ideas
This observation is the result of copyright's legacy as a form of censorship and as a monopolistic award by the crowned heads of Europe.
 
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