Know Your Rights: Copyright Laws

[kalmarjan]

Okay, so I am not going to go further than this last post, and I hope to put to rest this issue.

Le Sigh,
It angers me to no end, that after serving in the military to secure the freedoms of the people, people will not educate them selves on their rights. And even when clear cut, well defined terms are placed in front of them provided from concretely reliable sources they still wont accept fact as fact. There is no debate here.

I understand where you are coming from. Part of educating yourself of all rights is COMPLETELY understanding what you are educating yourself on. It is one thing to partially understand something, it is quite another to spell it off as gospel. In your posting you alluded to several facts of copyright law, omiting key points. If it angers you to no end that people will not educate themselves over the finer points of copyright, be sure you are in a position of understanding before you post and/or make comments that may or may not damage the community.

See, my whole point here is not to personally attack you, it is to ensure that the community here is in good standing.

First my avatar real fast represents one frame from the original film consisting of more than a million frames. No judge would accept it as copyright infringement based on the fact that it in no way represents the whole of the matter that it is from. But if it offends you so, I will change my Avatar yet again to an Image I do own the rights to. But I promise you, people here are going to take issue with the images that I own right to as well.

I said the same thing in my post. Read it again. Your avatar does not offend me, again, I am not necessarily attacking you, I am just pointing out some flaws in what you are saying.

As far as my point here with the original post, it was more to make people aware that they can make Rulesets for Fantasy Grounds without any real fear. Wizards of the Coast and their open game license isn't the only things we are limited to people. We could make for instance a GURPS ruleset for FGII. It couldn't include the actual text of the GURPS books as a whole, but it can hold a character record sheet and the ability to confirm rolls.

It has been maintained for quite a while here that you are free to develop whatever ruleset you like. In fact, the program platform has been open from the beginning. The problem comes with distribution of said ruleset. You can do anything you like for personal use, you just CANNOT post it up as a download. A character sheet is fine, as you would still need the rules to play. As for automated rolls, that is a different story. The best option is to check with the original creators of the game. You will always know where you stand then.

Look at it this way, you have said before that you have a site that is affiliated with the porno industry. Would you accept someone posting your content for free on another site? Bypassing your payment scheme? Would you accept fair use clauses? Perhaps if they darkened the images a little bit, or added something text wise to it, in your book that would make it okay, right?

I have a feeling I know what your answer would be, (I obviously cannot answer for you ) I guess then that what fits the goose, also fits the gander right?

Now off to make my avatar something I own the copyrights to, I give it an hour max before an admin asks me to change my avatar. :-)

Hmm... offensive? Not to me. I could care less what you post as an avatar. Again, I only ask that before you go on speaking about copyrights and how it affects the FG community, please be informed correctly of what you are speaking of.

Every six months or so, this issue comes up. It always goes back to the same result. No matter how you kick, scream, yell or whatever, the copyright laws are there.

Are they fair? Who knows. Ask the poor guys making a documentary how much stuff they have to cut out of their films because something falls under copyright, and that they have no license to distribute. Again, maybe not fair, but it is the law.

Perhaps if you really want some change...instead of using the FG boards for a platform about copyright... write your congressman and try and get changes you want.

Finally, if you are doing nothing wrong, you know your rights, and no one can touch you, why require registration on your site that distributes FG-centric items via download? Why deny me because "you work for Digital Adventures?" What are you afraid of?

Cheers,

Sandeman

[jthm0138]

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[jthm0138]

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[Master]

I check these forums from work and while I do not find your avatar offensive my it's contents are such that I could loose my job for having the image displayed on my computer.

Is it your purposed to cause problems? I guess this community is not mature enough to respect others. If I cant find a way to turn off images and avatars I may not be back to this site.

[sloejack]

It's probably best to ignore this troll (and his posts). Threads like this are counter productive and destructive to the community in general. Hopefully the moderators will deal with it and him appropriately.

To the original poster, your argument would be better if you hadn't presented and defended it with half truths and opinion that you're trying to pass off as law and fact.

[jthm0138]

Post removed by user.

I have gotten to the point where I would like a refund of all the money I have spent on fantasy grounds. Without the community the application is worthless, and the community at large is starting to look beyond worthless. It is looking as tho it might be time for my gamers and myself to look into other options for virtual tabletop emulation. I know at this point I am removing all of my reviews of the fantasy grounds application, and suggesting that my customers avoid this community at all costs.

[Malovech]

It's probably best to ignore this troll (and his posts). Threads like this are counter productive and destructive to the community in general. Hopefully the moderators will deal with it and him appropriately.

To the original poster, your argument would be better if you hadn't presented and defended it with half truths and opinion that you're trying to pass off as law and fact.

Yup the ignorelist is there for a reason folks. Though I have to say, it's the first time I've used it on, what is usually, a very civil forum.

[Master]

I actually think the community as a hole is knowledgeable and helpful in many respects. You on the other hand... I hope you find what you are looking for... elsewhere.

[Ged]

I for one, initially, enjoyed this discussion. Exhanging opinions and information on this topic was constructive and informative. I'm disappointed that it ended the way it did. There was not much alternatives to banning the user because his deletion of most of the posts invalidated a number of threads and his behaviour was also unacceptable for these message boards.

[robocoastie]

Trademark protection is the (or one of the) other side(s) of the coin. And from Fantasy Grounds's perspective, it is the one that makes things less than clear. I have found THIS page an accessible introduction to trademark issues. While it is not legal text, and it is the view of its author, I have found that it agrees with most other texts on trademarks, i.e. it seems to be valid. I am not a lawyer nor a US citizen, thus my knowledge on the US jurisdiction and legal system is limited; I do not, for instance, know how strong argument is freedom of speech, as in the First Amendment, in a trademark dispute.

To compare copyright and trademark in Fantasy Grounds and www.fantasygrounds.com context, here are a few points (open to discussion):

• taking someone's text (author's expression) is directly against copyright law
• making a character sheet or system mechanics for system X is not against copyright law
• it is all right to say "with this product you can play the world's most popular RPG"
• you can't name anything you produce after a trademarked name (trademark dilution)
• nominative fair use and non-commercial use might both limit the trademark protection in most of the cases of community creations, where copyrights have not been violated
• the d20 license allows the use of the d20 logo and the use of the System Reference Document (SRD) is governed by the Open Gaming License. The explicit licenses and the fulfilling of the license conditions allow for the use of SRD and the d20 logo, even though they are protected by copyright and trademark, respectively

I'd also like to point out that, while community members cannot protect other parties' trademarks, they can try to help the community maintain a positive and respectful reputation towards trademark holders.

I wish that next someone here would write a commentary on the relevancy of patents for games and game mechanics. Of course, patent rights are not automatically generated and are in other ways much clearer as well.

you know Ged I just accidently stumbled into this thread (and wish I hadn't even) but you are acting extremely the opposite and have given absolutely NO ground on your stances despite supposedly admitting that you really don't know what the heck you're talking about. In fact I see that you should be disappointed in yourself for taking the discussion as it did. If you enjoyed the discussion it's because you acted like a pompous know it all ******* who pats himself on the back after everything he says.

This is from an outsider of the conversation looking in after only a few minutes. Which ordinarily would mean that you need to re-evaluate how you respond toward others opinions; but given the way you acted in this thread I don't expect you to do that all.