Know Your Rights: Copyright Laws

[joshuha]

I would like to point out this thread had nothing to do with this user's banning. The copyright discussion was mostly civil. Threats and other actions from the user lead to the banning from my understanding of the situation.

[sloejack]

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.

If this is your "outsider" view, perhaps you could quote the response you're taking exception to. From what's left of this thread, and especially the part you quoted, I don't see anything wrong with what appears to be a fairly basic understanding of copyright laws expressed as they're understood from Smitework's perspective in relation to Fantasy Grounds. Looking at Ged's other post I don't see anything offensive or that breaks with my basic understanding of intellectual property copyright and trademark.

I don't think attacking anyone with generalities is going to help here, so unless you've got a specific, referenceable issue with what has been written, I'm not sure what value your addition to this thread has.

To contribute to the linkage here though, I dug through my board game designing links and found this site which has some good information that it's culled targeted towards board games and rpgs presumably without bias which I would tend to agree with, and that site itself has a number of other links for various sources including the US patent and trademark office.

[kalmarjan]

Unfortunately, this thread looks to have degenerated to name calling. (Calling someone a pompous you-know-what is not exactly my form of civil discussion.) What started out with a discussion on the finer points the OP laid out, the subsequent seeming withdrawal of the OP from this community has now gone way of the mean, I fear.

We could go on for days about what is "legal" what is not, "fair use", "derivative works", etc. The point is moot though because in the end it really is up to the copyright holder to enforce their rights, or they stand the chance of losing them.

While it may come off as unfair to a lot of people, and there may be moral objections to the concept of copyright, it is what it is, and so far, nothing has changed in that respect.

I would like to see the firestorm die with this thread. I am not afraid to speak about copyright, or debate about it. I will give try you an informed opinion, and I will always back up what I am saying with references. I will not resort to name calling, as I believe that goes against the spirit of this community.

Sandeman

[Ged]

I would like to point out this thread had nothing to do with this user's banning. The copyright discussion was mostly civil. Threats and other actions from the user lead to the banning from my understanding of the situation.

In deed, and I was disappointed that the discussion ended in the removal of many posts, which were all relevant to the discussion..., not that something that was said was against my view.

Anyway, let's put all this behind now. If somebody feels that the copyright issues must be discussed further at this point, please start a new thread.