Well the chain of events leading to a game company trying to acquire the SF title or more lead to WOTC putting scans of all the Star Frontiers product up on Drive-Thru.

They then ended the agreement with the Star Frontiers community and all the PDFs are gone from the site. They also ordered the removal from Drive-Thru of the Star Frontiersman fan magazine. (and apparently disallowing new publications?) But the PDF are ok on their site.

Pretty strange odyssey for the game.

I do not know the history so this question may be stupid: could it be a sign that WotC is going to do their own version, maybe a 5e in space? Or do they not have clear rights to the material either?

Quote from: KingofElfland;1056617I do not know the history so this question may be stupid: could it be a sign that WotC is going to do their own version, maybe a 5e in space? Or do they not have clear rights to the material either?

SF was basically abandoned post-WotC.  They made a deal with some fans to allow total PDFs (and I might add, not very good ones) to be hosted on a 3rd party website.  Then they said "Hey, no tongue!" and put them up on DTRPG but still allowed the fans to do their thing.  What it appears like now is a 3rd party is trying to acquire the game, lock, stock and barrel and WotC, never known to turn down a quick buck (this is not a slam), said sure.  The 3rd party, I'm sure, said "Well if we're going to make a go  at this we can't sell what you're giving away for next to nothing or for totally free..." so they took it down in advance of the pending sale.  That's what I'm getting out of this.

Sounds to me like a typical licensing thing.

The new owners want to make money so they tell people hosting free copies of the PDFs to stop that so everyone will have to buy the PDFs from a licensed distribution service. I see nothing wrong with this since this is a niche business and all. It isn't like they sent a cease and desist, did they?

The new owners tell the fanzine to stop selling on DriveThruRPG, but their personal websites are still okay handing out the zine. I see nothing wrong with this since trademark law requires you to defend your trademarks to keep them. If anybody could use the Star Frontier trademark then it would lose its value.

I don't think it is anything to be worried about. The new owners are probably just worried about how wonky copyright/trademark law is becoming and are trying to prevent any future problems. I expect they will hash out some kind of free license in the future to deal with this stuff.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1056627I don't think it is anything to be worried about. The new owners are probably just worried about how wonky copyright/trademark law is becoming and are trying to prevent any future problems. I expect they will hash out some kind of free license in the future to deal with this stuff.

And this is something that can be squarely laid at the feet of Disney, whose efforts to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain result in armies of lawyers descending on Washington to lobby for extending the rights of the creators (or by this point their grandchildren) another decade or two.

I'm mainly familiar with it because the release of "Steamboat Willie" is close enough to the release of Action Comics #1 that Superman rights always get sucked into the debate as well, particularly since part of those rights currently belong to an actual bloodsucking lawyer who tries to re-litigate every time the laws change, mostly, it seems, because DC/WB is willing to throw out a settlement offer to not have to deal with it until the next time Disney needs the copyright laws updated for their personal gain.

Honestly, if you didn't create the IP yourself in the gaming industry you're probably better off without it. Every company I've ever seen rely on someone else's IP ends up hosed when outside factors end the license and they have to liquidate all their remaining stocks inside a narrow window (often taking a bath because some money is better than no money) before they can't do anything other than destroy what's left.

The lure of instant brand recognition is strong, but gaming history is littered with the ruins of companies that relied on 3rd party IPs for the bulk of their profits.

I've said it before.  I'll say it again.  And I'll keep on saying it when the idiots at WotC make a 5e D&D Star Frontiers:

Keep the mechanics, possibly make 1/2 stat + 10 x skill a standard rule and change the various tasks to modifiers, reduce the prerequisites for ship skills, make incapacitation for damage over 1/2 Stamina standard to keep fights from dragging out, integrate all the creatures from the modules into the core, possibly make saurians playable characters, integrate Tanks A Lot and Powered Armour from Dragon's Aries section, integrate Knight Hawks.  But that's it, change nothing else, maybe not even those, but that's the limit.  And for pete's sake, hire Larry Elmore to illustrate the whole thing in colour.

What new owners? Wizards of the Coast is still selling Star Frontiers: Alpha Dawn on DTRPG. There's no indication the license changed hands.

Quote from: David Johansen;1056653I've said it before.  I'll say it again.  And I'll keep on saying it when the idiots at WotC make a 5e D&D Star Frontiers:

Keep the mechanics, possibly make 1/2 stat + 10 x skill a standard rule and change the various tasks to modifiers, reduce the prerequisites for ship skills, make incapacitation for damage over 1/2 Stamina standard to keep fights from dragging out, integrate all the creatures from the modules into the core, possibly make saurians playable characters, integrate Tanks A Lot and Powered Armour from Dragon's Aries section, integrate Knight Hawks.  But that's it, change nothing else, maybe not even those, but that's the limit.  And for pete's sake, hire Larry Elmore to illustrate the whole thing in colour.

Yes! My biggest complaint with SF is that I wanted to play Knight Hawks and they did everything they could to make you NOT able to get ship skills easily.

Quote from: Chris24601;1056646Honestly, if you didn't create the IP yourself in the gaming industry you're probably better off without it. Every company I've ever seen rely on someone else's IP ends up hosed when outside factors end the license and they have to liquidate all their remaining stocks inside a narrow window (often taking a bath because some money is better than no money) before they can't do anything other than destroy what's left.

The lure of instant brand recognition is strong, but gaming history is littered with the ruins of companies that relied on 3rd party IPs for the bulk of their profits.

To be fair, gaming history is also littered with the ruins of companies that used their own IP.

There's plenty of ruins to go around, and there have been some licensed classics like Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars D6, and Amber Diceless.

Quote from: Chris24601;1056646And this is something that can be squarely laid at the feet of Disney, whose efforts to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain result in armies of lawyers descending on Washington to lobby for extending the rights of the creators (or by this point their grandchildren) another decade or two.

I'm mainly familiar with it because the release of "Steamboat Willie" is close enough to the release of Action Comics #1 that Superman rights always get sucked into the debate as well, particularly since part of those rights currently belong to an actual bloodsucking lawyer who tries to re-litigate every time the laws change, mostly, it seems, because DC/WB is willing to throw out a settlement offer to not have to deal with it until the next time Disney needs the copyright laws updated for their personal gain.

Disney has absolutely been an advocate, but all of Congress keeps passing the extensions - so that should be where the buck really stops. I consider it pretty insane to have to hunt for rights to use stuff from the 1930s.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1056627Sounds to me like a typical licensing thing.

The new owners want to make money so they tell people hosting free copies of the PDFs to stop that so everyone will have to buy the PDFs from a licensed distribution service. I see nothing wrong with this since this is a niche business and all. It isn't like they sent a cease and desist, did they?

The new owners tell the fanzine to stop selling on DriveThruRPG, but their personal websites are still okay handing out the zine. I see nothing wrong with this since trademark law requires you to defend your trademarks to keep them. If anybody could use the Star Frontier trademark then it would lose its value.

I don't think it is anything to be worried about. The new owners are probably just worried about how wonky copyright/trademark law is becoming and are trying to prevent any future problems. I expect they will hash out some kind of free license in the future to deal with this stuff.

Far as I can tell that is not how it happened.

Evil Hat applied for the trademark for Star Frontiers on the grounds that the IP was abandoned or fallow. Seems weird. That application has since been dropped.

WOTC meanwhile had a long standing agreement with the Star Frontiers site with a specific stipulation.

To retain the rights to SF WOTC puts the whole thing up on DT.

WOTC then notifies the SF site that due to this the site can no longer host the scans or the remasters. And also requests the removal of the fanzine from sale. They are ok with it being free. But require removal of dragom mag articles from the Frontiersman.

QuotePosted on March 7th, 2018 by Tom Stephens

Well folks, the verdict is in. I just heard back from WotC.

The bad news:
There will be no new issues of the Frontier Explorer or Star Frontiersman. I disagree with their reasoning behind it and may be able to change their mind in the future but for now I will be complying with with their wishes.

Also, I'll need to pull the remastered digital maps that i created (Port Loren, KH station deck plan, Town map, and the original Assault Scout deck plans). Since these were designed to be near exact replicas of the originals, this is understandable.

The good news:
Everything else already published stays up! I don't have to pull the websites or already published materials down. I cannot express how happy this makes me as I had feared the worst. The efforts of everyone who created content for the magazine will stay on-line for everyone to enjoy.

For the issues of the Star Frontiersman that I had to pull, I'll be removing the Dragon articles and reposting them over the next few weeks. I also don't have to pull out the original artwork that was used in any of the magazines. I was given permission to keep all that up.

Quote from: Omega;1056748Far as I can tell that is not how it happened.

Evil Hat applied for the trademark for Star Frontiers on the grounds that the IP was abandoned or fallow. Seems weird. That application has since been dropped.

WOTC meanwhile had a long standing agreement with the Star Frontiers site with a specific stipulation.

To retain the rights to SF WOTC puts the whole thing up on DT.

WOTC then notifies the SF site that due to this the site can no longer host the scans or the remasters. And also requests the removal of the fanzine from sale. They are ok with it being free. But require removal of dragom mag articles from the Frontiersman.

Well, when they were still a fan site and had permission to serve up pdfs, I downloaded the entire archive including everything published by TSR, as well as fifteen issues of StarFrontiersman.

I never did like Star Frontiers much as it was TSR's attempt to take over sci-fi gaming from Marc Miller and GDW Traveller, but I did like the starport map and counters provided with the original set and used them extensively for my Traveller games.

Nah it was just TSR and Gary's love for making new systems and settings. They allready had two post apoc ones and one spy game. SF is very NOT traveller.

Is Gronan still around? He'd be a good person to ask about TSR / Gary and Star Frontiers in the early days.

Nope he buggered off after one too many edgy atheists made far too many edgy attacks on Christians.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1056798Is Gronan still around? He'd be a good person to ask about TSR / Gary and Star Frontiers in the early days.

Jim Ward is your go-to for Star Frontiers chat.