Quote from: Lynn;1125406Not a lawyer.

There is a mix of information out there about HPL copyrights. For years, Arkham House claimed they had copyright to many of his works. At least some have already gone to public domain simply because of age. Some likely because they didn't ever have their copyright status renewed. I believe much of Chaosium's early claims about copyright were based on their licensing from Arkham House, but there have been some researchers that have stated that Arkham House never had the copyright. It is easiest (and probably best) for Chaosium not to weigh in, because there is much evidence to prove most of HPLs works are now public domain, and that some were public domain even when parties were trying to lay claim to having some rights (or rights by way of sub-licensing). I think in this case, it is simply too complicated for Chaosium to weigh in.

Only need to look at Conan to see how weird copyright claims can get. If you have a big pot of money to pay lawyers with you can easily abuse copyright law.
If you have a really big pot of money (Disney) you can have copyright law changed to suit you.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1125420If you have a really big pot of money (Disney) you can have copyright law changed to suit you.

Or you can bank on your target not having any money for lawyer fees, and just intimidate them with boilerplate cease & desist letters, like nuChaosium does:

QuoteIt is worth repeating again that despite Chaosium repeatedly stating that Open Cthulhu is an "egregious violation" of their Intellectual Property they have still not provided to us (or anyone) examples of passages which they consider to be violations . We have repeatedly asked for any evidence to back up such claims, and none has been forthcoming. We even made a request 14 days prior to the release of the v2 SRD, in order to permit us to fix any points of objections -- all our requests have been met with silence.

We realize that Chaosium is under no legal obligation to substantiate their non-specific claims, especially in relation to a competing product,.But we would also call into question their motivations here -- if the Intellectual Property are as significant as they claim, surely the easiest way for them to permanently end the debate would be to substantiate their claim with some examples?

One good thing (of many) that has come out of the original OGL is that indie publishers are a lot more savvy about IP law, and less likely to be intimidated by old-style Gygaxian empty threats.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1125407Chaosium can still apply trademark law. They could argue that any other tabletop game with "Cthulhu" in the title endangers their trademark.

They already blew it then.

"CthulhuTech" has been out for years- even had its 15 minutes.

Chaosium is playing the 'it's complicated' card out of sheer self-interest. The more people think that they might get in legal trouble messing with lovecrafts playground, the fewer potential competitors will consider making a clone.

CoC as an RPG is ripe for cloning, and Chaosium knows it.

Muddying the IP waters is their tactic for putting off the inevitable.

What they really need to do is find another property that can perform as well as CoC before someone with more money comes along and out-competes them in that niche. And Cthulhu has become considerably more mainstream since the 80s, so that's not too unlikely. The way their portfolio stands now I'm not sure the company could survive that.

Quote from: Vile;1125364I always find it amusing that whenever anyone asks who has the rights to what in the Cthulhu Mythos, the answer is always, "Don't ask, it's way too complicated!" Yet, somehow, the implication is that Chaosium knows exactly what is and isn't 'theirs' ...

I was part of a HPL copyright research project 20 years ago and the real answer is simple. HPL's own work has been in the public domain for a long time. However, there are stories where HPL was the co-writer and most of those are in the public domain, but one needs to check on the co-author's year of death and do the copyright math.

As for Chaosium, they have full rights to their INTERPRETATION of HPL's work. AKA, the artwork and description of monsters and characters from HPL's stories. Just like you would! So the key to making a game based on HPL's work is to NOT use Chaosium's artwork or embellishments and make sure you do everything from the source material.

Once stuff is in the public domain, anyone can use it BUT you have to use the public domain stuff, not other people's renditions.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1125431I was part of a HPL copyright research project 20 years ago and the real answer is simple. HPL's own work has been in the public domain for a long time. However, there are stories where HPL was the co-writer and most of those are in the public domain, but one needs to check on the co-author's year of death and do the copyright math.

When did the USA do away with a registration requirement for copyright? Around 1952 when the Universal Copyright Convention was created I think? Material in the first half of the 20th century in the USA needed to be registered for copyright, and AFAICT most of the pulp magazine stuff was never in copyright to begin with. Regardless of authorship.

Quote from: Jaeger;1125428They already blew it then.

"CthulhuTech" has been out for years- even had its 15 minutes.

Chaosium is playing the 'it's complicated' card out of sheer self-interest. The more people think that they might get in legal trouble messing with lovecrafts playground, the fewer potential competitors will consider making a clone.

CoC as an RPG is ripe for cloning, and Chaosium knows it.

Muddying the IP waters is their tactic for putting off the inevitable.

Why would anybody want to clone it? The d100 rules are already modular.

I think Chaosium should focus on the Japanese market, since apparently their game is more popular in Japan than D&D is. They could probably make money by licensing their trademark to visual novels, manga, etc.

There's already Demonbane, Song of Saya, and Sharnoth as notable examples of Lovecraft-based visual novels.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1125453Why would anybody want to clone it? The d100 rules are already modular..

Same question with the D&D OGL, It's not like one still can't get the original books...

I think that it will be cloned for the same reasons we have many OSR games.

People like complete games. One stop shops.

Why do all the work yourself to not send money to nuChaosium, when someone has already done it for you in a well illustrated package?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1125453I think Chaosium should focus on the Japanese market, since apparently their game is more popular in Japan than D&D is. They could probably make money by licensing their trademark to visual novels, manga, etc..

Absolutely. I would do a Japanese edition with anime style art cover to cover. A total no-brainer! With a 1920's Japanese/Far east setting sourcebook.

But they won't. I doubt they have the savvy to try and capitalize on their current rise in popularity. They are probably just glad to rake in what they can while it lasts.

Quote from: S'mon;1125433When did the USA do away with a registration requirement for copyright? Around 1952 when the Universal Copyright Convention was created I think? Material in the first half of the 20th century in the USA needed to be registered for copyright, and AFAICT most of the pulp magazine stuff was never in copyright to begin with. Regardless of authorship.

Remember Sonny & Cher? After they broke up, Cher continued singing and Sonny Bono became mayor of Palm Springs and then a US Congressmen. Bono was Disney's whore in Washington, DC and made sure Disney got copyright laws rewritten repeatedly to protect the Unholy Mouse.

It would have been far better if our scumbag politicians just gave Disney a permanent copyright over the Mouse and left the Copyright Laws alone. That way so much more would have passed into the public domain decades ago instead of so much potential creativity just stuck in legal limbo.

I'm expecting a new copyright law very soon. The Mouse goes public domain in 2024...and Disney will NEVER let that happen.

Quote from: Jaeger;1125458Absolutely. I would do a Japanese edition with anime style art cover to cover. A total no-brainer! With a 1920's Japanese/Far east setting sourcebook. But they won't. I doubt they have the savvy to try and capitalize on their current rise in popularity. They are probably just glad to rake in what they can while it lasts.

There is at least one iteration of CoC like that. My kid has a book of Japanese anime style occupations for Call of Cthulhu which looked neat. A guy over on Reddit posted this album of images of CoC in Japan.

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/official-brp-srd-coming-from-chaosium.855842/post-22968142

Any lawyers on here want to take a stab at this? Seems like it's an attempt to rewrite the OGL to fit their needs. Using this logic, can Mongoose not publish anything using the OGL content they already created? That seems wrong.

Quote from: Brad;1125537https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/official-brp-srd-coming-from-chaosium.855842/post-22968142

Any lawyers on here want to take a stab at this? Seems like it's an attempt to rewrite the OGL to fit their needs. Using this logic, can Mongoose not publish anything using the OGL content they already created? That seems wrong.

Did Chaosium release material under the actual, real, OGL? If they did, that material is gone. If not, they still have it.

If Chaosium only licenced material to Mongoose, Mongoose couldn't then release that material under the OGL, since they didn't own it or have the authorisation from Chaosium to do so, presumably. But Mongoose could release their own material under the OGL.

Also since game rules/formulae/mechanics are not copyrightable, anyone could create their own version of the BRP core systems and release the text describing those systems under the OGL if they wanted.

Edit: The kind of thing you could do legally with the OGL would be to take the WoTC SRD and rewrite the rules stuff using BRP style d% formula. You could restat the SRD monsters in BRP terms.

Quote from: Jaeger;1125458Same question with the D&D OGL, It's not like one still can't get the original books...

I think that it will be cloned for the same reasons we have many OSR games.

People like complete games. One stop shops.

Why do all the work yourself to not send money to nuChaosium, when someone has already done it for you in a well illustrated package?

But Call of Cthulhu isn't like D&D. The rules have remained largely the same for decades, and even the most extreme changes in 7th edition are window dressing. Converting between different editions of d100 games is extremely easy, to the point where several BRP books are slightly revised versions of popular rules from prior editions.

The Cthulhu mythos lack a cohesive setting due to being a literal mythos, so you can't even argue that a retroclone is needed to replicate a bygone setting.

Basically, Chaosium doesn't want anyone to infringe on their revenues and I don't really see any reason to try. The only complaint I've seen so far is that their latest adventure books portray all white people who lived in the 1920s as literally frothing racists, even though the premise of their game is still about killing mi-go and deep ones because they're filthy alien scum literally trying to steal our women. Your premise can't get more racist than that.

Quote from: Jaeger;1125458Absolutely. I would do a Japanese edition with anime style art cover to cover. A total no-brainer! With a 1920's Japanese/Far east setting sourcebook.

But they won't. I doubt they have the savvy to try and capitalize on their current rise in popularity. They are probably just glad to rake in what they can while it lasts.

They already do that. I'm talking about licensing deals into multimedia. Give us more waifus like Saya-chan, Nyarko-chan, and Azif-chan.

---

[/HR]

Here's an online thread where somebody reads everything Lovecraft and analyzes them, including the racism (no, they don't demonize Lovecraft; they say his irrational racism is WHY his works are so compelling; #2smart4me). It includes a lot of mindblowing stuff. I especially like the takeaway that the mi-go trying to handle Akeley were incompetent morons and the protagonist is equally moronic.

I recommend reading "The Litany of Earth" and "The Black Brat of Dunwich" for alternate takes on Lovecraft where the aliens are actually the victims or even heroes of the story.

#AlienLivesMatter #NotAllAliens #HumansAreTheRealMonsters

Quote from: S'mon;1125539Did Chaosium release material under the actual, real, OGL? If they did, that material is gone. If not, they still have it.

If Chaosium only licenced material to Mongoose, Mongoose couldn't then release that material under the OGL, since they didn't own it or have the authorisation from Chaosium to do so, presumably. But Mongoose could release their own material under the OGL.

Also since game rules/formulae/mechanics are not copyrightable, anyone could create their own version of the BRP core systems and release the text describing those systems under the OGL if they wanted.

Edit: The kind of thing you could do legally with the OGL would be to take the WoTC SRD and rewrite the rules stuff using BRP style d% formula. You could restat the SRD monsters in BRP terms.

Yeah, see, that's what I don't know. Didn't Mongoose release some sort of Runequest OGL game at one point? Again, I am not entirely sure, but that post from Chaosium's presumed lawyer implies none of that stuff is actual OGL, but I was always under the impression everything Mongoose did was because they put OGL all over every book I've ever seen them publish.

Quote from: Brad;1125537https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/official-brp-srd-coming-from-chaosium.855842/post-22968142

Any lawyers on here want to take a stab at this? Seems like it's an attempt to rewrite the OGL to fit their needs. Using this logic, can Mongoose not publish anything using the OGL content they already created? That seems wrong.

The system that Mongoose created was original to them. Since the license termination they re-released it as the Legends RPG.

Stafford didn't have any rights to Runequest the system. He only controlled the trademark and Glorantha. Mongoose was well within their right to make the system they wrote open content. The only issue with the first two SRDs was the use of the Runequest trademark throughout. Which is why have now have Legends.

As for Jeff's reply, it was resolved on the Chaosium forums after I and other called them out about this issue.

QuoteQ: What about Mongoose's Legend?

A: Legend is its own thing and not under license from Chaosium or Moon Design Publications. Mongoose was perfectly entitled to take their work, remove from it those elements that were derived from RuneQuest or Glorantha and give it its own name, and then do with it as they see fit. Legend is not RuneQuest or BRP or Call of Cthulhu, and nor does it purport to be.

If Mongoose wants to do a OGL of their original work, that is not Chaosium's issue or concern.