http://www.boingboing.net/2007/06/29/karl_schroeder_show_.html

QuoteFans of Karl Schroeder's "Virga" novels are creating RPGs based on his world. Karl's tickled pink by this and is encouraging readers to share their creations publicly (he's also promising that he's not interested in suing or threatening people for misappropriating his copyrights on this score, figuring, correctly, that none of this stuff costs him anything, that it cements his relationship with his readers, and sells more books).

(emphasis mine)

Never heard of the works, but how cool is it that an Author is all like "too cool...run with it!"?  nice.

Legally he's putting himself on shaky ground, but I admire the attitude.

Huh.  Seems like a pretty sweet setting.  Definitely sounds like something that would fit right into Savage Worlds.

I'm going to stop by my local bookstore and find out if they have the paperback and if it's awesome, post something about it.

And the author is a big ole' pimp for encouraging the development of RPG materials.  It may come back to bite him on the ass at some point, but you gotta love him for it anyway.

Yeah, I'm with jrients.  Neat idea on the surface; but legally, what if someone comes along and writes a novel.  If he tried to sue, the defendant could claim he hasn't asserted his copyright strongly enough - and then he's fucked.

He'd be best served by writing some kind of no fee licensing for anyone who wants to write and RPG or something - at least to protect his IP against anything outside that specified kind of work.

Quote from: James J SkachYeah, I'm with jrients.  Neat idea on the surface; but legally, what if someone comes along and writes a novel.

On the other hand, if someone came along and wrote a novel, he could water his pot-plants, pat his dog, and get on with his life, in the belief that he hasn't lost anything. Which he wouldn't have.

TheShadow
(awaiting the irate replies and stories about how some published fanfic would ruin the guy)

Quote from: The_ShadowTheShadow
(awaiting the irate replies and stories about how some published fanfic would ruin the guy)

Maybe not ruin, but definitely reflect badly.  If I buy a Virga book from amazon.com and I get someone's crummy campaign novelization instead, I'm going to be pretty pissed.  Schroeder needs all the name recognition and good publicity he can get.  

BTW, I think it's great what he's doing, but I do agree he should draw up some kind of a license.  

Pete

Quote from: jrientsLegally he's putting himself on shaky ground, but I admire the attitude.

Maybe he's taken the medium into account and come to the conclusion that a fan-produced RPG that explicitly credits him directly isn't going to put him in significant peril.

More power to him.

!i!

Quote from: James J SkachYeah, I'm with jrients.  Neat idea on the surface; but legally, what if someone comes along and writes a novel.  If he tried to sue, the defendant could claim he hasn't asserted his copyright strongly enough - and then he's fucked.

He'd be best served by writing some kind of no fee licensing for anyone who wants to write and RPG or something - at least to protect his IP against anything outside that specified kind of work.

Nitpick: it's a trademark that needs to be defended, not a copyright.  That said, since characters and names are protected as trademarks, your point still stands.

Quote from: hgjsNitpick: it's a trademark that needs to be defended, not a copyright.  That said, since characters and names are protected as trademarks, your point still stands.

Which they shouldn't be, but that's a whole 'nother ball o' wax.

The setting looks interesting -- micro-gravity in a large pressurized balloon with an artifical sun at the center (apparently like a dyson sphere), lots of swashbuckling action -- but it may not be "hard" sci-fi.

For example, this quote (emphasis mine):

QuoteIts volume is full of weirdly medieval people, who are largely ignorant of the true nature of their world. They harvest wood from the trees that cling to asteroids and use the lumber to build ring-shaped settlements which they spin up with bicycles to create local gravity, which prevents them from atrophying into horrific, misshapen spindly monsters.

Obviously I haven't read the books yet so I can't comment on the "science" as presented in the books, but my first thought is that this somebody doesn't remember basic Newtonian physics. If you're in micro-gravity/free-fall when you try to spin something, you both end up spinning in opposite directions. This might be overcome with something with very large rotational inertia spinning something with very small rotational inertia, and the picture in the link maybe supports this as it appears to have large ships containing several spinning wheels, but this brings up a host of other issues like moving from wheel to superstructure to wheel.

Still, I'm very interested to see how (if) that's handled, so this is going on my "to read" list.

Quote from: hgjsNitpick: it's a trademark that needs to be defended, not a copyright.  That said, since characters and names are protected as trademarks, your point still stands.

Thanks for the correction - trademarks and copyrights and patents, Oh my!

Quote from: The ShadowOn the other hand, if someone came along and wrote a novel, he could water his pot-plants, pat his dog, and get on with his life, in the belief that he hasn't lost anything. Which he wouldn't have.

TheShadow
(awaiting the irate replies and stories about how some published fanfic would ruin the guy)

I like how it's your assumption he hasn't been hurt and that any response against your perspective is irate...very nice rhetorical tricks.

The rhetorical device is used well in the link as well, with the entire "figured, correctly" stuff that while subjectively might be true, was not proven objectively.

Was that irate enought for you?

Quote from: James J SkachWas that irate enought for you?

More querulous than anything, actually...so much for the flamewar.

TheShadow

Quote from: The_ShadowMore querulous than anything, actually...so much for the flamewar.

TheShadow

Don't you just hate it when somebody pisses on your fire?

I would have gone with petulant - but that's just me.  I do know I was being facetious.

Good for him.  I think the goodwill and bit of advertising will help more than it will hurt.  Most people are smart enough to distinguish official material from fan material.

The only thing that would hurt him if someone managed to publish crappy novel that proclaimed itself as a Virga novel.  I think he still has plenty of room to sue in such a case he it looks like he only gave permission to mess around with an rpg.