Quote from: rawma;815713Two problems with lifetime copyright term are that it may be difficult to determine if the author is still alive, and that it rewards young and healthy authors more than older and less healthy ones.

The third more important problem is that it is just as irrelevant in the face of new technology as the current copyright scheme.  In fact, all copyright is doomed.

Quote from: Will;814765You have to defend your IP even when it's stupid or else when it matters you've cut yourself down at the knees.

I miss OGL, but without it, Hasbro pretty much has to act against anyone who gets a certain degree of exposure.

Anyone familiar with IP, copyright, and trademark law would know this is the truth. If you fail to defend your rights, you establish precedent and the next time someone infringes they can point to your prior failure to do so and you may well end up losing your rights. This is why huge corporations like Disney have to send C&D letters to places like "Mickey Mouse Nonprofit Mom & Pop Preschool." It's not because they want to look like mean a-holes picking on nice people doing good things.

Quote from: GameDaddy;816622Hrrmmm. No. There was a time WOTC was simply awesome. And that time was 1995-2002. They saved D&D, they put tradeable card games on the map, something that the comic book companies were completely unable or unwilling to do, and they came out with a revised version of D&D that brought many of the fans back into the fold.

Then WOTC was sold to Hasbro, and everything went down from there. Mostly because Hasbro insists on interfering. Not at the designer level where all the game designers work and play, but interfering at the leadership level where the CEO and company leaders make the strategic decisions.

Not exactly. Hasbro acquired WOTC in Sept. of 1999. It might have taken them a little while to get their legal team firmly up WOTC's ass though.

Quote from: Matt;817704Anyone familiar with IP, copyright, and trademark law would know this is the truth. If you fail to defend your rights, you establish precedent and the next time someone infringes they can point to your prior failure to do so and you may well end up losing your rights. This is why huge corporations like Disney have to send C&D letters to places like "Mickey Mouse Nonprofit Mom & Pop Preschool." It's not because they want to look like mean a-holes picking on nice people doing good things.

This applies very differently to trademark and copyright. Trademarks are potentially lost by not defending them. The principle is that once a symbol is genericized, then you can't use it as a trademark anymore.

However, copyright is never lost because you didn't defend it. At most, you might not be able to apply later injunctions against a particular infringer if you choose not to prosecute them earlier (called the principle of "laches"). Even then, this is very limited - cf. the daughter of the Raging Bull screenwriter suing MGM in 2009 after decades of inaction.

http://www.firstventurelegal.com/supreme-court-says-failure-to-defend-copyright-not-completely-fatal-to-infringement-claims/

Basically, copyright never goes away - while trademark is much more restricted.

Quote from: Matt;817704Anyone familiar with IP, copyright, and trademark law would know this is the truth. If you fail to defend your rights, you establish precedent and the next time someone infringes they can point to your prior failure to do so and you may well end up losing your rights. This is why huge corporations like Disney have to send C&D letters to places like "Mickey Mouse Nonprofit Mom & Pop Preschool." It's not because they want to look like mean a-holes picking on nice people doing good things.

You cannot lose your copyright due to inaction. You can lose the right to recover PAST damage if the copyright is registered. Even if by inaction this happens you can send notice and any damage from that point on can be recovered.

Trademark in constrast have to be enforced for they will be lost. This is the case in your example. It is not a copyright issue.

Quote from: estar;817719You cannot lose your copyright due to inaction. You can lose the right to recover PAST damage if the copyright is registered. Even if by inaction this happens you can send notice and any damage from that point on can be recovered.

Trademark in constrast have to be enforced for they will be lost. This is the case in your example. It is not a copyright issue.

Was just in a discussion on this over on BGG.

HeroQuest was registered to Chaosium, but lapsed and MiltonBradley nabbed it for the board game. Hasbro eventually absorbs MB and lets the TM lapse. One of the designers for Gloranthia re-acquires it in the US while in spain someone else registerd it as well.

Or Princess Ryan's Space Marines by Simtac in 86. In 97 Avalon Hill was doing a reprint and GW informed them they now owned the title "Space Marine" so AH retitled the game Princess Ryan's Star Marines.

Use it or lose it.

Quote from: estar;817719You cannot lose your copyright due to inaction. You can lose the right to recover PAST damage if the copyright is registered. Even if by inaction this happens you can send notice and any damage from that point on can be recovered.

Trademark in constrast have to be enforced for they will be lost. This is the case in your example. It is not a copyright issue.

Sorry, you CAN lose copyright due to inaction. This is why many golden age super hero comics  characters and old movies became public domain. The owners failed to register at all or failed to renew.

You have been misinformed.

Quote from: Matt;818428Sorry, you CAN lose copyright due to inaction. This is why many golden age super hero comics  characters and old movies became public domain. The owners failed to register at all or failed to renew.

You have been misinformed.

That is the case for pre 1976 copyrights not for any works since 1976. When a work is affixed a it medium (written down, painted, etc) the author has the copyright for life plus 95 years. There are exceptions like work for hire but it doesn't change whether a copyright exists only who is the owner.

Prior to 1976, there was an initial grant of copyright for 28 years, then if the owner or author wanted another 28 years then it had to explictly renewed. There was some other technical requirement that had to be fulfilled.

This all changed in 1976 when the United States basically joined the Berne Convention.

Today for current copyrights there nothing a author can FAIL to do void his copyright. However failure can have adverse consequences on the ability of the author to recover damages. The best that could hoped for is a cease & desist. But after this an author can resume active enforcement.

And by fail the author has to knowingly ignore and have waited. I believe the legal theory if that the author knows and doesn't enforce then it must that the use of the material wasn't damaging to the author's interests.

Quote from: estar;818440That is the case for pre 1976 copyrights not for any works since 1976. When a work is affixed a it medium (written down, painted, etc) the author has the copyright for life plus 95 years. There are exceptions like work for hire but it doesn't change whether a copyright exists only who is the owner.

Prior to 1976, there was an initial grant of copyright for 28 years, then if the owner or author wanted another 28 years then it had to explictly renewed. There was some other technical requirement that had to be fulfilled.

This all changed in 1976 when the United States basically joined the Berne Convention.

Today for current copyrights there nothing a author can FAIL to do void his copyright. However failure can have adverse consequences on the ability of the author to recover damages. The best that could hoped for is a cease & desist. But after this an author can resume active enforcement.

And by fail the author has to knowingly ignore and have waited. I believe the legal theory if that the author knows and doesn't enforce then it must that the use of the material wasn't damaging to the author's interests.

What all this means is nothing will now be entering public domain until 2071.  Which is absurd.

Quote from: RPGPundit;818784What all this means is nothing will now be entering public domain until 2071.  Which is absurd.

Hrmmm. No. This is a tragedy. So much written material and creations will be abandoned by their creators, yet no one will be able to use it, or to create new derivative materials based on the original material.

The only people that benefit... Corporations that hold copyright and other IP. They can thoroughly block new competition, and ensure the monopoly of their horrendously inferior stories and material over much better quality (but out of print) stories and material that could be recycled, reworked or used as inspiration for more newer stories.

This is part of the newest Tyranny, a Tyranny created by the greedy of our generation, where more people than ever before get to have their creativity oppressed by a bunch of sleazy shysters, and their greedy friends.

Yeah because we REALLY need four thousand versions of whatever flooding the market because it went public. hurray for "creativity".

Much as I despise Carter. Id take one of their Thongor pastiches over their Conan books any day.

Quote from: Omega;818891Yeah because we REALLY need four thousand versions of whatever flooding the market because it went public. hurray for "creativity".

Much as I despise Carter. Id take one of their Thongor pastiches over their Conan books any day.

What a strange thing to say. Are you arguing for infinite copyright? On the grounds that someone might write a thing based on an old thing that is not as high quality as the original?

Also, superhero comics. Many of the best stories containing superheroes were not written by their original creators, yet they were still creative works. "We need to utilize the force of the state to curtail free speech and prevent people from publishing material based on 100 year old characters, because I know that material will all be garbage." is not a position that holds a lot of water with me.

Of course, maybe I'm reading too much into this and you are just snarking on bad fiction and wishing it didn't happen without necessarily wishing for laws to prevent it.

Quote from: jhkim;817717This applies very differently to trademark and copyright. Trademarks are potentially lost by not defending them. The principle is that once a symbol is genericized, then you can't use it as a trademark anymore.

However, copyright is never lost because you didn't defend it. At most, you might not be able to apply later injunctions against a particular infringer if you choose not to prosecute them earlier (called the principle of "laches"). Even then, this is very limited - cf. the daughter of the Raging Bull screenwriter suing MGM in 2009 after decades of inaction.

http://www.firstventurelegal.com/supreme-court-says-failure-to-defend-copyright-not-completely-fatal-to-infringement-claims/

Basically, copyright never goes away - while trademark is much more restricted.

I disagree.  A copyright infringer can argue waiver (or similar defenses), based on your non-enforcement of other users from someone other than the infringer in question.

Mind you, I think this is pretty academic.  In practice, this won't have any application for RPGs.  No use will be so notorious a waiver that it would allow a defense of waiver for others in this field.  It would mostly be a music thing I suspect.

Quote from: NeonAce;818915What a strange thing to say. Are you arguing for infinite copyright? On the grounds that someone might write a thing based on an old thing that is not as high quality as the original?

Also, superhero comics. Many of the best stories containing superheroes were not written by their original creators, yet they were still creative works. "We need to utilize the force of the state to curtail free speech and prevent people from publishing material based on 100 year old characters, because I know that material will all be garbage." is not a position that holds a lot of water with me.

Of course, maybe I'm reading too much into this and you are just snarking on bad fiction and wishing it didn't happen without necessarily wishing for laws to prevent it.

1: No. Just rights at all. Pundit seemed to be saying there should not be any allowance at all. As for the extension after death. I know why it was there in the first place. But no one seems to use it for that anymore. So might as well be life of the creator unless they waive it.

2: Comics are often "work for hire" unless they are independently published and depending on the company, arent yours. Those that are somehow owned by individuals, when the comic stopped very often the character vanishes too. Also having someone else work on your creation has worked out sooooooo well in comics. The amount of "fuck you!" character rape moments (sometimes literally rape) grows each year.

3: Mostly experience watching the parade with existing things gone public and how those things have more oft than not been handled.

Quote from: estarYou cannot lose your copyright due to inaction. You can lose the right to recover PAST damage if the copyright is registered. Even if by inaction this happens you can send notice and any damage from that point on can be recovered.

Trademark in constrast have to be enforced for they will be lost. This is the case in your example. It is not a copyright issue.

Quote from: Omega;817817HeroQuest was registered to Chaosium, but lapsed and MiltonBradley nabbed it for the board game. Hasbro eventually absorbs MB and lets the TM lapse. One of the designers for Gloranthia re-acquires it in the US while in spain someone else registerd it as well.

Or Princess Ryan's Space Marines by Simtac in 86. In 97 Avalon Hill was doing a reprint and GW informed them they now owned the title "Space Marine" so AH retitled the game Princess Ryan's Star Marines.

Use it or lose it.

Omega, estar is correct. Those are all issues of trademark, not copyright.

Quote from: Mistwell;818939I disagree.  A copyright infringer can argue waiver (or similar defenses), based on your non-enforcement of other users from someone other than the infringer in question.

Mind you, I think this is pretty academic.  In practice, this won't have any application for RPGs.  No use will be so notorious a waiver that it would allow a defense of waiver for others in this field.  It would mostly be a music thing I suspect.

As an academic possibility, I agree with you. I myself brought up laches as a defense that an infringer could bring. However, the point is that you do not lose copyright by not using it - just as you don't lose property rights by not using them.  The infringer can argue for reduced damages because they were deceived by your not enforcing - along the lines of "I thought it was OK since everyone else was doing it." However, it is still your property.