If the guy wasn't making money then how are they, WotC, screwing him over with a C & letter? He's not losing anything in the process and WotC protects their IP. I'm not seeing how 1. This is bad? 2. This is, somehow, WotC fault? 3. Why people are upset besides not getting free stuffs.

Quote from: Omega;814800They have done it before when asked so there is no reason not to ask now. Especially if the C&D was not aggressive or threatening.

When I was getting back my Micronauts work from them. When asked they said just remove any names and imagry directly from the series and was good to go. Moreso with Star Frontiers  and the past allowance granted by TSR staff. When asked WOTC was ok as long as the material was not being sold.

Same for any other company. Even freaking Games Workshop will sometimes answer with whats needed to be done if asked.

I agree though that they are fickle and unpredictable. But ASK anyhow.

I'm unfamiliar with these instances. Do you have some other corroborating sources? I'll admit that my lack of knowledge of these instances my cloud my responses.

It's very hard sometimes to bridge the gap between reality, perception and law.  Ed's product seemed to be harmless.  Ed was not selling anything, and his character sheets did not include enough information to play the game (no descriptions of abilities or rules included) so even if someone made every single PC and NPC using his generator, they would still need the rules from WotC.  WotC has no competing product, so he was not doing them any economic harm, in fact, he probably was making the game easier to use, thus if anything, giving them an economic benefit.  So, for many, it's hard to see this as anything other then Evil Soulless Corporation 101...

But, we don't know the plans for the new licensing, we don't know any plans for new digital tools, we really know nothing about what WotC is going to do about 3PP.

It could be, he will be able to put them back up, but only after WotC finalizes its 3PP policies.

Quote from: misterguignol;814655If we're going to be pedantic about it, it's worth noting that laws are different in different countries. There is no "taking without owner's consent" in the US, for example.

And stealing cable is theft of services, which is still theft even though you haven't deprived the owner of tangible goods.

There is in some states at least...

This is Rhode Island

TITLE 31
Motor and Other vehicles
CHAPTER 31-9
Theft and Related Offenses
SECTION 31-9-1

   § 31-9-1  Driving without consent of owner or lessee. – Any person who drives a vehicle, not his or her own, without the consent of its owner or lessee, and with intent temporarily to deprive the owner or lessee of his or her possession of the vehicle, without intent to steal the vehicle, is guilty of a felony. The consent of the owner or lessee of a vehicle to its taking or driving shall not in any case be presumed or implied because of the owner's or lessee's consent on a prior occasion to the taking or driving of that vehicle by the same or a different person. Any person who assists in, or is a party or accessory to or an accomplice in any unauthorized taking or driving, is guilty of a felony. Any person convicted of a violation of this section shall be fined not more than five thousand dollars ($5,000) or imprisoned for a term of not more than five (5) years, or both.

History of Section.
(P.L. 1950, ch. 2595, art. 12, § 4; G.L. 1956, § 31-9-1; P.L. 1986, ch. 272, § 1; P.L. 1987, ch. 356, § 1; P.L. 1988, ch. 84, § 24; P.L. 1989, ch. 73, § 1; P.L. 1990, ch. 238, § 1.)

The reason why modern IP laws use the term theft is because it carries a moral stigma you don't get with IP Copyright Infringement.
Most new laws, in the US at least, are subject to lobbying by special interest groups to include words like "Theft".

Also you could of course argue that Theft is a "natural" right where as copyright is a "granted" right where the state has seen fit to impose legislation to protect IP owners and allow them to profit from their ideas.  In any case most people feel less outraged at the infringement of such rights and so the IP holders push to include emotionally weighted language. I am suprised they haven't pushed for IP Rape or IPaedophilila.

Quote from: RabidWookie;814811Property rights are one of the cornerstones of western civilization; without them we disincentivize innovation and creativity and our economy suffers.  How long would D&D or any other brand survive if any mouth breather could pump out horrible D&D branded products?  

I understand that big companies have money and people in suits, which naturally makes them evil and worthy of bile, but the hyperbole is getting pretty thick.  Sending a guy a friendly letter asking him to stop freely distributing stuff from their books isn't pissing on him.  

WOTC/Hasbro publishes D&D 5e.  If you enjoy D&D 5e products you should buy them.  If you don't enjoy them you shouldn't buy them.  That's all there is to it.  If everyone that whines about big bad companies trying to make money spent half that time trying to earn a few bucks themselves the internet would be a far more pleasant place.

The mouth breathers have been pumping out horrible D&D branded products for years. Shit TSR and WotC pumped out enough Horrible D&D products themselves.
The most profitable phase of D&D was under OGL when everyone was invited to produce derivitive work.
Open source really is out of the bag and isn't going away. A game book is a lot more like software than it is like a novel and inviting the mouthbreathers to contibute their work to improve open source work seems to have been okay for Linux, Mozilla, Wikipedia, etc

I entirely think that asking this guy to stand down is totally reasonable. However, WotC might well be shooting themselves in the foot. They have no alternative offering themselves. They haven't annouced any such offering. The characters provided are not playable without the rule books and the actual net result of this tool.

The market for content, especially techncial content, is rapidly shrinking. There is still money to be made but the money is going to come from value added services or very high quality content.
You can envisage a site like this one building up round a popular game and offiering advice rules, events or physical product (minis, game boards etc) to create its margins and rather like D&D giving the core rules away for free.

This is the way the IT and training industries are going now. Game stuff isn't so very different.

Quote from: Omega;814782SJG tells a guy that he cannot resize some game counters for his own personal use and gets a pat on the back from fans for it.

Linkage? That sounds...interesting

IP laws would be fine if 2 things were to change:


they were not transferrable (the creator remains the owner and can lisence out long or short term as they see fit)

they expired after the creator's death.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;814755Good.  Then do it and stop bitching like a five year old.

I will, and I will start bitching like a six year old instead.

So now I'm 3 years past your level.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;814755I, for one, think if you took all these people who are so righteously indignant over WotC trying to protect their IP, and had them all spend their money on something else like they keep threatening, it wouldn't be much of a dent in the overall coffers of WotC.

Small dents become big dents...as T$R learned.

It's not about WotC protecting its IP. WotC tossed its IP to the winds a decade ago with the OGL. If this guy was posting PDFs of books, nobody would have blinked at C&D.

It's about optics in an era where WotC is fumbling in its failed effort to "unify" the fandom and getting its ass slapped by Paizo.  

Back in the 90s, the online community was a tiny fragment of the hobby. Today its a small fraction of the hobby, but far more D&D fans are online today than 20 years ago and the web today spreads info/gossip far faster than ever before.

Quote from: Will;814810Yeah, IP law makes it harder for big money to just go 'ha ha ha, fuck you' and screw over creative talent.

Youd be surprised how often it happens though. Big Money oft relies on the fact the little guy they stole from or are bullying doesnt have the money to afford to fight back. Or doesnt know they even can.

Quote from: Will;814810Yeah, IP law makes it harder for big money to just go 'ha ha ha, fuck you' and screw over creative talent.

Thats the intention, in practicality over the last century its actually assisted in just that more often than not.

Quote from: TristramEvans;814830IP laws would be fine if 2 things were to change:


they were not transferrable (the creator remains the owner and can lisence out long or short term as they see fit)

they expired after the creator's death.

I don't think you have thought this through.

So if the inventor is dead their stuff is free. Nothing bad could come of that. :rolleyes:

Lack of transferability combined with expiry on death of the inventor makes IP rather worthless, especially for inventors past a certain age, which means that investors aren't going to finance their inventing so less inventing. Nothing bad could come from less inventing. :rolleyes:

Also I wish all the pseudo anarchist, I want other people to give me stuff for free which I might (or might not) then decide to pay some pennies for later folks would spend 1/10 the energy demonstrating the rightness of their theories by creating good content and giving it away for free that they spend bloviating about how the evil man in suits is oppressing the downtrodden peepul.

Ah so the tool allowed you to create characters, but didn't give you any of the rules on how things worked (eg: class abilities). That seems pretty fair to me. WoTC's "cease and desist" seems a bit overblown.

Quote from: Spinachcat;814831I will, and I will start bitching like a six year old instead.

So now I'm 3 years past your level.

I'm not the one crying like a child because I feel entitled to something that doesn't belong to me.

QuoteSmall dents become big dents...as T$R learned.

Like what?  What did TSR learn?  IP protection and the whiny gamers from that didn't harm them at all.  Bad management of products and horrible hemorrhaging of money did.   Unless you have a link that somehow shows how bitter gamers brought them down due to IP protection.  I'd love to see it.

QuoteIt's not about WotC protecting its IP. WotC tossed its IP to the winds a decade ago with the OGL.

You do realize that the OGL didn't give cart blanche of their IP right?  And you do realize that the reason this guy got a C&D was because he was violating section 8 of that OGL right?  You do realize what OGL stands for right?  Particularly the "L"?

Maybe if you did, you'd stop with this nonsense.

Oh and right here, Mr. Guignol, Will, Rawma, and GameDaddy are right. (Yes you may want to save this post.)

Quote from: Bren;814850I don't think you have thought this through.

So if the inventor is dead their stuff is free. Nothing bad could come of that. :rolleyes:

Lack of transferability combined with expiry on death of the inventor makes IP rather worthless, especially for inventors past a certain age, which means that investors aren't going to finance their inventing so less inventing. Nothing bad could come from less inventing. :rolleyes:

I think you're confusing IP laws with patent laws.


Though I am curious what "bad" you think would come of something entering the public domain after it's creator's death?