Posted by M. Arthur Auslander on December 08, 1998 at 10:54:23:
In Reply to: Copyrights and derivitive works posted by Tim Dugger on December 08, 1998 at 09:16:50:
: Hello,
: Some frineds of mine and I recently started an online ezine
: for support of our favorite rpg company. For those who do not know, rpg stands for Role-playing-game,
: a pencil and paper type of game in which folks create fantasy (or other genre) characters, and partake in what has been called interactive
: storytelling.
: Well, we published our first issue, and a representative of the company came screaming, saying that we had broken copyright,
: because we had published derivitive (sp?) works, and that his company had to get final say before an article was printed.
: I am looking for information to dispute this claim, and to regain the ezines autonomy from the company.
: once had a person tell me that as long as we place a disclaimer on such works, that it was okay, since a gaming system could not be copyrighted, though textual description and such could be.
: So does original works, written to be used with a paticular game system in mind count as copyright infringement or not, and are there any court cases/ruling that I can find to back this up?
: Thanks!!!
It looks as if they have you dead to rights. If they prepared material which you use or modify they have a copyright right in the material or variations of it. Your are free to use ideas but not another's mode of expression. The penalties for copyright infringement can be very severe. This is a second answer. The first got buried in your text. It also had typos. I can't use my secretary when I'm on the web so mistakes do go out.
aus@auslander.com 2125946900