Re: (TFT) fiction ?

["Craig W. Barber" <craigwbar@comcast.net>]

Game to book copyright issues:

I'm not sure the issue has ever been litigated, but I'm just about sure that
if you file off the serial numbers (get rid of really distinctive terms like
"Armor Class" or "Prootwaddle" or "Hobbit"), then you could flog a book.
There's another theory that might work too, that the book or screenplay is a
"derivative work".   BTW, I don't know how it came out in the end, but 30
years ago TSR got in trouble over the term HOBBIT, but they located Halfling
in the original Nordic myths Tolkien drew from, so they switched all
references in the books to "Halflings".  Of course years later after D&D got
bigger and richer than the Tolkien estate, they may have just licensed the
term back!

Finally, I suspect that in market terms, it would LOWER a book's value if it
had references that were too clearly geared towards a particular game system:
most potential readers wouldn't be players and would find the references lame.
So, the typical publisher would ask for, and the typical author would write,
"generic" fantasy novels... which is pretty much a description of the
publishing world right now anyhow.


  ----- Original Message -----
  From: pvk@oz.net
  To: tft@brainiac.com
  Cc: johng3110@hotmail.com
  Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2006 9:25 PM
  Subject: RE: (TFT) fiction ?


  On Thu, September 14, 2006 7:51 pm, John Gfoeller wrote:
  ...
  > Interesting.  Do you know how she deals with copyright issues?  Is the
  > fiction enough of a derivative work to require permission from SJG as the
  > copyright holder of GURPS?  Or, does she change the details enough so
it's
  > her own original work ?

  Christine uses her own worlds rather than issues one could have with using
  specific place and race names such as TFT or Traveller races and places,
  so that removes almost all of the potential questions. The magic in the
  stories of hers that I have read seems to be essentially GURPS Magic, but
  it's written so non-GURPS players (at least, fantasy readers/watchers and
  non-GURPS gamers) won't be confused by any terms, and the terms used are
  (as I recall at the moment) semi-generic or slightly blurred and I _think_
  never specific spell names from the game or anything. But on the other
  hand, there might be specific mentions of something like "powerstones". In
  other words, it's written as people in the world might refer to things,
  not as players would refer to them.

  I don't expect she decides to avoid specific gaming terms for copyright
  reasons, but I imagine chooses her own worlds and terms mainly for
  artistic reasons, to avoid confusion and to make it clearly more her own
  story and setting.

  But ya I guess there could be questions if someone decided in 1982 that
  they really wanted to publish and sell fiction about an invasion of
  Prootwaddles and Uncle Teeth set in the Duchy of Dran, and it gained lots
  of public attention either as something awful or financially successful,
  what legal recourses Metagaming would have had to interfere.

  PvK
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