Re: (TFT) new development Heroes and Other Worlds. interesting port of Mel/Wiz

[Jeffrey Vandine <jlv61560@yahoo.com>]

Good point, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that if no one actually d
efends the copyright, and if no one is losing anything monetary as a result
 of something like this, is there really a case there worth pursuing? 
 Would HT spend thousands on a lawyer to prevent anyone from publicly listi
ng something for free, when that something is not materially harming the pe
rson who has let the original product go out of print decades previously?
  Clearly he had a stronger case (if such a thing even exists) against
 Dark City Games than he would against Mr. Brandon -- who, after all, isn't
 making money from it.  Additionally, since there ARE a few changes to
 the material (not all of which have been previously published by Metagamin
g), Mr. Brandon might even be able to argue in a legal sense that it's a "d
ifferent" game.  HT's first step would logically be to send a "cease a
nd desist" letter to anyone he felt was infringing his copyright, and I can
not imagine anyone not respecting such a letter and pulling the material in
 question from the public view.

Frankly, I think the only person HT would be likely to sue over this sort o
f thing would be Steve Jackson himself, which is almost certainly one reaso
n SJ is scrupulously avoiding anything whatsoever to do with TFT, even to t
he extent of avoiding answering questions as the original designer. 

Has anyone ever received a "cease and desist" letter from HT regarding, for
 example, posting pdfs of the original rules and microgames for this materi
al (which is clearly a much more direct violation of copyright than what C.
R. Brandon did here)?  If they have, I've never heard of it.  Hec
k, if they had, the entire Yahoo group would have been a primary candidate 
for such a letter!  And what about Kwan Chei's Melee Redesign (which a
pparently was pretty much restricted to redesigning the graphics since the 
rules didn't materially change) -- again, a direct violation of copyright a
t a pretty basic level which went unchallenged.
So I'm just saying that pulling the "this is a copyright violation" line ou
t of your pocket is both unnecessary and kind of a case of the pot calling 
the kettle black considering some of the files available for download right
 here with the Yahoo group.
All of this is somewhat beside the point from what my main comment was, how
ever.  What I really want to see is a more positively couched critique
 based on some alternative solutions rather than a pile-on simply because s
omeone doesn't like a specific rule change that made it into the new docume
nt.  You know, something along the lines of; "interesting idea -- here
's the way I addressed the same issue(s), and I like my solution better bec
ause...."  As opposed to comments like "rules mishmash...wobbly game b
alance...copyright violation" kinds of things we're seeing right now. 
 If I'm alone in this position, well, I guess that still makes me an Army o
f One.

      From: "raito@raito.com" <raito@raito.com>
 To: "tft@brainiac.com" <tft@brainiac.com> 
 Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2015 12:38 PM
 Subject: Re: (TFT) new development Heroes and Other Worlds. interesting po
rt of Mel/Wiz
   
> it seems pretty well established at this point that you can't copyright a
>  game mechanic, only th e specific language used to document it (and
 even
>  that requires some pretty fancy lawyering since there are only so m
any
ways
>  you can say "roll three six-sided dice" in the English language), a
nd
two,
>  a copyright which is und efended is worthless, and if HT were going
 to
defend

Are you thinking of trademarks here, rather than copyright? Or do you mean
'worthless' in some other sense?

Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com



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