Legal stuff

From: Robin D. Laws <rdl_at_ican.net>
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 10:18:59 -0400

>Avalon Hill owns the means of creating RQ-based
>RPG material, and Chaosium own the means of creating Gloranthan
>material. If I use both those means together to create my own
>RQ+Glorantha scenario, neither company would own it.

True enough.

>I should be
>able to publish and sell that scenario to anyone

Incorrect. It would be a derivative work, based on Greg/Chaosium's and AH's copyrights.

For the same reason, you can't publish and sell your own Spider-Man comics, even though Marvel wouldn't own the rights to a Spider-Man comic you drew yourself.

>, as long as I
>mention that the means for creating the scenario are owned by others
>(AH & C) and that certain words are trademarked ("Glorantha", frex).
>That should be it! I would have used (as fair use, to use Brian's
>term) what Chaosium and AH provided me in order to create a product
>of my own.

Fair use is a legal term, and it is narrowly construed. You might argue that the law ought to be otherwise, but it isn't.

Necessary caveat: interpretation of IP laws varies from sector to sector, and RPG intellectual property cases never get to judgement, because the amounts of money involved are so low. So there are gray areas. The principle of derivative works is not a gray area.

Take care >>> Robin

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