RPGs seem to be covered by the same laws that books are - hence why there was a delay in publishing the Babylon 5 RPG in Europe; BoxTree owned the rights to all book sales, so Chameleon Eclectic could not sell directly... This being so, when you buy the book/RPG, you buy the right to "fair use" - you can use it, and even loan it around, but you do not buy the rights to the material in the book - you just own the book.
For books, the line seems to be drawn on the word "money". You can do whatever you like, provided you aren't doing it in a fashion that might be construed as depriving the copyright holder of cash.
the second point is the protection of trademarks - if a company does not actively defend their trademarks, they fall into the public domain. Obviously, no company wants this to happen! The usual attitude from RPG companies (with one, now deceased exception - TSR) is that not-for-profit fan material is fine provided trademarks etc are acknowledged.
> No, I think Brian Tickler's point (and mine) is that an RPG is sold
> to allow you to derive material from it -- free of copyright worry.
> In order to create a scenario, I must use the published maps,
> descriptions, cults, NPCs, spells, everything -- none of it mine
> (or very little), all derivative. An RPG is by its nature
> derivative. Or had I misunderstood the use of RPG sourcebooks when
> I bought them?
No, but you only bought them for your own use.
> [Long example of not for profit deleted]
The only answer is "No one knows" - this has never been tested in court, and that is the only way fo rthe question to be defintively answered. Most games companies seem fine with stuff on web pages, and, since you cannot distribute the material to everyone who plays RQ, the other end of your argument is moot.
Sell it for profit, and Chaosium (if you used Glorantha etc material) or AH (if you infringed the copyright on the system) would be within their rights (and within their interests) to sue. Whether they would succeed would depend on whether you could show that your work was not derivative (seems to imply mass copying) but only "fair use" (ideas and small amounts of material).
There's some interesting material on COpyright for traveller and D&D at http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~jimv/ - the two attitudes contrast rather entertainingly.
SUmmary: The only way to prove it one way or the other is to go to court. Since Chaosium (May 10th) issued a fairly friendly summary of the attitude to self publishing, I would be inclined to talk to them first....
Disclaimer: The author is not a lawyer. He just reads a lot.
Mike Lay
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