Looking for Mr Gadbois, Legal chicanery

From: David Cake <davidc_at_cyllene.uwa.edu.au>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 19:37:34 +0800


First,

        On a related note to the quest for Mr. Gadbois, Australian TOTRM subscribers still have not received Tales 14, and some of us are a might grumpy about it. Any word from anyone involved?

Recently a lawyer suggested

>I suspect that there are probably jurisdictions that do not have the
>equivalence of a copyright law, where it would be legal to post material
>(i.e. make a copy available for public inspection). Off the top of my head,
>I do not know of any such jurisdiction, but I would bet a couple probably
>exist.

        96 Nations, including most of the largest, including specifically the USA, UK, Australia (ie virtually all of us) are signatories to the Berne Convention. This means that something copyrighted in the U.S. is by default copyright elsewhere. Even a nation that isn't specifically a party to the Berne convention but that is a member of the World Trade Organisation must still comply with most of it anyway, excluding certain moral rights. In other words, virtually every nation anyone is likely to be able to distribute material from is covered by copyright. Actually, the native U.S. laws of copyright are in many ways less restrictive (the US has only been a party to the Bern convention since 1989). I found this all out with a quick web search, mostly from
http://www.wipo.org/eng/general/copyrght/

        I would also like to say that I find the whole idea that we should try and circumvent Chaosiums (presumably the copyright holder in question) legal rights morally questionable. Chaosium are doing a more than reasonable amount to make OOP material available, and we should be encouraging them to do so by other means.

        If you want to make out of print material available, I think the perfect example of how to do this is provided by the RMC work on Wyrms Footprints. Involve Chaosium, be prepared to put some effort in, and you end up with something considerably more rewarding than covert samizdat networks of mostly outdated stuff. This is undoubtedly complicated by the AH/ Chaosium split in the case of RQ stuff, though.

        Which is not to say that there won't be some photocopying between fans of OOP stuff - but lets not try and wholesale distribute Chaosiums copyrighted material, OK? Chaosiums copyrights are a valuable corporate asset, and it is quite reasonable for them to not want them distributed freely without even consultation.

        Cheers

                David

PS When you talk about the legal system in a post, it is now obligatory to intone a ritual DISCLAIMER, which hopefully will ward off the evil eye of lawyers. So I should point out that of course, my legal training is quite non-existent, so all my legal advice are little more than opinion, drawing on such informed sources as the sign above the photocopier in the room next door.


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