Well, nobody is sorrier about that than I am, but I was expecting a little less reactionary posting and a little more actual discussion of the *hypothetical* questions I posted. It is fairly clear to everyone who's been reading this thread where the disagreements are even without a discussion of what you are actually purchasing when you buy a RPG, though, so I consider this matter from my perspective to be unresolved, but closed. So why am I posting this, and why did I respond to Nick's post? Because while I don't plan to continue this any further, I also won't let misrepresentations of what I was saying stand without clearing them up. Hard as it may be for you to believe, there are people who read this digest who do actually agree with me, so I will continue to "hold up my end" if I need to.
> B: Many, many players (myself included) play RQ2
> to this day, using RQ3 materials only as far as they can be adapted for
> use in the older system. Now that GtG is on the way, that situation will
> only get worse, as RQ2 and RQ3 players that refuse to switch are forced
> to adapt GtG materials to fit their games.
> D: No one is being FORCED!
Argh!!! Daniel, this comment is *the* perfect example of what has frustrated me most about this thread. Rather than mull over any ideas I may put forth, you choose to seize on one word and get all upset about it. Why?
> B: What I was discussing was RQ
> players' rights to continue to use the product they purchased if they
> D: There can be no infringement of a person's right to use such a product
> they've bought. How could anyone come up with this? Did I misunderstand?
Yes. That was the entire point of the discussion. There *can* be infringement. If you need to boil everything I said down to one sentence, then I guess it would have to be something like: "I believe that Chaosium's (and many other RPG publishers, too) position on allowing players to publish their own material (for profit or non-profit) *may* be an infringement of the players' rights to use the products they purchased in they the manner that the publisher implied that they could be used".
Notice the word "may". This is all I have ever been saying.
> Nick: Then the said work could be submitted for publication to one of the
> > established zines (Tales, Drastic Res), or sent here to the Daily, or
> B: Pardon me, I mean no disrespect to anybody here, but don't you think it's
> even a tiny bit presumptuous for you to assume that everyone who wants to
> publish something would want to publish in Tales, Drastic Resolutions, etc.?
> D: Huh? I hope most of you are not reading this by now. Who hasn't wanted
> their contribution in Tales?
That's not the point. The point was that Nick was making an assumption here that anyone who wanted to publish something should just go to an already existing avenue. If Megacorp had thought that way, there would be no Tales today.
> B: I'm sorry if your hackles were raised, but not everyone's were...
> D: We could have a poll to find out. I think it has been suggested by several
> people here that we don't need to see SO MUCH of this on the digest, and now
> I'm into it too. Can we please take this to the Copyright Digest? or personal
> combat? Nick, Stephen, Shannon; How shall we decide who gets to torture him?
As I said, I don't plan to post anything further on this discussion unless I need to respond to something. As for your other comments, I don't really know what to say, but I had always considered members of this digest to be relative equals. The recent public stonings of myself and rhwolfe for expressing honest opinions with perhaps a little too much actual feeling behind them has made me reconsider that notion.
> To Brian: I don't want to keep you from writing this stuff, but PLEASE keep
> it short and reasonable. If I'm out of line all of you please tell me (beat
> me, kill me) but I just can't stand this pointless discussion anymore.
Neither can I. I am truly sorry I brought it up. If it's any consolation, I have the feeling that you won't be seeing any new pointless discussions from me for a while.
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