(unknown charset) Re: Gloranthan Fan Policy

From: µävøx
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 08:15:38 -0700 (PDT)


> From: Peter Keel <killer_at_discordia.ch>

> > "Anything that is slanderous, libelous,
> > pornographic, or otherwise defaming to
> > the reputation of the trademark."
>
> I don't see how "pornographic" fits in? So
> you want to make it impossible for someone to
> write gloranthan pornography without your
> formal approval? That is, frankly, weird.

I don't see that as weird. They want to control what materials their trademark is used to identify. Given that they want to make a business of it, that makes sense to me.

Think about this hypothetical: 11-year-old son puts HeroQuest on his Christmas list. Concerned mom goes on the web to find out about it. She goes through a few dozen sites and comes across "Tales of the Perverted Moon." She decides to go for Pokemon this Christmas. Businesses have to think about those possibilities.

> "Maps derived from Issaries maps."
>
> Derived? Hello? If I redraw a gloranthan map
> myself, you most probably have not rights on it
> at all. So even then I would need no formal
> or informal license.

Not in the US, you don't. I can't speak definitively for other countries, but would be surprised if the answer was significantly different. If you re-draw a map, that is very little different from making a copy.   The term "derived" is the key here. You can draw maps of portions of Glorantha without making a map derived from one of Issaries' maps.

> "Article Gathering Prohibited
> Issaries, Inc. specifically prohibits the
> gathering together and mirroring of third party
> Original Material on any Online Fan Source,
> even if the site owner obtains permission from
> the copyright holder and their agreement to
> the "Concept Use" statement. If an article,
> write-up, or other material is available on the
> third party owner's own (or authorized) web
> site, any other Online Fan Source must link
> to it rather than mirroring and hosting the
> file as well."
>
> Bummer, with that you're trying to violate any
> ones copyright on their own material.

No, they are placing a condition on their own grant of license rights. The business point is that they want to make themselves the focal point of the online Gloranthan community. I don't see this as unreasonable if you want Issaries to succeed in making a real live business out of Glorantha.

> As happens right now with operating systems,
> where people are fed up with windows and look
> for free, open source, alternatives like linux.

Even a lot of open source licenses has significant restrictions. IIRC, the GNU license requires you to grant back ownership of any changes you make.

Chris Lemens

(Not an ad: If you have a little extra money to=20 donate to a good cause, check out=20
http://www.modestneeds.org/.)



Powered by hypermail