Sillmarilion

[Taqwus]

Pratputajao said:
Wow that is kind of a trip actually. I have seen dozens of differant star wars and star trek mods for many differnat games,(Stardock's site comes to mind) I highly doubt they all had permission from the powers that be... This is the first time I have encountered talk of copy right taken so seriously when talking of players making mods? So basically we can only post our own mod based on a story we created, we cant access the many great worlds and ideas already out there? Hmmm... First for me. Oh well I guess I will try and just Mod it for myself.

There's issues of copyright (derivative work) and trademark dilution. For one fairly infamous case in point, 20th Century Fox threatened legal action over the 'Aliens TC' mod for Doom, and quite probably would have won had it gone to court. In the case of a -game- where it is entirely plausible that the holder of the original IP has an economic interest in authorizing computer games and benefiting from the licensing terms -- doing the mod yourself an distributing it can be rather problematic.

Hence, it's unsurprising if Shrapnel prefers to hedge its bets and not be seen to facilitate such, particularly in a moderated forum where they do exercise some editorial control over what posts get removed.

[PvK]

Gotta protect the rights o' the corporations that somehow own every thought and expression related to the work of someone who's dead and had nothing to do with those corporations when he was alive.

Oh ya. Sigh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien_Enterprises

[Gandalf Parker]

I dont think we have acted on text content before. Mostly its been things abit more obvious such as graphics and sound clips taken directly from other sources. Especially if the person publicly says thats where they got them. As I used to tell my charges in the military "I might not go hunting for violations, but dont expect me to break my neck trying to look the other way if you hold it up in front of me".

Whether its logical or not, I would hope that anyone would be careful about endangering Shrapnel and Illwinter.

[thejeff]

So did Illwinter get permission from whoever owns the Lovecraft copyrights for R'lyeh and Deep Ones, and from WoTC for illithids and Aboleths? (I'm pretty sure both of those are original to D&D, though certainly inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos)

[HoneyBadger]

Lovecraft stuff isn't copywrited, as far as I know. It's open source, aka, in the public domain.

[HoneyBadger]

If you *really* want to see a whole host of copyright offenses, have a close look at peoples' icons sometime.

Nobody in-or even only somewhat out-of their right mind is going to try persuing it though, because it's an "homage" rather than a violation.

[BigDisAwesome]

Luckily Dr. Mario hasn't sued me yet.

[Morkilus]

HoneyBadger said:
If you *really* want to see a whole host of copyright offenses, have a close look at peoples' icons sometime.

And you, HoneyBadger, have STOLEN intellectual property from the company with THE most hardcore set of IP lawyers. I'll see you in jail... assuming old AD&D monster manual from 1979 is owned by Hasbro as well

[HoneyBadger]

You can have my rhysorian badger when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!

Ofcourse, you're advised to do so if and when the rhysorian badger is also cold and dead.

[Reverend Zombie]

HoneyBadger said:
Lovecraft stuff isn't copywrited, as far as I know. It's open source, aka, in the public domain.

This depends upon the country, and the year of publication, actually. Lovecraft copyrights are a mess.