Xref: utzoo rec.games.programmer:501 rec.games.frp:8095 comp.sources.wanted:5886
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!uwmcsd1!lakesys!jamesd
From: jamesd@lakesys.UUCP (James Dicke)
Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer,rec.games.frp,comp.sources.wanted
Subject: Re: Re^2: Wanted:  AD&D (FRP Game) Data files
Message-ID: <248@lakesys.UUCP>
Date: 25 Dec 88 23:25:14 GMT
References: <881220-075538-4806@Xerox> <159@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu>
Reply-To: jamesd@lakesys.UUCP (James Dicke)
Organization: Lake Systems - Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Lines: 45

In article <159@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu> VICPAUA@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu writes:
>In article <881220-075538-4806@Xerox>, Luce.wbst@XEROX.COM writes:
>>I was under the impression that as long as I, in no way, re-distributed the
>>data, and utilized it ONLY for personal use, I should have no
>>difficulty, since I am in no way "competing" with any current or future
>>marketable item from TSR.  Therefore I could not be accused of "hurting"
>>TSR's market reguarding such data, and so could not possibly be accused
>>of costing TSR any loss in revenue, and thereby any justification of
>>lawsuit.
>>
> 
>  As someone who will (hopefully) soon be wrangling over the problems of
>game copyrights, to the best of my non-legal knowledge, you are
>completely correct - as long as your "DM's aid" is used BY YOU and is not
>distributed to ANYONE else, you're just fine. To draw an analogy, you can
>make archival copies of copyrighted software - you just can't distribute
>them to anyone.
>  (On a more practical (and non-legal) note: if you used such a aid only
>for your own use, I don't know how TSR would ever find out you're using
>it, even if (by some means) it WAS illegal. Unless TSR has spies every-
>where...Hmmmm...)

Where as this above statment is true- there are a few points worth covering.
First of all I wrote a BBS using AD&D rules.  It in no way competed or 
reduced the amount of revenue TSR was making- in fact it made several people
actually by the manuals because of my system.  But the fact remains that
TSR dosn't care.  If you write a product using their system its an infringment
of thier copyrights- plain and simple.  If you were to write a DM's helper
and only use it yourself and never let your freinds use it or have a copy of
it and never dropped it into the public domain you would most likly be safe.
But of what worth is something like that?  And true TSR can't spy on everyone
but if you are passing a program around and you have enemies- look out.

The only point I was tring to get across is the sole fact that using the Net
(or any other means) to distribute the copyright materials of TSR (namely
thier data) is illegal and there is bond to be someone watching in the
netland.  It was simply a warning.

  __________________________________________________________________________
 |    king@abyss.UUCP    |    {backbone,uunet}!marque!lakesys!abyss!king    |
%|-----------------------+--------------------------------------------------|
%| "God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent- it says so right here on |
%| the label."  God is a trademark of AT&T Bell Labs.  ** Space for rent ** |
%|__________________________________________________________________________|
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%