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The_Jester wrote:

Which has what to do with the topic at hand?

It has to do with the mentality of the people actually RUNNING the company. I'm not talking about Rouse, I'm not talking about the designers. I'm talking about Hasbro execs that have no love of D&D, and quite probably, no love of gaming.

By one account, Hasbro is "20 years behind the competition" when it comes to releasing a fan site policy - yet they're the industry leader, which means that, overall, they're ahead of the competition, not behind.

If Rouse is the person who would be tasked with writing and releasing a fan site policy, it seems quite evident that Rouse's taskmasters don't feel that it's necessary, otherwise, it would be out already.

One only needs to look at how things are being handled to gain a sense that the prevalent attitude towards the D&D product line is "it's selling, people like it, why bother with ancillary nonsense that doesn't make us any money?"

Whenever they fall behind they get bought-out by a larger or more profitable company that (surprise) keeps the recognizable name.

That's happened, what, once? TSR failed, WotC bought them. Hasbro's purchase of WotC wasn't due to D&D "failing". In fact, I quite seriously doubt that D&D had ANYTHING to do with Hasbro's purchase. M:TG and Pokemon completely eclipsed our favorite product.

The history of D&D is a history of terrible, flawed decisions that have repeatedly brought the game to the brink of disaster.

As is the history of any other RPG product.

You need to take care of the fans. They're your bread and butter. The big sites like ENWorld and such don't need a policy. They have lawyers. They can risk it. It's all the small fansites and people posting their homebrew worlds or campaign logs or making loving tribute sites to Dark Sun or Spelljammer that have to worry.

Yet those same fans keep buying the product, making small fan sites, posting homebrew worlds or campaign logs or making loving tribute sites to Dark Sun or Spelljammer...

Google shows this to be true.

Further, don't let the "online" size of ENworld fool you - realisitically, it's a small operation, with a small staff. They don't have "lawyers". They might have a single lawyer on retainer, and likely it's less for copyright issues, and more for issues related to the daily operation of the site.

At the end of the day, a lawyer isn't needed. A lot of people have some irrational fear about legal action, when the reality of the matter is, unless you're wholesale reproducing/distributing copyrighted content, the legal arm of WotC/Hasbro really doesn't care about you, or even know that you exist.

What's the RoI for this?

*snip*

I'd say all that is good reason for investing a couple days to hammering out a rough policy.

Perhaps you're right, but, again, remember who's in charge of things. I'm not saying Hasbro is some big huge evil empire, I'm simply saying that, overall, they just don't care about side activities like a fan site. It's nigh impossible to measure any kind of RoI on explicitly allowing a fan to do something like this.

The product is released, the product sells.

If someone steps over whatever arbitrary line that has been drawn, they get slapped with a Cease & Desist notice. If not, life goes on.

kythri wrote:

If Rouse is the person who would be tasked with writing and releasing a fan site policy, it seems quite evident that Rouse's taskmasters don't feel that it's necessary, otherwise, it would be out already.

And Rouse probably isn't rocking the boat or raising a fuss either. After seeing the rest of his crew laid-off he's probably not feeling adventurous or motivated to do anything but finish the recent work handed to him as quickly and quietly as possible. Especially with all the recession/depression talk. I'd be on the quiet side too...

kythri wrote:

That said, I'm stepping out of this particular thread.

I've stated my piece, and it's at the point where I'm just repeating the same thing again and again.

Thanks for participating.

kythri wrote:

I hope all goes well for the fan site that you wish to build, and I hope that, whether you choose to wait for an official policy, or roll with things now, that you get to build your site sooner, rather than later, and that you are successful in your endeavor.

Yeah, unfortunately the site I'm associated with has been up for a number of years. We're a little hesitant to publish new information and make the jump to 4e so the lack of a FanSite policy is effectively turning us into edition hold-overs. If they had a policy we might be more willing to embrace the change and begin writing/conversion prompting sales throughout our group.

Wait... cheese and bread... wow... you guys are rich.

I know, alot of the time, my first instinct is to tell someone to consult a lawyer. The reason for it, is in many cases people are trying to skirt around licensing and the like. With the OGL, we got spoiled. Now, with the GSL (and the fansite policy?) we are being a bit more cautious.

Use common sense, brush up a bit on the legal side of things yourself, use common sense, brush up a bit more on the legalese, be cautious, use common sense, and make your fansite. Worst case scenario in normal (i.e. not reproducing the works wholesale) is that you will receive a C&D letter.

I know it's fun to throw out conspiracy theories about lawyers and corporate fat cats holding up the fansite policy but there is a simple not so fun explanation.

It's been off my desk for a few months and now sits on the desk of someone in our web studio who will shepherd it through to completion...

but it's not his biggest priority, he's got other stuff he is working on and although this is important, it's not pressing...

not one website has been sued because of a lack of policy. The policy will certainly help answer questions and clear up guidelines but we have gotten by without one for over 8 years and even when we do get one it isn't going to suddenly make all the pirates and other problems we deal with on the internet go away. If you are really doing something wrong (like posting PDFs of copyrighted material) in the the current no-policy environment you'll probably hear from us...

and if you really have a burning question about whether you can or can't do something on your webs site you can refer to our current terms of service or ask us via email, PM, phone or through theCustomer Service Knowledge Base

Vaalingrade Ashland wrote:

I just want to make sure I'm not going to get crucified or looted by WotC if I put my 4e material up without something like the old OGL up on my WoE site.

There are laws (copyright)and legal principles (fair use) in place in almost every country in the world that tell what you can and can't do with stuff you create/own (or conversely don't create/own and thus don't have rights too use).

We are dealing with huge sharing sites and torrent sites and less concerned with some guy posting his homebrew.