Thomas,

My understanding is that you can't distribute them at all in the US,
regardless of form.  I believe that the courts have defined a right to
"format shift" - so you can scan them and put them into an accessible
form for yourself - but format shifting does not allow distribution.

If you host these publicly, in any form, without the proper
authorization and/or licensing, you're violating copyright.  The odds
of actually getting in trouble for it are probably pretty low, but
definitely nonzero.

Of course it doesn't make sense; but in the world of copyright, what
makes sense doesn't matter.

Dennis Towne

Alter Aeon MUD
http://www.alteraeon.com


On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 3:25 PM, Thomas Ward <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I was wondering if anyone knows where we stand legally on
> redistributing roll playing game source books in accessible format.
> The reason I ask is because I have a number of source books for the
> Star Wars roll playing game I'm in the process of converting to text
> or html. Once I'm done scanning and editing the source books I'd like
> to redistribute them to other blind gamers, but am not clear where I
> stand legally. I could submit them to Bookshare.org to have them
> converted to Daisy format, which would be one way of legally
> redistributing them, but most of the gamers here live outside the US
> so don't qualify for Bookshare. Therefore while submitting the scanned
> copies to Bookshare would be the legal thing to do it defeats the
> purpose of trying to redistribute them to other blind gamers here who
> might wish to join me in getting a weekly Star Wars roll playing game
> going  similar to what Phil and others do with Dungeons and Dragons.
> So what i've been thinking of doing is zipping them and hosting them
> on the USA Games website, but I believe in order to legally distribute
> them they have to be in some specific accessibility format like Dasy
> and can't be in an all purpose format like text or html which I feel
> is more accessible than Daisy. Can anyone shed any light on this?
>
> Thanks.
>
> ---
> Gamers mailing list __ [email protected]
> If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected].
> You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
> http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
> All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected].
> If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list,
> please send E-mail to [email protected].

---
Gamers mailing list __ [email protected]
If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected].
You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at
http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org.
All messages are archived and can be searched and read at
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected].
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list,
please send E-mail to [email protected].

Reply via email to