> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Neal Rogers
> Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 11:14 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [Ogf-l] I'm Game
>
>
> I think it's of critical importance to do your due
> diligence on the origins of _everything_ you didn't
> create yourself. I have seen all kinds of "linkware"
> art collections or web template collections on the
> Internet, for example, that are full of one copyright
> violation after another. Just because one person says
> it's "free" or Open doesn't mean that it really is.
> It definitely pays to track the work back to its
> original source and make sure that you can use it.
> Hopefully, people will be diligent about documenting
> their sources so that those of us who want to be
> careful about this kind of thing won't be pulling out
> our hair tracking down the origins of some monster or
> other.
This, in a roundabout way, makes Faust's point. Which source are you as a
publisher going to trust more: a hardcover volume from a publisher with an
established track record, or a really cool fan site from some name you've
never heard before? Although the publisher could screw up and the fan could
be thoroughly diligent, the odds are better with the publisher.
So from this perspective, the OGL/STL combination is a bit of a dead end as
far as fan works go: once something is a fan work, fans can reuse it freely,
but publishers should be wary. I think that a publisher would do fan sites a
big favor by avoiding deriving from the fan works without bending over
backwards in checking out the sources.
In fact, I would like to believe that the courts would rule that someone who
publishes for a profit has a higher responsibility to verify sources than
does someone who publishes for free. That would encourage the for-profit
publishers to be extra careful in what they reuse.
Martin L. Shoemaker
Martin L. Shoemaker Consulting, Software Design and UML Training
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.MartinLShoemaker.com
http://www.UMLBootCamp.com
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