On Thu, Jan 23, 2003 at 03:18:43PM -0500, Doug Meerschaert wrote:
> Bryant Durrell wrote:
> 
> >Sure.  But to claim that people were meticulously seeking out permission
> >in each case of magazine publication... and let's remember that the guy
> >who asked the question which set this off is essentially talking about a
> >/fanzine/.
>
> Fanzines tend to exist at the publisher's discretion.  They _could_ sue 
> and shut them down, but don't.

Sure.  My point being that, ignoring the greater issue of whether or not
you think that rules systems can be copyrighted, WotC seems to have
created a chilling effect that extends even to advice given to people
who are operating at a level which has traditionally been given much
more wiggle room.

I also continue to think that Ryan is simply incorrect if he's really
asserting that magazines have always routinely sought permission before
publishing articles on a third party game system.  For example, check
out the matching payments info at 
http://www.sjgames.com/general/guidelines/writers/writers-guide-othermags.html.

Note that there's no explicit license granted by that page, but more
important, there's no indication that SJ Games is expecting notification
before publication.  They request notification after the article is
published, and only for the sake of making a matching payment.

It is possible that TSR pressured magazines to seek prior permission;
I'm pretty sure Palladium strongly pressured for permission.  But to 
characterize that as an industry-wide practice seems odd to me.

-- 
        Bryant Durrell [] http://www.innocence.com/~durrell [] 9/11/2001
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                     ONCE, adv.  Enough.  -- Ambrose Bierce
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