on 1/27/03 8:43 PM, Matthew Sprange at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> up as an example of "what not to do." THAT's not because you made a >> "mistake". You guys made a conscious decision to go from a very clear, > very >> easy OGC declaration to one that virtually ensures that people have to > come >> to you and get your permission to use *almost anything* from your books. > > Covered this in a previous post. One thing I did not mention, and may be > worth raising, is that we are by no means anti-OGC. In fact, I have a > feeling that we are not only the biggest users of OGC (with the Ultimate > series) but that we have produced more _new_ OGC than any other publisher. > But no one has mentioned that :) I personally have used some of it. > >> your reaction to it. Again, I don't know the details, but as we've been >> given to understand it your reaction consisted of a single post to a > single >> board (out of literally hundreds of possible other venues). Maybe you > could > > It was the most active of all possible venues - it was not as if we buried > it on our own forums, which would have been a very easy thing to do. Also, > this was all that was asked of us in the mail I first received. Now, > Rebecca has come out of the blue for us on this list - I have had no contact > with her other than what you chaps have seen here. Our last message from you asked for a listing of the uncredited authors, which we supplied. We did not understand that that was all you were going to post. We expected you to include the names in some sort of statement making the situation clear, as we had asked. We expected that, since it had been brought to your attention that you were in violation of the OGL, you would do something meaningful to make it right, like making it clear to everyone who read your statement that these authors held the copyrights on their work and that it did not belong to Mongoose Games. Your statement did not do this. > >> 1. Did you contact the Netbook Council and the wronged authors directly? > > No, the only contact I have had was with Maraneth, whom I presumed spoke for > the whole group. Duane Nutley is the current Team Leader of the Netbook of Classes and acted as our representative. Maransreth is his online ID. It is unfortunate that he did not sign his emails. He did speak for the whole group. When we saw the result on ENWorld, I expressed my dissatisfaction and he, and the others, gave me the go-ahead to post our own statement to both ENWorld and Mortality.Net. Morrus saw fit not to respond as he felt, as did you, that the issue had been addressed. I disagreed, and so came here. He did say I could post it in the forums, but I experienced technical difficulties and have grown frustrated with that venue. >> 4. Did you issue a general press release? > > There really is no such thing in this industry, despite the 'official' > announcements some publishers make. I am guessing what is important is > letting gamers and potentially other publishers know about the situation > and, again, EN World is the best placed way of doing this. Normally I would agree with this, which was why we suggested EN World in the first place. However, an ambiguous statement that does not address the issue doesn't help, no matter how widely distributed. > >> 5. Did you update your web site to prominently correct the oversight and >> give those authors credit for their work? > > I would if we had any control over the web site at this time - for technical > reasons it is, to all intents and purposes, down at the moment, and has been > for the past 3-4 weeks. I know how you feel. I personally only just found out the new netbook address. Apparently, someone bought our domain and we had to get a new one. nboclasses.fancc.net > >> The fundamental reality is - and it is a harsh one - that until you > correct >> the situation to each an every wronged author's satisfaction you are >> distributing (and profiting off of) a product that contains stolen > material. >> You have NO LICENSE to distribute that material. > > Rebecca _still_ hasn't told me what she actually wants us to do. I had been > dealing with Maraneth before hand and was led to believe he spoke for all > authors concerned. I did everything he asked, and I did it immediatly. > Thus, I thought this situation _had_ been resolved to everyone's > satisfaction. What I did _not_ get was any indication at all that this was > not the case. > > All someone needs to do is talk to me. Or we can carry on hashing it out > here with everyone putting their oar in and, I promise, very little will be > resolved to anyone's satisfaction. > > Just send me a mail. That is all it takes. > > Matthew I'll talk to the rest of the netbook and get you another email. > Also, while I don't know if any of the other d20 publishers have contacted > Mongoose games regarding their own classes, I found many which were not > listed in Section 15. There are 34 total non-mongoose games classes in the > Ultimate Prestige Classes. Only 16 are actually listed in section 15. That > leaves 18 unlisted classes, of which 13 were from the Netbook of Classes. <Again, this is just how rumours start. We created new classes for this <book - what you are citing is original material. Follow the last line in <section 15. These classes are covered under that entry. . . I think you misread this, Matt. Either that, or your people are missinforming you. I took the count twice, as you'll see in my complete statement below. There are 29 new prestige classes (by my count, and I admit I don't have every source and so couldn't check them all, but it's probably at least close to accurate), and I include those in Mongoose's total. The 34 non-mongoose classes are those I could positively identify as being from non-mongoose sources. Since your Section 15 only identifies 16 non-mongoose classes, that leaves 18 unidentified, and 13 of those were from the Netbook of Classes. The 5 others were: Bloodwitch, Sea Witch and Summoner from Relics & Rituals Roofrunner from Traps & Treachery Student of the Dragon from Dragons To make a clarification, one of the classes from the Netbook of Classes was later published in the author's own publication, the Enchiridion of Mystical Music: Sonomancer by Spencer "The Sigil" Cooley. I counted that as a Netbook of Classes source, but your compiler may have taken it from his PDF. Here is the correspondence as it took place: > > I am writing this letter on behalf of a number of authors who have not >been > > credited for the classes they created and published in the Fantasy > > Community Council's Netbook of Classes. Mongoose has used classes by these > > authors, a list of which has been included in this email, in its recent > > product Ultimate Guide to Prestige Classes. This letter is an attempt to > > open communication between us on this subject so we can work toward a > > satisfactory resolution. > >Hi there, > >I have actually been waiting for your email. We made the decision fairly >early on not to credit individuals on the contents page due to reasons of >space. However, section 15, as you state, should have included this >information. I am still trying to find out exactly why this was not done >but at this time can only put it down to a massive balls-up on our part, for >which all your writers have my apologies. > >Our second book in the series, Ultimate Feats, also used Netbook sources >and, when you are able to track down a copy, you will see that we have >fulfilled our OGC obligations. > >Once again, I apologise for the cock-up and assure you that it will not >happen again. > >If you have any otjher questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to give >me a shout. > > Thank you for your prompt response on this matter. We at the FanCC's > > Netbook of Classes would like to see the authors formally acknowledged in > > any future reprints, as well as mention of the oversight posted to your > > website and at least one other public website, such as ENWorld. A letter >to > > the forums would also be nice. We believe that our contributing authors > > deserve recognition for their creations. After all, some of them may be > > looking for work with d20 publishers and a writing credit in a published > > product always helps. > >I believe that is very fair - let me have the list of authors and classes >again, and I'll sort that out ASAP (apologies, I have lost your last mail). > >Talk to you soon, > >Matthew Here is what was posted to EN World: Mongoose Publishing have sent along a list of missing credits from their Ultimate Prestige Classes book. Classes and their respective authors: Nomad Lord by Carl Cramer; Arcanist by Carl Cramer; Artificer by Becky Glenn; Sonomancer by Spencer Cooley; Golden One by Adam Nave; Healing Hand by Becky Glenn; Puritan by Dominique Crouzet; The Wise (name changed to Revered Elder) by Becky Glenn; Arcane Burglar by Duane Nutley; Bounty Hunter by Ian Cheesman; Calligrapher by Itzhak Even; Gifted Maker by Mike Kletch; Sea Hawk by Carl Cramer. I and the others found this statement unsatisfactory, so I put together our own statement which I intended to post to the forums: Ultimate Prestige Classes Volume I is a huge compilation of prestige classes useful to just about any GM. It contains 102 prestige classes, as well as decent guidelines for building or evaluating others for use in your campaign. 29 of those classes are, as far as I could tell, new prestige classes printed for the first time in this volume. The rest are drawn from various sources; however, not all of them are referenced in Section 15 of the OGL printed at the back of the book. Some are taken from professional d20 publications, while others were taken from amateur publications on the net. Two-thirds of the classes in the book are either reprints from prior Mongoose Games publications or new to the work. Since those are all copyright Mongoose Games, they don�t have to list the actual sources. However, 34 prestige classes come from non-Mongoose Games sources and only a few of those are cited in the copyright section. Recently, Matt Sprange sent a note to ENWorld with a listing of uncredited authors whose classes were used in Ultimate Prestige Classes Volume I. What this note does not indicate is that none of those authors were Mongoose Games writers and they all own the copyrights to their work. Nor does it make any mention of the other d20 publishers who were not cited properly. I have compiled a listing of the 34 non-Mongoose classes in Ultimate Prestige Classes below, with their proper copyright notices. I referenced the complete listing of classes provided by the Netbook of Classes, and only list those whose writeups I can confirm by comparing the two publications. There may be other classes within the Ultimate Prestige Classes Volume I originally from sources other than Mongoose Games, but I cannot confirm them. Arcane Burglar Copyright 2002 Duane Nutley (source: Netbook of Classes Volume I) Arcanist Copyright 2002 Tomas Carl Abraham Cramer (source: Netbook of Classes Volume II) Artificer and Revered Elder (originally titled The Wise) Copyright 2001 Rebecca Glenn (source: Netbook of Classes Volume I) Beastmaster, Psychic Thief originally appeared in Psionics Toolkit, Copyright 2001 Fiery Dragon. Blood Witch, Crypt Lord, Incarnate, Penumbral Lord, Sea Witch, Summoner, Vigilant originally appeared in Relics & Rituals, Copyright 2001 Clark Peterson. Bounty Hunter Copyright 2001 Ian Cheesman (source: Netbook of Classes Volume I) Calligrapher Copyright 2002 Itzhak Even (source: Netbook of Classes Volume II) Discreet Companion, Guildmaster, Roofrunner, Trapmaster originally appeared in Traps & Treachery, Copyright 2001 Fantasy Flight Games. Dragonslayer, Student of the Dragon originally appeared in Dragons, Copyright 2001 AEG. Explosives Specialist, Shock Trooper, Treasure Hunter originally appeared in Dungeons, Copyright 2001 AEG. Gifted Maker Copyright 2002, Mike Kletch (source: Netbook of Classes Volume II) Golden One Copyright 2001 Adam Nave (source: Netbook of Classes Volume I) Healing Hand Copyright 2002 Rebecca Glenn (source: Netbook of Classes Volume I) Nomad Lord and Sea-Hawk Copyright 2001 Tomas Carl Abraham Cramer (source: Netbook of Classes Volume I) Puritan Copyright 2002 Dominique Crouzet (source: Netbook of Classes Volume I) Reef Warrior originally appeared in Seafarer�s Handbook, Copyright 2001 Fantasy Flight Games. Seeker originally appeared in The Hunt: Rise of Evil Copyright 2001, Mystic Eye Games. Sonomancer Copyright 2002 Spencer �The Sigil� Cooley (source: Netbook of Classes Volume II � this class also appears in Mr. Cooley�s PDF publication, the Enchiridion of Mystic Music) Stonegaard originally appeared in Hammer and Helm, Copyright 2002 Green Ronin. Thirteen of the 34 classes listed above were originally published in the Netbook of Classes, Volumes I and II. The authors refined their classes through several review cycles, while the Netbook of Classes team reviewed each class based on criteria set at the founding of the organization. Once the classes reached a final stage, they were edited and laid out and published in PDF format, available for free on the Netbook of Classes website: nboclasses.fancc.net. We at the Netbook of Classes are pleased that Mongoose Games was impressed enough with our work to reprint these classes, almost completely unchanged, in their compilation of the best prestige classes in print. We feel in good company with the other d20 publishers listed above and will continue to review and compile quality prestige classes for the d20 community. Congratulations to the authors of the 13 classes chosen for inclusion in Ultimate Prestige Classes Volume I. As a group, you were the largest non-Mongoose contributors to this 256-page book. The Netbook of Classes is one of several teams working to produce free, quality Open Gaming Content for use with the d20 system. Together, these teams form the Fantasy Community Council, which can be found at ________________ (i need to find out this, I had the wrong address in the original). Our sister netbook, the Netbook of Feats, was also a source for many of the feats found in Ultimate Feats Volume I (Mongoose Games), and has provided feats for several other d20 publications. Authors who submit their work to the Netbook of Classes (and the Netbook of Feats as well), keep the copyrights to their submissions. The Netbooks provide constructive criticism and advice, and a published forum for distribution of their work. If you are interested in seeing your work published in this way, come to our websites and read our submission guidelines. Who knows? Your work might get picked for a �best of� print project by another d20 publisher. Becky Glenn Netbook of Classes _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
