[freeroleplay] Re: Alleged Copyright Infringement and the History of RPGs
- From: Ricardo Gladwell <president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: FRPGC <freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:07:43 +0100
Dear All,
Just a quick update on this issue: Mr. Fannon responded to my email
requesting evidence of copyright infringement. He replied be sending me
Microsoft Word copies of the chapters from his book, stating "the
nature, flavor, and flow of the work felt like it was my own work,
reworded".
I am preparing to run some analysis software on both documents to
determine more precisely if any parts of the documents are copied from
each other. I shall also be printing out and comparing both documents.
However, by Mr. Fannon's own admission, there do not appear to be any
direct copies of one document to another, only a vague suspicion that
the document "felt" as though it had been "reworded". I have, once
again, pushed back to Mr. Fannon to provide citations of direct copying
since I can't help feeling he is pushing the burden of proof onto us.
I am considering drafting a letter to Groklaw as Sam suggests. Does
anyone have any advice and/or suggestions?
Kind regards...
--
Ricardo Gladwell
President, Free Roleplaying Community
http://www.freeroleplay.org/
president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Wed, 2004-08-18 at 08:58, Samuel Penn wrote:
> Ricardo Gladwell said:
> > However, Mr. Fannon's email didn't actually provide any concrete
> > evidence of any copyright infringement, only the suggestion of it.
> > Whilst we do not want to break the law, we cannot simply let anyone who
> > suspects a work is copied from their own to dictate what we can and
> > cannot publish.
> >
> > Anyone have any thoughts on this subject?
>
> Give him time to come up with details of the alleged infringement,
> and if he can't or is unwilling to within a suitable period of
> time, put it back up. Not sure where the law stands on this.
> Ideally, if two people claim ownership, and one has given you
> the right to use it, then any legal wrangling is between the
> two owners. You're using it in 'good faith'. Back in the real
> world, things can be messier, and legal advice can be expensive.
>
> Does sound very SCO-like though (maybe Groklaw would be interested,
> since it involves copyright law and the GPL).
>
> The bit that says 'contains words that are unchanged' suggests
> that he thinks bits are similar, rather than the whole work.
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