[quote=Chrysoula]
Actually, I think putting a game on StoryNexus is exactly like running a semi-public RPG on a forum. I mean, I’m not a Marvel lawyer but it’s just a matter of automation.[/quote]
Or a MUD/MUSH. Anyone else remember those? There used to be fan-run MUDs for everything under the sun, and I don’t remember anyone making much of a practice of shutting them down.
Which isn’t to say that Marvel won’t bother the OP: Marvel suffers from that specific form of inadequacy that leads to attaching a lawyer and then waving him about while screaming “Mine’s bigger! MINE’S BIGGER!” But that’s the OP’s risk to take.
Yeah I certainly never got the impression anywhere that Story Nexus was intended for profit… I guess some people can’t filter their biased opinions.
SN always was and always will be a tool for creative individuals to give a certain shape to their ideas, with the added bonus of financial gain for those authors that CHOOSE and are VERIFIED to do so.
I had been wondering about a slightly different point of IP law: fair use of situations/quotes. For example, in Fallen London, one option when Rooting out Unfinished Men results in the Clay Man asking (approximately) “Do you make up these questions? Or do they write them down for you?” This seems neither satire nor ripoff, but homage. Although … I can certainly imagine that an overly eager IP lawyer might pounce on the whole thing, even saying you have to cease and desist on the Unfinished Men entirely once you’ve ever scripted them like replicants.
Is this seriously something to worry about, or is that level of reuse generally understood properly (even among IP lawyers) as homage? Is a similar tip of the hat to other works probably okay in our worlds?
I suspect you pretty much have to decide that for yourself. However, I recommend Wikipedia articles on ‘sampling’, ‘appropriation (art)’, ‘de minimis’ and ‘fair use’ (Which, to be clear, is an American legal thing and not universal.) Also keep in mind that copyright is not applied or defended in the same way in all countries.
Most of the time, you have to think about the money. Copyright is most vigorously defended when money is at stake, and when there’s a reasonable demonstration that the infringing material has damaged the money-making capacity of the original material.
Also, copyright covers the expression of an idea. There’s a bit of complexity regarding derivative works, but in general it applies to the actual words used to express an idea. Taking the same idea and expressing it in your own words is not a violation of copyright (usually). (Trademark is a issue.) It is the foundation of lots and lots of excellent art, though.
No, I am not a lawyer, just somebody who’s researched this from a variety of angles in the past. The ultimate answer is, “You’re going to have to decide for yourself,” and “Failbetter is going to comply with takedown notices.” Because copyright prosecution and defense is often extremely complicated and variable.
Oh, and a suggestion re: the TOS. Prohibiting “use of automation or scripting to interact with the site” is problematic for the script someone wrote that allows my browser to display the total value of my Fallen London items. That might be considered to “interact” with the site even though it only operates within my browser to display status information to me as a real player. You might want to revise that to say “to feign interaction with the site” or … um … “act on the site without player action” … erm, something like that.
Actually, I have worked in libraries most of my life, often with electronically available materials that publishers and various “rights-holders” (usually not the original author) get all agitated about when we lend them to the general public. They’ve given up fighting on us lending out physical printed books to library patrons, but for digital lending, they require DRM so the files can’t be copied – and then on top of that, several publishers won’t allow their e-books to be bought by libraries, and at least one has a time bomb buried in all its library e-books that self-destructs after the e-book has been checked out 26 times.
Do rights-holders go far above and beyond what is reasonably attributable to lost money income? Hmm. Maybe.
Folks, it would please me if we didn’t see any more “Actually, the real summary of the situation is X” from anyone who isn’t a UK IP lawyer. And for that matter any more “StoryNexus is for Y” stuff.
I appreciate you’re engaged and have opinions, but at this early stage there’s a real chance of giving other users the wrong impression of the platform and the legal issues. And that would be an awful shame.
>"Is this seriously something to worry about, or is that level of reuse generally understood properly (even among IP lawyers) as homage? Is a similar tip of the hat to other works probably okay in our worlds? "
[color=#009900]We’re happy that that reference was safe for us, but it wouldn’t be responsible for us to detailed advice about where the line lies elsewhere for creators. We’re not IP lawyers either. [/color]
>“problematic for the script someone wrote that allows my browser to display the total value of my Fallen London items. […] You might want to revise [the ToS]…”
[color=#009900]‘The ToS prohibits a tool I use, so it’s wrong and you should change it.’ <–That’s not one I’ve heard before! :)[/color]
[color=#009900]This isn’t a mistake. We rule out all tools unless someone has asked us about it (and we’ve usually said yes to date when they’ve asked us). Even benign scripts that modify the UI we might not like because they give an advantage we don’t want, or make it harder for us to troubleshoot support issues. But I’m sure the creator of the script you’re using has obtained our permission and says as much where they posted the script…right? [/color]
Thank you, Nigel and Alexis. I don’t think that tool violates any Fallen London ToS that I was aware of, but perhaps it did, and I’m just now finding out from StoryNexus terms about some terms that did apply to Fallen London in the first place. Do you mean I’ve just been doing a lot of ill-informed babbling? But that’s never happened before :)
A word of warning on the satire thing: even if your work is genuinely satirical, you probably don’t want to try to prove that in court against a company that is much richer than you. If you want to play it safe, just leave other people’s IP alone entirely.
[quote=Alexis Kennedy]
[color=#009900]‘The ToS prohibits a tool I use, so it’s wrong and you should change it.’ <–That’s not one I’ve heard before! :)[/color]
[color=#009900]This isn’t a mistake. We rule out all tools unless someone has asked us about it (and we’ve usually said yes to date when they’ve asked us). Even benign scripts that modify the UI we might not like because they give an advantage we don’t want, or make it harder for us to troubleshoot support issues. But I’m sure the creator of the script you’re using has obtained our permission and says as much where they posted the script…right? [/color][font=Arial, Tahoma]
I shall uninstall it immediately, if you like. Not that it’s doing me much good right now, anyway. I’m so immersed in my lovely shiny new access to the StoryNexus creator tools, I’ve not been playing Fallen London at all :)
Regarding Failbetter’s IP, what’s your take on crossover between the names of qualities/stories on Echo Bazaar and third-party worlds? Not proper nouns and made-up words, which obviously should be off-limits (no Overgoats), but more basic concepts. What if a creator wants their players to be able to collect souls, for example?
This is something I’m making a point of avoiding, but it seems like it could very easily happen by mistake. I don’t know offhand whether you have an item called Wild Rumours, for example, but if someone were to make such an item and it turned out that EB had one by the same name, would they get in trouble?
I assume there’ll end up being some crossover between third-party worlds (I’m sure there are a hundred worlds already with a Basic Ability called Strength), but presumably that’s only a problem if it’s clear that someone has played another world and ripped it off in an obvious way.
[color=#009900] Our main concern is to exclude obvious FL fan worlds. We don’t have a trademark on the word ‘souls’. Fair use/dealing covers the odd in-joke or intertextual reference. [/color]
[color=#009900]
[/color]
[color=#009900]We can’t give definitive up-front rules, and I don’t want to get into a detailed discussion of theoretical examples, but[/color]
[color=#009900]
[/color]
[color=#009900]- a character collecting souls would be fine.[/color]
[color=#009900]- a character making a reference to a rumour that in another history, London was stolen by bats, would probably be fine.[/color]
[color=#009900]
[/color]
[color=#009900]- a game set in a city called Fallen Moscow stolen by the Echo Bazaar, set down in the Neath, would not be fine.[/color]
[color=#009900]- An SN story about Mrs Plenty’s pre-Fall past would not be fine.[/color]
[color=#009900]- Jack-of-Smiles vs Freddy vs Jason would not be fine. Although actually if you could get New Line’s permission to make the film, we would probably chip in too. :)[/color]