Copyright question and Roll20.net

[Jacenat]

Hey guys,

I am sure you heard of roll20.net. Now someone on reddit brought to my attention that you can share premade adventures. Now what is Paizo's official stance on:

1) Using artwork from the Adventure Path PDFs and importing it into Roll20 (provided the person importing/using it has bought the AP)?
2) Making pre-built Adventure Path settings on Roll20 and sharing it with others? Pre-built to an extent to include maps, locations, names and character descriptions from the official AP PDFs.

Before we get all crazy sharing these things across roll20, I wanted to know an official word from you guys if at all possible.

Also I heard you are planning your own Virtual Tabletop. Any news on when it will be out?

[Matt Thomason]

While you wait on an official answer, I'd suggest taking a look at Paizo's Community Use Policy, which defines a certain amount of material you can reference in non-commercial use.

I would imagine the above would apply to anything being actively shared outside your own group (e.g. to other GMs.) What's allowed in a private locked single-game-group-only area is something you'd need to await the official response for.

[Skeld]

I would think sharing any maps/art online that isn't already cleared by the CUP would be a copyright violation.

-Skeld

[BigDTBone]

Isn't this already going on in the AP forums on this very website? There seems to be quite a bit of digital artwork sharing going on down there.

[Skeld]

BigDTBone wrote:

Isn't this already going on in the AP forums on this very website? There seems to be quite a bit of digital artwork sharing going on down there.

If there is, I hadn't noticed it. Do you have specific threads in mind?

-Skeld

[BigDTBone]

Skeld wrote:

BigDTBone wrote:

Isn't this already going on in the AP forums on this very website? There seems to be quite a bit of digital artwork sharing going on down there.

If there is, I hadn't noticed it. Do you have specific threads in mind?

-Skeld

linky

[Joana]

Those are user-made maps, not the maps from the PDFs.

[BigDTBone]

Well, it would seem that the OP has less work to do and nothing to worry about then. There are a bunch of those types of maps ready made for several AP's.

[Skeld]

BigDTBone wrote:

Well, it would seem that the OP has less work to do and nothing to worry about then. There are a bunch of those types of maps ready made for several AP's.

Given Joana has pointed out that those aren't actual maps from the AP, I think the question still remains, although I think the answer is still "don't do that."

-Skeld

[Vic Wertz]

Matt Thomason wrote:

While you wait on an official answer, I'd suggest taking a look at Paizo's Community Use Policy, which defines a certain amount of material you can reference in non-commercial use.

The Official Answer is... what he said.

[Jacenat]

Vic Wertz wrote:

Matt Thomason wrote:

While you wait on an official answer, I'd suggest taking a look at Paizo's Community Use Policy, which defines a certain amount of material you can reference in non-commercial use.

The Official Answer is... what he said.

So if I create a campaign for a Paizo AP on roll20, include the statement that it uses trademarks and/or copyrights owned by Paizo and then invite another player and promote him to GM so he can DM the module (to potentially players unknown to me) it's still not against the CUP and the general TOS of the site?

Also, using maps and/or artwork included in APs on roll20 is prohibited? In the CUP it does not mention you can use artwork and specifically states:

Community Use Policy wrote:

You may not use artwork, including maps, that have not been published in the blog,

Additionally creating maps that look too much like the ones in the AP is also prohibited per

Community Use Policy wrote:

you may create your own interpretations of material presented in our artwork and maps, provided that your interpretations don't look substantially similar to our materials.

So stuff like linked here:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2i3wa&page=19?Community-Created-Stuff#905
Is actually against the CUP if used, as it recreates maps from an AP basically 1:1? Not sure if it's against the TOS to even create it?

[Matt Thomason]

Jacenat wrote:

So stuff like linked here:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2i3wa&page=19?Community-Created-Stuff#905
Is actually against the CUP if used, as it recreates maps from an AP basically 1:1? Not sure if it's against the TOS to even create it?

IMO, I would assume that's covered under the "turn a blind eye because it's just people playing the game after all, and making an official statement one way or the other either makes us look like a-holes or opens huge holes for people to steal our IP" policy ;)

[Vic Wertz]

Jacenat wrote:

Vic Wertz wrote:

Matt Thomason wrote:

While you wait on an official answer, I'd suggest taking a look at Paizo's Community Use Policy, which defines a certain amount of material you can reference in non-commercial use.

The Official Answer is... what he said.

So if I create a campaign for a Paizo AP on roll20, include the statement that it uses trademarks and/or copyrights owned by Paizo and then invite another player and promote him to GM so he can DM the module (to potentially players unknown to me) it's still not against the CUP and the general TOS of the site?

I'm never going to sum up the CUP in a few words—all of the words are there for a reason. But if you can do all the things it says you must do, and not do any of the things it tells you not to do, then you can use it.

I will note that what you're talking about would count as a "play-by-post or play-by-email game" for the purpose of determining what permissions you have.

Jacenat wrote:

Also, using maps and/or artwork included in APs on roll20 is prohibited? In the CUP it does not mention you can use artwork and specifically states:

Community Use Policy wrote:

You may not use artwork, including maps, that have not been published in the blog,

Additionally creating maps that look too much like the ones in the AP is also prohibited per

Community Use Policy wrote:

you may create your own interpretations of material presented in our artwork and maps, provided that your interpretations don't look substantially similar to our materials.

So stuff like linked here:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2i3wa&page=19?Community-Created-Stuff#905
Is actually against the CUP if used, as it recreates maps from an AP basically 1:1? Not sure if it's against the TOS to even create it?

What we mean there is basically, you can't just make an exact reproduction of our maps and call it good. A map of Varisia is going to look like a map of Varisia—but it can't just be a straight-up copy of *our* map of Varisia.

[Jacenat]

Vic Wertz wrote:

I will note that what you're talking about would count as a "play-by-post or play-by-email game" for the purpose of determining what permissions you have.

Yeah this specifically only lists

CUP wrote:

dialogue, plots, storylines, language, and incidents

So using maps from the AP PDFs seem off limits. As well as flip mat and map folio products. I get where this is comming from, since it's technically an unlicensed reproduction to roll20's servers when you upload it to your library there.

I just wanted to have a statement and see if there are some special rules for virtual tabletops that I might have missed.

Thanks for your reply and keep on pumping out those APs :)

[Steve Geddes]

Jacenat wrote:

I just wanted to have a statement and see if there are some special rules for virtual tabletops that I might have missed.

Hopefully there will eventually be something along those lines once Game Space is up and running..

[Skeld]

Steve Geddes wrote:

Jacenat wrote:

I just wanted to have a statement and see if there are some special rules for virtual tabletops that I might have missed.

Hopefully there will eventually be something along those lines once Game Space is up and running..

Is GameSpace still a thing? There's been nary any meaningful news on it in about a year. They passed out some beta keys, then... nothing. I realize they did a major site rebuild along the way, but it would be nice to hear some GameSpace-oriented news, even if it's just a "here's where we are" sort of update.

-Skeld

[Steve Geddes]

Yeah they made some comment like that a few weeks ago. Basically Gary said its still happening, it just got pushed down the to do list a little.

EDIT: Actually, he was a little more cryptic than I remembered.

[Skeld]

Steve Geddes wrote:

Yeah they made some comment like that a few weeks ago. Basically Gary said its still happening, it just got pushed down the to do list a little.

EDIT: Actually, he was a little more cryptic than I remembered.

Thanks. I hadn't see that update.

Then again, my "check-in on GameSpace progress" schedule has gone from daily, to weekly, to whenever I think about it, to meh.

-Skeld

[Nolan T.]

A head's up from Roll20's end that we disallow this sort of distribution as well. We'd love, though, to see some official Paizo support in the future, and will have a third-party product for sale soon.