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Yep, it has been discussed in the past.
Unfortunately, this is not going to happen (if I remember correctly).
It has been done with the Dragon Magazine. The problem with Dungeon is, that paizo/WotC would need the approval of all authors every published in the Magazine. This is very unlikely, as a lot of authors might not be contacted anymore...
That's what I remember...
but I might be wrong here.
I'd just like to point out that if there were an incomplete archive containing only those issues for which Paizo would not need to seek permission, I would buy that. I don't know how far back such a thing would go, but even if it only covered the issues since 3e began (and therefore, only those issues I already own), I would still buy it.
Alternatively, if and when all the issues sell out and you're allowed to sell them as .pdfs, if you offered 50-issue bundles at a reasonable price, I would buy those instead. (Oh, and that goes for the Dragons above 251, as well.)
I thought material submitted to Paizo/WotC is the property of said company. I guess this either isn't the case or there are other legalities involved that I don't understand.
I think it's not always the case. To use the example of artwork, imagine back in the days before the internet was big. Contracts may have been written such that the art could be used in print (original issue, compilations, etc.), but the artist would retain rights to sell prints. Other uses, such as distributing digital versions (on CD, over the internet, etc.), wouldn't be covered, since nobody was thinking about that; copyright law would then grant those rights to the artist.
Creative Director
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Also... for many of the earlier issues, there was no such thing as the internet or electronic distribution. None of those early contracts make any concession for printing media in this format, and in cases of art and cartoons, the magazines often only accepted first publication rights. And never in any set pattern; the further back you go, the more tangled things get.
James, does the same situation hold for the current era of the game and/or the magazines?
In other words, are current contracts worded to allow for the possibility of a Dungeon Archive ten or fifteen years from now?
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Creative Director
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James, does the same situation hold for the current era of the game and/or the magazines?
In other words, are current contracts worded to allow for the possibility of a Dungeon Archive ten or fifteen years from now?
For art and adventures? I believe so. For comics we have to repurchase the rights, since they stick with their creators.
And we'll all be living in tubes of nourishing brine in fifteen years anyway, so I'm assuming that everything will be online by then.
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Chief Technical Officer
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None of those early contracts make any concession for printing media in this format...
Further complicating it is that we don't *have* all of the contracts from the TSR days, so even if we might be "pretty sure" that Wizards currently owns the copyright on a particular item, with no contract, it might be impossible to prove.
For comics we have to repurchase the rights, since they stick with their creators.
The same would also be true for most of the fiction.
Although, truth be told, we don't actually repurchase rights for back issue PDFs—there's not enough money involved to make the effort worthwhile. If a creator is kind enough to allow us to include their comics in back issue PDFs, we include them. If they're not amenable to that, we leave them out.
-Vic.
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You know what Shakespeare said.
And we'll all be living in tubes of nourishing brine in fifteen years anyway, so I'm assuming that everything will be online by then.
LOL!
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Damn dirty lawyers.
Actually, you may want to thank the lawyers for protecting various parties' rights from misuse in the future.
Seeing that I AM a lawyer and deal with contracts daily, it's IMPORTANT to get anything and everything you want covered into the contract ... but also to have room for mutually agreed upon wiggle room. (Technical term.)
One issue I've dealt with regularly as of recent is when a purchaser buys an artist's artwork ... and then turns around and sells the prints for a profit. The artists I've worked with, I've tried to emphasize that the sales should be of only the actual artwork and that any republication rights of the work remain in the control of the artist. Interestingly, many artists don't really care about protecting their future rights ... at least now. (I am assuming that should their name accrue value, they may think twice when they find unauthorized prints floating around the net or elsewhere - and padding another's pocketbook than their own.)
That said, Paizo could re-finagle its contracts to include republication rights (or actual ownership) of the final product. This isn't that uncommon in the publishing world ... at least to the degree I've dealt with it.
Lastly, I do like the mention of only 3e ... or you could narrow it down even more to just 3.5. I'm assuming that you could contact the authors for their permission with such a shorter timeline with which to contend.
Hi Saurstalk,
Sebastian is a lawyer. He was only kidding.
...tubes of nourishing brine in fifteen years anyway,
Tried your 'tube of nourishing brine' argument on my lady. You're a genius, James. A SUPRA GENIUS! >:)
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Hi Saurstalk,
Sebastian is a lawyer. He was only kidding.
Ahh. My bad. I missed the humor completely. Yes, then - darn dirty lawyers ... darn them to heck.
You know, this prompts an inquiry I've had for some time - that being how many of us are attorneys. Gaming and law do share an interesting similiarity, especially if you consider how much rules adjudication in DnD is like interpretation of laws in the real world. In fact, I might be so bold to encourage future law students and current law students to start (DMing) gaming groups if only to train your mind on interpreting rules and decision-making. But then again, don't we always hear that no one likes a "rules lawyer"?
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Chief Technical Officer
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That said, Paizo could re-finagle its contracts to include republication rights (or actual ownership) of the final product.
All of Paizo's contracts since the beginning have assigned ownership to Wizards of the Coast, with the exception of comics and fiction, which are generally first publication only. That's why we can make all of our back issues available in PDF form pretty much as soon as they sell out in print (selling out is required by our contract with Wizards).
-Vic.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Seeing that I AM a lawyer and deal with contracts daily,
Hey! That's my line.
Hi Saurstalk,
Sebastian is a lawyer. He was only kidding.
Ahh. My bad. I missed the humor completely. Yes, then - darn dirty lawyers ... darn them to heck.
You know, this prompts an inquiry I've had for some time - that being how many of us are attorneys. Gaming and law do share an interesting similiarity, especially if you consider how much rules adjudication in DnD is like interpretation of laws in the real world. In fact, I might be so bold to encourage future law students and current law students to start (DMing) gaming groups if only to train your mind on interpreting rules and decision-making. But then again, don't we always hear that no one likes a "rules lawyer"?
This is where it's too bad that the boards don't have a public profile type thing where you could look and get information about a poster.
There's three or four attorneys on these boards including us. CallawayR is one of them. He's a criminal defense attorney IIRC. In my unscientific experience, the plurality (but by no means the majority) of gamers are in the engineering profession. I've only encountered a handful of lawyers.
What's your practice area? From your post you sound like some form of transactional attorney.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Under the copyright laws, it should be possible to produce a CD/DVD (or whatever format’s current then) of issues 1-140 about 70 years after the all the contributors are dead, which will probably be somewhere around 2136, give or take a few decades. Unfortunately, none of us Paizonians will be around then. :-(
Plus, once we approach the deadline on the copyright for Mickey Mouse again, Disney will just step in and steamroll another amendment through Congress to extend the duration of copyrights even further. (Which is how we got to a lifetime plus 70 years situation in the first place).
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Not that I could really be considered a fully-functioning board community member, but I'm a 3L in law school at the moment. Nobody else at the school is into gaming so far as I know, so I'm forced to go play at my girlfriend's undergrad school.
The funny thing is that, when gaming, I tend to skew away from the rules-lawyer mentality and in favor of emphasizing story. Maybe that will help when I've got clients with bad legal arguments but decent factual ones.
I’m assuming all you lawyers are making your billable hours since you have the extra time to spend posting on the message boards hehe? As for myself I’m working as a transactional paralegal in Detroit, MI until I finish up school.
And no I’m not going to law school, I find most attorneys self-centered, unimaginative know it all’s (and those are the attorneys I’m friends with).
See ya!!!
Under the copyright laws, it should be possible to produce a CD/DVD (or whatever format’s current then) of issues 1-140 about 70 years after the all the contributors are dead
Disney will put a stop to this. I know that sounds odd, but everytime Steamboat willy and associated art and media come up for general use from copyright protection, Disney goes to court and gets the law pushed further and further out. As long as Disney can make money on Mikey we aren't going to see the copyrights for things that occured after Steamboat Willy come up for use.
*DOH! Sebastion beat me to this one... guess I should read the whole thread before posting.*
Sean Mahoney
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Under the copyright laws, it should be possible to produce a CD/DVD (or whatever format’s current then) of issues 1-140 about 70 years after the all the contributors are deadDisney will put a stop to this. I know that sounds odd, but everytime Steamboat willy and associated art and media come up for general use from copyright protection, Disney goes to court and gets the law pushed further and further out. As long as Disney can make money on Mikey we aren't going to see the copyrights for things that occured after Steamboat Willy come up for use.
*DOH! Sebastion beat me to this one... guess I should read the whole thread before posting.*
Sean Mahoney
That's true, though the constitutional argument against extending copyright law is going to get stronger the further it gets pushed. What interests me is when Mickey finally drops into the public domain, how much of him can be publicly used? My guess is that only the material that has fallen out of copyright can be used as a basis for new works, meaning that if you wanted to make a Mickey Mouse cartoon without Disney's permission, you could only do so with the specific version of Mickey from "Steamboat Willie."
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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That's true, though the constitutional argument against extending copyright law is going to get stronger the further it gets pushed. What interests me is when Mickey finally drops into the public domain, how much of him can be publicly used? My guess is that only the material that has fallen out of copyright can be used as a basis for new works, meaning that if you wanted to make a Mickey Mouse cartoon without Disney's permission, you could only do so with the specific version of Mickey from "Steamboat Willie."
I'm not sure about that - the current version of Mickey is a derivative of the Mickey from Steamboat Willie. I can't remember the exact rules regarding derivatives (other than the original copyright owner can stop deriviatives of that copyright), but is stands to reason that even though the subsequent derivative versions of Mickey created by Disney are independently copyrighted, you could still come up with your own derivative version based on Steamboat Willie Mickey. Just like you can come up with a deriviative version of the Wizard of Oz characters until your eyes bleed.
And considering (i) how lightly the Supreme Court took the constitutional challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Act and (ii) the Court's more conservative composition since that time, I can't see any legal challenge in the near future from stopping the extension of the copyright term. I think it's much more likely that copyright law will be changed in some way through an act of Congress. Since Disney's not going anywhere, such a change will undoubtedly protect him, but maybe it would also put more stuff in the public domain.
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I'm not sure about that - the current version of Mickey is a derivative of the Mickey from Steamboat Willie. I can't remember the exact rules regarding derivatives (other than the original copyright owner can stop deriviatives of that copyright), but is stands to reason that even though the subsequent derivative versions of Mickey created by Disney are independently copyrighted, you could still come up with your own derivative version based on Steamboat Willie Mickey. Just like you can come up with a deriviative version of the Wizard of Oz characters until your eyes bleed.
And considering (i) how lightly the Supreme Court took the constitutional challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Act and (ii) the Court's more conservative composition since that time, I can't see any legal challenge in the near future from stopping the extension of the copyright term. I think it's much more likely that copyright law will be changed in some way through an act of Congress. Since Disney's not going anywhere, such a change will undoubtedly protect him, but maybe it would also put more stuff in the public domain.
I agree that you could make the argument that your version of Mickey was a derivative of Steamboat Willie, but you'd have to prove that you didn't draw from Disney's later derivatives which remain under copyright, which is where Disney's juggernaut of a legal machine would step in.
If anyone recalls a certain Simpson’s episode, I wonder how they managed to do the early version of Itchy and Scratchy without getting sued? They must have had permission, I guess.
It could be lots of things. They could have been fine with being sued. I know Kinko's has been sued just for not catching people using their self service copiers who are copying Disney materials, so it is unlikely that Disney let something like that pass. Or, perhaps they found another early cartoon mouse they could say they were copying, one from before Mickey. Who knows.
Sean Mahoney