I am not sure if this is where this belongs, but it is where you moved the thread it came out of. I am making a new thread because this is not really relevant to the topic of the original (which was about PDFs of Paizo books found online...and whether looking at them constituted piracy).
KitNyx, I would point out that a Pathfinder/Golarion wiki already exists here, and yes, you're prohibited from lifting text whole cloth from the source material. (PathfinderWiki operates under the Community Use Policy.) If you're looking at building a wiki more focused on what Pathfinder Online is revealing, I would wait to see what kind of community use policies Goblinworks chooses to enact, as well as familiarize yourself with our existing Community Use Policy....a group of us who are excited about Pathfinder Online have been discussing making a wiki (we will RP it as a library) and a guild of scribes focused on building it. I know in academia, even significantly rewritten passages can be considered plagiarism if the idea and flow remains the same. Is it even legal for us to make a wiki concerning the Golarion world? Since everything we do will just be a modification of what has been published and copyrighted by Paizo?
To clarify, I am asking these questions to try to stay legal...we have not done anything yet (this was just our plan). Until Nihimon brought up the concern, I had not considered any of what I just asked to be illegal or a problem...but now, upon consideration, it seems everything might be against the law.
Any advice (PM is welcome too) would be welcome...
I am sorry for being dense and I also don't keep a lawyer on retainer. As previously described, the intent here was to create a PFO (Pathfinder Online) oriented wiki. There will obviously be differences in the world as described by Paizo and as implemented by Goblinworks, if only because of technical and financial restrictions.
Our intent was purely for fun and for the benefit of the community (we intended to have open access for reading, and anyone in the community can apply to be a contributor). There are many people who are not familiar with Golarion or even Pathfinder who are becoming interested in the MMO and we wanted them to have a place to look at the information the community thinks is relevant.
Yes, we understand there is already a Golarion wiki, but there is a lot more information there than is needed or relevant in PFO. And even some that we expect will be different due to the reasons above (as well as the difference in mechanics).
Our current interpretation is as follows:
We could argue that any entries into the Wiki are for educational purposes which is considered Fair Use. Likewise, Paizo's Community Use Policy reads, "You may descriptively reference trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, artifacts, places, etc.), locations and characters from products listed in Section 1 of our Community Use Approved Product List". And Section 1 is the material we are most concerned with (this I edited from the original version of this post, sorry for the confusion). Therefore, it seems, as long as we register with Paizo's Community Use Registry (which we have already done), and we insure all pages have the disclaimer, and creatively/descriptively talk about the content of the Crusader Road region without directly copying anything, we should be acceptable.
However, I don't really want to argue with Paizo or Goblinworks. We would prefer to have a blessing, or at least be free of the fear of legal condemnation.
So, this explained...would Paizo prefer we scrap the idea? If we do not need to scrap the idea, may we include and reference lore...if we do so with our own words? For instance, Sivanah is playing pretty deep into our Community lore, but we will probably not directly observe her in game. Can we take the lore we find elsewhere (such as in published material and the official Golarion wiki) and add it to our own Wiki...in our own words of course. I am not sure how far "reference" goes in "You may descriptively reference trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, artifacts, places, etc.), locations and characters from products"...
I also understand we need to address this issue with Goblinworks as a separate legal entity, but there is no reason to do so without Paizo's blessing first. Please advise.
Hiring a lawyer is way out of the purview of guild creation for an MMO. I had not anticipated these concerns and I apologize for the inconvenience our interests have cause.
Director of Brand Strategy
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Without knowing specifically what will be permitted by Goblinworks regarding publishing screenshots and in-game artwork, there's no way to know what will and won't be legally permitted under such a wiki, but there's no reason your proposed project couldn't work in conjunction with the existing PathfinderWiki (which I was a founding member of prior to working for Paizo and remain an admin of). That said, the text from the wiki is released only under the Community Use Policy, so you'd need permission from the PathfinderWiki community to use it elsewhere, but you should be able to craft your own reference in your own words about anything covered by the Community Use Policy, regardless of whether that content also appears in Pathfinder Online (a Hellknight, for example, exists in both print and on the game). You may want to start a discussion on the PathfinderWiki forums to see how the two projects can ultimately collaborate, as I imagine there will likely be a lot of overlap.
Thank you for the feedback Mark, we will probably do as you suggested. At the moment however we are just trying to insure our plans won't land us in hot water or on a government cyber terrorist/thief list somewhere. Once I get a response from Paizo I will present the same questions to Goblinworks for consideration. We had hoped to go ahead and get started so we current community members would have a creative outlet...and current PFO forum users (who might not be familiar with Golarion) would have a dedicated source of information on the campaign setting.
To illustrate one of the major differences between the Golarion wiki and ours, we would be very interested in collecting information about the various player run communities in PFO as well as recording important events, but these would not really have a place on the Golarion wiki.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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Thank you for the feedback Mark, we will probably do as you suggested. At the moment however we are just trying to insure our plans won't land us in hot water or on a government cyber terrorist/thief list somewhere. Once I get a response from Paizo I will present the same questions to Goblinworks for consideration. We had hoped to go ahead and get started so we current community members would have a creative outlet...and current PFO forum users (who might not be familiar with Golarion) would have a dedicated source of information on the campaign setting.
For instance, we would be very interested in collecting information about the various player run communities in PFO, but they would not really have a place on the Golarion wiki.
I've started a discussion here about this very topic. I think we can, at least initially, work together without your efforts being considered terrorism or theft, and as you get more information from Goblinworks (who doesn't really have a staff to answer such questions yet) you can possibly brach off from the existing wiki then.
I've started a discussion here about this very topic. I think we can, at least initially, work together without your efforts being considered terrorism or theft, and as you get more information from Goblinworks (who doesn't really have a staff to answer such questions yet) you can possibly brach off from the existing wiki then.Thank you for the feedback Mark, we will probably do as you suggested. At the moment however we are just trying to insure our plans won't land us in hot water or on a government cyber terrorist/thief list somewhere. Once I get a response from Paizo I will present the same questions to Goblinworks for consideration. We had hoped to go ahead and get started so we current community members would have a creative outlet...and current PFO forum users (who might not be familiar with Golarion) would have a dedicated source of information on the campaign setting.
For instance, we would be very interested in collecting information about the various player run communities in PFO, but they would not really have a place on the Golarion wiki.
Thanks again.
To be honest, we also hoped the PFO community would use our wiki as a creative outlet/repository for RP stories and other player created works such as art even more than as an educational outlet...that was just the only part that was relevant to needing permission from Paizo. And it was the only part we could really start working on.
This wiki is our realization of our communities RP desire to build an "in-game library". It is my opinion that sandbox MMOs (as we hope PFO will really be) requires player driven content...this library is one outlet for content. "Putting the books" on a website allows easy access by the community. If the game allows virtual books, we intend to copy each topic of our wiki into our virtual library. We also internally discussed it and while I can envision sharing with the official wiki, we did not want to be beholden to or under the command of another outside organization (which is why we are not asking to be an official PFO wiki).
Alternately, if we can figure out how to just link to the lore in your wiki, essentially integrating the two...it leaves our wiki with only PFO game and community submitted content. This also means we do not have to copy or rewrite the lore from your wiki into ours. I am not sure how feasible this is though.
EDIT: I was not very clear...with the above caveats about where we are coming from, we would be interested in exploring your suggestion.
Upon further reflection, I think this would be best. If we could figure out how to keep both types of information separate, official lore and not, it would be best for both sites. PFO will be more of a living world that the static Golarion of the official books. I think it is very important that 1. no nonPFO player ever accidentally takes the possible rumors/legends/second hand stories that might be present on PFO as the canon of PF, and 2. PFO players are always able to find the pure untainted official lore.
This would also give PFO, being a living world a bit more...leeway on the idea of truth. The PFO developers might need to change a bit of lore to fit the mechanics and/or limitations (or the opposite of) of the virtual world. We need to keep this allowance for our wiki...but not so for the official one.
As previously mentioned, we expect (read hope) the community to contribute to our wiki with many works (imagine the contributions of 10k people over several years...fan art, player written stories, historic accounts of events in-game, etc). Many of these works may not necessarily be lore bound...I want to insure this material remains separate as what might be relevant and known in-game (PFO), would not necessarily be relevant to a PnP PF player. In return for allowing us to link to your official lore, we would welcome you to link to topics within our wiki where you feel it contributes to yours.
The only none technical problem I foresee with this, if we are able to build a library in game, and populate it with virtual books. We come back to the question of the official lore...but this is a long ways off at worst. Time for discussions and solutions later.
Okay, sorry for the confusion. Upon further discussion in-guild, with all the talk of plagarism and copyright infringement I lost sight of our purpose. As I previously stated, this wiki is the RL realization of our in-game library...of which our characters (and others of the community) are the authors. Therefore all articles will be written in character. I am not sure how well this would mesh with the official wiki.