Hi there I have a couple questions for the staff that I hope you can answer. You see I've loved the stuff in Pathfinder and have several products but I mostly play D&D 5e with my friends and have converted creatures over for use in D&D 5e. I have made a few conversions and posted them on websites such as tumblr and reddit to see how people like them and for others to use in their games as well. I have been using the images of the creatures in the Bestiarys and have been making sure to give credit to whoever originally created the image. I have also made sure to quote which bestiary for any lore the books contain about the creatures.
My question is if I were to open a patreon and use these same images and quotes with the stat conversions I create would there be legal issues or would I need permission from Paizo to use these images? And I have also put Pathfinder in a positive light since you all make such awesome stuff and have so much content to use.
I'm not on staff, so I won't be offended if you ignore me. :)
You probably need to look into the Community Use Policy. That is found here:
It's one way you can use some of Paizo's IP (such as the names of monsters, places in Golarion, adventure plots, proper names and various other bits and pieces listed in there). There are some obligations (there's some text you need to include and so forth) and a couple of crucial points which I think might be a problem with what you want to do and possibly with what you're already doing.
1. You're explicitly not allowed to charge for anything. That means none of what you publish under the CUP can be restricted behind a paywall or similar. So if it were possible to do so under the auspices of a patreon, at the very least all the CUP material would need to remain freely available - you couldn't include some of it as perks to paying customers.
2. There are limits on what images you can use. I don't think you're allowed to disseminate images from the bestiaries as they aren't included in the Community Use Package (you are also able to use uncropped and unedited cover images from the Community Use Approved Product List). I suspect you may need to post just statblocks and textual descriptions but not images (unless you can find them in the approved material listed from within the CUP page).
There is a more nebulous issue that might cause you grief down the track, namely that the CUP is only intended for non-commercial use. If this is a gateway into becoming a commercial user, there will probably be a time when it is no longer available to you.
All right thank you for the response and now I understand a bit more!
As I say - I’m not a staff member, so take all that with a grain of salt!