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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 12, 2007 6:30:54 GMT -6
I probably should put this rant in “general” so others will find it, but instead I’m putting it in the Warriors of Mars section where it will remain hidden. Mostly, because it’s WoM that inspired this rant in the first place. I wish I could understand the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The Barsoom franchise seems to be a good one because people have interest in the books and characters nearly a century after they were written, yet ERB’s relatives seem to be disinterested in allowing a RPG to cover the topic. I don’t know all of the inside history behind Warriors of Mars, but it was written back in the days when “hobbit” graced the pages of D&D. Of course, the Tolkien estate told them to take out all references to hobbit, ent, balrog, nazgul, et al, and about the same time the Burroughs estate said that TSR couldn’t publish WoM any more. I guess it was okay for TSR to sell the remainder of the print run, but no additional copies would be allowed. So WoM is a limited product, and each one that hits e-bay goes for about $500. None of this money reaches the pockets of the Burroughs estate, you understand, because it is all sales of a used product that was never authorized in the first place. Seems like the descendants of ERB could make some decent pocket cash if they allowed someone to make a RPG or WoM-clone that was official and actually earned them some money. This reminds me so much of the Dune RPG that never happened, except that some of us have copies that were sold at GenCon. A little company gets the rights for some amount of cash, then Hasbro buys the game and the Herbert estate holds out for too much money and gets nothing. As gamers, we’re the ones that lose because we want a copy of the Dune RPG and the only way to get one is to buy at huge prices on the internet. I wish that someone could officially reprint Warriors of Mars. I wish that WotC would make facsimile copies of the OD&D brown books, even if they clearly said “reprint” and were printed so that they would never be confused with a collectable. I’m tired of having so many “collectable” products out there that have such high value just because no one can find a copy anymore. End of rant, at least for the moment. ;D
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Post by crimhthanthegreat on Aug 12, 2007 18:13:28 GMT -6
You are preaching to the choir, I agree with you right down the line on this.
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Post by thorswulf on Aug 16, 2007 21:18:00 GMT -6
Amen to that! I have been looking for WoM for years, with no luck. You'd think somebody would have gotten permission to do this by now!
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Post by grodog on Aug 19, 2007 20:30:51 GMT -6
WotC's not licensing anything at the moment, and to reprint WoM would be a two-fold issue: you'd have to license it legally from the ERB estate, and then also license the original WoM from WotC (unless they somehow don't own WoM, which may be possible??). Anyway, I doube that it's likely to appear anytime soon, given WotC's current anti-licensing mood.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2007 19:05:18 GMT -6
I don't know what "Warriors of Mars" is, but I have an opinion about the whole estate thing. It stinks. The Zelazny estate doesn't seem to want to have any of his books published and they are getting harder and harder to find. There was some guy writing books in his Amber world and they let him write 4 of 5 books and then make him stop. It just makes no sense.
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Post by angantyr on Aug 28, 2007 23:46:43 GMT -6
Yeah, I have to agree. Unfortunately, the copyrights last entirely too long, particularly when applied to corporations (think Disney). As Dilvish mentioned, these copyrights have a chilling effect on any derivative works. The example he gave was good - here is another. Check out www.shirepost.com and take a look at the online store. If you look, you'll notice coins for sale. There are now about 30. However, several months ago he had over 100 coins available. The 70 odd coins that have since been removed were all inspired by JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth. Basically, he made coins that you would spend were you to go to ME. Do a search on eBay for "Shire Post" or "Shirepost" to see some examples. He even went so far as to research appropriate legends in Tolkien's invented languages and writing systems. However, Tolkien Enterprises shut him down. Note that Maringer originally approached them to set up a licensing agreement but they rudely and arbitrarily denied him. He ended up continuing, but doing so by changing some spellings and kind of going underground. Worked for awhile, but in the end they shut him down again. Not saying that TE didn't have the legal right to do what they did, but I don't think the world was made a better place thereby.
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 29, 2007 9:20:46 GMT -6
It's a tough balance -- you want to maintain some measure of quality control allow for the creators of the original concept to make money, but you also want to allow others to make use of the neat ideas and express their own creative talents.
It just seems like some estates are too overbearing. Take the Burroughs estate for example: ERB wrote A Princess of Mars in something like 1912 and the other books in the decade or so thereafter. He has been dead for decades and his estate is being run by his grand-children (I think). So, all these years later, people two generations after the original creator are able to influence how the creator's works are used.
Christopher Tolkien knew his father and I presume understood his father's wishes, but it's possible that the people in charge of the ERB estate never even met the man.
Oh, so frustrating.
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Post by calithena on Aug 29, 2007 10:08:46 GMT -6
It's also antithetical to some important principles that many people share. The idea is supposed to be your copyright lasts a while (like, for the rest of the actual creator's life, or maybe for 20 years after creation if the creator dies first and leaves the rights to his kids, but something fairly definite and shorter-term) so you can make money off your works and then it goes into the public domain for the common good: there's a balance between private and public interest. Unfortunately, so many corporations own so many copyrights in the US that there's constant big money lobbying to extend the duration of intellectual property indefinitely. A lot of copyrights, patents, etc. can last basically forever now. Which means the public is deferred or robbed of the eventual benefit of the creative works, the rich can keep getting richer forever, and artists and scientists, who always work in the context of their culture and environment, are stunted in riffing off a lot of the good things around them because someone else owns them.
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 29, 2007 12:01:48 GMT -6
Amen. And I'm sure that most groups wanting to make use of a creator's material would be willing to pay a reasonable fee for doing so. My understanding is that Frank Herbert's estate priced d20 Dune to the point where WotC wasn't interested, and nobody has been able to tough the rights to Barsoom.
I wonder if TSR was even asked if they wanted to pay for the rights to print WoM, or if the Burroughs estate just made them stop.
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Post by angantyr on Aug 29, 2007 22:56:18 GMT -6
Interestingly, back around the time the Constitution was ratified, the laws of the time established a maximum copyright timeframe of 20 years - you got 10 when you first filed a copyright, and another 10 if after the first period you chose to renew it.
That is more than fair, IMO, but I'm not opposed to lifetime of author. I generally oppose passing it on after the author's life (the Tolkien Estate is an interesting example, though, in that Christopher Tolkien is essentially carrying on his father's legacy. I wouldn't object to descendents who carry on the tradition, as it were, being able to take over a copyright). However, in most cases, modern copyrights will protect a work long after there is any legitimate need.
Example: I do research into ancient/medieval arms and armor. Many of the books/articles I need are long out of print. Worse, they often had miniscule print runs, since they cater to such a small audience (of course, maybe if academics tried to get this stuff out there more, there would be more interest. Kind of a viscious cycle). One work that is scarce is Elis Behmer's "Das Zweischneidige Schwert der Germanischen Volkerwanderungszeit" ("Swords of the Germanic Migration Era") published in 1939 in Germany. Copies easily fetch over $100 even in poor condition, when you can even find them. I'd love to publish a translation, but how do I track down the copyright holder? The author, if he is alive, would be well over 100 years old. Safe bet he's dead now. Any offspring he might have had could also well be dead - even odds from old age vice Allied bombing raids in WWII. So how the heck do I track them down? Ya got me! (in actuality, I'll probably just publish and screw tracking them down. Heck, even if there is a legitimate holder, odds are they'll never figure out their book has been translated and published; this assumes, of course, that they're even aware their ancestor published a book...)
So there.
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Post by vladtolenkov on Nov 20, 2007 1:39:27 GMT -6
From what I understand the texts of many of the Mars novels have fallen into the public domain (thus they can be posted online for free), but the copywrite issue rears its head because the Burroughs estate has trademarked John Carter (and probably Dejah and Tars Tarkas) as a character.
I'm sure the Burroughs estate would feel odd about giving legitimacy to an unauthorized product like Warriors of Mars as they might be worried that sanctioning it even after all this time might undermine their copywrite.
It's all ugly lawyer stuff. On Barsoom they'd have to go into some stadium and slay anyone who challenged their copywrite.
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Post by grodog on Dec 8, 2007 21:14:15 GMT -6
An additional, potential complication to reprinting WoM would be getting EGG and BB to use the text of WoM, since they may well own it (I'm not sure if, for example, WotC would be willing to claim ownership of an illegal product....).
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Post by Finarvyn on Dec 9, 2007 20:50:08 GMT -6
I'm not sure if, for example, WotC would be willing to claim ownership of an illegal product.... I'd kind of like putting this quote on a t-shirt or letterhead. It made me laugh!
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Post by grodog on Dec 10, 2007 19:15:35 GMT -6
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Post by crimhthanthegreat on Dec 13, 2007 16:14:45 GMT -6
;D That was worth a good bellylaugh. Thanks for making the day brighter.
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