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Lenny's Xanga and ILB copyright issues
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weephun
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 		Lenny's Xanga and ILB copyright issues
Continuing discussion from here through the next 2 pages.

GO!

Linked from here:
weephun wrote:
For Lenny's Xanga continuing discussion:

It may not even matter much anymore: http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8908

Though it may still?: http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8911

Either way, here you go: http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=124273#124273

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PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 12:05 pm
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DreamOfTheRood
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 		Here's a puzzle for you:


(Proportion) *boom* Lenny's Xanga
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 12:17 pm
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imbriModerator
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 		IANAL and I won't play one online, but we looked into some of the similar issues when created MU/Metacortechs and felt solid enough to move forward under fanfiction. However, we (or at least I) always feared the hammer coming down and were much relieved when we found out (through a news article) that WB was aware of the game and considered it fanfiction.

Perhaps Ozy will chime in with some of his thoughts.

- brooke

PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 12:27 pm
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ThaJinx
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DreamOfTheRood wrote:
Here's a puzzle for you:


(Proportion) *boom* Lenny's Xanga
I certainly agree.

PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 12:27 pm
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vpisteve
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 		Since the convo fled from where I'd originally posted this, here it is again:

vpisteve wrote:
Stepping in here, and speaking as one of the PMs for a game that danced around the jealously guarded IP of the Matrix Universe, I can say this:

As players, this is really none of our concern. If any action will be taken by anybody, it will, or won't. Since we know nothing of who's behind this or what agreements may be had, it's all really a moot point of discussion around these here parts. Smile

FWIW, the Wachowskis and Warner considered Project MU to be in the category of fan fiction. From an article on Metacortechs and ARGs in general in The Scotsman:

Quote:
"As long as the 'fan fiction' is not in any way connected to commercial enterprise, as long as it is not offensive and doesn't degrade our intellectual property, we generally take no action," said a spokesman for Warner Bros., after looking at the game.


This is all ground that has been well covered before, so I'd suggest not worrying about it, unless of course it's just in your nature and you can't help it. Wink

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PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 12:33 pm
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rose
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Joined: 26 Nov 2003
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 		not an issue
Gestas wrote:

Quote:
As to the quality of the game - it is almost certainly a homegrown ARG, and someone's first go at it. Don't be too discouraging, please. Many a writer and artist started out by copying great ideas around them - it's a safe way to explore your artistic bent within an already well-realised world. I say just let it play out, don't get angry or negative about it - it can be very hard for people to try things like this and it should always be encouraged


This is very well said and I agree completely.

and
Gestas said:

[Not to mention the fact that Bungie has a flourishing fan base who are involved in a lot of fan-fiction (eg. Creeepy), art scenes, game mods, and so on.]

This is also true. We didn't address this question in regards to "creepy" (or the copyrighted stuff which we used extensively in the wiki guides either) so I am not sure why it is an issue now. But I don't have a problem with it at all.

I don't think that Lenny's Xanga even referred to ilovebees that much...it seems that the majority of the discussion came from players here or in AIMs with Lenny. But even referring to Melissa or Dana's blog is just not a problem at all as far as I'm concerned. Certainly using the telephone as a means of contact or giving a list of gps locations is perfectly fine.

As for who holds the copyrights - do we know for sure? I know the DVD said Microsoft- but then we were told not to worry about making copies as it was for us. It is possible that some of the individual creative people, Bungie(I know they are owned by Microsoft) or 4orty2wo even kept the rights in their work. My point is that we don't know who holds the copyrights. I don't think it is up to us a players to police the forums for possible infringements. (the dvd was an exception because we weren't sure that burning and distributing multiple copies was allowed.)
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 12:34 pm
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SuperJerms
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 		I'm gonna port Phaedra's post over to here, since it had some good stuff in it:

Phaedra wrote:
SuperJerms wrote:
Clayfoot wrote:
Phaedra wrote:
It's still copyright infringement if it's published. Which this is. Most companies look the other way regarding fanfic because it doesn't pose a threat to the work upon which it's based -- most fanfic is based on novels, movies or TV shows. It operates in a different medium and causes no confusion.

But this IS operating in the same medium.

It's not copyright infringement if you're talking about it. Microsoft can't sue you for talking about ILB.

But the moment they start actually using ILB's characters in their game...
Right. And copyright holders have even be known to pursue fan sites for producing (second rate) content that diminished the marketability of the original. Still, is there some precedent for pursuing those who violate the copyright on a marketing campaign? Since the content producers charged nothing for the material from the beginning, and since there are no apparent plans to continue the story, what harm could a copyright violater actually do? Would it even be worthwhile for Microsoft to pursue copyright violations against a work that they never intend to use (advertise or sell outright) again? Looking at it another way: If the copyright for "I Love Bees" was for sale, how much would it be worth?


Well, there is a fair use clause in copyright law, and this would (for now) be covered by the clause because it's noncompetitive (fiscally) and non-harmful to the original intellectual property.


I disagree that it's harmless. 4orty 2wo is a marketing company, and their reputation, while intangible, is one of their most valuable commodities.

It may indeed cause them harm to be confused with the rather inept people behind LX.

Furthermore, the characters and story of ILB are intellectual property. The PMs have an interest in protecting their property.

Finally, (and yes, irrelevantly from a legal standpoint) I find the way that the people behind LX are using ILB quite distasteful.

Quote:
That doesn't keep people from using scare tactics (hollow threats of lawsuit, or even frivilous lawsuit to get the offending party to comply), and MS could certainly do this.


I work with trademark, not copyright, attorneys, but believe me, the threats of lawsuits are rarely hollow. And while I doubt this will come to a lawsuit, there is a line that the LX people haven't crossed yet, but should they, I would cheer on the Microsoft attorneys.

Quote:
It would be a bad, bad PR move and would just reinforce the all-too-prevalent view of MS as an evil monopolistic corporation.


Warning: Strongly worded section ahead. If you approve of LX, you may not want to read this.

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
Heh. The PMs of ILB put over a year of very intense work into ILB. I'm sure they would be flattered if players took some of the ideas from ILB and used them innovatively and creatively. Tributes/fanfic are one thing, blatant ripoffs attempting to capitalize on ILB's creativity and popularity, by people who simply recycle the ideas (and do it poorly, which in my mind adds insult to injury) are quite another.

Quote:
Besides, I really don't think that Chuck (or anyone thinking like him) would do this. Talking to Chuck, I really got the impression that MS would see this sort of fan-fic as a sign of the ARG's success as a viral marketing campaign.


Fanfic maybe, ripoffs no.

I assume you're referring to Chuck Blevens? I'm not so sure. I remember very differently -- in fact, I recall afterwards contrasting the PMs' lenient attitude toward the distribution of their material to his.

In the ARG world, publicity/audience is everything. We don't pay to play: the only 'payment' the PMs get from us is our participation. In other words, "buzz" is the currency of the ARG medium.

Go over and look at how busy the LX forum is. They have "buzz" aplenty.

And why?

Not because they're doing an innovative, creative game. Not because the writing is good and is keeping people intrigued.

No, they've got all this attention because they mentioned Melissa. People are holding their breath about the GPS coordinates for payphones. Posters are cheering that this is ILB2.

In other words, their "buzz" is stolen. And it's stolen from people for whom I have a great deal of respect and affection. Thus far, it's a slavish retelling of a story that is over.

Thank goodness they have had the decency, thus far at least, not to try to revive characters from ILB. Such characters, out of the hands of their creators, would in my mind be zombie-like, hollow renditions of characters I love.

Quote:
'Course, I have better things to do than mope about someone who I think has done something stupid.


Really? Is moping the only response you can envision?

I recently had a discussion via PM with a beekeeper who was of the opinion that there ought to be official standards for what was "allowed" on or acknowledged as an ARG by Unfiction. He wanted quality standards, and he was of the opinion that Lenny's Xanga should never have been allowed here.

I disagree strenuously. I feel that the open acceptance policy of Unfiction encourages and nurtures the growth of the genre. If there were standards that had to be met, it might prevent PMs from trying things that were risky and innovative. (And a willingness to be risky and innovative is what got the genre started in the first place.) It might also scare off novice PMs from attempting their first ARG. In addition, the way things work now allow PMs who have a certain style or focus (lots of puzzles, narrative-heavy, player-directed, etc.) to match up with players who like that style.

I strongly believe that ARGs are an important development in the future of marketing. I want the genre to grow and evolve.

That said, one of the reasons Unfiction works and that people come here and often stay after their ARG is over, is because we are, to a certain extent, self-policing.

There are very few official rules here about what you can post and what you can't. That's because, to a large extent, the community enforces the rules, rather than the mods or admins. The sanctions aren't handed out arbitrarily by a few officials who decide what's allowed and what isn't -- they're enforced through the expressed disapproval of the community.

So, we have an unusually friendly, warm, and safe environment, because the community objects when people do things that undermine those qualities. If an argument becomes too heated or personal, people start attempting to diffuse it or gently let the participants know that they're approaching the line ("look! Bunnies!").

The same doesn't always work for standards of quality. A significant portion of the players of Lenny's Xanga are newcomers. This holds true for a lot of the ARGs currently going on. That's mostly a good thing. I've been unable to get involved with any of the current ARGs because I don't find them grabbing my interest (or pulling on my heartstrings) the way ILB did. But many of the newcomers are playing games that I find lacking and going, "Wow! This is so cool." As I said, this is mostly a good thing. We get new players and knowledge of the ARG genre spreads. Inexperienced PMs get a chance to try new things and sometimes even mess up without losing their audience.

On the other hand, there's a supply and demand dynamic going on here, too. And right now, it's demand, demand, demand. Even stuff that appears (to me at least) to be shoddily or lazily done gets players. That removes a great deal of pressure on PMs to produce something really well-executed and novel.

The balancing factor is, of course, that PMs running shoddy games don't, generally, get many players.

I'm fine with the way that works.

But I'm worried about the message the level of interest in LX is sending, which right now I'm reading as, "If you piggyback hard enough off someone else's success, you'll succeed too! Forget good writing, good puzzles, carefully thought-out character interaction, and all that jazz."

It seems to me that there's a certain ethic of noninterference going on here. If you don't like a game, don't play it. But otherwise, stay out of it. People don't seem comfortable commenting on how they feel about a game unless their feelings are positive. If the issue is solely one of quality, perhaps that's a necessary restraint.

Again, I don't want novice PMs being scared away because experienced players descend on their thread and declare the game hopeless after its first two days.

But with Lenny's Xanga, it seems to me that something's rotten, and it's not just the writing. I feel there's theft going on, in spirit even if not literally. And I'm not sure that, in that case, we should feel bound by the same courtesies of refraining from commenting that we would adhere to in other circumstances.

I know not all of you see something wrong with what they're doing, and I'm not trying to convince you to jump on the bandwagon. You have a right to your opinion.

But for those of you who do feel uneasy or offended by what the people behind LX are doing: our only power is that of our words, and our only ability to sanction or to shape what is happening is through the expression of our approval or disapproval.

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PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 3:26 pm
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bill
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 		In response to Phaedra's verbose ranting regarding Lenny Xanga, I think she has gone way past any pretense of objectivity.

As was stated in another thread, who are we to judge what is theft without really knowing the actual circumstances? What do the people who matter (namely Microsoft, Bungie, and 4orty2wo) consider a fair boundary. None of us really knows, do we?

Off the cuff judgements and indignation combined with a generally negative attitude poison the experience for everyone involved. We've had our bouts of negativity in the past and it wasn't pretty. If you don't care for someone elses effort, who are you to invalidate the experience for everyone else?

The forums are organized so that you can conveniently ignore any game you don't find interesting. That's one option. Feel free to maintain whatever pedestal you wish to honor the experience you had, but don't use it to diminish the efforts of others.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:04 pm
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SuperJerms
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 		Of course, I do have some notes.

Quote:
I work with trademark, not copyright, attorneys, but believe me, the threats of lawsuits are rarely hollow.


I do believe you. Trademark and Copyright, while both IP related, are very different.

Trademark does not allow for fair use, even if someone has never even heard of the infringed upon IP. Trademark is a registered-for (or intended to be registered for) legal sanction. So, I would expect that anyone who holds a trademark has full intent to enforce it.

Copyright is an automatic protection for creative IP. It allows (very open-to-interpretation) legal protection for fair use and legal protection for an author getting ripped off. I was about to go break it all down, but really I would just be rephrasing the wikipedia article I linked (so I won't).

The point I was making is that historically, threat of lawsuit has been repeatedly used to stymie competition into submission, often as a hollow threat. The recipient is usually a small-time person who would rather comply than actually pursue his rights (even when said rights are VERY clearly afforded) than face the costs of legal representation. I've heard this be called "getting FOX'ed," because News Corporation has a rich history of doing just this to suppress work surrounding their IP with Aliens, Predator and The Simpsons.

I don't think that MS would have FOX'ed this (any more than WB would have FOX'ed Metacortechs) because it goes against the goal of viral marketing, would have been a bad PR move, and would not have been a clear victory (if someone like EFF came along and defended LX) because the team was non-profit. It would have been cutting off the nose to spite the face.

Quote:
I disagree that it's harmless.


I know what you mean, and I agree in the capacity that you mean that statement.

When I say "harmless," I mean it in light of the legal precedent set by history. The burden of proof would rest on MS to show how LX has devalued the sell ability of the IP. LX attracts new interest to ILB and does not act as a substitute for the original or future versions (since it has clearly been labled as a fan extension). Low quality has not historically been a good offense either (and the supreme court has formally stated that low quality of the work shall not impact copywrite protection).

Again, MS vs. LX would look like Mike Tyson vs. a four-year-old to the general public.

Quote:
Tributes/fanfic are one thing, blatant ripoffs attempting to capitalize on ILB's creativity and popularity, by people who simply recycle the ideas (and do it poorly, which in my mind adds insult to injury) are quite another.


Were you saying that LX is a ripoff instead of a fanfic because the writing is poor, or were you saying that with the expectation that the story would not diverge from the ILB story later on (ending up as a poor facsimile), or were you saying that because we didn't know yet that this was intended as a fanfic?

Quote:
I assume you're referring to Chuck Blevens? I'm not so sure. I remember very differently -- in fact, I recall afterwards contrasting the PMs' lenient attitude toward the distribution of their material to his.


Yes, I mean Chuck Blevens. Sounds like we are remembering him differently, then. I personally asked Chuck in the movie theater right before we walked over to Dennys, "Can we rip the DVD and BitTorrent or FTP it so that others who couldn't attend the training sessions can get a copy?" He said yes. A couple of people were standing next to me when I ask (if I recall, it was someone with glasses...4d, vidstudent, or Clayfoot...anyone remember?).

Quote:
Really? Is moping the only response you can envision?


Yeah, if I didn't like where LX was heading, it's pretty much the only response I could envision for myself.

I really, really liked ILB. It has been one of the best stories I have experienced, and I would say I made an emotional bond to the overall cast in that I wish I could know what happened next and I would agree with all of the things said over in the ILB Final Thoughts thread. I meant it when I said, "I think it's just a shame that Bungie didn't think Halo was good enough to fit into the ILB canon." ILB is the cat's pajamas.

It comes back to Gestas' fine words. I don't think that we should have been discouraging this ARG, even if it (theoretically) had played out as a poorly-done ILB2. If it had turned out as the wacky misadventures of Yasmine, I still wasn't prepared to try and stop it. LX was not an act of violence against ILB, so there was no need to police against it.

What I am doing here is distinguishing how I felt personally about LX in the form it was taking, and how I felt about it as an entity. I think that anyone with more than fifty posts to his/her unfiction name has a much greater power to hurt LX than LX has to hurt ILB. For that reason, I wanted to be careful not to discourage the LX PM's or discourage those who were liking the way LX was going.

Debate isn't just debate. Especially in a computer-mediated world like this forum, we are building the community reality. Our words may have more power than we expect. I think there can be a real danger to being too vocal about some things. There are contexts that are missing in this world, and others that do exist, which simply aren't present in traditional communication contexts. It's why we trout, why threads are rarely locked, why moderators are exceptional in this context.

It's also why new people join the game very frequently. Unlike most forums, people feel welcome here. People are ultra-smart, jovial, diverse, giving and polite. Even though vigorous debate doesn't contradict any of those qualities at heart, it can certainly send a signal that contradicts our goals.

So, for me, the only real choice here was to like or dislike it. With that, I would play or not play. If I felt that the game actually became grevious (e.g. turning from fanfic to slash fic **shudder**), I would have decided to become more vocal (with the understanding that it would possibly kill LX in the process). As of yet, I felt that LX was far of deserving death. I chose to dislike it, but not on the level that required any energy or passion from me.

Quote:
And I'm not sure that, in that case, we should feel bound by the same courtesies of refraining from commenting that we would adhere to in other circumstances.


Everything that I had seen so far said to me that this wasn't theft, it was inexperience (again going from what Gestas said about inexperience causing heavy borrowing of material).

I agree with you wholly that, in the case where we think an ARG deserves it, we need to do some community policing. I felt that way back when weephun worked his magic, and I was very vocal. Looking back, I am very glad that it all went down like that (except for any bad feelings weephun might have felt).

Hindsight being 20/20, we were actually right: the right was not on rails, some folks enjoyed better status than others, and as rose just said some folks got to be included in the game. The discussion that ensued probably changed some folk's opinions about the possibilities for future ARGs. Indeed, some PM's are intentionally leaving unplanned space in the game to force this sort of creativity. I don't think that anyone would question that this was a positive discussion.

The reason the weephun debate was good was that nobody had an axe to grind. My intent was to vocalize the frustration we felt with inability to get to phones. My goal was that PM's and other players would see our position and adapt to it. Although the word cancer popped up once, nobody wanted the ARG to die in any way. Our vocality was aimed at improving the experience, not ending it. And there was fruit...the PM's have said that they wouldn't have made puzzles were it not for player discontent, and the last three weeks saw the ability to submit axons to the PM's. The PM's also decided to make every one of us implicit in killing SP with "the last fortress."

That's collaboration at it's absolute finest. On the other hand, there's LX. as I have said already, I don't think it deserved to die, so I just disliked it and didn't play. I see my own actions as a very valid (and important) response: nonparticipation. The PM's put a bunch of work into this for no profit whatsoever...high cost. Their only reward is community attention, participation and enjoyment. My silent non-participation (and I know there's plenty others out there) sends a clear signal to PM's... "Your hard work is going ignored."

If anything, talking about the ARG I don't like actually draws attention to it. Bad publicity can be effective in that capacity if you hear me talking about it and look into playing. I think the marketplace of ideas actually will be much more powerful in weeding out bad ARGs than any policing or protesting we can do.

So I guess I see talking about it and just not playing it as two vastly different tools.

Talking about it is useful for sending messages to PMs and other players with the intent of informing opinion and changing game dynamics. Talking about it can also serve to change the overall community atmosphere (for better or for worse, from welcoming to exclusive) or people's perceptions of us individually (we all know who the twenty people who enjoy getting into a point-counterpoint, 2000-word-post debate are).

The choice to play or not play will give feedback to PM's (current or future) to change the rules of the game to entice more people.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:30 pm
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Phaedra
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 		Re: not an issue
rose wrote:
This is also true. We didn't address this question in regards to "creepy" (or the copyrighted stuff which we used extensively in the wiki guides either) so I am not sure why it is an issue now. But I don't have a problem with it at all.


There is a difference. The wikis, I think, are something like an educational use, or a piece studying the ARG -- they're not using the characters, they're talking about them and the game. They're guides.

As far as Creepy... I believe thebruce requested permission, though I'm not certain about that. But in any case, the PMs at least knew about Creepy...

rose wrote:
My point is that we don't know who holds the copyrights.


Microsoft.

Quote:
I don't think it is up to us a players to police the forums for possible infringements. (the dvd was an exception because we weren't sure that burning and distributing multiple copies was allowed.)


I disagree. It's not our place to police fanatically or overzealously. On the other hand, if an egregious abuse of copyright occurs, I think we should at least express disapproval. (I know that there's disagreement about how egregious what was going on with LX was -- but picture something worse: a clear case of out-and-out plagiarism on a large scale.)

We're a self-policing community. And perhaps the best way to make sure that we're able to remain so, and to give novice PMs something to go on as far as estimating what amount of use of someone else's ideas is okay is to talk about it, and speak up when we think it's going too far.

Again, I recognize that I'm probably more offended by LX than most of the forum. What I saw going on appeared to me to be not a tribute, but people using ILB's reputation as a substitute for actual effort and ability on their part.

The fact that it was launched prematurely and handled by a single PM probably explains that. Perhaps if it had been allowed to develop the way the original team of PMs had envisioned it, it would have been something more like a tribute than theft.

Metacortechs seems to me, from what I know of it, to be a good example of how to use ideas and do something neat with them, something that the originators of the ideas would be flattered and honored by, rather than just stealing them and slavishly reusing them. Metacortechs Reloaded seems to me to be a good example of taking an ARG and transforming it in a similarly praiseworthy way.

Obviously, copyright issues are a sticky issue. Some of the best creative works ever produced are those that have used other people's ideas, sometimes extensively. And copyright law may sometimes be more of a hindrance than a protection. But on the other hand, I think the difference between using something in a good way and using it in a bad way is all in what one does with it. If one transforms it and uses it in a way that is enriched by the original, but not merely a slavish and pale imitation of it, it's good.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:49 pm
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SuperJerms
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 		I should also note that, if someone did make an ARG that involved Kamal/Jersey slash fiction, and we chased it out of UF, I would still maintain it was not copyright-infringment. After I stopped vomiting.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 6:13 pm
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weephun
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 		Copyright issues aside, this is not the kind of face that I think the ARG community is wanting to put forward to it's new members:
jordanmc wrote:
yeah i haven't had great luck getting started in the ARG world either, starting with Errant Memory which turned out to only be a mini-ARG and now this one which was looking very promising till it hit the fan.

Had I started out as jordanmc has, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't still be around today.

Those of us who have had a good enough experience to dig a little further into the community can understand and appreciate "home-grown" ARGs for what they are and choose to participate or not knowing what to expect. New members coming here hearing about the wonders of The Beast and ILB and expecting the same types of things could easily be turned away from ARGing all together with starting experiences like this.

Thus I think it might be necessary for the more experienced members of this community to police it and the quality therein a little more actively to try and create a good face for those that are new to it rather than just ignoring things that we don't like.

I personally have no deep opinion about LX or it's quality. I have been too busy as of late to follow it, though what I have seen after taking an hour or two was not that impressive. So whether or not it provided a good face to newcomers is not a decision I was prepared to make (though maybe as an active member here, I owe the community more than that).

I was also the one who brought the Errant Memory discussion to these boards. And in retrospect I would not do that again until I was more certain of the quality of the ARG. You will notice that EM never made it out of the rumors section of UF to be listed in the ARG section nor was it ever listed on ARGN which was probably a good decision made by those who have had more experience here in the community than I.

Like I said, I'm not trying to pass a judgement on LX here, but just point out the fact that as a new form of entertainment that has suddently had a huge spotlight pointed at it, I feel we have some responsibility to actively make sure that the experience of those coming here to try out the ARG waters is a good one. I'm very grateful to those that made sure that it was for me.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 7:41 pm
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krystyn
I Never Tire of My Own Voice


Joined: 26 Sep 2002
Posts: 3651
Location: Is not Chicago

 		POLICING?????


Oh, dude. That opens up the whole can of worms about what RULES there are, and blah blah blah, and I so just wanna drag you all to Zanzibar and wash your heads in the shore water before I sticky you.

You would all glow so pretty, I swear.

PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 8:22 pm
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rose
...and then Magic happens


Joined: 26 Nov 2003
Posts: 4117

 		copyright issues
Phaedra wrote:

Quote:
Quote:
rose wrote:
My point is that we don't know who holds the copyrights.

Microsoft


I didn't know that this had been established. I apologize, I thought perhaps, for example, the creators held the copyrights and granted Microsoft (or Bungie) a license. If we know that Microsoft owns all these copyrights I am sure we can rely on them to zealously protect them. Smile

This is the deal with the wikis- we used copyrighted material blatantly without permission. We didn't just talk about the characters, we copied word for word everything they wrote. We assumed it would be fine to copy text and images from the site because we knew the PMs would approve of us making a guide. We didn't fear Microsoft stopping us, although I don't see how they could have lost a case if they decided to bring it, because we rightly presumed their approval. In fact, Microsoft would have a stronger (really airtight) case against the wikis than they would have against Lenny's Xanga.

(By the way, we don't get an educational exemption just for making a guide. It doesn't apply. I can't create a guide to the Metropolitan Museum and copy lots of images of art objects they own just because it may help people understand the museum.)

I noticed that ilovebeer - which directly ripped off the entire site design and concepts like axons and phone calls used in ilovebees- didn't come up as a copyright issue. No one has ever mentioned it. (FYI: Clearly it was a satire -satires are OK under copyright law.)

I recommend that if the unfiction community decides it needs to self-police games for possible copyright violations then we all need to learn (alot ) more about what the law actually is. Intellectual property law is complex and intensely fact specific. Many issues, like fan fiction, are really not resolved.

To be honest, I don't think that we are qualified to adequately judge whether something does or does not infringe a copyright. (other than the blatantly obvious things like copying and distributing DVDs)
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 8:54 pm
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dmon_man
Veteran

Joined: 20 Jul 2004
Posts: 140
Location: Sacramento, CA

 		...it ran away through my clutching hands...
As someone new, but very intrigued by the ARG community, I've come to envy the experiences you guys have had exactly because of situations like Lenny's Xanga. First, Pandora Next collapsed and now this, but I don't believe that this is a new phenomenon.

Looking back at a rundown of ARGs past it seems that some with a lot more resources have crashed and burned leaving disappointed fans in their wake. Yet looking at the number of posts you all have, I would bet that many of those fans are still here.

Games will come and games will go and some will be good and some will be bad. For better or worse, people will be drawn to them and some, no matter what, will be turned off. Others will have their minds blown and never leave.

Because of this I personally think policing, whether by slamming a game that doesn't appeal to you or by completely blackballing games that don't meet some type of standard, will not help this medium generate fans.

One of the reasons I've stuck around is that when I arrived during the ilovebees phenomenon everyone was so inviting and friendly. I felt like I was working with a team, that was until the team became a mob and scared me over to Urban Hunt.

Policing, I believe, will make new players feel that they are unwelcome. This great site will become like so many other places on the Internet a clique that welcomes some and shuns, degrades and lambastes others. I would hate to read somewhere, "don't go to the forums at unfiction, they're a bunch of assholes."

Let the games, bad or good, keep coming. Welcome them and welcome the new players they attract. If a game is bad and the players recognize it, try to coax them to another game the really rocks. They will appreciate it and so will the good PM's who see more and more dedicated players visiting their sites. This way the rotten fruit will fall off the tree.

As far as copyright goes, a cease and desist letter from a company's lawyers will most likely scare the crap out of anyone blatantly ripping off someone else's product. This doesn't seem like something this community should worry about too much unless the infraction is undeniably egregious.

I imagine that both Microsoft, Steven King, Bungie, Warner Bros. and whomever else has had their ideas mined for ARG fodder can take care of themselves.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 9:56 pm
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