Question on the Legalities of Reproducing Rules

Snickit

Snickit

Vassal
A quick question on the reproducing of GW original rules.

I'm embarking on putting together the minis and scenery needed to fight the Battle for Maugthrond Pass and chronicle endeavours as I go along on my blog and part of that would be that I want to reprint the rules.

It was originally produced back in '92, nearly 25 years ago.

Do we think anyone will give a crap? (Legally speaking, not will anyone read it)

I know some people reproduce old White Dwarfs n their blogs so I'm guessing it's small fry enough that no one would but thought I'd ask the question.
 
I think the GW stance on it is its ok to make copies if you make the print yourself and only use it personally. If you download anything or print anything then it is a no-no.

However, I really dont think anyone will care at Oldhammer day. You want to give out photocopied hand outs? Or you want to sell copies of the stuff?
 
ramshackle_curtis":pc5qlsjg said:
I think the GW stance on it is its ok to make copies if you make the print yourself and only use it personally. If you download anything or print anything then it is a no-no.

However, I really dont think anyone will care at Oldhammer day. You want to give out photocopied hand outs? Or you want to sell copies of the stuff?
Click to expand...

Sell it? No, I just want to reproduce it on my blog so anyone reading it knows what the heck I'm doing!
 
Just reproducing the rules would be illegal. You might get away with it, you might not. Some people fill entire blogs with illegally copied material and seem to get away with it. Either way you'd be breaking the law, and infringing basic rights even if giving them away for free.

There's a couple of ways to go about it properly.

Rules themselves can't be copyright - only the expression of the rules. So if you write them out in your own words, you should be fine.

You have Fair Dealing (Fair Use in the US) which means you can quote for the purposes of criticism and journalism. If you write a detailed review of the rules, whilst also quoting the rules, then that should be fine. Obviously there's a bit of a grey area, you don't need to publish the entire rules for a review, especially if all the review amounts to is "this is great, what do you think?"

If you do republish, realistically if GW objects, in the first instance they should send you a Cease and Desist order telling you to take down the offending content. You take it down. Job done. You don't take it down, things get tricky. Alternatively they could go to Google (you're on blogger, right?) and they'd either take down your site or ask you to remove the offending content. Its hugely unlikely you'd get a court summons or a fine in the first instance.

Personally, if I publish something on me blog that talks about, oh I don't know, Amazons, then I kind of expect my audience to be into the same kind of things as me, have access to the original materials, so don't need me to supply a full copy of WFB2, the 2nd Citadel Compendium or whatever else. I might have some images or sample stat-lines for illustrative purposes or whatever.
 
Cheers Zhu,

That's where my thinking was and the route I think I'll go down, give a brief gist of the game without actually scanning the thing as a PDF. It's not like it's a complicated scenario after all, it was the "training" game from 4th!

Ta once again,

Snickit
 
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