Re: Legality and WotC help with 3rdEd SJ

--- Dreamer <dreamer@??????.?????.??.uk> wrote:

> Someone said that it would be legal for us to do a
> 3rdEd version of SJ, and that WotC were quite happy
> with us doing this.

I'm not entirely sure we're on WotC's radar, to be
perfectly honest.

> Is there any chance that WotC would part with the
> machine-editable text of CoAS and LotV?

I doubt it.  They may give a little leeway in specific
entries for monsters, characters, & spells (especially
to BtM, due to its "official" status) but wholesale
copying of large swaths of text is a huge no-no. 
Remember, WotC clamped down on conversions a few years
ago that resulted in ENWorld all but gutting their
entire conversion library.

> Presumably they would need Jeff Grubb's permission,
> and maybe the other editors, so that we could hack
> around their text.

IIRC Jeff Grubb no longer works at WotC, and really it
doesn't matter what he says, because the text is the
property of WotC, not his.  He has no more right to
grant permission that I would.


> Alternatively, if someone has a machine-editable
> text of CoAS and LotV, say that they have OCR'ed the
> published books, would WotC be happy with us using
> that as the basis of a 3rdEd SJ?

No, I do not believe so.  I think they'd come down
pretty hard on doing that.  The deal is, they have to,
if they want to protect their copyright. 
"Conversions" is kinda a gray area, but if they let
you get by with copying say half a book to a
conversion, and if they don't shut it down as soon as
they hear about it, they could lose the copyright to
the entire book.  I know that you might think you're
doing them a favor, but in the ugly world of legal
copyrights, you're really not.  :(

Adam

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