BOOM! Swedish Paradox acquires White Wolf

agzocgud wrote:

GreyB wrote:

You need Hasbro to:
- Use the Deckmaster logo (can be circumvented)
- Reprint existing cards or cards derived from existing cards (makes it harder to do it without Hasbro)
- Reuse artwork, including icons etc. (makes it impossible to do it without Hasbro)

Facts or speculation?

Speculation of course, but extremely plausible with facts that are known to the community.

Compiled from numerous posts about this topic (unless anyone can disprove it, but no one has thusfar).
IP on printed VTES until and including HttB, was in the hands of WotC and thus Hasbro.
Unless IP has been handed over or sold to WoD, you will need Hasbro.

Derivatory work and concepts can also fall under IP, meaning that they could try to sue you for printing a card that looks and smells like a blooddoll. One could win this trial, but they can sue you for each and every single card that looks like a card they already printed and you know they printed a lot.

In short, almost certainly, one would need to be good buddies with Hasbro for a print reboot.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Don't WW own everything? What could they not own?

When V:TES was revived by White Wolf, Steve Wieck stated that they co-owned it, and that White Wolf paid a licence to Wizards for that. Previously, Wizards were using the WoD and V:tM elements under licence.

Steve Wieck, in 2000 :

Steve wrote:

BTW, White Wolf and WOTC still co-own V:TES. We simply reversed the license
for it, so now we publish it and pay WOTC a royalty on sales rather than
vice versa.

It was - in part - the fact that this licence wasn't renewed that led to V:TES dying. CCP appeared to have been looking to get rid of a lot of their White Wolf physical products, but as I recall some initial work had been done on "the next set" so it didn't look like CCP were going to kill it at the point of the renewal.



It's entirely possible that some of the intellectual property in V:TES was transferred to White Wolf, but it's also possible that some of it was being used under licence, or some other arrangement. For example:

- the intellectual property involved in the card text of any card created by the Wizards of the Coast design teams

- the intellectual property involved in the rules and rulebook. There are long-standing issues in gaming law about the copyrightability of individual mechanics, and that sort of thing. But whole works - such as an entire rulebook - are protected by copyright law. White Wolf (LSJ) clearly updated it, edited it etc., but they may have done so under licence. This also gets into the whole area of derivative works.

- card art. This is one of those areas where things could get extra weird, because the original artist may have retained some rights, or may have licensed it to Wizards (or, for that matter, White Wolf/CCP) for a certain period of time or for particular uses etc. Card art can be changed, of course, and has been on a variety of library cards - but would you want to reprint older vampires with different art?

- logos (not the name, the logo). Does Hasbro have any intellectual property rights over the V:TES logo? Was that transferred to White Wolf? Was it used under licence?

- symbols. Who designed the symbols for things like "political action", or "Quietus"? Who owns any intellectual property rights for them?

Almost everything here is speculation. The people who are actually in the know aren't able to share much. A few people with some degree of the know have shared the obstacles that allegedly exist. The only consistent agreement I have gotten is the fear of what lawsuits come if you continue the game in physically profitable print form and that it would likely come from WOTC. Right now I would say that based on the Minutes from the IC meeting we back off and let whatever dark society communications that are going on continue. The minutes made it sound as if real negotiations are occurring. September's game status update stated that they are looking for a whole bunch of promoter positions to be filled within the V:EKN. I think our plan now as players should be to focus on growing the player base. Get people interested in the game. An increase in demo and event attendance will show any company or group that there is a desire for the game and from a desire for a game comes potential profits. Businesses like profits.

Ashur wrote:

BenPeal wrote:

But again: Anyone who know more, please enlighten us.

To what end? Do you think there's some magical way of making V:TES without involving Wizards that nobody has thought of in the past five years?

Why this attitude? To the end that I want to know, isn´t that enough?

It´s a little troubling if the VEKN IC board doesn´t know who owns what rights for the game, if it has been their aim to find out how to get it printed again.

Communication over the Internet is sometimes awkward, but you appear to be making two assumptions:

- The V:EKN ICs are either uninterested or not doing enough to gather all of the information about what properties are owned and who owns them.

Like pretty much everyone else here, the V:EKN ICs are very interested in this information and they've tried to get it. Wizards is not communicative. I met face to face with someone who is a co-founder of White Wolf, on the board of directors for CCP, and the owner of OneBookShelf and asked for the very information you're looking for, and he only provided a partial answer.

- The rights holders would even want to tell us in the first place.

We are looking for very detailed and comprehensive information about what properties these companies own. Why would they divulge this to us? What is the business reason for them?

And again I ask, what would we even do with this information? We already know that Wizards owns stuff and CCP (now Paradox) owns stuff, and all that stuff is needed to make V:TES. It seems to me as though people are trying to argue that Wizards really doesn't own stuff after all. That's not the case.

It is clear that we have the following as a start:

- Onebookshelf is interested in printing, distributing and selling VtES.
- Paradox bought the WoD IP and want to (the very least) launch digital entertainment in the franchise. They have stated that the WoD community (so far, 100% non-digital) needs to be given better attention.
WoD has always been book and card based. Parabox will want to cater to these hardcore fans.
- WotC likes to make money. I assume.

How about a meeting between onebookshelf, VEKN and Paradox?
If onebookshef and Paradox find a common ground, it might be easier for them to talk with Wizards. Or Hasbro.

So, the White-Wolf homepage has a spiel from Paradox on it. Second paragraph in, mentions the 2 PC games, hunter video games, then we the next sentence mentions Richard Garfeild making vampire the eternal struggle in '94, the "third tcg ever" accordinnog to them.

We aren't ignored, but we are just a bragging right currently.

They own whatever CCP didn't publish on vtes, per the deal.

So, they are gonna do everything involving "the right designers" and getting fan input? Maybe we need to just have random as hell conversations in the middle of forums about the buy? Every other page, 3-4 people. Just to be relevant. If someone who we aren't familiar with chimes in, it validates our cause, right?

"Blah blah nwod sux blah"
----"blahblah troll blah"

---

" what are they doing with vtes? Id love to see the vekn sets printed, lots of cool new crypt options"

---

"I hope they run with it. The new Gangrel stuff is sick as hell"

You get the idea.

Ashur wrote:

BenPeal wrote:

We are looking for very detailed and comprehensive information about what properties these companies own. Why would they divulge this to us? What is the business reason for them?

Goodwill reason? Not being assholes? Make VEKN stop asking questions?

They will happily sue entities out of business, their 'asshole' status is writ large already.

Ashur wrote:

BenPeal wrote:

It seems to me as though people are trying to argue that Wizards really doesn't own stuff after all. That's not the case.

Hehe, yeah, they own stuff, but nobody seem to know what.

And based on the situation quoted above, with Wizards suing them out of existence, testing the waters to find out what they own is basically a recipe for losing your house.

Ashur wrote:

Yes, it is awkward communication on the internet. But the reason I want to know who owns what is so that the game can be in print again. Unless it´s important that this ownership things are kept a secret. In that case I will shut up.

I doubt we are ever going to know exactly, because Wizards-Hasbro have no reason to divulge what they own.