Deckmaster and Hasbro question

johannes wrote:

Especially since we would have to do this in a country where money wins over being right most of the time.

Is there really country where this is not true ? I doubt...

Money tends to win in countries that use Adversarial Legal systems (US, UK, UK Colonies). AFAIK France uses at least some Non-Adversarial Court proceedings, where the entire point is not to present a case from each side and then decide but the point is to have all of the truth found and the Judge/Jury decide the outcome (there is no arguing/conjecture about the nature of the truths found). It changes the role of the Government representatives from "antagonists" to the defence and basically the Court's Investigators.

Brum wrote:

BTW, the game system is iron clad.

Cheers!
Tiago,

Many thanks!

I know the game is unlikely to change, I was just wondering abouth the future of the game knowing even the company with all the thematic support of the game couldnt make money enough. It makes me think, as many, that WOTC is the most significant part of the problem, or, at least, that is a part of the problem what will be constant in time.
So the next thought-step would be how to deal with it, and there are two choices, either deal with it, as WW did until CCP refused to, or to change the parts of the game that are making the game expensive enough to discontinue it. I know that it's somewhat paradoxical to think about kepping the game while thinking about changing it's mechanics, but if the mechanics are part of the problem, then in order to solve it, perhaps it's necesary to evaluate them.
But, heck, I love the mechanics of the game, so I know not-so-many are looking at them as part of the trouble, and they are, because it's in terms of them that the game becomes more expensive and that was the issue with CCP, so it must be taken in count, at least for the sake of realizing it.

So after 2014, what can happen actually? Is the game free from legal infringements?

Erol wrote:

So after 2014, what can happen actually? Is the game free from legal infringements?

No.There's an enormous amount of World of Darkness/White Wolf/CCP intellectual property wrapped up in the game.

Some would be potential trademark issues - try promoting a game as existing in the World of Darkness without hitting a WoD trademark.

Others would be potential copyright issues, and some of those copyrights could exist with WotC (Hasbro), not just WW. For example, who - if anyone - owns the copyright on the various V:TES discipline symbols? Clan symbols? Can WotC (Hasbro) claim copyright on portions of the rulebook that have persisted? Can you reprint Villein, Enkil Cog or Fee Stakes without infringing copyright? Clearly, in the case where WW licensed the game from WotC, it would be relatively easy to have a blanket "You can use this stuff - it's cool" clause.

You could get into complicated issues with derivative works, if anyone cared to object to Advanced vampires on those grounds. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work has pointers to a lot of the case law. (Obligatory "It's Wikipedia, so look at the citations/authorities too" disclaimer.) There are also arguments that this can happen if you create a 'new' work to get round the copyright that exists in the previous work. (e.g. a fairly mechanistic re-writing of the rulebook) That gets very murky, very quickly.


Whether you'd actually get bothered by anyone on this is anyone's guess. If you start making money, the chances of being bothered go up. If you start watering down a trademark, the chances go up. (See the stories of various, say, movie houses and animation studios that have to chase down children's charities and hospitals about unauthorized use of brand icons to liven up an area - if they don't, and they're aware of it, they can lose the enforcability of the trademark in many jurisdictions. Patents don't generally 'wear away' like that, but trademarks can. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademarks#Maintaining_rights )

I doubt much happens in 2014 - that sounds like speculation to me

What I do find interresting though is all the FFG games that use a variety of different words for using and rotating cards by 90 degrees - is that not an easy was around the tap/untap mechanism?

You know when playing AGOT LCG everytime you rotate a card and say "exhaust" somewhere a hasbro shareholder screams ...