7 Wonders

[N_Faker]

Who are you addressing that too?

The one who reported it, of course.

Why is that link not a link to the BGG post?

Because it isn't a link to the BGG post.

[RicardoRix]

Lame, real lame.

[N_Faker]

Lame, real lame.

If you are unsatisfied with my answers, ask what you actually want to know. I have fully answered your questions.

[Een]

Lame, real lame.

If you are unsatisfied with my answers, ask what you actually want to know. I have fully answered your questions.

And please let's all stay civil and courteous... as always

[6element]

I thought people are discussing a strategy guide here...

[Liallan]

I thought people are discussing a strategy guide here...

Well, they are discussing whether the strategy guide should have been posted. If someone is going to post here about the guide, it's relevant whether it should have been posted.

[Liallan]

This was far too interesting to pass up....

I brought up this issue with Daggerheart quite some time ago. I noticed that everything on the site was not his writings and asked about that. He claimed he gave credit to everyone. But it should be very, very clear who the credit goes to, and for what parts. It's not clear. Also, when he posts on here that there is a guide available, never does he say that the link is a compilation of various people's strategy guides, and most people assume the writings are his - I can tell by some of the comments made, and it's a logical assumption to make. I pretty much got ignored, though, and I'm happy that someone else has brought this up. Also, having asked permission or not I don't think was brought up in that exchange and I was not aware of that, so I'm glad that has been brought up as well.

*nandblock is correct, that any piece of writing is automatically copyright to the author. I looked into this years ago for other reasons. I noticed people putting a "cover their butts" copyright notice at the bottom of some web pages, and I discovered you don't even have to do that - it's automatic. But, it stresses the idea that the writer feels protective of their creation and is making a point of that. I saw this a lot, so this is not something unusual or weird.

*nandblock missed 5E at BGG:
E. You also grant other users a license to your User Submissions.
By uploading User Submissions to BoardGameGeek, you hereby grant each user of the Geek Websites a non-exclusive license to access your User Submissions through the Geek Websites, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display, and perform such User Submissions as permitted through the functionality of the Geek Websites and under these Terms of Service.

Sounds like a bit of a conflict with 6E, but then, I never understand all this fancy legalese talk. I'm not going to try too hard to interpret any of it, but I will strongly point out that there are (a) laws, (b) BGG's terms of service, and (c) the right thing to do. Nandblock is still correct in terms of the legal point of view - the writings are copyrighted, but I don't know how a TOS relates to the legalities, so I won't comment on that. In the end (c) is just as important, and when (a) and (b) don't apply, is more important. Laws don't always coincide with ethics or morals.

*@Daggerheart. Using banned users as an excuse is, well, not an excuse. First, who says that's the only thing that will ever get deleted? What if the writer chooses to delete it? You ignored nandblock's whole point. You do not have the right to decide it needs to be preserved somewhere. If someone wants to keep the information for themselves so they have it, that's fine, but it's not their decision whether someone else's work should be preserved for others. (Keep it for 50 years after they are dead and then you can decide what to do with it.) Also note that what nandblock quoted from 6E says "including" commercial use; "including" does not mean "limited to."

*@N_Faker... If you found a piece of music lying around but did not know who held the copyright or how to get a hold of them, does that give you free permission to do whatever the hell you want with it? Absolutely not. Why is a poster who left 4 years ago different? Because it's not. Why did they lose their rights just because you don't happen to know where they are?

At the very least, credit should be very clear, and a statement should be added acknowledging that it's someone else's work, and that it was not your intent to violate anyone's rights, and that if an author of one of them has a reason to not want their work copied there to please contact you and that it will be taken down immediately. i.e. make them aware there was no bad intent and offer them "an out." (Asking permission is better.)

To be continued.... (I know it's already long so I'm breaking some stuff down, and replying to nmego separately.)

[Liallan]

I am going to follow this up with a story. I'm trying to get people to think about this from the writer's point of view, and try to make these people real instead of blind faces on the internet.

At one time I was writing some computer game reviews, with the eventual intent of putting them up at my site, where I knew pretty much anyone could see them. I knew that people had a habit of just copying stuff from other people, not even giving credit, making it look like their own... perhaps without that intent but that's what happens. This unfortunately is giving people the impression that this is okay, and normal, and an attitude that it really doesn't matter. Yes, it does matter.

I initially wondered if those statements I saw that the material was copyrighted were legal, because I wanted to do that. That is when I discovered that it doesn't even need to be stated - it just exists. However, I wanted to implicitly (EDIT: I meant explicitly) state it, and add to please not copy my work elsewhere without asking my permission.

So I was concerned about my own reviews. I would like to point out that it wasn't really so much about whether or not I cared if someone else posted the review on their site, with credit to me, but the fact that I wanted to be the one to make the decision in each individual case. In most cases I probably would not have minded, but it was not up to someone else; it was up to me. It was my work, and I am the only one who had any right to decide if someone else could copy it, who they could give it to, whether it got posted somewhere else, and where it would be posted, etc. I cannot stress enough that this is not someone else's right.

For those who think there's just nothing at all wrong with this, did you ever think about that? I have to wonder why you think you get to make these decisions for someone else? I don't care about BGG's rules or the laws. What about the person whose work it is? The vast majority of people probably don't care if you post it some place, but that does not make it any less their decision.

If you think that's wrong, I would suggest you spend some serious time trying to remember that a real human being is on the other side of this, someone who has their own rights, rights you are ignoring and trying to take from them.

[Liallan]

This is a separate response to nmego's long post. If you didn't read his (or couldn't get through it), you probably don't want to read this. So like him, I invite you to skip over this. It's kind of getting a bit out of the original realm and getting into some squeaky points.

Assuming I had a wealth of experience in life from chess lectures all around, then I grew up to become an amazing chess player and I got asked to give lectures. I remembered the past lectures I had in my life and I recited a couple of them, because they were insightful. Would that violate "copyright"? (It is not written content, but other than that it is the same scenario).

I think it would violate it, yes. It doesn't have to be written - besides, if it was a lecture, it probably was written at one time. (And unlikely you would have it memorized.) There's a difference between quoting pieces out of other material (with credit) and basically reciting someone's entire lecture.

Assuming I had a wealth of experience in life from "READING" chess articles, then I wrote a couple of articles explaining what I understood from them. would that violate copyright?

Writing what you "understand" from something is not the same as simply copying it. Explaining is not copying. I teach. I explain things all the time, all of it having come from other sources. I quote bits and pieces here and there, but I mostly explain in my own words. Did you never have a writing class where they taught you the difference between writing stuff in your own words and simply copying?

You know, I think there is something weird or paradoxical between sharing knowledge and copyright, like the two don't make a lot of sense together.

Sometimes it's just a fine line. No one "owns" knowledge. I can have knowledge of someone else's discovery, but it's their discovery. I merely have knowledge of it. I can pass that knowledge along. I can't lay claim to the discovery. I can know the words of a song and sing along, but having the words in my head is not ownership or rights. And sometimes there is that fine line. That's why things end up in court, because it's not always clear cut and people do disagree of course. Many things in life are like that. Just because it's sometimes difficult doesn't mean we dismiss it.

It is different when you make a nice statue of or art, or make a nice novel, or submit an invention, or create an amazing game, or make a really cool non-open source program. you've worked hard for it. nobody should copy it..

Are you judging how hard someone worked to make a strategy guide? I know that would be a lot of work for me. Are you saying it doesn't matter that it wasn't as difficult as writing a whole novel? And I've seen some art work out there that I don't think was difficult at all. (I've seen some art work that I really didn't think deserved credit for being original. How is a big red circle in the middle of a white canvas original? I could have done that for geometry class, and no one "owns" a circle. By the way, I'm serious.)

Knowledge is like money, it is like when you give money to a poor kid and that kid saw someone poorer than him and shares the money with them...

I'm sorry, WHAT?

Once knowledge enters your mind, it is ENTIRELY YOURS.

As stated above, no one "owns" knowledge. You either have it or you do not. Knowledge is not a set of words put together in a particular way. In a way, you're trying to tell me that if I teach a game based on my knowledge of having read the rules, that's ok because I'm just sharing knowledge. Yes, that's true. But you do realize the rules themselves are copyrighted, right?

I think the problem with statements like this is that you are not accounting for fair use. I have a pdf of a set of rules from some publisher I've forgotten, who used to put these up on their site and no longer do. But I have that copy for myself. (Which I can use - fair use.) It's been brought up on BGG. I could upload it there. I never have, because it's copyrighted. I would need to find out if this is OK first, because I'm someone who actually cares about that. Quoting bits and pieces (giving credit to the rules) is OK, but is it OK for me to upload my copy and share with everyone? I have quite a few pdf's of rules, but I don't upload any of them.

Assuming there is a really nice book on applied mathematics. that is banned from a country. there is a really smart boy in that country who really wants to read that book. you screenshot-ted the book (or used other means) and managed to deliver its contents to the guy. later on he makes a massive invention that changes the world using the knowledge that he has gained. You could argue that the copyright here was stupid and impractical and you did the right thing. this is in some ways similar to this scenario albiet not entirely similar.

You need to separate the idea of the copyrighted material from the guy's use of that knowledge to invent something. Getting a copy of the book is not the same thing as using knowledge. He could have used the knowledge the same way had he acquired it in a legal way. Everyone uses knowledge to take it one step further, create something else, gain more knowledge, etc. Knowledge builds on knowledge. But knowledge isn't relevant to the conversation.

As to the book itself, I see where you are coming from, and I actually agree with you that it's a little senseless. The dilemma here isn't the guy wanting the book. It's that it's banned and governments controlling people in that manner is not moral to start with. As strongly as I feel about this issue, I think there are times when we have to make decisions between two conflicting ideals. The issue here isn't the guy wanting the book - we don't always get what we want. The issue is finding a way to get it into the country. If you can manage that with an illegal copy, can you not manage that with a legal one? Find another book on the topic, lend one, just buy it. Copying it is not really relevant, though I see your point. But, most cases are not the type of dilemma where two sets of ethics seem to be at odds.

[nandblock]

Quick note (I'm not particularly interested in engaging further with this thread in detail, although Liallan makes reasonable points, and does understand how copyright works)--the purpose of this bit of the BGG agreement--

E. You also grant other users a license to your User Submissions.
By uploading User Submissions to BoardGameGeek, you hereby grant each user of the Geek Websites a non-exclusive license to access your User Submissions through the Geek Websites, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display, and perform such User Submissions as permitted through the functionality of the Geek Websites and under these Terms of Service.

--is for instance to explicitly allow users to quote other users' posts when they hit "reply". Similarly, BGG's terms of service need to spell out that they have a license to reproduce your posts; otherwise, if you upload a post they still would lack the right to have their server display that post to other users. Basically, the BGG terms of service are spelling out the minimal licence needed so that the website can function normally (with users uploading content which is then displayed to other users).