Authorial Recognition

This seemed like the right forum to ask about this, so here it goes:

I have a RPG setting I wish to show in the web, free, but I want to have some kind of reassurance that it is marked as of my designing should anyone copy something of it.

I took a look at Creative Commons but I'm not sure it fits my needs. Does someone has experience with it?

For anyone stoping by and reading, thank you for your attention.

Standard internet disclaimer: I Am Not A Lawyer and this does not constitute legal advice; this is mostly based off of my (likely flawed) understanding of UK and to some extent US copyright law.

Just by writing it down you are protected by copyright — legally speaking, unless you say otherwise, other people don't have the right to distribute any copies of it (there are exceptions for parody or criticism in most jurisdictions, though). Strictly speaking, they may not even have the right to print it off without your explicit permission (and if they do, it would only be for personal use). Furthermore, in many countries you have a moral right as the author of a work to be recognised as such, and this is separate from copyright.

So: if you just want to put things out there for people to see, you don't need to do anything. Maybe put '(c) Your Name 2013' at the bottom of each page — this doesn't offer any extra protection in principle, but if you were ever to take someone to court it would make things easier (and may actually net you greater damages, but I'm unsure of that and it would depend on jurisdiction).

If you want people to be able to share things around, then you should look into the Creative Commons licenses. Look for one of those with 'Attribution'. The whole point of Creative Commons is to allow people to do more things with your work than they would be able to by default — you are waiving some of your rights over the work by using it. In my opinion, these are mostly useful if you want to encourage collaboration. It can also act as a marketing gimmick, but I don't think that's what you're going for.

Now, of course, enforcing your rights over a work is an entirely different kettle of fish, especially online. While you can take people to court over it, that's probably going to be pretty expensive, and since you're releasing this stuff for free over the internet, it's unlikely that you'd be awarded any meaningful damages. Even a proper cease-and-desist would cost you lawyer fees. Of course, most people will respond well to a politely-worded email, and if that fails then you can get in contact with whoever is hosting their website. Otherwise... eh, c'est la vie.

In practice, unless you're a multimedia conglomerate (and even then...), there is no protection against someone copying your work or even passing it off as their own. The police will not touch this stuff, because it's a civil offence rather than a criminal one. You can go to court if you like, but unless they're making money off of it that will almost certainly be more effort than it's worth. However: most people just won't plagiarise stuff straight-up. What would be the point? Even hardcore internet pirates dislike plagiarists. You're probably safe to post your RPG stuff online, really.

Also I would like to reiterate that I AM NOT A LAWYER. This may not be good advice, or even accurate to the facts; this is my opinion after having read a whole bunch of internet articles on the subject, nothing more.

edited 3rd Dec '13 5:12:13 AM by imadinosaur

Oh thanks, that's already very useful. That's how I knew you weren't a lawyer :).

I just want something to back me up when I say "Hey, know that Ellequin stuff? I wrote that." People may use, abuse, adapt, complain, joke, etc. I just want the recognition. That feeds my ego, and I become motivated to do more.

You say that C. Commons is easier for collaboration? That's one of my aims, it's good to know. I could use some collaboration.

PS: My dad loved that Asimov saying, he followed it in life.

edited 3rd Dec '13 6:49:48 AM by Penguim_God

@imadinosaur Are you sure you aren't a lawyer? That's possibly the most effective legal advice I've seen in years.

Glad this is of help to people, but I encourage anyone interested in this subject to do their own research too. I only know as much as I do (or as much as I think I do anyway) because I look up tangential shit as a form of procrastination from my writing :v — so I may be outright wrong about any of this stuff.

Well for reference, this is the license Wikipedia uses and this is the one TVTropes uses (the main difference between the two is that TV Tropes doesn't allow for commercial uses of its content). If you decide to go with a CC license, you may find this link useful in helping you choose one that is right for you.

Now: for a personal project, I probably wouldn't use a CC license. If you're going to do a wiki or some other form of collaborative project which potentially anyone can contribute to, however, a CC license is probably (practically) mandatory.

Copyright protects whatever you've written, but it also protects whatever any contributors to your RPG write. There are two ways around this: have them sign the copyright (or even just some of the rights) over to you, or have them release it under a permissive license (like a Creative Commons license). Or you could do both — have them assign the appropriate rights over to you and license it under the CC license of your choice. With a cursory search I can't find the TV Tropes contributor policy, but the Wikipedia one is here.

The 'assigning the rights' issue is only one if you might want to make a commercial go of your game in the future, but don't want other people to do so. If you're perfectly fine with other people making money off your project without having to pay you royalties, you could go with a Wikipedia-style license ('by contributing stuff here you agree to license it under license x, which means that anyone can do what they want with it, even commercially exploit it, but they must provide attribution').

If you want other people to be able to do non-commercial things only with it, but you can do whatever you want (including selling it), you'll want something along the lines of 'by posting here you are granting me a non-exclusive, worldwide right to distribute your content as I see fit (but you, the submitter, retain the copyright) and also licensing it under license y, which allows anyone else to make non-commercial use of the work so long as they provide proper attribution'. Look at the submission guidelines short story magazines and publishing houses use to see the kind of rights you'll want.

Those last two paragraphs only refer to stuff submitted by people other than you: of course, you always retain the ability to do what you want with your own work, barring some other contract. But if you might ever want to publish the game in a commercial context in the future, it's a good idea to cover yourself (this kind of stuff is why authors don't read fanfictions of their works — or don't admit to it, at least: they might be open to a plagiarism lawsuit if they use an idea that was in a fanfiction they read).

...aand that's all I'm really comfortable in talking about on this subject. If you want any more detail, you kind of are straying into 'ask an actual copyright lawyer' territory (did I mention I'm not a lawyer?).

, : That, good sir, is the best comprehensive guide to copyright and licensing I've ever seen.

Thanks! But I wouldn't call this comprehensive. I can't even guarantee that it's accurate. If anyone is thinking of doing a project with non-standard licensing (especially a collaborative one) especially if there may be money involved at some point, then they should really do some research of their own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_man%27s_copyright