Babylon 5 unpublished game material rights question

[Morganwolf]

Hopefully this is the right topic for this; if not, I'll understand if it gets moved (or I'm asked to move it).

Since the Babylon 5 RPG is sadly no more, what is the status of material that was written for the game but never published? I have access to a sourcebook that was written as part of an application for a staff position, and we (the author and I) would like to make the material available to the gaming public by putting it online (probably as a free PDF). I don't want to violate anyone's copyrights, but I hate seeing good stuff hiding on a hard drive when others could benefit .

Thanks!

 

[IanBruntlett]

I'd be interested to see it.

 

[MongooseMatt]

I am afraid we cannot condone any publishing of Babylon 5 material.

 

[Morganwolf]

I am afraid we cannot condone any publishing of Babylon 5 material.

Drat :-(. Thanks for the answer, even if it wasn't what we'd hoped to hear.

 

[GamerDude]

Actually, regardless of what Matt and company might wish to see fans do to support a great property the company no longer has the rights to... in all fairness that was pretty much the only answer he could give. You can't expect others to respect your copyrights and IP if you don't do the same for others.

 

[Morganwolf]

Actually, regardless of what Matt and company might wish to see fans do to support a great property the company no longer has the rights to... in all fairness that was pretty much the only answer he could give. You can't expect others to respect your copyrights and IP if you don't do the same for others.

Respecting the copyright is why I joined this board to ask .

Given that other companies have let authors release unpublished materials for licensed games after the line was canceled (obviously the companies themselves can't publish them), it seemed like a reasonable request. Not sure how they justified it, maybe it was a case of "Since we never paid for this it's not ours to say, but if you want to release it as a fan work that's between you and the IP owner"? Total speculation on my part.

While I'm mildly disappointed with the answer, I'm not at all surprised. C'est la vie .

 

[IanBruntlett]

While I'm mildly disappointed with the answer, I'm not at all surprised. C'est la vie .

OTOH... if you've got the inclination, you could rewrite the material for a different Traveller Universe.

 

[August1]

Morganwolf, what country are you in?

Derivative works, fair use, and other factors are based on the country of origin primarily so that's an important consideration.

More once I know,
-August

 

[Mikko Leho]

You got to remember one thing: even though it might be completely legal to publish fan material on various IPs, Mongoose Publishing cannot publicly condone any of it. No game company will never admit on public forum how cool a fan's Star Wars conversion or link to a Blade Runner setting hack. If they would do this, it would mean that as company they would stand behind that said publication. This could lead into problems when dealing with copyright/trademark issues in different countries and could negatively impact future licensing negotiations.

 

[MongooseMatt]

You got to remember one thing: even though it might be completely legal to publish fan material on various IPs, Mongoose Publishing cannot publicly condone any of it. No game company will never admit on public forum how cool a fan's Star Wars conversion or link to a Blade Runner setting hack. If they would do this, it would mean that as company they would stand behind that said publication. This could lead into problems when dealing with copyright/trademark issues in different countries and could negatively impact future licensing negotiations.

Could not have said it better myself