Forget 4shared

4shared sent me a snarky email, throwing their self-righteous weight around.

If you want copies of my work, just go to Basic Roleplaying Central to get your downloads, while I reconsider that Dropbox option.
 
alex_greene said:
If 4shared are turning into the MySpace of file sharing sites ... that's their problem.

4Shared used to be good, but the chilling effect of the recent Megaupload case has caused them to become paranoid about liability - it's not unusual for them to ask you to take down material that you have created yourself if they think there's a chance that it might be derivative work based on somebody else's intellectual property. They are becoming increasingly hostile to material created under permissive licenses such as Creative Commons, the GPL, and by extension the Open Game License - largely because they are worried about their ability to police the terms of these licenses. It's a sad state of affairs, but not one with an easy answer.
 
So it's OK to break basic copyright legislation by uploading complete works but it's not OK to upload original material because it might be plagiarised or be derivative (illegally) of someone else' IP?

Have I got the gist of this correct? If so, how <insert expletive of choice> ridiculous, not to mention hypocritical is that!
 
The situation is more complex that that. Although there is general agreement that it is against the law to download complete works that are under copyright, derivative works based upon somebody else's IP are a legal grey area - look at some of the legal battles that have taken place in the past decade over fan fiction. In cases where the owner of the original IP has released their creations under an "open" license or has granted fans rights to use it for non-commercial purposes, you would think that the situation would be clear. But increasingly file locker services are cracking down on these kinds of derivative works because it is impractical for them to verify that the derivative material has been licensed correctly, and they are worried that they may be liable if they get it wrong. The Megaupload case has frightened them and until the situation becomes clearer, they are playing things as safe as possible - hence the growing restrictions on distribution of derivative works that haven't been uploaded through "official" channels.

(As an aside, would it be worth asking Mongoose to provide a "Legend Workshop" area where fans can submit their own creations - making it clear that these aren't official or endorsed by the company...but are legal under the OGL?)
 
So how does all this rubbish affect 3pp? In the case of Legend, I was under the impression that the use of the Legend compatible logo and license was sufficient - provided of course that the material met the requirements of the OGL.
 
DamonJynx said:
So how does all this rubbish affect 3pp? In the case of Legend, I was under the impression that the use of the Legend compatible logo and license was sufficient - provided of course that the material met the requirements of the OGL.

That's entirely true...as is Vile's comment below it :)
 
Ironic because OGL-based content that we create and share there is probably about .01% of what they have on site and also probably the only legitimate content they host for. :roll:

99.99% of what 4shared does have up is entirely illegal from ownership/copyright standards. If they want to look at what's going to get them in trouble, they need to look at the mp3s, pirated videos and scanned books first. :mrgreen:
 
alex_greene said:
If you want copies of my work, just go to Basic Roleplaying Central to get your downloads, while I reconsider that Dropbox option.
Um... nice site but how do I find *your* work?

Thank you for keeping it available.

Al B. [B-)
 
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