The Fair Use Policy

[captainjack23]

Um, msprange, you do realize that by mentioning the Hamster Wars possibility in the Foreven Sector that a Space Hamster Arms Race may even now be happening amoungst the Traveller faithful...

Well, I was hoping to use them as opponents for the sentient puddles of water invading from the next spiral arm over........ :mrgreen:

 

[captainjack23]

Well, this is where I'm confused because Matt's first point said:
Now he's not specified that the latter only applies if MGT is involved somehow, but I guess that's what it means by implication. But that seems odd because if you're publishing a sector or something else from the OTU then it doesn't necessarily require any stats for any edition at all. So it sounds as if you can publish anything for the OTU if it is pre-MGT, but if you mention any MGT stats it has to be set in the Foreven sector?

Actually, he hasn''t officially said anything - he has given an off the cuff preview of it.....so if you need specific legal answers you'll just have to wait. I doubt that he thinks the issue is unimportant - and no matter how big an issue it is for you, its a bigger issue for him and mongoose to get it right.

So, relaaaaaaax, and ignore the scooby snack he threw all of us bystanders -the real stuff is still coming if you need real info. Besides. jumping all over it with serious questions isn't going to encourage him to make more off the cuff answers.....I'm guessing.

 

[EDG]

The fact that Miller is allowing part of his setting for anyone to have at is ... well ... freaking amazing. I have not heard of that happening before. Ever.

I'm not sure how this will turn out. I can see lots of people publishing different versions of the Foreven sector, but how is that great? It still means that nobody can publish their alternate versions of the Marches, or the Rim, or anywhere else in Charted Space setting - but they can publish for this one arbitrary random sector in the middle of nowhere? Foreven's in the boonies, one sector spinward from the Marches, and you're also lumbered with Zhos and Aslan as the main governments there - if you wanted to do anything involving Hivers or K'kree or Solomani you're pretty much out of luck unless you want to contrive a really weird reason for them to be out there.

I think this is only really good for anyone who has already done work on a Foreven of their own, or who is interested in that part of space. It doesn't help anyone else with their own larger alternate OTUs though, but I guess they can still publish them via the Fair Use for non-commercial purposes.

And I guess that all these alternate Forevens are supposed to be standalone publications, without any need for consistency between them. Which is all very well, but I can just see someone down the line picking up one Foreven book by somebody and another by someone else and wondering why the heck they don't agree with eachother.

It just seems a bit of a strange and arbitrary limitation I suppose. Why not just open up the whole of Charted Space instead of just one sector? Mongoose would still have the monopoly on OFFICIAL Traveller Universe material so I can't see how doing so would threaten that at all.

 

[EDG]

Besides. jumping all over it with serious questions isn't going to encourage him to make more off the cuff answers.....I'm guessing.

Well, personally I didn't want him to make any off-the-cuff answers at all - I wanted some official, solid, unambiguous answers! I mean, sure, thanks for the preview here, but it's a mixed blessing if it causes confusion instead of clarity.

I hope we'll see the official stuff within the next couple of days and that Matt won't keep us waiting now that he's given this much away. Then we'll see what's really going on.

 

[captainjack23]

The fact that Miller is allowing part of his setting for anyone to have at is ... well ... freaking amazing. I have not heard of that happening before. Ever.

I'm not sure how this will turn out. I can see lots of people publishing different versions of the Foreven sector, but how is that great? It still means that nobody can publish their alternate versions of the Marches, or the Rim, or anywhere else in Charted Space setting - but they can publish for this one arbitrary random sector in the middle of nowhere? Foreven's in the boonies, one sector spinward from the Marches, and you're also lumbered with Zhos and Aslan as the main governments there - if you wanted to do anything involving Hivers or K'kree or Solomani you're pretty much out of luck unless you want to contrive a really weird reason for them to be out there.

I think this is only really good for anyone who has already done work on a Foreven of their own, or who is interested in that part of space. It doesn't help anyone else with their own larger alternate OTUs though, but I guess they can still publish them via the Fair Use for non-commercial purposes.

And I guess that all these alternate Forevens are supposed to be standalone publications, without any need for consistency between them. Which is all very well, but I can just see someone down the line picking up one Foreven book by somebody and another by someone else and wondering why the heck they don't agree with eachother.

It just seems a bit of a strange and arbitrary limitation I suppose. Why not just open up the whole of Charted Space instead of just one sector? Mongoose would still have the monopoly on OFFICIAL Traveller Universe material so I can't see how doing so would threaten that at all.

I suppose it's just possible that MWM and Mongoose are less concerned with Canon consistency than you are......Besides -I doubt it's about threat -but rather about authorial source. After all, multiple canon sources is part of why you often decry the mess that is the OTU, no ? Perhaps they just want to make sure that OFFICIAL traveller and CANON traveller are one and the same....for a change. In any case, its all just spec until we see the rules, eh ?

 

[captainjack23]

Besides. jumping all over it with serious questions isn't going to encourage him to make more off the cuff answers.....I'm guessing.

Well, personally I didn't want him to make any off-the-cuff answers at all - I wanted some official, solid, unambiguous answers! I mean, sure, thanks for the preview here, but it's a mixed blessing if it causes confusion instead of clarity.

It is clarity for those of us with less specific interest than you, though. Still, you have a point - you should probably ding him for that kind of thoughtlessness when you are giving him his next six month review.

 

[Infojunky]

I suppose it's just possible that MWM and Mongoose are less concerned with Canon consistency than you are......

Check. Marc stated as much during the T4 roll out 12 years ago. Only the fan base clings to it....

 

[captainjack23]

I suppose it's just possible that MWM and Mongoose are less concerned with Canon consistency than you are......

Check. Marc stated as much during the T4 roll out 12 years ago. Only the fan base clings to it....

Cool, really.


BTW -quotes messed up......best not cross attribute me and EDG.... crossing the streams, and all..... :wink: :wink:

 

[dmccoy1693]

Lots of stuff.

Dude, You do realize that this is like Ed Greenwood and Wizards saying that anyone can publish whatever they want for Kara-Tur and someone complaining that they still can't do anything with the Dalelands? (that's forgotten realms setting for those not in the know)

To me, this is a blank check to do whatever I want with the OTU universe (with a few limits, unknown at this time). Why not take it and run? You can do the sector 1000 years from now after the Vargr and Hiver invasion of that sector (provided you can use them). You can make a new empire. You can do an alternate time line is one little thing happened differently that changed the entire course of human history.

 

[EDG]

I suppose it's just possible that MWM and Mongoose are less concerned with Canon consistency than you are......Besides -I doubt it's about threat -but rather about authorial source.

Well, I didn't say anything about canon at all. I know that they're not going to be consistent with actual canon, that's a given (though I'm not even sure there IS any official canon for Foreven anyway).

The potential problem I'm talking about that this may result in lots of different alternate Forevens being published that aren't consistent with eachother - so how would that fact be made clear on the products so that people aren't confused by the inconsistent Forevens?

 

[dmccoy1693]

The second point seems to say "whether it's non-commercial or commercial, you are only allowed to publish OTU stuff anywhere (whether free or not) if is set in the Foreven sector".

Now he's not specified that the latter only applies if MGT is involved somehow, but I guess that's what it means by implication. But that seems odd because if you're publishing a sector or something else from the OTU then it doesn't necessarily require any stats for any edition at all. So it sounds as if you can publish anything for the OTU if it is pre-MGT, but if you mention any MGT stats it has to be set in the Foreven sector?

I think you summed it up nicely. I'm not exactly sure how you're confused.

 

[EDG]

(that's forgotten realms setting for those not in the know)

All of which means absolutely nothing to me since I've never played FR .

To me, this is a blank check to do whatever I want with the OTU universe (with a few limits, unknown at this time). Why not take it and run? You can do the sector 1000 years from now after the Vargr and Hiver invasion of that sector (provided you can use them). You can make a new empire. You can do an alternate time line is one little thing happened differently that changed the entire course of human history.

I don't see it as a blank cheque at all. It just says to me that if you want to commericially publish anything set in Charted Space then you're stuck with being in the Foreven sector, which has its own unavoidable geographic and political idiosyncracies. I don't know how much of a carte blanche we're going to get here - do we have to keep the Zhos there? Or the Pocket Empires? (we know those are there from the big map of Charted Space that's been there since CT). If we don't and can change anything we like, then why not just say "you have an area equal to one full, blank sector in the Charted Space setting in which you can do anything you like, but it's not going to be part of the OTU" instead of naming a specific sector that we have to use?

 

[captainjack23]

I suppose it's just possible that MWM and Mongoose are less concerned with Canon consistency than you are......Besides -I doubt it's about threat -but rather about authorial source.

Well, I didn't say anything about canon at all. I know that they're not going to be consistent with actual canon, that's a given (though I'm not even sure there IS any official canon for Foreven anyway).

The potential problem I'm talking about that this may result in lots of different alternate Forevens being published that aren't consistent with eachother - so how would that fact be made clear on the products so that people aren't confused by the inconsistent Forevens?

Why is that a problem ? And is it even likely ? ....and in any case, isn't consistent canon just for authorial guidelines ? I guess I'm having trouble understanding your complaint in the matter.

I mean, opening this up to fan work like this is a good thing, right ? And way more than most RPG licences do with settings ? Having some potential for minor confusion by someone down the road about a small area of the OTU seems a small risk for what is being given.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Well, I didn't say anything about canon at all. I know that they're not going to be consistent with actual canon, that's a given (though I'm not even sure there IS any official canon for Foreven anyway).

The potential problem I'm talking about that this may result in lots of different alternate Forevens being published that aren't consistent with eachother - so how would that fact be made clear on the products so that people aren't confused by the inconsistent Forevens?

Well first off, we're not seeing a flood of publishers, so I doubt you'll need to worry about 20 different commercial versions.

Second, some publishers may not want to do anything with the OTU. IMO, Mongoose and Avenger will probably fill the demand for OTU material. But those looking for something altogether different will be best served by a totally different setting.

But, yes it is possible to have two different and highly incompatable versions of the Forevens sector. That's where branding comes into play. The way one publisher brands their products from another. The same way you knew that CT and T20 were different and had incompatable crunch is how publisher a and publisher b's material aren't compatable.

 

[captainjack23]

Well, I didn't say anything about canon at all.

I though that was your point, but I guess I misused the term. read it as "OTU consistency", or just "constency", if you want to be literal about what I write....

I know that they're not going to be consistent with actual canon, that's a given (though I'm not even sure there IS any official canon for Foreven anyway).

Well, previously, it was that "there is no canon for Foreven". And there were differnt verions. And nothing bad happened as far as I can tell.

The potential problem I'm talking about that this may result in lots of different alternate Forevens being published that aren't consistent with eachother - so how would that fact be made clear on the products so that people aren't confused by the inconsistent Forevens?

Hmmm. Good point . Perhaps including Some sort of a name for the area, -like "Foreven sector " ?

I mean, if they know what foreven sector is, it won't confuse them; if they don't, it wont matter, really, as its their TU in any case. Honestly, perhaps a pick and choose part of the OTU isn't a bad thing ?

What I think is going on here is that the principles (MWM and Mongoose), are reafirming that fan participation is more important than utter consistency; what I'm getting is that that isn't your call on the matter, am I right ?

 

[dmccoy1693]

It just says to me that if you want to commericially publish anything set in Charted Space then you're stuck with being in the Foreven sector, which has its own unavoidable geographic and political idiosyncracies.

The way Matt made it sound, you don't have to have anything to do with canon Foreven sector. You can make it the heart of the universe. I think this is basickly the way that MM/Mongoose are trying to get universal races and other trappings into other setting, the same way that all D&D settings have elves and dwarves and halflings, despite if its made by Necromancer games, Paizo or Green Ronin.

 

[EDG]

I think you summed it up nicely. I'm not exactly sure how you're confused.

Well, can you publish any free sector that contains UWPs? Those are mentioned in a sidebox in MGT after all - so if UWPs are present, does that mean the sector HAS to be Foreven?

Assuming that UWPs aren't tied to MGT (which would be the sane option), it seems the choice is publish any sector in Charted Space for free using the Fair Use rules, but if you wanted to publish any sector commercially then it HAS to be Foreven again.

So if you want to publish a sector over on the trailing side of Charted Space highlighting the Vargr and K'Kree, your only option is Fair Use. If you wanted to publish a Solomani Sector, again your only option is Fair Use. Hivers? Fair Use again. Which is great, but no different to what we had before.

If you wanted to make any money off it though, your only option seems to be Foreven, which is a half-Zhodani sector. It seems to rather limit one's creativity.

And as I said, if you really have carte blanche to ignore everything and magically get rid of the Zhos and the pocket empires and replace them with whatever borders and races we like without any kind of consistency with the OTU, then what's the point of specifying a sector in the first place? If they're basically saying "you can create a setting in a full sector-sized area that is based on the races/history of Charted Space but isn't really official" then that's entirely different to saying "you have to use Foreven sector".

 

[captainjack23]

I think you summed it up nicely. I'm not exactly sure how you're confused.

Well, can you publish any free sector that contains UWPs? Those are mentioned in a sidebox in MGT after all - so if UWPs are present, does that mean the sector HAS to be Foreven?

Assuming that UWPs aren't tied to MGT (which would be the sane option), it seems the choice is publish any sector in Charted Space for free using the Fair Use rules, but if you wanted to publish any sector commercially then it HAS to be Foreven again.


If you wanted to make any money off it though, your only option seems to be Foreven, which is a half-Zhodani sector. It seems to rather limit one's creativity.

And as I said, if you really have carte blanche to ignore everything and magically get rid of the Zhos and the pocket empires and replace them with whatever borders and races we like without any kind of consistency with the OTU, then what's the point of specifying a sector in the first place?

Well, that is the nub of the issue, isn't it ? It doesn't limit creativity, it just limits your ability to make money off of someone else's IP and mongooses licence. And frankly, allowing anyone to do that in any part of an IP is pretty damn generous..and fairly risky, too from what I understand about IP - its a lot harder to enforce licencing with a partial exception.

In any case, there really is absolutely nothing to criticise at this point, except Matt's post, and that won't change until we see the details. So keep in mind that this kind of discussion, presented as commentary despite the lack of actual details is really just poisoning the well.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

As far as I can tell, Foreven has always been the ref's domain. It was specifically set aside in the CT era for fan development, so any and all of those maps of it out there are definitely not canon. So if you don't want Zhodani, it's not necessary.

What about commercial OTU stuff that may brieflymention Foreven but is more interested in the none sector aspects of the OTU, like detailing megacorp ops or what the Zhodani Intelligence Directorate are up to...

Or doing an adventure on a world, stated to be in Foreven, but is somewhat resembling, say, a Marches world, that can have all the bits of the OTU like the IISS or the Sword Worlders or TAS. Basically using a Foreven sockpuppet to set an adventure in prescribed space.

And how does one, in say a TLL original setting product, tell the reader what a TAS benefit should be analogue to in that setting, if they cannot mention TAS?

 

[Vile]

Well, this creates many more questions. Back to the old waiting game, then ... :wink:

Judging from the "Developer's Pack" thread, I suspect the final wording will also generate a flood of requests for clarification, so I'll wait until that happens before I weigh in.

If I may make one request, though, it is that there be a very clear and unambiguous distinction in the text addressing commercial and non-commercial OTU use, to the extent of having completely separate texts for both sets of "publishers". Even if one largely repeats what the other says.

Then we can have this thread for asking about Fan Policy issues, and a new one to ask about the OTU License, without mixing the twain.