This is by No Means how I planned on introducing myself to this group,
but I have a sense of (possibly paranoid) urgency that far outweighs my hesitation.
(This is the same as a post-thread I have initiated on the
RPG-create group, mildly edited):


... an inevitable conundrum. Given the Maxim:

'Those Who Don't Know History Are Bound To Repeat It"

and, more significantly, its Corollary:

"Those Who Know History Know That It Repeats"

http://www.kochcomicart.com/images/crumbkafka_155.jpg

I unfortunately consider it Only a Matter of Time before An Unfortunate Series of Events exactly parallel to those which led to the creation of the EFF ( http://www.eff.org/ ), and, more to the point, _the Comic Book
Legal Defense Fund_ ( http://www.cbldf.org/ )inevitably happen to
some poor shmuck of a Game Designer, _probably in this very group_.

Given the Cultural Retraction that has been happening since the
Mid-80's regarding Fourth Amendment issues (but admittedly in response
to the overly self-indulgent expansiveness in the '60's and '70's) , and
the Marginal Cultural Status given to the Nascent (but admittedly
Maturing) Art Form of RPG, and the Theoretically Abusive Power (but admittedly controversally so) of Patriot Act I &II : I am frankly suprised it hasn't happened already!

Does anyone know of a pre-existing 501(3)(c) dedicated to the
Protection of the Civil Liberties of Game Designers? Is anyone
familiar with the process of setting up such a fund? Can anyone come
up with a better Name that creates a better Acronym than
RPG(C)LSD(F)....???

( The Above Post Proudly and somewhat Desperately displays the Blue
Ribbon in the hopes that Readers will look at the Moon rather than
Bite The Finger Pointing At It... http://www.eff.org/br/ )


Lovingly Hand Posted by that Rapscallion Sirrah

T'oma

Grand Imperial Fluff Knight Kodesh
in Her Majesty's Secret Service of Memetic Engineers

who seems to be grabbing a lot of BandWidth lately....

A SyllogisMobility BluePrint
Designed By The Grand High Council
Of Her Majesty's Order
Of Memetic Engineers
For Navigating the AetherScape
On Behalf of the
PsychoNauts of Tomorrow in the Hopes That They To
Shall Achieve
SphereMastery of The Heavenly Firmament (Copyright 2005)




YuMe MiRu MoNo TaCHi MiNa SuKuWaReRu


--- In rpg-create@yahoogroups.com, "peyoterattle" <peyoterattle@y...>
wrote:
>
> --- In rpg-create@yahoogroups.com, "Mike Adams" <michael.adams1@u...>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I thought SJ, got flack, cause the book they were working on was
about
> > hacking, and the author/writer was interviewing real hackers, and the
> > FBI and like, thought it was another Anarchists Cookbook or like
manua
> > for doing computer crime. And the EFF (Electronic Freedom Foundation)
> > was founded afterwards to help deal with issues of how far the
FBI/CIA
> > and like can do in the world of the electronic privacy and more.
>
>
> That wasn't Flak. That was Planetary Bombardment (a raid on his office
> and violation of Civil Liberties proven to be extra-legal by his
> subsequent victorious lawsuit). Flak was/is being called nasty names
> by his/ones peers..
> > Does make me rethink a play/module I have been thinking of, deals
with
> > hijacking a aircraft, and ways to do it, that are not of the norm..
>
> Sounds Kewl!
>
> >
> > Not sure if the means is used by the bad guys or the good guys..
> >Just plot device.
>
> Oh, -Gotta- be the Good Guys! Moral Ambiguity in our PostModern age
> is all the rave! (Point of minor interest: The premiere episode of
> 'the Lone GunMen' X-Files spin-off show depicted a Robotic Hijacking
> of a plane by Shadow elements of the US Intel community to crash it
> into, you guessed it, the World Trade Center. Show debuted 1-3 years
> before The Tragedy)
>
> > But I do remember a discussion back in like 2000, about how to take
> > out a major bridge, and then 911 happened, and I know people had to
> > rethink what they are doing in games, and scenarios and like, and
> how much trouble you can get if the wrong people read what you write,
> > either to arrest you for questioning, or some one actually doing
> >what you thought about and how you thought it might happen..
>
> It's 1984 all over again-
>
> T'oma
>
> YuMe MiRu MoNo TaCHi MiNa SuKuWaReRu

Yes, I'm an Idiot: I meant of course " FIRST Amendment" not " 4th Amendment" (although the way -some- people play, not you of course, both Amendments may come into play..)


Lovingly Hand Posted by that Rapscallion Sirrah

T'oma

Grand Imperial Fluff Knight Kodesh
in Her Majesty's Secret Service of Memetic Engineers

who seems to be grabbing a lot of BandWidth lately....

A SyllogisMobility BluePrint
Designed By The Grand High Council
Of Her Majesty's Order
Of Memetic Engineers
For Navigating the AetherScape
On Behalf of the
PsychoNauts of Tomorrow in the Hopes That They To
Shall Achieve
SphereMastery of The Heavenly Firmament (Copyright 2005)

Hello,

We've discussed this issue at the Forge before, and unfortunately I did not receive some help from the CBLDF that I was looking for, in order to learn how they started up their organization.

So! Yes, I'd like to see some substantive help and commentary on these issues:

Does anyone know of a pre-existing 501(3)(c) dedicated to the
Protection of the Civil Liberties of Game Designers? Is anyone
familiar with the process of setting up such a fund? Can anyone come
up with a better Name that creates a better Acronym than
RPG(C)LSD(F)....???

Thanks, Ron, for the Warm Welcome!

I am gratified that this is not an entirely new topic (could you perchance give me a link back into threads dealing with this subject? This might also reinitialize new discussion of this concept, a literary survey if you will)

Ron Edwards wrote:
We've discussed this issue at the Forge before, and unfortunately I did not receive some help from the CBLDF that I was looking for, in order to learn how they started up their organization.
So! Yes, I'd like to see some substantive help and commentary on these issues: <snip>
... but focusing on concrete knowledge, real-person contacts and consulting, and straightforward plans.

I think it would be important to know what the hypothetical fund plans on doing.

The comic book legal defense fund came about because of legal attempts to redefine comic art as pornography (mostly because "if it's a comic, it has to be for children"). They formed in response to a specific event. (Friendly Frank's, as I recall.)

They've also chosen to defend parody, satire, and fair use right, but their high-profile cases still appear to be fighting legal attempts to redefine comic art as pornography or as not art (c.f. Mavrides).

Certainly there are, or have been, some analogous things in the gaming community; in our case, however, much of them have come from other gaming businesses. Such things as trying to broadly redefine derivative works in copyright law and tightly restrict trademark usage (and even, at times, to try and conflate the two legally so as to gain copyright restrictions on trademark usage).

This sort of infighting is something the CBLDF generally does not have to deal with, at least not yet, and they are able to and have received funding from the larger comic book companies because of this.

In our case, though, I think that the attempts throughout the old-style industries to expand copyright and trademark are the biggest threat we face as independent creators; and while, certainly, there are enough non-gaming cases that the hypothetical fund could attach itself to, this would probably also put the fund at odds with its major sources of funding.

So what would the RPG LDF work for? What kind of cases would they accept?

Jerry

Hiya,

Here's the older discussion: RPG hate issue: important. I took it quite far beyond the text discussion through phone calls and emails, but hit a brick wall a couple of months later.

As folks can see from that thread, my concern was not to wrangle over copyright, but rather to focus on outright abuse of employment, slander, threats to physical safety, and threats to freedom of speech. Speaking only as a fellow participant and not as thread-moderator, I tend to favor this emphasis still.

I am tremendously happy that the topic has resumed, and I want to encourage everyone to consider all of this very carefully. It's painfully clear to me that GAMA, for example, is incapable of addressing concerns at this level of importance. There really isn't anyone else, with the possible exception of CAR-PGA.

Best,
Ron

P.S. I consider all discussion of "what to call it" to be premature.

Ron Edwards wrote: Hiya,

Here's the older discussion: RPG hate issue: important. I took it quite far beyond the text discussion through phone calls and emails, but hit a brick wall a couple of months later.

Ron Edwards wrote: As folks can see from that thread, my concern was not to wrangle over copyright, but rather to focus on outright abuse of employment, slander, threats to physical safety, and threats to freedom of speech. Speaking only as a fellow participant and not as thread-moderator, I tend to favor this emphasis still.

Ron Edwards wrote: I am tremendously happy that the topic has resumed, and I want to encourage everyone to consider all of this very carefully.

Ron Edwards wrote: It's painfully clear to me that GAMA, for example, is incapable of addressing concerns at this level of importance. There really isn't anyone else, with the possible exception of CAR-PGA.

Ron Edwards wrote: P.S. I consider all discussion of "what to call it" to be premature.

Ron Edwards wrote: As folks can see from that thread, my concern was not to wrangle over copyright, but rather to focus on outright abuse of employment, slander, threats to physical safety, and threats to freedom of speech. Speaking only as a fellow participant and not as thread-moderator, I tend to favor this emphasis still.

After having reviewed the salient Background ( RPG hate issue: important.) I find that my conceptual model has narrowed a little bit as pertaining to what may actually be needed. The previously thread-listed Advocacy groups exist to handle a lot of the issues presented as possible functions of a New Organization. I suspect that a New Organizations role would be easiest, and perhaps best, defined as an Advocacy group distributing -information- , intent on making sure affected individuals are put in contact with existing groups pertinent to their situations.
As such, I wonder if it would be possible to get the CBLDF to recognize RPG's and their creators as involved in creating a sub-set of _their_ ArtForm: enough similairities exist to at least posit such a definition for legal terms (...individual artists involved in creating a potentially marketable Art Product combining Visual and Textual components... IMO the boundaries are already quite blurry with the advent of WebComics and the respective self-publishing boon in both Arts.
Overall, we are more similair than different in this regard (ie to the goals of the CBLDF), and I begin to wonder if it is truly necessary to re-invent the wheel when we can merely add an axle..

Thoughts?

T'oma

YuMe MiRu MoNo TaCHi MiNa SuKuWaReRu.

Hi T'oma,

I agree with you about functions of the endeavor, especially since that goal is modest and concrete enough to be realistic, as well as genuinely useful right out of the gate.

If you or anyone you know can make contact with the CBLDF about this, that would be wonderful. However, I suggest that the goals can be met even if they say no or are otherwise uninterested in helping directly.

Best,
Ron

One question: would the existence of such a fund create a 'target'? Is there any reason to suppose that, knowing that there was a fund set up to protect designers, more people might try to bring suit against designers?


T'oma wrote: "Given the Cultural Retraction that has been happening since the Mid-80's regarding [first] Amendment issues (but admittedly in response to the overly self-indulgent expansiveness in the '60's and '70's)"

We should probably take this up via PM or in a different thread if you want to discuss it, but this clause bothers me a lot. What increased freedom of speech rights earned during the liberation movements of the sixties and seventies do you regard as 'overly self-indulgent'? Which interpretations of the first amendment that got established during that time do you regard as inappropriate? And how do you differentiate a game like Kill Puppies for Satan or a supplement like Sex and Sorcery from expressions of the putatively inappropriate variety?

Sean wrote: One question: would the existence of such a fund create a 'target'? Is there any reason to suppose that, knowing that there was a fund set up to protect designers, more people might try to bring suit against designers?

Ron Edwards wrote: I agree with you about functions of the endeavor, especially since that goal is modest and concrete enough to be realistic, as well as genuinely useful right out of the gate.

Ron Edwards wrote: If you or anyone you know can make contact with the CBLDF about this, that would be wonderful. However, I suggest that the goals can be met even if they say no or are otherwise uninterested in helping directly.

Hiya,

I'd like some group of people to address the issue in a concrete way. The Forge seems like a good candidate as a locale for their interactions, which is what I was driving at in the earlier thread. I would like to be one of those people, too, if I could be useful.

But the Forge, itself, is not an organization and not a company. It has no financial or any other sort of standing; for example, the "Forge booths" which are now springing up at various cons have to be registered by one or more of the companies - it is not itself even an imprint. It's just a website.

So ... basically, what you're suggesting is what we're already doing, right here in this thread! All that matters now is concrete effort, and your commitment to approach the issue with the CBDLF is an excellent example.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: But the Forge, itself, is not an organization and not a company. It has no financial or any other sort of standing; for example, the "Forge booths" which are now springing up at various cons have to be registered by one or more of the companies - it is not itself even an imprint. It's just a website.

My concern with "special" defense funds is that they often duplicate work already being done, and thus create a bunch of small pools of resources with limited value, as opposed to a larger pool of resources with a great deal of value. Independent writers would be better served to support existing organizations, such as the Freedom to Read Foundation (A sublet of the American Library Association), the ACLU, or a larger writing community (Poets and Writers, International Women's Writing Guild, etc).

And they would also be far better served by taking the initiative to actually bother to learn about the law. Most community colleges have courses in general business law, and their are plenty of traditional courses as well as online resources to learn about copyright and first ammendment laws. I have been amazed as I wallowed into the whole self-publishing thing how few writers actually bother to try and understand the most basic ideas of copyright law. It scares me how few understand such terms as fair-use or intellectual property.

Also understand the laws in your state and community regarding first ammendment issues. What I have discovered in my discussions with fellows who have been "victims" of such attacks is that more often than not the situation could have been avoided by getting the facts about the local laws. One guy got in a lot of trouble for distributing "pornographic and violent images" in a public place. What he did was create a flyer featuring scantily clad fantasy female figures fighting demons, then left them at the local library. Not exactly what any of us would see as pornography, but because the flyers were left in a public place out of context, they were perceived as such. Had he left them on the shelf of a local bookstore's fantasy section, nobody would have said boo. But because they were in public places where they were not expected to be, it got him in trouble. To put it in perspective, if you are in the White Wolf forum discussing whether or not vampires can engage in sex, nobody thinks twice about it. Go into the Nickolodeon website and start that conversation with a bunch of grade school kids and now you have a problem.

I'm not big on hoping some organization will protect me. I believe in being self-reliant and self-responsible (which is why I decided to self publish to begin with). And part of that for me means understanding the laws that effect what I do, and lending my support to groups already involved in first ammendment issues.

Another issue is organizational. Who would run it? Who would decide how the funds are used? Where would the funds come from? It's been mentioned that the Forge should take the initiative...but why? Why should the people who run this site take on that workload? And make no mistake, it would be an enormous workload. I've worked for small non-profits before, and just the bookkeeping for an organization with less than 30 members can be an accounting nightmare.

Hello,

Thanks for your input. However, I'm not sure you're understanding the position I'm taking. Since Clinton and I run the Forge, that position has some weight. I'll outline it so your comments can be put in perspective.

1. The Forge isn't an organization, company, or even an imprint. It has no legal identity, standing, funds, or anything else like those things. It can't do anything of this legal or protective nature.

Therefore, arguing why it shouldn't do a particular thing that's outside of its venue is a little like beating the crap out of a nondescript spot on the ground, when the person you're talking to is standing a few feet away, wondering what the hell you're doing.

2. The Forge is, however, a nexus of information exchange and mutualism. It exists only for that purpose. Therefore, when someone cites useful resources for dealing with a problem, and puts them in a usable form for others to learn about, he or she is doing "what the Forge does."

In this case, we're talking about anything that permits people involved in role-playing to avoid and deal with crimes - mainly through understanding and having quick access to already-existing institutions, just as you describe. We're not talking about a legal fund or founding an organization of consultants.

You apparently have done some good background work on this issue for publishing concerns. Instead of speaking, primarily, about how great it is that you've done this, go ahead and post a series of links. Share the benefit of your research and your knowledge. Make yourself useful.

That alone will make this thread worth any of the time we've spent on it this far, and will stand as a particularly stunning example of how a new poster at the Forge can have a huge impact. I'll look forward to it.

Best,
Ron

Ask, and ye shall receive...

http://www.ftrf.org Freedom To Read Foundation

http://www.aclu.org/FreeSpeech/FreeSpeechMain.cfm ACLU, specifically their Free Speech section

http://www.lp.org/ Website to the Libertarian Party, where you can find info on free speech issues and how to contact libertarian officials in various areas.

As to your request of "making myself useful", short of going through and listing the government websites for ever state and county is the U.S., I'm not sure what else you want me to do. The information is available, and it is normally as simple as a google search for your county government of state government, then making a phone call to the county clerk. However, if someone has a specific set of circumstances they want help with, then they can ask and I'd be happy to help locate resources.

Hey, that's way useful! On reflection, the phrase "make yourself useful" can be read in a very negative way, so I don't think I'll be using it as an internet communication again. Tones of voice, timing, expressions, etc, are absent.

Anyway, yes, thank you. That's exactly the sort of thing we need to have available here.

Best,
Ron

I am always happy to help. If you think it would be helpful, I can put together a set of links related to various legal things (like copyright, fair-use, free speech,etc) and post them under a separate thread to make it easy to find.

Please Do! I am having a _very_ difficult time (personally) navigating the bureaucracy regarding copyright and trademark issues (ie/eg "How Do I Do It?"). Its a bit like standing in line at the DMV!
I know its easy when you know how, but the learning curve is a bit steep for us nascent Self Publisher artistic types!
Thanks!