On Sat, Feb 03, 2001 at 09:29:24PM -0000, Chad Boyer wrote:
> Like many here, I envision making a d20 product.
> I was hoping to revise a game called Living Steel made by
> Leading Edge Games. (my reason is that the one complaint against
> the game is that it used Phoenix command rules where you had to have
> a degree in advanced theoretical mathematics to figure out a hit or not)
> My problem is that Leading Edge Games has disappeared.
> So I have a couple of questions.
> 1) How does one get in touch with publishers that no longer publish?
> 2) How long does copyright last?
Until recently the rules were 35 years from the death of the author, or
if copyright by a company 35 years after first publication, followed by
an optional renewal of an additional 35 years by the estate of the author
only. So anything published before 1923 is in the public domain.
However, Sonny Bono during his short time as a senator managed to sponsor
a bill that was eventually signed into law called the Sonny Bono Copyright
Extension Act. Anything published after 1923 comes under the new law,
which extends copyright to 100 years (after the death of the author) which
makes anything published in 1924 first available in the public domain
starting in 2024 (assuming the author died in the same year.)
> 3) Is it copyright infringement if I don't gain any money on the product.
> i.e. do
> the conversion and just post it on the net?
As with anything like this you should consult your lawyer rather than
asking for free legal advice. Your lawyer will most likely tell you
that if even if you did not make any money on the product, you might
well lose your case and end up owing as much as $100 per infringing
copy that you made available.
So you see it doesn't really matter if it is actually infringement, just
so long as you fear that you might be infringing. If you don't believe
me, ask Napster how much they have spent trying to protect what they
believe are the implicit rights of their customers.
Cheers,
-kls
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