Unpublished Drafts - Free for All, Chapters that might have been Options

[JM Hardy]

No. Proofreading shouldn't give you any say about what the author of the text can do with it.

Oh, okay. So using other people's work for free or without their permission is bad. Unless it's proofreaders. Got it.

What about editors?

Jason H.

[otakusensei]

Didn't say they were. But it's work, isn't it? Is there some reason there work should be unacknowledged, or they should have no say in how it is used?

Jason H.

Right, so he should include the names of everyone he talked to while working on it? Why not just mention God and Dumpshock while he's at it?

Jason, your previous comment sounded more disparaging than a helpful request to include names of proofreaders. It is not becoming of someone in your position to be doing that, especially to someone who is no longer a part of the line because of a decision you made. Perhaps you should PM or email Bobby if you have a concern?

[urgru]

As usual, Fuchs is wrong. As a general rule, readers should ignore any contention he makes about rights, obligations and responsibilities.

[Fuchs]

Oh, okay. So using other people's work for free or without their permission is bad. Unless it's proofreaders. Got it.

What about editors?

Jason H.

Proofreaders are not authors. That's the main difference. I don't want to make light of what proofreaders do - I did proofread a relative's book, it's a lot of work - but I'd never think that gave me any say about what he could do with it.

I don't know about editing. Does the editor of the last Stephen King novel get a say about what King can do with it?

[Fuchs]

As usual, Fuchs is wrong. As a general rule, readers should ignore any contention he makes about rights, obligations and responsibilities.

You proofread King's new novel, and he has to ask you before he publishes it?

[Abschalten]

I don't get it. AH wasn't going to get reimbursed for his work anyway, he can't do anything with it besides give it away. What's the problem here?

[otakusensei]

I don't get it. AH wasn't going to get reimbursed for his work anyway, he can't do anything with it besides give it away. What's the problem here?

Jason Hardy contends that AH should have asked permission of everyone who came in contact with these drafts, that IMR refused to use, before he released then for free here.

Makes perfect sense, right? I mean, they might have never wanted their proofing and editing to ever see the light of day.

[crizh]

I don't know about editing. Does the editor of the last Stephen King novel get a say about what King can do with it?

This.

An editor 'suggests' changes to an author's copyrighted work. He doesn't make the changes as that would be a derivative work that would almost certainly be infringing. The original author chooses to make or not make any suggested changes to his own work.

I imagine if you were to ask someone like Harlan Ellison if editors or proofreaders retain any copyright in his works you would get a clearer and more authoritative explanation.

[urgru]

You proofread King's new novel, and he has to ask you before he publishes it?

King's editor is acting as an agent of his publisher and pursuant to his agreement therewith. Here, an agent of a license holder apparently reviewed a work arising within the bounds of a third party's copyrighted universe and offered comments. It's a totally different ballgame.

I'm not saying anyone's in the right or in the wrong, or does or doesn't have rights. Any legal comment I have from here on out is going to be in private. But applying your simplistic and morally driven worldview to factual and legal problems didn't work well before and doesn't work well here. It should be taken with a whole shaker of salt.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Awesome Work Ancient History... Glad that you could share it...

Keep the Faith

[Fuchs]

King's editor is acting as an agent of his publisher and pursuant to his agreement therewith. Here, an agent of a license holder apparently reviewed a work arising within the bounds of a third party's copyrighted universe and offered comments. It's a totally different ballgame. I'm not getting sucked into this word parsing nonsense again, nor am I saying anyone does or doesn't have rights. All I'm saying is that you've, as you always seem to, made a moral judgment that you're trying to pass off a factual or legal judgment with respect to something that's more nuanced than your worldview accounts for.

Actually, here I am making a moral judgement, but not a legal judgement, hence the word "should". Please do not put words in my mouth.

[crizh]

King's editor is acting as an agent of his publisher and pursuant to his agreement therewith.

Nicely played. So that boils down to doing the job of 'editing' as agreed between the publisher and the author. And this is different how?

Oh, not at all.

The only difference is that King's agreement with his publisher probably permits King to retain his own copyrights. AH's original contracts would not have done when they were fulfilled on publication. They would however have been AH's copyrights being transferred to Topps and not Jason's.

[phillosopherp]

Jason I think you need to pick your panties out your arse, cause you were the one that made sure these items wouldn't be used in an official capacity. Leave the guy alone and work on your products so that we can see which is better okay. Show us through YOUR WORK what you got okay. Don't be a child like this is showing you to be.

[tristanh]

First off, thanks for the work on this stuff. Sucks that you can't get paid for it.

Second, I can't speak for Jason, but considering AH's comments in another thread about wanting to check out drafts of upcoming books to make sure none of his work is in it, could one not see Jason's comment regarding other people working on this as a bit of "taking the piss" a bit as it were?

I will say, regardless of feelings, such a post probably would have been better served in a private message.

[Ancient History]

Speaking of "self-proofreading," that wasn't all that was done on this document. It appears that this is the version that was reviewed by 5 proofreaders and received some development work by me. I see that Mark Dynna is mentioned in your header--did you talk to the other proofers about giving away the results of their efforts? Personally, I don't recall hearing from you about that.

Which makes me wonder about the other articles. Are they first drafts, or ones that were edited by others? Are you giving away the work of anyone else?

Jason H.

For the record - this is based off of my final draft, which was turned in before you came on the scene, and before the final round of proof reading you are talking about. It was one of the few drafts I had left, bcause when you kicked me off Basecamp I no longer had access to any of the proofing I or anyone else had done on this document, except for some conversations between Mark Dynna and myself. This is the reason I spent several days going through that final draft and proofing it by hand. I think you will find some significant differences between this draft and the one that was in layout when I left.

And kids, don't pick on Jason. It was a reasonable question, given the circumstances.

[JM Hardy]

For the record - this is based off of my final draft, which was turned in before you came on the scene, and before the final round of proof reading you are talking about. It was one of the few drafts I had left, bcause when you kicked me off Basecamp I no longer had access to any of the proofing I or anyone else had done on this document, except for some conversations between Mark Dynna and myself. This is the reason I spent several days going through that final draft and proofing it by hand. I think you will find some significant differences between this draft and the one that was in layout when I left.

And kids, don't pick on Jason. It was a reasonable question, given the circumstances.

If that's the case, then thank you. The changes I noticed were the same as the proofing changes, but it certainly is possible that you made those changes on your own. I retract, then, any suggestion that work was being used unacknowledged.

Jason H.

[phillosopherp]

And kids, don't pick on Jason. It was a reasonable question, given the circumstances.

Glad you think so, I personally think it is childish at best...

[tweak]

Is this the beginning of the old school net books that we used to see in the newsgroups back in the day?

Anyway, awesome work!

[tweak]

First off, thanks for the work on this stuff. Sucks that you can't get paid for it.

Second, I can't speak for Jason, but considering AH's comments in another thread about wanting to check out drafts of upcoming books to make sure none of his work is in it, could one not see Jason's comment regarding other people working on this as a bit of "taking the piss" a bit as it were?

I will say, regardless of feelings, such a post probably would have been better served in a private message.

If all the developers that left CGL start to put out free material that is good, will I ever need to buy anything from CGL?

[Ancient History]

Specifics that spring to mind are the Pilot 1 agents in the Bot-net Herder and everything about the Gunsel Karcist. I'd love to see the community polishing these up in the way CGL ought to have been over the last year....

The Pilot 1 agents are bare minimums, a starting point. They're not much good for real hacking, but fine for other things.

Gunsel Karcist...let me tag another post in here:

(and on a side note, your gunsel karcist really needs more resonance, or his essence loss will take away that minimum resonance entirely, but i presume that was just something you hadn't caught in your self-proofreading)

edit: or is minimum resonance/magic supposed to be minimum *after* essence loss?

Minimum after Essence loss.

The Gunsel Karcist concept is basically a technomancer gunslinger - the root words (Adam Jury gave me the hairy eyeball on these at one point) are gunsel as in "hired gun" or "shootist" and karcist which is a world for a ritual practitioner in some obscure magical works, and also sometimes used by early UNIX programmers. It's pretty much the weirdest concept out there.

just looking through PACKS, and i'm a little confused. in many of the profiles you have a 'required' logic + intuition. however, in the main writeup, you tell us that the knowledge skills are considered to be bought with BP... and so far as i can tell, the log + int wouldn't usually cover the BP cost anyways.

which makes me wonder... what exactly is the log + int required for?

Characters receive (Logic + Intuition) x 3 Knowledge and Language Skill points for free at character gen, and []may purchase an equal number of points using BP[/i]. Bit of a weird rule. p.85, SR4A

(i believe there's also a few examples of software that can't run on the owner's hardware, to provide a further example).

That was actually deliberate, the programs will run at a reduced rating - and provide incentive to buy better hardware later on when you can afford to upgrade.

rigger kits (not profiles) have combat drones with no weapons for them...)

Yeah...the profiles and kits are almost universally not maximized, and in some cases not even complete. The idea is that they would be the building blocks to great characters, but not 1-2-3 gamebreakers. So there are some oddballs out there. Mea culpa.

but there's still a tremendous amount of work to be done to bring it to the point where it would be ready for print, still (which i'm sure would have been done if circumstances weren't what they are).

Heh. Not really. This thing was deemed 'complete' and in layout back in SR4 and I had to go through it and switch everything over to SR4A, and then it went through the other round of proofing Jason pointed out, which fixed some errors and introduced others - I had to go back to the SR4A draft.

[tweak]

Oh, okay. So using other people's work for free or without their permission is bad. Unless it's proofreaders. Got it.

What about editors?

Jason H.

Were the proofreaders and editors paid?

[JM Hardy]

Were the proofreaders and editors paid?

Some have. But by Catalyst, for materials to be used by Catalyst. That would not include work going to other places. But Bobby says he did not use their work, so it's all fine.

Jason H.

[TheWanderingJewe...]

Bugger all that's some nice stuff I would have been more than happy to pay cash for.

[augmentin]

Great stuff!!! Thank you.

And, good to see you and Jason almost getting along. If CGL retains the license, I'd love it if everything the press releases have been saying is true and somehow, someway you're able to write professionally for shadowrun again.

[Tachi]

AH, I do so love when you share your work with us. Thank you.