Tastes Like Pheonix accuses Shadowrun of piracy!, You stumble across the darndest things Options

[Wounded Ronin]

http://www.tasteslikephoenix.com/articles/poison.pdf

Right at the top of the document....

I can't copy and paste because it's a PDF, but basically the authors of that article are saying that one paragraph from Man and Machine that describes drug effects is directly pirated from one of their manuscripts.



....



JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!

[Nikoli]

Umm, hate to break it to them, if they submitted for the Cyberpirates (I believe that is the book they say the material was cut from) then EVERYTHING that was submitted belongs to them and they don't necessarily have to re-credit them since they were already credited (and paid) with Cyberpirates.

[Bigity]

I'm confused...isn't Cyberpirates a Shadowrun publication? How could SR developers steal from SR developers?

[Siege]

I think it depends on the agreement - some artists are credited every time their art is used because the contract stipulates as such.

However, writers usually don't get the same deal unless the particular material is wholly owned by the writer.

A freelancer who contributed to SotA:64 wouldn't be the same as Emily Dickenson giving permission for a poem to be printed in an anthology of literature.

-Siege

[Rev]

On the other hand that PDF seems to consist almost entirely of material they presumably wrote on contract to fasa and is chock full of shadowrun IP they are almost certainly publishing in violation of copyright.

[Bob the Ninja]

It seems to me that they were merely adding house rules for the game. The other bit wasn't a copyright question, just irritation on something they wrote getting changed in the editorial process.

[Fix-it]

...Whiners. :spin:

[Mr. Man]

I've got the Cyberpirates proposals, notes and drafts. If Hepler and Brandes say that FASA murdered their manuscript I'd say it's possible (haven't got the time or patience to read it, sorry). The proposal outline they did was 32 pages and enormous in scope. They obviously took their research very, very seriously.

On the other hand I've also got the total amount FASA budgeted for writing costs on the project. I seriously doubt an author getting paid less than that would be keeping perpetual attribution rights. I'd also say that going into a project hoping that FASA will put "RECOMMENDED FOR MATURE READERS" on the back cover of an SR sourcebook is a bit unrealistic -- even in 1997.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Yeah, it's not the first time Chris Hepler (specifically) has bitched about working on Shadowrun.

[Synner]

Under current FanPro freelancer contracts writers sign away title to whatever is written and submitted to FanPro during development. Writers get paid once and that is for the one book they are working on. FanPro retains the right to republish or reuse the material in the same (or altered) format later on (like the stuff in SSC and Cybertech which is now in SR3 or the Shadowtech stuff modified for Man & Machine).

Yes, this means the manuscript you hand in can come out of the development process looking completely different in print. You know that going in.

Somehow I doubt FASA contracts were much different, but I could be wrong.

[Stumps]

[Siege]

Eh - it was a pet peeve by people who may (or may not) have read the contract before they signed it and choose to air their gripes in a uncontested forum (their own).

-Siege

[Bull]

Just to add a few things... Chris and Jen (The authors from tastes Like Phoenix) did a bunch of stuff for FASA for a couple years, including running the Shadowrun Tourney at Origins for a year or two. I don;t know all the details, nor do I want to drag out a bunch of dirt, but basically from what I heard from the FASA guys the year Zach Bush, Rich Tomasso, and Myself picked up the Origins Tournament at the last minute, they were offered a writing contract elsewhere, and bailed on some things for FASA.

FASA was understandably upset, and their material for Cyberpirates was the last bit of work they accepted and paid them for. It was also heavily edited and some significant changes made to it prior to being published, and apparently they were not only not told about the changes due to the stuff between them and FASA, but they were apparently highly offended and upset about the changes to their work. Which strikes me as funny, since the developers and editors will often wreck havoc with your finished writing... Ask any of the Freelancers here. Few things survive totally intact.

<shurg>

I'm sure there's more to it I'm unaware of, and like all situations like this, Chris and Jen likely have a different view and version of what happened.

Bull

[Cray74]

[Siege]

Eh - it's all good.

I can't say as I'm going to lose sleep over wounded prides on the 'Net. :grinbig:

-Siege