This isn't meant confrontationally, but I'm not sure what your point with this is. Presumably you are saying that this person is subject to greater pressure to spin or present things in a particular way? That may be so, but the letter seemed genuine enough to me. (Reason being if it were spin, it would have omitted parts that didn't help its case).

If you're saying that he has some sort of higher priority in all this due to his stake in the company, then I'm not entirely sure in what regard you mean. That his decisions should count for more? That his opinion should be more highly regarded? I essentially stated that the letter appeared to be true and stated that it confirmed implicitly a lot of what had been said regarding Loren Coleman purloining funds. His position actually supports my statement, doesn't it?

I would comment on your view that he has the most at stake. I would actually, politely, dispute that. My view is that those who have the most at stake are the people who play Shadowrun and worry for how this may impact the game. This is cumulative of course, but cumulatively the value that the Shadowrun players attach to the game dwarves any individual interest and this forum focuses that cumulative interest of the Shadowrun community. Many of us have put enormous amounts of time and effort into this game. I myself have spend hundreds of hours of my time producing material for it (check out my site - and that's only a fraction of what I've posted historically). It's my personal morality here, but I place the contributions of all the people who wrote the game, edited it, layed it out, as highest in terms of value to the game. So basically, I'm flat out rejecting those posters that say we have no legitimate interest in what goes on because we're not financially involved. There's about £200 of Shadowrun books right next to me as I type. Of course I have a stake in this as does everyone else here. And put us all together...



I would be unlikely to forward on a private correspondence of this nature myself. However, the contents of it are relevant, offering confirmation of things as it does and clearly somebody on the recipient list felt that it should have been shared. I understand that along with FrankTrollman, the suspected leaker has also been banned from Dumpshock. That's unfortunate as it starts to seem that the DS mods are being drawn into some sort of party line on this. I'm surprised if this is so, but note that contrary to statements earlier, as of the time I'm typing right now, posting this private letter is not against the TOS listed on DS, I just checked.



Well, to turn it around, what gives anyone else the right to stop them? If they feel that this is important enough to go public with, then that is a decision for them to make. Perhaps it's borderline - the letter only confirms what we pretty much knew - but clearly they felt it should be shared. That person clearly felt it was less moral to be having all this going on behind the scenes without the community knowing what was going on. There's an alternative in that they shared this just to be spiteful, but in this case, and without going into details, I don't believe that to be the case. It's unfortunate that an email intended to be semi-private became widely public in the sense of a breach of expected trust. But someone obviously felt the greater wrong was to keep it hidden.

You view this as a Catalyst matter and don't think it is the right of a few individuals to make the decision to share inside discussions with outsiders. I understand that and it's fair. But clearly someone also viewed themselves as part of the Shadowrun community and given the contents of this letter, that trumped CGL for them. Were they right to do so?

The ultimate question in all this is not whether we like a statement or not, but whether it is true.



I don't know this, but I would imagine the NDA covers the actual content and proposed content of the game, not emails about personal decisions to forgive the Colemans for their actions. There would be a legal expectation of confidentiality for some of the CGL employees about internal financial matters, but I'd be surprised if that affected freelancers contributing game material.



I've always had a lot of respect for you on these forums, hobgoblin, but I'm unsure where you're coming from here. Are you suggesting that some of what Frank is posting is not true? If so, which parts? He's been fairly scrupulous here and elsewhere about supporting his statements. Unfortunately, now that's he's banned, he can't reply to comments like the above.

K.

Yes, I have PMed Adam and hopefully will receive an answer soon.

As for Frank's posting of said letter and his 'analysis' thereof, both probably contributed to his ban.

Grexul

Bleh. I've seen the letter elsewehere on the web and it doesn't seem to do anything but confirm the info we already had. As has been pointed out, I don't see how Frank's posting it was a violation of DumpShock's ToS. I didn't see the sideshow that sprang off from whatever comment on Bills' faith was submitted, but all that is pretty irrelevant to the issue which is within the scope of our shared interest in ShadowRun and CGL's welfare. It sounds like suspension and bannings may have been earned by someone, and those posts deleted.

I don't think the thread as a whole needed to be deleted as there was worthwhile reporting, commentary and speculation there. If Frank was banned solely for posting the letter, and someone else suspected of being the leaker suspended, there's nothing in the ToS to apparently support it. If that's the case, then IMO, bad show, DS, bad show.

If Frank gets banned, it will be because of violations to the Terms of Service. I've seen a lot of personal attacks on these last couple of pages by numerous individuals. We have a little pow wow going on at the moment. When that's finished, Warnings/Breaks will be sent out as appropriate. In the mean time, keep it civil. Personal attacks and

QUOTE (Terms of Service)

any form of racism, sexism or religious intolerance.

are violations to the ToS.

Noted. I'll be getting to that.

Thanks Doc.

From Catalyst's NDA:



I believe that makes it pretty clear that the letter is covered.

Jason H.

Part of our discussion is whether or not that constitutes the same as "pirated"

So the CGL NDA is part of the DS ToS now?

Did I say that?

After checking, I'm relieved that I referenced the correct person I quoted.

Sorry for any confusion caused.

I didn't say that either. People asked what would be covered by the NDA; I answered. I didn't say anything about Dumpshock's response.

Jason H.

And it's a good thing. DS is the Official forum after all.

Frank should be sued for his actions. He infringed confidentiality. Even if he was a proxy for a ranting freelancer that freelancer should have all his work done under the NDA taken and given to CGL without payment, for the NDA infringement. That freelancer should also post an official excuse to this board or to CGL. He humiliated CGL and should be humiliated in return.

I'm sorry to burst like that but it is just stupid to have done that.

My appologies to all that can be offuscated by that post. but it's my thought about the subject. Give your stuff and apologise. Then the community may or may not accept it.

So I'm also relieved that both DS and CGL staff do not express the notion that terms of the CGL freelancer agreement apply as part of the DS user agreement.

Actually DS is not the official forums, we're' quite unofficial in fact, Dumpshock is also a private entity and not a democracy which teands to mean it's moderations can ban whoever they choose. As great an advocate of liberty as I am it works both ways. Having said that yes this would fall quite squarly under a violation of the NDA Jason posted and the piracy clause of the TOS.

I continue to believe that the freelancers that linked the document committed an ethical breach, as did Frank.

I was just angry on that previous post of mine.

You're assuming Frank got it directly from a freelancer, instead of second or third hand, and also that the person ultimately responsible for the leak was even covered by an NDA, which I believe many of them are not.

Ultimately, as far as the contents of the letter are concerned, there's not a great deal in there that Catalyst hasn't already posted or that most people following the situation could reasonably guess. The worst part about the letter being leaked is that Randall et al. will probably communicate even less with the freelancers than they do already, for fear of it getting out to the public at large. A very unfortunate turn of events, and indicative of the lack of trust that already exists in the organization.

I'm going to somewhat withdraw my comments from above. It isn't good that communications meant personally get posted online. It depends on the content, really. Someone tells you confidentially that they're going to blow up parliament, you do have to set that above the wrongness of breaching confidentiality (actually, parliament's a bad example... let's say a hospital). Where does this sit on the scale of things? Everyone will have a different take on things. Someone could have just said: "there's a letter which confirms fraud and the CGL Managing Developer takes the position of forgive and forget" and that could have been sufficient. But I suppose you'd have then got some people doubting it or saying "no proof!", so the approach that was taken was understandable.

I'm going to say one thing on the subject of religion (no don't panic mods, this is okay) and it's that religious / spiritual forgiveness is not intrinsically tied to lack of punishment nor is repentence tied to lack of sentence, neither in Christianity or Islam. So the religious angle is irrelevant here.

Peace,

K.

Chilling effects are never a good thing.

There is nothing to gain from that but nuclear PR.

To be perfectly fair, posting private messages to the public is pretty much the most severe breach of netiquette possible.

Well, I guess nobody doubted that the person who originally leaked the info to FT (or to the person who then gave it to a person who then gave it to him) violated the standard confidentiality clause in his or her contract (never seen one witout it) and/or a seperate NDA. Trollman on the other hand was just acting as a private person.


Anyway, what I find interesting is the timeline that is beginning to emerge: Towards the end of last year, people figured out that private and business funds had been mixed up and began to analyze the situation and write a plan how to unwist that mess. Towards the end of the process first the operations manager jumps ship, then on the day the final report is delivered the bookkeeper does the same. The next day the news break and everybody goes into headless chicken mode...that is, except on cbt.com, where the admins aparently never heard of Mrs. Streisand

Really? The few people employed by Catalyst are relying on this for their livelihood not just so they can enjoy a few hours. To propose that you would lose more because you past time isn't being produced for you is ridiculous when compared to people being unable to provide for their families. I find that the priorities you are displaying here are out of wack with reality.

Nope. Sorry.

At this point, Frank is not suspended. For a nice dose of transparency, he has been issued a Warning for his comments in regards to religion. That's a ToS violation. It's also his 8th violation on record. We generally follow a 10 step process where #10 is a Permaban. That has been superceded before, when a particular poster asked to be banned and we obliged. In other words, there can be special circumstances if the privelege is abused. That isn't the case at the moment.

As to the internal emails of Catalyst, that is still being debated. We prefer to wait for all of our mods to sound off on issues like this so we can speak with a general consensus when something isn't clear cut under the ToS. So at this point, the only debate would be whether or not the infamous e-mail falls under "piracy".

Obviously everyone has a lot of personal feelings invested on all sides, myself included. We're doing our best to put those aside and do our jobs, namely abiding by the rules we set out under the Terms of Service, just as everyone else is. So that's it for the moment. Play nice, no more name calling. Some more Warnings will likely be going out to individuals, but those will be (hard to say this with a straight face) internal, unlike what we've seen here. Obviously trust is getting burned on both ends, so we're trying to be very transparent here.

If you have questions regarding that, feel free to voice them. But don't do it in this thread. Take it to the "Bugs/news" thread. We'd like to make an effort to keeping this one on topic.

No it isn't.



If you commit massive fraud, you shouldn't put the blame for any "humiliation" on the people who comment about it. You seem to be putting CGL on some sort of pedestal, thinking they have some privilege of some kind. My loyalty is to the game. If people like Adam Jury and Ancient History (his DS name is what I mentally know him as) are walking due to disagreements with Catalyst, I want to know about it. I have an interest in knowing about it. Frank's involvement with Shadowrun predates the very existence of Catalyst. Any loyalty he has is to the game, not the company that is licensing the rights. He doesn't work for them. He shouldn't be sued for "infringing confidentiality", his actions have brought all this to our attention and given the freelancers - who are far more the core of this game than Catalyst is - greater leverage.

Wrongs have been done. I fail to see why you think someone should be sued for exposing them. (Not that he could be).

You didn't read my post. I said the community has the greatest stake in the success of the game. I may have only donated a few hundred hours to writing materials for the game. The thousands upon thousands of people who play it and have bought the books - no individual's interests in Shadowrun come close the scale of interest of the community as a whole. My meaning was very clearly stated.

I agree with AH. As outspoken as I tend to be about Catalyst's mistreatment of freelancers, I'd have preferred that the letter to freelancers was not posted to the public. It accomplished little unless you believed Catalyst's press release word-for-word, in which case I have a bridge I would like to sell you. But it will accomplish a great deal in further breaking down the trust between freelancers and the publisher, trust which up until this point had been mostly damaged by Catalyst, not by the freelancers themselves. But when freelancers start taking communications meant for them to the public, that dynamic changes. I can understand that some freelancers are angry and it's also possible that they didn't realize it would be released publicly, but it does more damage than good.

And how has said community been harmed?

A couple of scenarios

CGL gets it's act together, retains the license and pays it's debts: Minimal harm, potential loss of talent already gone.
CLG folds: Delay in production likely of a year while new operation spins up, all the problems of above plus the possibility that none of the freelancers return.

Now since people have called the Coleman's and Bill's judgement into question: It's their call to make, it's their choice to make, business entities are seldom a democracy. THe players can vote with their wallets if they find the quality lowered, the freelancers can vote with their talent by working elsewhere and withholding copyright. Not what I think i'd do but then again I'm not in their situation and not owed money, I tend to get terribly annoyed when i am owed and not paid so I understand others doing the same.

However a line has been crossed by some where they endeaver to ruin the company and drag peoples name through the mud, question their judgement, and insult their beliefs. I don't know why that's cool on the internet, it historically goes over very poorly face to face.

Final ponderance: In just under 6 hours I will be running a game of shadowrun at my FLGS. Nothing that occurs with CGL or this debate will affect that. Even if CGL folds none of it will cause my hard copies to combust or my PDF's to delete themselves. But the damage to peoples reputation's is more permanent I would urge everyone, including Frank to consider that before escalating this llittle nothing into something more. If you are owed funds by the company I have no right to advise you on your course of action, but everyone else should probly unplug for a moment and take a few deep breaths.

huh. so, aside from the nda/tos argument, whats the current actual news?

although... interesting reaction to a hacker posting paydata to the jackpoint here.

Just in the interest of accuracy, there's a third possibility. The license could transfer to a new publisher and that publisher could work out an agreement with Catalyst to get publishing rights to books in the pipeline. Then the freelancers withholding copyright could work with the new license holder to release the copyright, and the new publisher releases the books without much of a hitch in the production schedule.

I know this is an option because it is what happened when FanPro folded and Catalyst took over the license. No one was withholding copyright at the time, but books in the pipeline simply got a Catalyst logo on them instead of a FanPro logo.

First of all: yes, my account was banned until August of 2037, but as expected my account was reinstated before that.



Let me say first of all, that I understand the rage and anguish that prompted members of the company to give me the information in the first place. But that's not why I agreed to do it.

Yes, releasing information to the wild world outside does not help Catalyst/Freelancer relations. Of course it doesn't. However, I don't really care. Because having looked at what angry people have given me to "get back" at the company - I genuinely don't think there is a future for Catalyst. And I want that fact to be generally known, because I want Topps to know that. I want this information to get out so that Topps can make an informed decision about their license. Because I genuinely believe that the best thing for Shadowrun's future is for Topps to give the license to someone else. Pretty much anyone else, because right now Catalyst does not have the money to pay contracting fees and printing costs to bring out product.

Ancient History and Jennifer Harding have said in print that they have no intention of working for the company without substantial changes. Changes that Randall Bills has said that he has received a sign from God that he will not make. I view this claim as being rather more drastic than a mere corporate puff piece about how things are happening internally and there is an information blackout while that happens. I do not believe that this approach is compatible with Catalyst continuing to be a viable entity. It certainly isn't compatible with me being able to purchase and read a copy of Sixth World Almanac. Because as things currently stand, only a new company with the Shadowrun license could enter into serious negotiations to buy up the contracts to print the material that was written.

The absolute worst thing for the continued printing of Shadowrun books is to have a crippled company that lacks the funds to print materials be left holding the license while the fate of profits from years past languish in multi-year court settlements. That is virtually the only plausible scenario that involves the Sixth World Almanac actually languishing in development hell.

I don't think the freelancers were going to get paid. I don't think that the books were going to be published. And I don't think that any future discussion between Catalyst and the freelancers is capable of mattering. The money is not there, because it was stolen. Randall Bills says that he does not intend to punish the guilty party. The people who were in charge of getting the money back from Loren Coleman have quit. And Randall Bills says that even now, they have not been replaced. The company plan is not a realistic plan. And if Topps knows that, it can give the license to someone else who can pitch a realistic plan. And a new license holder can pay th writers for their work and get that work printed.

That's what it's been about. What it has always been about. Not the revenge fantasies of the people sending me material, but creating a future where Shadowrun is in the hands of a financially solvent company that is not being headed up by an admitted thief.

-Frank

1) I noted no part in the letter where Randal Bills claimed to have "received a sign from God." Don't misquote.

2) I'll simply ask nicely not to trash talk on our mods on other forums. Having been suspended, I understand that doesn't leave you a lot of options, and probably some annoyance. Feel free to talk to us. I'd be happy to open a thread on the moderation in the Bugs & News thread, or you can yourself. I've got no problem with talking about the issues you have with us. I just don't want to open an RPG.net account. I do need to get some sleep at the moment though, so I'll be back in a few hours.

Then why not just communicate with Topps?

Why go to the entire damn internet?

I'm guessing that has more to do with fairly blatant attention whoring and love of a good shit storm. I'm reasonably confident somewhere far in the past someone could have hugged you more and so much of this would have been avoided, or at least carried out more constructively.


You don't honestly know that, more importantly you don't know that's the permanent state, what you do want as evidenced by your personal statements is to discredit those involved for personal reasons, deserving or not, because of your personal involvement. You accuse others of duplicity when your own malice is more or less plain to see.


Regardless of why they might have originally quit or why they will continue not to work for CGL or why CGL will not make those changes is functionally irrelevant. Whether you respect that choice to make it's his call to make. Your obviously upset that it is he and not you that's making that call I get that. But then again you've burned that bridge, so your only dog in this fight is to sling mud as hard and as fast as you can and hope that some of it sticks.


Except the concept idea may belong to CGL. The only reason they might sell is to get them out of the financial doldrums after loosing the license. By comparison a new company likely doesn't want to buy said idea if they also must renegotiate with the freelancers for the material rights. Now granted we might see that material under another book name, but at the very least if your stated goal is to protect sixth world almanac your likely going at it the wrong way.




Your entire last three paragraphs are at the very best conjecture and at the worst some of the finest fantasy creations I've ever seen with you as the shining white night taking on the horrible dragons in your mind. You paint yourself as working for the good of the game when your level of malice and vitrol don't speak to an earnest attempt, or to be blunt, a sound mind.

There is no new news at the moment. I'll post what I can as soon as I can.

Jason H.

Bigger impact, plain and simple.

Nice? Surely not.

On the contrary, such details are highly relevant to the working state of any organization.

And you would be doing what, exactly?

Oh, look:

Yeah, I know. But damn it I'm getting some sleep first.

Other possible outcomes:
- CGL gets its act together, retains the licence and pays it's debts, but still everything goes to hell and the licences die a slow and horrible death.
- CGL folds, the news license holder rehires all freelancers and steers the universe into a bright future, pre-SR3 books are released as .pdf for free and a god of your choice descends upon MS with all his wrath and smiteth them until they do a good Shadowrun game.



Not all good possibilities involve CGL, and not all bad ones include the pretense that CGL loses the rights. In reality? We will see...

Which despite what some folks tell themselves isn't what's at stake here, at least not here on this forum. I will likely be decided in small meeting rooms and at the checkout counter of the FLGS.


Playing in the mud just like everyone else.

Yeah... I read it as "after a lot of introspection Randal decided to forgive a man he had been friends with for years. His personal beliefs played a part in that decision." I fail to see a burning bush.

Mostly because there isn't much at stake anymore right now – the people involved have positioned themselves and fallout ensued.

Indeed – here on this forum, the current state of affairs is just discussed, featuring people involved.

It's just as likely to be decided in court rooms.

Such speculations are a pretty moot point right now, so we'll just have to wait & see.

If Frank has not been banned for revealing the letter, I withdraw my previous statement regarding DumpShock's behavior, i.e. not bad show. I completely concur that DS is a private entity and the adminstrators are free to ban or suspend whomever they wish for whatever they wish, with or without reason. I just trust and hope they won't do so. I've been in the same position as them and know it can be an unenviable position to exercise ban and suspend power while trying to maintain the trust of the membership.

I'm still glad Frank posted the letter and the freelancer gave it to him to post. I do wish the best for CGL with Shadowrun. But I am not confident in their future. This is indeed something Topps should know about when trying to decide to extend the license.

Yes, but it's soemthing I'm sure even (especially?) Topps would prefer was communicated privately. Not through the internet.

No it's not. It's independent and has lots of interaction with writers etc, but official it's not.


Frank is essentially judgment proof. He's a college student living on government loans in the Czech republic. How are you going to serve him, much less collect?

I think Frank's behavior in this whole shitstorm has been reprehensible, as has been the behavior of whoever gave him the insider information. That's neither here nor there; it's no secret that I've never particularly been one of Frank's fans, and this has cemented the reasoning behind it for me.

Your assumption in all this is that Topps is completely, blissfully ignorant of the whole thing. I can all but assure you that they are not. There's an assload of stuff going on behind the scenes, and I can all but guarantee you (based on nothing more than my knowledge of the people involved) that Topps knows that there's a serious situation going on at CGL involving money. I don't know the specifics of the license contract between Topps and CGL, but I think it's reasonably certain that there's a great deal of communication (or at least attempts at communication), through legal channels if necessary, between the two parties. Knowing Randall, he's probably been in contact with them a very great deal recently.

Most of this public bullshit over the last few days, especially the release of Randall's letter, has been completely unnecessary, and seems to have been done only so that more pain and suffering on the part of everyone involved (including Yours Truly here) can be caused, and the existing pain and suffering prolonged.

And, to quote Forrest Gump, that's all I've got to say about that.

So I'm confused here. Frank posted the letter (and should be congratulated for that) because Topps needed to know about it? The letter where it specifically mentioned that CGL made Topps aware of the situation? Well, I'm so glad we had Random Internet Guy to cover that problem!

As far as Topps are concerned? Yes, will have far more info than what is given out to freelancers.


As far as the rest of the world goes? The rumor mill wants to know what's going on and how SR will continue.

Not rules. Laws. A very brief websearch didn't turn up the law itself, but did find this article that references it:

"In a major article examining the strength of legal arguments to protect private e-mail expression, a University of Arkansas law professor concludes that, based on the historical common law, today's Federal Copyright Act does not protect someone from copying and distributing another person's private expression, which means that forwarding e-mail without permission of the sender may be against the law.

"Going back more than 250 years, the common law recognized that authors of personal correspondence hold absolute property rights in their private expression," said Ned Snow, assistant professor of law."

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/529585/

It is therefore potentially in violation of Rule 8.

I appreciate the 'leaked' letter, I did not appreciate the insane religious ramble that followed, taking comments so much out of context is looking for trouble where there is none.

Posting a letter to a forum where 100+ freelancers have access to, a lot of whom have some serious issues with the company, and then acting surprised the information 'leaked' is... How shall I say it diplomatically... Having way to much faith in human nature. And when I talk about 'faith' I'm not talking religion.

That also leads me to believe that maybe to much faith is placed in other things, things like "It will work out.", and the ability of the Colemans to pay back the money owed in a decent time frame. I have no way of gouging that because I don't personally know the parties involved. All I can do is speculate at this point.

As for Frank's motivations, he's either a crusader or someone with an axe to grind (he might even be someone hired to discredit CGL (owners) so another party can step in and can take over). Either way, he's using the internet quite effectively, this stuff is getting a lot of 'press', and is reaching a lot of ears.

I can understand why fans are getting angry, but they need to take a serious step back, and take a reality check. You buy a book the price of a couple of McDonalds meals, that doesn't mean you suddenly own or have invested with a company producing that book. You didn't buy a 3 year support contract, you bought a book! There are a bunch of freelancers who have worked hard and haven't been paid, for a lot of them it's a pretty big chunk of cash. Then we have the co owner who is going to miss money in the region that most of us would have to work 5-10 years to acquire. To to mention that he might loose his company that he has spend way more time building up then most of us have spent playing the game(s) and possibly further income. If he can forgive what has happened, why the frag are kids on these forums making such a bloody big stink? Yes, it's going to suck if you have less or no new books, but get some perspective!

Or both. I may think Frank's doing the right things for the right reasons, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have an axe to grind as well.



If you bought a pdf of, say, Vice on DriveThruRpg.net, you may not be able to download all five times due to the flap at Catalyst. That means it does directly affect your pocketbook.

That's a beef with DTRPG, if they say that you can download it five times, then they have a problem with you.

And yet all e-mail-programs have the forwarding button in them O.o

Yes, the original author of a text holds the copyright for it. Once the author starts distributing text to a more-or-less well defined group (as opposed to a clearly stated list of five people, for example) and things like fair use rear their heads, things get far less clean cut.


PS: Not that this is any more than academic question by now. The net never forgets.