All About the RPG

Over the past 4 months or so, I’ve been absent from RB because of a new full time position I’ve taken in a major ad network. / / It’s been full on and I’ve not even had time to eat or sleep properly let alone be active on Redbubble. I can’t tell you how much this upsets me because I miss you all and of the few sneaky peeks I’ve had, I’ve seen some amazing work being put out. / / Anyway enough sob story. / / I’ve been working worth some pretty savvy people and I’ve been asked to take part in something which might actually turn out to be a winner and I thought I’d invite a few of you guys to take part as well if you’re interested. / / Some of my colleagues have struck a deal with MySpace and FaceBook with an application they’ve developed to sell greeting cards. I’ve been invited because the guys are aware of my design capabilities and want to use some of my designs in the launch phase. / / Ultimately it will mean more exposure of our work and hopefully sales. And the good thing is we get in at the ground level. The app will eventually roll out into other brands as well so the exposure through expansion could be phenomenal. / / If anyone is at all interested. BubbleMail me with 3 card designs you think you might like the world of social networking to see and I will pick one maybe two if you’re lucky. / / I think ultimately you will have to launch the images yourself as you do here but I am going for a premium feel at the launch and therefore will be filtering the selections before moving you to the next stage. / / If you have had dealings with me here on Redbubble through comments favorites or discussions, you guys are prime candidates. / / This thing is launching in 5 weeks so get busy so we can manage all the details properly. / / Thanks for listening and I hope you can come on board. / / Spike out

I am having some problems with oblivion. (I could fix it If I could have the time to even think about it!!!) but unforutunatley that is why there has not been any more oblivion art. though the good news is that soon I will have a lino print on rb soon… I hope

So I got an e-mail today because a person reported my Zombie Squirtle as a copyright infringement…only Squirtle mind you, which struck me as odd (maybe they want to sell one of their own and don’t want the competition). Anyway: I responded of course with the following legal information concerning fair use, copyright, IPR, and legal parody. I don’t blame anyone for noting a copyright concern, hell, I’ve done it myself 4 times now; but something a lot of people don’t know is what I included in my response as follows: Please see the following statements and links to material that support my legal right to post and sell this art. / My work generally is acceptable as “Fair Use” specifically under the article of parodies as defined by: A parody (pronounced /ˈpærədiː/; also called send-up or spoof), in contemporary usage, is a work created to mock, comment on, or poke fun at an original work, its subject, or author, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation. As the literary theorist Linda Hutcheon (2000: 7) puts it, “parody … is imitation with a critical difference, not always at the expense of the parodied text.” Another critic, Simon Dentith (2000: 9), defines parody as “any cultural practice which provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or practice.” Often, the most satisfying element of a good parody is seeing others mistake it for the genuine article. Parody may be found in art or culture, including literature, music (although “parody” in music has a rather wider meaning than for other art forms), and cinema. Parodies are sometimes colloquially referred to as spoofs or lampoons. Fair Use: Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review. It provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author’s work under a four-factor balancing test. The term “fair use” originated in the United States, but has been added to Israeli law as well; a similar principle, fair dealing, exists in some other common law jurisdictions. Civil law jurisdictions have other limitations and exceptions to copyright. Fair Use in the United States The legal concept of “Test copyright” was first ratified by the Kingdom of Great Britain’s Statute of Anne of 1709. As room was not made for the authorized reproduction of copyrighted content within this newly formulated statutory right, the courts gradually created a doctrine of “fair abridgment,” which later became “fair use,” that recognized the utility of such actions. The doctrine only existed in the U.S. as common law until it was incorporated into the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107, reprinted here: / “ Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include: 1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; / 2. the nature of the copyrighted work; / 3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and / 4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.[1] / ” The four factors of analysis for fair use set forth above derive from the classic opinion of Joseph Story in Folsom v. Marsh, 9 F.Cas. 342 (1841), in which the defendant had copied 353 pages from the plaintiff’s 12-volume biography of George Washington in order to produce a separate two-volume work of his own. The court rejected the defendant’s fair use defense with the following explanation: / “ [A] reviewer may fairly cite largely from the original work, if his design be really and truly to use the passages for the purposes of fair and reasonable criticism. On the other hand, it is as clear, that if he thus cites the most important parts of the work, with a view, not to criticize, but to supersede the use of the original work, and substitute the review for it, such a use will be deemed in law a piracy… In short, we must often… look to the nature and objects of the selections made, the quantity and value of the materials used, and the degree in which the use may prejudice the sale, or diminish the profits, or supersede the objects, of the original work. / ” Once these factors were codified as guidelines in 17 U.S.C. § 107, they were not rendered exclusive. The section was intended by Congress to restate, but not replace, the prior judge-made law. Courts are still entitled to consider other factors as well. Fair use tempers copyright’s exclusive rights to serve the purpose of copyright law, which the U.S. Constitution defines as the promotion of “the Progress of Science and useful Arts” (Art. I, § 8, cl. 8). This principle applies particularly well to the case of criticism and also sheds light on various other limitations on copyright’s exclusive rights, particularly the scenes à faire doctrine. Effects on Work’s Value The fourth factor measures the effect that the allegedly infringing use has had on the copyright owner’s ability to exploit his original work. The court not only investigates whether the defendant’s specific use of the work has significantly harmed the copyright owner’s market, but also whether such uses in general, if widespread, would harm the potential market of the original. The burden of proof here rests on the defendant for commercial uses, but on the copyright owner for noncommercial uses. See Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios,[15] where the copyright owner, Universal, failed to provide any empirical evidence that the use of Betamax had either reduced their viewership or negatively impacted their business. In the aforementioned Nation case regarding President Ford’s memoirs, the Supreme Court labeled this factor “the single most important element of fair use” and it has indeed enjoyed some level of primacy in fair use analyses ever since. Yet the Supreme Court’s more recent announcement in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.[16] that “all [four factors] are to be explored, and the results weighed together, in light of the purposes of copyright” has helped modulate this emphasis in interpretation. In evaluating the fourth factor, courts often consider two kinds of harm to the potential market of the original work: First, courts consider whether the use in question acts as a direct market substitute for the original work. In the judgement of the Supreme Court in Acuff-Rose Music they decisively stated that, “when a commercial use amounts to mere duplication of the entirety of the original, it clearly supersedes the object of the original and serves as a market replacement for it, making it likely that cognizable market harm to the original will occur.” In one instance, a court ruled that this factor weighed against a defendant who had made unauthorized movie trailers for video retailers, since his trailers acted as direct substitutes for the copyright owner’s official trailers.[17] Second, courts also consider whether potential market harm might exist beyond that of direct substitution, such as in the potential existence of a licensing market. This consideration has weighed against commercial copy shops that make copies of articles in course-pack for college students, when a market already existed for the licensing of course-pack copies.[18] Courts recognize that certain kinds of market harm do not oppose fair use, such as when a parody or negative review impairs the market of the original work. Copyright considerations may not shield a work against adverse criticism. Fair Use and Parody Producers or creators of parodies of a copyrighted work have been sued for infringement by the targets of their ridicule, even though such use may be protected as fair use. These fair use cases distinguish between parodies (using a work in order to poke fun at or comment on the work itself) and satires (using a work to poke fun at or comment on something else). Courts have been more willing to grant fair use protections to parodies than to satires, but the ultimate outcome in either circumstance will turn on the application of the four fair use factors. In Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.[16] Supreme Court recognized parody as a fair use, even when done for profit. Roy Orbison’s publisher, Acuff-Rose Music Inc., had sued 2 Live Crew in 1989 for their use of Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman” in a mocking rap version with altered lyrics. The Supreme Court viewed 2 Live Crew’s version as a ridiculing commentary on the earlier work, and ruled that when the parody was itself the product rather than used for mere advertising, commercial sale did not bar the defense. The Campbell court also distinguished parodies from satire, which they described as a broader social critique not intrinsically tied to ridicule of a specific work, and so not deserving of the same use exceptions as parody because the satirist’s ideas are capable of expression without the use of the other particular work. A number of appellate decisions have recognized parody as a protected fair use, including both the Second (Leibovitz v. Paramount Pictures Corp.) and Ninth Circuits (Mattel v. Walking Mountain Productions). Most recently, Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin, a suit was brought unsuccessfully against the publication of The Wind Done Gone, which reused many of the characters and situations from Gone with the Wind, but told the events from the point of view of the slaves rather than the slaveholders. The Eleventh Circuit, applying Campbell, recognized that The Wind Done Gone was a protected parody, and vacated the district court’s injunction against its publication. International Influence The doctrine of fair use is no longer exclusive to the United States, with other jurisdictions having either implemented such a doctrine or considering its introduction. While influential in some quarters, other countries often have drastically different fair use criteria to the US, and in some countries there is little or no fair use defense available. Even within Europe, rules vary greatly between countries. Some countries have the concept of fair dealing instead of fair use. However many countries have some reference to an exemption for educational use, although the extent of this exemption may vary wildly. Examples of other commercial parodies of Pokemon creatures and personalities that are protected under the same legal rights: http://www.offworld.com/2009/06/bulba-sore-justin-whites-buste.html / http://sharkrobot.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=240 / http://www.madman.com.au/actions/fanzone/gallery.do?method=viewGalleryItem&galleryItemId=15750&galleryId=67 / http://siliconsasquatch.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/pa-pokemon1.jpg / http://www.redbubble.com/people/stockdot/t-shirts/3205091-3-bulbasaur-beats-everything / http://www.redbubble.com/people/hawksey/t-shirts/2357258-2-pika-crushed / http://www.redbubble.com/people/arachnidgraphics/t-shirts/2026482-4-vaporeon / http://www.redbubble.com/people/rottenyouth/t-shirts/2194311-2-umbreon-and-espeon-yin-and-yang / http://www.redbubble.com/people/tsuyoshi/art/2408585-2-animemania / http://www.redbubble.com/people/malweran/t-shirts/2501269-3-pikachu-is-following-you / http://www.redbubble.com/people/sarahbraska/t-shirts/2485898-2-pikachu-star-blast / http://www.redbubble.com/people/atombat/t-shirts/2790163-1-pokemong / http://www.redbubble.com/people/missbaines/t-shirts/1648250-2-when-i-was-younger-evolution-just-meant-more-badass-pokemon / http://www.redbubble.com/people/byren/t-shirts/2147116-2-pika / http://www.redbubble.com/people/ryadasu/t-shirts/2954347-1-so-i-heard-you-like-mudkips-white-text This is of course before you include my own Zombiemon creations that are made in a fashion legally acceptable to the standards of what is considered a parody. So what are your thoughts and has this information educated you a bit about copyright law and the inclusion of fair use as parody? Also see the forum post ...incidentally, in case anyone is curious…RedBubble has allowed 21 Zombiemon shirts to be sold since I began posting them. Also, other examples of legal parody: / Robot Chicken / Simpsons / Family Guy / South Park / American Dad / Air Farce / Saturday Night Live / and if you can think of more, add them in a comment.

Nightfall has just been released less than 20 minutes ago and already it’s a success! With an overwhelming request for pre-order copies we hope people will be playing Nightfall all over the country or countries really since of course we sell it online. The special edition pre-order copies may now be gone, but you get the regular issue paperback for $45.95 from Lulu at our online store. Our store also has a great and very handy download pack where you can grab the character sheet, character point tracker and more to make sure you don’t have to muck up your copy of Nightfall 2011 to have something decent to write on. Keep checking in because our very first expansion book “FNR Database: Reanimates” is coming out soon as well as survivor journals, the GM Interactive Assistant CD and more! Nightfall 2011 in our online store Nightfall info page on our website RPGnet post about Nightfall being released where I posted this in the forums because I’m an obsessive compulsive SOME NIGHTFALL GOODIES

So a friend of mine was asking me the other day how much stock art costs on average and I tried to answer but after I was done I think I actually ended up confusing him….sigh. / So I called a couple friends and we agreed that trying to put together a stock collection would be awesome for artists, book makers and writers alike. / What we came up with was that we should create a rar file that was free to download and contained folders with the name of every contributing artist and some work inside them. Just black and white line art and it would have to be themed, obviously we thought multiples would be kewl. / The user would still have to credit the source and the artist of course, but wouldn’t that be awesome?! / Anyway, we’re trying to figure out if it’s even possible, so if this sounds like a good idea to you, leave a message here, on RPG.net or on the forums post I’ll have linked up below. RPG.net posting Forum Posting