Re: Highly legalistic question about pbem games

From: desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)

Date: Sun, 12 Mar 1995 06:35:55 +0000

Geoffrey Sears <trendy@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> I am designing a play-by-email campaign to be set out there for anyone
> who wishes to sign up. There is just one catch, it uses a commercially
> published system. If this game is non-commercial, as in I'm not asking
> for any payment for people's participation, is there any infringement
> involved?

If I understand your note correctly, I don't understand how it could
possibly be a problem.  The purpose of publishing the game system is for
people to play the game with it; obviously playing the game
noncommercially falls under fair use.  So long as you don't copy any
copyrighted materials, or use only short quotes (like names of items,
places, and the like), I think you have nothing to worry about.

I assume you know enough to not copy large chunks of copyrighted
materials and send them to the players, just so that they don't have to
buy them....

David desJardins
--
Copyright 1995 David desJardins.  Unlimited permission is granted to quote
from this posting for non-commercial use as long as attribution is given.

References

Re: PBM conference in Birmingham (N. Palmer
phy6drhj@ast.leeds.ac.uk (Dean Johnson)
Wed, 08 Mar 1995 13:22:49 +0000
Re: PBM conference in Birmingham (N. Palmer
pmf@astro.cf.ac.uk (Phillip Fayers)
Thu, 09 Mar 1995 13:37:23 +0000
Re: PBM conference in Birmingham (N. Palmer
phil@phildee.win-uk.net (P.Shulkind)
Thu, 09 Mar 1995 21:21:24 +0000
Highly legalistic question about pbem games
trendy@ix.netcom.com (Geoffrey Sears)
Fri, 10 Mar 1995 01:02:18 +0000