A Question of Copyright.

[Old Man Henerson]

So while trying to work on my RPG based on the Night Land by William Hope Hodgson, I once encountered a website that had put some of the stats of the monsters in the book into Call of Cthulhu Stats. The Website is Here.

The site appears to be abandoned with its last post being from ten years ago. My question is if it would be ethical and or against the ORC to use these stats for my own game, or at the vary least base my monster stats upon them to a degree. (I also realize that COC stats are not the same as BRP stats and that they must be divided by 5 to make them compatible with the BRP system so the stats may have to be changed anyway.)

Any input would be most welcome.

[Ian Absentia]

I've encountered similar situations with "orphaned" ideas from the early days of the Internet and people posting freely under online pseudonyms with no way to track them down.  I consider it fair to base your new interpretation on similar work by others, and, where possible, offer some kind of acknowledgement to...whomever.  You may have to paint your credits with a very broad brush.  But, ultimately, you don't have to credit every inspiration that's ever affected you.

!i!

[kross]

Just so you know, I've written a sourcebook covering the Night Land for the Apocthulhu RPG, which uses the Cthulhu Eternal D100 system from Cthulhu Reborn. This sourcebook is in the lengthy process of being extended into a complete game of its own using this same system: additional source and system material has been written, along with three lengthy adventures. It's progressing slowly, but surely.

APOCTHULHU RPG Core Rules - Cthulhu Reborn | DriveThruRPG

[Old Man Henerson]

5 minutes ago, kross said:

Just so you know, I've written a sourcebook covering the Night Land for the Apocthulhu RPG, which uses the Cthulhu Eternal D100 system from Cthulhu Reborn. This sourcebook is in the lengthy process of being extended into a complete game of its own using this same system: additional source and system material has been written, along with three lengthy adventures. It's progressing slowly, but surely.

APOCTHULHU RPG Core Rules - Cthulhu Reborn | DriveThruRPG

Oh... Well, there is that. Is there any time table for this game?

[kross]

I'll have to check with Dean Engelhardt and see how he's coming with it, as I haven't checked for awhile. Last I knew he was making some final tweaks to the setting info.

[Old Man Henerson]

1 hour ago, kross said:

I'll have to check with Dean Engelhardt and see how he's coming with it, as I haven't checked for awhile. Last I knew he was making some final tweaks to the setting info.

Cool! I would be very interested in procuring a copy. Is there much difference between the Cthulhu Eternal D100 system and the BRP system?

Edited September 27 by Old Man Henerson

[kross]

If I remember correctly, Cthulhu Eternal is based on the Delta Green engine, which is pretty close to BRP.

It might be kind of pricey for a preview, but the Night Land sourcebook in Apocthulhu is a little over 20,000 words, and covers the geography and flora/fauna of the setting in some detail, with stats.

[Old Man Henerson]

6 minutes ago, kross said:

If I remember correctly, Cthulhu Eternal is based on the Delta Green engine, which is pretty close to BRP.

It seemed like it was when I looked it up, but I was not sure. I have heard the stats for monsters in Call of Cthulhu were pretty large compared to BRP stats. I do like that the sanity system seems more... forgiving in Cthulhu Eternal (or at least in Apocthulhu) from my limited information.

10 minutes ago, kross said:

It might be kind of pricey for a preview, but the Night Land sourcebook in Apocthulhu is a little over 20,000 words, and covers the geography and flora/fauna of the setting in some detail, with stats.

 I will consider it, but if the actual Night Land game comes out sooner (within the next 5 months) rather than later, I think I will wait for it. Thanks for the information!

[Mugen]

On the other hand, what are the risks ? Do you think the author of those old pages will sue you ?

If I take my own personal experience, I once found a rule in a book that looked very similar to a rule I created. I let a friend use for one of his games and publish it on the internet. But that friend is also a friend of the author of the book I mentioned earlier.

So what ? I have emails to back up my claims, but the potential gain is so small I don't see any reason to do anything but be flattered by the idea someone liked my rule...

[Brian Duguid]

Here's a good general principal for respecting copyright: it's simply not your decision. The original author being difficult to find, or even being recently dead, doesn't establish any right for you to "flatter" them, or, more cynically, to take their work on the basis that the risk of being sued is low. Either get permission, or come up with your own stats.

[Old Man Henerson]

Thanks everyone for the input. In light of kross' information about the upcoming game release, however, I think I am going to can this project.

[Atgxtg]

7 hours ago, Brian Duguid said:

Here's a good general principal for respecting copyright: it's simply not your decision.

Uh, no. That might be a good rule for respecting others and the work of others but it has little to do with copyright.

In order for copywrite to apply something has to be copywritten.

In this case I don't think the author of the material posted can claim any copyright protection since:

1. The material posted is based off of  Night Land by William Hope Hodgson. William Hope Hodgson, his estate or his publisher own the rights to the material. Worse still the author quoted text from the book, which could be a violation of copyright. Unless the stuff is already in the public domain.

2. The game stats are for Call of Cthulhu, which is owned by Chaosium. The current owners of Chasoium have the rights to Call of Cthulhu. But the author only posted game stats so he's probably on safe ground.  

So as far a copyright goes the author of the website is probably violating copyright, and has no legal ground to pursue anyone else, since it's not his material. Yes he wrote up the game stats but he doesn't own the characters, story or game system.

Now, porting stats over from CoC to BRP is pretty safe, as almost all the stats except SAN are in the BRP ORC,  but basing a game on Night Land without permission of William Hope Hodgson's estate (or whoever owns the rights to Night Land ) is a problem.

7 hours ago, Brian Duguid said:

The original author being difficult to find, or even being recently dead, doesn't establish any right for you to "flatter" them,

True, but it also doesn't mean that the  author has any rights here to infringe upon, as his stats are based on someone else's book.

For instance if I post here about my game world with orange plants and soldiers wearing day glow orange armor for camouflage , that doesn't mean that I own the concept, and that it is my intellectual property.  Anybody who like the idea can use it. My telling people about it doesn't help my legal situation.

7 hours ago, Brian Duguid said:

or, more cynically, to take their work on the basis that the risk of being sued is low. Either get permission, or come up with your own stats.

Yes, but you are assuming that the stuff posted is something protected by copyright, which it probably isn't.

For instance if I post BRP/Superworld stats for Iron Man that doesn't mean I have any legal claim to the character or those stats. Marvel/Disney do. I might not like it if someone uses my stats for their own project, but I've go no legal claim or any real right to complain, since I was the one who posted the game stats for public viewing.

 

I think the OP needly worry about the wbitsite stats but should definitely see about securing the rights to use Night Land, at least if they plan on publishing any of this. If it just for their own personal use, then none of this matters.

Edited September 27 by Atgxtg

[Old Man Henerson]

8 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

I think the OP needly worry about the wbitsite stats but should definitely see about securing the rights to use Night Land, at least if they plan on publishing any of this. If it just for their own personal use, then none of this matters.

The book is in the public domain I believe, it is also on Project Gutenberg if that also means anything. Having said that, were I to continue with the project, I would probably tweak them or make my own, but, as I have said, I think I will not continue this project since another D100 project is soon to come out with a Night Land game.

[Atgxtg]

41 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

The book is in the public domain I believe, it is also on Project Gutenberg if that also means anything.

What's in Public Domain varies by country, so being on PG probably means it's in the public domain in the United States.

41 minutes ago, Old Man Henerson said:

 

Having said that, were I to continue with the project, I would probably tweak them or make my own, but, as I have said, I think I will not continue this project since another D100 project is soon to come out with a Night Land game.

Both good ideas.

We all see stuff that we want to include into our games, or maybe even write a game for, or a game supplement about, but we all have to be careful about stepping on someone else's IP. Yes, the nature of fandom and RPS sort of gives us a bit of protection (it's not a good idea to go after fans) but when money starts to come into it companies have to protect their rights. 

[dce]

20 hours ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Thanks everyone for the input. In light of kross' information about the upcoming game release, however, I think I am going to can this project.

Hi @Old Man Henerson ... I am a bit late to the discussion, but I am the indie publisher who is working with KRoss on developing his Night Land manuscript into a standalone RPG based on a revised version of the APOCTHULHU / Cthulhu Eternal rules (themselves a BRP-derived D100 engine most closely related to Arc Dream's Delta Green RPG).

As Kevin mentioned, we already published a basic setting outline for Night Land as part of the APOCTHULHU core book -- it is only 20 pages in a 330-ish page core rulebook, so I dare say you might not want to fork out just to get that material -- but if you are curious about it, contact me directly here or on the Cthulhu Reborn blog and I will find some way to share the info with you as a preview of what we've already done with WHH's setting.

As for the fully-fledged game -- our current plan is to have it ready to go early in 2025, but we are a small indie publisher (who also put out lots of other stuff) so resources are spread thinly between this and several other things we have on the go. The material Kevin has written is great at evoking the dark and brooding setting; we just need to make a book that does it justice 🙂

 

Dean (from Cthulhu Reborn)

 

[kross]

Uh, what happened to my posts to this topic?

[PhilHibbs]

On 9/28/2024 at 3:38 PM, kross said:

Uh, what happened to my posts to this topic?

I can see three prior posts from you, why what's the problem?

Edited yesterday at 08:48 AM by PhilHibbs

[kross]

5 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I can see three prior posts from you, why what's the problem?

This thread went through some changes earlier, but eventually was restored. No worries.