2E Lunars: Rip-Offage?

[Flagg]

MANY-POCKETS
MEDITATION


[...] Holding any object the


character can lift with one hand, he


invokes this Charm, and the object disappears


into Elsewhere.


[...] A character can “pocketâ€

 

[Flagg]

Could someone who frequents the WW forums and/or RPG.net please pass this along to those places. I'd really like to get to the bottom of this.

 

[lowguppy]

Seems... fucked.

 

[Flagg]

Apparently Peter Schaefer (aka "domino" on RPG.net) has claimed authorship of the Lunar Charms.


Anyone happen to have his email address?

 

[memesis]

Or it could be a coincidence.

 

[Flagg]

I think there are too many direct similarities for it to be dismissed as coincidental.

 

[wordman]

I don't know what the hell else to call this but plagiarism.

Plagiarism or not, I don't think it is copyright infringement. Both this site and the original EC work until the auspices of the Dark Spiral. One of the things this says is that "You may list a personal copyright for your characters or graphics you have created for your site, but keep in mind anything that is derivative from our works is still owned by us."


I'm not sure this would stand up in court, but the basic statement is that WW owns all derivative works. So, if, for example, they snagged my alchemy rules,  they would claim to have enough of a hold on those rules that they'd go to court. I suspect that if we actually went to court, they'd have a 50/50 chance of losing, but they are banking that it wouldn't go that far.

 

[Flagg]

I'm not planning to sue anyone, but legal right or no, if WW ripped off a fan work without even notifying the author, they're guilty of being dicks.

 

[Thorn Darkblade]

I hereby call this internet court to session!


The case of Flagg vs. WW Plagaristic Asshats!


Anyways, yeah, it does seem rather similar, too similar for mere coincidence...

 

[wordman]

I'm not planning to sue anyone, but legal right or no, if WW ripped off a fan work without even notifying the author, they're guilty of being dicks.

...is the correct answer!


Speaking of plagiarism, is it still plagiarism if you rip yourself off?

 

[lowguppy]

Plagiarism, apparently its the hip thing to do these days.

 

[Lord Ben]

It's not like it was entirely original in it's mechanics.  And the name is similiar but not so earth-shatteringly unique as to accuse them of flat out copying it.


I had some custom magic caltrops in my D&D game and then one of the early books in 3E had the same item with nearly the EXACT mechanics and descriptions I came up with.  But I know they didn't copy me because it was a home brew thing.


There are thousands of people who play Exalted and probably come up with home-brew charms.  Some of the new edition is bound to copy SOMETHING, it's just that you picked the wrong number this time.

 

[Flyck]

Plagiarism is the highest form of a compliment.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

I dunno, me thinks Jakk would have a tiff over Modernis getting greased up and shafted.

 

[Flagg]

It's not like it was entirely original in it's mechanics.  And the name is similiar but not so earth-shatteringly unique as to accuse them of flat out copying it.

Come on. The name is almost identical. The function IS identical. One is obviously derivative of the other.

 

[Ker'ion]

You can try a lawyer out on this line of thought.  You may win.

 

[Flagg]

You can try a lawyer out on this line of thought.  You may win.

I'm not interested in "winning" anything in a legal sense, as I've already said. I didn't even come up with the concept or name for this Charm, so I wouldn't have grounds to do so anyway.


What I WOULD like to do is find out whether the author of the Charm in the Lunar book is the same person who wrote the Charm I found on the EC about 4 years ago.


If he IS the same person, I'd like to credit him. I've been trying to figure out who this person was for years.


If he's NOT the same person, I'd like to call him on his bullshit, and let people know that WW is stealing fan work for their own profit.


Frankly, I'm hoping it's the former.

 

[Ker'ion]

T'would be the preferable option.

 

[Persell]

I'd go with option 3:


A coincedience.


The mechanics might be similar but any charm that stores stuff elsewhere would have mechanics like that, no matter who made it up.


And frankly, only because meditation and method both start with "me" they are nothing alike.

 

[Jukashi]

It does seem a stretch for a coincidence, but it is possible they received inspiration from the same sources. Even if it's two separate people, we already know that one works for a gaming company and the other is a hobbyist, so the chances that they would share interests is high.


For example, "Many-Pockets", the similar portion of the name, is probably inspired by the "Belt of Many Pockets", which if I recall correctly, is a magical item in D&D. And storing ideas in Elsewhere is a concept right from when Exalted started. It's not a great mental leap.

 

[Lord Ben]

If whoever wrote it read the custom charms a long time ago perhaps something stuck in his head.  I'm not saying it couldn't have done it.  But you seem to be implying he's dumb enough to copy something from a fan site and assume nobody would notice when he didn't even hardly change the name.


The charm is good and solid, but not really unique in any way.  The names are similar, but it's bound to happen somewhere.

 

[Forn Clakes]

I'm gonna keep an eye out for my Solar glider Charms in the future...*eyes darting back & forth continually*


~FC.

 

[Flagg]

For the record, I've contacted Peter Schaefer, and he has said that he wrote the Charm originally as part of a Solar Lore tree that he released into the wilds of the internet some years ago. It seems the more generous of my initial suspicions was correct